DOW 3: The Necessary Angst
Title: Days of Our Wings, Chapitre 3: The Necessary Angst
Rating: T
Disclaimer: not mine, including the horrible pointy teeth
Summary: Surprisingly, most of Fay's current troubles stem from exposure to vampire blood...
Their current world was a welcome respite from the previous onslaught of familiar faces the travelers had endured. In addition, work was plentiful and, after a few nights spent camping on park benches, the three had secured a room above a karaoke bar. The owner had been particularly enthusiastic about renting to them, as he was gaining a bartender and bouncer in the transaction. This would leave Syaoran free to continue his research unconstrained by financial worries while ensuring that Kurogane had plenty of opportunities to indulge in petty violence and allowing Fay to sing show tunes - off-key and in public - to his heart’s content.
The one downside of this world affected only the most diminutive member of the group. An unfortunate accident some years earlier involving a cloning tank, a white rabbit, and a fairly sizeable amount of gin had resulted in a quickly-evolving lagomorph infestation. The legion of cloned rabbits, true to their original nature, had reproduced wildly; quickly forcing other wildlife out of their niches, and inserting themselves into various roles in the local ecosystem. Surprisingly, this had worked to the locals’ advantage - even the enormous Cattlebits produced amazingly large litters and spawned curiously fast generations. Famine was unheard of, though live-stock castration had become something of a sacrament. Naturally, pest-control had also become a lucrative career option - the sewer-dwelling Ratbit and arboreal Squirbit populations proved much more difficult to control than their predecessors.
Despite the citizen’s tolerance of and resulting dependence on of the Rabbiforms, however, the appearance of a talking, dancing rabbit with a voracious appetite and no tolerance for alcohol was worrisome. While the current population was manageable, many locals secretly feared they, too, would be going the way of the wild deer (and squirrels, and rats, and geese, and cows, etc.). It was decided, therefore, that Mokona would stay indoors, only venturing outside under the most dire of circumstances and then hidden in one of their clothes.
Mokona and the others, however, had differing definitions of “most dire,” and after several attempts by the former to sneak out buried in Kurogane’s underwear, an agreement was reached. In exchange for staying indoors, Mokona would be allowed a bottle of strong alcohol at the end of each week and the long-standing limit on communication with Watanuki was relaxed.
So it was that Fay and Kurogane returned to their room early Saturday morning to find Syaoran asleep on the sofa with several pillows over his head and socks crammed into his ears while a very drunk Mokona chattered incessantly to a rather uncomfortable-looking, half-naked Watanuki hologram. This in and of itself wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary, were it not for the lacy violet bra currently supporting the manjuu’s ears.
Kurogane closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know. Of this much, he was certain.
Fay spied the playing cards on the floor as the communication abruptly ended, a final squeak audible from Watanuki as the light dulled. “Strip poker?”
“Mokona is very good at strip poker!” it squealed, indicating the pile of clothing its opponent had been forced to forfeit. Kurogane growled.
“Yes, I see!” Fay exclaimed, “How about sending that back to him now though, those kinds of clothes don’t really fit in here and we don’t need the-” His last word was cut off by a sharp intake of air as he pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing.
“You okay?” Kurogane asked, eyeing the wizard with concern. It wasn’t like him to get headaches.
“Yeah, just my eyes…” the blond trailed off. “Damn...”
“Probably just readjusting to the light,” Kurogane grunted. “You wouldn’t believe how small your pupils are right now,” he added with a note of amusement.
“You’re right,” Fay murmured, using a hand to shade his aching eyes. He supposed an entire night spent in a dark bar followed by sudden exposure to the excessively bright morning sunlight of this world would wreak havoc on his long-suffering eyes. And last night had been more punishing than most; a twelve hour shift pulling pints while tone-deaf twenty-somethings alternated between crooning Gloria Gaynor and slurring “Piano Man” was likely accounting for some of the tension in his head. “Let’s get a couple of hours of sleep - we have to shop for groceries before tonight’s shift.”
Kurogane agreed, pausing only momentarily to wonder aloud “What the hell is with that kid and the cut-offs?”
The ninja had no luck silencing the gale of laughter and squeaks of “There are dozens of them!” that abruptly emanated from the manjuu.
* * * * *
It was sometime after noon when Fay awoke to the sound of the shower. His body felt like lead, despite a considerable amount of sleep. His eyes were still killing him. He groaned as he forced himself out of bed and stumbled to the dresser.
He was still dressing, slowly, sullenly, when Kurogane came back into the room and made a playful swipe at him with his bath towel.
“Nggh,” the wizard grumbled. “Fuck off.”
Kurogane frowned. He wondered briefly if this was a hangover, but then remembered that Fay refused to drink while he was working. “Sorry,” he muttered, grabbing a clean pair of socks.
“S’okay,” came the slightly muted reply. “I don’t think I can cook tonight. Let’s get dinner before shopping.”
“Sure…” Kurogane trailed off, now concerned. He hoped it wasn’t the Swibit flu. He had heard that strain was particularly nasty; though he had yet to actually meet anyone who’d caught it.
They picked a quiet café in the market for dinner; Kurogane ordering a huge Cattlebit steak, while Fay fussed silently over a garden salad.
“How can you stand to eat flesh?” Fay demanded, stabbing violently at a tomato.
“…the hell?” Kurogane felt his eyes narrow. This was a worrying avenue of conversation from someone who’d survived by drinking his blood for a period.
“You’ve ended a life to satisfy your own bloodlust,” Fay shook his head, eyes welling up with tears.
“This is not a convincing argument coming from a man who once stood down an angry mob of PETA protesters shouting about how he would gladly suck bacon through a straw if they knocked his teeth out.”
“A man…” Fay shook his head slowly, stealthily skewering a large chunk of Kurogane’s steak with his knife and popping it in his mouth. The sweet juices ran down his throat as he squeezed the morsel between his teeth and he lost himself in the momentary rush of blood to his face. Pupils contracted. Then he remembered the poor, fluffy bunny alone in its pen and tried to resist gagging on the steak as it slid down his throat. No, not a man, a beast, he mused, pushing his plate away and signaling for the waitress. “A large fudge sundae, please,” he ordered when she arrived.
“You do realize that’s made from the milk of poor, exploited animals,” Kurogane grunted, more than slightly annoyed at his companion’s behavior.
“Fuck you, I need chocolate.”
* * * * *
The supermarket offered an entirely novel definition of hell for Kurogane, who was presently attempting to pry the wizard away from a display of chocolate covered animal crackers. Fay was sobbing loudly, deeply conflicted by his wavering ethical concerns over animal-shaped foodstuffs and his craven lust for chocolate. He seemed completely unaware that his inner-monologue was being broadcast at an impressive volume by his lips.
Kurogane decided it was best for his sanity if he left the wizard to his own devices and gathered the items on the list as quickly as he could. He threw in more than a few extra chocolate covered goodies - just in case this little episode was going to continue. And a bottle of chocolate syrup. Just for good measure, mind you. He found Fay doubled over in the freezer section, keening softly to himself about lost love and betrayal while petting a bag of frozen carrots. Huffed as he tossed the frozen package into the cart and helped Fay to his feet and dragged him toward the checkout line. If this was Swibit flu, he really hoped the kid wouldn’t catch it as well.
The lines were long with last-minute shoppers. Kurogane tried in vain to find the shortest, and eventually settled for the one closest to the door. He eyed the clock on the wall.
Five minutes passed.
Ten.
Fifteen.
“Kurogane.”
The ninja turned his head sharply, feeling an inexplicable urge to kill rising in his throat. “What?”
“Go.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“Go. Leave me. I’ll pay and meet you at home.”
“I think I’ll stay.” He didn’t trust the wizard alone in public in this state. Who knew what his flu-addled brain was capable of?
“If you try to argue with me, this will turn into a fight.” Fay’s eyes flashed wildly, pupils narrowing to small slits.
Kurogane had had enough. Flu be damned, the idiot mage could find his own way home. They really didn’t have the money to cover the amount of property damage he felt he was seconds away from inflicting.
* * * * *
“You just left him there?” Syaoran nearly shrieked as Kurogane filled a tall glass with gin and splashed the surface with a few drops of orange juice.
“Damned right I did! Swibit flu or not, the idiot was crying to a pile of crackers!” He drank deeply from the cup and slammed it down onto the table. “And then it was all ‘oooh, go home Kurogane…leave me here in my misery…wah wah wah!’”
Syaoron shifted uncomfortably. “He called you ‘Kurogane’?”
The ninja replayed the scene in his mind. “Yeah…” He suddenly felt ill.
Syaoron shuddered. “You don’t think…”
“Oh SHIT.”
* * * * *
Fay returned home half an hour later to find Syaoran and Mokona barricaded behind the sofa and coffee table. His beloved ninja was nowhere in sight. He sighed painfully; such a monster was he that even his dearest friends felt sullied by his presence. He didn’t deserve to live. He silently cursed his existence while unloading the groceries and carefully turning all of the labels to face the front of the cupboard.
Syaoran, disturbed by the abrupt shift in tone the author had taken, braced himself. It had been almost a year since the last “incident.” At least this time they were far away from any sort of sparkly vampire movies. AMS took quite a toll on the magician’s traveling companions.
* * * * *
Kurogane cursed himself. How could he have missed the signs? The small pupils and heavily lidded eyes. The eye cramps stemming therefrom. The violent mood swings. The goddamned chocolate. The mage’s AMS would be the death of him.
Angst Muffin Syndrome (AMS), as defined by psychiatric societies in several dimension, appeared to be an incurable, recurring side effect of exposure to vampire blood. Cycles varied in length from patient to patient, but in Fay's case seemed to be averaging roughly nine months. Though the condition was acknowledged in multiple dimensions, the leading treatment options were presently limited to suggestions of “Wait for it to pass,” “Take two Midol and call me in the morning,” and “Run.” Kurogane could only surmise that the latter “treatment” was intended for the people nearest to the patient, as his previous suggestion of participating in a marathon had only produced an even more despondent Fay - too dehydrated to run the final 10 miles and too convinced that he didn’t deserve to live to accept the water bottles being thrust at him. The hospital bill from that little misadventure had been enough to convince Kurogane a ban on all sports was essential for the next three worlds if they wanted to eat.
His back stiffened as the wizard in question walked through the front door of the bar. The sultry eyes and wistful expression were par for the course. The spiked collar and girl-pants were an entirely new and terrifying addition.
Tonight was going to be a long night.
* * * * *
Fay emptied the bottle of Wodka into the three shot glasses in front of him. This was his lot in life; dispensing chemical happiness to ridiculous gaggles of girls was clearly his calling and he decided he would do well to embrace it. He held the empty Wodka bottle close to his chest, running his fingers over its ridged handle, accepting his wretched fate and loving every plastic-coated inch of it.
Syaoran slapped the bottle out of his hands and quickly collected payment from the alcohol-saturated group, winking slyly in their direction. For good measure, he slipped a bill into the startled magician’s collar.
The crowd whooped appreciatively.
Syaoran thanked his lucky stars that the libraries in this world had nothing to offer regarding the splitting-off of joined persons/memories/fathers from his body. This had the potential to be a very difficult stay otherwise. He hit the cash register drawer suggestively with his hips and smiled hopefully at the owner.
The owner smiled back. He had no idea what was wrong with the overtly effeminate one tonight, but was placing extra stock in the overtly masculine one’s judgments after he had suggested his overtly innocent friend would more than make up for lost revenue.
He made a mental note to stop abusing the word “overtly,” even though he struggled to find a word that “overtly” would not greatly enhance in adjectivity to describe the trio. He instead made a mental note to stop making up words.
Kurogane wondered how long the wizard would continue to stare at his boots.
* * * * *
The lock on the doors clicked into position at 6am.
Kurogane eyed the downcast magician as he carefully stacked chairs onto their tables. Fay was carefully polishing the bar, or at least carefully polishing a portion of the bar. Slowly, his rag traced languid circles around his reflection. His eyes had long since glazed over as he stared down the deeply varnished patterns in the wood.
Syaoran, eager to finish the clean-up and get to bed, silently took the rag from his friend and handed him an overflowing trash bag, nodding toward the backdoor. Just as silently, Fay took the bag and headed toward the dumpster.
“Well, that was an interesting night.”
Kurogane growled. “Oh yes, tons of fun.” He eyed the backdoor. “I think he’ll be calling in sick tonight.”
Syaoran shrugged. “We brought in enough in tips last night to cover the rent for the next two months…”
“That’s all well and good,” Kurogane grunted, flipping up a bar stool, “but there’s no sense in paying rent for three if I have to kill one of us before the week’s out.”
“Maybe…” the reply was cut short by the sudden explosion of noise from the back entrance. Kurogane swore under his breath as he slammed the last of the barstools onto the counter and headed for the door.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t the sight of the wizard perched on top of the remains of the dumpster, eyes wide with fear and darting from side to side as they scoured the pavement below for an unseen foe. He lifted an eyebrow.
“They’re everywhere!” Fay shrieked, jumping onto the ninja’s shoulders.
“What’s everywhere?” Kurogane demanded, trying to regain his balance. He forcefully readjusted Fay's foot, which was currently digging heel-first into his ribs, and moved to yank the pale hands out of his hair. He was rewarded with a fistful of extra-strength pomade for his troubles.
“White death! With red eyes and horrible pointy teeth!”
“What?!” Kurogane gritted his teeth as the magician’s arms wrapped around his face, obscuring his vision. He noticed a flash of white hopping off around the corner just before his sight went completely dark. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the damned rabbits now.”
“They bit me!”
“Oh for fu…” He cursed silently as he headed toward the back staircase, the magician still clinging desperately to his head. Wordlessly, he set Fay down at the kitchen table and stomped back outside, looking for a hammer. It was going to take most of the morning to fix the damned dumpster.
* * * * *
“Kuro-myuu hates me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m a terrible mother.”
“No, you’re a wonderful mother.”
“Don’t feed the troll, kid,” Kurogane grunted, taking a heavy swig from his cup. “Besides, he knows damn well he’s a terrible mother when he locks himself in the bedroom for the third day running.” The last part of this was directed toward the bedroom door.
Kurogane had reached his limit. A week had passed, with little improvement in the magician’s mood. When, on the third day, Kuroganehad outright barred him from going to work, Fay had resigned himself to lying on the bedroom floor, utterly motionless except for the tears of despair that fell slowly down his cheeks. It was only after Kurogane had come home from a particularly rough night of bouncing and proceeded to laugh at him that he’d begun locking the door and playing whiny guitar music at full volume.
Syaoran felt Kurogane’s pain. When the AMS struck, his initial response was invariably fear, followed closely by a strong urge to defecate. Once the preliminary shock wore off, however, he found himself having a great deal of sympathy for the magician; he was, after all, well-traveled in the path of the Angst Muffin.
Generally by the fourth or fifth day, it was all he could do not to laugh.
He was never sure what, exactly, caused this shift in his demeanor. He’d briefly entertained the idea that he was reacting to the cognitive dissonance that watching a man who had been: left for dead, watched his twin brother die while being saved from death, sealed away the only man who’d ever shown him kindness, lost an eyeball (to a blood-thirsty clone whom who he had traveled with and cared deeply about), become a vampire, watched the only man who’d shown him kindness in his youth killed by the man to whom he owed his life, watched his twin brother die again (or at least fade away into petals), watched the man to whom he owed his life slice off his own arm to save him yet again, and then graciously accepted being stuffed into a furisode once they reached safety (the following punctuation is for your safety, dear reader); brood for hours over slightly burnt toast was bound to produce. When his mind reeled recounting the magician’s past, let alone trying to string the thought into a coherent sentence, he opted for a simpler solution and considered that he might, in fact, just be a terrible person.
Whatever the case, the addition of the tight jeans and thickly rimmed glasses weren’t helping matters.
A loud SNAP from the kitchen pulled him out of his reverie. Another Ratbit. The population in the apartment seemed to be growing by the day, likely due to the large amount of food Fay was currently in the practice of throwing into the garbage (or at the wall, or at the floor…) when it didn’t meet his standards. The amount of money the trio was currently spending on food and Ratbit traps was nearly outpacing their wages; Syaoran observed with only the faintest note jealousy that his tips had been cut three-fold without the angst-ridden magician keeping him company behind the bar.
Kurogane walked to the kitchen to empty the trap. “That’s three in the past hour…” he observed to no one in particular.
Syaoran hoped the furry bastards weren’t making their way into the bedroom. He was quite sure that the bar patrons would notice the commotion. He walked over to the door and rapped quietly.
“We’re heading to work now, see you in the morning…Mom,” he added the title as a sort of apology for his earlier fit of giggles.
“I’ll be here,” came the slightly choked reply, “wallowing in my deep pool of nothingness...”
Syaoran thought he could hear the sound of a head banging slowly against the floor and stuffed a few pieces of chocolate beneath the door.
Kurogane slammed the door behind them.
* * * * *
For a Saturday night, the bar was surprisingly dead, Kurogane noted with some relief. He didn’t begrudge his boss the business, but taking care of three children during the day and putting in a full night’s worth of work was starting to take its toll on him. Especially as some idiot could usually be depended on to sing the entirety of “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” thrice-over in an increasingly high-pitched drunken falsetto. When it came time to close up, he was in a remarkably good mood. He’d even briefly considered treating the wizard to a chocolate fudge sundae over waffles for breakfast.
So, it was with some consternation that he first noted the state of the kitchen as he entered the apartment. The stove-top burners had been left set on “high,” the walls smeared with what appeared to be chocolate-covered lettuce-wraps, traces of peanut butter and jelly oozing out of the sides. He noted the remains of what he assumed had once been bacon still on the counter and fervently hoped the idiot hadn’t been dipping that in chocolate as well.
The living room was in a (slightly) better condition, with only the sofa upturned. Mokona snored heavily on top of a lamp, murmuring quietly to itself about “fringe” and “bellybuttons.”
He walked toward the bedroom door and hesitated. Steeling his nerves, he turned the handle.
Locked.
He banged twice on the door.
No answer.
Cursing the extra money a broken door was going take out of his paycheck, he threw his weight against the jamb and ripped it from the frame.
The massacre had been spectacular. The floor, slick with blood, was littered with the corpses of hundreds of mutilated Ratbits. The wizard paused mid-knife stroke to stare in horror at Kurogane, then brought the blade crashing down into the gut of a still squealing victim.
Kurogane screamed as he leapt across the room to stop the magician. Fay looked over his shoulder, eyes wide in terror as he raised the knife again…
“FUCKING MAGE! THAT’S MY TOE!!”
* * * * *
Kurogane awoke to the smell of disinfectant and the sound of familiar instrumental music being played at a low volume. He looked around, wondering where he was and at what point he had fallen asleep. He had vague memories of a slaughter house dripping with chocolate.
“Good morning, Kuro-sama.”
Kurogane recoiled in fear as the memories came rushing back to him. He moved his feet underneath himself to shuffle backwards and collapsed in agonizing pain as the spot where his left big toe used to be smashed into the futon.
“Don’t worry, he’s no longer Angsty,” a familiar voice said from the shadows.
Tomoyo. He was developing a real knack for arriving in Nihon with missing appendages.
“Who’s worried?” Kurogane scoffed, thankful the worst was apparently over. He sat up to look at the mage. “You,” he said flatly, “can be a real pain in the ass.”
“Yay! Kuro-puu doesn’t hate me anymore!” Fay squealed, then, leaning closer with an anxious, somber expression “I’m sorry.”
“No. No more angst. Just go back to being a happy idiot.”
* * * * *
“It sounds like you’ve had quite the trip,” the princess remarked later over dinner.
“’Quite’ isn’t quite the word I’d use,” Kurogane grunted.
“But on the bright side,” Tomoyo continued loudy, ignoring the ninja, “it seems like you’ve finally discovered a viable cure for AMS.” She smiled brightly.
“We did?” Kurogane and Syaoran exchanged confused glances.
“Yes,” Fay continued, “We discussed the, erm, ‘incident’ with Watanuki and came to the conclusion that it’s likely that…well…our last night there did a world of good for me.”
“A world of good?” Kurogane growled, not liking the direction this conversation was headed. “You massacred a legion of rabbits and cut off my toe.”
“Cute, innocent, fluffy rabbits,” Syaoran added through clenched teeth. After Kurogane had passed out, he had been left with most of the clean-up duty.
“Yes, well…” Tomoyo continued hesitantly, “it certainly snapped him right out of it, didn’t it?”
Kurogane and Syaoran exchanged concerned glances over the table.
“And it does seem to fit the pattern…” she trailed off, not terribly eager to conjure images of a bloodied Sakura or Kurogane during dinner.
“So what you’re saying is that him slaughtering something cute and innocent and me losing a piece of my body is an instant cure for Angst Muffin Syndrome?” Kurogane demanded.
Fay had the decency to look ashamed.
“Fuck it. Next time we’re trying the ‘Take two Midol and call me in the morning.’ approach.”
And one more...
