Red Queen

Fantacination

Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji belongs to Toboso Yana.

For the first time in his life, Grell Sutcliffe was in love with a woman.

She was one hell of a woman, of course.

Angelina Durless Barnett, Madame Red- was almost like a goddess, herself, trapped on the dull earth and dressed all in beautiful, extravagant red.

She was red.

Deep crimson hair fell around her face, angled sharply over her brows- how beautiful it had been, dripping blood in the moonlight that night they first met. Her eyes were scarlet, her lips were painted carmine, and her dress was always a vivid, passionate rose that wrapped around her figure like the graceful blossoming bud presented to a secret lover.

And she was life. She was drama. She was an ever-moving stage play, and all eyes, all lights were focused on her, entrapped by her charm. She laughed without reserve and did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted however she wanted. She'd killed another woman and artfully dissected her with a face bathed in blood. She had taken his hand and covered it with blood-ruined gloves. She was life and she was death. She was everything red was and had ever been.

Grell supposed she was him, if he'd been born into the gender he was supposed to be in.

And holding her blood-stained face in his arms, how could he not love her like himself?

"You and I, we are the same," he whispers to her, combing his fingers through the disheveled hair, the blood on it still glistening darkly. "You and I, we are sisters and soulmates."

So he offered her help. He'd acted as her butler, a drab, meek, suicidal klutz that nobody would ever think might be a killer. So drab as to be unnoticed; so meek as to be overlooked. He hated it. But he would do it for her, this elaborate little act for the world and the count and the tall, dark demon with the knowing eyes.

True, sometimes he'd felt envy, dressing her up in the pretty dresses; watching her lead the colorful life of a London social butterfly as he stood by.

"My lady…" he half-whimpers, dark mousy hair tied back as he helps her do up the buttons at the back of her dress. It is a beautiful dress- crimson chiffon and black taffeta- Madame Red even let him try it, on, before. Her usual coat goes over it, finely-tailored to fit exactly.

She glances at a porcelain cup, on the table next to the tea set he'd brought, a pattern of red roses and thorns embossed whimsically along it's rim.

"This tea is too weak. I can barely smell it," she sighs, the haughty tones of a born noblewoman laced through her voice. "I'm sending you to Ciel's- maybe you can learn something from that handsome butler of his, hm?"

"I-if my lady wishes…" She turns, her skirts billowing out slightly around her, and she smiles up at him, placing a gloved finger on his lips.

"And since you're there, go ahead and pounce Sebastian, okay~? Honestly, Ciel doesn't really know what to do with a good man like that." She winks, tone conspiring, like a teasing sister or a best friend.

Grell grins, teeth sharpening. "Oh my, don't say it like that, it makes me sound like such a hussy~"

The laughter she gives is loud and free, tinkling and smooth with practice.

"But after that…" She cups his cheek and the rage, the poison in her eyes shows through like wine on cotton, soaking. "After that, the next one… her name is Martha Brown."

Her hand trembles on his cheek, and the red painted nails dig a little. "She's having the surgery on the twenty second. Make sure she's in pieces the next week."

Grell smiles.

But of course, Madame Red was an actress, too.

And she performed beautifully, frivolously, gathering men like bees to a flower; standing merciless and unyielding in her resolve like a magnificent marble statue.

She was perfect. She was a goddess.

Goddesses did not have hearts.

"But this child is my…"

"I'm so disappointed, Madame Red."

And the slick squelch of his deathscythe ripping and rending into all-too-human flesh is the curtain call.

Ah, but the blood, it paints her red, such a beautiful, beautiful red, fit for a beautiful, beautiful woman. Fit for the death of his very own goddess. She cannot be dressed in anything less but her own blood, running down to cover the paleness of her arms, running down into the gutter of the dirty, dirty streets.

But it was disappointing, so disappointing! This woman, he had loved her. But she was only a woman, after all, in the end. Such a silly, idiotic thing, to let such a crack exist in her heart; to let the man she had loved slip through her fingers without fight or murmur. Ordinary. Pathetic. A soft-hearted chit. (When she could have been grand, a goddess descended.)

But he had loved her.

"You have no right to wear red."

Grell picks up the cooling corpse and strips it of the beautiful red coat he'd put on day after day. He slides his arms into the sleeves, the warmth of the woman he had loved still trapped within its heavy confines. He can't put it on. His shoulders are too wide. So he lets it hang off his arms, like a shawl. Her scent clings to the fabric, like a hand out of the grave. It had been hers.

And he will wear it in her place.

She had been only a woman, after all. Human. Sentimental. Pitiful. But for a few brief weeks she had been his goddess; his love.

"Goodbye, Madame."

For the first and last time in his life, Grell Sutcliffe had been in love with a woman.

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A/N:

I… I was extremely FASCINATED by them. I-I don't know why.

For one, I noticed that Grell wears Madame Red's coat like a token. The way he got it was rather disrespectful, but when you think about it, it's almost like a twisted way of honoring her death.

For another, he stopped calling her Madame Red. Just Madame, implying that a lot of his admiration (he canonly says he fell in love with a woman) had to do with that lovely color. On that note, though, there are many kinds of 'love' and I think Grell probably had a mix of it for Madame Red.

And well, they're just such deep personalities. No, really. Lately, Grell is the comedy filler, and while I adore his gayness and his antics, I looked back at his first appearance and the fact that Toboso Yana was listening to hard rock… Grell is really a psychopathic serial killer, when you think of it. A lot less sugary than his latter appearances, although that's clearly a part of him, too. It's like he's this insane little bundle that you can't quite puzzle out at first to mention his love for drama. Which ties in with his love for red, really.

I do like his relationship with Madame Red, and I thought I'd explore it a bit- before I knew it, it had become this. Written rather hastily, to be sure...

On a sidenote, his infatuation with Sebastian and Pluto might also have to do with their red eyes. William's just special 8D. And we don't know what color the Undertaker's eyes are yet...