It was a long wait. By the time Death came back to pick me up, I had tried every way of sitting in the rolling chair possible, even the ones that resulted in it flipping over.

"Jeez, kid. Did a tornado come through here?" Death looked around the room. Papers laid strewn on the floor, some of them soaked with whatever Kai had in his thermos. He sat the chair up before crouching down next to me.

"You were gone for five hours," I groaned. "I almost started making origami. I don't even know how to do that! And for the record, this is not what immediately going home looks like."

"Yeah, kinda got into an argument with St Peter."

"Well, are we going home now or are you going to come up with something else to do?"

"I was thinking about stopping at McDonald's, but now we're not going to," Death said. His hand closed around the fabric of my sleeve. Within seconds, the harsh fluorescent lights were replaced with the overcast skies of his domain. He released me, before standing up. "Don't make me drag you back home. There's a lot of rocks in this field and I don't feel like healing you."

"Can I sleep here?" The ground was comfortable, free of rocks and branches.

"Sure," Death started towards the mist shrouded house in the distance. "If you feel like having a boulder fall on you. It won't kill you, but, well, you're getting crushed by a boulder."

I scrambled to my feet and scampered after him, a dog following its master. My strides lengthened until I kept pace with him. Death didn't say anything to me, and I said nothing to him. Something agitated him while he was in Heaven; his resting expression had been replaced with a frown. He slammed the door open and tossed his cloak on the rack.

"I'll be in my study. There's leftovers in the fridge." He disappeared upstairs. Under different circumstances, I might've followed him, but I had other priorities than stalking my boss. One of which involved showering.

I slipped my shoes off and hung up my cloak. My stomach rumbled, but I ignored the siren call of the fridge, opting to scrub the blood from my body. I locked the bathroom door, stripped out of my clothes and tossed them into the washing machine. I grabbed a towel and washcloth from the linen closest before stepping under the steady shower of water.

My skin hurt by the time I finished, rubbed raw by my scrubbing. Everything I bumped into shot pain through my nerves but I couldn't see any blood, and that was the only thing that mattered to me. Satisfied, I started humming as I stepped out of the shower; my feet sank into the rug. I rubbed my hair with the towel before wrapping it around me. I looked to the sink counter, only to remember that my only set of clothes was currently resting at the bottom of the washing machine which wasn't even on.

Getting more clothes had never crossed my mind. Which left me standing wearing only towel in the only bathroom in the house.

I sighed and slipped out of the bathroom. One of the stairs creaked as I made my way upstairs. Violin music floated from the direction of Death's study. I made sure the towel was tightly secured before walking to the door. I lifted my hand, took a deep breath, and the door opened.

"Is there a reason you're standing outside my study in nothing but a towel?" Leaning against the door frame, Death held a violin in one hand, the bow in the other. "Because I'm practicing."

"Are there any clothes I could wear? I shoved mine in the washer."

"Did you pretreat them?"

"Yes, I pretreated them. Again, are there any clothes I could wear?"

He sat the violin and bow aside. He tugged at the cuff of his jacket, seemingly lost in thought. Death nodded. "Lilith dropped some of hers off when she changed your bandages. I managed to get some of the less revealing ones. They should be in the dresser. Now if you excuse me, I need to keep practicing. I'm not losing to Lucifer again." With that, the door was slammed in my face. I didn't care, I got what I needed.

Sure enough, the drawers of my dresser were filled with clothes ranging from skimpy to within school dress code. I wasted no time in getting dressed. The mirror in the corner didn't tell lies, my fashion sense survived my death. Despite knowing these clothes were owned by a demon, they were strangely comfortable. Except the bra, which I should've expected.

I should've found something to do, something to make my boredom less boring, but I sat on the upstairs couch and listened to the muffled violin music and curse words flowing from the study.

"Is he seriously practicing?" Luci asked, popping into existence next to me. "He must be nervous." He kicked his boots up onto the coffee table, knocking a book off. He made no move to pick it up.

"About what?" I looked at him. His eyes shone bright with fire and a sly grin wiped the surprise from his face.

"Don't you know that I'm the best fiddle player that there's ever been?"

"If you start singing, I will punch you. I did not sign up to live in a musical." I found myself leaning towards his warmth and I had to tear myself away. I never thought warmth would be so enticing. "Why are you here?"

"Wanted to make a deal with you."

"I'm not giving you my soul. It's not mine to give."

"Yeah, you sold it for a grilled cheese sandwich." Luci patted my leg. "Good job. And that's not even sarcasm, Death's cooking is to die for."

I smiled at the pun. "What's the deal then?"

"If you ever have trouble sleeping or something, go crawl into Death's bed." At my horrified expression, he amended, "Not that way. Though that would be quite the story for the Anti-Christmas letter. Tell him you can't sleep and be a three year old about it. That shouldn't be hard for you."

"Hey!"

"I'm thousands of years old. You are less than three to me." He waved a hand. "That's all you need to do. So do we have a deal?" The hand he waved was now outstretched and cloaked in blood red flames.

"What's in it for you?" I raised an eyebrow but not my hand.

"Nothing besides it'll throw him off. What? Not all of my deals involve getting souls."

"Name one."

"California paid me a large sum of money to fill their reservoirs. Do we have a deal or not?"

I stared at his outstretched hand before firmly grasping it. The fire flared blue before disappearing.

"Pleasure doing business with- Ow!" Luci rubbed his head. A rock magically reconstructed itself. "Would you stop throwing stuff at me?"

"Would you stop breaking into my house?" Death closed his study door. In lieu of an answer, Luci disappeared. "What deal did you make with him?"

"Nothing."

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end."Kid, what deal did you make?" Death growled. His voice echoed off of the walls, rattling the picture frames. I clamped my hands over my ears. That wasn't enough to block out the echo.

"It's nothing! He just wanted me to distract you from practicing!" The lie fell off of my lips before I knew what I was saying. "I've already kept up my part."

The echo disappeared and I lowered my hands. Death straightened one of the picture frames. He stared at it.

"Eat dinner and go to bed. We have a long day tomorrow." He didn't so much as look back at me before returning to his study. The music's haunting melody followed me into the kitchen. With the tune rooted in my mind, I rooted through the fridge. It wasn't hard to find something to eat, and it was even easier to heat it up.

Just because it was easy didn't mean it tasted good. The food was bland, worse than what Mom used to make me. I ate it as quick as I could and drank a cup of water to get rid of the taste. As I stood washing dishes, Death walked past on his way to his room. He snapped his fingers and the dishes were gone.

"Thanks," I said, even though he was gone. I headed upstairs, this time avoiding the creaky step; I straightened the other crooked painting, before entering my room.

Slipping into some pajamas, I crawled into bed. The moment I laid down, thoughts of what happened bloomed in my mind, keeping me awake. Even as it grew dark outside, I couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning for hours, all I could see was what happened in that building, all I could feel was the blood on my skin. I was determined to sleep, but as I continued to lay there, my hand started burning. My deal rang in my mind.

A loud sigh left my lips, morphing into a groan as it hit the air. The climb out of bed was harder than it should've been and I almost fell down the stairs. Well, I fell down the stairs. I rubbed my head and picked myself up, finding myself staring at the dark wood of Death's door.

I swallowed. "Death?" I knocked on his door. There wasn't a response. I should've went back to bed, tried to fall back asleep, but I didn't. The sheer thought of it made my hand burn worse than before. In an attempt to make it stop, I placed my hand on the smooth doorknob which felt cool to the touch. I turned it and pushed the door open.

A lamp lit the room in a soft light. Death leaned against the headboard of his bed, a book in hand. He didn't look up at me and turned a page. "What do you want, kid?"

"I- uh, I can't sleep."

"And? What do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know. You're old, just start telling me some obscure story, and I'll pass out."

Death closed the book and placed it on his nightstand. He gestured for me to sit on his bed. I hesitated, but walked over. I sat down, eyes widening as I sank more than expected. Death tossed his blankets off his legs.

"Is this about what happened today? With the building collapse?" he asked, grabbing his gloves and putting them on. "You'll get used to it. One night without sleep won't kill you."

"Yeah, I know it won't."

Death's voice broke the silence that followed my words. "You keep seeing it, don't you?" He didn't look at me. I nodded. Death sighed and stood up. Without saying anything else, he left. The door hung open, and I could hear something going on in the kitchen. Before I could get up to question it, Death was back with a mug. He pressed it into my hands. "Hot chocolate. It'll probably burn your mouth."

"What did you mix in with it?" There was a smell, a smelly smell that doesn't smell right.

"I may or not have made it with Nyquil instead of water."

I sat the mug aside. I folded my hands in my lap with my eyes focused on the carpet. Death sat next to me.

"Kid, I'm not the best when it comes to things like this. I'm immortal, and I always have been," he said. "I've seen wars, plagues, famine, persecution, executions, all of them horrible things. I can see horror after horror and still sleep at night."

"Doesn't make it any easier on me." I rubbed at my eyes. "I thought Marie was bad, but this? This is so much worse."

Death wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into his side. If he were anyone else, I would be upset, but the thought of my hand burning again like a fire was inside of it made me relax into the side hug. It seemed to surprise him for a moment, but he tightened his arm around. Then, like he had some sort of revelation, he dropped his arm.

"Do you want me to sing you a lullaby or something?"

"What am I? Two?"

He didn't answer that, but what he did next was a bit shocking. He actually started singing. "Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down." Death sang with his voice measured, soft, and low with no trace of the power from Paradise. He repeated the rhyme again and again.

"That's getting creepier and creepier each time you sing it," I said.

"Would you rather have me sing the song about Clementine? Cause that one ends in a drowning and suicide."

"If it will put me to sleep-" I yawned. "-go ahead."

"I think I have a yarn documentary somewhere."

"I'm not that desperate."

Death sighed. "You could just drink the hot chocolate."

My eyes drifted to it and the steam curling in the air. I shook my head. "Last time I had Nyquil was a bit of a disaster. Never take it when you have to take a test at school."

"Luckily for me, I never went to school."

"Really?"

"It's not like there were a lot of options," Death said. He tapped his fingers against his leg. "Being born before God created humans made it hard to get a quality education, especially since Life and I were drafted as water carriers during the war."

"How do you know how to read?"

"Life taught me and when she found out what I was, God took over. Back then, the balance wasn't a thing. There was no world outside of Heaven and Hell, nothing to keep in check. I kinda miss those days, honestly." Death shook his head; he looked over at me with his eyes glowing. "But then again, if God never created the world then I never would've gotten the chance to fight my sister." I snorted, causing smile spread on his face. "I'm sorry, did you expect me to say some cheesy nonsense about getting the chance to meet you? As much as I like having an apprentice, this is not a romance movie your grandma would watch at one."

"Well, technically speaking, my grandma watches soap operas at that time. Oh, and I could totally see me being your kid and Faye is secretly a member of a royal family and whatever other nonsense I can pull out of a hat."

Death sat there. He didn't smile or laugh or- A giggle cut through the silence, followed by another, and another. He covered his mouth and shook his head. Looking over at me, he narrowed his eyes. He tried to be threatening but he was failing horribly. Which was impressive considering he's literally Death.

"You tell no one about this." Even his words failed to carry the intended tone, each one laced with laughter.

"I'll keep it for blackmail material."

"No. Kid, that's not what I meant!"

"I know. Doesn't mean I'm not going to do it though." I closed my eyes. "Now let me try to sleep. That's why I came in here in the first place."

"No. You're not falling asleep on me."

"You're warm. It's relaxing." I gave a half-hearted shrug. "It'll be fine."

"And what happens if God or someone decides to pop in? Hm? Could you imagine what they'd say if they see you not only sleeping in my room, but with me in here?"

My next word's were a mumbled, "Do they make that a habit?"

"Kid!"

"It's not my problem if they choose to make this into something it isn't. Be quiet, I'm trying to sleep."

Chapter: 2,662

Book: 42,969

I actually wrote these in two separate places so I think I did a pretty good job linking them together.

How'd you like it?

I wanted a cute fluffy chapter.

See yah