How Does Madame Red And Grell’S Relationship Develop In Fanfiction?

Mostly through flashbacks and ghost scenes, in my experience. Since their direct interaction in canon is so brief and lethal, fanfiction has to build the 'relationship' from implications and aftermath. You get a lot of Grell hallucinating her during assignments, or having bitter, one-sided arguments with her memory while filing paperwork. The development is almost always internal—Grell's feelings cycling through rage, longing, and a perverse admiration for the brutality they suffered. It's less about a two-way relationship evolving and more about a fossil being examined from different angles. The tone can swing wildly from pathetic to chilling depending on the author's take.

Oh wow, talk about a dynamic that gets reinterpreted in a million ways. In a lot of fics, their relationship starts right where the canon left off—with that messy, obsessive rivalry, Grell's desperate infatuation and Madame Red's brutal, violent rejection. Some writers lean hard into the tragedy of it, framing Grell's later devotion as a form of twisted, unresolved grief, a ghost forever chasing the one person who saw their true self and still chose to destroy it. You'll find a whole subset of fics that are just Grell tending the grave, monologuing to a headstone, which is bleak but weirdly poetic for this fandom.

Other times, especially in alternate universe or fix-it scenarios, it gets softened. Maybe they meet earlier, before Francis becomes the Ripper, and Grell's flamboyance somehow anchors or humanizes her. I've even seen a few where Grell, in their own chaotic way, becomes a kind of guardian for the memory of 'Angelina,' separate from the 'Madame Red' persona, which is an interesting angle. The power imbalance is always there, though—one is literally immortal, the other very, very dead. That inherent impossibility is what fuels most of the stories, whether they're angsty or strangely tender.

Honestly, half the fics I've read use their dynamic as a backdrop for exploring Sebastian's reactions or William's annoyance, which feels a bit like a missed opportunity. The real meat is in the silence after the scream, you know?

Frankly, I think a lot of fanfic writers miss the mark by trying to romanticize it. Canon gave us something far more compelling: a deeply unhinged, one-sided fixation that ends in horrific violence. Grell doesn't love Madame Red; they're obsessed with the idea of a 'beautiful death' and she's the most magnificent canvas they've ever seen. And Madame Red? She uses Grell, toys with them, and then discards them in the most final way possible.

That's not a love story; it's a case study in mutual dysfunction. The best fics I've seen actually lean into that. They don't invent soft moments, but instead dig into the aftermath—how a being like Grell processes being murdered by their object of desire. Does it deepen the obsession? Does it curdle into something like hate? I read one where Grell starts collecting red-haired clients, not to mimic Sebastian, but trying to find a fragment of that same thrilling despair. That felt true to character. Turning it into some weepy, redemption-through-love arc just strips all the fascinating, ugly tension out of it.

Wish more writers had the guts to keep it as dark and weird as it was meant to be.