tikific | Business Time (Mythklok Interstitial)

Title: Business Time (Mythklok Interstitial)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Some years on, the Mythklok Brat Pack gets a visitor
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs liek whoa, swearing
Notes: This was one of those where I wasn't quite certain what it was about till I started writing it. This happens a few years from now in the continuity.

A few years from now....

Abby scowled. She was very good at scowling.

Right now she was scowling at her saddle.

"Looks like the back cinch is broken," Boon told her. "Did you check it when your dad told you to?"

"Er," she said.

He grinned at her now. The smile that looked a bit too large for his face.

Abby scowled. The bastard had her over a barrel. If there was one thing Wotan, who was not a religious man, insisted on with a religious fervor, it was seeing to one's tack. And Abby.... Well, she liked horses because they were pretty, but she basically agreed with her mom that there were more efficient ways of getting from Point A to Point B.

"Please don't bust me to dad."

"You need somebody to fix it?" Boon asked. "Maybe somebody who's really smart and good looking?"

"Will you fix my saddle. Elias." She used his actual given name when she was slightly annoyed with him.

"Maybe."

"What do you want?"

"I'll figure something!" He broke out the extra set of arms. Which meant, since, like his father, he tended to wear shirts with only two sleeves, he removed his shirt first. Abby found she did not much mind this. And she actually favored him with a rare smile.

Abby had inherited her looks, she thought, mostly from her mother. Unlike a lot of mother daughter pairs of whom this was claimed, the women genuinely did look like sisters now. Although her mother never, ever treated her like a sister, always fussing at her hair, or reaching to kiss the top of her head, even when Abby had grown too tall for her mother to easily reach the top of her head. Abby wasn't tiny, like Raziel, though neither was she tall, like her father and brother.

She had her mother's angelically pale skin, but had somehow ended up with Wotan's clear blue eyes instead of Raziel's mysterious dark ones. In this Abby had always felt a bit shortchanged. No one had eyes like Raziel.

Boon on the other hand had gotten Uncle Ganesh's gorgeous brown eyes. And gorgeous eyelashes. And gorgeous smile. And gorgeous ... well, everything.

It was sort of annoying.

She had crawled up on a nearby low tree branch to watch him work, as she tended to dislike sitting still for long. Her mother was endlessly reminding her about unconsciously kicking her legs when she sat, although Raziel didn't seem to much mind the habit. And then Abby somehow ended up wiggling around so she was hanging upside down from the tree branch.

Boon worked very quickly and efficiently mending the saddle. He turned around and saw her hanging there, and grinned.

And then he leaned over and quickly kissed her. On the lips.

Abby fell out of the tree.

Boon laughed. He stuck out one of many hands to help her up.

Abby glared, taking the hand. Being an angel, nothing was really hurt but her pride.

"Why did you do that?" she demanded, whacking off the dirt.

"I felt like it," Boon smiled. He had turned back to work on the saddle. "I'm fixing your saddle for you, aren't I?"

"I'm going to.... I'm going to take a walk!"

"OK. I won't be too long here."

Abby was already stalking off. Se was really annoyed. Really annoyed.

She was particularly annoyed because what she wanted to do was kiss Boon back.

She looked up.

There was a silver haired man standing in the woods.

He turned. He actually wasn't quite a man. He was a kid, about Abby's age, by the looks of it.

He blinked silvery eyes.

He looked familiar. But not.

He was clearly an angel.

"Uncle Sariel?" Abby said. But she already knew this was wrong. He resembled a wingless Sariel, but he was a bit smaller, and had a weird haircut, as if he'd maybe shaved his head at some point and just let it grow out.

"Whoa!" he said, putting his hand through the shock of silvery hair.

No, Uncle Sariel definitely never looked at her that way.

"Raziel?" he asked.

"No."

"Oh. Then you must be her kid?"

Abby crossed her arms and frowned. "Maybe," she allowed.

"You have her hair. And her..." The stranger suddenly found himself off his feet. "Whoa!" he said again.

"What's this?" asked Liam, who was holding him up by the back of his shirt.

"I'm an angel, so you better not fuck with me!" the silver guy warned.

"We're all angels, douche bag," Liam sighed.

Elias, who was also standing there, went from four armed Form to Winged Form, just for emphasis.

"Huh. Why doesn't she True Form?" the silver guy grinned, indicating Abby.

Liam tightened his grip on the stranger's collar, but Abby laughed. "That's my sister. Whoever you are."

"I'm fucking Sariel!" he sputtered. "I'm Sariel from Jacque's universe!"

"Papa Jacque?" Boon asked. "Wait! Are you baby Sariel?"

"I'm obviously not a fucking baby. But, yeah."

"You know him, Boon?" Liam asked.

"Well, not really, but I think you could let him go. He's harmless."

"I'm no harmless," Sariel grumbled, finally coming back to the ground.

"The universe where Sariel was killed?" Boon ventured. "And Uncle Brahma gave him to that Ganesh as a baby?"

"Wait, that one was true?" Liam laughed. "I thought sure Unky Sariel was fucking with us!"

"I thought it was true," Abby protested.

"No, it is true," Boon told them, putting away his wings and bringing out the other arms.

"Of course it's fucking true!" Sariel protested. He eyed Boon. "And, uh, what exactly are you supposed to be?"

"I'm Elias," Boon told him crisply.

"If you're from Papa Jacque's universe, what are you doing here?" Abby asked Sariel.

"I need to talk to ... me."

"About what?"

"About managing a band! And running a business empire! And ... stuff!"

"Why didn't you just go to Mordhaus?" Liam asked.

"Oh, fuck, I know me! I didn't wanna get tasered."

It was Boon's turn to laugh. "He knows my dad."

"Your...?" Sariel asked. "Holy fuck. I have a kid?"

Elias glared at him. "My dad has a kid."

"You didn't know?" Abby asked.

"They don't tell me anything! That's why I'm fucking here!"

"Should we take him to Dad?" Liam asked.

"I think we should take him to Mom," Abby laughed.

"Your Raziel?" Sariel asked. The three children shared a very evil grin.

"You shouldn't be here! What if you meet yourself?" Raziel asked.

"That's why I'm here! To talk to myself!" Sariel protested.

The three children smiled maliciously. Raziel treatment was awesome. When it was directed at somebody else.

"You're not supposed to! You're Fallen!" she lectured.

"I'M NOT FALLEN!"

"Yeah. Just because you haven't had the chance yet. I have half a mind to call your Ganesh!" she said, waving her phone.

"You can't use a cell phone across universes like that."

"Our Ganesh is a voodoo master!" she told him. "I have a trans universal long distance spell! At a very good evening rate!"

"You're bluffing," he scowled.

Raziel cheerily grinned and poked e speed dial button.

"We have amazing cell reception," Liam supplied. "My dad put up a tower!"

Sariel was suddenly right beside Raziel, holding down her end call button.

"Please don't bust me," he pleaded.

Raziel grinned.

They had pretty good pie in this universe.

He was eating with the kids. Who acted like kids - the boring kids he knew - even though they were these weird angel god beings. He'd gotten a little bit of the story on Boon's origin, though mostly from Abby, as Boon didn't seem terribly interested in talking. Boon seemed more interested in stealing bits of Abby's pie when she wasn't looking, so she finally sent a flock of weird floating butterfly bubbles into his face. They popped like bubble gum bubbles, so then they had to spend a bit of time magicking them out of his hair.

Maybe they weren't quite like the boring teenagers he knew.

Raziel appeared. She nodded at him. He followed her through a long hallway. She left him waiting in a big room with couches and a sleeping wolf and a fire in the fireplace.

"That's not much of a Court Form."

Sariel turned to see himself.

"That's what Ganesh always says," he told the older man. "He calls it my Slacker Court Form."

The older Sariel indicated a seat, and the boy took it.

"So, why are you here?" he asked, sitting and officiously steepling his hands.

The boy was staring. His older self seemed unimpressive somehow. Blondish hair, blinking eyes behind thick glasses. "Like I told people. I want business advice."

"No. Why are you really here?"

"And .. I kinda wanna get it on with Ganesh."

The older Sariel snorted. "I'm sure you do. But why are you really here?"

Silvery frown. "Gods dammit." This Sariel was sort of a douche.

The older Sariel waited.

"They don't trust me! I've been waiting for millennia! You must know! You're me! They need me! I can deal with the business! And Ganesh is supposed to be destined! I'm wasting time! They're stupid, and they're wasting all this time while I got to fucking swim meets and date a bunch of fucking teenagers. And it's just.... Stupid."

He sat, miserable now, feeling absolutely stupid himself.

The older Sariel raised an eyebrow. It may have been him, he thought, but it was also a kid, and he knew that look.

He held out one arm.

In an instant, the kid was own on the couch, curled up next him, inside the arm.

Holy shit, I'm a hugger, Sariel thought with wonder.

"OK. Look. I never got to be a kid. Or, I did, but it was horrible, and then they took my memories. So it's good that one of us gets to do this. I realize I'm just another adult telling you what you don't wanna hear, but your Ganesh is a good guy, and everything he's doing, he's doing to make sure you're protected for a few years, so you can just be a kid."

His younger self nodded. Though he figured he'd be lucky if even 10% of this actually went in. That was about the rule of thumb for Elias when he got like this. This one was reminding him lot of his son. It was strange. He always tended to think of his own boy as a small, wing-equipped Ganesh.

"I guess you guys have sort of an unusual relationship, don't you?" the older Sariel asked.

This received a very tiny, "Yeah."

"Well, I don't think it's a good idea if we pal around a lot. But if you think you want to come out again and discuss, uh, business, that would probably be OK."

Young Sariel was up and nodding, as if it all had never happened.

"So, I'll see you again?"

"Yeahmaybe," the young Sariel muttered.

Sariel turned and hurried down the hallway. He paused a moment to wipe an eye on his sleeve.

He looked up and saw Abby. For some reason, she was the one person he had least wanted to see. He cringed internally.

"You're going back now?" she asked.

He nodded.

"To Ganesh?"

"Yeah."

"I always thought that was really romantic. When Unky Sariel told the story."

He blinked at her. "Uh. Yeah! It's really romantic!" he agreed.

She broke into a smile.

The words "You're really pretty," had fallen out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"I'm not as pretty as my mom," she told him.

"She used to baby sit me! Our Raziel."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I thought she was really cute."

"When you were a baby?"

"Yeah."

"That's really weird!"

"Yeah. I'm really old. But also really young. It gets confusing."

"Sometimes it's just confusing," Abby told him.

"You like Boon, don't you?"

She colored. She was freaking adorable when she blushed.

"Yeah...." she admitted.

"He likes you back."

"He does?"

He nodded. "My Ganesh does that. You can tell. But he wants to wait."

"Oh. I hate waiting!"

Sariel nodded. He really wanted to see her with her wings out. And he would take his own out. And they would fly together. For just a little while.

But he managed not to let these words fall out of his mouth.

"You'll come back some time? We could go riding. Or, something," Abby tried.

"Ithinksomaybe," he muttered.

She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

He could stop the words, but he could do nothing to prevent the smile.

"Later?"

He nodded. And was gone.

"He's sort of your uncle. Or maybe your cousin?" Raziel said. "I need to ask Wotan. It gets confusing."

"Will I still be confused at your age?" Abby asked.

"Oh, yeah, I can guarantee that," Raziel said. She pulled Abby down so she could kiss her on the top of her head. "What did you do with that bubble gum spell? We may have to cut Boon's hair, and he's hopping mad."

"Serves him right! He tried to steal my pie!"

"Yeah, he's probably lucky you didn't stab him through the heart. And this is JUST for stealing pie?"

"Er."

Raziel smiled. "C'mon."

"Maybe Uncle Ganesh has an anti-bubblegum spell?"

"Heh. The kid will be lucky if he has any hair left."

The two women burst out laughing and, linking arms, walked down the corridor.