Your Own Skin (Black Butler)

The Evaluation

Grell was sitting up straight, she had combed back her hair, and was doing the very best impersonation of William that she could muster. She couldn’t figure out why their manager, Red Dodgson, was giving her such a bizarre expression though. Red was more of a bear than a man, with a rotund belly and a thick beard that covered at least half of his face. When he spoke it was always in a boisterous manner, in which you couldn’t tell if he was angry, used to giving orders, or just hard of hearing. So it was odd to see him so quiet with his busy eyebrows furrowed together.

“Have a problem with the razor this morning, William?”

“A little bit,” she admitted. She had shaved as thoroughly as she could, though she had gotten a few nicks despite her caution. Doing what she had always seen Eric and Ronald do, she put a few tiny bits of toilet paper on the bleeding spots so she wouldn’t be gushing blood anywhere. She was hoping he wouldn’t notice, but unfortunately Red was quite observant.

Red sighed, “Take those damn things off, Spears. You look like a bloody schoolboy.”

She flinched only a little and did as she was told, tossing the bloody bits into a waste basket nearby.

“Now, I’ve got your evaluation here, but we’ll go over the sections together first as usual.”

“Of course,” Grell said, pushing her glasses up just like William always did. “That’s fine.”

Red dragged his chair over and around his desk so that he could sit beside her. “As you know, a Supervisor is evaluated based on the performance of his reapers. Here we have a listing of all their numbers for this year, along with your overall score.”

Grell glanced over the page. There was Ronald with the lowest number, he was young yet but he also had a bad habit of partying too late. He had probably been late to one too many reapings, giving him a C overall. Then there was Alan in next at a solid B. He was reliable, but he wasn’t as strong in the field. There were several times that Grell could remember him needing to call in assistance when she or Eric could have handled the reaping on their own. Of course he was fairly young too. Then there was Eric with a disappointing A-, though she knew exactly where that came from. He was probably the most unenthusiastic one in the group when it came to reaping, originally pulled from Special Forces as a burn-out. He was still skilled though which is where his A came from, but that attitude always held him back.

“I assume everything looks in order,” Red said.

“For the most part, but isn’t there a reaper missing?”

“Oh yes, Sutcliffe. Well he’s a special case, as you know. I’ve removed him from your evaluations because he would only pull your score down, which is rather unfair to you in my opinion.”

Grell bristled at the pronoun choice, but kept her expression impassive. “Oh?”

He pulled over some additional pages all marked up with charts. “Here we are. Now you see that overall this year Sutcliffe would normally be top of the list, but he’s still making up for two years of unapproved leave. If we used his scores to evaluate you, your scores would be in the negative too, just like his, which means you would only get minimum wage like Sutcliffe is.”

Despite her attempts to keep her cool, Grell’s jaw dropped. She knew that she was down to the lowest amount of pay possible, that she was on probation at this point, but she hadn’t realized that it could affect William’s paycheck too. She also had suspected that William was the reason she was at such a low pay; that he was still angry at her for leaving, not that her pay was still being affected by her running away. She had assumed that after the High Council had her cleaning businesses for a full six months, that would be the extent of her punishment, but apparently she was wrong.

Red sat back in his chair, “As you see, I just don’t think it’s fair. Your score would suffer too much if I added that damned Sutcliffe’s score in, and I won’t have your unblemished record ruined on his bloody account.”

“Thank you, sir.” Grell said as politely as she could.

“I know I’ve said it before, Spears, but have you considered a replacement? Sutcliffe is a Shifter, and they’re notoriously violent and prone to random whims like this. I don’t think it’ll be the only blemish on his record, and I can’t insulate you from his mistakes forever.”

“No, I think it’s fine.” Grell tried not to clench her teeth as she spoke.

“I mean,” he frowned and stroked at his beard. “It’s bad enough that we have a Shifter that sees itself as a woman, but add on the Ripper murders and it’s just… more of a sacrifice than I think you need. I mean, you do want to move up in Management, don’t you, Spears? You don’t want to attach yourself to someone who will just drag you down.”

Grell was quickly losing her cool. Yes, Will had specifically requested her to be on her best behavior. Yes, she understood how important this was to him; but damn it, she only had so much patience when this walrus of a man was insulting her!

She pushed up her glasses. “I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk so poorly about Sutcliffe, sir. Despite her sordid background,” she ignored Red furrowing his eyebrows. “I think she’s an excellent reaper, and an asset to the team. Despite her setbacks, I don’t think I could replace her.”

“Good Gods, Spears,” Red whispered. “You’re not sleeping with Sutcliffe, are you?”

Oh no, she thought. That was probably the very last thing that William wanted his boss to know about. Grell scrambled for the right words, any words that could bail her out of the corner she had pushed into. “Certainly not, sir!” She exclaimed. “I just don’t appreciate you attacking a reaper with such… skill!”

Red nodded sagely. “My apologies. You know I worry about inter-departmental relationships. They can sometimes be quite dangerous for a man’s reputation. Love can be quite the fickle mistress, if you get my meaning.” He glanced toward a black and white photo on his desk. It took her a moment to recognize Red at first. He had the same beard but he was far slimmer than he was now. The man beside him too, that face looked very familiar, but she couldn’t place it. There was something about the smile and the long, silver hair that looked terribly familiar though. Red slapped him on the back and Grell had to grab hold of the chair arm to keep from being knocked out of her seat. “Just be cautious, Spears. Don’t make my mistakes. You have too bright a future to let it be dragged down on behalf of some naive affection.”

Grell gave a short nod, “Thank you, sir. I’ll remember that.” Goodness, it was no wonder William had been so cold to her at first. Red was an absolute hawk about any kind of relationship and William was just anxious enough to accept it without hesitation, the poor dear. Even though William made far more money than her, garnered far more respect at the office than she did, and had far more independence as a Supervisor, in that moment Grell pitied him.