Chapter Text
“I’ve been wondering," Kobeni says, "do Fiends have birthdays?”
Public Safety Division 4 has just finished killing the Alligator Devil at a local wetland. Its corpse lies large on the shore.
Kobeni and Violence stand back and watch, with varying degree of disgust, as their teammates search the body.
Power sneers, gnawing on a piece of thickly scaled skin.
“We have no day of birth to commemorate, human.”
Next to Kobeni, Violence nods in agreement.
“If anything, it’d be a death day!”
Beam offers a piece of devil to Angel, who's careful to take it without touching his coworker. He thinks as he chews.
“Though, even a "death day" would be more for the human who used to inhabit our body. Most fiends don’t identify much with their prior host.”
Angel inclines his head towards Violence, “With exception, of course.” Violence flashes a peace sign.
"T'would be the opposite of a birth day," Power mutters. "An unbirthday."
Wiping blood from his mouth, Beam taps Denji’s arm. “What’s human birthdays like?”
Denji is rooting around in the Devil’s guts for Gun fragments with a vague grimace. He furrows his brows, as if trying to recall the answer.
“Well… you’re s’pposed to have a party, all for you, with cake and balloons and shit like that. And then all your friends and family will give you free stuff.”
He shrugs, “Or, that’s how it is on TV.”
Aki, supervising the search over the fiends' shoulders, gives Denji a strange look.
“You’ve never celebrated?”
“Nope.” Denji pauses. “Wait no, Pochita and I celebrated the day we met each other.”
He grins and wipes his face with his arm, accidentally smearing some viscera onto his forehead.
“Every year I’d keep an eye out for good bones for him to chew on and he’d bring me flowers to eat.”
“To eat..?” Aki mutters, looking vexed.
Power pokes Aki’s arm.
“Did you have birthday parties, human?”
He shoots her a cool glance and waves away her hand.
“Yes.”
“And was it like the TV?” Beam asks eagerly.
“Sure.” His coworkers seem to expect him to elaborate.
This seems to make Aki uncomfortable.
“...No balloons though,” he adds. “My brother was allergic.”
Denji snickers, "allergic to balloons? That’s a stupid allergy.”
“Allergies aren’t much in the habit of making sense,” Aki says.
Violence offers a knowing "yep." Kobeni turns to him.
“Do you remember any of your birthdays?” She asks.
Violence thinks, tapping an index finger on the beak of his mask.
“Hmm, I remember that my parents would invite all my friends to spend the day at fun places."
"I think I went to a zoo… a skate park… a baseball game, once. And then, afterwards, we’d go back to my house and have cake. It was pretty fun!”
A bittersweet silence descends upon all of them.
After a while of watching shorebirds mill about in the shallow water, Angel’s eyes return to his quiet coworkers.
“I don’t see the point of these traditions,” he admits. “It’s a day like any other – humans just made up something to celebrate about it.”
“Maybe.” Kobeni shifts on her feet and offers him a weak smile. “But it is a nice excuse to have fun and take a day off of work.”
Denji exclaims “aha” as he pulls a small metal fragment out of the Devil.
Aki holds out a plastic bag for Denji to drop the fragment into.
He raises his short eyebrows and glances at Kobeni as he returns the bag to his breast pocket.
“You take the day off?”
Kobeni blinks. “Of course! My parents told me it’s a commonly practiced tradition.”
Her shoulders rise and her voice grows uncertain, “Ah, why? Don’t you?”
In lieu of responding Aki looks away, wiping his hands on his pants and wordlessly straightening his tie.
Violence raises his hand, “Y’know I agree with ‘Beni. Creating a reason to have a good time every year is a great idea!
I think it’d be fun if us Fiends made up our own birthdays,” he says.
Nearly interrupting Violence, Power makes her own announcement.
“Yes! I’ve come up with a brilliant idea. It is my birth day right now, actually.”
She stands triumphant, hands on her hips, basking in the stares of her coworkers.
After a moment, Kobeni speaks. “Ah, alright. Happy birthday.”
Power grins, displaying her sharp fangs, and extends her hand in a grabbing motion.
“Now give me things,” she demands.
Kobeni laughs nervously and shrinks behind Violence.
Denji leans over and gives Power’s arm a shove as he makes his way down the side of the corpse.
“Powwy," he reminds her, "you gotta give advance notice first."
He jumps and lands in the mud with an unpleasant squelch.
"People aren’t always just gonna have stuff for you," he says.
“Tch," Power looks displeased, "well they should, if they have any sense."
She turns up her nose, "But no matter. As has been established, you are obligated by your stupid traditions to give me things!”
“You have twenty four hours," she warns, wielding her index finger in an arc to point at her coworkers.
Aki and Denji share a long-suffering look. Beam nods enthusiastically; Angel's attention has once again returned to the shorebirds.
Kobeni looks more nervous now than when she had been fighting the Devil.
Violence does a thumbs up to the birthday girl. "Alright!"