The Necrodancer

Chapter 5- Proposal

 Cicero, for the first time since receiving a heart and a pair of lungs, found what it was like to breathe heavily and to have a pounding heart. Their brand new respiratory and cardiovascular organs hammered against their ribs as they limped along as quickly as they could with the help of their cane. They figured, like Tilde suggested, that they would need breath to appear alive, especially during the winter, and a pulse to feel alive.

The hallway was hauntingly silent as they half walked half jogged towards the elevator, as permitted by their disability. They glanced over their shoulders every two seconds as they pressed the button to call for the elevator. They calmed down a little, placing a hand to their chest to comfort themselves; it worked for humans, and it seemed to work for Cicero. They weren't sure if it was to calm the breathing or the heartbeat, but they knew it worked, and that's all they cared about in this moment. They pulled their iPod from their bag and put their earbuds in before turning music on. They looked back over their shoulders as the doors opened with a cheerful little ding they could still hear over their music. They stepped inside the elevator and watched them slide closed, but their form filled with the overwhelming feeling of the presence of a nearby hellhound.

Before they could swing at the demon with their scythe, which had just morphed into a baseball bat, one arm coiled around their torso, locking their arms to their sides, and lifted them off their feet; the other arm clapped a hand to their mouth before they could scream. The reaper thrashed in their captor's hold and caused him to slam his back into the wall of the elevator. An earbud was tugged out of their ear. "Calm down, I'm not here to hurt you. My master only wishes to speak with you," the voice of the demon was right by their ear and slightly muffled by the earbud wire caught between his teeth, as he'd used them to take the earbud from their ear.

"LET GO OF ME! LET GO!" Cicero screamed and swung their baseball bat blindly over their shoulder, only hitting the elevator wall a few times.

"Not until you-!" The wooden surface of the bat finally slammed into his face and forehead. "Ow," Carlisle muttered dully as he moved the arm around their body up to wrap around their neck so he could reach and grab the scythe and yank it out of the reaper's hands. His hand only leaving the reaper's mouth for a moment, Cicero didn't have time to scream before they felt a thumb swipe across their forehead, and they instantly blacked out.

When the elevator doors opened, Carlisle had the skeletal reaper gathered in his arms, the baseball bat in one hand and the reaper's bag slung over his own shoulder. He never thought he'd ever meet a reaper, and now he held an unconscious one. His already beaten face throbbed from where it had been smacked with the scythe. He walked down the corridor towards his master's office silently, the reaper's legs swaying with his steps. He let out a heavy sigh, letting out a lot of tension in that one breath. He felt as though he were carrying a child. "If you hadn't been so irrational, we could be walking down the hallway like two civilized creatures right this second," Carlisle muttered bitterly to himself, "dumbass."

Forrest Aingeal looked up when his servant walked into his office with the unconscious reaper. "What the Hell did you do?!"

"What I had to, my Lord." He set the limp reaper carefully in the seat on the other side of the desk from where Forrest was seated. He kept the scythe, still in bat form, and bag and stood off to the side in the corner by the window, as he always did when he had no orders to carry out.

"This reaper stopped you from killing Mr. Marsh a couple of nights ago?"

Carlisle nodded. "Yes, my Lord."

Forrest shook his head, his hair swishing about his eyes. "Useless," he muttered to himself before asking, "How do we wake it up?"

Carlisle's eyes narrowed at the sound of the objectifying language when, if anything, the reaper was far superior to the demon. "It is nothing more complicated than waking someone from a deep sleep."

Forrest glared at the demon. "Well, wake it up, then!" he demanded.

Carlisle nodded his head, his eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a frown. "Yes, my Lord." He walked over to the chair where he'd set the sleeping reaper. "Awaken, Cicero," he called out loudly in his low, raspy voice. The human and demon watched as Cicero lifted their chin off of their chest and looked up at their professor. They immediately rolled their grey-green eyes before standing up and walking towards the door, but Carlisle was there in a flash to block the way. "I will not hesitate to put you back to sleep."

Casting a glare at the demon. "I will not hesitate to shove a chainsaw up your ass." The demon scowled, confused and disturbed by the notion. The reaper stuck out their tongue mockingly before turning back around and crossing their arms as they sat back down and turned their glare onto the human. "I don't care if you're my professor. I really do have places to be: classes to attend and souls to reap." Carlisle moved back over to his spot in the corner, where he seemed to be most comfortable.

Professor Aingeal seemed to soften a little. "I understand... I can't imagine being the reaper of England and a college student." Cicero raised their eyebrows as if to say "duh!" "I do, however, have a proposal to make."

Cicero's eyes narrowed with skepticism while Carlisle's widened with shock. Clearly, his master hadn't informed him about this decision. "What are you going to try and do, make a deal with Death?"

"Yes," Forrest bluntly replied.

The reaper scoffed. "Well, you do not possess anything I want." They smirked over at Carlisle. "Your soul is already reserved." Cicero's grin widened as Carlisle smirked back ever so slightly, his gaze darkening with mischief. "What could you possibly offer me that would mean anything in the slightest to me?"

Forrest stared at Cicero with a shit-eating grin. "You're more dumb than I thought... as if I don't know about the two retired reapers you live with, the boy who appears to like you... and the fact that you're currently standing in a Death Trap."

Cicero finally took a second to look around the office. The walls, floor and ceiling, when they looked close enough, had a lime green sheen to it, as if a tiny glitter bomb had detonated in the room. "So, I'm captive until I agree to your terms," the reaper sighed. "What's this proposal then, mortal?"
Forrest's hazel eyes narrowed. "I have big plans, and I intend to carry them out without a hitch. Having a demon on my side has proven to make things much easier, but we can't have reapers like you getting in the way. So, my proposal is that you not only stay out of my way, but also make sure that everything goes smoothly for me. You assist me and my demon when I ask you to, clean up any messes, and make sure the authorities don't find out about anything having to do with me or the demon. In exchange, I don't have Carlisle kill you, the two retired reapers, or the boy, Thomas."

To be quite frank, Cicero didn't care much about Thomas, though he was quite nice, but they did care about Tilde and Reyna, who'd given the reaper so much. It would be an injustice if Cicero allowed them to be killed. Of course, reapers were never ones to make deals with humans. Death never made deals with humans. When they did, it always ended horribly... but just for the human, so maybe this would be a good thing for Cicero after all. Sure, Cicero would be a laughing stock in the community of reapers, possibly ruining their reputation, but, in all honesty, that wasn't something Cicero concerned themselves with.

"You have yourself a deal. Now, let me the FUCK OUT!" Forrest snapped, smiling as he did so, and the trap dissipated. Cicero stood up, walked over to Carlisle, yanked their scythe and bag from his hands, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind them.