Extreme Makeover
Title: Extreme Makeover
Author: silenttaiyoukai
Fandom: Kuroshitsuji
Rating: PG
Words: 1,608
Genre: Humor, crack
Characters: Grell, Maylene, Undertaker, Ronald
Summary: Maylene is alone in Undertaker’s shop when a surprise guest pops in for a visit,
A/N: This takes place in my little AU of sorts where Sebastian is gone, Ciel is dead, and Maylene is earning a living working for the Undertaker. There are a few other drabbles in this universe. Link: The Maid and Mortician.
She was really starting to get tired of this. Now matter how much she cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned, nothing in this shop ever seemed to get any less dusty. It seemed that whenever she pulled one cobweb down, another one would immediately pop up in its place. She was also starting to get the feeling that Undertaker kept his shop dirty on purpose. Whether to drive her crazy or because he liked it that way, she wasn’t quite sure yet. Perhaps both.
Maylene sighed and cleaned her glasses on her apron, the same glasses her former Master had given her so many years ago. They were broken now and quite useless, but she simply couldn’t part with them. The new glasses Undertaker had given her were still sitting up in her bureau, never worn.
She put her glasses back on, and found she could see even less than she could before. Her apron was so dirty that she had coated her lenses in a film of dust.
“Blimey,” she said, and took them off again.
At that moment, the door to shop burst open, and Maylene screamed in surprise, falling backwards and into the Undertaker’s chair. Without her glasses on, the figure standing in the doorway was nothing more than a very big, very red, blur.
“Oh Undertaker dear, I’ve come for a visit! Where are you, darling?” the figure sang, and Maylene hurried to clean her glasses off on her dress so she could see the fellow.
She almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Such long red hair, and such wicked teeth smiling at her. And he was wearing his coat so strangely, down on his elbows as though it didn’t fit him quite right. She thought she recognized that coat from somewhere, as if she had seen someone else wearing it before….but couldn’t quite out her finger on it.
“I-I’m sorry, but the U-Undertaker’s out in the cemetery at the moment, S-Sir,” Maylene stuttered. This guy was sort of giving her the creeps.
Her strange guest’s smile faded, and he came to stand over her, placing his hands on the arms of her chair and leaning down so they were nearly nose to nose. Maylene turned her face away from him.
“Oh he is, is he?” the stranger asked. “And who might you be?”
“Maylene,” she replied. “I work for him. I’m his maid.”
Truth be told, she was a little bit more than his maid these days, but she didn’t feel elaborating on the subject. She got the impossible feeling that his guy knew that their relationship was not simple. His eyes narrowed and his lips pursed.
“I remember you,” the stranger said, and Maylene was taken a bit aback. She had never met this gentleman before in her life. Certainly she would have remember someone like him. “You were little Ciel’s maid.”
Maylene finally turned to look her visitor in the eye. She saw the rings of green and gold in his eye, and she knew just how the Undertaker knew such an odd fellow.
“You’re a Reaper,” she said, and the stranger looked a bit surprised at her revelation. He laughed and danced away from her, coming to sit rather daintily on a nearby coffin, his legs crossed.
“Why yes!” he said. “So, you know dear Undertaker used to be a God of Death, do you?” he asked, and Maylene nodded. “Well then! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Reaper Grell Sutcliff from the Soul Retrieval Branch of the London Division.”
“Grell Sutcliff!” she yelled, then clamped her hand over her mouth. She shook her head. It was impossible. There was no way the Grell she had known such a long time ago and this person could be one in the same. “But I used to know a Grell Sutcliff---he was Madam Red’s butler---”
“Oh dear, that was such a very long time ago! Don’t remind me of that awful disguise I used to wear. And speaking of awful, look at the condition of those clothes you’re wearing,” he said, and clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“Sir---?” Maylene squeaked. Honestly, she had no idea what to say or what was going on.
“Well, that’s rude of you. Do you call every lady you meet ‘Sir?’” the Reaper scolded, and Maylene cocked her head as he crossed his arms and tapped his foot, seemingly waiting for her to say something.
“Ma’am---?”
“That’s better,” Grell said, and Maylene jumped out of her seat as Grell moved to pull something out of her jacket pocket. She produced a small tube of lipstick and an equally small pair of red scissors, much to Maylene’s confusion. “Honestly, don’t you put any time into yourself at all? We’ll have to fix that!”
“What do you mean?” Maylene asked nervously. She backed herself up against the cabinet, making the many vials and beakers clatter and click together on the shelves. An urn full of the Undertaker’s bone-shaped cookies fell to the floor and shattered.
“Oh relax dear, this won’t hurt a bit,” Grell said, and Maylene didn’t like the crazy gleam in her eye, and especially not her crazy smile as she approached, lipstick in one hand and scissor in the other.
***********
The Undertaker swung his shovel over his shoulder and stood admiring his work for a moment. There really was nothing like a job well done, like a grave well-dug. He almost liked digging graves as much as he liked crafting coffins, a task he would got on just as soon as he got back to the shop. There were still so many coffin linings laying around the shop, just waiting to be sewn.
He walked the little way to the cemetery and back to his shop, humming a pleasant little funeral march to himself. As he turned the corner, he saw a very familiar someone peeking into the window of his shop.
“Mr. Knox,” the Undertaker laughed. Ronald peeled his eyes away from the window, then smiled and ran the rest of the way to the Undertaker.
“Undertaker, Sir! What’s up? How are you?” Ronald asked.
The Undertaker giggled at him. “What brings you to my shop?”
Ronald’s friendly expression changed drastically. His smile faded and he ran a hand through his hair, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.
“Well, Grell and I were on an assignment together, but she seems to have disappeared on me…again,” he sighed. “I figured she might have gone off to visit you.”
The Undertaker nodded. He for one understood quite well how exasperating it could be to deal with Sutcliff at times. He was about to express his sympathies for Ronald's predicament when there arose a clatter and a very loud, shrill scream from inside the shop. Ronald groaned and the Undertaker shook his head.
“Seems you were right,” the Undertaker said.
They entered the shop together, only to be greeted by Grell sitting on the top of an unfinished coffin. The Undertaker could tell that something was amiss almost immediately. There were strips of black lining all across the floor, and it seemed as though his maid had abandoned her clothing and hung it over the back of his favorite chair. Either she was running around the shop naked, or Grell’s odd little grin was hiding something.
“Undertaker dear, how lovely to see you!” Grell cooed. “I have a surprise for you!”
“Oh really?” the Undertaker laughed, “And what would that be?”
Grell rose from the coffin and pulled open the lid, and out popped Maylene, looking rather distraught, and yet quite dazzling. Her hair was pulled out of its usual pigtails and done into bouncy ringlets that fell all down her back. Her lips were painted red, and she was wearing a floor length black gown. The Undertaker kneeled down and felt its hem, realizing that it had been crafted out of his unfinished coffin linings. He frowned a bit as he stood, but his smile quickly came back. Even through all that, Grell still hadn’t been able to take Maylene’s old glasses away.
“Doesn’t she look lovely?” Grell chirped. She scowled as Ronald wormed his way between her and Maylene. “Hey!”
“Hey babe, remember me?” Ronald said, propping his foot up on the coffin and cozying up to her. Maylene most certainly did remember him as that smooth-talker from the Campania, and she edged ever so slightly away from him, a blush rising in her cheeks. “Hey Undertaker, why didn’t you tell me you had such a pretty assistant?”
Maylene backed herself into the Undertaker’s embrace, feeling much more comfortable in the arms of the weirdo she knew than the two she didn’t. The Undertaker pulled up a lock of her hair and brought it close to his face, frowning.
“Oh, you’ve taken the cobwebs out of her hair,” he lamented. “What a shame. They went so nicely with the pale color of her skin.”
Grell stomped her foot and balled her hands into fists, looking about ready to have a temper tantrum. “What do mean ‘what a shame’?! Are you insulting my work?! And you--!” she said, turning to Ronald and poking him in the chest. “How dare you push past me like that---!”
“Hey wait a second--” said Ronald, but failed to get a word in edgewise.
Maylene managed to worm her way out of the Undertaker’s arms without him noticing. Taking her old clothes with her, she tiptoed upstairs and away from the bickering Reapers, wondering if it was requirement that all Death Gods should have a few screws loose in their heads.