Death loathed the smell of peanut butter. 

It wasn't that it possessed a stench, per se--it certainly had nothing on some of the cheeses he'd seen people slap on their hoagies in this place--but it was such a [i]distinctive[/i] odor. Really stuck in your memory. You smelled peanut butter, and you could practically feel it clinging to the roof of your mouth. 

Or, in Death's case, you smelled peanut butter and you could probably see that infernal Brooke Johnston hanging around, stubbornly clinging to a life she had to right to.

Death sniffed. 

There she was, sure as day. Sitting in the corner booth of the grocery store deli, scrolling through her InstaSnapWhatever feed and eating her dumb lunch like she wasn't supposed to have died five years ago. 

[i]God,[/i] that was an obscene amount of peanut butter. 

Death frowned down at the perfectly good pimento cheese sandwich perched innocently on his plate. Ruined, now--all thanks to the overdue sack of bones stinking up the place with her peanut butter and breathing. The [i]nerve.[/i]

He should've known he would run into her today. It never failed--whenever he had a mass pickup scheduled (today it was a factory fire at a manufacturing plant, really nasty stuff), Fate would inevitably plop Brooke Johnston in his lap, a reminder of his one true failure. 

Well [i]fine.[/i] If that's how the universe wanted to play, so be it. 

Death took a bite of his sandwich, shoved the rest of it into the bottomless pockets of his Eternal Cloak of Despair, and followed the infernal Miss Johnston out of the deli. 



[i]How to collect, how to collect.[/i] 

He couldn't very well get her by automobile--he'd seen how well [i]that[/i] worked out the first time. And there were too many people in the grocery store with time left in their tickers, a fire wouldn't work either. 

Death shuddered. Fires sucked. Reminded him too much of the office. He'd take field assignments over processing condemned souls in the depths of Tartarus any century. 

Hmm. A burst appendix wasn't the guarantee it was four hundred years ago, and cancers were too slow moving. Not as many infectious diseases to play with anymore, either. 

Damned hygienists. 

Death grabbed a package of pretzels and stepped into the girl's checkout line, eyeballing her in the hopes that she would spontaneously combust. No such luck; she merely asked him for his Publix rewards card after scanning his bag. 

Death grit his teeth.



Brooke Johnston was immune to lightning.

She couldn't choke. Tripping, falling down three flights of stairs, and concussing herself against a curb didn't slow her down. 

Arranging the due dates of all of her major tests and essays so that they fell on the same day had no effect whatsoever. No panic attacks, no signs of stress, nuffin.

Death even gave her a fatal peanut allergy, for crying out loud, and she [i]still[/i] finished her blasted sandwich and meandered on back to class.

He tried and he tried, but Death could not kill Brooke Johnston. 

Pimento cheese now reminded him too much of peanut butter.



At long last, Death snapped. He barged up to her apartment and banged on the door, throwing company noncontact policies to the wind. He struggled to restrain himself from screaming into her stupid immortal face when she opened it. 

He did, however, draw himself up to his full height, pull his Cloak of Eternal Despair from the shadows, and inject his voice with the Tortured Mewlings of Condemned Souls as he thundered, "[b]Brooke Johnston, your time is up. I am here for your immortal soul[/b]."

Brooke Johnston merely blinked at him. "I already paid in full."

It was Death's turn to blink in confusion. "What?" 

"Yeah." She folded her arms. "I finished my payment plan back in undergrad. You guys said it would cover the next fifty years. It was a back-to-school special, I think."

"You... You [i]sold your soul?[/i] To who? [i]Satan?[/i]"

She raised a brow. "Well, yeah. He was the only one buying. How else was I going to get through college?"

Death stared at her. He stared at her for a very long time.

Eventually, she shifted uncomfortably. "Look, if you don't mind, I'm trying to eat lunch--"

Death turned on his heels and stormed off to Hell. It was time to have a very long, very angry conversation with Satan's demons about inter-department communication. 

And also to see about increasing the prevalence of peanut allergies in the population.