Damien lay sprawled on one of the red velvet couches in a very red room. He sang Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd to no one in particular. “Purple haze all in my eyes. Don’t know if it’s day or night. You got me blowing, blowing my mind. Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?” The varying shades of red pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat in his ears.
Josanna was suddenly there, sitting on the floor with her back to the couch. She was petting his wrist with her cold fingers. She said without moving her lips, Tomorrow is the end of time. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
Damien wasn’t startled by her sudden appearance. She had been there the entire time. She had been there his entire life. He smiled and began to sing under his breath, “I have become comfortably numb...”
Josanna disappeared, and the room disappeared. The couch he was laying on drifted through the empty black void of space.
“Hello?” Hello-hello-hello, He echoed as he regarded the blackness of nothing. He kept singing. “...Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me? Is there anyone home?” And he chuckled silently to himself. But, the couch, which was drifting lazily across the universe, stopped. He sat up, a little dizzy, and when he looked up there were three cloaked women standing like statues before him. “Woah,” he said and swallowed. “Hello,” he said. “Can I help you?”
The Fates did not respond. Damien placed his feet on the empty blackness of space underneath him. He tested it first to make sure there was something to walk on, and there was a floor that didn’t exist. He saw that this was good, and he stood. He inched up to the Fates. They didn’t move. He craned his neck to look under each of their hoods- one, two, three, but there where their faces should be, it was only grey matter and mist. The women did not sway. Did not breathe. Their silence was intimidating; it expanded throughout space and time. The oppressive stillness that comes with certainty. The air molecules barely moved when you passed through them. He could hear the silence go on for miles.
The faceless grey ladies did not move.
“Okay,” Damien said, but his voice couldn’t break the prevailing stillness. Damien clicked his tongue and sank into his shoulders. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, trying to convince himself.
The middle one stepped forward, her white toes peeking out from under her robes as she did. She lifted her porcelain hands to her hood and lowered it, and when she did, her long blonde hair tumbled down around her face to her shoulders. But, she wasn’t charming or pleasant to look at. Her eyes were soulless. Her hair was dull. Her porcelain skin was missing the flush of life. Her lips were cracked and scabbed.
She looked at Damien with her torpid eyes. He came forward to meet her.
A tiny maggot inched down from her nostril. Small, wiggly, and white. It lost its already compromised grip on a nose hair, and it tumbled onto her lower lip. Her mouth opened in abject horror as thousands of tiny maggots now oozed out in forceful retching bursts from her nostrils and over her lips. Her skin began to sink into the hollows of her face, then sloughed off from the bone in great decaying lumps. The piercing scream that followed forced the cascade of the tiny squirming larvae to explode from her mouth.
Damien flinched backwards and tumbled back down onto the couch. He clung to the velvet as her screams penetrated the fabric of the universe and rattled inside his teeth, as if he was chewing on tin foil. He tried to bring his hands up to his ears, but something was holding them fast. He began thrashing to free himself.
“Mate! Mate! For fucks sake- Ow! Shit! It’s just me.”
Damien was back in Alec’s mansion, his uncle Hypnos hovering over him. Hypnos held onto Damien’s wrists to keep him from swinging. Josanna giggled. She was still sitting in a ball on the floor. She chewed on a strand of her long ebony hair.
Dream started interrogating him. Still having a hold of Damien’s wrists, he shook him. “What the hell did you take this time?”
“I uh... I don’t know...”
“You don’t know? Well that’s fucking brilliant, innit?” He tossed Damien’s wrists aside.
“I don’t remember, okay? Fuck. You of all people shouldn’t mount that soapbox.” Damien stumbled from the couch. Josanna followed, making a game out of walking inside of the shadow Damien cast upon the floor.
“I wouldn’t,” said Hypnos, “if I knew you were taking my shit, which at least I know is... relatively safe.”
Damien gave an exhausted and frustrated growl. “But, that’s the point!”
“The wha? What point?”
“He doesn’t want to be safe.” Josanna slipped her hand into Damien’s.
“Yeah, no shit, Cuckoo!” Hypnos glared. “People don’t take drugs to feel safe. Are you two a thing?”
Josanna feigned exasperation. “You’re his blue blanket.” Josanna looked on at Hypnos, "You are safe.”
“That true?” he asked Damien.
Damien shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do! You goin’ let this lil’ bird do all your talking for ya?”
“Okay! Fine, yeah. With you... I know I can get away with it. I know that it will never go too far. You monitor my trip. Letting in certain hallucinations and not others. Letting me do unicorn glitter but not memory mushies. My substances are being controlled by the guy who is literally made of DMT.”
“Well-”
“And Thanatos is controlling my caffeine intake while he drinks scotch morning, noon, and night. Eros is telling me that I confuse love with pain, while he, god of Love, hates himself so much he can’t even leave the house. And Loki just can’t see past his own stupid pointy nose!”
“Yea. Alright. We’re hypocrites. So what?”
“So-” Damien floundered, thinking of what to say. He couldn’t say So, fuck off! because he didn’t want to. Hypnos was his best mate. Eros and Loki had been so kind to him, and Thanatos was the kind of man you didn’t say fuck off to. And hypocrisy is simply part of being an ever-changing, sentient being. He knew that to be an absolute truth. Damien skimmed through his emotions, trying to pinpoint what it was that made him feel so betrayed, disappointed, disgusted, and sad.
“Mate, listen.” Hypnos laid a hand on Damien’s shoulder.
Damien didn’t flinch at Hypnos’s touch. Instead, he slumped, feeling exhausted with himself.
“I care about you, and I don’t say that to a lot of people. Alright? The thing you gotta know is,” The Dream King looked Damien square in the eyes, “...you’re not angry at any of us.”
Damien nodded.
“Come on. Let’s go home. Everyone’s been lookin’ for you. See ya later, little bird.”
Damien turned to Josanna. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.
She bounced up on her tiptoes and gingerly, as not to make him flinch, gave him a peck on the cheek.
He flushed, smiled, and let go of her hand and followed Hypnos through a hall mirror into the townhouse.
***
Eros was waiting there, pacing back and forth in the small living room. He was chewing on his nails when Damien and Hypnos appeared. Eros put the kettle on and called Death’s secretary.
Damien had time to think before Thanatos and Loki returned from their meeting.
He lay on the sofa with his arms behind his head. He thought about Alec’s portal and his father’s portal. What impeccable timing. It was almost too perfect. Coincidence? “The Universe is never so lazy...” Damien droned aloud. And then, he remembered the grey ladies in the universe. Maggots. The memory made Damien heave a little bit, and he rolled onto his side so his back was to the room. He snuggled into the corner, remembering how maggots like to colonize in the throat of carcasses for some reason.
Fate was a part of the balance of things. So is Death and Dreams and Chaos and Desire. Why can’t they just get along? The question he had always asked himself throughout every skirmish and war. It is because somebody has to be right, and somebody has to be wrong. It’s because they love power and being in power. It’s because everybody has enough arrogance to think they are sacrificing for the greater good. “Give me a break!” Damien growled at his thoughts and rolled onto his back. He fluffed the throw pillow and flattened it. Wiggled his head into a good position and sighed.
Very few martyrs make history, and most people lack the conviction to properly die for their cause. Die or get off the cross! We need the wood for Christ’s sake. He heard someone set down the tea tray, felt someone sit next to him, and Damien sat up.
Eros picked up the silver, Tiffany teapot and poured them both a cuppa.
“So,” Damien said, “how mad is he, my dad?” “On the scale?” Eros pondered, “More frustrated than he was with COVID, but far less angry than with The Black Death.”
Damien sipped his tea with two sugars. "That narrows it down.”
“Damien, do you mind if you and I have a heart to heart?”
Damien set down his teacup and waited with an arched eyebrow and exhausted eyes.
“I loathe your father. I mean... with the passion of ten thousand exploding nebulas. I cannot stand that man.”
Damien blinked, “O-kay...”
“That is because he and I have a long history, and I know him rather well” Eros said. “But, because I know him, I know he really does care about you. He is just absolute rubbish at showing it. I feel that... if you and him ever do manage to get on the same page, you might find love there.”
Damien was not expecting to hear that. He began wringing his hands.
Eros continued, “He is by no means an easy man to love, and you might have to do ninety percent of the work. But, when he and Loki return, can you try to keep an open mind? And give the sod another chance? He might surprise you.”
Damien nodded to make Eros happy. He wasn’t sure what a second chance would do when Thanatos seemed to have made his mind up on the situation.
