application for Mr. Wednesday (American Gods)
(( note, 11/21: I've been feeling under the weather, and thus slow with the tags, but I will get back to everyone's tags! Feel free to toss people at Wednesday. Today is, after all, his day
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But Shadow wasn't here, and Wednesday had never seen his Icelandic incarnation, the one he bitterly knew had a much easier time of things.
In any event, Wednesday felt a little proprietary of this face never mind that his and Ryder's muns have known for ages the two would have the same PB, and that Ryder properly has more of a right to it. He was a little amused to find a demon wearing it. He was also exasperated, more exasperated than amused.
"Your masters picked you a clever face," he said. "And no, I don't see anyone much come back from the dead 'ready to go'. Hence my answer to the question regarding the carnal possibilities of resurrection. Of course, I've also known exceptions to that rule."
Himself among them. He'd hung nine nights on the windy tree, as the old poem went; sacrifice from himself to himself.
Also, *spoiler spoiler spoiler.*
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He lit a cigarette. "Nobody told me I'd been made to imitate a god," he said. "Nobody must've told you you had a lookalike, either. Wonder what in the hell whoever did it is playing at." It really was extremely surreal, seeing himself mirrored by a freaking god. Ryder, while by no means low on the demonic pantheon, was hardly in the upper echelon, either. There wasn't any reason that he should have been made to look like Odin. Odin.
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He took a long drag off his cigarette. "You're right, though--I'm pretty sure they've got me locked up pretty solid, when I'm working." He was damn curious to know just what Wednesday meant by 'a job'; his own work didn't often bring him into contact with anything save the occasional fellow demon.
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At least his superiors didn't intrude on his down-time, though. He'd come here because he was bored, and while they'd actually encouraged his trip, even if they hadn't approved they wouldn't have done anything about it. As long as he kept a low profile when he wasn't working, he could pretty much do whatever the hell he wanted.
Unfortunately for him, at this juncture the small herd of cats he'd managed to temporarily ditch showed up en masse. One of them, a tiny spotted creature with one eye, made a determined effort to climb his leg, and with a scowl he pried it off and dropped it on its littermates. "Damn furballs," he muttered. "Go on, get the hell out of here."
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"We won't need to worry about anyone mistaking us for one another," was his sole comment on that.
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He finally managed to drive at least a few of them away--they wandered over, sniffed at Wednesday's shoes, and then trotted off, presumably in search of the food Ryder wouldn't give them. "Just hope they don't start mistaking you for me."
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He regarded the cats with placid disinterest, allowing them to sniff his shoes and wander away. "No risk of their mistaking me for anyone."
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"Yeah, I don't dare skin 'em," he said, lighting another cigarette. "Though believe me, I've been tempted. I think she might have put a curse on me after I tried to skin the first one." Why anyone would curse someone with chronic cats was left unexplored; Ryder had been at Hogwarts long enough to know that asking such questions was just asking to be frustrated. "So, if you don't mind me asking, what the hell can a god want from this place?"
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He was saved from answering by the arrival of Susan's meerkat--did every animal in the damn castle have to follow him?--and then by both Susan and Shaun, her with a can of cat food, him with a knit shopping bag. They both halted, looking at Wednesday, then Ryder, and then at one another. Susan could see what Shaun could not--that there was no way in the seven hells these two were related, yet the resemblance was downright uncanny.
Shaun, who still hadn't gotten over the Hot Pocket incident, glanced from one to the other again. "Hey," he said. "Uh...what the hell?"
"Oh, because that's polite," Susan said. "Forgive my friend here--apparently he was raised in a garden shed. With the cricket bat."
Ryder somehow managed to avoid rolling his eyes. "Kid, do me a favor and shut up, okay? And Susan, get your damn cats away from me, will you?"
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"Making friends and influencing people, I see," he said jovially to Ryder.
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Shaun and Susan both returned Wednesday's nod. "Nice to meet you," Susan said, still wondering how in the name of all hells he and Ryder could look so very alike, when they were most definitely not the same sort of creature at all. Shaun, who knew only that Ryder was a demon, thought at first that Wednesday might be one, too--until, that is, he realized that Ryder and Wednesday gave off very, very different vibes.
"You want to take these cats already?" he asked, nudging at one with his boot. "I'm trying to have a conversation here, and they're not helping."
Susan was on the verge of leaving him stuck with all of them, but abruptly took pity. "Scram, all of you," she said, and the cats did. The meerkat, however, did not--it had fled over to a window and climbed the drapes.
"Some people are harder to influence than others," Ryder said. "I'm not the only demon. We've got aliens, a few undead, some angels, and I've heard rumors we also have the Antichrist, though I've never actually met him. Oh, and Jesus, though I haven't met him either."
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"How did you come by such a collection of felines?"
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Susan smiled, somewhat dry, as one of the kittens returned and latched onto her boot. "They were my grandfather's," she said, picking up the creature. "I sort of inherited them when he popcorned. Half of them seem to have decided Ryder here is more interesting than I am."
"Damn furballs," Ryder muttered, mostly under his breath. Shaun snickered.
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