Screen Addicts Anonymous, a tales of zestiria fanfic

The first few decades, it was all work.

Malevolence had reduced Maotelus to little more than a slavering beast. He snarled and snapped and howled curses at Sorey when he was lucid enough to recall language, and even as the years wore on and the taint no longer boiled in his veins, there was little in the way of bonding that took place.

The march of ages had turned Maotelus into a more somber individual. He originally had such bright hopes that he would build a better world on the wreckage left in the wake of the upheaval of the previous age. Certainly, his power increased as word of his miracles spread, as the mighty feats of his followers became celebrated in pen and song. The curse of daemonblight eased with the salvation of his flame. That nameless excuse for a god became nothing but an obscure historical footnote. Temples and shrines erected in his forgotten and thrice-cursed name were instead re-dedicated to Maotelus himself, and he grew fat and proud with worship. Soon he would be able to scale the heavens, reach down that demon's throat, and rescue the one he so longed to see again. Soon. He could do it soon, he just needed a little more praise, a little more power, a little more time. It would be soon.

He had been a fool. There was little hope that the relationship between humans and malakhim would ever recover. He could not fault his brethren for not being able to forget the actions of humanity during that dark, terrible decade, and what was more, resonance became rarer and rarer as the centuries wore on. Almost as though humans were determined to forget them. With all his power, he could have done something, anything, instead of just sitting upon his stolen throne and twiddling his thumbs while the world slowly decayed. Things had just gotten worse and worse. The ranks of his Shepherds (they bore that man's title but were beholden to no church, no country) dwindled, then disappeared. He failed to protect his comrades – they fell to death, to fates worse than that, one after the other. In the end, he couldn't even protect a single tiny town. The mindless rage that malevolence had imposed upon him was almost a relief. He remembered little of the intervening years. Only the lingering sight of the profound despair on Michael's face, burned into his memory forever: framed by flames, and awash in the scent of innocent blood. He had built his new world upon the rotted scaffolding of the old, and all there was to do now was to burn it all to the ground.

Thankfully, he had failed at that as well. And now, here he lay: having stolen a human from the ones that dearly loved him, bound with him in an endless sleep. Maotelus wanted to scream at the irony.

But it was so hard to dwell on one's problems when faced with Sorey's brightness and good cheer.

Sorey just poked, and prodded, and asked so many questions. He asked of his journeys, of the people he had met, of the great things he had seen rise and erode and disappear from the annals of history. And he was eager to hear it; so eager to hear all of whatever Maotelus had to tell him. The long-snuffed spark in his heart began to sputter and alight once more. He had loved travel and adventure so much when he was young – why had he ever stopped dreaming?

Soon enough, they had become fast friends. They shared stories, they shared laughter and sorrow and loneliness. Sorey had purified him so utterly with nothing but a listening ear and an endless supply of curiosity. He was truly the Shepherd that the world had cried out for, since time immemorial.

Friendship and purification in the bag, there was still the matter of fixing the lingering taint of the continent. It was just kind of a lot of waiting around – occasionally wandering over to poke at the holy flame embers, toss another proverbial log on it, and maybe roast some marshmallows. To be able to spend their time in comfort, they established a kind of astral bachelor pad to while away the years until the land's purification was complete.

"...and over there we'll put the fridge," Maotelus continued as he gestured to an empty corner. A fridge blinked into existence, and it was thus no longer an empty corner. "House rule is that we don't eat each other's food. I mean, since we're in the earthpulse, you can just summon up more from the ether to replace it. But it's just rude."

"Okay," Sorey said, agreeably. His attention clearly wasn't on food, but rather on the many Earthen Historia that lazily blooped in and out of their pad like wandering jellyfish. "Do you want to put on some popcorn and watch some Historia on the TV? I could have sworn I heard one pass that had Ancient Avarost coming out of it, it's over there by the couch if I can just catch it-"

"Watch yourself," Maotelus lazily warned as he conjured up his favorite foods into the newly-existent astral fridge. Apples, peanut butter, plastic containers full of curry and leftover pizza. He heard Sorey crash into the recliner in his quest. "They're slippery little boogers."

It was also hard to dwell on one's problems when faced with Sorey's absolutely relentless dreams taking over the airwaves.

Maotelus had surrendered control of the astral TV remote to him for at least a few centuries, as an apology for like…everything. He figured he at least owed him that privilege. At first things were pretty okay – it was mostly just a lot of documentaries plucked from the schools of Earthen Historia floating around.

But then Maotelus just had to mention to him that the astral TV could pick up on dreams, and show them in glorious motion. He'd used it himself in the past, many a time, to keep his spirits up after centuries of toil. He thought it would make Sorey happy. Sorey deserved to be happy. Moreover, he thought watching Sorey's rich and fertile imagination projected on the screen would be entertaining.

Maotelus was paying for such hubris dearly.

The theme song played, and the show's studio audience (a collection of many dozens of Soreys) cheered as the title card appeared: it was the 38947th episode of the hit TV show, Elysian Heights. The set vaguely resembled a cozy little Elysian home, and as the theme song wrapped up, Sorey burst through the door.

"Honey, I'm home!" Sorey sang out.

Mikleo gasped and whirled around, and the studio audience shrieked and wolf-whistled in excitement. He was wearing a dazzling ball-gown, with a neckline hemmed like seashells that plunged dangerously low, down to display his navel. It was covered in sapphire and turquoise rhinestones that were probably intended to suggest mermaid scales. Wasn't that nice.

"You're here," Mikleo sighed happily, rushing into Sorey's waiting arms. He did a little leg pop as they shared a tender welcome-home kiss, and the audience sighed happily. "I missed you so much and I love you and I made you your favorite dinner."

"An ice cream sundae off my favorite plate?" asked Sorey.

"But of course!" said Mikleo, hosing a line of whipped cream down the middle of his chest.

A disco ball descended from the ceiling, refracting the colored lights beamed from the rafters. Mikleo's booty shimmered in a rainbow of colors as he strutted a hip-shimmying walk over to the kitchen. A saxophone version of the theme song blared as Sorey swiped a spot free on the kitchen table, hoisted Mikleo up, and—

Things proceeded as expected from there. Maotelus had long since ceased to be surprised, shocked, embarrassed; any emotion, really. Maybe impressed? The sheer number of scenarios that Sorey's fevered little brain cooked up was pretty staggering, even though they all led to the same inevitable conclusion. And the wardrobe budget for the show was through the roof, if nothing else. An amount of rhinestones that totaled the yearly budget for a medium-sized kingdom was currently being peeled off Mikleo's hips and tossed onto the ceiling fan.

"It is real goddamn weird that I keep seeing that kid's ass," Maotelus said. He balanced the popcorn bowl on his chest as he lay on the couch, and ate the kernels one at a time with his tongue. "The last time I saw him, he was in diapers."

To argue on specifics, the last time Maotelus had seen him, he was covered in third-degree burns and had a knife sticking out of his chest. In all his wisdom, Maotelus thought that was a detail best left out.

"Isn't he just so gorgeous?" Sorey said with a sigh, staring dreamily at the TV as if he wasn't watching softcore porn (that was rapidly spiraling out of the "softcore" part). "I miss him so much. I know he's working hard out there, I can feel it."

Sorey's tender sentimentality was so at odds with the debauchery being projected on the screen by his subconscious. Cheers erupted from the studio audience on the TV, and Maotelus' eyebrow raised. Either there was some serious wishful thinking going on, or Mikleo was impressively flexible.

"…so tell me again what the plot of this show is?"

"Well you see," Sorey began. "Mikleo is the world's greatest pastry chef, supermodel, and adventurer-archaeologist-professor-historian, and everyone can see him and loves him, but who Mikleo really loves best is his fellow world's greatest adventurer-archaeologist-professor-historian, Sorey."

"There can be two world's greatest adventurer-archaeologist-professor-historians?" Maotelus asked.

"Yeah," Sorey replied.

"Ah," Maotelus said. "Just checking."

"Anyway, after the last story arc, this current arc is some much-needed downtime," Sorey continued. On-screen, the ceiling fan continued to lazily swirl Mikleo's matching rhinestone panties over the scene as it unfolded. And man, was it sure still unfolding. "The last arc finished off the Idol Siren Doppelganger Assassin Saga, which was just a rollercoaster of emotions. I just know the writers are planning on bringing back Mikleo's long-lost twin sibling, who's also an adventurer-archaeologist-professor-historian, but also an idol too, and he can hypnotize you with his beautiful voice, and you thought he was evil at first but he's really just beautiful and misunderstood. And he's not so much a twin as he is a projection from another dimension."

"Uh-huh," Maotelus said. Maotelus unfortunately remembered a lot more of that arc than he was letting on. It involved a lot of lingerie-clad pillow-fights between the two Mikleos while they giggled and pouted for Sorey's attention. He wasn't even really aware that there was a plot, much less one of such…complexity.

"But, he had to be sealed away in his original dimension," Sorey said, sadly. "He was trying to kill the original Mikleo and take his place. But I know that his long lost Sorey from his dimension – who was supposedly killed in an idol battle, supposedly – will find him and give him the love he needs to be redeemed. I'm writing a fanfiction about it and can let you beta-read it if you want."

"Sure," Maotelus said. "Let me know when you're done and I'll be happy to read the whole thing."

Maotelus was playing with fire here, but he knew that Sorey rarely managed to finish his many works-in-progress. He had a few hundred more years at least, and then a few hundred more on top of that while he edited. He had time to think of an escape plan, even if it involved going malevolent again.

The theme song played, again, and title card appeared: it was the 38948th episode of the hit TV show, Elysian Heights. Sorey burst through the door again, like he did every goddamn episode.

"Honey, I'm home!" Sorey sang out.

Mikleo gasped and looked over his shoulder, and the studio audience swooned. He was wearing a maid outfit, and was bent over the kitchen table with a feather duster in hand. The whole outfit was trimmed in ribbons and lace, and the skirt barely covered Mikleo's underwear, and Mikleo's underwear could barely be called underwear. It was a teeny little slip of silk held together by ribbons and wishes.

"Documentary night while I do you doggy-style over the back of the couch in that outfit?" asked Sorey.

"But of course!" said Mikleo, snapping the ribbon tying on his underwear loose with a flick of his finger.

A big-screen TV descended from the ceiling, and began to play documentaries on Asgard-era architecture and culture. Mikleo allowed himself to be bent over the back of the couch, and began to rub his bare backside against Sorey's eagerly grinding hips. The crinoline of his petticoats crinkled with every movement, and Sorey's fingers came down to play with the ribbon tie on the back of Mikleo's corset. A saxophone version of the theme song blared as Sorey unzipped his trousers, and—

"If you wanted to watch a documentary, we could have just put one on," Maotelus pointed out tiredly. He was almost out of popcorn, which added to his despair.

"I'm not watching a documentary," Sorey explained to him patiently. "The characters on the show are watching a documentary."

"My mistake." In his opinion, Maotelus didn't think the characters on the show were watching the documentary, either. The more salient matter at the moment, though, was the fact that his popcorn was now gone. Maotelus wriggled into a sitting position, then hopped off the couch. "You want anything from the kitchen?"

He did not receive an answer. He sighed at the glazed-over look on Sorey's face as he watched his docuporntary, and waved a hand in front of his eyes. Sorey blinked, briefly looked at him, then glued his eyes back to the TV (and Mikleo's bouncing ass).

"Huh? Yeah, kitchen, sure," Sorey murmured, distracted. "Oh, wow…that feather duster…"

Maotelus shook his head and headed off.

"Youth," he muttered dismissively.

He wondered if he'd behaved like that when he was Sorey's age. Certainly if he'd tried to watch the kinds of things that Sorey did, Eleanor would have been there, back then, to lecture him; to nip at his heels like a herding dog until he was back on the path of righteousness. Bless her dear memory, she never really succeeded in getting any of them onto the path of righteousness.

Maotelus had just finished putting together his favorite before-dinner snack: an entire frozen pizza, covered in peanut butter, dusted with a subtle blend of crushed-up potato chips, then rolled up like a burrito. He took a big bite, savoring the delicate melding of flavors in this dumpster fire of a culinary creation. As he wandered back to the couch, snack in hand, he found that they'd gone to a commercial break.

And now, a word from Elysian Heights' proud sponsors…

"Power. Elegance. Cool cannons with flames painted on them. Our engineers have perfected the ultimate vehicle experience: the GODblin Cart LX10000."

The camera whirled through rapid-fire action shots: of the cart careening through wilderness, ramping off hills, and sloppily driving over the roofs of other cars in a McDonald's parking lot before loudly clattering into an empty parking space. Finally, the driver pulled up to a luxurious-looking art museum; where a beautiful figure awaited him at the fountain, his sparkling evening gown lit by the colorful rainbow spotlights in the night air. The driver whipped off his helmet dramatically, revealing him to be Sorey (because obviously), and the beautiful figure, who was Mikleo (because fucking obviously), rushed into his arms in a flurry of skirts before leaning up for a kiss.

The lovers walked arm-in-arm off into the museum, and the camera lovingly panned once more over the cart before the next commercial came on, which appeared to be for ice cream. It mostly just involved ice cream being drizzled over a half dozen Mikleos, who were smearing it all over their barely-clothed bodies.

"Sure you don't want a snack while the commercial break is on?" Maotelus asked, as if he didn't already know the answer.

Sorey was staring slack-jawed at the screen, and was dead to the world outside of the ice cream party on the screen. The spell broke when the commercial finally ended, and Sorey blinked away the haze and smiled.

"No thanks," he said. "You sure you won't spoil your dinner?"

"I'm a growing boy," Maotelus said airily. He took another bite of his pizzabutterchiprito. "I also am partially soul-bound to an eternally-starving ancient arch-demon."

"Yeah, that does explain it," Sorey agreed.

He twiddled his fingers for a moment, then gave Maotelus a hesitant, puppy-eyed look. Maotelus was gripped with dread at what Sorey would ask for next. It was probably whether he could have his collection of Mikleo body-pillows on the couch with him as he watched. As of the moment, the legion was safely contained in Sorey's astral bedroom, but heavens knew what would happen if Maotelus allowed them out.

"I just wanted to know…I wanted to make sure my shows aren't boring you," Sorey said. "I mean, I've had the remote for a while. Isn't there something you'd like to watch, too?"

Maotelus felt suitably abashed. He gave a noncommittal shrug.

"You earned remote privileges," he said. "And you adore each and every second of that show. If you're happy, I'm happy."

Maotelus meant every word. Still, Sorey averted his gaze and looked down at his twiddling fingers. A new episode of Sorey's show was on the screen, and Mikleo was wearing heart-shaped nipple pasties and a collar with a bell on it.

"I didn't like the arc where Sorey and Mikleo broke up for a whole afternoon over a game of Trivial Pursuit gone wrong," Sorey said in an uncomfortably solemn and candid tone. "It hit too close to home."

Maotelus sat down next to him again, and patted his knee.

"Listen. You still have remote privileges. But, if you want a break from your binge-watching, I can show you some of my favorite classic programs."

Sorey gave that sunshine smile, and Maotelus felt the world become that much more purified.

"Sure," Sorey said. "I'm excited to see!"

Welcome back to the historic ten millionth episode of Glenwood's favorite game show, Beat Innominat With a Stick!

Amidst the cheer and color of the game show stage, Innominat was in his proper place: hog-tied and suspended from the studio rafters with rope. He had strips of construction paper sloppily glued all over him to allow him to vaguely resemble a piñata – but deep down, everyone still knew he was a tragically hideous fashion disaster.

"I can hear you!" shrieked Innominat as he thrashed in place. "We're still bound! I can hear every word of your narration! My shorts are NOT unfashionable-"

Alas, there are none still alive who could understand piñata-speak, for Innominat was not only a hideous creature, but also old as well. So old. So very, extremely old. One might describe him as a withered, desiccated husk, no more alive than the cracked and discarded skin of a snake. A corpse that is liable to crumble before our very eyes. Will the delicious candy within him still be edible? Only one way to find out! Contestants, to your places; on your marks, ready, set—

"Um," Sorey said, wincing at the sudden and gruesome violence on the screen.

"Isn't it great?" Maotelus said with a beatific smile. Bells rang and lights flashed on the screen, and Maotelus clapped his hands in delight. "Ooo! That means someone just earned a baseball bat with nails in it."

Sorey's eyes went huge, and he very nearly threw up at the end result of that win. Maotelus noticed his discomfort, and pouted just a bit.

"…Georg liked watching this show with me," he grumbled.

With one lucky strike to Innominat's stomach, Innominat gave a sickening gag, and his jaw hung open unnervingly. The studio audience went wild, and the strobe lights swirled as Innominat continued to seize and gag like he was trying to heave up a hairball.

Folks, I know we're all excited, but those with weak stomachs might want to look away for this part—

"Oh GOD," Sorey said, naked horror in his voice.

"You rang?" Maotelus replied.

This is it! On the ten millionth episode, we've finally seen it happen!

Velvet stumbled to her feet. She was covered in digestive juices and viscera after having been extracted from Innominat's feeding frenzy via the time-tested piñata method, and was clearly a bit worse for the wear. However, she wasted no time in storming over to the camera and getting in its face to stare directly at those on the other side of the screen.

"Phi! You are NOT allowed to bully your uncle like this...and what are you eating? Is that that horrible goddamn thing that sleazy wind malak taught you to make? There had better be vegetables in that fridge, or-"

"You can have the remote back," Maotelus said quietly.

At least with Mikleo's jiggling ass on the screen, he didn't have to give up his pizzabutterchiprito.