The suit laid out on the bed was so tiny. The shoes even more so. And Damien hated wearing a suit. He didn’t belong in a suit. Wearing one felt like wearing a lie out in the open for everyone to see.

He put it on, piece by piece, and as he began to assemble the distinguished disguise, he began to feel it evoking something from within himself. He began to feel more powerful and independent. When he bent over to put on his shoes, his feet seemed further away, and when he went to look in the mirror, he didn’t recognize the reflection.

Damien usually didn’t identify with his mirrored image. He knew that underneath the suit and magick smokescreen, he was deformed and scarred with tattoos that not even the strongest magicks could remove. But, he was beginning to become familiar with the boy who looked back at him from the glass.

The boy who looked back at him this time though was older than usual, taller, sharper, looking about to be sixteen human years old.

Damien straightened his tie, and he examined the dark hair atop his head. He ran his fingers across his temples, and then felt the sharp edges of his jaw and cheek bones. There was a little bit of youthful stubble.

He opened the door and trotted down the stairs where Thanatos waited in his all-white suit, who was watching the seconds tick by on his golden pocket watch.

“I was worried you were going to make us late.” He looked up at Damien, and he had to look up further than normal to meet Damien’s gaze. Unimpressed, he said, “I see you’re going with young-adult this evening?”

Damien deadpanned. “The suit made me do it.”

“Of course it did.” Thanatos jabbed, “Nothing you do is ever done on your own volition.” He headed towards the door.

Damien quirked an eyebrow and sighed, “It was a joke.”

“I know. Can’t you see?” He deadpanned in return. “I’m laughing. Hysterically.” He didn’t bother to materialize their coats, for on the other side of the front door was not the snowy wonderland as before. It was the Yuletide venue, devoid of people. The wood floors and molding were dark and rich. As in their home, garland covered every surface. There were two fireplaces with elaborately carved mantels, one at each end of the ballroom.

Their footsteps echoed as they crossed to the center of the vast polished floor.

“You thought we’d be late for what exactly?” The young man said with an extra old-man gravel to his voice. He took in the empty space.

“For greeting our guests as they arrive.” He looked at his pocket watch once more, then tucked it away.

"Our guests? And you will be introducing me as...?” He left a pause for Thanatos to fill in the blank.

Death took in a breath and straightened his shoulders. “As my son.”

Neither of them met the other’s gaze. They were both examining the room for two very different reasons.

Damien thought, then grimaced. “You think that’s the best idea, Hoss?”

“No.” Death suddenly made long strides to the doors at the far end by the bar. “But do you have a better idea?”

Damien only made a face in reply as he kept stride despite his limp.

“And don’t call me Hoss. My name is Thanatos."

The young man asked flatly, “Are you sure you don’t prefer Dad?”

Death hissed a sigh and refused to answer as they entered the kitchens, where the staff was hard at work putting the finishing touches on the hors d’oeuvres. Thanatos inspected their work. Twenty minutes before the guests were to arrive, he had his son wait with him at the door. Poised and at attention, he snuck another peek at his pocket watch.

Damien was trying to sit still and not fidget. Death hated fidgeting. Damien was trying to keep his composure in the echoing silence of the venue, but could no longer stand the absurdity of the situation. He cleared his throat. “So. Shouldn’t Father Christmas be throwing this shindig?”

"Shindig?" Thanatos snarled.

Damien shrugged. “It’s a fun word.”

“No, Mr. Modest, you were being patronizing.”

“Not patronizing.” Damien cleared his throat. “Facetious, maybe.”

Thanatos gave a condescending smile. “I should be hosting this, because Father Christmas, or rather, Odin, wouldn’t even be able to attend if it were not for me. Only I have the power to open up portals for gods from other worlds. Some of the worlds have protective veils around them that severely limit travel, and they don’t have accessible portals to allow them passage. I was allowed by the Fates to throw these little shindigs because I am multi-partisan. I am a facet within all the factions, and I represent a neutral, common ground.”

Damien’s brow scrunched. “You mean mutual common ground?”

“I meant what I said. Neutral. Impartial. Unbiased."

“They do say Death is the great equalizer...”

“That is what they say.”

There was silence.

Damien nodded, cleared his throat, and said boldly, “But really, you’re Fate’s errand boy, right?”

Death’s face began to twitch as anger pulsed up his neck. But, the ushers opened the door, and the first of the guests began to swan in. His anger transitioned seamlessly into a smile. “Happy Yule.” He nodded, bowed, and shook hands with his guests as they entered in their glamorous gowns and formal suits of all cultures, times, and paradigms. “I would like to introduce to you my son, Damien.” And Damien would nod or bow slightly rather than shake their hand.

Damien’s fake smile was fading fast with each passing guest.

Death grinned, realizing this spotlight moment was more agonizing torture to Damien than anything Death himself could have inflicted on him for his flippant remark. Though Damien’s comment had struck a nerve, Death was still proud his son was able to say it at all. Such a rude remark was something Damien would have never dared to say to him before. Death took this to mean his son was beginning to trust him rather than fear him, and maybe soon they’d be able to banter like that more often.

The guests would all say a variation of the same thing when introduced to Damien. “Son? Well, I had no idea you begot a son, Thanatos. How charming!”

Between guests, Thanatos groaned to Damien, “Loki is late. Why is he always late?”

“He’s probably doing it just to piss you off.” Damien smiled up at Death. “Is it working?”

Death let out a confirming hiss and a small smile.

“Joyeux Noel.” Victor Devereaux beamed a smile at Death. Victor was a tiny man compared to Thanatos, but was still treated with respect.

“Happy Yule, your Highness.” Thanatos slightly bowed from the neck. It was more of a nod. “I’d like to introduce you to my son, Damien.”

Damien was gazing at the young lady accompanying the Vampire King that evening. Her porcelain skin was accentuated by her black lace dress, long dark hair, and large, disc-like eyes. Her beauty was manic. She was wiggling and giggling as her black eyes wandered around the room. She was fidgeting more than Damien did, and he was instantly amused and entranced.

“A son?” Victor was not nearly as surprised as the others. Instead, this made room for him to introduce the apple of his eye. “Well, I’d like to present my daughter, Josanna.”

She looked straight back at Damien. “We’ve met.” She said as she fidgeted with the lace neckline of her dress.

Damien’s eyebrows pulled together, and then he quirked one.

She turned towards Thanatos. “Do you like my dress?”

Thanatos forced a cordial smile. “It’s lovely.”

She leaned in towards Death, beckoning him to do the same. And she whispered very loudly, “It belongs to a corpse...”

Damien’s eyes lit up, and the girl began to laugh. Thanatos merely blinked. She moved her hair to one side of her neck, and she petted it like a mink shawl.

Devereaux put his hands on her shoulders. “We look forward to this evening,” he said. The king smiled as he began to move her along into the room beyond.

Damien craned his neck to watch the Vampire King and his daughter disappear into the crowd.

“No,” Thanatos hissed before the next guest arrived.

Damien returned to center. “What?”

“Just. No. Happy Yule, Shmeaglebobenzoar.” Thanatos nodded to a hooked-nosed demon in a top hat.

“And to you, sir. Who is this fine young gentleman?”

The old man held out his hand to Damien, who took in the man’s top hat, monocle, and cane.

“Bruce Wayne.” Damien made to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Penguin.”

Thanatos stuck out his hand to block Damien’s gesture. “This is my son. Damien, this is Shmeaglebobenzoar, a fine artifacts collector, like myself.”

Shmeaglebob clasped Death’s still-outstretched hand, and said in an excited hush, “Later, I’d like to speak to you about something I’ve discovered- A bit of gossip. I believe you’ll find it most interesting.”

“I can’t wait to discuss it. Ah! Loki! There you are.”

Shmeaglebobenzoar tipped his hat to Damien and strode away with the cane held under his arm. Loki and Eros approached, hand in hand.

“My apologies. We did try to get here on time,” said Loki.

Death fixed a glare on the two of them, because what he was about to say shouldn’t need to be said. “On time is late, Loki. Why don’t you take over for Damien so you and I can talk? The children can go mingle.”

Three sets of eyes glared back at Thanatos.

Loki bared his teeth into a smile. “Eros might just be older than you, Death.”

In chorus, Thanatos and Eros said, “I rather doubt it,” both meaning it to be an insult to the other.

“Right, then.” Eros said, “Damien, let’s leave the men to their prattle.”

Damien shrugged and accompanied Eros to the ballroom.

Damien glanced over at Eros. “I’m surprised he’s letting me out of his sight. He must trust you.”

Eros scoffed, “What he trusts is his ability to make my life absolute hell if I fail at chaperoning, given he has successfully done so in the past.” Eros snagged two glasses of champagne from a server’s tray as they passed, handing one to Damien.

Eros was the only one among them to treat Damien like more than a confused child. It might have had something to do with the fact that Eros understood what it was like to be endlessly old, but to appear youthful, more so than the other gods. All of them would at least appear to be old enough to drink in the Mortalworld, while Eros would have been carded. In the worlds of gods, to appear to be any younger was peculiar. Not to mention that any spirit with a childlike and innocent visage was usually a feral demon, intent on eating your still-beating heart out of your chest. They also thought this of Eros.

But, Damien and Eros also had the shared experience of Tartarus, and because of this, Damien respected him more than the others.

They found an empty wall between two massive mahogany columns. They both leaned their shoulders against the wall and faced each other as they sipped their champagne.

“So, how are you?” Eros asked, looking directly into Damien’s eyes. “Truly?”

Damien gave a bitter chuckle. “For having treated my own brain like a damn Etch-a-Sketch, I’m doing swell. And you?”

Eros sipped his champagne. “Still on probation.”

Damien clicked his tongue, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

“Yeah. But the probation was for a misdeed. So more like, one good doesn’t right the wrong."

“Ain’t that the truth.” Damien finished off his champagne in one final gulp.

The two standing next to each other could have been brothers. Damien was taller at the moment and his shoulders were broader. Eros’s face had softer features, but they both had a similar golden skin tone. They both had thick, dark, wavy hair, nearly the same nose, and they both had sharp, careful eyes.

Eros’s eyes saw something behind Damien, and he perked up. “There is a very beautiful woman heading your way.”

Damien turned to see his mother goddess, wearing a red, cheetah-print ball gown, walking across the ballroom as if it were a cat walk. He shrank into himself as if he was trying to disappear.

When she stopped in front of them, she shrank a bit too. “Eros, do you mind if we have a moment?”

“Of course. I’ll be at the bar.” He nodded respectfully to the goddess and slipped away.

“Is your father around?” Sekhmet glanced over her shoulder, like a lioness scanning for hyenas.

Damien’s eyes didn’t look up from the ground. “Didn’t he greet you up front?”

She purred, “I slipped in through the cat door.”

He let out a small chuckle.

“You look just like you did when...” she trailed off. “Can we discuss what happened... back then?”

He said reflexively, “As you wish,” and immediately bit his tongue for saying it.

She wiggled her fingers, holding her clutch. Her long stiletto nails were black, like claws. “I’m sorry.” The words were honest and quick, like they had been trying to escape for a long time. “I was trying to protect you. I should have fought for you. I thought that’s what I was doing. It’s my fault that-”

“I honestly don’t remember much of it, so...” Damien glanced up hoping to find a means of escape.

“I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“My apologies. I just-”

“No, no. It’s fine.” But, it wasn’t fine. He saw the hurt and shame in her fallen eyes. He didn’t mean to hurt her. He was trying to spare her, like she had done for him. He wanted to think of her as just another painful moment in his life, and he liked to think that pain was temporary, that she had only been temporary. But, she wasn’t. The first cut was always the deepest, and he felt it even now, many thousands of aeons later.

They both stood there in the painful silence and looked for a turn in the conversation. But, Damien’s mind was fogging up with the ghosts of memories. His heart was beginning to pound in his ears, and he began to fidget as his fight-or-flight response overwhelmed him. He tried to catch his breath and to find an escape. “Apparently, it was Fate. So,” he swallowed, “...not your fault. Excuse me.”

He turned from her to go away, anywhere, but her hand reached suddenly towards his shoulder, and he reflexively jerked away. His sudden recoil made her retract her hand, as if she had touched a hot iron.

“Just-” She tried to compose herself as she saw her son’s eyes close in shame. “Promise me you’ll be careful with your father. There is a very good reason I didn’t tell him about you.”

Damien laughed slightly, for his father felt the same way about her as she did about him. Damien knew what Thanatos was. He knew what both of them were. After a while, he had learned there were only so many types of people in the world, and both of his parents were the guilty kind. They both felt responsible for what had happened to him, despite the fact neither of them knew what all he had lived through. They both wanted to make amends, but there was nothing either of them were capable of amending, and they weren’t doing it for him anyway. They were doing it for themselves, to feed the guilt. Guilt is a hungry monster. It is difficult to appease, and even then, it is rarely ever satisfied.

He didn’t take that fatherly moment away from Thanatos when he was given the teddy bear, so he wasn’t going to take this moment of motherly protection away from Sekhmet. He acknowledged her concern of Thanatos, as he already knew her concern to be a valid one. “I will be. I appreciate the warning.” It probably came off more condescending than he meant it to be, but his body was screaming at him to run, so he didn’t take time to correct the error.

He turned and weaved his way through the crowd. He didn’t care where he was going as long as it was gone. The room was getting denser with bodies. They were closing in on him. His heart hammering in his chest made it impossible to breathe. The spaces between groups of laughing, sneering, drunk, stumbling people were getting smaller and smaller. The sound of the music and the drone of the voices became a throbbing ringing in his ears.

Damien curled in his massive shoulders to avoid touching anyone or anything. He spied a dark opening in the wall. Open doors leading to the balcony. The dark signaled him to sanctuary. He cut his way through the crowd and rushed into the night as if he were throwing himself off a cliff, and he slammed into the concrete railing.

His lungs gasped in the frigid air. The cold electrified him back to life. He was burning up. It was hot, so hot in that ballroom. He loosened his tie and took in another gulp of icy air before he was able to make sense of his surroundings.

He descended down balcony steps which led into a wintery garden, devoid of people. Weeping cherry trees were bowed over with ice, and the evergreen branches of hemlock were drooped and flattened with the weight of snow. Damien hurried to a stone bench, hidden in the shadows at the edge of a crystalline pond. He brushed the powdery white snow off the stone and sat, rocking slightly as he tried to compose himself.

Eros would get in trouble for losing track of him, Damien thought, but he needed a minute. Just one minute in the still of the dark to regain his center. Damien wasn’t fond of this heavy, wet cold. He preferred the dry cold of desert nights, but he appreciated the snow. There were so many thoughts, too many thoughts, to decipher, and they blanketed and numbed his mind in much the same way as the mass of individual snowflakes blanketing the world, muffling out the sound. But, a melody rolled across the snow drifts, and it tangled in the wind, like the phantom song of a distant dream.

Damien lifted his head and peered into the shifting darkness. For a moment, he saw nothing but the frozen, haunted trees and glints of moonlight reflected in the white. But, then he saw her, like a specter wading through the night. Her porcelain skin, her black dress, her tumbling hair gave her an ethereal appearance.

She hummed a lullaby to the plants as she passed them, touching each of them with tender fingers. When Josanna saw him, she ceased humming, only for a second. She pretended not to have noticed him and continued past, resuming her song.

Damien raised an eyebrow at this and was content to let her move along, but she was ignoring him so blatantly on purpose. “Hi,” he said in a loud, clear voice to break through the veil of the atmospheric moment.

She glanced over her shoulder to give an unimpressed, “Hello.”

He sighed before he stood to follow her, which he assumed was what she wanted. “You said we’ve met before?” he asked as he strode alongside her, his fidgeting hands in his pockets, so as to appear indifferent to her brazen aura of mystery and to hide his own eccentricity.

“I did.” Her eyes never met his, but continued to gaze into the passing needles and branches.

“I don’t recall ever meeting you before tonight,” he said.

She made a high-pitched affirmative, ”Hm. But, you don’t recall many of the people you’ve met. So, how could you say for certain?”

He pulled his brows and lips together. “True. So, how do you know me?”

“I’ve seen you through windows.”

His head tilted to the side. “Okay. That’s a bit unsettling.”

“Not those kinds of windows, silly!” She flushed, her eyes still wandering, but never across his.

He asked, “What other kinds of windows are there?”

She shrugged. “Windows to the world, to the universe, the soul. There are lots of different windows.”

“I see.”

She began humming again. Her mind drifted off, even as he walked beside her.

She was walking deeper into the trees, where the garden became forest, and the shadows became solid, and the whisper of the wind became voices.

“Hey,” he said, again, in his clearest tone. He snapped her out of her trance. Her dark, round eyes jolted to his. “Shall we get back to the party, milady?” He held out an arm as if escorting her to dance.

She dropped her jaw and cackled at his gesture. Damien glanced at his arm, wondering what was so funny about it.

She glided past him, her hands behind her back as to deliberately refuse his escort. “I’m saving that dance for your uncle.”

He accompanied her back the way they had come. “My uncle? Oh. Yeah. Which one? Apparently I have a few,” he grinned.

“The charming trickster-man.”

Damien clicked his tongue. “Loki.”

“But, I must dance with my father first.” She stuck out her tongue, and made a face.

Damien chuckled, “Do you not like your father?”

“I like my brother. Alec. I miss him. Here-” She stopped and held out her clasped hands, as if holding inside a small animal or insect. “This is yours.” Her hands fell open to reveal a cherry blossom cupped inside. The delicate pinks and whites stood out vibrantly against the greyscale of the night.

With a curious gleam, Damien carefully took up the flower. “Much appreciated. I-” he began. But, the girl was gone, and Damien and the flower were alone in the cold, icy garden.

He made his way back past the crystalline pond to the balcony steps. He ascended them while using a little magick to fasten the cherry blossom to his lapel. Thanatos was right. Using magick on his own, for himself, was more difficult than it needed to be. By the time he had successfully turned the cherry blossom into a boutonniere pin, he had entered the ball room.

Damien headed straight towards the roaring fireplace by the bar to thaw. The barstool where Eros had sat was now empty. Eros, no doubt, was wandering around, trying to find Damien before Thanatos learned he was missing.

A huge man came to stand opposite him by the fire. His suit seams were about to burst with the size of his deltoids and biceps. He had a wild mane of hair and beard, despite the fact he had gone to great lengths to try to tame it. His curls were covered with a thick layer of gel in an attempt to slick it down and back.

He beamed at Damien and gave a friendly smile, and Damien returned it with an awkward nod, while still warming his fingers over the heat of the fire.

“Have we met?” The man’s heavy brow creased.

Damien sighed. “Nope.” He hoped that would end the conversation, but he knew it wouldn’t.

A bearlike hand was struck out towards him. “Heracles.”

Damien arched an eyebrow, interested now. “No kidding?”

Heracles only smiled back.

“Damien, son of Thanatos, I guess.” He shook the great hero’s hand, because it would have been rude not to.

Heracles was as shocked as all the others when he said, ”Son of Death? I had no idea.”

“No one did.” Damien flashed him a fake smile. “Not even me... or him, for that matter. So, I suppose you could call this my coming-out.”

“Perfect timing!” Heracles bellowed. “Many of us have birthdays today, in a sense. Let’s see. There’s Horus, Persephone, Mithra and er... And others! Plenty of others. This is the biggest party of the year! So, happy birthday, my friend!”

“Aw, shucks.” Damien’s fake smile was fading fast, “I appreciate it, but I think I’m an Aquarius so... Maybe next month.”

Heracles let loose a roaring laugh. Insightfully, he said, “You know, I remember my first day up in Olympus, my coming-up as it were, free of my labors and Hera’s spite. Welcomed home amongst the gods. I remember feeling...undeserving as well. In time, that will fade, and then do you know what will happen?”

“What’s that?” Damien stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting, but that didn’t stop his feet from rocking back and forth on their heels.

“You’ll realize,” He leaned in to whisper, covering his lips from view of the crowd, “...the gods aren’t all that great.” The Greek hero winked.

“That’s hubris,” Damien teased.

“I know! But, I’m a god now. So, I can get away with it!” He slapped Damien on the shoulder. Damien went rigid, unprepared for the force of the hit, and with his hands still in his pockets, he nearly lost his footing.

Heracles continued, without notice to Damien trying to right himself, “But, they’re all just like anyone else. If they ever start to rattle you, just picture them in their underwear, and then give them a good ol’ double tap on the chin. That’ll straighten ’em up right quick.”

Damien nodded in appreciation, and pictured the hero in his underwear.

“I better go find the missus,” said Heracles. “It was a pleasure to meet you Damien, son of Thanatos, I guess. Welcome to the family.”

The great hero walked away, and Damien gave him a half-hearted wave. There was nowhere he could stand without being talked to.

Perhaps, being by Thanatos’s side was safest. Death’s guests were more eager to discuss business with him than make pleasantries with his supposed son. All he need do was smile and nod, and Thanatos would have no issue stopping people from touching him. He realized Thanatos had intervened when Damien went to shake Shmeg- Beaglebob- Bezoar- whatever his name was- his hand. Damien thought Thanatos had stopped him due to his smartass Penguin comment, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Damien thought about how he had offered his arm to Josanna, and the girl merely laughed, a rather ghoulish laugh, but still. There could have been many reasons why she would laugh at his gesture, but one possible explanation was that maybe she did in fact already know him.