"Something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong"
"Everything's wrong!"
"If you don't want to go, Sieg—just say it-"
"I don't want to go!"
"I hear nothing."
It'd been days now since their unorthodox nuptials and after expressing a want to marry the reaper way too, Rosalie had gone on to warp Alice's mind about honeymoons. Soon, his little elf could think of nothing but shopping in Rome, sightseeing in Egypt and eating in Spain. Sieg saw how her eyes sparkled every time she spoke about it, but he also had his common sense.
"Now you realize you're being hunted, right?"
She settled down after that, but that didn't mean she didn't want that honeymoon and he'd pay for it, Sieg.
Walking the earth for more than a hundred years had filled his pockets bigger than he'd ever really needed and he'd give it all to her honeymoon fund but damn, how could he tell her that as a Westen, he wasn't allowed in the South...or the East...or the North? No West End reapers were; it just wasn't their territory and keeping off the territory of the other Deaths was the reason why reapers had never had a war as a species.
Aye, and sure Sieg never use to obey, but no one had ever caught him when he was a reaper. He was human now...they'd spot him in a second.
Alice insisted though, so they settled for something smaller, closer; Hawaii. And the whole family was coming.
But while this had turned the manor into the movie Home Alone's first twenty minutes, Sieg kept trying to reason with her. "I'm serious though, when we were in love—" Passing by, Jasper rolled his eyes. "How early did I show up to catch you from your window?"
She screwed her eyes in reminiscence and her eyebrows soared when she found that she did in fact remember. "We'd say seven am, but you'd start throwing rocks at the crack o' dawn. Literally."
"Exactly! Death is never late, Love—ever. Apart from Vivic, punctuality is a sixth sense to reapers, souls are literal bombs and they burn out quickly. A second late and that thing could turn lose the protective layer from the body and blow a chunk off the map. Tardiness equals chaos, so it's in our very being to never be."
"What are you getting at then?"
"Halloween passed days ago, Chickadee...the gate's opened and closed...where are they?"
They moved to Sieg's bedroom then and Vivic followed, trying to help.
"Maybe they missed it—the opening? yeah, getting out of West End was always a whore of a journey."
Sieg nudged his hanging belly. "I believe you."
"Is that suppose to be a crack about my weight?"
"Oh you? Pfft, I look at you and I get model vibes—just-" Sieg gave a chef's kiss and Vivic huffed right up to him so that they were left to look as if the turtle had finally gotten sick of the hare's shit.
Alice had to exercise what was left of her strength to separate them, coming to stand before Sieg and facing Vivic."I'm sorry, Viv. I promise he doesn't mean it. He's just a bit cranky today."
"What am I, a baby?"
"And a damn big one too." She turned on Sieg and all his vigor faltered—picture a cat with its ears all flat and back. "Apologize. Now."
"I didn't say anything he didn't do himself."
"Sieg-"
"Chickadee!"
"Siegen"
"No"
"Siegen Westen!"
"Fine." And though he exclaimed this, it was awhile before he actually said anything and when he finally did, it was because of Alice's foot. "I'm sorry."
And while Sieg groaned in the background, Alice looked to the pouting Vivic. "Do you feel better now?"
"I'm still pretty upset," Said Vivic. "I didn't come all this way just to be ridiculed, you know? I'm betraying my kind just being here in your presence, Princess and he's just-"
Listening to him go and watching his chin wobble, Sieg felt bad. He felt bad because Vivic was right; he was sacrificing an awful lot, but he was a familiar—that's what he was suppose to do. Nevertheless though, Sieg went to him and they stood there all silent awhile, only when Alice had all gone did Sieg nudge his elbow.
"She's right, you know? I really didn't mean that." Vivic said nothing so He went on. "And so what if you are a bit generous in body? Nothing wrong with that in all honesty."
"Of course not." Snapped Vivic all indignant."But making fun of me is. It belittles our bond, Sir. It belittles who you are as a person."
Sieg bowed his head. "You're right. You're irrefutably right. I'm sorry. Bad habits die hard, I suppose, 'specially ones you pick up from parents."
Vivic heard a pain worst than his own in Sieg's chuckle, one centuries old and festering.
That cheered him up to normal. No, not because of that. It was because of what it reminded him of, that pain; Defense mechanism.
Sieg got terribly nasty whenever he was afraid, whenever he felt any kind of emotion really, he got like this because that was all he'd seen from the wrathful Death of the West. That pitiless scum.
Vivic shook himself of this last thought, hoped that Death couldn't read minds from miles up the surface and gave a little clap. "What if we put your mind at ease then?"
"Hn?"
"We could check. Check and see if there're any active Westers anywhere near."
Light returned to Sieg's eyes for a brief second, then they dimmed once again. "You know what he did to me, Viv—I can't even see my wings anymore, nevertheless employ HOD."
Hand of Death: Northen, Easten, Southen, Westen all used different stones in the making of their scythes, these stones acted as a sort of GPS to allow reapers to pinpoint their kin and call for help in the event of a huge load, I.e Noah's flood.
All they had to do was place a scythe near running water, chant a bit of enochian bullshit, douse it in a good bit of reaper blood and if it floated, reapers were around.
It it didn't, and damn did Sieg hope it didn't, then there were none of them walking close. So hoping for good news, Sieg slipped Niles off his finger and dropped it in Vivic's open palm.
"Guard it with your life, Viv."
"Guard hers." The man jutted a chin out at the door and seconds later, Alice returned but when Sieg turned back to the window—Vivic had gone.
