Songs and Stories (Mythklok, Chapter 58)
Title: Songs and Stories (Mythklok, Chapter 58)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Travels in the altered universe.
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs
Notes: Notes after the jump.
Mythklok is a Metalocalypse AU. If you're behind and for some strange reason wanna catch up, the best place is my fic journal, tikific, where you are welcome to come visit the bits I’ve written and maybe poke them with a pointed stick. I've also written a general introduction in case you wanna jump in the middle of things, or have forgotten all this stuff due to Real Life.
Last time: Charles appeared in a weird alternate universe where Ganesh is kind of a dick and he’s hungry all the time. No, I mean all the time. Only it’s not an alternate universe, someone screwed with our universe. Or maybe it's our dreams. Oh, and Raziel is there. She wasn't an angel, but she got better. And so is Nathan. He likes the horses and the nachos.
The entryway was small and cluttered. Though Michael didn’t really need to stoop over in his Court Form, he did so anyway. It was claustrophobic.
Above the fireplace in the living room hung a painting: a small handprint, under which had been written the word, “Raziel.”
And above that, a sword.
It wasn’t possible to see from across the room, but on the hilt of the sword was written, “Vighnesha, Vighneshvara.”
“Father!”
“Michael, you know it’s almost time for our stories,” the old man grumbled as he came in from the wood-paneled den.
“Are you coming?” called a woman’s voice from the other room.
“In one moment, my dear,” He answered.
“You’re gonna miss the opening credits!” she scolded.
“She’s done it,” said Michael. “She’s gone and done it.”
“Do we know that She is responsible?”
“Who else?”
"Those little earthlings. They're always getting into trouble."
"The earth gods you mean?" Michael cringed even as the words left his mouth. Probably not a good thing to say to the boss.
"I will look into it. After Corazon de Azul."
"Oh, did Yolanda ever marry the long haired guy? I like him!"
And then, just like that, Archangel Michael was standing outside the house, his shoes inches deep in the muddy flower garden.
“So, Raziel?”
“Yeah?” she asked. “Could you keep your horse steady? I’m trying to do my liner.”
Charles sighed and looked around to where Raziel was mounted behind him. “Where the hell did you get that mascara?”
“Ganesh’s place.”
“Really? Huh. There might be some things we need to talk about when we’re back home. Anyway, you’re not supposed to look like a girl! That’s the point of the disguise!”
“Silly Sariel, it’s not mascara, it’s kohl! And Indian men use it too!”
“Raziel, as little as you look like a man, you look even less like an Indian man!”
“Pfft. You’re such a worrywart. For your information, drag performers use tons and tons of makeup!”
“That’s men trying to look like women!”
“What if we run into Wotan here and I don't look cute?"
"What will he care?"
"Wotan cares! Maybe you should worry more about looking cute for Ganesh!"
"Ganesh isn't with me because I'm cute."
"Well, obviously."
Charles fumed. "Anyway, we can't pay attention to stupid stuff like that any more! We have a kid!"
"I have two," said Raziel. And then she added quietly, "Had." It was like a light had been switched off.
They rode together in silence for a moment. Charles sighed. As much as he was annoyed by obnoxious Raziel, he found he couldn't bear a sad Raziel.
“Raziel, when you got up and went to look in the box, were you sleeping?” Charles asked her.
“I wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“But before? Did you get up from bed to go there?”
“Yeah. So?”
“I got up from bed too. Could this all be a dream?”
“Huh. That’s an interesting idea.”
“Think about it. Things are off. And some of the stuff that’s happening…. Well, you worry about your kids, right?”
“And you worry obsessively that Ganesh doesn’t love you,” she shot back.
“Maybe,” Charles admitted sullenly, looking up ahead to where Ganesh was riding beside Nathan and chatting companionably.
“So, if this is a dream, could we all just drink Red Bull and wake up?” Raziel suggested, taking up her kohl once again.
“We should ask Ganesh. I dunno. Hey, what’s that?” The unmistakable sound of drumming echoed in the distance. Charles urged on his horse - he was still riding barefoot, so he couldn't really be said to spur anything - and pulled up beside Ganesh and Nathan.
“DUDE!” Nathan boomed. “Do you hear that?”
“I know!” said Charles. Without a word, both of them hurried their horses up to the ridge ahead.
“Wait you two!” Ganesh shouted from behind them. “Be careful!”
The ridge afforded a sweeping view of a valley below. There were scattered farms visible, and then what looked like the structures of a small town or village. But all the party’s attentions were directed at a gathering of people in a field, centered around a horse drawn wagon. There was a small knot of performers on the tiny stage mounted in back of the wagon, two drummers and a guy singing. Even from this distance it was clear that one of the drummers was a redhead.
"Is that...?" asked Nathan.
"Gotta be!" said Charles.
"Be cautious you two!" Ganesh told them. "That constitutes a group of people down there."
"Yeah. So?" asked Nathan.
"In these parts,” Ganesh explained, “there is only a hairs breadth of difference between a group and a mob, and then even less of a division between a mob and an angry mob."
"He's got a point," said Charles, thinking of the group that had attacked him that first night.
"Dude, have you seen any of our concert audiences?" Nathan growled.
"Hey, Sariel! Did you look at the other drummer?" asked Raziel.
"Where did you get that telescope, Raziel?" Charles asked her.
"Ganesh had it."
"I mean, where did you pack it?"
"In the saddlebag!"
"But that was where I was keeping my snacks!" Charles wailed.
"You can gnaw on it if you want!" said Raziel, offering up the telescope, which he snatched a bit intermperately. His misbehaving stomach had been growling again.
"Will you two quit quarreling and tell me what you're on about?" Ganesh pleaded.
"Oh, we've been arguing for two thousand years. It's kind of what we do," Raziel informed him.
"It's true, dude," Nathan informed him.
"Hey, did you see the other drummer?" asked Charles, now peering through the telescope.
"That's what I was trying to tell you!" Raziel huffed.
"He's wearing a feather scarf thingie!" Charles noted.
"It's called a boa!" said Raziel.
"We gotta go down there, Ganesh!" Charles told him.
"Yeah, that guy has a unique fashion sensibility!" Raziel enthused.
"Raziel! You don't recognize 'em? Oh, forget it. Look, these guys may have some answers. Ganesh, we gotta risk the angry mob."
Nathan had been threatened upon pain of chip deprivation to go on ahead with the horses, giving the gathering the widest possible berth, while the rest of the party descended towards the traveling show. “Get me an autograph!” Nathan called after them. “And see if they have nachos!!”
“Pickles doesn’t sign any more,” Raziel told him.
“Whatta douche bag!” Nathan grumbled.
The horse drawn cart had a small stage area located at the very back. Two drummers performed onstage: Pickles, who was for some reason dressed in a bright green harlequin outfit, was actually the lowest key of the bunch. Chango, opposite him, wore a vermilion catsuit and a matching feather boa.
The frizzy-haired Orula stood between two drummers, twirling his cape dramatically and singing.
Thoughts are flowing back like putt-putt balls into a windmill cup
They gurgle as they roll across the altered universe
Pools of happenstance are drifting in my fucked up mind
Reality is biting me
My guru babbles, mom
Witches have just changed my world
Bitches throwing back the world
Which is now the real world?
Ditch is where it lies, the world
Images of crystal balls which needs a dusting like a million times
They call me on and on the altered universe
Thoughts meander back into that mini mall their headquarters
They stumble blindly as they try to cast the most essential spell
My guru noshes, nom
Witches just fucked up the world
Stitches sewing back the world
Hitches in their casting world
Glitches to throw back the world
My guru hugs me, glom
My guru dances, prom
My guru’s memory, rom
My guru crashes, bomb…..
“FREE BIRD!” came the scream from the audience.
“FECK YOO!” screamed Pickles, from up on the stage.
“Croutons, the show must go on!” Orula hissed at him. And then he began to sing.
If I leave here tomorrow
Will it still be yesterday?
Or perhaps it will be next month
The timestream has been chaaaaaaanged…..
“YOU GUYS SUCK!” the audience cheered.
“YOO DOODS SWALLOW!” Pickles rejoindered.
“Olives!” warned Orula.
“YOU’RE A DICK!” came the now restive audience.
“YOO DON’T GOT A DICK!” screamed Pickles.
“Uhhhhhh, DO SO!” came back the now somewhat overmatched audience.
“Celery!” warned Orula, as he watched torches and pitchforks start to rise.
“DO NAWT!” said Pickles, ignoring instructions for other vegetables.
“DO TOO!”
“Yeh, is dat why yer kids all look like da milkman?” Pickles laughed.
“I actually always wondered about that…” commented the audience member, who was now about the only person not hovering menacingly near the stage.
“We’re going from mob to angry mob,” Raziel whispered to Charles.
“I might be able to do something,” he told her as he began to wind his way towards the stage. Many years of managing a rock band and navigating treacherous mosh pits had given Charles the ability to weave through the most unruly of crowds.
Suddenly a beer bottle smashed onstage. Pickles, who may have been a Fool, but was not an idiot, and who also had some experience in navigating concert audiences, took this as his cue to flee the stage. Orula was not so lucky, and not literally had a half dozen people surrounding him, pitchforks at his throat.
“WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!” they chanted.
“I believe you will find this has been a free concert,” Orula reasoned.
“You need to pay us to listen to your crappy songs!”
“Chango!” The god turned to see Charles whispering to him at the edge of the stage. “Gimme that, I think I can help?”
“Oi, you’ll smack ‘em with the violin! At’s a good egg, Charles dear!” Chango approved, handing over the instrument.
“Uh, not quite,” Charles told him. He quickly got the instrument in tune, and then began to play.
It was something very old. And aching. Audience members who had formerly been ready to stab performers over ticket price disputes very slowly became distracted. The dispute quieted to mutterings, and then the mutterings were lost. And the summery day had somehow dried up and saddened into winter.
“Come on!” urged Raziel, dragging Ganesh up to the stage.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“You’ll know this one. Just follow me. Sariel!” she called. “The join us dance!”
Charles nodded and, as Raziel began to dance with Ganesh, started a much livelier tune. Orula listened for a verses while Ganesh and Raziel moved in a curiously compelling fashion, and then began to sing.
If you ever have the chance
If you’re not wearing pants
Then join together join together in the dance
If you bicycle in France
Or look at cheese askance
Then join together join together in the dance
Slowly, without really understanding why, audience members had begun to follow Ganesh and Raziel’s steps.
If you’ve watered your house plants
If you like to step on ants
Then join together join together in the dance
Doesn’t need a second glance
Just let it loose and prance!
Join together join together in the dance
“Get the horses!” Raziel shouted to Charles. He dropped the violin and, scrambling up and over the cart, jumped onto the driver’s seat at the front and urged on the team pulling the wagon. As Raziel and Ganesh tossed off the few audience members still on the wagon’s stage, he flicked the reigns and started the horses. The cart thundered off down the road while the audience was still dazed and dancing. But despite the delay, the mob slowly came to its senses and evidently decided it was hungry for blood, and after a time Charles started hearing the unmistakable sound of horsemen hounding their path.
He looked up to see Raziel flying ahead, her sword poised. He gripped the reigns harder, feeling annoyingly earthbound. He felt the pains on his shins from where he’d barked them climbing over the wagon. He felt weak and mortal.
As they reached the start of the next mountain passage, Raziel whacked the hillside and sent a rockslide tumbling over the road, blocking the path behind them.
“Not goin’ back that way,” she laughed, coming to sit beside him.
“Not sure I wanna go back to that village. Or any village here,” he muttered. "Hey, look up there!"
Raziel looked to where Charles was pointing. Nathan stood up ahead in a clearing by the side of the with the horses. And with a very familiar jester.
The harlequin was not pleased to be gripped by e scruff of the neck.
"Lemme go yoo mudderdoucher!" he was squawking as they rode abreast. “Dere's 5 t'ousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire!”
Charles stopped the wagon.
"I dunno what't the deal because he seems like he's making EVEN LESS SENSE than usual" Nathan grumbled.
"Oh, it's little Carrots the Drummer!" said Orula as the party from the back of the wagon came around.
"Pickles," supplied Charles.
"I knew he was a crudite of some kind."
"They hadda count all da holes!" Pickles sputtered.
"You don't remember?" Charles asked him/
"Now I know how many holes it take to fill da Albert Hall."
"Sounds sorta normal to me," Raziel grinned.
"Can you do your cork popping sound and fix him?" Charles asked Ganesh.
“I'd love to turn you on!” Pickles told Ganesh.
Ganesh squinted at Pickles for a moment. "Sorry, no. He is complicated."
"How the FUCK do you know he's complicated?"
"Can you not read his aura?" Ganesh puffed.
"No. And neither could you if you weren't smoking that shit!"
"I have just been to a concert!" Ganesh protested, flicking ashes.
"Hey!" said Pickles, motioning to Ganesh's joint. “He blew his mind out in a car?"
Ganesh shrugged and handed over the smoke. Pickles suddenly inhaled, turning the entire cigarette to ash in one mighty gulp.
"Are baap re," muttered Ganesh. "That's impressive!"
It was decided to make camp, as the horses needed to be rested and watered, and Charles needed to be fed.
“You are an angel, Charles?” inquired Orula as they sat around a cheery campfire Raziel had helpfully started with her flaming sword.
“I thought we went through this at the wedding?” Charles told them. “Yeah, I’m part angel.”
“That makes sense of it now!”
“Oi! Too late for us,” noted Chango.
“Yes, too late for any,” agreed Orula.
“Uh, guys, makes sense of what, exactly?” Charles asked, grabbing some jerky and a bottle of wine and digging in for the long haul that was an Orula/Chango explanation.
“Some time ago, some terribly scruffy angels-“ began Orula.
“Scruffy bleeders, they were,” sniffed Chango.
“They weren’t well turned out. Not well turned out at all! And they offered us pits and pats of money.”
“Gobs and gobs!”
“Not that we’d be interested in money,” Orula assured.
“I might be a bit,” Chango suggested.
“Well a bit.”
“But not that interested,” Chango noted.
“No, not that interested,” agreed Orula.
“And, uh, what were they gonna pay you for?” inquired Charles, chewing his jerky thoughtfully.
“A reversion spell. Simple trick. Wanted to send some unfortunate chaps back in time! Splashing up the timestream and all that. Trouble was, one of the unfortunate chaps was you.”
“Unfortunate,” said Chango. “For them.” The two vodouisants exchanged a look.
“And, we had to explain in detail about the whole Ifa thing, that if one threatens one of us, he threatens all, and we need to take bloody vengeance, ripping hearts out and all that,” said Orula.
“It’s in the contract.”
“All neatly specified in the contract. Anywho, we had our zombies rip them limb from limb!”
“As specified in sub clause 86/b."
“Yes, this was all done according to the books,” Orula bragged.
“So, this isn’t a dream, this is a timeslip?” Raziel asked.
“Oi! ‘At’s a good question, Miss! A good question!” Chango noted.
“Oh, thanks,” giggled Raziel. “I like your boa.”
“Can we not chatter about fashion?” Charles sighed.
“You like?” asked Chango, ignoring Charles. “Seraph feathers, this.”
“You- Wait. You’re fucking kidding me!” Charles exclaimed. “That’s impossible! There are no bright red angels!”
“Vermilion,” explained Raziel.
“But there are no…”
“Dyed,” said Raziel.
“But what if they True Form?” Charles insisted.
“Died,” repeated Raziel, more seriously this time.
Charles started to say something, but instead suddenly whirled around to study Orula and Chango. They stared back, Chango tossing the boa dramatically around his neck. “Oi. We’re Ifa, mate,” he said.
“You guys killed Seraphs?” Charles asked them.
“Well, technically, our vast army of the undead did the work,” Orula explained.
“OK,” said Charles. “Maybe, next time, tell me about this stuff?” Chango and Orula nodded. “So, you think they got someone else to do this?” The vodouisants nodded.
“They wanted us to revert back to 1980,” Orula explained.
“Which would be a satisfying decade in many ways,” Chango echoed.
“Oh, yes, other than the spell potentially tearing the very fabric of reality and thus destroying the universe as we know it, that was a rather pleasant choice!” Orula noted. “But, well, you see what they’ve gone and done!”
“Oi. They overshot!” said Chango. “Obviously.”
“Obviously. This is 1380 or 1580 or 1780 some other tacky, tacky 80.”
“Not 1980 at all!”
“As you can tell by the absence of electronic dance hits!” grumbled Orula.
“And the lack of spandex accessories!” mourned Chango. “Shame, really. Shame.”
“That is a shame,” agreed Raziel.
“Are these fellows quite sane?” Ganesh whispered to Charles.
“No. No, they are not,” Charles assured him.
“Amateurs,” grumbled Orula.
“Do you know who else might have done this?” Charles asked them.
“I have my guess, which I shall not share at this point!” Orula declared.
“Norns,” coughed Chango.
“Oh, boy,” said Charles. “Oh, fuck.”
As Raziel and Chango had started in on accessories again, Charles had excused himself to go look after his horse, which, in reality, had been well cared for. Nathan was, surprisingly, very good about tending to the horses.
There was a lot to think about. He had reckoned it was all a dream, but it may instead be someone playing with the timestream, which was always a dangerous prospect. His thoughts kept drifting back to Orula and Chango killing those Seraphim. He knew damned well the two were powerful, but it evidently hadn’t registered as it should before. And what the hell were angels doing? Was Raziel right that her mother was now involved?
He wandered a bit further, out to the stream that ran in back of the campsite, and splashed his bare feet in the water. Ganesh had been right about one thing, his feet were healing without shoes. The cold water felt really good.
“Are your feet all right?”
Charles hadn’t heard Ganesh come up. “Yeah, thanks, they’re actually not too bad.”
“That was impressive, back there,” Ganesh commented.
“Uh, what?” Charles asked, coming back up from the stream.
“Your violin playing?” said Ganesh.
Charles smiled shyly at Ganesh. “Yeah? You wouldn’t have heard it. I mean, even if you remembered, you wouldn't have remembered it.”
Ganesh frowned, confused. “Oh? Why not?”
“I don’t perform.”
“You don’t?”
“Long story. But, yeah.”
“That’s too bad. It was … haunting,” Ganesh told him. He was standing close now. Charles looked up into those eyes. Gods, those eyes. He could….
“Hey Charles I didn’t know you played violin either you should have fucking told us we’ll do a part for you on the next album even though string instruments are kinda gay maybe we Dick could electrify it or some shit ‘cause it’s some fucked up sound-”
“Nathan,” Charles told him, breaking off from the most amazing eye contact. “Like I said. I don’t perform.”
“Of course you fucking do. Why the fuck not?”
“It’s a long story,” Charles said, sadly, as Ganesh took the opportunity to move away. Pickles, who apparently had decided the party wasn't as big a bunch of douche bags as all that, came up to him, and Ganesh had soon pulled out some kind of smoke.
“Pickles is here too. Are we all here?”
Charles blinked. “Uh. Good question, Nathan. I don't know. I assume so.”
“Why are we here? I mean, it's cool and all. There are horses and you can punch people.”
“Well, someone probably cast some kind of spell. But, I'm not sure why Dethklok would be involved. And I'm not sure why some people remember and some don't.” There were too many questions, too many possibilities.
And why was he so fucking hungry? It wasn't even a gnawing, it was a burning. It was bad enough to be mortal, but to be weakened by hunger....
A mortal? He looked at Ganesh and Pickles, obliviously smoking together. There was something to this. He just didn't know what.
“I'm.... I'm gonna go get something to eat,” he told Nathan, steeling for the insult.
“Yeah, dude, you don't look so good,” the singer agreed.
“What?”
“Kinda crappy. Like after we take you out for a couple drinks and you get wasted and throw up,” Nathan told him.
“Uh. Well. OK.”
“We're probably going to have to risk another village,” Ganesh told them the next morning. “With all of us here, provisions are growing a bit thin.” It didn't help Charles's bad mood that Ganesh then decided to ride with Pickles mounted behind him.
“What's the matter Mr. Grumbly Angel?” Raziel asked him, which only further aggravated everything.
'Those two. Buddying around,” he said, nodding at Pickles and Ganesh.
“Uh, but aren't they buddies?” she asked, jumping up behind him.
“Not recently.”
“Really?”
'Not so much.”
“So. Aren't you happy that they're making up? Or...?”
“Or what?” snapped Charles.
“You sorta like it that they're jealous over you?”
And Charles' bad mood worsened.
Ganesh soon led them off the main path towards a small, impossibly quaint looking farm. “They may have eggs!” he called back towards Charles and Raziel as they passed a henhouse. Charles smiled faintly, both at the thought of fresh scrambled eggs and at Ganesh apparently remembering how much he liked them. As he snapped out of his funk, however, he began to pay closer attention to their surroundings.
Here and there on the farm, there were sullen looking children staring at them.
Blond, blue-eyed children.
“What?” said Raziel, as Charles urged on the horse.
“I smell a paternity suit. Several of them,” he told her.
Ganesh and Pickles had already arrived at the main house. Ganesh had dismounted, and was talking with the portly old man on the farmhouse porch.
“Holy fuck!” exclaimed Raziel, who realized at the exact instant Charles did. Despite his constant feeling of weakness and hunger, he vaulted off the horse and was up on the porch almost in one leap.
“Skwisgaar!” he started. And then completely ran out of things to say.
The Swede sighed heavily. “Charles,” he sighed. He was a good 60 pounds heavier, and the unmistakable blond hair was streaked with grey. But the biggest change was his downcast mien. The super confident lead guitarist seemed deflated. There was no sign of his beloved Gibson guitar.
“What.... What the hell happened?”
“Ams longs stories.”
“Whoa, Skwis, are those all your kids?” Raziel asked.
“You don't have to answer that!” Charles cautioned, ever protective of his clients.
“No! Raziel! Don't ams say dat! Please....” But suddenly, as if by signal, all the Skwiskids were assembled in a line, and, as Skwisgaar covered his face with his hands, they all began to sing, sing, sing:
He's our pop!
He's our dad!
He's our paternal relative!
Our mother grabbed him round the neck, our pere
And he provided the rest
He's poppa!
He's our baap!
Why, we only live due to
His genetics: they're enticing
Don't believe me? It'd DNA splicing!
We can sing
We can dance
It's a happy happenstance
As a patrilineal he is never second best!
Come on take a glance and then
You must all ken to
He's our pop
He's our dad
He's our far!
The tallest blond boy then started to solo,
Life has gotten shocking
For this rock star who ain't rocking
He's not whole without a Gibson to play on
Ah those good old day of groupies....
Suddenly those GMILFS are all gone!
Ten years he's been waiting
Needing so much more than masturbation
Needing finger exercises, a chance to flex mad skillz
Most days he just mopes up on the front porch
Flabby, fat and unfit
But you walked up and holy shit!
And then as a grand finale, all the Skwiskids formed up into a kickline and made like Rockettes.
He's our pop
Hes' our dad
Now you see the life we have
With a disinterested patriarch
In this shithole
We keep working
Collecting eggs
One by one
'Til he shouts 'Enough I'm done-”
“Will you completely impossible brats please cut that out!” screeched a female voice. The kids scattered as a bedraggled redhead was stumbling up the road. “Go do.... Go milk something, or plow something, or do some sort of tacky FARM THING.”
“VERDANDI!” boomed Orula, who had just pulled up in his medicine show wagon.
“You definitely know tacky,” growled Orula, whipping his boa around the neck.
Verdandi sighed. “Don't be impossible. I have been DOOMED to this life of UTTER BOREDOM! Surrounded by little horrible things. And … him.”
“He's a FUCKING ROCK STAR,” Nathan growled at her. “Skwis, dude, what the fuck happened here with all the creepy singing kids? Did you fucking wish to be in one of those sucky movies they used to show on Sunday nights with that old dead guy with the moustache?”
“I ams not knows da whole t'ings, Nat'ans. It ams dildos. I ams goes to dese witches, and ams wished for da curses to be offs, and ams took Pickle to cures his stage frights.”
“I heard da news today, oh boy,” Pickles grumbled. He hadn't even bothered to dismount from Ganesh's horse.
“What ams wrongs wit hims?” Skwisgaar asked. “He ams seems likes a biggers douches dans normals!”
“We need to get down to pub. My sisters are there, we can explain all this nonsense, there,” Verdandi sighed.
“I don't like that idea at all,” Ganesh said. “Can't your sisters come here? There will be crowds at the pub!”
“Darling! At our pub, never,” laughed Verdandi. “We don't let in the riff raff!”
“Ja, deir pub ams onlies for her sister to get drunks,” Skwisgaar sighed. “Drunkser.”
“C'mon Ganesh dude, doesn't this man look like HE NEEDS A FUCKING DRINK?” Nathan demanded, pointing to Skwisgaar. “And I seriously need some nachos. JERKY CAN SUCK MY DICK.”
Ganesh finally agreed to go to the pub, The Inn of the Glimmer Twins, on the condition that Orula and Chango remain stationed outside as sentries. The Ifa priests quickly agreed to this, as there seemed to be much mutual dislike between them and the Norn witches. Although the antagonism did not appear to rule out quaffing a great deal of the women's ale. Raziel too remained on the front porch with the Ifa priests, excitedly chattering about some website called “The Deities of WalMart” with Chango.
Verdandi was correct in that the place was nearly deserted. Still, the bartender, a young girl, looked resentful and overworked. There was also a woman with a blonde beehive lolling on a barstool, cocktail glass at her side, smoking and leafing through a Hello! AU Edition magazine.
“Verdandi,” said the blonde, not looking up, “what did we say about bringing RIFF RAFF into the place? What if Mick sees?”
“Urd, these are some of his little … heavy band mates or something.”
Urd looked up and studied the motley assemblage with a bleary eye. “Oh, they hardly look heavy at all. That one hasn't eaten since Altamont I'll reckon,” she sniffed, pointing to Charles.
“WE PLAY DEATH METAL!” Nathan rumbled, rattling glassware.
“Oh, you are a big boy, aren't you?” purred Urd, suddenly looking over her cats eye glasses.
“Urd, don't frighten away our only customers,” the young girl huffed.
“Do you find it necessary to be so tiresome, Skuld,” the blond told her.
“Ladies, we simply wish to ascertain any information you might have! We are in haste!” Ganesh told them.
“Ascertain? That one's been knocking boots public school,” Urd laughed.
“You guys cast a spell for Skwisgaar and Pickles?” Charles sighed.
“Yes, but it was a custom job,” Verdandi told them.
“I warned you not to deal with angels,” Skuld told them, glowering from behind the bar.
“Skuld, dear, someone needs to keep us in heels and cocktails. It's not as if we work for air,” Verdandi told her.
“And the angels wanted a time spell?” Charles urged.
“Yes,” said Urd. “They wanted some horrible blighter named Sorry-Ell sent back before he had all his inevitably horrid children.”
“You activate it with a wish,” Skuld grumbled, rubbing a smeared beer glass with a dirty towel. “It makes it many times more powerful. But these two have been too hopped up to cast a decent spell since Mick married Bianca.”
“I told him she was no good for him! I TOLD HIM!” Verdandi protested, to Skuld's sighs.
“That Raggedy Andy fellow can probably fill you in on the rest,” said Urd. “It was his wish.”
“Our friend is a bit … affected,” said Ganesh, holding Pickles by the arm.
“I just had to laugh. I saw a photograph,” Pickles told them.
“Oh, that's just a bit of spanner in the works,” said Verdandi. “Easy fix.”
“Here, let me,” said Urd, suddenly hefting a beer mug.
“Wait!” yelled Charles, leaping at her. But he was too late, and she had klonked Pickles good and solid with the thick glass, sending him sprawling.
“Pickles!” said Ganesh, holding him up.
“I was born in a croosfire hurricane,” said Pickles.
“See? Isn't that better now, dear?” asked Urd, flicking ashes on him.
“Do you remember anything now, Pickles,” asked Ganesh, helping the shaky drummer to his feet.
“Wut da FECK am I doin' here?” he asked.
“Well, at least it's not a song lyric,” Charles allowed.
Pickles rubbed his head and looked around the room. “Oh, GAWD! NAWT YOO DOODS!” he said, staring at the witches.
Urd sniffed. “It WAS your wish, dearest.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Ganesh urged.
“And be QUICK!” Nathan boomed from one of the tables. “We're running low on NACHOS!”
“Dey sold us t'ree wishes,” said Pickles. “It wuz in a contract.”
“Ja,” said Skwisgaar, helping himself to some gooey chips. “You ams gots da wish, and I ams gots one.”
“Feck, Skwis, wut happened to yoo?” asked Pickles, regarding his portly band mate.
“Dats what we ams trying to figure out, my friend.”
“It was.... I din't mean to doo dis,” Pickles said.
“What did you wish for?” Ganesh asked. The drummer didn't answer, but looked at Charles.
“Pickles?” said Charles.
“It wuz yer fault, yoo know,” Pickles said, now frowning at Charles. “I asked yoo, yoo know. You coulda given me a straight feckin' answer.”
“Pickles.”
“I asked yoo!”
“Asked him what?” asked Ganesh.
“I asked yoo what would've happened, before da hot god boyfriend and dat fecked up kid, if you'd o' been jest human, and you wouldn' tell me!”
“What did you wish?” Ganesh asked again. His voice had an odd tone to it. The room seemed to have gotten darker.
Pickles glowered at Charles. “I wished away Gannish and da kid an all da angel crap. So now it's jest you. Jest mortal yoo. How does it feel, dyin' like us regular people? How do yoo like it Charles? How do you feckin like it?”
The floor rumbled, as with an earthquake, and Pickles looked up to see Ganesh standing over him, the god's eyes dark and murderous. “My child,” Ganesh whispered. “You wished away....” Ganesh raised a hand. Pickles cringed.
And somehow, Charles was now between them, staring at Ganesh.
Ganesh kept his hand raised. “Sariel” he said very quietly, as the floor trembled again. “Get out of my way.”
“We will get him back,” Charles said firmly.
“Get out of my way.”
“We will get him back.” He leaned forward a fraction. “If it's the last thing I do. We will get him back.”
Ganesh's breath caught. He slowly lowered his hand, his eyes filled with tears.
The room slowly returned to daylight.
“We will fix this,” said Charles. “That's what I do. You guys fuck up. And I fix things.”
Ganesh shook his head, and then made his way out the door. Charles finally looked back to where Pickles was sullenly staring at the floor.
“I'm sahry. I din't expect it t' be dis fecked up.”
“We'll fix it,” Charles told him, although his voice held none of the confidence it did with Ganesh. Angel magic mixed with earth magic? He doubted even Ganesh could figure a way out of this.
“Dudes! What's happening out THERE?” asked Nathan.
“Oi,” said Chango, who had just rushed in the door. “We seem to have a spot of bother with your customers.” The group inside the pub rushed for the door.
They had been completely surrounded. And it was not just an angry mob, it was a riotous mob, complete with flaming torches. Orula and Chango's wagon was going up in flames, and the horses were nowhere to be seen.
“There's too many of them,” said Raziel, holding her sword. “I didn't wanna just start beheading peasants, even if they are assholes.”
“What's gotten into them?” asked Charles.
'Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” sighed Ganesh. “Rioting is what one does for sport round these parts.”
“And what's up with Orula?” asked Charles, who noticed the vodouisant apparently singing to himself.
“He's working on a diversion,” Raziel whispered to him.
“We are tired of being treated as riff raff!” one of the peasants shouted.
“But darling, you ARE riff raff!” snorted Urd.
“Urd,” warned Charles.
“We want in your exclusive pub!” shouted another peasant.
“Well, it would hardly be exclusive if we let you lot inside!” Verdandi sniffed.
“It's hardly gonna be exclusive when they burn it to the ground,” Charles told them, cringing as a rock suddenly smashed through the front window.
“Wait! Look over there!” said Raziel, pointing off in the distance with her sword. Far up the road there were two figures stumbling along the roadside.
“Isn't that Mick and Keith?” Chango.
“Well, it's got to be!” shouted Raziel.
Suddenly, the crowd was dropping pitchforks and pulling out autograph books and cell phone cameras. “WAIT! MICK! KEEEEEIIIITH!” came shouts as the crowd started seething towards the figures, who had conveniently just disappeared into the forest.
“OK, we gotta go, and we gotta go now,” urged Raziel.
“What was that?” asked Charles.
“I noted that we passed a graveyard on our way here, so I simply animated a couple of the likely looking residents,” explained Orula, who seemed to be shaking out of kind of a trance.
“They're not gonna be happy when they find zombies instead of Stones,” warned Raziel.
“We need to make haste!” urged Ganesh.
“Darling, I can't possibly run in these shoes!” Urd protested.
But just then, there was a roar from the distance.
“Oh, what now?” groaned Charles. But, to his surprise, a limousine powered up the road and stopped just beside them.
“Need a ride, gentlemen?” grinned Murderface, a smiling Dick Knubbler beside him.
“William? A car?” sputtered Charles, who nonetheless jumped inside. “How the hell do you get even gas in this universe?”
“It'sch a hybrid,” Murderface laughed. They somehow managed to pack everyone more or less inside - death metal musicians and angels and vodouisants and Norns and the odd god - and Murderface took off like a shot, leaving some very confused villagers waving their pitchforks in a cloud of dust.
They continued down the road in the Murderwagon for a mile or two at breakneck speed, until Murderface suddenly turned the wheel, and the great car skidded to a halt, narrowly missing a black horse that had darted into the road.
“Falhofnir!” shouted Ganesh, excitedly leaping out of the car to greet his faithful horse.
“That's appropriate,” grinned Charles.
“Unfortschunately, we don't have a horsche cart, Ganesch,” Murderface told him.
“We are at present only a few miles away from my mother's estate. Why don't you go along ahead to the pass, and I will ride and meet you?” Ganesh asked.
Charles suddenly felt himself booted off the fender where he was sitting. He scowled back to see Raziel grinning. “Sariel will ride along with you!” she called.
“Yes, that will be good,” said Ganesh. “We will see you up the road, then?”
“Can I drive?” Raziel asked Murderface as he put the car in gear.
“NO! Abscholutely not!”
“Aw, c'mon William! Just a couple miles!”
“You'll burn the gearboxsch!”
And Charles watched them disappear around a bend.
"You are bleeding," said Ganesh.
"Oh. Shit," said Charles, feeling his back. "Must've been when the window broke."
"Come on. Take this off. We'll put something on it before we depart.”
"As long as I don't end up with elephant skin,” Charles laughed, unbuttoning his torn shirt.
"Pardon me?"
"It was a joke. Back when-"
"The rock demon injured you. Yes,” said Ganesh, sitting down on a boulder and positioning Charles between his knees with two of his arms while he used the other two to unscrew some kind of jar he had fished from his medical bag.
"You remember that?"
"Yes. Yes I do. I treated you. I remember...."
"What?" Ganesh's practiced hands were smoothing something cold onto his back. Charles gasped, very softly, but not from the cold.
"I saw your back. The scars. And....” Ganesh was silent a moment. “And I wanted to gather you up. And take you home with me,” he said very softly.
"Really?” asked Charles, attempting to turn around. Ganesh pushed him back. “Why didn't you?"
"You seemed a bit.... Self-contained?"
Charles thought for a bit. Although thought was getting more difficult, what with the touch. And the presence. “You know what I remember?” he sighed at last.
“What?”
“You killed that demon - the one in Niflheim? - with a fucking PENCIL in the eye!”
“Oh, gods, that was horrible!”
“Why?”
“He dulled my pencil point! I was forever marking down my father's kills, because of that ridiculous wager with Raziel!”
“You remember all that?” asked Charles, twisting around again.
Ganesh did not push him back this time. Instead his hands were on Charles' shoulders, and they were kissing, and then for a time Charles let thought and worry and even the burning hunger fall away along with the rest of his clothes, and he found he didn't even much mind, afterwards, being constrained by all those arms: it was just nice.
“But I did truly think I liked women!” Ganesh said at last.
Charles laughed lightly. It was odd: for the first time in so long, he wasn't feeling absolutely famished. It didn't seem just the usual sexual flush: he felt filled up, somehow. “Oh, you know what it is! I like women!”
“Er, I'm not sure I follow?”
Charles smiled and squirmed around in Ganesh's grasp to put his hands lightly on Ganesh's head. “We get mixed up in each others' minds,” he explained. And then he leapt in.
He was riding a horse. Ganesh's horse. He was Ganesh. That was strange. He was riding around what looked like Ganesh's estate here. But the sky had darkened, and Falhofnir had gotten skittish.
And then he spied it: a body, by the side of the road. Falhofnir protested, but he dismounted, and crept over to take a look. It wasn't a body: the being was still alive. It had an aura. He could see it. Weird that you could actually see this hippy shit. It was a powerful aura, in fact. Was it a man? Now Charles/Ganesh was unnerved as well. But he felt compelled to move close, to take a look....
He heard screams.
His own.
And Charles was back, back in the real world, or the dream world, or whatever the fuck it was, and Ganesh was holding him tightly, and muttering, “Yaha ṭhīka hai, yaha ṭhīka hai,” like he did with a skittish horse.
“What the fuck happened? What did you do, Ganesh? What the fuck did you do?”
Ganesh sat up. There were tears in his eyes. “There was a man. At least, I thought it was a man. And, he was badly injured....”
After a time, Ganesh noticed the sun was going down. “We had better hurry and catch up with the rest,” he told Charles. They quickly re-donned clothes, and Ganesh mounted. He leaned over and, like an afterthought, grabbed Charles and easily picked him up and placed him in the saddle in front of him. Still holding the reigns with one hand, Ganesh slid one arm around Charles' waist and, loosening a couple buttons, slipped a hand under his shirt, resting his palm flat on Charles' midsection.
It hadn't ever bothered Charles that Ganesh was physically bigger than him. But now it bothered him that Ganesh was more powerful. It bothered him a lot.
"I need to get my powers back," Charles muttered.
"We'll get them back," Ganesh said softly, pressing into him. "Or else we won't."
"If I have to stay mortal like this.... I can't stay with you, you know. I won't be able to."
"Shhh," said Ganesh. "I will cast myself onto your pyre." He slowly rubbed his thumb up and down.
Charles gawped. The crazy bastard is serious, he thought.
“So, how is it we have a child?” Ganesh asked. “Are you a woman, back there?”
Charles laughed. “No!”
“Then am I...?”
“No, not you either.”
Ganesh sighed, apparently relieved. “Then how...?”
“Someone very powerful owed me a favor. So, you took it. Or we took it.”
“I used your favor?”
“A boon. So, that's what we call him.”
“Tell me about him,” Ganesh said.
“Oh, the kid? He's like you. Only not so tall. And not quite as many teeth yet.”
“He is still small?”
“Yeah, but arms everywhere,” Charles said, sticking out his and wiggling his fingers. “Oh, and he has angel wings too.”
“He flies? And has many arms? It sounds disastrous!”
“It is! And he does magic! With his cousins too! Raziel has horrible angel kids too!”
“You wanted this?” Ganesh laughed.
“You wanted a kid!”
“You cold have refused me!”
“I can't fucking say no to you! You would look at me!”
“Would I?”
“You taught him to mix martinis!”
“I did? Hrm. Sounds very like something I would do....”
But Ganesh suddenly brought the horse up short. The Murderwagon was stopped by the side of the road, the occupants now all spilled out, staring at something.
Ganesh rode up. Starting at the crest of the hill, the entire valley below was completely blanketed beneath thick snow.
“This.... What could this be?” asked Ganesh, dismounting. “My mother's estate lies in a protected vale. At low elevation. But these mountains have been completely bare of snow.”
“Global warming. IT SUCKS,” noted Nathan.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Raziel asked Charles, who had come to stand beside her.
“What do you mean?” he asked, grinning.
She held up a makeup mirror. Charles frowned into it.
His eyes had turned green.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Travels in the altered universe.
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs
Notes: Notes after the jump.
Mythklok is a Metalocalypse AU. If you're behind and for some strange reason wanna catch up, the best place is my fic journal, tikific, where you are welcome to come visit the bits I’ve written and maybe poke them with a pointed stick. I've also written a general introduction in case you wanna jump in the middle of things, or have forgotten all this stuff due to Real Life.
Last time: Charles appeared in a weird alternate universe where Ganesh is kind of a dick and he’s hungry all the time. No, I mean all the time. Only it’s not an alternate universe, someone screwed with our universe. Or maybe it's our dreams. Oh, and Raziel is there. She wasn't an angel, but she got better. And so is Nathan. He likes the horses and the nachos.
The entryway was small and cluttered. Though Michael didn’t really need to stoop over in his Court Form, he did so anyway. It was claustrophobic.
Above the fireplace in the living room hung a painting: a small handprint, under which had been written the word, “Raziel.”
And above that, a sword.
It wasn’t possible to see from across the room, but on the hilt of the sword was written, “Vighnesha, Vighneshvara.”
“Father!”
“Michael, you know it’s almost time for our stories,” the old man grumbled as he came in from the wood-paneled den.
“Are you coming?” called a woman’s voice from the other room.
“In one moment, my dear,” He answered.
“You’re gonna miss the opening credits!” she scolded.
“She’s done it,” said Michael. “She’s gone and done it.”
“Do we know that She is responsible?”
“Who else?”
"Those little earthlings. They're always getting into trouble."
"The earth gods you mean?" Michael cringed even as the words left his mouth. Probably not a good thing to say to the boss.
"I will look into it. After Corazon de Azul."
"Oh, did Yolanda ever marry the long haired guy? I like him!"
And then, just like that, Archangel Michael was standing outside the house, his shoes inches deep in the muddy flower garden.
“So, Raziel?”
“Yeah?” she asked. “Could you keep your horse steady? I’m trying to do my liner.”
Charles sighed and looked around to where Raziel was mounted behind him. “Where the hell did you get that mascara?”
“Ganesh’s place.”
“Really? Huh. There might be some things we need to talk about when we’re back home. Anyway, you’re not supposed to look like a girl! That’s the point of the disguise!”
“Silly Sariel, it’s not mascara, it’s kohl! And Indian men use it too!”
“Raziel, as little as you look like a man, you look even less like an Indian man!”
“Pfft. You’re such a worrywart. For your information, drag performers use tons and tons of makeup!”
“That’s men trying to look like women!”
“What if we run into Wotan here and I don't look cute?"
"What will he care?"
"Wotan cares! Maybe you should worry more about looking cute for Ganesh!"
"Ganesh isn't with me because I'm cute."
"Well, obviously."
Charles fumed. "Anyway, we can't pay attention to stupid stuff like that any more! We have a kid!"
"I have two," said Raziel. And then she added quietly, "Had." It was like a light had been switched off.
They rode together in silence for a moment. Charles sighed. As much as he was annoyed by obnoxious Raziel, he found he couldn't bear a sad Raziel.
“Raziel, when you got up and went to look in the box, were you sleeping?” Charles asked her.
“I wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“But before? Did you get up from bed to go there?”
“Yeah. So?”
“I got up from bed too. Could this all be a dream?”
“Huh. That’s an interesting idea.”
“Think about it. Things are off. And some of the stuff that’s happening…. Well, you worry about your kids, right?”
“And you worry obsessively that Ganesh doesn’t love you,” she shot back.
“Maybe,” Charles admitted sullenly, looking up ahead to where Ganesh was riding beside Nathan and chatting companionably.
“So, if this is a dream, could we all just drink Red Bull and wake up?” Raziel suggested, taking up her kohl once again.
“We should ask Ganesh. I dunno. Hey, what’s that?” The unmistakable sound of drumming echoed in the distance. Charles urged on his horse - he was still riding barefoot, so he couldn't really be said to spur anything - and pulled up beside Ganesh and Nathan.
“DUDE!” Nathan boomed. “Do you hear that?”
“I know!” said Charles. Without a word, both of them hurried their horses up to the ridge ahead.
“Wait you two!” Ganesh shouted from behind them. “Be careful!”
The ridge afforded a sweeping view of a valley below. There were scattered farms visible, and then what looked like the structures of a small town or village. But all the party’s attentions were directed at a gathering of people in a field, centered around a horse drawn wagon. There was a small knot of performers on the tiny stage mounted in back of the wagon, two drummers and a guy singing. Even from this distance it was clear that one of the drummers was a redhead.
"Is that...?" asked Nathan.
"Gotta be!" said Charles.
"Be cautious you two!" Ganesh told them. "That constitutes a group of people down there."
"Yeah. So?" asked Nathan.
"In these parts,” Ganesh explained, “there is only a hairs breadth of difference between a group and a mob, and then even less of a division between a mob and an angry mob."
"He's got a point," said Charles, thinking of the group that had attacked him that first night.
"Dude, have you seen any of our concert audiences?" Nathan growled.
"Hey, Sariel! Did you look at the other drummer?" asked Raziel.
"Where did you get that telescope, Raziel?" Charles asked her.
"Ganesh had it."
"I mean, where did you pack it?"
"In the saddlebag!"
"But that was where I was keeping my snacks!" Charles wailed.
"You can gnaw on it if you want!" said Raziel, offering up the telescope, which he snatched a bit intermperately. His misbehaving stomach had been growling again.
"Will you two quit quarreling and tell me what you're on about?" Ganesh pleaded.
"Oh, we've been arguing for two thousand years. It's kind of what we do," Raziel informed him.
"It's true, dude," Nathan informed him.
"Hey, did you see the other drummer?" asked Charles, now peering through the telescope.
"That's what I was trying to tell you!" Raziel huffed.
"He's wearing a feather scarf thingie!" Charles noted.
"It's called a boa!" said Raziel.
"We gotta go down there, Ganesh!" Charles told him.
"Yeah, that guy has a unique fashion sensibility!" Raziel enthused.
"Raziel! You don't recognize 'em? Oh, forget it. Look, these guys may have some answers. Ganesh, we gotta risk the angry mob."
Nathan had been threatened upon pain of chip deprivation to go on ahead with the horses, giving the gathering the widest possible berth, while the rest of the party descended towards the traveling show. “Get me an autograph!” Nathan called after them. “And see if they have nachos!!”
“Pickles doesn’t sign any more,” Raziel told him.
“Whatta douche bag!” Nathan grumbled.
The horse drawn cart had a small stage area located at the very back. Two drummers performed onstage: Pickles, who was for some reason dressed in a bright green harlequin outfit, was actually the lowest key of the bunch. Chango, opposite him, wore a vermilion catsuit and a matching feather boa.
The frizzy-haired Orula stood between two drummers, twirling his cape dramatically and singing.
Thoughts are flowing back like putt-putt balls into a windmill cup
They gurgle as they roll across the altered universe
Pools of happenstance are drifting in my fucked up mind
Reality is biting me
My guru babbles, mom
Witches have just changed my world
Bitches throwing back the world
Which is now the real world?
Ditch is where it lies, the world
Images of crystal balls which needs a dusting like a million times
They call me on and on the altered universe
Thoughts meander back into that mini mall their headquarters
They stumble blindly as they try to cast the most essential spell
My guru noshes, nom
Witches just fucked up the world
Stitches sewing back the world
Hitches in their casting world
Glitches to throw back the world
My guru hugs me, glom
My guru dances, prom
My guru’s memory, rom
My guru crashes, bomb…..
“FREE BIRD!” came the scream from the audience.
“FECK YOO!” screamed Pickles, from up on the stage.
“Croutons, the show must go on!” Orula hissed at him. And then he began to sing.
If I leave here tomorrow
Will it still be yesterday?
Or perhaps it will be next month
The timestream has been chaaaaaaanged…..
“YOU GUYS SUCK!” the audience cheered.
“YOO DOODS SWALLOW!” Pickles rejoindered.
“Olives!” warned Orula.
“YOU’RE A DICK!” came the now restive audience.
“YOO DON’T GOT A DICK!” screamed Pickles.
“Uhhhhhh, DO SO!” came back the now somewhat overmatched audience.
“Celery!” warned Orula, as he watched torches and pitchforks start to rise.
“DO NAWT!” said Pickles, ignoring instructions for other vegetables.
“DO TOO!”
“Yeh, is dat why yer kids all look like da milkman?” Pickles laughed.
“I actually always wondered about that…” commented the audience member, who was now about the only person not hovering menacingly near the stage.
“We’re going from mob to angry mob,” Raziel whispered to Charles.
“I might be able to do something,” he told her as he began to wind his way towards the stage. Many years of managing a rock band and navigating treacherous mosh pits had given Charles the ability to weave through the most unruly of crowds.
Suddenly a beer bottle smashed onstage. Pickles, who may have been a Fool, but was not an idiot, and who also had some experience in navigating concert audiences, took this as his cue to flee the stage. Orula was not so lucky, and not literally had a half dozen people surrounding him, pitchforks at his throat.
“WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!” they chanted.
“I believe you will find this has been a free concert,” Orula reasoned.
“You need to pay us to listen to your crappy songs!”
“Chango!” The god turned to see Charles whispering to him at the edge of the stage. “Gimme that, I think I can help?”
“Oi, you’ll smack ‘em with the violin! At’s a good egg, Charles dear!” Chango approved, handing over the instrument.
“Uh, not quite,” Charles told him. He quickly got the instrument in tune, and then began to play.
It was something very old. And aching. Audience members who had formerly been ready to stab performers over ticket price disputes very slowly became distracted. The dispute quieted to mutterings, and then the mutterings were lost. And the summery day had somehow dried up and saddened into winter.
“Come on!” urged Raziel, dragging Ganesh up to the stage.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“You’ll know this one. Just follow me. Sariel!” she called. “The join us dance!”
Charles nodded and, as Raziel began to dance with Ganesh, started a much livelier tune. Orula listened for a verses while Ganesh and Raziel moved in a curiously compelling fashion, and then began to sing.
If you ever have the chance
If you’re not wearing pants
Then join together join together in the dance
If you bicycle in France
Or look at cheese askance
Then join together join together in the dance
Slowly, without really understanding why, audience members had begun to follow Ganesh and Raziel’s steps.
If you’ve watered your house plants
If you like to step on ants
Then join together join together in the dance
Doesn’t need a second glance
Just let it loose and prance!
Join together join together in the dance
“Get the horses!” Raziel shouted to Charles. He dropped the violin and, scrambling up and over the cart, jumped onto the driver’s seat at the front and urged on the team pulling the wagon. As Raziel and Ganesh tossed off the few audience members still on the wagon’s stage, he flicked the reigns and started the horses. The cart thundered off down the road while the audience was still dazed and dancing. But despite the delay, the mob slowly came to its senses and evidently decided it was hungry for blood, and after a time Charles started hearing the unmistakable sound of horsemen hounding their path.
He looked up to see Raziel flying ahead, her sword poised. He gripped the reigns harder, feeling annoyingly earthbound. He felt the pains on his shins from where he’d barked them climbing over the wagon. He felt weak and mortal.
As they reached the start of the next mountain passage, Raziel whacked the hillside and sent a rockslide tumbling over the road, blocking the path behind them.
“Not goin’ back that way,” she laughed, coming to sit beside him.
“Not sure I wanna go back to that village. Or any village here,” he muttered. "Hey, look up there!"
Raziel looked to where Charles was pointing. Nathan stood up ahead in a clearing by the side of the with the horses. And with a very familiar jester.
The harlequin was not pleased to be gripped by e scruff of the neck.
"Lemme go yoo mudderdoucher!" he was squawking as they rode abreast. “Dere's 5 t'ousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire!”
Charles stopped the wagon.
"I dunno what't the deal because he seems like he's making EVEN LESS SENSE than usual" Nathan grumbled.
"Oh, it's little Carrots the Drummer!" said Orula as the party from the back of the wagon came around.
"Pickles," supplied Charles.
"I knew he was a crudite of some kind."
"They hadda count all da holes!" Pickles sputtered.
"You don't remember?" Charles asked him/
"Now I know how many holes it take to fill da Albert Hall."
"Sounds sorta normal to me," Raziel grinned.
"Can you do your cork popping sound and fix him?" Charles asked Ganesh.
“I'd love to turn you on!” Pickles told Ganesh.
Ganesh squinted at Pickles for a moment. "Sorry, no. He is complicated."
"How the FUCK do you know he's complicated?"
"Can you not read his aura?" Ganesh puffed.
"No. And neither could you if you weren't smoking that shit!"
"I have just been to a concert!" Ganesh protested, flicking ashes.
"Hey!" said Pickles, motioning to Ganesh's joint. “He blew his mind out in a car?"
Ganesh shrugged and handed over the smoke. Pickles suddenly inhaled, turning the entire cigarette to ash in one mighty gulp.
"Are baap re," muttered Ganesh. "That's impressive!"
It was decided to make camp, as the horses needed to be rested and watered, and Charles needed to be fed.
“You are an angel, Charles?” inquired Orula as they sat around a cheery campfire Raziel had helpfully started with her flaming sword.
“I thought we went through this at the wedding?” Charles told them. “Yeah, I’m part angel.”
“That makes sense of it now!”
“Oi! Too late for us,” noted Chango.
“Yes, too late for any,” agreed Orula.
“Uh, guys, makes sense of what, exactly?” Charles asked, grabbing some jerky and a bottle of wine and digging in for the long haul that was an Orula/Chango explanation.
“Some time ago, some terribly scruffy angels-“ began Orula.
“Scruffy bleeders, they were,” sniffed Chango.
“They weren’t well turned out. Not well turned out at all! And they offered us pits and pats of money.”
“Gobs and gobs!”
“Not that we’d be interested in money,” Orula assured.
“I might be a bit,” Chango suggested.
“Well a bit.”
“But not that interested,” Chango noted.
“No, not that interested,” agreed Orula.
“And, uh, what were they gonna pay you for?” inquired Charles, chewing his jerky thoughtfully.
“A reversion spell. Simple trick. Wanted to send some unfortunate chaps back in time! Splashing up the timestream and all that. Trouble was, one of the unfortunate chaps was you.”
“Unfortunate,” said Chango. “For them.” The two vodouisants exchanged a look.
“And, we had to explain in detail about the whole Ifa thing, that if one threatens one of us, he threatens all, and we need to take bloody vengeance, ripping hearts out and all that,” said Orula.
“It’s in the contract.”
“All neatly specified in the contract. Anywho, we had our zombies rip them limb from limb!”
“As specified in sub clause 86/b."
“Yes, this was all done according to the books,” Orula bragged.
“So, this isn’t a dream, this is a timeslip?” Raziel asked.
“Oi! ‘At’s a good question, Miss! A good question!” Chango noted.
“Oh, thanks,” giggled Raziel. “I like your boa.”
“Can we not chatter about fashion?” Charles sighed.
“You like?” asked Chango, ignoring Charles. “Seraph feathers, this.”
“You- Wait. You’re fucking kidding me!” Charles exclaimed. “That’s impossible! There are no bright red angels!”
“Vermilion,” explained Raziel.
“But there are no…”
“Dyed,” said Raziel.
“But what if they True Form?” Charles insisted.
“Died,” repeated Raziel, more seriously this time.
Charles started to say something, but instead suddenly whirled around to study Orula and Chango. They stared back, Chango tossing the boa dramatically around his neck. “Oi. We’re Ifa, mate,” he said.
“You guys killed Seraphs?” Charles asked them.
“Well, technically, our vast army of the undead did the work,” Orula explained.
“OK,” said Charles. “Maybe, next time, tell me about this stuff?” Chango and Orula nodded. “So, you think they got someone else to do this?” The vodouisants nodded.
“They wanted us to revert back to 1980,” Orula explained.
“Which would be a satisfying decade in many ways,” Chango echoed.
“Oh, yes, other than the spell potentially tearing the very fabric of reality and thus destroying the universe as we know it, that was a rather pleasant choice!” Orula noted. “But, well, you see what they’ve gone and done!”
“Oi. They overshot!” said Chango. “Obviously.”
“Obviously. This is 1380 or 1580 or 1780 some other tacky, tacky 80.”
“Not 1980 at all!”
“As you can tell by the absence of electronic dance hits!” grumbled Orula.
“And the lack of spandex accessories!” mourned Chango. “Shame, really. Shame.”
“That is a shame,” agreed Raziel.
“Are these fellows quite sane?” Ganesh whispered to Charles.
“No. No, they are not,” Charles assured him.
“Amateurs,” grumbled Orula.
“Do you know who else might have done this?” Charles asked them.
“I have my guess, which I shall not share at this point!” Orula declared.
“Norns,” coughed Chango.
“Oh, boy,” said Charles. “Oh, fuck.”
As Raziel and Chango had started in on accessories again, Charles had excused himself to go look after his horse, which, in reality, had been well cared for. Nathan was, surprisingly, very good about tending to the horses.
There was a lot to think about. He had reckoned it was all a dream, but it may instead be someone playing with the timestream, which was always a dangerous prospect. His thoughts kept drifting back to Orula and Chango killing those Seraphim. He knew damned well the two were powerful, but it evidently hadn’t registered as it should before. And what the hell were angels doing? Was Raziel right that her mother was now involved?
He wandered a bit further, out to the stream that ran in back of the campsite, and splashed his bare feet in the water. Ganesh had been right about one thing, his feet were healing without shoes. The cold water felt really good.
“Are your feet all right?”
Charles hadn’t heard Ganesh come up. “Yeah, thanks, they’re actually not too bad.”
“That was impressive, back there,” Ganesh commented.
“Uh, what?” Charles asked, coming back up from the stream.
“Your violin playing?” said Ganesh.
Charles smiled shyly at Ganesh. “Yeah? You wouldn’t have heard it. I mean, even if you remembered, you wouldn't have remembered it.”
Ganesh frowned, confused. “Oh? Why not?”
“I don’t perform.”
“You don’t?”
“Long story. But, yeah.”
“That’s too bad. It was … haunting,” Ganesh told him. He was standing close now. Charles looked up into those eyes. Gods, those eyes. He could….
“Hey Charles I didn’t know you played violin either you should have fucking told us we’ll do a part for you on the next album even though string instruments are kinda gay maybe we Dick could electrify it or some shit ‘cause it’s some fucked up sound-”
“Nathan,” Charles told him, breaking off from the most amazing eye contact. “Like I said. I don’t perform.”
“Of course you fucking do. Why the fuck not?”
“It’s a long story,” Charles said, sadly, as Ganesh took the opportunity to move away. Pickles, who apparently had decided the party wasn't as big a bunch of douche bags as all that, came up to him, and Ganesh had soon pulled out some kind of smoke.
“Pickles is here too. Are we all here?”
Charles blinked. “Uh. Good question, Nathan. I don't know. I assume so.”
“Why are we here? I mean, it's cool and all. There are horses and you can punch people.”
“Well, someone probably cast some kind of spell. But, I'm not sure why Dethklok would be involved. And I'm not sure why some people remember and some don't.” There were too many questions, too many possibilities.
And why was he so fucking hungry? It wasn't even a gnawing, it was a burning. It was bad enough to be mortal, but to be weakened by hunger....
A mortal? He looked at Ganesh and Pickles, obliviously smoking together. There was something to this. He just didn't know what.
“I'm.... I'm gonna go get something to eat,” he told Nathan, steeling for the insult.
“Yeah, dude, you don't look so good,” the singer agreed.
“What?”
“Kinda crappy. Like after we take you out for a couple drinks and you get wasted and throw up,” Nathan told him.
“Uh. Well. OK.”
“We're probably going to have to risk another village,” Ganesh told them the next morning. “With all of us here, provisions are growing a bit thin.” It didn't help Charles's bad mood that Ganesh then decided to ride with Pickles mounted behind him.
“What's the matter Mr. Grumbly Angel?” Raziel asked him, which only further aggravated everything.
'Those two. Buddying around,” he said, nodding at Pickles and Ganesh.
“Uh, but aren't they buddies?” she asked, jumping up behind him.
“Not recently.”
“Really?”
'Not so much.”
“So. Aren't you happy that they're making up? Or...?”
“Or what?” snapped Charles.
“You sorta like it that they're jealous over you?”
And Charles' bad mood worsened.
Ganesh soon led them off the main path towards a small, impossibly quaint looking farm. “They may have eggs!” he called back towards Charles and Raziel as they passed a henhouse. Charles smiled faintly, both at the thought of fresh scrambled eggs and at Ganesh apparently remembering how much he liked them. As he snapped out of his funk, however, he began to pay closer attention to their surroundings.
Here and there on the farm, there were sullen looking children staring at them.
Blond, blue-eyed children.
“What?” said Raziel, as Charles urged on the horse.
“I smell a paternity suit. Several of them,” he told her.
Ganesh and Pickles had already arrived at the main house. Ganesh had dismounted, and was talking with the portly old man on the farmhouse porch.
“Holy fuck!” exclaimed Raziel, who realized at the exact instant Charles did. Despite his constant feeling of weakness and hunger, he vaulted off the horse and was up on the porch almost in one leap.
“Skwisgaar!” he started. And then completely ran out of things to say.
The Swede sighed heavily. “Charles,” he sighed. He was a good 60 pounds heavier, and the unmistakable blond hair was streaked with grey. But the biggest change was his downcast mien. The super confident lead guitarist seemed deflated. There was no sign of his beloved Gibson guitar.
“What.... What the hell happened?”
“Ams longs stories.”
“Whoa, Skwis, are those all your kids?” Raziel asked.
“You don't have to answer that!” Charles cautioned, ever protective of his clients.
“No! Raziel! Don't ams say dat! Please....” But suddenly, as if by signal, all the Skwiskids were assembled in a line, and, as Skwisgaar covered his face with his hands, they all began to sing, sing, sing:
He's our pop!
He's our dad!
He's our paternal relative!
Our mother grabbed him round the neck, our pere
And he provided the rest
He's poppa!
He's our baap!
Why, we only live due to
His genetics: they're enticing
Don't believe me? It'd DNA splicing!
We can sing
We can dance
It's a happy happenstance
As a patrilineal he is never second best!
Come on take a glance and then
You must all ken to
He's our pop
He's our dad
He's our far!
The tallest blond boy then started to solo,
Life has gotten shocking
For this rock star who ain't rocking
He's not whole without a Gibson to play on
Ah those good old day of groupies....
Suddenly those GMILFS are all gone!
Ten years he's been waiting
Needing so much more than masturbation
Needing finger exercises, a chance to flex mad skillz
Most days he just mopes up on the front porch
Flabby, fat and unfit
But you walked up and holy shit!
And then as a grand finale, all the Skwiskids formed up into a kickline and made like Rockettes.
He's our pop
Hes' our dad
Now you see the life we have
With a disinterested patriarch
In this shithole
We keep working
Collecting eggs
One by one
'Til he shouts 'Enough I'm done-”
“Will you completely impossible brats please cut that out!” screeched a female voice. The kids scattered as a bedraggled redhead was stumbling up the road. “Go do.... Go milk something, or plow something, or do some sort of tacky FARM THING.”
“VERDANDI!” boomed Orula, who had just pulled up in his medicine show wagon.
“You definitely know tacky,” growled Orula, whipping his boa around the neck.
Verdandi sighed. “Don't be impossible. I have been DOOMED to this life of UTTER BOREDOM! Surrounded by little horrible things. And … him.”
“He's a FUCKING ROCK STAR,” Nathan growled at her. “Skwis, dude, what the fuck happened here with all the creepy singing kids? Did you fucking wish to be in one of those sucky movies they used to show on Sunday nights with that old dead guy with the moustache?”
“I ams not knows da whole t'ings, Nat'ans. It ams dildos. I ams goes to dese witches, and ams wished for da curses to be offs, and ams took Pickle to cures his stage frights.”
“I heard da news today, oh boy,” Pickles grumbled. He hadn't even bothered to dismount from Ganesh's horse.
“What ams wrongs wit hims?” Skwisgaar asked. “He ams seems likes a biggers douches dans normals!”
“We need to get down to pub. My sisters are there, we can explain all this nonsense, there,” Verdandi sighed.
“I don't like that idea at all,” Ganesh said. “Can't your sisters come here? There will be crowds at the pub!”
“Darling! At our pub, never,” laughed Verdandi. “We don't let in the riff raff!”
“Ja, deir pub ams onlies for her sister to get drunks,” Skwisgaar sighed. “Drunkser.”
“C'mon Ganesh dude, doesn't this man look like HE NEEDS A FUCKING DRINK?” Nathan demanded, pointing to Skwisgaar. “And I seriously need some nachos. JERKY CAN SUCK MY DICK.”
Ganesh finally agreed to go to the pub, The Inn of the Glimmer Twins, on the condition that Orula and Chango remain stationed outside as sentries. The Ifa priests quickly agreed to this, as there seemed to be much mutual dislike between them and the Norn witches. Although the antagonism did not appear to rule out quaffing a great deal of the women's ale. Raziel too remained on the front porch with the Ifa priests, excitedly chattering about some website called “The Deities of WalMart” with Chango.
Verdandi was correct in that the place was nearly deserted. Still, the bartender, a young girl, looked resentful and overworked. There was also a woman with a blonde beehive lolling on a barstool, cocktail glass at her side, smoking and leafing through a Hello! AU Edition magazine.
“Verdandi,” said the blonde, not looking up, “what did we say about bringing RIFF RAFF into the place? What if Mick sees?”
“Urd, these are some of his little … heavy band mates or something.”
Urd looked up and studied the motley assemblage with a bleary eye. “Oh, they hardly look heavy at all. That one hasn't eaten since Altamont I'll reckon,” she sniffed, pointing to Charles.
“WE PLAY DEATH METAL!” Nathan rumbled, rattling glassware.
“Oh, you are a big boy, aren't you?” purred Urd, suddenly looking over her cats eye glasses.
“Urd, don't frighten away our only customers,” the young girl huffed.
“Do you find it necessary to be so tiresome, Skuld,” the blond told her.
“Ladies, we simply wish to ascertain any information you might have! We are in haste!” Ganesh told them.
“Ascertain? That one's been knocking boots public school,” Urd laughed.
“You guys cast a spell for Skwisgaar and Pickles?” Charles sighed.
“Yes, but it was a custom job,” Verdandi told them.
“I warned you not to deal with angels,” Skuld told them, glowering from behind the bar.
“Skuld, dear, someone needs to keep us in heels and cocktails. It's not as if we work for air,” Verdandi told her.
“And the angels wanted a time spell?” Charles urged.
“Yes,” said Urd. “They wanted some horrible blighter named Sorry-Ell sent back before he had all his inevitably horrid children.”
“You activate it with a wish,” Skuld grumbled, rubbing a smeared beer glass with a dirty towel. “It makes it many times more powerful. But these two have been too hopped up to cast a decent spell since Mick married Bianca.”
“I told him she was no good for him! I TOLD HIM!” Verdandi protested, to Skuld's sighs.
“That Raggedy Andy fellow can probably fill you in on the rest,” said Urd. “It was his wish.”
“Our friend is a bit … affected,” said Ganesh, holding Pickles by the arm.
“I just had to laugh. I saw a photograph,” Pickles told them.
“Oh, that's just a bit of spanner in the works,” said Verdandi. “Easy fix.”
“Here, let me,” said Urd, suddenly hefting a beer mug.
“Wait!” yelled Charles, leaping at her. But he was too late, and she had klonked Pickles good and solid with the thick glass, sending him sprawling.
“Pickles!” said Ganesh, holding him up.
“I was born in a croosfire hurricane,” said Pickles.
“See? Isn't that better now, dear?” asked Urd, flicking ashes on him.
“Do you remember anything now, Pickles,” asked Ganesh, helping the shaky drummer to his feet.
“Wut da FECK am I doin' here?” he asked.
“Well, at least it's not a song lyric,” Charles allowed.
Pickles rubbed his head and looked around the room. “Oh, GAWD! NAWT YOO DOODS!” he said, staring at the witches.
Urd sniffed. “It WAS your wish, dearest.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Ganesh urged.
“And be QUICK!” Nathan boomed from one of the tables. “We're running low on NACHOS!”
“Dey sold us t'ree wishes,” said Pickles. “It wuz in a contract.”
“Ja,” said Skwisgaar, helping himself to some gooey chips. “You ams gots da wish, and I ams gots one.”
“Feck, Skwis, wut happened to yoo?” asked Pickles, regarding his portly band mate.
“Dats what we ams trying to figure out, my friend.”
“It was.... I din't mean to doo dis,” Pickles said.
“What did you wish for?” Ganesh asked. The drummer didn't answer, but looked at Charles.
“Pickles?” said Charles.
“It wuz yer fault, yoo know,” Pickles said, now frowning at Charles. “I asked yoo, yoo know. You coulda given me a straight feckin' answer.”
“Pickles.”
“I asked yoo!”
“Asked him what?” asked Ganesh.
“I asked yoo what would've happened, before da hot god boyfriend and dat fecked up kid, if you'd o' been jest human, and you wouldn' tell me!”
“What did you wish?” Ganesh asked again. His voice had an odd tone to it. The room seemed to have gotten darker.
Pickles glowered at Charles. “I wished away Gannish and da kid an all da angel crap. So now it's jest you. Jest mortal yoo. How does it feel, dyin' like us regular people? How do yoo like it Charles? How do you feckin like it?”
The floor rumbled, as with an earthquake, and Pickles looked up to see Ganesh standing over him, the god's eyes dark and murderous. “My child,” Ganesh whispered. “You wished away....” Ganesh raised a hand. Pickles cringed.
And somehow, Charles was now between them, staring at Ganesh.
Ganesh kept his hand raised. “Sariel” he said very quietly, as the floor trembled again. “Get out of my way.”
“We will get him back,” Charles said firmly.
“Get out of my way.”
“We will get him back.” He leaned forward a fraction. “If it's the last thing I do. We will get him back.”
Ganesh's breath caught. He slowly lowered his hand, his eyes filled with tears.
The room slowly returned to daylight.
“We will fix this,” said Charles. “That's what I do. You guys fuck up. And I fix things.”
Ganesh shook his head, and then made his way out the door. Charles finally looked back to where Pickles was sullenly staring at the floor.
“I'm sahry. I din't expect it t' be dis fecked up.”
“We'll fix it,” Charles told him, although his voice held none of the confidence it did with Ganesh. Angel magic mixed with earth magic? He doubted even Ganesh could figure a way out of this.
“Dudes! What's happening out THERE?” asked Nathan.
“Oi,” said Chango, who had just rushed in the door. “We seem to have a spot of bother with your customers.” The group inside the pub rushed for the door.
They had been completely surrounded. And it was not just an angry mob, it was a riotous mob, complete with flaming torches. Orula and Chango's wagon was going up in flames, and the horses were nowhere to be seen.
“There's too many of them,” said Raziel, holding her sword. “I didn't wanna just start beheading peasants, even if they are assholes.”
“What's gotten into them?” asked Charles.
'Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” sighed Ganesh. “Rioting is what one does for sport round these parts.”
“And what's up with Orula?” asked Charles, who noticed the vodouisant apparently singing to himself.
“He's working on a diversion,” Raziel whispered to him.
“We are tired of being treated as riff raff!” one of the peasants shouted.
“But darling, you ARE riff raff!” snorted Urd.
“Urd,” warned Charles.
“We want in your exclusive pub!” shouted another peasant.
“Well, it would hardly be exclusive if we let you lot inside!” Verdandi sniffed.
“It's hardly gonna be exclusive when they burn it to the ground,” Charles told them, cringing as a rock suddenly smashed through the front window.
“Wait! Look over there!” said Raziel, pointing off in the distance with her sword. Far up the road there were two figures stumbling along the roadside.
“Isn't that Mick and Keith?” Chango.
“Well, it's got to be!” shouted Raziel.
Suddenly, the crowd was dropping pitchforks and pulling out autograph books and cell phone cameras. “WAIT! MICK! KEEEEEIIIITH!” came shouts as the crowd started seething towards the figures, who had conveniently just disappeared into the forest.
“OK, we gotta go, and we gotta go now,” urged Raziel.
“What was that?” asked Charles.
“I noted that we passed a graveyard on our way here, so I simply animated a couple of the likely looking residents,” explained Orula, who seemed to be shaking out of kind of a trance.
“They're not gonna be happy when they find zombies instead of Stones,” warned Raziel.
“We need to make haste!” urged Ganesh.
“Darling, I can't possibly run in these shoes!” Urd protested.
But just then, there was a roar from the distance.
“Oh, what now?” groaned Charles. But, to his surprise, a limousine powered up the road and stopped just beside them.
“Need a ride, gentlemen?” grinned Murderface, a smiling Dick Knubbler beside him.
“William? A car?” sputtered Charles, who nonetheless jumped inside. “How the hell do you get even gas in this universe?”
“It'sch a hybrid,” Murderface laughed. They somehow managed to pack everyone more or less inside - death metal musicians and angels and vodouisants and Norns and the odd god - and Murderface took off like a shot, leaving some very confused villagers waving their pitchforks in a cloud of dust.
They continued down the road in the Murderwagon for a mile or two at breakneck speed, until Murderface suddenly turned the wheel, and the great car skidded to a halt, narrowly missing a black horse that had darted into the road.
“Falhofnir!” shouted Ganesh, excitedly leaping out of the car to greet his faithful horse.
“That's appropriate,” grinned Charles.
“Unfortschunately, we don't have a horsche cart, Ganesch,” Murderface told him.
“We are at present only a few miles away from my mother's estate. Why don't you go along ahead to the pass, and I will ride and meet you?” Ganesh asked.
Charles suddenly felt himself booted off the fender where he was sitting. He scowled back to see Raziel grinning. “Sariel will ride along with you!” she called.
“Yes, that will be good,” said Ganesh. “We will see you up the road, then?”
“Can I drive?” Raziel asked Murderface as he put the car in gear.
“NO! Abscholutely not!”
“Aw, c'mon William! Just a couple miles!”
“You'll burn the gearboxsch!”
And Charles watched them disappear around a bend.
"You are bleeding," said Ganesh.
"Oh. Shit," said Charles, feeling his back. "Must've been when the window broke."
"Come on. Take this off. We'll put something on it before we depart.”
"As long as I don't end up with elephant skin,” Charles laughed, unbuttoning his torn shirt.
"Pardon me?"
"It was a joke. Back when-"
"The rock demon injured you. Yes,” said Ganesh, sitting down on a boulder and positioning Charles between his knees with two of his arms while he used the other two to unscrew some kind of jar he had fished from his medical bag.
"You remember that?"
"Yes. Yes I do. I treated you. I remember...."
"What?" Ganesh's practiced hands were smoothing something cold onto his back. Charles gasped, very softly, but not from the cold.
"I saw your back. The scars. And....” Ganesh was silent a moment. “And I wanted to gather you up. And take you home with me,” he said very softly.
"Really?” asked Charles, attempting to turn around. Ganesh pushed him back. “Why didn't you?"
"You seemed a bit.... Self-contained?"
Charles thought for a bit. Although thought was getting more difficult, what with the touch. And the presence. “You know what I remember?” he sighed at last.
“What?”
“You killed that demon - the one in Niflheim? - with a fucking PENCIL in the eye!”
“Oh, gods, that was horrible!”
“Why?”
“He dulled my pencil point! I was forever marking down my father's kills, because of that ridiculous wager with Raziel!”
“You remember all that?” asked Charles, twisting around again.
Ganesh did not push him back this time. Instead his hands were on Charles' shoulders, and they were kissing, and then for a time Charles let thought and worry and even the burning hunger fall away along with the rest of his clothes, and he found he didn't even much mind, afterwards, being constrained by all those arms: it was just nice.
“But I did truly think I liked women!” Ganesh said at last.
Charles laughed lightly. It was odd: for the first time in so long, he wasn't feeling absolutely famished. It didn't seem just the usual sexual flush: he felt filled up, somehow. “Oh, you know what it is! I like women!”
“Er, I'm not sure I follow?”
Charles smiled and squirmed around in Ganesh's grasp to put his hands lightly on Ganesh's head. “We get mixed up in each others' minds,” he explained. And then he leapt in.
He was riding a horse. Ganesh's horse. He was Ganesh. That was strange. He was riding around what looked like Ganesh's estate here. But the sky had darkened, and Falhofnir had gotten skittish.
And then he spied it: a body, by the side of the road. Falhofnir protested, but he dismounted, and crept over to take a look. It wasn't a body: the being was still alive. It had an aura. He could see it. Weird that you could actually see this hippy shit. It was a powerful aura, in fact. Was it a man? Now Charles/Ganesh was unnerved as well. But he felt compelled to move close, to take a look....
He heard screams.
His own.
And Charles was back, back in the real world, or the dream world, or whatever the fuck it was, and Ganesh was holding him tightly, and muttering, “Yaha ṭhīka hai, yaha ṭhīka hai,” like he did with a skittish horse.
“What the fuck happened? What did you do, Ganesh? What the fuck did you do?”
Ganesh sat up. There were tears in his eyes. “There was a man. At least, I thought it was a man. And, he was badly injured....”
After a time, Ganesh noticed the sun was going down. “We had better hurry and catch up with the rest,” he told Charles. They quickly re-donned clothes, and Ganesh mounted. He leaned over and, like an afterthought, grabbed Charles and easily picked him up and placed him in the saddle in front of him. Still holding the reigns with one hand, Ganesh slid one arm around Charles' waist and, loosening a couple buttons, slipped a hand under his shirt, resting his palm flat on Charles' midsection.
It hadn't ever bothered Charles that Ganesh was physically bigger than him. But now it bothered him that Ganesh was more powerful. It bothered him a lot.
"I need to get my powers back," Charles muttered.
"We'll get them back," Ganesh said softly, pressing into him. "Or else we won't."
"If I have to stay mortal like this.... I can't stay with you, you know. I won't be able to."
"Shhh," said Ganesh. "I will cast myself onto your pyre." He slowly rubbed his thumb up and down.
Charles gawped. The crazy bastard is serious, he thought.
“So, how is it we have a child?” Ganesh asked. “Are you a woman, back there?”
Charles laughed. “No!”
“Then am I...?”
“No, not you either.”
Ganesh sighed, apparently relieved. “Then how...?”
“Someone very powerful owed me a favor. So, you took it. Or we took it.”
“I used your favor?”
“A boon. So, that's what we call him.”
“Tell me about him,” Ganesh said.
“Oh, the kid? He's like you. Only not so tall. And not quite as many teeth yet.”
“He is still small?”
“Yeah, but arms everywhere,” Charles said, sticking out his and wiggling his fingers. “Oh, and he has angel wings too.”
“He flies? And has many arms? It sounds disastrous!”
“It is! And he does magic! With his cousins too! Raziel has horrible angel kids too!”
“You wanted this?” Ganesh laughed.
“You wanted a kid!”
“You cold have refused me!”
“I can't fucking say no to you! You would look at me!”
“Would I?”
“You taught him to mix martinis!”
“I did? Hrm. Sounds very like something I would do....”
But Ganesh suddenly brought the horse up short. The Murderwagon was stopped by the side of the road, the occupants now all spilled out, staring at something.
Ganesh rode up. Starting at the crest of the hill, the entire valley below was completely blanketed beneath thick snow.
“This.... What could this be?” asked Ganesh, dismounting. “My mother's estate lies in a protected vale. At low elevation. But these mountains have been completely bare of snow.”
“Global warming. IT SUCKS,” noted Nathan.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Raziel asked Charles, who had come to stand beside her.
“What do you mean?” he asked, grinning.
She held up a makeup mirror. Charles frowned into it.
His eyes had turned green.