Being the Grim Reaper isn't an easy job, and the rewards aren't much, either. It's the same thing, over, and over, and it never gets easier. He doesn't kill; he just frees the soul from the body, and points it in the direction of Charon. It's not a job that you'd want to have. It's a job that you're honor-bound to accept; it's a job that is mostly a formality; it's a job that's a responsibility. But after a thousand years of traveling around Limbo, ending millions of lives, a thousand years without a break, a thousand years that seem like a thousand millennia, anyone would get sick of being Death.
And sometimes, that's all it takes.

Roy Carson stood there, looking Death in the face, and smiled. "It's not my time, and you know it. Someone up there," He paused, looking heavenward, "fouled up, and I'm not gonna pay the consequences." The saloon was frozen around them, a bar fight halted in progress. Roy looked about, waiting for Death's response, and his eyes almost glowed. He marveled at shards of broken glass suspended in mid-air, and smiled slightly at a man in the process of being thrown out a window. The defenestrated man had dealt Roy a blow to the face before he'd been shot. "Where are we?" Roy asked.
"We're in Limbo," he paused, as if recalling something, "Roy." His voice was hoarse, and a body-length cowl obscured his face and body. "We're in the land between life and death. Time doesn't flow here."
Roy looked down at his immobile body, slumped against the bar- a bloody stain spread across his chest- and sighed, his composure momentarily breaking. The room had taken on an eerie, ethereal quality, and everything was less definite and less substantial. It seemed like a strong wind would blow the place away like a tumbleweed. A rotting smell lingered in the stale air.
"I mean, that's me, lying there, dying. I couldn't have been meant to die yet, I mean, I've got so much potential, don't I?" He fanned out a deck of cards with one hand, and then un-fanned them in one smooth motion; as if giving an example of his worth. "It's a mix up." He radiated an eerie confidence, and it made Death uncomfortable. No one had ever tried to talk their way out of dying before. Plead, beg, and grovel, sure. But this , he was something else.
"Hey, what do I call you?" Roy asked, his smile widening. Death grimaced in his hood; the boy seemed to be enjoying this, at the moment. The boy's happiness, an emotion which Death was so rarely exposed to, lightened his mood, in spite of himself.
"I go by Grimms, these days." Grimms paused, staring at Roy's corpse, and then looking to Roy, who was standing next to his own body. He couldn't spare this boy's life, even if it was a mistake, because then he'd have to give everyone a second chance. If it was a mistake, it wasn't his, and it wasn't his to fix. But the boy's charisma filled the air, almost overwhelmingly powerful, unlike any human Grimms had ever met. Grimms felt his certainty waver, then falter.
He nervously wrenched his gaunt, skeletal hands around his scythe; the boy wasn't ready to go, but then again, they never were. He had a feeling, where the pit of his stomach would be, that there was gonna be more to this. This boy wasn't supposed to go yet, and something about him gave Grimms the feeling that if he did, the results wouldn't be pretty. He groaned. Grimms was Death, he made a living killing, and it sucked.
Roy tossed an odd look in Grimms' direction- he hadn't expected the Grim Reaper to groan; he'd expected Death to be a merciless, heartless, sadistic killing machine, and he'd been met by a fed-up working stiff, far too receptive to his guiles. He'd spent far too long charming and finessing people to believe that anyone, especially Death, could be convinced this easily, unless they were having more serious problems inside. However, always one quick to adapt, Roy decided to use this to his advantage. He just hadn't figured out exactly how, yet. He bit the inside of his lip contemplatively, and before long, he had his angle.
"Well, Grimms, this is some occupation that you've got here. Don't you get tired of killing fellow after fellow after fellow? How about you just let me off the hook, just this once? Add a little variety to your life, eh?" Roy flashed his winning smile, not knowing what effect- if any- it would have on the Grim Reaper.
Grimms thought for a moment. In his mind, he teetered on the edge of a cliff. He wanted to leave, and his desire for freedom threatened to push him over the edge, to force him to quit, but his sense of duty kept him back. His guilt pushed him farther. He was centimeters from his fall to freedom, but he felt his emotional weight shifting. Then, he saw the name emblazoned above the bar. Rebel's Solace. Something about the word appealed to his sense of romance, appealed to his need to rebel against his father and his family's tradition, that need he never fulfilled, and it pushed him over the edge. It was a one in a million chance, one in a billion or more, that he would experience such self doubt in a bar whose name would resonate so deeply within him, but, lucky for Roy, it happened.
"You know what? You're right. I'm tired of this. I've been stuck in this dead-end position for too long. I want to meet people and hear their stories instead of just killing them. I want to go out and live; I want to see the world. What're we waiting for?" Roy stared at him, disbelieving. He had no interest in persuading Death to abandon his post, that was something that was way over his head, and he didn't want responsibility for. All he wanted was to save his own hide.
"Go? Go where? In case you haven't noticed, you're Death. It may not be fun, but somebody's gotta do it." Roy laughed incredulously. '"You exist for a reason. You can't just get up and leave." Roy didn't know much about Death, or what the consequences of his absence would be, but he was a practiced liar, and he worked with what he had. Grimms strolled to the exit, paying Roy no heed.
"Of course I- I mean Death- serves its purpose, and someone's gotta do it. But I've been doing this for over a thousand years and I just realized; it doesn't have to be me anymore." Grimms said casually as he opened the saloon doors, his cloak beginning to flap in the wind.
"So, just like that, you're going to leave? No one's going to stop you? Who's going to fill your shoes?" Roy was horrified. Death wanted to quit his job and go traveling with him. Worse yet, it was his fault. "You know what? Forget it. Kill me." Roy added, only half-joking. Grimms seemed to mull it over, comparing his old, comfortable situation -if very hum-drum and repetitive- to the opportunity of life and freedom. He didn't have to think long.
"Sorry, too late now. Firstly, I know you now, and hence I couldn't bring myself to kill you." Grimms paused as he noticed Roy rolling his eyes. "Yeah, that's right, even I have compassion. Aren't you a little too deep in to be shocked anymore?" Roy shrugged and nodded his head dumbly. "And secondly, that is not my job anymore." Roy had to make a conscious effort to keep his jaw from dropping, and he had an eerie feeling that Grimms was smiling inside his cowl. "And don't worry; It won't have any problem finding someone to fill my shoes. It'll probably just give St Benedict his job back. Or maybe the Angel of Death. God knows he's been sitting around in Heaven for centuries without anything to do; the poor guy'll probably jump for joy. "
Roy couldn't take anymore, and his jaw dropped. However, even this was a situation he could adapt to. He'd never had any firm beliefs, so it wasn't very difficult to change them. Then he noticed something. "It?" he asked.
"Yeah, It. You know, The One True God? The head honcho, the big boss, our lord, the creator? Considering how well you're taking all this, I assume you at least know who It is. " Roy didn't know much about the Bible, but he figured that if they couldn't even get God's gender right, then the good book must not be as good as everyone liked to think.
"Yeah, I got it." The initial shock had passed over Roy, but he knew that it was going to hit him a lot stronger in a little while. Deciding that he'd be able to handle it better on his turf, the world of the living, than in the timeless limbo where he was at present, he took a deep breath. "Well, what're we waiting for?" This time it wasn't just a feeling, Roy was sure that Grimms was smiling.
"That's what I like to hear." replied Grimms, cheerily, as he stepped out the door. Roy looked at his body, shrugged, and walked out the door. The light was blinding, and after that, things got hazy for a while.