The Masquerade

Raiden basically appeared next to Boris.
"Jeez bruh. You say you know this man very well, but you barely remember me? The dude who gave you a star wars t-shirt?" Raiden clutched at his chest.
"I'm hurt."

He slowly sipped on his juice box.

"But uh yeah I don't think its a good idea to mess up our hosts."

Mira wasn't going to lie - she had let out another surprised gasp when she had noticed Boris murdering Kartiel, even though she had come to the realization that he was probably just like any other god she knew when it came to dealing with injuries.

And she had been right.

Kartiel had staggered forward after being stabbed in both the neck and the back, and had fallen to the floor likely from his body going into shock - it happened whenever Hades wasn't prepared for a sudden injury that was supposed to be fatal. And then he laid there for a moment, the wounds (still coated in blood) slowly beginning to heal. Slow for a god, anyways. He must have really been taken by surprise - it took him more than a minute to fully heal from two knife wounds, according to the counting Asteri was absentmindedly doing under his breath as he watched the "dead" body.

Hades would have done it in half that time, Mira thought to herself, watching Kartiel silently get up behind Boris and Raiden.

"That was slow," Asteri said.

If Kartiel heard him, he didn't say anything. He reached a hand out and tapped Boris on the shoulder. "Nice try, Boris, but this body is actually my own this time. It's going to take a little more than a couple of knife wounds to kill me."

Damascus braved a glance down to assess the body once more, only to find that it was gone. With a wild glance around, he saw the bloody man behind Boris and let out a loud, shrill scream. Tripping over his own feet to back away, he clutched at his heart, which was pounding madly.

"J- Jiminey!! Jiminey criping crickets!" He exclaimed loudly, "not dead! Not dead."

Taber stepped in front of Eremia, who was currently cursing under her breath. She apparently thought a bit differently about Kartiel being alive. "Yeah, hey?" Taber said, raising his hands up. He leaned back on the balls of his feet and tried to ignore the eyes trained on him, not to mention how much the fur on his cheeks seemed to burn. But it was important to say the right thing, and it looked like he was the only one who was going to say it. "Can we please stop with the stabbing and murdering and stuff? It's not very partyish."

He was about to go rejoin Maahes and Vala when he witnessed the stabbing take place. His eyes widened, and he bit his tongue - about to yell: you fool, that man might very well be our only ticket out of here, but decided against it when he heard the murderer utter the name Damascus.

Damascus. Damascus. Why was that name so familiar? He stared at the two out of the corner of his eye, but it didn't come to mind until the murderer was identified as Boris. Boris Dietrich.

He froze.

Oh god. The blurred memories began to resurface as an unwelcome recollection. The swear, the handshakes, the lost confused children - and then the drunken conversations. The embarrassment, and how somehow, he'd bonded with people who were previously strangers to him. It was something he'd hoped he could forget entirely as a bizarre moment that would stay in the past, but fate - or Kartiel - decided to bring them together at a Masquerade. He hesitated, turning to flee before the two saw him, but he paused when he saw Kartiel rise, healed and unharmed.

A part of him felt relieved. Of course a god would have regenerative abilities. At least that meant there was still hope of them getting back home, even if he didn't like Kartiel and the idea of his fate being in his hands.

Seeing that Kartiel was alive, and Boris confronted, James saw that as his cue to go. But for some reason he found himself walking past them instead of away.

My conversational skills aside, I was almost surprised that Damascus had taken my side.

The argument that I gave him was sorely lacking in anything of substance to support the rhetoric. His hesitation and nervous praise made it clear that he had to make a deliberate effort to believe what I had said. He would only give me so many more allowances like this. I needed to be careful with them.

What was this? Shame?
Such an unfamiliar feeling, I always had to double-check when I suspected it was there.

Whatever it was, Damascus had seen me. He'd seen the sin of wrath in me, however I painted it, it may have been satiable, but it was wanton.
I'd never wanted him to see that side of me. It wasn't right.


I was jolted from this pensive mood by the sudden touch of Kartiel. The living Kartiel.
I failed to repress a shudder. How could I have been so stupid as to take my eyes off of him? After everything I'd seen him do, I should have known that he wouldn't go down so easily as that.

He had me from behind, the same way I achieved the advantage over him just moments ago. He could have killed me that very instant, if he had so wished.
He knew that I knew this. It was a message.

To put it lightly, I felt personally insulted by how too much of his blood was still in his body and not on the floor. I was also irritated at having pointlessly embarrassed myself at this party for a second time.
But more than anything else, I genuinely regretted that I'd made poor Damascus worry. I cursed myself for not having recognized his voice and turned around earlier, but the deed was done.

"It's going to take a little more than a couple of knife wounds to kill me," Kartiel had said.

It was clear that the duplicitous wretch likely hid multitudes of secret abilities I had no way of knowing about, and he was probably goading me because he was dying for an excuse to show off. For one thing I'd had enough of giving him the satisfaction, and for another, I didn't want to worry Damascus any further.

"Good for you." I told Kartiel sullenly.

Damascus watched as Boris responded to the undead Kartiel- or rather, he picked up on what wasn't said. He knew Boris, and he also knew that it probably wasn't easy for him to restrain himself. That was very strange, since a minute ago he had been throwing his all into extinguishing the life of this man.

It wasn't long that he had started to dwell on this when his eyes were drawn to a pretty gold costume. They lit up, and he made a beeline for this person to compliment their suit. Only a few steps away, he did a double-take.

Hang on- he remembered this aura, and the conflicted anti-social behavior. On instinct, he reached out (brother), only to stop his hand mid-air. Right. No touching. He had crossed that line too far before to attempt to get away with tiptoeing it again.

"James. I can't believe you're here too." Settling on the warmest smile he could muster, he tried to be calmer and more gentle then he was with Boris. James was kind of like a cat, he thought, you display your affection subtly, approach slowly, and hopefully he would eventually come to you on his own. "I- I've missed you all so much."

He cleared his throat after his voice cracked in emotion. Ah, now he'd gone and exposed a bit of the pain he had felt with losing contact with family- he had told himself he wouldn't do that to them. It was only a portion of the vulnerably he felt in accordance with his attatchment to them- really, his attachment to their memory.

Oh. That James, that James was our James, and had been the whole time?
At first I was excited to know he was here too, until I remembered that he had been present to witness my ill-advised attempt to flatter Rendra, as well as my attempted crime of passion. Then I suddenly regretted that we knew each other at all.
If I greeted him, I'd essentially be inviting him to comment on at least the more recent of those escapades.

But the real reason that I chose not to greet him was because I didn't want to interrupt his reunion with Damascus. That was indeed the case.

James wasn't sure how to feel when Damascus walked up to him. A part of him was glad to see another familiar face, but the other half of him still wanted to run away. But Damascus didn't tackle him, or hug him, or any of the things he might have expected. He just smiled, and James felt an odd sense of comfort despite the situation at hand.

His heart twisted as he heard Damascus's voice crack, and he found himself mustering a small smile in return, even if a shy one. He knew Damascus was more affectionate, and, wanting to respond to the present loneliness he heard in his honorary brother's voice, he took a step forward and put a hand on Damascus's shoulder.

"It's good to see you too," he said, before his gaze turned over to Boris, making eye contact.

He still didn't quite know how to feel about the reunion, but it would be wrong of him to ignore Boris now that Boris was aware of his presence and identity. Wordlessly, he gave a nod of his head for Boris to come over.

Damn, he invited me directly. Once again James demonstrated his strategic prowess- there would be no escape from him now.

Oh, but who else did I have to talk to? Kartiel? He was still alive, and for that we would not be on speaking terms for a while.

I gladly welcomed my third death of the evening, and joined my brothers. When I came closer, it felt more and more as though it were a price I was willing to pay.

I smiled at him, genuinely. "Likewise, brother. I didn't know you were a detective."

James stared at Boris for a second before he smiled and laughed. A detective. That was rich.

"Only when I need to be," he said, giving Boris a small bow of his head.

Maahes looked between the newcomer, the man who had just stabbed Kartiel and James. "James?" he hesitantly questioned; like Boris, though he didn't know they had a similar train of thought, he didn't want to interrupt what looked to be an important reunion.

James turned around to Maahes, smile brightening a little. He gestured for Maahes to join him at his side. “This is Boris, and this is Damascus. Old friends - and brothers, though not by blood.” The word ‘friends’ felt weird coming out of his mouth namely because of their last reuinion in the bar, but he continued to push that out of his mind.

"Hello." Damascus smiled at this new face and held out a hand. "Pleasure to meet you. I take it you're a friend of James'?"

That made him happy- that James had friends outside of their little group to rely on. He frowned briefly. Who was he kidding- everyone else probably had at least one other friend. He was the one who was alone- and always had been. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he focused instead on Maahes.

He hated himself for it, but the moment after James introduced the two strangers, Maahes immediately felt a pang of jealousy. He was so used to James having no one there except him and vice versa; it felt bizarre to suddenly be the outsider. James knew these people well enough to call them brothers despite not being related by blood. Where did that leave him and Maahes?

As if sensing his discomfort, Vala suddenly appeared beside him. He could see her watching him out of the corner of his eye, though she said nothing as she looked the small group over

"I am," he finally said. He shook the hand extended to him. "My name is Maahes."

"And I'm Vala - Vala Mal Doran. I've only just met James, but Maahes has assured me that he's a good person, so I'll go on a limb and say that both of you are, too." She looked over at Boris, an amused look on her face. "Though I should probably withhold judgement on you, since you tried sinking those daggers into Kartiel's back."