Loki and Death came back from the god meeting. Damien was quiet, his elbows on his knees, anxiously swaying back and forth on the sofa.

Eros was impatient. “Well?”

Loki hung his coat on the rack. “The Norsemen will be joining our ranks.”

Death just stood there, still in his hat and his white overcoat, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

“That is good news, right? ... Thanatos?” asked Eros.

“Hm? Yes. Good news. May I have a moment alone with Damien?”

Eros replied, “Sure. Loki, I could use your help in the kitchen anyway.”

“In the kitchen?” Loki asked. “I thought we already decided you weren’t allowed to touch anything other than the kettle after the blender incident?”

“Loki. Please?” Eros insisted through gritted teeth.

Loki sighed theatrically and followed Eros into the kitchen.

“We need to talk,” Death said, once he and Damien were alone. He sat on the sofa next to Damien.

“Fire away.”

Death’s voice turned into cutting razors when he said, “I heard you sided with the Fates?”

Damien’s heart hammered at the change in tone. “Well, not exactly-”

“I also heard you have an addictive personality,” added Death.

“I wouldn’t put it like that. I just-”

“This is quite worrisome, Damien.” Death steepled his fingers.

Damien knew this tone. He knew the steepling of the fingers.

“I’m fine! I swear,” Damien implored.

“Damien, I think you should come home, so I can keep an eye on you, and- ”

“I saw them,” Damien blurted out.

“Saw who?”

“The Fates. I was slipping away across the universe, and they were there, suddenly. They uh... threw up maggots. I don’t know. It was nasty, but- ”

Death laced his steepled fingers and stared off for a minute.

Damien fell silent, and waited.

And Death said, “I know I am not an easy man to deal with. I know that I can’t simply step in after twenty-thousand years of- I’m not built to be a father. But, what I am doing, I am doing for your benefit.” His mismatched eyes never rose to meet Damien’s. “I know you don’t understand. Damien, I do not want to lose you. If you were ever re-imprisoned I would destroy the Cosmos to have you returned to me.” Death’s fingernails dug into the backs of his hands as his laced fingers clenched.

Realizing the weight of this, Damien said with gravity, “That’s an awfully big threat coming from Death.”

“I don’t make threats.”

Damien tried to wrap his mind around Thanatos’s behavior. “What about the balance of things?” he asked.

“The balance of things be damned.”

“They could lock you up just for saying that.” Damien raised a brow.

“Hmm... They could try, but I can assure you that would be the end of life, the universe, and everything.”

Damien tried to imagine the end of the universe, and everything, and why Thanatos would do that for him.

“But,” Damien snapped, “you tortured me for months in that basement!”

“Oh, please. That wasn’t torture. You’ve had far worse.”

Damien didn’t think it was funny or clever when someone else said it.

Death insisted, “They were experiments to discover what you were.”

“I think you’ll find that trepanation isn’t used in modern psychology.”

“I think you’d be surprised to discover how frequently it is still used in some cultures, especially in cultures like ours.”

“Well, maybe your culture is antiquated.”

“The old ways are the best.” Thanatos gave him a small smirk.

“No. No, they’re not.” Damien remembered Eros asking him to keep an open mind. He took in a breath.

Death justified. “Once I proved unequivocally you were my son, I stopped.”

“But, then you didn’t tell me about it... for weeks.” “Timing is everything.”

Damien simpered, “Oh, I agree. I think the old adage is sooner rather than later."

“Another adage is better late than never."

“Yeah, but you hate being late. You’re mister punctual.” Damien sighed because he knew he was wasting his breath. There was an awkward silence. “Thanatos, what do you want from me? If you can just tell me how you want it to be, I’ll do it. I’ll be it.”

“I think our time together has proven the contrary.”

Damien sank.

“What I want, Damien,” Death said, gently, “is for you to have free will, and for you to be able to use it responsibly. I know this is a process.”

Damien nodded.

“Which is what brings me back to my original point. Enough of my foolishness. You’re coming home. I admit I was wrong to think you could be on your own. Forgive me, Damien. This mess was my fault. This is for your own good.”

“My own good...” Damien scoffed and shook his head. He didn’t ask him what he meant. He knew what he meant. Countless other masters before had said the exact same thing.

Death gave a slight flick of his wrist, and Damien disappeared from his side. Death now sat alone on the sofa, hating himself, but he drew strength from that and made his way to the kitchen.

Eros and Loki were talking in hushed tones, and Hypnos lounged with his combat boots kicked up on the kitchen table.

The conversation fell to a hush when Thanatos strode in. He stopped just past the doorway. “I’ve taken Damien home,” Death announced. “What is he doing here?”

Hypnos grinned and waved at his twin brother.

Eros rolled his eyes. “Get over it, Death. He visits regularly. I think you made the right decision taking your son home.”

Loki blurted out, “But, what do you mean you took him home?”

“Exactly as I said. I took him home.”

“Without saying goodbye?” Loki was offended.

“I doubt you became that attached to him in the short time he was here.”

“Well, I did-”

“I’m sure you will see him soon. Eros is right. I have to step up. I have to protect him from this war we are about to wage. The Fates will return. And when they do, we will be ready for them. With Damien and my current work project, I can’t be too careful.”

Eros perked up. “What work project?”

Hypnos interjected, “Thanny is building a portal.”

Before anyone else could say anything, Thanatos added, “A portal that, once established, will rewrite the rules of your probation, Eros.”

Eros folded his arms and scrunched his face. ”What?”

“It will be strictly for clients and for business. The veils will be monitored more stringently, which will prevent people like you, Eros, from embarking on little crusades to the Mortalworld like you did. If I had been able to do this before, you never could have been so easily persuaded to commit the crimes you did.”

“I can’t tell if this is you caring or if you’re insulting me. Loki, did you know anything about this?”

Loki’s mouth was agape and grasping for words.

“No,” Death answered for him. “He’s been too preoccupied with you.”

“I beg your pardon?” Loki asked. “You are opening a permanent portal between worlds? Are you mad?”

Hypnos lit up a cigarette. “Of course he’s mad. Where have you been? Clearly nutters.”

Death took in a deep satisfying breath. “Actually, it is the sanest thing I’ve ever done. Now, I must go. We’re moving mansions. There’s a lot of work to be done.” Death left the kitchen.

Loki and Eros remained silent until they heard the front door open and close.

Loki was hard at work chewing on the corner of his lip. “Damnit!”

“What?” Asked Hypnos.

“He brought up his new project to distract us from the fact he stole Damien.”

“He didn’t steal Damien,” Eros protested. “Damien is his son. He needs to step up and take responsibility.”

Loki walked to the front door. “No. He’s over-correcting. Trust me. It’s not good.”

Hypnos agreed. “Yeah, Loki’s right. Probably already sticking the lad with needles and probes.”

Eros followed Loki to the front door. “He said he’s moving mansions. You’re never going to find which one! He has hundreds of them.”

Loki grabbed his overcoat and said, “Patrice! He’ll make sure to tell Patrice.” Loki kissed Eros on the cheek and dashed out the door.

Eros released a sharp breath and sat down on the stairs. Hypnos eventually came around the corner from the kitchen.

“I’m getting kind of tired of this,” Eros said.

“His soft spot for troubled youths? Nah, I think that’s sweet.”

“No!” Eros, growled, “This never-ending run-around.”

Hypnos sat down on the stairs next to him. “That’s their usual. Drama, drama, Fates, more drama. You should know this by now.”

“Yeah. I suppose. I just thought... things would eventually settle down.”

“Sounds like you’re saying you want to settle down here with Loki.”

“Well,” Eros thought, then laughed. “...I think this is as settled as Loki gets.”

Hypnos suggested, “Then maybe you should move back out.”

“Back out? I never technically moved in.”

“Could have fooled me! You have your own closet.” He said more gently, “Maybe you could try getting out of the house. That door there will open for you too if you just turn the knob.”

“I know, it’s just...”

Hypnos remained silent and waited for Eros to finish.

“I genuinely hate it out there. I mean it. I hate people. I hate other gods, demons. If I could never see the world again, and the world could never see me, I’d be just fine with it.”

“You’re afraid,” Hypnos offered.

“Bloody right I’m afraid,” Eros agreed. “I used my Primordial-ness to throw the Fates into the void. The moment I am alone and vulnerable outside these walls, they are going to lock me up and throw away the keys.”

“They?”

“The Fates and their allies. I made it so the Fates would leave us alone. I never said anything about their allies. There are gods still aligned with them. Technically, I broke my probation that day they took me to their world. I am not supposed to leave the Netherworlds. I mean, the Fates made me do it, but they could still get me on that. Throw me down in Tartarus, or Hell, or whatever new prison they’ve got going on. And Loki’s always right in the thick of it. What if we were to get married and something were to happen? To either of us? I think... Maybe it’s safer for everyone if I don’t get involved. What if we’re safer if I’m alone?”

They sat in silence, letting the weight of everything that hadn’t happened yet wash over them.

Hypnos let out a sigh, and dipped into the pocket of his leather trench coat. He pulled out a large pear shaped white diamond. It was about the size of golf ball, and it gleamed with a a million beams of light ricocheting around its perfectly cut facets.

“What is that?” Eros had to squint to protect his eyes from the bouncing light rays.

“I call it the Shiny Thing,” Hypnos said. “And I stole it from you about when we first met.”

"What?"

Hypnos mumbled, “You were crying in your sleep, and you looked so beautiful, and I had never seen a nebula crying in its sleep before, and I just- It’s one of your tears, alright? Let’s not make it a thing.”

“Well, you said you call it the Shiny Thing...”

Hypnos leaned forward putting his elbows on his knees. He twisted the glittering diamond in the light. He sounded far away as he said, “It takes you to the one thing in the entire universe you desire most... It’s how I visited you in the red room. Here.” He handed the diamond to Eros. “It’s yours anyway, and I think it will take you straight to Loki. I see how you look at him. I don’t have to be a god of Love or Dreams to make sense of it, but maybe it will help you.”

Eros took the precious rock from his hands. “Hypnos, I-” But the Dream King was gone.

Eros took a breath. Now it was his turn to twisted the cold and heavy stone in the lights. Tiny rainbows flitted around his hands as he turned it round.

“You’ll take me to my heart’s desire, huh. You’d think I’d already know that sort of thing. But it’s sort of hard for me to tell the difference between my emotions and other people’s so... What do you say, Shiny Thing? What does Desire desire most, eh?”

A refracted beam of light shot from the heart of the diamond and blinded Eros for a moment. He blinked and when his eyes adjusted, he was no longer sitting on the sofa in Loki’s town home. He was sitting on a paint-covered stool, and the attic art room he now found himself in reeked of acrylic and paint thinner. A dusty violin sat by the window sill.

The canvases of all shapes and sizes leaned against the edges of the room, and on the walls were more paintings than he could count. They were gruesomely beautiful, with a tragic grace that ran down the center of them, like they each held a soul. The art took Eros’s breath away with both horror and delight. He spun around the room to take in each and every one but there were too many. Glancing down at an aged wooden table his eyes stopped. Stained rags, uncleaned pallets, glasses of murky water, a pile of various paint brushes, and a gift box.

Eros thought he recognized the gift box, but he had to be sure. He put the Shiny Thing in his pocket. He started praying and wishing under his breath as he approached the box. “Pleeease. No-no-no. It’s not what I think it is. Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.” He opened the box, dreading what he knew he was going to find.

The paint brush of Ma Liang, the gift he had Loki give to Thanatos for Yule. This was Death’s art studio. He threw the box down and ripped the Shiny Thing out of his pocket, whispering to it, ”No-no-no-no-no. How could you do this? Are you trying to ruin my life? It’s not true. You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?” Eros crept over to the open door to glance down the stairs. It seemed he was alone, remaining an unnoticed intruder for now. “Take me home,” he ordered the diamond. “Take me home, you stupid rock, or I swear I will throw you into Mount Doom!”

A refracted beam of light shot from the heart of the diamond and blinded Eros, taking him back to the townhome. Offended that this rock would even presume to think Thanatos was his greatest desire, Eros set the rock in Loki’s office with all the other useless, broken artifacts.

It just had to be wrong about his desire, he thought, but at least the rock knew where he desired home to be. Eros thought that was probably more important to him anyway.