(Reserved for Jack)

Two a.m. meant that people weren't enjoying the roller coasters.

Atlas always liked places when they were deserted like so. It gave him room to use his imagination—what imagination? you may ask, well, the one that would creep out Stephen King.

Or maybe not.

He had never met Stephen King, in any account.

Amusement parks were always entirely more interesting when empty. He could imagine the ghosts of people milling around it, shouting happily, screaming with terror, talking in loud voices in order to be heard. It brought a smile to his face (or widened it, slightly), and he wandered over to the Merry-Go-Round. Sat on the largest horse. Still for a moment, then—

"Giddy-up!"

Unexpectedly-- or maybe expectedly, it can be hard to tell with some people-- the merry-go-round begins to turn.

It hasn't powered up, and turns only a quarter of the way around before stopping. This is because someone a few horses down gave it a half-hearted push.

...which is saying something, considering that the contraption must weigh several tons.

The man with the hand on the bar is tall, gangly-thin, and very Greek. His skin is a warm mediterranean, his hair dark and curly, his features rival to those of any undamaged marble statue-- almost as though someone had decided to paint skin tones on a (rather thin) Greek statue and then it had decided to get up and move. His eyes complete this impression-- only the pupils and the faint dark line around the iris have any colour at all. The iris itself is utterly white.

He's wearing a finely tailored black suit with a red tie. His lower lip is pierced-- once, directly in the center, with a gold ring.

He's smiling, too.

Wow.

He should start commanding things more often, if this was the result!

The smile was frozen. What the hell? Almost nervously: "Giddy-up?"

He didn't see the other man, just quite yet. This was interesting. Almost like a horror flick—did something like this happen in It? He couldn't remember.

Looked down at the horse a moment longer, half expecting it to turn real and gallop away into the horizon. Which he couldn't see—there was a roller coaster in the way. Looked around—oh, he isn't the only person here? How interesting, he looked Greek.

"Geia," greeted he with a nod. Curious, maybe, still smiling.

"Geia."

Natural pronunciation. Unnatural voice. There's something wrong about it, something off-- like it doesn't belong in this universe and every time it vibrates the air it's chipping a few more seconds of life from the world. Or maybe not.

He walks a few steps forwards, then pulls the merry-go-round back. Machinery creaks in protest, but it really can't be that heavy, because he's just tugging on it-- barely has all his fingers on it.

The smile became sharp. Wary.

"And here I'm the one who likes to joke that I'm descended from Herkales." People should not be able to be pushing around a merry-go-round as if it were some sort of toy.

He had slipped back to Greek. It felt rusty and old, as if it were a bike that someone had left near a sprinkler for several years, then tried to ride again. He cleared his throat. Slid off the horse, slightly frightened, mostly curious.

The man's voice was odder than his.

He stared at him, fiercely, as if trying to see his soul. It was easier with other people. Not that he could actually see their souls, but reading them was like reading Dr. Suess in comparison to this guy. No, this guy was like reading...that man who wrote A Tale of Two Cities. Dickies? Hands on hips. Stared, still eyes to eyes, nose to nose. This is Jack's annoyed arteries. He wondered if his stomach would have a conniption fit.

He expected the man to look strained. As if he had put all his effort into the push but—no. No. It looked as if he hadn't even bat an eyelash.

The man shrugs, dusting off his hands almost daintily.

No big deal, his posture says.

"I suppose he was a relative." He'd been descended from a god, after all-- and in ancient times, Zeus was brother to Hades. Mythologically speaking-- and myths never get it exactly right.

He smiles, returning Atlas' stare with something rather more likely to read souls.

He put his hands on his hips.

Now that wasn't fair.

He had been practicing that searching look for years and years, and tere that man was, practically rubbing it in his face that he could do better. How terribly rude, if condescending! Atlas gave him a chastising look. With his hands on his hips like so, and his head tilted just to the side, and the smile, that damned smile still quirking his lips, he looked like a fond, long-suffering mother watching her children play with chainsaws.

"Relative, huh? Do you invite him to family reunions? I'd imagine you'd have interesting family reunions, if Herkales was a relative." Still in Greek—he loved the flow of the words. So much more classic than English. He liked to think it was the language of the gods.

How the hell did you turn the merry-go-round? Best not ask, I might not like the answer.

The chastising is sent right back, tinged with amusement.

"He's been dead thousands of years." Slightly condescending. Didn't you hear the news? We're sorry for your loss.

Still in Greek, as well-- and not rusty. Death has to know all the languages of the peoples of the world. It's a thing.

He tilts his head slightly at Atlas.

"That's a shame. Did you make it to his funeral?"

A joke. This entire situation was a joke, definitely.

I mean, as if Herkales has a funeral. A burial ceremony, maybe, but funerals were so Western civ.

He was still being condescending. Atlas dropped the mother look and gave him a father look, the kind that some people might either interpret as 'shut the fuck up and get me a beer' or 'you're really annoying me, could you stop, please?' It was a mystery as to which Atlas meant.

The smile was still there. It was just a smile though, a dash of paint on a mime's face.

"What are you doing out here on this fine night?" It was okay if Atlas was there. It was weird if anyone else was.

"You could say I paid my respects beforehand."

He's grinning. It's much bigger than Atlas' little smile.

"Oh, you know, the usual-- pushing around carnival machinery, talking to strangers. You?"

"Getting pushed around on carnival machinery, talking to people related to Herkales...you know, nothing strange here."

Everything was strange.

He grinned back. It was only polite, after all.

"I wonder, was he an interesting guy? You seem rather educated on this topic, maybe you would know. Were they really all womanizing and manizing assholes? Puts a damper on your expectations, but makes them seem highly more human. Weird, certainly. You seem human." I'm assuming you are. Please don't tell me if I'm wrong.

"I do?" He seems a bit surprised at this revelation, and looks down at himself, then back up at Atlas.

"Well, I suppose I do." He shrugs and crosses his arms, moving on to the mortal's earlier question.

"They were human. Well-- mostly human. And that's what they acted like."

"Except for more enthusiastically." Enthusiastically human. Cute. He hopped down from the merry-go-round, then paused and scrambled back up it.

He wasn't unnerved by the other man. Of course not. He just liked being taller than him.

"In any case, you do. Seem human. Very human." He obviously didn't, else Atlas wouldn't be trying to convince himself vocally that this man was indeed human. What else could he be? A monster?

The stranger considers this, looking down. His eyelashes shield his strange eyes.

When he looks back up, they're glowing.

"How about now?" he asks, like an artist attempting to fine-tune a work.

"Well, fuck, no, not at all now."

He leaned against the horse, glowering slightly.

The smile hadn't dropped off. It was still there, just tight around the edges. There was no glee in his expression.

It's the lighting, he told himself. Maybe some weird electrical current in the air. Maybe a lightning bug caught behind his irises.

"Good." His grin glints in the light case by his eyes-- a fine, pale, misty light, almost tangible-- like one would be able to feel it if the were to get close enough.

He tilts his head, inspecting Atlas like searchlights.

Oh dear.

He wondered if he was going to be lasered by those eyes. That would be a good thing to put on his gravemarker—Atlas Kanavas, the man who was shot in half by some dude who thought he was Cyclops.

He needed a distraction. The perfectionism was seeping back in, taking over the catastrophy, and he began fidgeting at himself. Straightening his scarf. Dark brown, this time, it matched his eyes. Smoothed down his shirt—hoped it didn't look as if he were feeling himself up. He just wanted to get rid of the wrinkles on the already wrinkle-less white shirt. A bit tight, he liked how it highlighted his body. Down to his pants—fussed over the pockets the didn't exist on the neatly pressed khakis. Back up, to the brown and dark brown long sleeved shirt under the white one, straightened the tight cuffs. There—the line was straight now, that's better.

—back to the white shirt. Repeat if necessary. Holy fuck, was it necessary.

Slightly nervous. He had every right to be.

"I must be lacking sleep."

"You might be."

He blinks, and the glow is gone.

"That doesn't make me any less real."

"Then again," he protested, "if you weren't real, and just a figament of my imagination, then it could be me trying to convince my brain that you are real when you're really not. Makes sense." He nodded sagely. Definitely trying to convince himself.

Hands back down to his pants. Knees felt a little rumpled. Smoothed them down. He was convinced that the cloth on his butt was wrinkled, and wondered how he could fix it discreetly.

The stranger watches, interested. His eyes aren't just on Atlas' hands-- they're lloking at, looking at... looking at something else. Something humans can't see.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

The hands fiddled with ends of his sleeves.

"Doing?" Was he doing something?

Most perfectionists become so used to making things just right that they lose the awareness that they're doing anything in the first place. By the expression on Atlas' face, he was completely oblivious to his fidgety-ness.

The stranger takes a step forwards, his long legs bringing him in close to Atlas. He tugs down on both sides of the man's shirt at once, straightening it-- perhaps.

"Doing. The fidgeting."

He seems curious.

Immediately his hands went to the hem of his shirt to make sure it was straight.

"Fidgeting? I'm not fidgeting."

He wasn't, in his mind.

Hey, the other guy seemed okay with touching him, might as well fret over him. Atlas reached over and straightened the stranger's shirt. Then restraightened it.

He was lucky it wasn't Wednesday. On Wednesdays he was particularly adverse to touching other people, or letting other people touch him.

The shirt is chill, but that could be just because it's nighttime.

Then the stranger lays a hand on Atlas', and it's cold in a way skin should never be cold.

"Straightening things, I mean." Still in Greek.

You feel like I'd imagine death to feel.

The smile was still there.

"Well, if it's crooked, straighten it." He drew his hands away from Azrael. Uneasy.

The stranger follows the motion, reaching up to grasp Atlas' chin, gently, and look him in the eye.

"Thanatos or Hades?" he asks, like someone would ask 'the red or the blue?'

"Thanatos," he answered automatically, perhaps because he was interested in the way it rolled off his tongue.

Daring man, this...man was.

He pulled back. This must be a bad sign. Symbolism for something. Bad luck, maybe. Remember not to cross any black cat's paths.

"Thanatos it is," he nods, backing off a bit.

A glint appears in his eye-- lighting or glow? Hard to tell. Maybe it's just an expression.

His hand darts forwards, brushes the mortal's chest, pulls something, tweaks something-- and the the obsessiveness is unleashed without restraints. Full-throttle perfectionism.

This ought to be interesting,

He needed to wash his hands.

That was the first thing that popped into mind.

And then—

He nearly screamed.

Nothing was right. He knew that but now he had to fix everything. He clawed at the merry-go-round until his nails bled, it needed to be more to the left.

The ferris wheel was more of an oval than a circle.
There was an odd number of seats on the roller coaster.
The ground wasn't clean, oh christ.
His nose.
His hands.
His feet.
His legs.
His atoms.
The air.
Tasted wrong.
Smelled wrong.

And then his smile was gone. A split second—there than not—threw the world upside down. Left became right became up became down.

The benches were wrong.
The memories were wrong.
The symmetry was off.
His pores.
His strands of hair.
His teeth.
His tastebuds.
His fingernails.
His blood cells.

Gone.
His smile was gone.

The stranger watches dispassionately for a moment. One heartbeat. Two. Time enough to be internity in a person's mind-- and then he resets the restrictions, putting him back the way he was, more or less.

Less than more.

He sat there. Sobbed for a moment. Looked at his nails, appalled that they were now half gone. Mostly ripped off. The smile was back, trembling, hateful, frightened.

what the fuck.

Gentle hands touched the blood. Tried to stem it, it didn't work. Just hurt. A lot.

The stranger squats, bringing himself more or less to face-level with Atlas. He rests his elbows on his knees, his jaw on his hands.

"That must be unpleasant." The perfectionism.

His nails were practically gone and he couldn't do anything about it. Just kind of stare with a wondering sort of pain then—

He tried to straighten them. The nails that were left. Pressed them back against the bloody meat. He didn't even wince. He was going through shock, of course, this should be obvious.

He didn't answer. He couldn't, not right now.

"I'm not sure how you live with it. I suppose there must always be restraints, though."

He touches one bloodies fingernail, lightly, and it heals under his fingertip.

"The things you humans do to yourself..." Almost gentle. Almost tender.

One was back to normal. He held out his hands, almost plaintively.

"It hurts."

"Well, on a whole, it only hurts for eighty or so years."

He touches another nail, at random. It heals, icily. Two down.

"Nowadays, that is. In this part of the world. It used to hurt for a lot less, and still does in some countries."

Keep going. Please. I beg of you. Heal me, at least here.

"It won't stop. Not this. Not with me." It won't stop with me. There will be others. It's human nature.

He was calm in his destructive fear.

"Oh, I know." he looks up and smiles into Atlas' eyes.

"Believe me, I know."

His hands reach of, and he gently takes ahold of one of the mortal's, rubbing his thumb over a nail.

Three healed.

Onetwothree.

His senses were coming back to him. Slowly but surely, as if they were wading through congealed molasses.

He jerked back. He would rather bleed.

Arms wrapped securely around himself. Smile still there, tight and false and frozen and frightened. This was all a dream.

This is Jack's shot nerves.

And in his dream he clawed apart his backboard to his bed.

The stranger tilts his head, questioningly.

"There are still seven to go."