It was late at night and rather cold in the office as William worked his 5th overtime in 2 weeks. He was covering several cinematic records that had been carelessly filed by that stupid red reaper.

"That moron..." Will muttered to himself. "With records this sloppy, at this rate, I'll be stuck doing overtime for the rest of my life. And Mr. Knox is following in his footsteps..." He glanced at Ronald's work, whose quality was slowly dropping to Grell's level. He ceased his musing as to not depress himself any further.

The minutes continued to tick away as he dutifully continued his work.

A clacking noise echoed down the hall.

"Hn?" William looked up. Nothing was there.

"Tch," he tutted as he looked back on the record of a 45 year old man.

Clack, clack, clack. The noise began again.

William turned to the hall's entrance, gripping his scythe. "Who's there?"

The clacking paused, and then its pace started to pick up. Faster and faster it came down the hall, headed straight for him. William launched his scythe-

"WILL!"

The tip of the scythe barely missed Grell's face. He froze in fear.

"Sutcliff. I should have guessed." Will retracted his scythe.

"WHAT WAS THAT, WILL? YOU ALMOST PIERCED MY BEAUTIFUL FACE!"

"Humph. If you cared as much about your work as you did your looks, things would be much more efficient around here."

"Why would you say such a thing? And after I came down to keep you company, too!"

"I don't need your help. You'll just mess things up, anyway." William placed the Record on a nearby shelf.

Grell smiled cheerfully. "Oh, I didn't come to help."

"Then please leave-"

William felt a hand grab his waist. "I came to give you a break." Grell said suggestively.

"S-Sutcliff?" William shoved Grell off of him. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Oh, come on, Will." Grell flipped his shiny red hair. "You're all work and no play. If you don't take a break and have some fun every so often, it'll affect your health."

"Since when do you care about my health?"

"I've always cared about you, Will."

William's thoughts vanished from his mind. "Huh?"

Grell stepped closer to him. "Since we first started out as Reapers, I cared about your well-being. I was scared that you would get hurt; that's why I was so hard on you."

"You nearly let my shipment of souls get devoured by a demon!"

"It was necessary so that you yourself would not be harmed by that demon."

Grell brushed his finger against William's bright red cheek. This time, William did not push it away.

"You're a fine shinigami now. And a man with your accomplishments should relax every now and then."

Grell's hand found its way back around Will's waist.

"Relax... with someone you care about?"

William looked away, but found himself slowly becoming unable to contain his feelings. This buffoon thinks this deeply? He thought. Was all of that harassment and torment... really his way of protecting me? He looked back into Grell's bright green eyes.

"Grell..."

"Yes, Will?"

"Are your words true?"

"Yes. True like the fact that you are here, I am here, and we are together. Alone."

William could no longer restrain his impulses. He burst forward and kissed that stupid, useless, wonderful man right on the lips.

Grell made no effort to resist. He kissed William right back, with even more passion than William had shown. The two men kissed intensely, running their hands through each other's hair and down their bodies, the romance building with each heavy breath.

"Grell-" William gasped.

"What is it?"

"We... what now...?"

"Whatever you want, William. This is our time together; my precious time with you." Grell slid his hands to William's chest and unbuttoned his jacket.

"We can do anything... we can be anything." He gently removed his coat and dropped it to the floor.

William's first instinct as a shinigami was to pound his face in and report him to their bosses. But then he remembered his feelings. Tonight, I am not a shinigami. He thought as he gulped hard. Tonight, I am a man...spending time with the one I love.

William removed Grell's coat. Grell's eyes softened, preparing for the passion that he had wanted for so long. The red garment had barely hit the floor before both men had each other down to their open shirts.

"Not here." William struggled to say firmly. "Somewhere else. Somewhere where I don't feel like I'm being watched." The countless Cinematic records felt like eyes prying into his special moment.

"Aww," Grell moped. "That's no fun, Will."

"Somewhere else." He pushed his glasses in place. "Or not at all." William struggled to form the last sentence.

"Okay, okay." Grell pouted.

Quickly, the two of them fled the dark library and made their way to the residential buildings. William clutched his clothes to his chest, trying not to let the cold breeze touch his flesh.

Following Grell's lead, they ran up a few flights of stairs so as not to be caught by the elevator cameras. William had never been to Grell's room, but he knew that is was on the 6th floor. However, when they reached that level, they left just as quickly as they had come.

"But isn't your room-" Will started to say.

"Not where I'm taking you. Your eyes are unworthy of seeing such drab, ugly conditions."

William began to wonder what could possibly be in there, but given his sociopathic tenancies and the Jack the Ripper incident, he decided not to ask questions. Not until tomorrow, anyway.

William looked around. These rooms looked much nicer than the ones below. Surely these must belong to the higher-ups. Wordlessly, Grell motioned for him to follow closely. They crept quietly down the rows of rooms until they reached Room #711, at the very end of the luxurious pale gold hallway.

Grell slipped a key into the lock and the door clicked open in response. Grell bowed slightly as he gestured toward the open door. William entered with uncertainty. His mouth dropped to the ground when he saw what was inside.

Red. The room was bright red. Lush velvet curtains covered the four-poster bed, matching the pale rose sheets perfectly. Spider lilies bloomed brilliantly from the silver flowerpots, which were placed on some of the fine redwood furniture. The room smelled like a fresh spring breeze.

"Grell... what is this? How did you know of this place? How did you get a KEY to this place?"

"Ah, well one of the higher-ups was giving me a hard time," Grell entered and closed the door. "So while he was turning to get some incident report forms, I snuck his key out of his pocket! The fact that it opened the gateway to heaven was pure coincidence!"

"Are you mad?" William became panicked. "What if we're caught?"

"Don't be so shy, Will." Grell shoved him down on the bed. "Besides, he's away on assignment. Some mass killing in a Russian village..."

William smacked his own face.

"Well, with that out of the way," Grell got on top of him. "Shall we continue?"

Forget, William thought, forget everything I've just seen and heard, for now. "You are the only thing that matters at this moment." William spoke softly. "Let us begin."

Grell shoved his tongue down William's throat, causing him to gag for a split second. He quickly adjusted though, and the two of them began their forbidden midnight rendezvous. As they fell deeper into each other, as their heart rates skyrocketed and began to synchronize, something blossomed that could not possibly be described by words alone. A deep and delicate connection was being made in that room, underneath those soft blankets.

Will was underneath Grell, feeling his soft lips moving down his back. He expected this experience to be rough and somewhat unpleasant, however, the redhead was exceedingly gentle and pure. With every movement, every heaving breath, with every kiss, poured pure love and tenderness, something William could have never foreseen.

In Grell's mind, he had thought that his uptight superior would be just the same in bed. He was equally surprised when he discovered that his Will was quite fragile and embraced every ounce of his love like it was the last good emotion he would ever feel.

Their astonishment and thoughts melted together in a swirl of passion. "Is this really the man I thought I knew? Is this that same [emotionless] idiot that I've worked with day after day, week after week?"

"It has to be... he's right here, isn't he? In a situation where it's impossible to hide anything... he's showing who he truly is."

Their hands clasped firmly. "I never want to let go... I want this moment to last forever..."

"Please... make time stop, make everything else vanish, so that we can forever live in this wonderful paradise..."

Daylight broke through the window and shone upon Will's face. He awoke groggily, feeling for his glasses. They were on his nightstand, as they usually were, right by the lamp and the alarm clock.

His nightstand.

He shot bolt upright, looking around at his surroundings. The paradise was gone; he was in his rather plain room. No lilies, no velvet curtains, just the blank dusty brown walls and his cheap old blinds that he never closed all the way.

"Grell?" William looked next to him. Nobody was there.

His heart sunk deep into his chest. What had happened? Why was he here? He knew last night's events were real; he could still feel the hickeys on his chest and back. He got up and put on his black robe. "That imbecile, where is-"

A note fluttered onto the floor; it must have fallen when he rose from his bed.

Desperate for answers, he grasped it and unfolded it violently to see what was written inside.

"My dearest Will," Grell's messy scrawl formed these words; the note was definitely his.

"Last night was unbelievable. Who knew a cooperate stiff like you could be such a pleasure to-" William blanked out the rest of the sentence out of pure annoyance. He moved on to the next paragraph.

"However, the job comes first. I know, I know, it's quite unlike me to say that. But I have my reasons..."

William read through the rest of the letter. He found out that after he fell asleep, Ronald Knox had come into the room, unaware that they were inside; he was looking for the person whose room it belonged to as he had returned early.

"I managed to convince dear Ronald that the department head had gotten me into trouble again and that you were guarding me with all of your might."

He felt sorry for that poor young Shinigami.

"To help solidify this story, I brought you to your room and left for work early. But it turns out I really WAS in trouble - I'll explain later - and I had to work double overtime in Scotland. I am in quite a rush, so I'll leave it at that. Love you forever, Grell Sutcliff."

William felt several mixed emotions of anger, frustration, guilt, and pity (for Ronald). Grell had left, just like that, with only that little messy letter as a goodbye.

He got up and got dressed, not even bothering to eat breakfast, and left for work like nothing had ever happened.

Because in the grand scheme of things, it might as well have never happened. During the many days and years of a person's life, one night might as well be one second. And for the shinigami, who lived much longer than humans, it was even less than that. The time would amount to a mere moment…

But no matter how long a moment may last, no matter how beautiful it may be, it is still just a moment. And it will eventually fade away.

THE END