"Do you think I care?"

I groaned softly and sat up. I blinked, trying to clear the sleep from my eyes. The thought of yelling at Death for waking me up was replaced with me wondering who he was talking to.

"You very obviously do," Michael said, his voice littered with a strange reverb. My brain recognized it as angelic dialect, but I didn't care.

"And how do you figure that?" The eyeroll was almost audible in Death's voice. Metal rattled against the counter top. A soft sigh left my lips as I decided to do my best to ignore them. Napping, when it comes to deities, was always the better option. Less chance of getting destroyed.

Just as I laid back down, I heard Michael say something that made me shoot up to a sitting position."If you didn't care about her, you wouldn't heal her. You wouldn't have tried to comfort her-"

"So you were stalking me again?"

"It's not stalking until I know what you eat for breakfast."

"What did I have for breakfast?"

"Today? Booberry."

"Stalker."

"You ate at my house!" Michael said.

"You're still a stalker."

"Death, you can't deny this." Somethinh fell over, probably a chair. "You care for her, Dad's said you care about her, and you know he's never wrong."

"Watch you wings, would you? And yeah, your dad hasn't been wrong. Except when it came to putting a tree in the middle of a garden, telling Adam and Eve not to eat it, and forgetting that Lucifer had access to the place."

"You're avoiding the topic." Michael passed in front of the door, and I flopped backwards. He didn't look back at me, probably thinking I had rolled over in my sleep. Slowly moving, I flipped which way i was laying. Despite that, I still couldn't see past his wings.

"Michael, I don't care about mortals!" Death said. "I'm the opposite of my sister! She loves them, I just like watching them struggle to avoid their fate." The distinct sound of a wooden spoon being hit clean broke his pause. I had to strain my wars to hear his next sentence. "You saw me back during the plagues, do you really think there's a single part of me that cares about this kid outside of me being her boss? All of this stuff you say is me caring is literally me avoiding getting in trouble with the worker safety organization."

I stared off into space. It made sense, why would he care about me? He told me himself that he only took me on as an apprentice because he was desperate. I told him I wished he wouldn't have. So why did that hurt so much?

"Okay, one. We don't even have a worker's safety organization." Micheal leaned against the doorway, his wings fluttered. "Two, if you're going to say this is just you being a good boss than I want hired. I expect hugs and handmade lunches."

"She- Fine, I care about her. She's the first person who I've thought would make a good apprentice," Death said. Micheal moved and I could finally see Death making food. He flipped some dough over before kneading it. "I know I own her soul, I know she's bound to this place, but I don't want to be left alone again." He sounded almost angry, but it softened as he tacked on, "It's so lonely here, Michael. The house hasn't had this much noise in it for a long time. I don't know how to take care of a mortal, dead or not. All of those emotions...it's been such a long time since I've felt anything other than guilt."

"So you're immediate reaction to caring about someone is to pretend to not care about them?"

"I'm not supposed to care about anyone, I'm Death. I'm supposed to be the great equalizer." Death threw his hand in the air. Flour flew from his hands in a white cloud. "I'm not supposed to favor certain souls over others, I don't give different people different opportunities, I take their souls and send them on their way." A loud groan tore from his chest, and he ran a hand over his face. "Once I get my scythe back, I'm letting her go. She doesn't deserve this, she doesn't deserve to be stuck with me."

"I wonder where she'd end up."

"Hm?"

"Souls take on their traits regardless of if they've been sent to their afterlife or not. Ardia's gray, she's not assigned to one. That might be why she can use those powers. Or-"

Death cut him off. "I talked to your dad, it's not that."

"You never know, it might be," Michael said. "Wouldn't be the first time Dad kept information from you. Part of his ineffable plan or whatever excuse he has."

"As long as he says it's not that, I'm believing him. I'm not sure I want him to be wrong about this. If what you're thinking is true, well, we're going to be in a lot of trouble. Your brother especially."

Michael clearly knew what Death was talking about; he didn't ask which of his brothers. "What are you going to do with her if I'm right? Send her on her way or destroy her?" My throat went dry. He continued, "Her soul would give you enough energy and power to do whatever you want."

"Michael, can we not talk about this? Now, would you stir the stew before it sticks? Or do you want to make the bread?"

Michael walked to the stove and stirred whatever kind of stew was in the big pot."I did not follow you home to help you make lunch for your kid."

Death froze in the middle of putting dough on a baking sheet. It lost its shape as it bent between his hands. It splatted onto the counter. He shook his head and looked back at Michael.

"She's not my kid."

"Death-"

Michael's voice seemed lost on Death, because kept talking."If Life so much as thinks I care about the kid, she's going to everything she can to destroy her. Right now she's trying to destroy her because she's my apprentice. The moment she thinks there's some form of attachment, she'll get her hands on the kid and will tear her soul apart in front of me." Even from here, I could see his hands shaking. As if he could feel my eyes on him, he shoved his hands into his apron pocket. He didn't look back at me.

"Remind me how many people you'd be upset at having that happen to?"

Death didn't respond to that. He stood in silence. He turned and started reshaping the dough. He stayed quiet even after  he put the dough on the sheet and had it in the oven. Death turned on the sink and started washing his hands.

"I can't care about her. You know exactly-" Out of nowhere, Death shoved Michael out of the way, taking the spoon from his hand. "Move! I swear you're helpless in the kitchen." Death started stirring the stew, he scraped at the bottom.

"I'm sorry I'm not a housewife like you," Michael said with a sigh. I suppressed a giggle, knowing I would get in trouble for eavesdropping. He looked over at me and winked.

"That's it." The spoon clattered against something. "I'm getting the heels. Watch this and don't let it boil over." There was a threat in Death's words, but I'm not sure what you could threaten an archangel with. Once the door to Death's room slammed closed, I got up and walked to the kitchen.

"So, uh, what were you guys talking about? Something about heels?" I asked, trying to pretend I'd only heard the last part of their conversation.

"Your boss has a thing with wearing stilettos just to prove a point. Pretty sure he killed a person with one."

"Three people actually. Get your numbers right." Death walked in, cherry red six inch stilettos on. I couldn't help but stare. My mouth hung slack as he effortlessly walked in them."You feeling better kid?"

I couldn't form words at first, all that would leave my lips was choked and garbled noises. I shook my head, but not my shock. "Yeah. I'm starving. What's for breakfast?"

"It's noon, kid. This is lunch. Michael, are you staying?"

"Depends. How much wine are you offering?" Michael leaned against a chair, he spread his wings out. One of them wrapped around me and pulled me close to him.

"Stop drinking your brother's blood. How is the hippie anyway?" Death asked, grabbing some cups from a cabinet.

"Wait, Jesus is a hippie?" I pulled away from Michael, instantly missing the warmth.

"What did you expect him to be?" Death raised an eyebrow. He filled the cups with water. He pulled out a wine glass and filled it with a heavy hand. "Early Christians were pacifists. He's probably riding around heaven like a princess on a horse, hair flowing in the wind."

"You say that as a joke, but he does." Michael took the wine and drained it. Death handed him the bottle and he poured some more for himself. "I think he does it to make some of the newer additions uncomfortable. If I remember correctly, today he's on an outing with James and Villiers."

"That's not exactly something I's expect Jesus to do." I walked to stove and looked into the pot. The stew was brown and it smelled like beef, so I guessed it was beef stew.

"God plays the Sims, and you're doubting Jesus being a Disney princess?" Death picked up the spoon and stirred it.

"Yes actually. How much longer until it's done?"

The dial clicked as he turned the burner off. "It's done, but if you want to wait the bread is coming out of the oven soon." He gestured to the timer. Four minutes. I was tempted to wait, but my stomach rumbled.

"I haven't eaten since yesterday, where's the bowls?" I opened a cabinet. It was the right one, but of course the bowls had to be on the top shelf. Short of climbing onto the counter, I wasn't going to reach them. I looked at Death. "Can you grab me one?"

"Why me?"

"You're wearing heels."

Death chuckled and handed me a bowl. "Here."

"Thanks." I sat it on the counter, before searching through the drawers for a ladle. As I looked for it, I was aware of the conversation going on behind me. There's no reason I wouldn't have been, it was a normal conversation between an archangel and the Grim Reaper.

"How's the hunt for your scythe going?" Michael asked.

"Decent. Wish Life would stop setting up those stupid traps, though." Death sighed. I caught him slipping hos gloves back on."It's hard enough to track down one immortal, much less track down the fifteen more those things would've made."

"Ah yes, the good ol' create more problems for them to deal with trap. What my brother does every time he does something stupid. I have a fear of parks because of him."

"Him or the geese?"

"Have you ever had six nesting geese decide to pull on your wings? My feathers didn't grow back for a month."

"And this is why giving six geese a laying as a gift is a bad idea."

"So, uh, Death? Did you find anything besides rats in that room?" I broke into the conversation, fixing my bowl of food. Grabbing a spoon, I sat at the table.

"I got attacked, kid. I found out just how painful those things teeth are." A haunted smile appeared on his face. "But yes." He walked over to his cloak and pulled out what looked to me a piece of cloth with paper sewn to it. The edges of both cloth and paper were tattered; three strings of beads hung from the bottom. "I forgot to show you last night."

"What is it?"

"The talisman that trap was written on."

I stared at it, fear bubbling in my chest. I wasn't anxious to run from one of those things again. I was even less anxious to watch Death stab someone again."It's not going to spit anymore out on us right?"

"Hopefully not. This was made by Life, her handwriting is worse than chickenscratch, but she would've given it to an immortal. I'm willing to bet it's Kai's. He's, uh-" Death scratched the back of his neck "-not much of a fighter. Uses cheap parlor tricks to get away."

"But they work."

"So does dial-up, doesn't mean it's fun."

Michael coughed. "So if you guys are just going to eat, I'm going to-"

"You're sitting down and eating lunch with us." Death took two more bowls down. Conveniently enough, the timer went off, and he pulled out the loaf of bread. "Take it easy and relax for a bit, this might be our last chance for a nice sit down meal."

"Huh?" That caught both my attention and Michael's.

Death filled the bowls with stew and sliced the bread like we hadn't said anything. He placed the steaming bowls onto the table, along with silverware, and a plate of bread slices.  It was only after that did he speak. "Each day we fall behind Life a tiny bit more. When I brought the kid on, I thought I could change that, but at this point I'm wondering if your dad wants the world to end. He says he doesn't, but you said it yourself he keeps stuff from us. If I can't get my scythe back, it's game over."

Chapter: 2,285

Book: 34,226

What? An update? And one with over 2000 words?

How'd you like it?

Also, I used a decent amount of italics. (And I need to go back and fix the first part of this but my mom's bugging me to take a bath and do stuff.)

So since I'm gonna end up fixing this chapter, is there anything you think i could do better?

See yah