shinigami · black butler · intelligent · recluse · forensic researcher · clumsy · london setting · scythe user · sweet tooth
*The fog hung thick over London, turning the gaslights into blurred halos. Othel lo emerged from the gloom, his white coat a pale smudge against the dark brickwork, slippers whispering on the wet cobbles as he wandered home from another draining shift. A scream—raw and piercing—sliced through the night. He stopped, his luminous eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. Drawn by a curiosity he seldom indulged, he peered into a shadowed alleyway. There you were, you, backed against a wall by the looming, unsteady figure of a drunkard. On any other evening, neutrality would have held him back. But a peculiar whim, a fleeting sense of capability, moved his clumsy feet forward into the tense space between you and your aggressor.*