Problematic: Chapter Fifteen

When Grell awoke, it was quickly and suddenly, and from a dreamless sleep. He immediately felt surrounded by the calming scent of parchment and wooden furniture, and it took him a moment to realise that it was because he'd fallen asleep wearing William's suit jacket. Somehow, during the night, the jacket had moved from around his shoulders and up near his head, effectively covering his pillow. Grell had buried his head in the fabric, and once he'd awoken he'd decided to quickly remove it from his head on the chance that William was watching him and disapproving.

When he sat up properly in the bed, however, his gaze locked on William, still sitting in the window, asleep.

Grell held back a laugh, eyes skimming over the rest of the room and looking, with surprise, on a set of clothes near the fire. He gave a frown; William had to have left at some point to go get those clothes. He hadn't slept that heavily had he? He hadn't even counted on sleeping at all, let alone sleeping so heavily William had a chance to leave and then return at least ten minutes later. Grell knew William had definitely gone at some point; he was wearing a different suit jacket and his hair had been combed thoroughly. Thinking back to the night before, he wondered if William had been so dishevelled as his memory told him, or if it had simply been his tired mind. He gave a small sigh; not many people would have stayed after Grell's episode, and he knew he was lucky that William hadn't washed his hands of him as soon as he could.

Grell changed quickly, folding up William's suit jacket and placing it on the back of a chair before he slowly snuck over to William. He wasn't even two feet away when William's arm shot out and long fingers wrapped around his throat. Grell gave a cry of alarm, heels digging into the floor as he was dragged closer. William's eyes opened, eyebrows lowered before he gave Grell a look of utter confusion.

"Grell?" William let go immediately, pulling his arm back and casting his eyes outside. Grell rubbed at his throat, giving a toothy grin.

"I, for one, didn't think you liked that sort of stuff. I didn't think violence was your thing!" Grell laughed, watching as William turned back to look at him, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed, with the left one giving a funny twitch.

"You are ridiculous." William stood up from the ledge, tightening his tie and neatening his hair up with his fingers.

"Me, ridiculous? No~! Now are you going to tell me what you found yesterday?" Grell yawned into his hand as he asked the question, reclining back on William's bed and looking up, waiting for the answer.

"I only found mere letters. Collaborations with a member of the Spanish Royal Court. It is not too suspicious to us, except that his plan is doomed to fail from the start." William did up the buttons on his suit before he walked over to the door, opening it and waiting for Grell to walk through before locking it.

"Ooh, I sense a rich tragedy!" Grell exclaimed, leaning against the wall of an alley as they watched the house from the streets below. William stood to the side of him, pulling a new black file from a pocket inside his suit. It was smaller than the ones they'd had previously, but some of the papers and the identity ledger were still there.

"I wouldn't say 'tragedy.' He intends to hold these peace talks on the day that the British are supposed to send some of their armies to Gibraltar to reinforce the command there. Whether these talks hold or not, the Spanish will attack Gibraltar. The Spanish seem to think that this will allow Gibraltar to be seized and the British to lose the entire war. In actuality, these peace talks will allow the British to win."

"What is the eventual outcome?" Grell asked, crossing his arms before pulling his scythe from his belt, extending it and leaning on it lazily. William looked through his file.

"At the moment, it seems likely the Spanish will win. But if the British army is held back here for peace talks, they won't be in Gibraltar, meaning the British will have more troops due to not loosing as many in Gibraltar, making the British effectively more set to winning." William closed the file, tucking it away as Grell cocked his head to the side.

"Do human wars have many effects on the Shinigami?"

"If you mean that in the context I think you do, rarely nothing. Shinigami are Shinigami, not Spanish or British Shinigami. No matter what country we may have come from originally, we all end up at the different Shinigami Academy's. Once we've passed this test, a Shinigami will be sent to a particular branch in any country. Our only involvement in war, it seems, is making sure that demons don't get the chance to steal souls and to stop them from getting too close to war zones." William answered, eyes on the house. Grell gave a dramatic sigh.

"Guarding the lines between heaven and hell as fate and feeble humans battle it out behind us~"

"In a sense. Although I doubt it is quite as dramatic as you seem to think it is."

Grell only threw him a smile.

- - -

"Tomorrow this will all be over and done with." William commented as he paced around the room. They had acquired a room in a small inn, after much persuasion to the host to give them a 'Merchants discount'. The inn was on the outskirts of London, and had been chosen so far away so as to not raise any suspicion. The room was small, ridiculously so, with the two single beds having a space of only a foot between them. The fireplace was a meter away from the beds and next to the doorway –to which Grell had complained rather loudly about- and they had five meters of space to the left of the beds between them and the window. Unfortunately, a table and two chairs had been placed there, meaning that there wasn't much room for William to pace. He was getting frustrated and concerned about the next day, where they'd have to make the final judgement. It continuously made him stop his pacing in favour of pushing his glasses up his face in need of something to do.

That, and he had to keep stopping as he frequently noticed that the space between the beds was suspiciously decreasing.

William didn't bother confronting the sneaky redhead about it; he'd only get an innocent, shark-toothed grin and a prompt denial. If was honest with himself, he didn't mind it, really. It wasn't like Grell hadn't used the nightmares excuse recently to try and get into his bed at night, and his biggest problem was the day ahead and not the antics of his redheaded partner.

Grell, on the other hand, didn't mind the closeness of the room; his only problem was that the heat of fireplace was warming him right up, and coupled with the thoughts running through his head, it didn't help his body temperature one bit. William was nervous, or concerned as he'd put it, about the coming task for the next day.

Grell was nervous about what he was trying to initiate.

Honestly, when did he ever get nervous? Fair enough, there had been a few odd times, and they had all been William Spears related. Sure, he was brilliant at flirting and acting rather forward, but the fact remained that something about William tied his mind up into little knots that sent his knees buckling and his heart to fly to his sleeve. Grell wanted to vent his own frustrations half the time, what with the emotions speeding through him, and the urge to dive on his test partner had become so strong that the only thing holding him back was the knowledge that he'd likely be lectured for 'such a ridiculous display of a lack of self control.'

Grell let loose a laugh at the thought of how awkward that conversation would be, and looked up to find that William had stopped at his laugh and narrowed his eyes at Grell.

"What has got you laughing?" William asked, eyes flitting over the almost non-existent gap between the beds before locking his eyes on Grell's. The redhead's eyes had fully changed, he noticed, and the bright circle of yellow showed clearly despite the dim light in the room. Grell gave a laugh, shaking his head.

"Nothing, dear William~" At that, William raised his eyebrow at the use of his full first name, and took a step closer to the redhead.

"I'm not sure I have the patience to dally with your antics. What are you up to?" William started to pace again as he waited for an answer, absentmindedly removing his suit jacket to relieve the effects of the heat of the room. Grell watched him pace, waiting a moment until William turned to him in impatience for an answer.

"Why, I'm up to nothing at all. Stop being so paranoid." Grell answered, crossing his legs on his bed and stopping his attempt to push the beds closer together. There wasn't even enough space between the beds for one of Grell's thighs; he wouldn't slip through it. William watched him with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I'd rather not know what is going through your head right now." William spoke, voice quiet as he shook his head and made to walk past Grell's bed. The redhead quickly gripped William's wrist and dragged the darker-haired Shinigami down to his eye-level. William ended up stumbling onto the bed, hands on the mattress behind Grell to stop him falling completely. For a moment they stayed still, Grell half surprised that he'd managed to do what he'd wanted to, and William slightly confused and wondering what Grell was up to. Eventually, it clicked.

"I'd been under the impression that you had a flair for originality. I'm not impressed." William's eyes were still narrowed, causing Grell to give an annoyed frown.

The eyebrows quickly raised when Grell hooked a leg around the back of William's knees and, using his strength to his advantage, quickly switched their positions so that William was pushed into the bed and Grell was leaning over him. He didn't wait for any words from William before he connected their lips, feeling a swell of victory rise inside him when, after a moment of surprise, William pulled him closer. As the kiss deepened, Grell failed to hold back a moan of pleasure, and quickly founds his buttons being undone by long deft fingers. The hand on the small of his back tugged at his shirt, pulling it from where it had been tucked in and tugging the shirt off of Grell completely.

He repaid the favour.

Removing William's shirt was quick and easy, and it wasn't long before hands were roaming and lips disconnecting only for the quick breath of air. Grell felt dizzy from the torrent of emotions that he was pushing into the kiss and receiving from William; he knew his legs would have surely buckled beneath him had he been standing. William seemed to be attempting to hold back much more than Grell was, and Grell eventually found himself being pushed rather roughly into the sheets as William pulled himself back. Not by much, Grell noted, as his face was inches from Grell's and his hands hadn't moved from one on Grell's hip and the other at the nape of Grell's neck.

"Why are we stopping~?"

"Are you sure you want to do this? If we were to engage in-"

"Now, Will, would I have initiated this if I wasn't sure?" Grell pulled him down into another kiss, distracting the darker haired of the two momentarily before William regained his senses and shook his head.

"It's not legal. Are you certain?" William voiced his question carefully, refusing to allow any form of awkwardness to come into the situation despite his taste for rules. Grell gave a small laugh and grinned, about to open his mouth to speak before he was delightfully silenced by William reconnecting their lips.

Apparently, that had been all the confirmation he needed.