Damien awoke to the feeling of something large and slimy slithering up his throat, and then getting stuck right around his uvula. He wretched up and over the side of the bed, and then choked and coughed up a squishy giant slug. It took a couple of heaves to get the thing completely dislodged from his throat and mouth, but with a few more dry heaves, he was finally able to catch his breath, and his body collapsed back on the bed.
All three of his uncles made gagging faces at the sight of this slug finally plopping into the trash bin Loki had been holding by the side of the bed. Then, the smell hit them, and they all violently pulled back and tried very hard not to add to the vomit stains on the carpet.
“That’s fucking brutal!” Hypnos said, muffled by his hands covering his nose.
"What the fuck?” Loki screeched. “It’s still wriggling.”
“Loki!” Eros cried in disgust, “Don’t touch it! What is wrong with you?”
“It’s. Still. Wriggling!” He reiterated, this time in protest, while pulling his hand back from reaching into the bin.
“Let me see!” Hypnos peered over, and Loki handed him the waste basket so he could get a better look.
Damien, in the meantime, was looking at all three of them in annoyed confusion. He had a headache from hell and felt like death warmed over, and they were all screaming and fussing. “What’s going on?” Damien groaned.
Hypnos suddenly became calm. He took the bin and stood. “You want to know what we’re carrying on about? Yeah. Alright. How about this?”
He shoved the bin in Damien’s face so he could see the sickly black slug- fat and nearly a foot long with two little antennas and a forked tail. It was crawling up the side of the bin trying to escape. “Found it in your stomach!” Hypnos added. “How many times do I have to tell you, you only take the shit I give you! Can’t trust other people’s shit.”
“What is it exactly?” Eros asked. He was at the back of the room with his arms folded.
“A venomous parasite, that’s what!” Hypnos turned back to Damien, appalled. “And you ate it! Fucking metal, mate.” Dream walked away from the bed to try to quiet his stomach.
Loki, still squatting by the bed, sighed and rubbed his chin. He glanced up at Damien with a concerned look that appeared to Damien to be disappointment. Damien shrugged, and trying to justify himself said, “I’ve had worse?”
He received an audible groan from the room.
Damien threw out his hands. ”What?”
“I mean, I suppose that explains a few things,” Loki added, standing up.
Damien, again, just asked, “What?” as he looked around at them.
Eros added coldly, “You only know love as pain...”
Damien scoffed. “So?”
Another group sigh, though this time, of empathy.
“So,” Eros continued, “we are giving you love, and you don’t know what to do with it because it doesn’t hurt. To compensate, you’re doing this to yourself.”
“Gee, thanks, Freud.”
The uncles exchanged shocked glances, appalled and concerned at his response.
Damien went to lay down, but felt slimy sick on the sheets and carefully began removing himself from the bed. There was black sick all over the room, staining the bed, the floor, and his shirt. He clicked his fingers and the sick was gone, along with the slug in the bin.
“Well, now that that’s all cleaned up, maybe you should get some rest?” Loki pressed.
“I’m fine,” he said, and all three uncles gave him a stern look. “I’ve had to operate under worse conditions.”
Eros gently scolded, “Just because you can and have doesn’t mean you should. Get some sleep.”
The three of them filed from the room. Hypnos was last, and on the way out the door he turned on the nightlight, turned the ceiling light off, and left the door open a crack.
***
The three of them met downstairs.
“We have to tell Thanatos,” Eros said.
“Or, we could never tell Thanatos,” offered Hypnos.
“Or, the obvious solution,” Loki said, “...we wait to tell Thanatos.”
Hypnos pursed his lips. “How is that obvious?”
“Wait for what?” added Eros.
Loki argued, “Neither Damien nor Thanatos are ready to be dealing with this. Some drama went down at Victor’s, which I’m still assessing, and I’m still working on Damien trusting us-”
“Well, he trusts me,” inserted Hypnos.
Loki squinted. “Hmm. But does he?”
Eros sighed. “He probably doesn’t trust anybody and won’t for a very long time, so it’s sort of futile, isn’t it?”
“Listen,” Loki insisted, “The goal with all of this is to try to bridge the gap between him and his father.”
“Well, that’s your objective, innit?” Hypnos asked.
“Well, what’s yours?” Loki retorted.
“I don’t have an objective, aside from letting him be himself. Look, I’ve been with him from the beginning-”
Eros interrupted, “If you don’t have an objective, what was with the Krampus thing? Have to hurt your mate to help your mate."
Loki perked up.
Hypnos pointed a defensive finger. “That was a different-”
Loki sucked in air through his teeth. “The beginning? How long ago was that?”
Hypnos said, “You know. The beginning. I wasn’t going to leave him in the dark by his lonesome!”
Loki’s voice rose, “You were there with him in Tartarus? You were there with him in Tartarus! Why the fuck couldn’t you have saved him?”
Hypnos snapped at this change of direction. “It’s complicated!”
“Oh, come on, Loki,” said Eros, “That is like asking why gods let bad things happen to good people. It’s not the best angle to attack from.”
"Excuse me!" Loki thundered like an earthquake, “But we aren’t mortals grappling with the meaning of existence here! We are gods wondering how in the hell he could let what happened happen when he knew full-well the torture of it all!”
“Well, here’s one for you...” Hypnos snapped with venom, “I’m not omnipotent. Are you? Mister Chaos? Mister Trickster? Can you reorganize chaos however you see fit?”
Loki, with condescension, baring his teeth, said, “False equivalency. Try again.”
“Loki, stop it.” Before they would come to blows, he pleaded, “We are getting way off track.”
“No-no-no-no.” Loki wagged a finger. “This is exactly on track. How often do you let people be imprisoned, so that you can show up in the nick-of-time as the hero who helps them escape?”
"Loki!" Eros snapped through clenched teeth.
“Oh. Okay. Let’s talk about that then.” Hypnos stepped up to him. “Would you rather Eros and Damien be in prison eternally? Or would you rather have someone help them escape in the nick-of-time, like Odin did you? Odin, your jailor, released you right when the madness was too much to bear. Drip. Drip. So, I imagine this is all a bit too close to home, eh?”
“You know who you sound like? You sound like your brother!” Loki snarled.
“Nah. Because me brother would have left your ass, and Eros’s marble-sculpted ass, and Damien’s ass rotting in their bleeding hell for all eternity because it is the way of things. He’s Fates’ bitch. At least I’m doing something about it!”
Loki argued, “Thanatos has been actively fighting the Fates since their reign began-”
“Oh! And look at the good that’s done. You and Eros had to do it for him! You did in five minutes what he’s been fighting for since the Fates’ reign started!”
“This is going nowhere,” Eros insisted, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
A different voice chimed in. “Yeah, I agree with Eros.” Damien was at the foot of the stairs. They all looked guilty for not knowing how long he had been listening. “And I have follow-up questions. First off, have none of you ever seen those movies where people try to fight Fate? Not only do they lose. They often create the fate they are trying to avoid.”
Loki rebutted, half-joking, not wanting the fight to continue in Damien’s presence, “Well, most of those are time travel movies, going back in time to change some event in the future. Not about Fate, exactly, and the rules of time travel don’t really make sense when you think about it-”
“Second,” Damien interrupted, “the Fates, the three grey ladies, aren’t they just like you gods? Personifications of an aspect of existence? You can get rid of them, or give them a makeover and a new hairdo, but that aspect of existence isn’t going away. It is what it is. I have created infinite realities where certain aspects of life are eliminated. People have wished that they didn’t need to sleep, or eat, or die. People have wished for life to be predictable and painfully Stepford, but you know what happened? These essential aspects of reality always prevail. It’s like...fated to be. And Fate itself is one of those aspects. The balance of things will find a way...”
There was silence. That is until Hypnos’s leather jacket rustled as he raised his arm to gesture towards Damien. “You see that? That. That sounds like Thanny!”
Loki rolled his eyes. “Fine! I only said you were like Thanatos to piss you off.”
“I know. Cheap shot.” Hypnos said.
Eros rolled his eyes, and Damien continued, “So, you can’t stop Fate. Fighting it is uh... pretty fucking stupid, right?”
Hypnos appeared hurt, Loki looked shocked, and Eros’s face remained stoic.
“Well, nobody asked you!” Snapped Hypnos.
“So much for sounding exactly like his father.” Loki scoffed and turned away to pour himself tea from the kettle he had just materialized. “Thanatos would never let the Fates win.”
Eros said, “That belief, Damien, completely undermines everything I did a few months ago, and everything you did to get out of Tartarus.”
“But that was all fated though!” He argued.
“Not all of it.” Eros turned away for tea too.
Hypnos shook his head. “And here I thought you were the biggest god with the biggest imagination. That’s disappointing, mate.”
“Okay,” Damien was shook by their reactions and said, “...I’m going back to bed. Have fun storming the castle.”
