Work Text
Happy whatever
The apartment was immersed in almost complete darkness although it was
daytime. It was not a choice of style. The shutter had broken the night
before and he was too busy to drown his thoughts under the tides of alcohol
to worry about broken shutters.
He grunted, raising his head from the carpet. What the hell was on fire? He
shook his head. Almost probably him. The view dimmed slightly on the edges
of the objects.
His body consumed intoxication at a surprising speed, but yesterday had
given its resources. He squeezed his eyes to see the clock hands in the
semi-darkness.
5.
a.m. or p.m. that they were, he had almost certainly missed the goal of
spending his birthday in a state of unconsciousness.
He turned his head, looking at the bottles nearby. Empty. The last one had
to be emptied on the carpet while he slept. Or maybe he had emptied it on
the carpet the day before, who remember it?
He stood up with difficulty. He needed water. It did not matter at the time
if it was the water of a shower or the one of a glass. The foot bumped
against the corner and the man lurched onto the bedside table. Unpleasant
feeling, but if he were human he would be screaming like a madman. He
glanced at the bottles scattered around the room. If he were human he would
not have hit a bedside table when he got up, probably he would not got up
at all.
He shrugged, reaching the bathroom. Even that room was in the dim light,
the window overlooked a wall, too high and too close to allow light to make
its way into the alley, let alone enter the small window. He opened the
shower water, freeing himself of his clothes with a gesture and slinging
himself under his stream. Had he been a human, he would have been annoyed
from the too cold water.
No, wait. If he were human, he would still be on the floor, probably killed
by too much alcohol. No bedside table, no water. Quite right.
He rubbed his body and hair with soap, regretting that he had got up. He
caressed the symbol on his chest thoughtfully. No change seemed. His father
must have gotten tired of coming toannoy him on his birthday. Or maybe,
this year he would have given him an apocalypse as a present. He stepped
out of the shower. Maybe it had rained blood that day but he could not
know, since, fuck, he was too busy to bask in melancholy.
He looked out. No blood. If he could keep making the world go round even
today, it would have been easier tomorrow. He squeezed his hair with a
towel as the hunger began to make itself felt. He could call a take-away.
He went out, looking for the phone, finding it on the ground, burned.
Here was that smell. He glanced at the wall phone. Hanging up the damn wire
could allow him to call a restaurant, but also would lend himself to
receiving calls from anyone. And listen to the answering machine.
There were specific reasons why he did not listen to the answering machine
on his birthday. But. There was always a "but". Indeed, maybe. Maybe
someone needed help. Maybe Patsy could call. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
He gritted his teeth. The turning of the head had passed, so much was it
worth going out and facing the world. . . he glanced at the pizza carton on
the table. Maybe there was something left. He approached the table, then
jumped at an unpleasant noise that surprised him.
Ah yes. The bell. Who the fuck was sounding at this time. And at his house
then? What time was it? He opened the door ready to make anyone repent the
action of just being near his door, figure ringing the bell, but he quickly
had to regain his enthusiasm.
Jericho looked at him in confusion: "Did I interrupt something?" Daimon
snorted. The best thing was to say yes and close the door, but Jericho
seemed to have a box of sweets in his hands. And he was hungry. "Those are
for me?" He asked, pointing to the box "What is this smell of burning?"
Asked the other ". . "Not a corpse," Daimon muttered, earning a dirty look.
"Are you going to invite me to come in?" Daimon glanced behind him. No, he
did not think so. "No, I'm naked," he said seriously. Jericho inhaled
deeply, probably regretting that he had gone all that way to get there to
see him when he could limit himself to a "happy birthday" on whatsapp, but
contrary to what he envisioned, he did not retreat. "I see that you are
naked, anyone who walks into this landing at the moment can see that you're
naked, heck, even those of the building next door if they look out the
window," he noted with a veil of irritation.
Daimon retired to the room, defeated. Fighting would have meant talking,
inside the house there was hope that Jericho would be swallowed by some
entity hidden in disorder.
"I'm afraid you have line problems," murmured Jericho behind him, probably
noticing the cell phone on the ground. He did not answer, merely grabbing a
pair of underwear from the dresser. "So, those are for me or were they just
a shrewd trap to come and annoy me?" He asked annoyed. Jericho placed the
box on the nearest stack of books: "Happy Birthday".
Daimon wrinkled his nose: "When ever?" He mumbled, seizing the box and
leaning on the back of the sofa. He took one of the cupcakes from the box
and eat half of it with a bite. Well, now he was almost ready for every
bullshit that the other could say.
The last time they saw each other, they had left the subject halfway down:
"Daimon, you can not kill random copies of yourself", "Daimon, you can not
reabsorb parts of yourself, it's not healthy", "Daimon, you know, seeing a
psychoanalyst would do you good "and so on. Sure. Seeing a psychoanalyst
would have hurt the aforementioned. His thoughts were interrupted by
Jericho's voice, who finally decided to make his move:
"So, how's life?"
Daimon looked at him with a dull expression. It was too early for the
occasional chatter. At least, it was for him. The apartment itself was
somewhat explanatory of its state of health. A throw-on without the
possibility of reordering.
If those books had not been so old and rare, he would probably have fired
up the apartment and rented another.
After the bomb, after his clones, he felt like a fucking mosaic fallen to
the ground after an earthquake. All those colored pieces that were first
making the drawing were now scattered on the ground, broken, full of dust
and senseless.
It was an all too poetic way to describe the situation. Even before falling
to the ground the mosaic was too abstract to be understood. He did not like
feeling like that, and he was too tired to hold a - I told you -.
He finished the cupcake, licking his fingers. "Wonderfully," he replied. He
did not bother to show a false smile. Jericho was too awake to fall for it
and too kind to pretend nothing happened. If that could be called kindness.
From the moment he showed up at the door, he was fucked.
He mentally begged his father to hurry up and make his move. He could blow
up one of the seven seals maybe.
Jericho crossed his arms without saying anything. Ah, if he expected
silence to let him talk, he was out of the way. He had grown up in a
monastery. Silence was sacred. "I could not let the clones go around on
their own, you don’t know the damage they had done," he mumbled.
Fuck. Jericho did not let any victorious expression shine through, merely
approaching the table and freeing a chair from the narrow fingers of his
mess, and then sitting down on it. "We often find ourselves making
difficult decisions in this work, sometimes what seems right in a situation
may not be completely shared by our own similar. Despite our differences, I
still wanted to give you my support, Daimon. I know you're a good man and a
great ally, and I do not think I'm wrong to say that. "
Daimon did not reply to those words. Part of the reason he liked being with
Jericho was his attitude to others. Being told those words by an esteemed
person made him feel better, more confident towards others. Naturally, the
effect with him was short-lived.
He bit another cupcake, finally managing to distinguish the taste. They
were good. Counting that his father would have given him at best times a
headache and his sister a t-shirt with an ironic writing thinking it was
funny, probably that was the best present he would receive this year.
Perhaps it was better to keep some for the next day, so as to properly
celebrate the end of that horrible day. "Thanks then," he murmured. He was
annoyed by the situation. He did not know how to behave in case of guests
not exactly desired but not annoying. It was as if he had gathered all the
good hopes and manners accumulated throughout his life in a box, which had
probably been lost.
To tell the truth, of course not out loud, that box did not belong to him
either. They were the remains of "Patsy" who had remained attached, like
the passion for melodramas on TV and walking in the garden. Of course, when
she was there, those things had a different meaning, or rather, they made
some sense.
"Can I offer you tea?" He hoped he would say no. He had no tea. Why had he
proposed it?
Jericho pretended not to see his discomfort, shaking his head: "So, what
are you going to do today?" He asked quietly, as if he were talking about
normal things. He did not wait for an answer: "You know, I need help with
re-inventorying books, separating magic from exorcism and psychosis from
novels could help me get better prepared for attacks of any kind."
Daimon contracted his lips . Spend hours and hours resigning piles of old
books in the company of Jericho? "I need a coffee," he murmured. A favor
was always a favor. And the library of a former supreme sorcerer could be
nothing short of interesting. "I'll give it to you when we get there,"
granted Jericho standing up. Daimon stood a few seconds still, the card of
the last cupcake in his hand. He crumpled it, causing it to fade and took
another, stuffing it into his mouth, while he was looking for the trousers
he remembered, they had to be. . . there. Great.
"I also have some food. . .decent food at home "The gaze of Jericho had
lingered on the half-empty box of pizza on the table a moment too long to
go unnoticed. Daimon slipped on his pants. "I have decent food too," he
retorted.
It was not true. But he preferred a lie to the assertive silence. He closed
the cupcake box with the faint hope of finding it intact once he returned.
The phone on the floor, the same telephone reduced to an almost
unrecognizable heap of burnt plastic, glass and circuits, rang on the notes
of "Devil inside".
Jericho looked at him doubtfully "Ignore him, he always does that". Daimon
almost carried Jericho out the door, closing it behind him. The ringtone
could still be heard distinctly. He did not stop on the landing, preferring
simply to use magic to transport himself and Jericho to the other's
apartment.
"Daimon. . ."He began, he did not let him finish:" My father is Satan. As
far as I am concerned he can tolerate an unanswered call " he omitted the
fact that the call was probably a tip. He omitted that there were probably
lives at stake. Rightly.
Those lives were already lost since his father called him. He was tired of
spending his birthdays seeing souls burn before his eyes. If he did not
attend, maybe they would suffer less. If he did not answer, maybe his
father would stop shaking before his eyes his need to stand on the side of
human beings only to bum him. If he helped Jericho, he could save those
souls later, while his father was distracted in his tricks, and maybe he
could even use some new trick at his disposal. If he avoided thinking about
it, maybe he could even sleep at night.
For some time now he had made his mind inaccessible to anyone. There had
been problems anyway, but he no longer suffered of family invasions.
Jericho's apartment was clean and tidy, only the books were piled up near
the library, almost empty. "And those are not all," the other muttered.
"Coffee was another of your smart ideas to keep me good?" It was Jericho's
turn to snort.
A coffee later he still struggled to concentrate on the book that he had at
hand, so he just watched the pages turn without being able to conclude
anything. He was only on the third book and half an hour had passed.
Jericho pile did not seem to go any faster than his did, so it was not a
worry right now. While he was re-reading the page for maybe the third time
trying to figure out where to place the book, his mind wandered over the
phone if it was ringing on the floor, at his apartment, at the people who
might have involved his father this time and so on and on.
The idea of going away from that room and throwing himself back on alcohol,
however, did not appeal to him much. He put the book down on the ground,
forming a new pile "That goes with the others behind you," Jericho snapped,
nodding his head to the pile.
Daimon took the book in his hand: "Would youi please you give it to me?” He
asked after a few seconds of doubt. Jericho did not even look up: "When you
brought back the book I gave you I'll think about it".
He frowned. Which book? "I'm pretty reliable with the loans," he protested
weakly. "Oh, really? How long have you given the money back to Strange?”
asked Jericho innocently.
He had not returned them, he was carefully avoiding that too. "After a
while," he lied. Jericho snorted with amusement: "Bring back the book of
the chakras and I'll give you what you want," he murmured, taking a new
book from the pile. Book of the chackra? "That was not me," he settled,
shrugging.
Probably some of his copies must have done it. "You're lucky, that means
you will not have to look in your apartment: it shrinks the field a lot,"
the other said. Daimon did not answer . He would have to look into the
memories of the copies he had reabsorbed, but that meant other headaches
and personality crises and memories he did not know where to place.
However, he would not have done it in front of Jericho . Although he had
made the contrary, he was sure that that -You’ve been warned by me- was
just waiting for the chance to come out from his good intentions. He placed
the book with the spells of the prehistoric period on the pile behind him
sadly, and then took another in his hand. - Eat, pray and love-. He
snorted. Magical rites or romance? He opened the book at random. The second
one. He put it on a new pile to his right.
"This period is calmer than usual in our industry," Jericho began after a
pause. Daimon shrugged. For him everything was the same, bills,
possessions, infernal lords who slowly move their gears to get closer and
closer to the moment when they stretch their hands on the phisical plane. .
. .
It was in moments like these, when all the other wizards felt happy and
safe to picnic, that he and his sister on the other floor were busier.
Wasters, wars, alliances were born and wither, if you were not in step you
could lose your place, and even if it was unpleasant as place, for someone
like him the hell was something like a house where he could return to take
off the forced smile he had worn on the earth and enjoy the shouts of the
damned.
Even if Jericho was open minded, it was better not to reveal his thoughts.
He answered with an affirmative nod and a change of subject. Jericho had to
deflect the attention from him, and the best way to change the subject from
a person and make sure that the other would not return to it was make
people talking about themselves. With Stephen it was extremely easy. With
Jericho not so much. "I saw that you wore again the superhero suit," he
noted jokingly.
The Avengers . He had entered the Avengers . Daimon let out a small mocking
smile. "You just say that because you're not invited" Jericho put two more
books near him. "I have better things to do than to act like an aspiring
boy scout around," he mumbled annoyed.
With the corner of his eye, he saw the other man's lips tighten at his
words without replying."Today is a bad day, I am usually very busy" he
explained himself, his voice a little more annoyed than he wanted to show.
"The day of your birthday is not a good day?" repeated Jericho, a surprised
expression on his face.
Ah. "When I said no you have your psychoanalyst friends, you were included
in the package" he warned seriously, his body tense, he did not even know
why. He folded his arms in front of him, although he knew that this was
like a declaration that he was too weak to face such a speech. Not today.
"I did not want to make you uncomfortable" Jericho said, taking another
book in his hands "I just wanted to say that if you want, or need it, you
can talk, I’ll listen" he paused, and then went on to clarify: "As a
friend, in short, and you cannot refuse the friendship package ". Daimon
twisted his nose at those words. Curse. "All of this looks like a trap" "It
would be if now I launch a spell of imprisonment and Strange enter the door
asking for the money I know you still owe him."
Daimon smiled at those words: "Worse for him, I have no money in my pocket
at the moment," he muttered "We'll have to postpone the ambush then" the
other returned the smile, standing up "Too bad, I had to delay an
appointment with Wanda for nothing " Jericho approached another stack to
himself.
You could have knocked me over with a feather! "Now I'm almost absolutely
certain that you're fucking with me" Jericho did not answer, still smiling.
Daimon shook his head amused. Taking another book. He would need to rob
Jericho one of these days. Ther was too many beautiful book taking dust in
the library. He tried to put it in front of him again. “After you have
returned what you’ve taken before, Daimon” asserted Jericho again. “Oh, by
the Hades Chimes” he muttered, putting the book with the others.
---- --- --- ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ----- ----- ------ ---
For the first time in a long time there was no problem getting up in the
morning after his birthday, and no, not because he had to quickly evaporate
from a quickie: the bed was empty , and it did not create the slightest
problem at the moment.
He arrived in the kitchen in relative good humor, grabbing another cupcake
from the box that Jericho had given him the day before. For a moment he
hesitated to reactivate the spare phone immediately, to enjoy the feeling
of serenity as much as possible before knowing how much it had cost the
world. He finished the cupcake , licking his fingers.
He had to convince Jericho to tell him where he had taken that sweets. He
tapped the table with his fingers, the phone not far from his hand.
Postponing to later could ruin a day that could be. . passable, yes.
He pushed the power button, until it vibrated. He waited impatiently for
the screen to become from only luminous to the background that he had. 7
calls missed by Satana. He grimaced.
What the hell did she want? Maybe a thank you for not giving him as present
a t-shirt with the words "I love NY" or something like that. He immediately
went into her sister's messages, which tended to be more vital or
unpleasant than the "happy birthday" that acquaintances and friends had
accumulated in the memory of his cell phone.
The message consisted of a picture of Satan with his thumb up and a
dazzling smile on his face. Behind her, demonic troops, Jennifer e. . . was
Johnny that? He was stunned for a moment, trying to rework the information.
Under just an inscription: "Happy Birthday Bro ".
He smiled in spite of himself, taking the phone in hands to answer. There
were moments when the desire to embrace her came back strong, perhaps
remnants of when they were almost normal children. This was one of those
moments, but giving her a written confirmation of the thing was to give her
too much rope, and knowing each other, probably one of them would end up
hanged themself with it. He stood still, running his gaze from the photo to
the writing and vice versa. He took another cupcake . "Whatever" he wrote.
Without a doubt, that was the best birthday he had.