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Anyone that knew Chuuya in any capacity knew of his love for things. There was nothing he loved more than surrounding himself with the finest things money could buy, cramming them into every corner of his fancy penthouse apartment so he could fawn over all of his things from any given room or angle. He loved his expensive wines, his designer hats, his perfectly tailored suits, his vintage first-edition cookbooks, his polished Italian loafers, and every other thing that had far too many zeroes on the price tag. If it was ostentatious and beyond the means of the average citizen, Chuuya wanted his name on it.
More than his things, though, Chuuya enjoyed the company of beautiful young women.
In spite of his vertical shortcomings, he was a handsome man with a lot of cash to burn, so it was only natural that ladies of a certain inclination would flock to him. He treated them well—fine jewelry, high-class restaurants, exotic vacations—but he never saw fit to keep any one woman around for too long; no point in tying yourself down, really, when one already had six thousand years of life and an indeterminate amount more to go. It was much easier to have a fun time while the fun time lasted and part on amicable terms.
It just so happened that on a night that was neither dark nor stormy, Chuuya had gracefully escorted a fine young lady out to a cab (that he had graciously paid for) so as to not worry her roommate should she not be back by morning. That had been about an hour previously, and he had since showered, bathed, and changed into less… impressive clothes. His t-shirt was about two sizes too large, his sweatpants hung low on his hips, his house slippers were cartoonified bears, and he wasn’t willing to put more effort into taming his still-damp hair than pushing it back with a headband. All in all, it wasn’t the sort of outfit he would don if he intended to be entertaining any kind of company.
He had been in the middle of selecting which bottle of wine he was going to enjoy for the remainder of the nighttime hours when the doorbell rang. He looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. He wondered if his guest for the evening had left something behind and returned to grab it as he closed the wine cabinet and headed toward the door.
As soon as he opened it, any semblance of a good mood that had been simmering inside him took a violent dive off the nearest cliff.
He gritted his teeth tightly together. “Dazai.”
The man named Dazai waved genially. “Nice night, isn’t it?”
Trying to quantify Chuuya and Dazai’s relationship into any known human language would be nearly impossible. ‘Friends’ was close but not always true, ‘enemies’ wasn’t right either despite their status as being on Opposing Sides and how often Chuuya threatened to kill Dazai, and anything beyond that was so absurd to even think about that the brain power necessary to process all of it would be better spent learning how to count by threes in Klingon. What it really boiled down to was two people who had known each other for far too long and grown far too comfortable in the faces of their respective realities.
They had known each other since the Beginning, the Very Beginning at that, back when they were Chayyliel and Ouriel and the concept of humanity was still in the works. Even then, Dazai had made it his existence’s goal to find every unique way he could piss Chuuya off, and little had changed in the six thousand years since. On some level, Chuuya had grown to accept and expect it as part of his near-daily life, so random house calls in the middle of the night weren’t too far out of the ordinary to warrant suspicion.
Random house calls in the middle of the night on this night, of all nights, however…
It was nothing less than alarming.
Chuuya’s frown deepened somehow despite being as deep as physically possible given the constraints of his body’s expressions. “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t you have something else to be doing?”
“Well, you see,” Dazai started, holding one arm in front of him and using its hand to support his opposite elbow. He tapped his bottom lip with a finger, thoughtful. “I was tasked with delivering the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness—newly arrived on Earth, in case you didn’t know—to be swapped and assimilated into his human life, as we’ve previously discussed. Despite being on different sides in all of this, you know I like to keep you informed.”
The headache was already starting to form behind Chuuya’s eyes the longer Dazai talked. “I know all of this, you idiot. Now answer the question I actually asked. Why are you here?”
Dazai dismissed him with a small hand gesture. “I’m getting to it. So I received the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called—”
“For fuck’s sake, get on with it!”
“—fine, the Antichrist from the point-of-contact demons in the graveyard, which is the least reputable place to be picking up babies from, in my honest opinion.”
Chuuya dragged a perfectly manicured hand down his face with a groan, catching his bottom lip on his palm as it slid down. He really hated Dazai sometimes. “I swear to God I’m going to end you if you don’t speed this up,” he said, muffled by his hand still over his mouth.
There was no doubt in Chuuya’s mind that Dazai was absolutely doing this on purpose. It was one of his favored Annoying Chuuya Techniques. He knew that Dazai knew that he knew what he was doing, and it went without saying that Dazai knew that he knew that Dazai knew that he knew what he was doing, which at this point was one useless beat around a bunch of badly trimmed hedges.
Sticking both of his hands into the pockets of his coat, Dazai rocked back onto his heels. It was almost cute. Almost. “I took the baby with me to the closest bus stop and hopped on. I got distracted playing a game on my phone and almost missed my stop, but I made it in the nick of time,” he said, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet before settling himself flat on the floor again. “Now I’m here.”
Just to recap, the facts so far were as follows:
- Dazai picked up the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness (heretofore referred to as the Antichrist to save money on printing) as per the plan.
- Dazai, without a car or a valid license with which to operate the car he didn’t have due to being deemed a public safety hazard by every Menkyo Center he tried, had no choice but to bring the Antichrist onto a public bus to reach his destination.
- Dazai was a genius that enjoyed playing the village idiot, most especially when there were important matters at hand, like delivering the Antichrist to the rendezvous location in one piece to ensure the preparations for Armageddon were in place.
- Dazai almost missed the stop and had to madly rush to push the stop request button, but successfully clambered off the bus.
- Dazai showed up at Chuuya’s apartment.
It didn’t take much thought to realize there was a crucial step missing:
- Anything at all to do with the entire plan’s execution.
There were no words needed between them for Dazai to know that Chuuya was on the exact page he should be on. Despite all appearances, Chuuya was intelligent enough to pick up on most things, no matter how subtle Dazai was being about them. It was just a matter of time before he got the reaction he was looking for.
Chuuya was a simple man with a simpler temper. All it took to blow his fuse was Dazai saying the right thing at the right time—or, on occasion, simply daring to exist in Chuuya’s general area. After the detonation, Chuuya would threaten to kill him and-slash-or cause him intense and intimately described bodily harm, Dazai would laugh and dodge whatever Chuuya threw at him, and they would move on from there. It was familiar. It was predictable. It hadn’t changed since their creation and it wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
But instead of the amusing eruption he had grown accustomed to, Chuuya only inhaled deeply and looked at him sharply, cold grey meeting brown. “Dazai,” he said, even.
“Yes, Chuuya?” Dazai replied.
“Where’s the Antichrist?”
Somewhere else, a confused group of nuns helped two perfectly healthy, normal babies into the world.