~Xavier~

"You know what everyone needs more of in their lives?"

I chewed on my mashed potato, stretching my legs out in the plane, trying and failing to ignore my companion for the evening.

"Peace?" I suggested, despite myself. "Morale? The sense of false purpose to deal with the fact that our very long lives are ultimately meaningless?"

Pizza?

"Weed, Xavier. It's weed." The Duke of Saine, William Riccardi said, shaking his head. "If you're thinking about shît like that, you need to get high, my man."

Ok, so the answer's still pizza.

In a clearly awesome turn of events, I was now having a meal stuck in a pressurised cabin with my third cousin twice removed - because all royal families had to have one of those - for a little over a century.

Well, five hours if we're being super accurate.

"Or, like, drugs in general." The guy said now, pupils blown wide from whatever he'd snorted off his wrist ten minutes ago. "Also, horses. Horses are gorgeous animals."

It was like I was caught in a real life Buzzfeed quiz - would I rather a) keep up an intellectual conversation with Dopey the Dwarf or b) pretend to eat to the sound of him snorting his line of Snow White?

The answer of course was c).

Which was, quite obviously: almost have a heart attack as the plane suddenly began plummeting.

Fantastic.

"Do you think we can make a little side trip to Vegas?" The guy was looking out the window now like the clown from It, giving zero fücks about the turbulence. "We should totally buy some real estate there and it wouldn't hurt to gamble, I should probably ask the captain about it..."

And then he left.

And then with a Series of Unfortunate Events™️, I almost died. (Again.)

Out of nowhere, black smoked curled up in tendrils about a foot in front of me, slowly taking the form of a classical demon straight out of American Horror Story.

Only 3D with the added special effects of the smell of sulphur and metal talons that screamed "I will tear you open like a can of tuna."

"Pleasure to meet you, Your Highness." It said, stalking towards me, yellow eyes dead and fixated on mine. "I would prefer if you just come with me and spare both of us this futile exercise in violence -"

Naturally, I had to panic and interrupt him with the one thing fantasy fiction had taught me to do in this situation.

I grabbed the table salt and threw it at the demon.

Said demon actually paused in the middle of his I'm-a-creature-of-the-night stalking.

"Precisely what were you trying to do? Season me to hell?"

I went the extra mile of chanting bullshît in Latin, just to piss him off some more.

"Carpe diem, veni vidi vici, semper fidelis -" I tried to think of more. "La vien rose."

The bat winged bastard lost it at that.

"That's not even Latin."

He lunged at me, sharp claws aiming for my neck. I dodged him, but he still nicked my shoulder.

White hot pain licked through my arm, making me wince.

"If I have to get another tetanus shot this year, I swear I'm taking you with me." I muttered, throwing a punch. "You know what Dr. Marie keeps instead of candy?"

The demon dodged it. "Clearly something fascinating enough that you've decided to tell me about it."

"Apples." I said, landing a blow to his face. "Who the fück gives a terrified man apples?"

The demon had the good sense to act theatrically appalled. "That monster. Healthy food options. Oh, the absolute horror."

He scratched me again, a deep gash now running down the middle of my chest. I had to think of something and fast if I didn't want to turn into meat shreds.

The closest thing to a weapon was the blunt knife on the table.

I grabbed the thing and held it up in defence.

Sir Scaly Wings rolled his eyes.

"And now do you plan on passive aggressively buttering me to the underworld -"

"Naw." I interrupted, shoving the thing as hard as I could into the window.

There was only the smallest crack.

But that was enough to suck the air out of the cabin.

The demon tripped over.

I pinned him down.

"So." I cooed over the sound of hissing air. "A well read, multilingual demon like yourself surely has better hobbies than terrorising a royal ässhat like moi."

He spat blood, cringing. "Is that you trying to flirt with me?

"You better hope it is." I said, pleasantly. "With a face like that, you can't even attract gravity."

"I'm going to murder you." The demon muttered under his breath, like a child reciting their Christmas wishlist. "Tear each limb apart, then feed you your own toes..."

I tsked. "I'd ask you to keep your fetishes to yourself, but I do have pretty feet so I can't really blame you."

"It would be so easy." He ignored me. "Lilith - Lilith can just go fück herself..."

I didn't know why, but I felt a chill run down my spine at that.

"Lilith?" I tried to fake a laugh. "That your wifey? And here I thought we were having such a nice date."

I suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

"Yes, I'm going to kill you." He continued. "Oh, she's going to do it anyway after she gets what she wants..."

The bad feeling intensified when I saw a pair of red eyes appear above him.

"She's a stupid, spoilt bîtch anyway."

There was a moment of absolute silence.

"Spoilt. How unoriginal."

There was a flash of silver.

Following which, Mr. demon's neck got split in half. I was still holding onto his head, now twisted in a painful grimace. I tossed it aside in disgust.

If he'd been kinda alive in the first place, he was very dead now.

What the actual fück.

A few seconds later, the demon's body vanished into thin air. I looked around but there was no one else in the cabin. I could've imagined the eyes, and everything else that came with them.

But there was no forgetting that voice.

That voice sounded like fire eating away at flesh.

Not even in my worst nightmares could I have made that shît up.

The door to the cabin slid open and inside peered William, like nothing had happened.

"So, um, hi. I have good news and bad news."

The guy looked stoned out of his soul.

"Hit me." I muttered, meaning it quite literally.

"Good news : The plane's on fire. Bad news : We're not going to Vegas, we might die, and I'm out of Ecstasy."

Splendid.

***

Xavier: "I missed you. How about a vote?" 🦄