#i have so so many thoughts about reaper and his acts of defiance and kindness

[incorrect-tbosas]

“he tore down the flag.”

[silyabeeodess]

Kuroshitsuji: Hollow

"Those aren't good for you, you know." A tendril of smoke billowed in the cold, January air as Eric took a puff from the cigarette in his hand.  He watched in slight fascination as it danced before his face in a spectacle of winding curves before dissipating along the chilly breeze that tickled his flesh in a needle-like manner, coming from the seam of the damaged frame of the window to his left.  Rather than answer his partner, he gave the younger Shinigami a light smirk before bringing the object back up to his lips.  He—as with the rest of his kind—were well beyond the point of no return, so what could smoking really do to him?  Besides, he needed something for his nerves.   Alan narrowed his eyes distastefully as the former continued to ignore his chiding, but spoke up once more nonetheless, "And we're on duty."  Despite Eric being his senior, at times he acted much more like a mother than a subordinate to his more experienced partner.  It wasn't so much that Eric was irresponsible but that he spent his working hours with an exceptionally lax attitude, doing only the barest minimum of effort required of his services.  Alan was the near opposite, keeping the other in check and acting with a zealous fire that shattered through his typical calm whenever it came to the matter of guarding the souls in his charge.  One simply rolled with the punches that made their monotone existences while the other was the sort to double check every file he had written before turning them in. "There's no one here 'cept me an' you," Eric finally countered.  Gesturing with the butt end of the cigarette pointed forward, he added, "I mean, I doubt that poor bloke 'as much of a problem wif it."

The 'bloke' in question was indeed a man who had probably seem more smoke in his lifetime than anyone could ever wish for: A chimney sweep, or he had been one at least.  Now the middle-aged figure sprawled along the floor of the small, dimly-lit, one-room tenement was nothing more than a broken vessel.  Before certain laws had been passed dictating against young children from entering such a dangerous field of work, young boys predominantly held the occupation.  Unfortunately, those laws would not firmly take root until some twenty odd years after the mortal had already begun to prowl the rooftops of London.  He had worked all his life and now, it seemed, he had worked himself to death. Alan's frown deepened, but this time it was not out of dismay for his partner's work ethics—nor was the sigh that escaped him. Kneeling to the filthy, cracked wooden boards at his feet, he shifted his Death Scythe in his hold to make a faint cut on the body.  With a small rupture of light, the man's Cinematic Record poured out of him.  A reflection of the film that played out his entire life shone in the glasses of the younger Grim Reaper.  Unlike many of those who passed away young the Record waved lazily in the air just above the body, as if mimicking the tired soul they had been sent to collect. "Matthew Harkins," said the Reaper, "Born November 22nd, 1841: Died January 6th, 1889, due to carcinoma.  Additional remarks..."   But here he paused, and a sad smile began to curve along the corners of his mouth.  The serious gaze in his eyes turned soft as he quietly reviewed the document in his spare hand by the light of the Record and fading candle resting on a nearby shelf.  For a moment, all that could be heard was the muffled chatter of neighboring tenants through the thin walls are they shared an evening meal and distant footsteps of others just coming in from work.  A man's course roar of laughter echoed from the floor below.  Only the room they were in was silent until Alan's voice once more pierced through the quiet: "He was only five when he was taken off the streets to become a sweep," he voiced in a hushed tone. "He slept on a bag of soot, in a room with seven other boys and one girl.  He watched one of them suffocate in a chimney.  He gave portions of his lunch to the boys who were apprenticed to him when he was a young man.  He never went to school, but took pride in making it to church every Sunday—even when he was ill.  He never married.  He loved dogs. Someday, he planned on saving enough money to travel to the Americas."  As the Cinematic Record faded, reaching it's end, he stood. "Not that they'd ever let me write any that down, of course..."       Eric only nodded, letting the second moment of silence linger more out of respect for his partner than for the deceased.  These obituaries were somewhat habitual in their routine, for Alan anyway.  Sometimes, like now, he voiced them aloud and other times he did so only in his head, but he knew he always did them.  Eric didn't think he could help but say them: He was too gentle a soul.  Too kind, too empathetic, too... As always he couldn't help but tease him about it.  He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "Wif ya bowing yer 'ead t' e'ery person tha' kicks the bucket, iz no wonder we run o'er our shifts." "It would help if you were on time," Alan countered, turning back around to face him.  "What were you doing that was so important that it couldn't wait until after work?" That's when Eric made the mistake of looking his partner in the eyes.  They weren't strikingly different from any other Shinigami's: The same chartreuse, iridescent double irises; the same intelligence in them that came with the kind of education they received during recruitment training; the same weariness from years beyond a mortal's lifespan, witnessing far too many lives enter and depart from the world.  However, what made Alan's so unique was their defiance.  Never against Dispatch or their grim circumstances, but against the distance those within the Collections Division always took with their unfortunate clients. No matter the pain it caused him, he always dared to feel compassion for the humans that made it on his list.  His was a tender gaze that held a great and ironic love of life.  And, at the moment, what stood out most to Eric was how innocent those eyes appeared.  Nevermind the bleak horrors of the lives lost that the both of them had witnessed, somehow it was still there.  It was in his eyes and in his smile—just as it had been that very afternoon for the two young mortal women whose paths he had crossed that very afternoon.  They had bared that fawn-like gaze as well, grinning and giggling at his flatteries, unbeknownst of the weapon laced tightly within his white-knuckled grasp.  Not even when he raised the blade and... He took another puff of the cigarette, raising his shoulders in an imitation of bored shrug. "Ya can't blame me fer not hurryin' t' parade abou' the East End.  S'not the finest place.  It reeks."   Eric only half-listened to Alan's mother-hen lecture, too consumed with his own thoughts to really bother with what the other way saying.  Alan had been a strange sort from the beginning, always paying close attention to detail of the Records under his care and wondering about 'who a parson was when they died,' 'who had they been,' 'what were their final thoughts and emotions.'  Surely he was warned ahead of time, but he cared anyway.  Before, his concern and over-fascination has been amusing: Now it was aggravating—even infuriating.  He opened his heart to dying mortals, and as a result their despair planted the seeds of the Thorns of Death to tear away at his very soul.  That was his cancer, and it was doomed to slowly overtake him.  So how could he still feel empathy for a dying human?  How could be worry over their dying alone, preaching that he was doomed to the same fate, when he was standing right there beside him?!  How could he say that he didn't want to die yet seem so ready to accept it a second time over?! "Eric, are you even listening?"  Alan pressed, but when he could see that his senior clearly wasn't, he released another heavy sigh and shouldered his Death Scythe. "Well... That was the last collection of the day.  Miraculously, we still managed to finish on time, so let's just head back to Dispatch to finish the last bit of paperwork.  Agreed?" He could only offer him another nod in answer, and Alan's stare was none the more suspecting of him as he pulled it away to seal the documents in his grip and teleport back to their own realm. Taking one more puff from the cigarette, Eric flicked it to the ground—snuffing it out with his shoe.  When he pulled his foot away, he suddenly felt tired as his half-mast eyes caught the tip of the paper cylinder and the last remnants of smoke evaporated into non-existence.  The small red tint to the bud had been crushed into an ugly grey. Despite himself, he snorted.  Alan's gaze may not have fit a typical Shinigami's, but Eric knew his own very much did: They were empty, just as dead as he felt inside. 

((A quick fic I wrote for a monthly challenge in one of the groups I'm in on DeviantArt.  It was my first time writing about Alan or Eric, but I enjoyed the musical and those two characters.))