You glanced over at the greenette, somewhat worried as you saw the rats scampering around in the container on his desk. Two of them were fighting each other viciously, and Othello seemed to be instigating them with a bright grin on his face.

"Othello, aren't you supposed to be working?" you asked, and giving a glance to you, Othello withdrew what appeared to be an eyedropper from his labcoat and dripped several dots into the cage.

"I'm done with work," he said. "Don't turn into Will, l'il F/N."

"Stop calling me that," you muttered, making him chuckle.

"Make me," he said, knowing you never would. Like him, your exam scores in combat had been sub-par, and you had been assigned to Forensics for your deduction abilities and scientific knowledge. Grell had told you that they knew from the moment they saw you, while you weren't in your labcoat, that you were part of the scientific division rather than the collection dispatch.

Initially, the work had been almost non-existent. That had been when you hadn't been assigned to be Othello's partner. His fascination in everything, from new machinery to the behavior of different animals and substances drove much of the work his way, particularly the most difficult cases involving lost souls.

And this is what he did when he was finished: experiment.

That was a bit of a lie; sometimes he did your work because he was bored. Not that you minded.

"SCREEE!" a rat squealed harshly, and you stared in horror as one of the rats shriveled up and died. Othello was smiling with glee as he wrote down something on his favorite clipboard with the single chip in it.

"Othello, what is in that bottle?"

"Demon sweat; rather hard to get my hands on without the department head noticing." Othello paused as if realizing something and gave you a pleading look. "Please don't tell him, F/N. You know what I'd have to do..."

"Stop using it like that," you said, folding your arms as you looked over your spectacles at him. Good lord, was your vision getting worse? His hair looked almost like an afro from your blurred sight.

"Why?" Othello asked with a pout.

"Living experimentation is cruel!" you objected. "Look at that white one; doesn't it look like he's in pain?"

"Actually, that's a 'she'. See, this region—"

"Othello, put the rat down," you interrupted his bright explaining; the man seemed to love teaching you something new. "I know how to tell a rat's gender, for God's sake. That isn't the point. They're living, breathing things; how can you do that to them?" Othello shrugged.

"Emotions aren't my specialty. Don't much know if they ever have been."

"You'll be punished for doing that," you protested, and Othello gave you a somewhat concerned look.

"How much more punished can we be, F/N?" he asked plainly, and for just a moment, you bought it until he said, "Just kidding! I love my job. I feel bad for those poor saps in the dispatch though."

"They're not going to spare me if they know I knew about it," you muttered. "I don't want to be cast into the pit with the foul scum that call themselves demons."

"Aww, they're not all that bad~" Othello replied with a grin, taking the cage off his desk and hiding his dropper away, right as William, shortly followed by Grell, walked into the room.

"Why is it always such a mess in here? F/N, I thought management told you to help clean up after him?"

"Easier said than done, Will," you replied with a smile and a small shrug, making William sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he muttered something about his nickname.

"In any case, the pair of you will be accompanying us on today's job. It would seem someone entered the Reaper library and stole over 100 records. You two will be determining who it was so that we can find them, return the records, and potentially eliminate them."

"Roger," Othello said, dusting his hands off. "Come along, l'il F/N~"

<><><>

"Hair," you said, showing the strand of dark blue hair to Othello, who took it with glee and held it to the light. "Not many people with hair that color."

"No," Othello replied, now crawling on the floor with a magnifying glass rather than kneeling as he had been before. You saw him pick up what appeared to be dust motes in his gloves before filing them away in little bags.

"Hey, Nerds, any progress?" Grell asked, their sharp teeth pointed in a frown.

"Some," you said before glancing back at Othello, who was currently investigating the record system with great fascination, and you were about to tell him he wasn't supposed to be looking there when he withdrew a folded and somewhat torn sheet of paper.

Curious, I wandered over to him to see it, and on the paper read:

"Vincent VanGogh, Edgar Allan Poe, Berthe Morisot, Ralph Emerson, Arthur Rimbaud..." The list went on, one of the last being Socrates.

"What a mistake to make," you muttered, and Othello smirked before he tapped you on the nose.

"Not necessarily," Othello replied. "If you'd been looking at the records, you would have seen that none of these records have been stolen, except..." Othello knelt to the floor and pointed to a certain missing book between 'Rachel Phantomhive' and 'Vivian Pharos'. 

"I think I have an idea of who stole those records," you said, and Othello smiled at you.

"Who?"

"That Phantomhive boy," you replied. "I've never seen any but his house with that hair color. And that name..."

"And that, l'il F/N, is where you would be mistaken," Othello said with a sigh. "This hair does belong to the House of Phantomhive; however..." Othello retrieved one of his bags, inside which was another slate blue hair. "The hair you gave me is not from that little Earl; no, it's from his predecessor, and what do we know about him?"

"He's dead? But couldn't he come back?"

"For his own record?"

"Maybe he wanted to know who killed him."

"L'il F/N, don't aid in the intruder's frame job. Clearly, whoever stole those records wanted us to chase the Phantomhives. This was done carefully; we can't make rash decisions, especially," Othello paused dramatically, placing his white-gloved index finger on your lip. "based on personal bias."

"Did you touch the evidence with that finger?" you asked, moving his hand away from your face. Othello glanced at his hand, thought for a few moments.

"Yes."

You facepalmed.

"For as knowledgeable and intelligent as you are..." you muttered, shaking your head.

"Hey, you don't have to be mean," Othello said with a pout. "Besides, you just did the same thing." You opened your mouth and closed it. Oops.

"Management is not going to be happy..." Othello only laughed and messed with your hair.

"It's just a setback. We're the best in the department."

"Are we?" you mumbled.

"You bet that ass of yours, we are," Othello replied, and you backed up, remembering how he had greeted you on the first day. He hadn't tried it again, since you had given him an earful and gotten your own form of vengeance, but the Reaper could be unpredictable—particularly when his eyes were shining like that. "Hm, l'il F/N? Why are you standing so far away?"

"To prevent any more mistakes," you replied, somewhat startled as your back hit one of the bookshelves. Othello folded his arms and tilted his head with a frown, his eyebrows scrunched together.

"You know, l'il F/N, if you bump the bookcase like that, you might," Othello moved closer to you, and for a moment, you thought he was going to kiss you when he bent to the floor and lifted another hair, this one white, in front of your eyes. "reveal another piece of evidence. This is carelessness."

"Othello, don't scare me like that!" you protested, making him grin, and in that moment, you knew he'd meant to make you flustered.

"What could you be referring to?" he asked innocently.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you little—"

"Sh, you'll bring them over here..."

"What would be the problem with that?"

"This~" Othello hummed, and with his breath smelling strongly of his favorite candy, he pressed his mouth on yours. "You know how much our dear little Will doesn't like romance in the workplace, don't you~?"