Damien had cleaned the table and cleaned the kitchen. He had checked his closet, but the portal to Dream was closed until nightfall. Resorting to wandering the halls, he opened every door that wasn’t locked to see what was inside. He found an office, a jungle, an ocean, a giant chess board, a few spare bedrooms, and a sauna. And Damien realized how alike his father and uncle were. When you opened a door in Dream, there was no telling what would be on the other side.

He had spent every night of the last two weeks hanging out with Hypnos, and he was quite proud of himself for getting away with it. It was easy enough to do with Thanatos’s rigid schedule, making him predictable down to the second. The trickiest part was making sure they weren’t doing anything which might upset the balance of things. It took a bit of pondering to figure out the solution, but then the answer came quickly enough to Hypnos, who had spent his eternity avoiding his brother whenever possible. Dream Parties were ragers, and Thanatos avoided fun like the opposite of the plague.

And as long as Damien avoided glitter, popped a hangover pill, and was back in bed by 3:00 a.m., Thanatos was none the wiser.

When Thanatos returned home that evening, he slammed the front door behind him. He headed straight to the study to grab a scotch, and Damien tiptoed down the stairs to find him. He crept along the wall and peered into the study to see Thanatos standing and drinking before the fire. The door slam sounded angry, but he seemed placid enough now with a drink in hand. Damien took a breath and stepped into the door frame. He cleared his throat and startled Death a bit, but not enough to turn him around. “You okay?” Damien asked.

Death said outright. “I threatened to kill Loki this afternoon.”

“Oh.” Damien inched closer. “That’s uh... big words coming from Death.”

“Yes, they are.”

“And Loki’s your friend... The only one you have.”

“If in my shoes, he would have done the same,” Thanatos said.

Damien pressed his lips together. “But, he’s not in your shoes. You’re Death. And you don’t make threats.”

“I don’t make friends either,” he added as a joke, but the joke fell flat, even for him. “I get what you’re trying to do, but, frankly, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Damien tried to hide the knowing and patronizing look creeping across his face, “Really? Because it sounds to me like-”

“I’ll meet you in the training room.” He cut Damien off. “Five minutes.”

It hurt Damien more than he’d care to admit. He had just been commanded to shut up without the exact words, but the same tone and body language that came when someone decided his opinion was invalid and he was speaking out of turn. His eyes fell to the floor. “Yes, sir.” He swallowed before turning and heading toward the stairs.

As he ascended the stairs he began fuming. Damien thought, obviously, Thanatos didn’t want to kill Loki. Obviously, he felt guilty about his death threat. Obviously, Thanatos knew Loki wouldn’t have done the same, and if he had threatened the same thing, it wouldn’t mean the same thing. Obviously, Thanatos regretted and resented his words to Loki, but obviously Thanatos didn’t want to acknowledge that, “so of course, I have nooo idea what I’m talking about,” Damien scoffed at a Thanatos who wasn’t there.

Damien sat in the vast training room. The room was padded from floor to ceiling, except the mirrored wall and the wall that housed the weapons. He sat on the floor in the dark, wondering why he had even opened his mouth. He knew people only wanted to hear their own opinions reverberated out of other people’s mouths. And he had believed he and Thanatos had bonded. He scoffed.

How cute that you thought he cared about what you had to say? His own inner voice turned into the voice of the Darkness. Did you honestly forget that he is just another master?

Damien closed his eyes and focused on the sound of his breath until the light clicked on.

Death was standing in the doorway. “You shouldn’t sit alone in the dark.”

Damien smiled and thought in his own inner voice, You shouldn’t drink alone in the study, but we all have our vices.

Damien stood, and Death said, “Let’s warm up.” Thanatos valued this time with his son. He viewed it as a time for Damien to burn off excess energy. A time where he could give his son tools to control and focus his mind. Martial arts practices not only put emphasis on physical control, but also internal balance- philosophy, meditation, and yoga. Thanatos thought of no better way to teach Damien that his body and his mind were his own.

Damien knew fighting systems. He had been wished to fight as a source of entertainment, or for demonstrations of power, by the possessors of his Jinni vessel. But, he hadn’t been in control then. The knowledge of the arts was not the same as the practice of the arts. They took mental and physical discipline, so despite his know-how, it was something Damien struggled with. He had his bad leg to hold him back. Despite this, a match would start off well, but would quickly falter when Damien realized it was his will and not someone else’s fueling his movements.

Thanatos also noticed, though, that at times it seemed Damien liked the physical pain of losing more than the mental stimulation of mastering a new move. He also held back when he had the advantage. He never let Thanatos lose. Thanatos didn’t like the idea of someone letting him win, so he had a lesson prepared that should kill a few birds with one stone.

He allowed Damien’s front snap kick to connect with his right knee, and he dropped.

Damien froze and just stared at him.

“Well?” Thanatos looked up at Damien. “Now, what do you do?”

Damien dropped his stance. “Knock your lights out?” he said as a joke between breaths.

“Do it.”

As a reflex, Damien did as commanded and side-kicked him across the head. The blow toppled Death over, but he remained conscious.

"Shit!I- That was a reflex. I-”

“Again.”

“What?”

Thanatos lifted his head, and thick, coagulating, blackish-brown blood dripped from his lip. Propped up on one elbow, Thanatos said, “Again.”

Damien hesitated and reluctantly brought the heel of his bad leg down over Thanatos’s temple. It had much less power behind it than the last two kicks, but Damien had meant it to.

Nonetheless, Thanatos growled and groaned off the searing pain splitting his vision. “Again.”

Damien laughed. “You can’t be-”

“Again.”

“Sir, I-”

“Again.”

Thanatos could see Damien’s fire lighting up behind his gaze.

As he had been commanded, Damien kicked Thanatos under his chin.

Death’s head jerked backwards, and he righted himself into a sitting position with a crack. Dizzy, he brought himself to his feet. He wiped the blackish-brown ooze off his chin, and met the burning look in Damien’s eyes with authority and control. “Again.”

Damien stepped up to him and raised his chin defiantly. “No.”

“Good.” Thanatos said. He gave the frustrated Damien a concluding nod. ” Here endeth the lesson.” Pain throbbing across his body, he teetered out of the training room.

Damien stood there, remembering for a moment. “Did you just quote The Untouchables?” Damien asked.

“No. It’s the closing to old Christian sermons.” Thanatos left Damien there with his thoughts.

***

For the rest of the evening, Thanatos did not see Damien, which was not unusual after lessons, but his double-booked day made everything feel out-of-sync. Training had been at the usual time, but he felt guilty for having missed dinner with his son. He knew it was important to keep Damien on a predictable schedule to help him adjust to life, and he knew he had to be regular and predictable so Damien would see him as a constant, reliable presence. He and Damien had been doing so well, he didn’t want to backslide. Perhaps he should apologize for missing dinner, as he would apologize to any client for needing to cancel a regular appointment.

Thanatos strolled up the stairs past the library. He didn’t want to be conspicuous. Finding the library empty, he backtracked to Damien’s room, which was also not occupied, so he checked the training room. Then, he checked the jungle room and the ocean room and all the other rooms until he found himself back in Damien’s empty bedroom.

Torn between concern and anger, he sat down on the bed. He tried to meditate and focus on his breath. He considered what he was planning to say to Damien once he returned. He was running out of ways to express how important it was for Damien to stay safe and to stay home, and to follow a routine. Thanatos took another breath and thought that he was the worst person the universe could have picked to be a father. A father to a twenty-some-odd-thousand-year-old Jinni-god born of Sekhmet and Death.

He growled at himself for his insufficiencies and took up the stupid stuffed teddy bear he gifted his fully-grown son with PTSD. But, the bear rattled as he turned it over in his hands. He lifted it to his ear and gave it a shake. It rattled again, like it had beans inside. He turned it over and found Velcro in the seam, which had not been there when he purchased the bear, and he tore it open with anxious fingers. Upon inspection, he found an orange prescription bottle which read:

Hangover Pills. Prescribed by Dr. Sleep for Damien “Fucking” Parker.

Use- Completely relieves all headaches, muscular pain, nausea, light sensitivity, liver-damage, and any other drinking or drug-related symptoms. Take one capsule per bender.

Warning- Doesn’t fix alcohol or drug-induced blackouts, or anything you might have said or done while intoxicated. Use as directed.

Thanatos took another breath and waited.

Just after 3:00 a.m., the nightlight by the bed flickered moments before Damien came stumbling from the closet. The bright strobing lights and music from behind the clothes illuminated the room for a brief moment before Damien carefully closed the door.

“Good morning, Damien Fucking Parker.”

Damien turned and grinned sheepishly at the dark figure sitting on his bed. He stood erect and tried to act sober. He readjusted his stance, cleared his throat, and gave an overtly articulate, “What’s up?” He knew he was done for.

“I hope you slept well... in the closet, because we have an early day today.”

Damien leaned against the nearest thing he could find, which was a dresser a few feet away, but it looked closer than it actually was. He stumbled into it. “Oh, great...”

“First, you are going to sober up with a cold shower. Then, you are going to eat breakfast. Then, you are going to scrub the entire mansion with a tooth brush until it glistens.”

Thanatos stood as his anger rose, but Damien only nodded along, unimpressed. Of course, he had experienced far worse punishments in his past than mediocre scrubbing.

But all Thanatos could think of to up his game was, “Then, I will make you listen to the entire soundtrack to Oklahoma! in surround sound until I figure out what to do with you!”

Damien finally gave him a visceral reaction, “Ugh, not Oklahoma!"

Thanatos walked up to him and showed him the orange pill bottle. “And you won’t be getting one of Dr. Sleep’s magickal hangover cures.” Death lingered over him.

“Yeah. Okay.” Damien nodded and sniffed, accepting his punishment. “Sure thing.”

Death growled. "Sure thing?”

That was not a proper response, but Damien had been punished far worse for smaller offenses, like looking someone in the eye or even speaking at all.

“Go!” Death pointed at the door to Damien’s bathroom.

The sudden movement of his arm caused Damien to cower like a scolded dog. Damien did as he was told.

Death stormed from the room and ripped his cell phone out of his pocket. He called Loki, and kept calling and calling until he picked up.

Thanatos could hear the snarl in Loki’s voice, ”Hello?"

“Loki, I have a problem. I am at my wit’s end. I do not know what to do.”

“Here’s an idea, pour all your thoughts out into a strongly worded letter, and I’ll read it tomorrow! Thanatos, it’s late or early or really it’s all relative, but the point is, I was asleep!”

“Exactly! This is all Hypnos’s fault!”

Through the speaker came an exasperated, “Oh, good Lord...”

Death paced back and forth. “Damien came home from Dream not even ten minutes ago, drunk and high, after sneaking off with my fucking brother for- I don’t even know how long. And I gave that little shit coffee! I thought he was improving. He’s laughing at me! This is a big joke to him.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “If my words and actions mean nothing to him, and he obviously knows better than I do, then why doesn’t he just leave? If Mr. All-powerful-Djinn can be any age, any shape, anywhere, in any blasted universe, evidently he doesn’t need me. Why the bloody hell is he still here? When he can be free and spare us both the-”

Thanatos turned around to see Damien leaning against the doorframe to his room. His ankles were crossed and arms folded as if he had made himself comfortable there several minutes prior. He was smirking.

“I really don’t think this sort of rebellion is that personal. Don’t take it personally-” Loki’s voice fell away from Thanatos’s ear as he lowered the phone.

Damien nodded but didn’t say a thing as he slipped around the doorframe into the darkness of his room. Thanatos rushed after him, but it was too late. He was gone.

Loki was still rambling on, “-and trying to figure a lot of things out-”

“Loki, I have to go.” Death hung up.

“-you need to... Hello? Seriously? Why do I bother?”