Chapter 8

8

When I return from foraging with enough curry to keep for a couple of days, Darcy is still on the floor acting like something awful happened to him. I mean, he’s sweating bullets and moaning like he’s in pain, and that’s probably concerning. Maxime said it was just him being stubborn, but Maxime didn’t actually see him and see what was happening to him, soooo…

I leave the food on the table and squat over Darcy, shaking his shoulder. “Hey, man. Food’s here. I got curry if you’re interested. I know it’s not really a traditional breakfast food, but if other cultures can have savory breakfasts, I feel like we can too.”

Darcy moans again and shoots up to sitting, knocking his forehead into my nose and tipping me off balance. I land on my ass as he gasps for air like he just ran a marathon. The vein in his temple stands out, pulsing in a worrisome way as he jumps to his feet, completely ignoring me on my ass with my nose dripping blood from his over-the-top awakening.

He clenches his fists and suddenly roars, but that’s not the voice of a normal human person. He’s not human, so I guess it’s ok he’s roaring like—well, it sort of reminds me of a volcano monster or something like that. I don’t know why it inspires that imagery—maybe I’m having a Moana flashback? The roar is terrifying but also awesome. Like, maybe-I-could-worship-a-volcano-god-for-the-length-of-a-hook-up kind of awesome, you know what I mean?

“Chill, dude. It’s just curry.” I lever to my feet, heading to the kitchen for some napkins. My shirt is ruined, but at least that’s not as annoying as having to change my pants. I grab a paper towel instead and shove it under my nose, looking at Darcy over the wad.

He stares at me with literal fire in his eyes. It’s pretty. I like it. “I don’t know which mouth breathing, pig fucking, shit licking bastard fucked with the balance of power, but I’m fixing to make their entire lives an ed.”

I tilt my head toward the table, inviting him to join me there. “What’s an ed?” I ask and point to the curry, adding “You hungry?”

“Starving,” he replies, grabbing the plastic bags of containers and ripping them open. There are six containers of curry because I have no personal discipline about good food. “It’s the past tense ending. Ed. As in killed, murdered, assassinated—I’m about to make them past tense in the most example-making way possible.”

“Ah, ok. So, what’s the balance of power you’re talking about?” I think that’s probably a good question to get out of the way.

“The Universe decided to make me the Avatar of Neutrality. There’s an Avatar of Evil and an Avatar of Good, and the three of us embody the universal forces of good, evil, and neutrality. I just been invested by the magic of neutrality, and it’s pissed. This is the most bullshit thing to ever happen. Do you know I was the Avatar of Evil for about three point five seconds about seven thousand years ago? I was the angriest djinn in existence, and I changed the balance of power in the universe with three months of activity. I was so good at killing people, the universe had to restructure its balance to accommodate me. It tried to make me the Avatar of Evil when I killed the one that was in power at the time, but I told the magic to fuck right off, and while I was distracted, it found someone to take the power.”

“Seven thousand years. Impressive.” I bet he’s grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing—he spent most of his life without it, and that sucks. “You going to tell the new magic to fuck off?”

“I can’t,” he spits out. His burning eyes go from orange flame to a white-blue flame, and I think that means it’s a hotter flame than it was before. “The magic refuses to let me go unless I fix the balance. The fuckers in power have been working toward a ninety-ten split between good and evil, but what they really need to do is hit a twenty seven-three split between them and let neutrality have seventy percent of the power.”

“Why does neutrality get so much?”

“Because most of the universe is morally neutral. Way more than seventy percent of the universe is completely neutral. Ninety-nine point nine nine into infinity is completely neutral, but the Universe only counts toward the balance the things that exist because a choice was made. You exist because of a choice, same as me, this apartment, this city, all life on this planet and the things that life has done—rerouting rivers, plowing hills, putting greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere—the weather on this planet is the result of choices and therefore must fall under the purview of good, evil, or neutral. It can’t make its own choices, so it falls to neutrality. The problem is that good and evil have been divvying up the neutral shit for thousands of years across an infinite and ever expanding universe. So right now the balance is forty for neutrality, fifty four for good and six for evil. There is so much fucking work to do, and magic made its choice. I either submit and fix shit or delete myself from this universe, and I refuse to do that.”

His eyes turn blue, as in blue flame, not a human eye color. I like it as much as I like the orange.

“A lot of people would consider the second choice. I’m proud of you for choosing to live. Well done, Darcy.”

He gives me a grim smile. “Darlin’, thain’t nothing in the universe like revenge, and living well is the sweetest revenge I ever took.”

“Proud of you for that,” I say with full sincerity. “Whatever happened that requires that level of revenge, I fully support you.”

“I don’t need your support.” He shoots me an amused and maybe affectionate glance and adds, “But thanks.”

I pat his shoulder and turn my attention to the food. I need a minute to think about everything else he’s said, since it’s a bit beyond my current understanding of the universe, so I start opening curry containers. I open the green curry first, and since I’m not inclined to go exploring for the red curry, I grab one of the packets of utensils and start spooning the food into my mouth. Darcy finds a golden curry with chicken and peas and a container of rice. He dumps half the rice onto the lids of the two containers, dumps half the curry over the rice left in the container, and starts eating.

“So I’m eating breakfast with one of the most important people in the universe? That’s pretty cool.”

Darcy grunts softly. “Neutrality is a universal force. I’m now its representative. So, yes.” He shoves a bite into his mouth and chews it before adding, “It could have picked anyone in all the known universe and it picked me. You wanna know why? It chose me because I’m related to the other Avatars via unofficial and non-consensual adoption by Romily Fucking Butcher. Fucker makes my ass itch,” he grumps, but there’s a smile on his face when he says Romily’s name and his eyes stop burning altogether and return to their pretty natural brown-black, so I have a hard time believing he doesn’t like the guy.

“So, he's the extrovert that adopted you, and you’re the introvert that he decided, ‘You’re going to be my friend now?’” That sounds like something that would happen on the internet. “Introverts against non-consensual adoption unite. We meet after Procrastinators Anonymous tomorrow. Meeting time: when you feel like it.”

I laugh at my own joke. I’m not really an introvert. I’m actually fine with people, but I think the internet memes are kinda funny.

Darcy scoffs. “I like people. I’m good with them. I almost never have any trouble with them. The only time they really get tore up about me is when they decide to be stupid and do things that I get called to fix. Well, sometimes I get called to help them do the stupid, but I always stick around for the clean up afterwards, too. I enjoy the karma of watching them face the consequences of their own choices, and I like charging them triple for the clean up.” He smirks to himself about that, and it’s not a bad business plan except for the part where it would be hard to get return customers.

“So you fuck shit up for people and then you fix it? Why would anyone hire you?”

Darcy smirks. “I’m the best at what I do, and rich assholes love being able to afford the best.”

“Gouging the rich for personal gain, then. I dig it. This curry is good, you wanna try it?” I offer, because I’m eyeing the golden curry and wouldn’t mind a switch before I get too full.

“Yup,” he agrees, trading the yellow to me and taking the green. He dumps the rice from the lids into the container with the green and switches to it. I don’t like rice enough to waste stomach space on it, so I just dig into the container of golden with my spoon.

“So good,” I mumble contentedly. “You owe me dinner, though, since I bought dinner-for-breakfast.” I think it’s important to establish equality early in a hookup, otherwise the slam-bam-thank-you-man feels gross. Not that I do a lot of hooking up, but this is a good principle to have whenever I do.

Darcy eyes the containers that are open and the ones that aren’t. “I don’t date,” he reminds me.

“I’m pretty sure dating requires both parties to consent, otherwise it’s weird stalking or just friends hanging out.” I’m surprised he needs that explained.

Darcy stares at me like he really didn’t know that, mouth full, cheeks a little chubby from the size of the bite he took.

I raise my phone and take a pic because he’s really cute right now. “I’ll delete it if you don’t want me to have it. Consent, you know?”

He glances at the phone, finishes his bite, and replies, “Take all the pics you like. Ain’t got no soul left to steal.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s a little left.” Unless selling one’s soul to the devil is a thing. Hmmm. I met a demon yesterday. I wonder if they actually trade in souls. “Do demons—”

“No. That's something entirely different. Demons are just people like everyone else. Maybe their culture has a lot more cunty bastards in it than others, but they’re just born that way. More inclined toward hedonism than humans.”

“I bet that’s hard to do. Humans are pretty selfish and treasure-motivated. I mean, some people’s treasure isn’t wealth, but they’re still motivated by the treasure of their hearts, you know?”

Darcy laughs through a mouthful, but it’s pure sin to hear—damn, this man is fine . “True. Wealth is the motivator for a lot of people, but some people hoard other things. One man’s trash ‘n’ all that.”

I finish my curry and sit back, patting my tummy in satisfaction. “I’m food motivated if anything. Love me some curry. You ever have sweet curry? It’s the best, though I like the red curry better. Give it to me spicy with some fried tofu. Yum. I’m going to have that for breakfast tomorrow.” I point to the containers that look like they have red in them.

Darcy glances at them, then starts reaching for them. I move faster to grab them bother. “Nah. Dibs on the red.”

He smirks and finishes whatever’s left of the two containers he’s emptied.

“So what’re your plans now that you’ve become an Avatar—is that how to say that? Do you have an official title or something?”

Darcy scrunches his nose up. “I was planning on fucking you, and then whatever happens after that is none of your business.”

“Sure. I’m not going to be around for your victorious return to whatever, but hey, we’re digesting now. Plus, I’ll have to go clean out the bum, ya know, before we get down and dirty, so I was just filling the time with something interesting.” I stop to think about it—maybe this hook up should be hand and mouth only so I don’t have to take off my pants again. “Maybe your life is boring, in which case, we can just swap blowies.”

Darcy huffs out a breath. “My life is never boring. I’m gonna find out what the fuck happened by tracking down Romily Butcher, because he knows what’s going on and why the universe forgot there was supposed to be an Avatar of Neutrality. Then I’m thinking I’ll throw every person responsible for imprisoning neutrality into a volcano. It probably won’t be one on Earth, because I like the idea of trapping them on a different planet. There’s plenty of unstable, volcanic rocks out there.”

“Maybe you can get the flinks to help you teleport,” I suggest.

The atmosphere feels like it thins out and pressurizes at the same time. My ears pop with the clap of thunder, and then the familiar weight of a baby flink settles on my shoulders and their little baby arms and legs wrap around my head.

“Oh, hello, baby,” I greet them.