Damien’s eyes popped open. The man with mismatched eyes stood over his head and looked down at him.
“Well?” Thanatos asked.
“I tried.”
“What does that mean?”
Damien sighed. “It means that it’s in Eros’s hands now.”
“Great! They are both going to Tartarus, then!” Thanatos moved down the slab towards his feet. Damien couldn’t lift up enough to see him, so resigned to looking at the dark ceiling.
“He can handle it,” Damien reassured.
“Frankly, you don’t know him.”
Damien gave the ceiling an indignant look. “Um, I know what he’s been through. And I think that makes him stronger, whereas you think that makes him fragile.”
“You know what he’s been through? He’s already been to Tartarus! You have no idea. Yes, he’s fragile! We destroyed him in there!”
“You lobbied to get him out…”
Thanatos snapped to attention. “Who told you that?”
“No one. I just figured...” he lied.
He could hear Death’s breath, snarling, growling from in his throat as he strolled back into Damien’s line of sight.
“You just figured… Did you find out what you are while you were in there? Do you remember?”
Damien pulled tight his eyes and shook his head, not as an answer, but as to fight back the still-surfacing memories.
But, Death had taken it as an answer. “Hmm, that’s too bad. But you did try. And I am a man of my word. I won’t continue to torture you. I’ll set you free…”
Damien didn’t like the way he was saying these words.
“...with the knowledge of what you are.” Death smirked. “I’d like to help you through a psychological lens. And the electroshock therapy you suggested was working so well. We were making such great progress. So, let’s keep at it, shall we?” Death once again stabbed his fingers into Damien’s scalp and into his mind.
“Fucking really?”
“Who are you?”
“Damien Warrick Parker.”
Zap.
“Who are you really?”
“I didn’t have a name!” Damien cried. “Or I couldn’t remember it. Or never knew it.”
“Who sent you?”
“What?”
Zap!
Damien growled. “No one!”
“What are you?”
Damien snorted and gave in. “I’m a- a Djinn.”
Zap!
Damien winced as he caught a whiff of charring skin, “It’s true! I think.”
Thanatos chuckled, “No. Even Djinn have an expiration date, and you don’t.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, man-”
“I know what you are.”
“You do?” Damien guffawed, “Then, what the fuck? Do you mind sharing?”
Thanatos got right up in Damien’s ear and hissed, “I just want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say how long you’ve been hiding, and who’s been helping you do it. I want you to tell me what your heritage is-”
“My heritage?”
“What paradigm you are from. From what or whom did you originate?”
“I don’t know!”
Zap.
“Lying is counterproductive to your recovery…” Thanatos pulled fried bits of scalp and crispy hair away from Damien’s temple. “I need to know. It is important to the balance of things. If there is a way around the Fates’ scope of power, I need to know!”
Damien scoffed under his breath, “So much for the hard way.”
Death flicked the fried skin and hair to the floor. It made a squishy, ploppy noise as it landed bloody side down. “The hard way would require both of us to cooperate, and you are refusing to participate. I’ll let you think on this for a minute while I try to collect myself.” Thanatos took a few steps away.
“This is seriously fucked up!” Damien thrashed against his restraints. He tried to focus his magick on breaking them open again, but it wasn’t working.
Death took a few more calming breaths, then reached up and pulled the light chain that hung in the center of the basement. The incandescent bulb clinked off. He ascended the creaky wooden stairs and closed the basement door behind him.
He turned the skeleton key in the lock, which activated all the magick blocks encircling the basement.
Thanatos took two steps away from the door into the kitchen, and he stopped. He was still for a moment, very still.
A surge rose up from his core, and he swiped everything off the nearby counter, sending china cups and dishes shattering across the marble floor. He swiped the other way and the silverware flew at the wall, bouncing off and scattering across the kitchen. Then he lifted his knee and sent the heel of his dress shoe into the glass door of the oven, leaving a giant splintering hole, before throwing himself onto the kitchen island. His face, hidden in his arms, his breath wracked his entire body. His hands closed into fists.
There was nothing he could do. Loki and Eros were gone. He didn’t try hard enough. They probably even thought he had planned it that way. Neither of them had even believed he had been working on a plan- a pathetic, worthless plan.
He destroyed everything he touched.
He would inevitably destroy that kid.
Not a kid. A god.
And as always, Thanatos would do what he had to do, and be the carnivorous monster the universe needed him to be. That’s all that he was capable of being, even when he tried to do the right thing.
With great effort, he brought himself upright. His body had wanted to just lie there ’till the world ended, but his mind told him a stiff drink would fix that. He pushed through the double doors into the dining hall, and he cut down the passageway to the study where his scotch awaited him.
Painting or playing his violin would make him feel better, but he didn’t want to feel better. He wanted his grief to poison him.
***
Eros wanted his grief to fuel him into a fury of molten heat and effulgent light, but instead he slipped down the stairs in quiet rage.
He wanted to see some physical sign of his distress in himself, but his fingers didn’t even quiver. He was still. The fire was hiding inside, and he felt betrayed by this. He was taking action to no longer keep himself locked away, yet locked away he remained.
He was going to let Loki, and that kid, and himself down- everyone down. Because, he didn’t have what it took to rise up.
Eros couldn’t bring forth the emotion he felt searing inside. He’d do what he always did. He’d give the Fates what they wanted, and then crawl away to some party to lick his wounds, and to fuck the feelings away.
When he stepped through the door of the town home, he didn’t step out into the street but back into the Fates’ realm.
Loki was still unconscious in the dust, but he was starting to stir and the Fates stood around him.
Eros took the bowl out from under his arm. He walked forward, screaming inside, as he set the bowl in the dust and stepped back.
The Fates let out a small gasp, which resulted in Eros letting out a light chuckle. It was just a bowl, a foul punch bowl. He wasn’t afraid of it anymore. There were far more real and terrifying things to fear, like losing a lover or a son, losing sense of self, or losing one’s mind.
After a moment, the Fates all grinned simultaneously. Their foul punch bowl had returned, and they could keep it locked away, never again to be found.
Atropos made a small move forward, and gave Loki’s reddish-blond strand of hair to Eros.
“I’d check to see if it’s the real thing,” Eros said, pocketing the strand. “Con artists are quite good at making fakes now-a-days, replicas that fool even the best authenticators. Loki and I had no way to really verify it.”
The Fates all exchanged a glance with their empty eyes, and in that moment Eros strode to Loki and tried to lift the giant’s arm up around his shoulders. He let out a small oomph, as he failed to do this. The giant was far too heavy for him to even partially lift.
“You bleeding giant! Wake up! I can’t lift you!” He groaned as he attempted to hoist him up again, but fell hard into the dirt.
The Fates began to sing their dreary, haunting tune to the bowl. Eros looked over at them with fear in his eyes as the bowl began to glow, and tendrils of mist began to slip over the edge.
Now was the time to act, but he couldn’t leave without Loki, and the Fates could use that bowl to make room in Tartarus for both of them if they had a mind to, or better yet, delete them both from existence.
His heart began to race.
He could slap Loki to wake him up, but he was sure that would do more damage to his own hand than the trickster’s iron jaw. So he did the only thing he could think to do.
He kissed him.
And he breathed pink smoke into Loki’s mouth, and filled his lungs with the burning desire to wake up.
Gasping in twisting, rose-colored starlight, Loki let out a small cough and a wheeze as his eyelids shot open. For a moment, he still saw a spinning rosette nebula before him, but then the glitter and clouds evaporated and only Eros remained.
“Loki, I need you to stand,” Eros said in desperation.
Loki nodded, still unsure of his surroundings, but trusting Eros. He tried to make sense of his limbs and get them under him to stand. He was as shaky as a newborn foal with eight different legs to figure out.
Eros’s hands were on the giant, trying to help, but his eyes were now fixed on the Fates, who had no idea they were being filled with desire. Eros directed all of his concentration, his will, his desire, on them. The gray wisps of smoke trailing from the bowl’s center now had shocks of electric pink splintering through them.
Desire is a sneaky thing. It works its way into your heart and brain, until suddenly, it consumes your entire being… like a parasite.
And the three sisters were filled with a desire to change Fate, to change their plan, to let Eros and Loki leave unharmed with the bowl, and to blow themselves up with nebulous light. They desired to render themselves useless and to never again use their powers, their twisting yarn, to pull the strings of either of them.
That was the Fate they desired the bowl to manifest.
When it comes to magick, intent is everything.
The smoke from the bowl became a looming, glowing, rose-colored cloud of electric storm and stardust. It was twisting and roaring like a hurricane, and then the tempest exploded, knocking the already unsteady giant to the ground, and sending the Fates hurtling towards the crumbling horizon.
But, Eros stood his ground. Then, he put one foot after the other as he pushed into the tumultuous storm, Desire and Fate battling like Titans for dominance. He was whipped with dust and pebbles as sharp as blades from the gale’s voracity.
Eros reached his arms out against the savage wind and pulled the bowl from the epicenter of the clouds. The bowl was heavy with magick, its gravity intensified.
With the storm still circling, he put a hand on Loki’s shoulder and using his own power, his own will, he desired them both home.
Impressive writing. You did amazing work. How do you get the inspiration?