log; complete

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

When; 24th's midnight
Rating; PG-13 likely
Characters; Grell Sutcliff [deathbutler] & Tybalt, Prince of Cats [tangodelamuerte]
Summary; Where there's talk of Romeo and Juliet, surely there's talk of Tybalt. But words offend, do they not, and slights are amassed, so that duel only may settle them. Thankfully, both of these men's (man and lady, mind) favorite color is red.
Log;

It was only more fitting that is was Tybalt.

His Sebastian was not there, no, but amusements still presented themselves. They always could, to one like him. To someone who loved the color red as much as he, someone who would even bend the rules of death for his own play, this sort of a duel really was a passing fancy.

But, ah- His heart sung, to imagine meeting the Tybalt. What a lark, to be able to meet such characters. This City was certainly full of surprises. And the feel of his death scythe in the palm of his hand, against his glove, now- that felt like home more than London, more than the boring duties of shinigami, the gaze of a Madame, or even the stoic face of one demon, Sebastian.

And so, Grell Sutcliff, Jack the Ripper, Butler of Death, a rose by any other name, waited for a duel by moonlight.

Comments

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

Click, clack, click, clack--those steel heeled custom fit boots were noisy, it's true but Tybalt adored them. They kept the time in every dance and duel. Fitting they should do so in yet another dance of death. It took a little bit of cunning to slip from the modest flat that he and Juliet resided in, especially at this hour. By morning Tybalt hoped she would know of how valiant he had been fighting in her honor, and for the honor of their family. Already there were visions of victory flickering in his thoughts.

A duel was a very important appointment to keep!

"Grell Sutcliff," Tybalt called out ahead of his footsteps to the figure waiting, "in the quite, midnight streets do we meet as foes. Here I do challenge thee to a duel and here I draw my blade for thou speakest with unwarranted familiarity of my family. That is an injury I will not afford."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

Click, clack, click, clack--but this man's shoes were heels- supple leather in a killer arch, no steel but delicate woman's fancy.

"Tybalt!" Grell cried happily, turning with a coy smile, his free hand cupping his cheek gently. "Cousin of Juliet! Nephew of the Lady Capulet! Rival of Romeo! Killer of Mercutio!" His walk was swaying in the hip, still had Madame Red's crimson coat down around his elbows, bloody and rent in the back.

"Welcome, welcome!" Chainsaw held apart in his right, spun about in gestures as he spoke.

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

Were he a lesser man, Tybalt would have cringed at the tone and words. He willed his shoulders to remain square. Whoever this being Grell was, he knew far too much! "Words hold little worth in thy head, for you spend them so easily. Thou hast forgotten more importantly that you face me, Prince of Cats." Still he approached, determined that this event would run its coarse.

"Mayhaps you have never dueled. What manner of weapon is that? But a tool for gardening." The custom Capulet handle Rapier lay nestled in leather between his arm and upper torso. How could such a weapon compare?

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"What kind of tool is this?" Grell exclaimed, a grimace crossing his features. How could someone insult something as beautiful as his weapon? How, how, how?

"It's a death scythe!" He gestured to it, gloved fingers caressing down the blades. "The weapon of a death god! Who's cheeky now, to be insulting something as lovely and bloody as my precious?" It seemed he was actually worked up over such a comment, pacing back and forth and swinging it, voice growing louder.

"This is the true weapon of someone who takes lives!"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

Tybalt snorted and opened his dark, simple over coat. He wore his red, Virgin Mary bulletproof vest beneath and more importantly two guns--his trusted, rapier and a companion to it. "Observe, here are the weapons of a duelist. A rapier balanced and tempered metal ready to shoot forth fire with the correct strike upon the stone mass of thy body." While saying so he produced the gun and held it aloft but tight enough in case if this foe were to wrench it away.

"Have thou no blade worthy enough for such an occasion? Any shoe can be put to dance but so few last the duration of the last waltz."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"Ooooh..." Grell's eyes were drawn not to the weapons, but to the vest. To say his stare was unnerving would be correct. Undressing, yes, taking in the lines of muscle, the color, the pride-

"Ah- I'm so glad I was able to prepare properly for our meeting!" He squealed, clutching his chainsaw to his chest, one heel popping up in glee. "You're so handsome, Tybalt! Just as I imagined you would be!"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

Their exchange thus far had been grim, threatening, a tad on the whimsical side especially as far as this very peculiar redheaded foe was concerned. This? This was not something at all that Tybalt could even have thought to prepare himself for. Patronizing! Jesting! The indignity!

"Compliments are unneed and will save you not from the devices of the Fates. Even now the three sit weaving, measuring most importantly cutting strings of lives. I have been given the shears. Place thy plans and self to action!" His gun was no longer a thing to display. Now it was taking aim.

"Else you would rather use your honeyed words to beg pardon for thy serpent tongue. Turn and draw."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"How stoic." He did so love that in men, hasn't he said so? Oh, of course. His lips curled, not to a sneer, but to an excited smirk, eyebrows raising speculatively, pausing before he dusted the edge of Madame Red's blood stained coat, voice suppressing to a coy whisper, as if divulging a secret.

"Those fate strings are in my hand. And this scythe is the cut, not those toys you have." His glove moved up the weapon, before resting easily on the throttle, a suddenly dangerous look to him, this man so easily excitable.

"Draw."

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

He swallowed slowly. His breathing kept even the best he could as a rhythm set itself in his steps, a paso doble. No words for this moment as he pulled the trigger for a first fire. Stepping into each blow in his Spanish fighting school form he prided himself so well on.

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

The first mistake, Grell assumed, would be that this was no Shakespearean tale. If it had been, he would have much preferred the damsel role- but such was not the time. The second, of course, is that this was duel where his opponent had not even inquired as to his nature.

And Grell's nature was beyond what most mortals comprehended.

Against a demon's speed, what was a bullet, and he dodged, a graceful movement to the side, letting it ripple past long strands of crimson hair, bringing up his weapon as he smiled, all too proud.

"Didn't I tell you, Tybalt, prince of cats?" His tongue flicked out to lick his lips, smiling all the wider. "I may look like this, but I'm more than just a ripper."

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"What manner of trickery be this?" He hissed and attempted another fire. "My aim is true like the eagle's eye. My form is practiced. How can such a thing be possible art though mad beyond the basic given laws of the Gods to bend restrictions? Thou art false from the start. Be ye not a man?"

Now, Tybalt felt as though his life was in jeopardy.

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"You might have asked that from the start!" Grell grinned, mad with it, the excitement, the rush, the idea of the killstarting to boil in him, leaping up beyond the heights a normal being might achieve, chainsaw revving with a loud catch of noise as he made to swing at neck height on his descent, face frozen in delight.

"The gods of death have no need for the gods of man!"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

The rough duck Tybalt took nearly gave him a haircut, he stumbled backward from the swinging, humming chainsaw. Not one to give up, the proud Capulet fired again aiming for Grell's hands if not for the torso.

"Tis so rarely that I cross paths with madmen and pause long enough to question origin. Thy cracked shell is enough to tell a tale. Or so I did think. Now even in motion all else becomes a blur. The tempo keeps on. The thud of my heart hidden between ribs and flesh." Somehow, in true fashion, he continued to speak ducking, dodging and rolling best he could collecting nicks and cuts that were escalating in severity.

He kept shooting anyway.

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

True to form, Grell's swings were becoming more and more furied as he grew more and more excited, more and more intoxicated by the blood he was able to draw, start slow... build up.

"And such a tongue, Tybalt!" He exclaimed, gritting his teeth and abruptly jerking the chainsaw up. A bullet, cleaved in half, clattered to the ground as he took the moment to blow on his hand, bleeding from a small wound.

"This scythe of mine can cut through anything, you know. That thudding heart isn't much comparison."

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

All of the optimism he carried into this duel fell from his face at the two silvery halves of the bullet chinked against the pavement.

Ragged as his breathing was, Tybalt stood upright (as much as one being attacked with a chainsaw can stand). "All this time if thou hath been a harbinger of deaths, there is no chance in this meeting yet a plot for wrongs righted. Thou hath come to collect upon my debt in a far Verona. You know already of Mercutio's death where I did flee into the night, so few save for God and his most holy council's eyes and thee know of it." It was not something he discussed with Juliet ever too.

Rapier clutched tightly in hand, Tybalt reloaded. "Through ache I am pleased to be surrendering one of my nine lives in combat."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"All this time, indeed." A harbinger of death, not many put his title so prettily. But that was Shakespeare for you, no?

"All those moments, all those precious, precious, memories..." Eyes rolled in ecstasy, before he lunged, mad as a rabid dog, eager for that cat's life, as his chainsaw swung in a deadly arc, heels ground in to the cobblestones beneath their feet.

"Show them to me, Prince of Cats!"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

He blinked. A school of fighting! Just what he always wanted! The weapons were heavy and strange in his hand. No callouses yet. He loved it already. Even if he wrote home regularly. Long hours before the masters were well spent. He would be protected, the last male heir of the family would carry on.

Tybalt had no words. As though he were sucked into a bottled stupor sold by only the most skilled apothecary, swept up into lingering memories.

The bright, bright lights of Verona at night glowed to rival the stars. They were having a celebration like in the old times. This night would be remembered. But who was that there lingering in the throng? That villain! That Romeo!

Was it this drug that made him so dizzy? Or the blood that soaked his clothes?

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"Don't you see, Tybalt?~" Grell twirled happily, surveying the memories as they spooled out of the man like the negatives in a cinema, available for all to see, but played especially for him.

"This is the power of my weapon. This is a death god-" Interested, he watched, the chainsaw dripping blood forlorn over his shoulder as he paced and observed, gesturing and grandstanding all the while.

"And you- You're not even the original story, though the event and end remain the same, no? How daring~"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"I am my mother's only son, my aunt's only nephew. My cousin's only cousin. Say I am not the original and only Tybalt? That is false."

He swayed and remained on his knees. There would have been far more talk of indignity of the act if he were utterly in control of the swaying nature of everything he saw around him.

"Perhaps it was Romeo that coward that sent you..."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"Ah~ Ah~ Ah~" Tsked, finger wagging, and Grell began to stalk around his prey, circling, though graceful, it was still distinctly a strut.

"You called me, and I answered. Death always answers when someone calls." That finger to lip then, in thought, gaze up, though it kept falling to drink in that luscious crimson blood.

"... buuuuuut~" He whined a little, batting his lashes. "Whatever would happen to that story if I cut it off before you died?"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"Thou conjured me more so than I conjured thee. Say thee 'Juliet' and thus I answered, such a deed any that values blood would do. Mock me not for my loyalty."

His upper body was feeling colder. His vest was saturating any blood shed from his arms or near his neck.

"I am not a tale nor story. Enough of such thoughts."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"But Tybalt!" Grell swung his arms wide, smiling with a rather disconcerting innocent joy, weapon cut off, so that the sound of his voice carried more than his weapon's.

"You are a character in the most wonderful love story of them all! Romeo and Juliet, aaaah~ ♥" He could be still, swinging his arms and sighing, fingers tossing back his wayward hair and smoothing down his coat. "And if you were to not play your role, well-"

A suddenly grim expression.

"You'd be no use at all."

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"My cousin does not know the knave! Why do you say such things?" Now his shoulders sagged significantly. His vision flipped from blur to clarity.

"Tybalt shall e'er be himself, most loyal and true Capulet. Never to suffer a foe. There is use in kinsmanship. There is a use for me. There...is."

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"Oh, he shall." Grell sighed happily, slinking behind the man before he dipped forward, hand on that sagging shoulder as he leaned in to whisper in his ear.

"He still has a role to play~"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"Are we not all dancing to the same tempo? That of not our hearts, yet the string of fate pattern waltz. Measure, weave and cut..." Something about Grell's voice and glee sent a coldness through his heart.

Roles, stories, fame...what was it all about really? This duel was supposed to be about Juliet's honor!

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"That's exactly it~!" Grell cried out, stepping away, backwards, with his arms wide, on his toes.

"Measure! Weave! Cut! You all dance to the same crooked tune! All waiting for the day death slips up on you- But really, it takes you!"

[tangodelamuerte.livejournal.com]

"Not this day, nor for days to come. Not I. Not I!" The rapier was still loaded and heavy in his grasp. It was foolish to attempt another strike, this blow was not only against Grell but against that fate being dangled before his eyes.

[deathbutler.livejournal.com]

"Ah... this is our foe; a villain that is hither come in spite, to scorn at our solemnity this night." It was easy to move from the path of a bullet fired from a hand so slowed by blood loss, by that crimson, and he had to sigh, a little pout as he pulled Madame's coat up his shoulders.

"Goodnight, Prince of Cats."