Where most places were filled to the rafters with rowdy, drunken celebrators, this one was quiet and calm; only a few patrons sat in attendance at the bar, ignoring the tv turned down low in favor of their drinks. The ball dropped unnoticed, here on New Year's Eve. Beneath the cigarette smoke and general air of despondency, a piano played. The tunes were familiar, once forgotten melodies that carried more memory behind them than music.

It was a good piano, Dei mused, his fingers trailing slowly over the keys. A jazzy blues piece, something learned long ago and half improvised to fill in the gaps where memory failed. There was a half empty bottle of wine, no need to bother with a glass here, to keep him company on top of the piano. A good piano, with a sweet, melancholy sound. Perfect. He brushed his hair away from his face with an absent hand; he'd have to cut it again soon.

"Happy birthday, Tyler," he sang softly, "Happy death day, Dad, Cara. Happy Anniversary, Jubal. Happy birthday, me. And me, and me, and me..." There was a shadow sitting beside him on the piano bench, whispering requests in his ear. One hand still danced across the cracking keys while the other closed clawlike over the bottle's neck. "And a happy new year." The level of wine in the bottle was growing dangerously low; sobreity was not high on his list of happy states of being right now.

"Can you play 'Monday's Wash'?" Another hand (he didn't have three, so it had to be someone else's) closed over the bottle and removed it gently.

"Too happy." Moonlight Sonata, swaying triplets weaving through the smoke. "I don't do happy anymore."

"Why not?"

He played on for a few moments longer, not wanting to answer the annoying voice. The shadow at his side chuckled to itself. "Why should I? All alone on New Year's Eve, all alone the rest of the year, what's there to be happy for? Why the fuck should I be happy now?"

Two more hands, stilling his own on the keys, threading silence through the gloom. Warmth, familiar and unwanted, chased the shadow away. A final hand, resting on his shoulder- a presence that should have been forgotten and gone. "Because you aren't alone, kid. You never were." A black feather hovered in the corner of his vision, dangling from the end of a long, thin braid. The hand on his shoulder tightened in warning.

He couldn't avoid them now. Unfair, he wanted to say, Unfair to sneak up on me like this and take away the last thing that is mine. How dare they take my loneliness? How dare they chase away my shadow? Her hair was an ordinary shade of brown- gone was the lavender and pink; her eyes were the same, gray green and endless, ancient and sad. She guided his hands to different keys. "You play the melody; I'll take the accompaniment." Unfair.

He had no choice, now. "You won't stay forever." Almost rebelliously, he struck a different tune. Black Anemones. Take that, each weeping note seemed to say. "You might as well just leave now."

A thin melody insinuated itself into his music, followed by an equally subversive harmony- surrounded, with a hand still on his shoulder and a presence leaning across his back and at his side. Anemones bloomed in full technicolor glory. He sulked.

"Stop that." Jubal gave his ponytail a yank. Dei resisted the urge to bite. "We won't stay forever, you're right. But we can stay long enough to take you home."

"They miss you, you know." Radueriel had taken over the piano, though one arm had snaked around his shoulders to hold him closer and keep the shadows at bay. She could do more with one hand on the piano than any Hindu god could with one hundred. At the bar, men on the verge of unconsciousness lifted their heads and their spirits and paid their tabs. The music dispelled the smoke and depression. "The very least you could do is stop by and say hello."

It would be very easy to just give in..."No." But it wouldn't matter. "Happy New Year to both of you. Give Tyler and Opal my regards, but tell them that once again, I will not be joining them. Tell them to stop trying." He stood, gathering his coat and scarf and shadow.

"I don't like it when you make my daughter cry, you know." His voice was conversational, but his eyes were pure rage. "Because that's what she does. So does Tyler- every fucking year when you pull this shit."

He paused for a moment at the door. "And what, precisely, do you think I do every year?" Icy wind skittered across the bar, brought up short by the slamming of the door. The strains of a blues piano followed him out into the night.

..........................................

Oh, Jesus Christ on a crutch! That was not supposed to turn out that way. It was supposed to be happy, damn it! Stop it with the angst, you stupid little angst-muffin! Ugh. I suppose it's fitting, though; New Years is not a happy time for him- for any of them, really. But this was definitely supposed to be less half-drunken-depression and more bittersweet-reunion-and-reconciliation.

I've no idea who composed Black Anemones- I only know I heard it on WQXR (the silly Princeton classical music station) once, and it just seemed so utterly and absolutely depressing...It's the sort of highly obscure thing Dei would have in his repertoir (faugh, spelling!) just for the express purpose of angsting on New Year's Eve. *D'oi*