'Twas the day after new years, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse- the children were snoring but not in their beds, as visions of beer bottles danced through their heads...
------------------------------------------

"You're a day late." There was no snow on the ground this year, only the faintest gleam of frost at the edge of the grass.

"And a dollar short, but hey, I brought booze." Dei walked through the door uninvited, and handed his coat to Jance. "If you keep sneering like that, your face'll stick that way, you know."

Jance wondered idly why Dei chose today, of all days, to appear on the doorstep. "What makes you think it hasn't?"

"Can't be sure of anything around you people, that's why. Where's my brother and his blushing bride?"

"Opal stopped blushing some time after her third bottle of champagne; she's on the kitchen floor, I believe. Tyler is passed out on the roof. Last I checked, Jubal and Len were under a table somewhere- they were rather disappointed when you didn't show up in time for New Years."

Dei scowled and pulled a beer out of the bag he was carrying. He popped the tab one handed and gave it to Jance, then pulled one out for himself. "They should be grateful I'm here at all."

"I'm sure they would be if any of them were still conscious. You seem to think you're the only person with reasons to hate this time of year." Jance drank the beer and didn't bother to taste it; Opal and Tyler had invited him to join them in their annual mourning celebration, but he had declined, as always. Forgetting, even for a little while, was not something he was willing to do.

Dei shrugged and carefully avoided looking at anything at all. "You don't have to stay here, you know. With them."

"An' where, pray tell, would Ah go?" He looked down and cursed silently. He'd been slipping in and out of dialect more often lately.

"Anywhere. Someplace that didn't remind you of...everything."

They had wandered into another room, and Dei sat down carefully on the floor, stretching his legs out and kicking off his shoes. Jance sat across from him and tucked one knee under his chin and stared at the floor. "I don't want to forget." He couldn't, anyway; everytime he closed his eyes, he saw butterflies curling up into twists of silvery ash. Leaving wouldn't change that. Drinking wouldn't change that.

Nothing would change the fact that she was gone.

He glanced up and saw Dei watching him- not judging, not condemning, simply watching with eyes that were not the color of fire or ice. He let his own eyes close, and watched her die all over again. "I can't forget."

"I know." He heard Dei uncork something and take a long drink. "I know."

---------------------------------

So now we can only manage post New Year's Boffo angst apparently. Let's put this oh...fifteen, twenty years after the story? That's probably about right, since Dei goes of to be an angstmuffin for a decade or so, and then occasionally makes random appearances in Opal and Tyler's life. It'll take him about fifty years to actually show up for New Year's, I think, but he can manage the day after so long as he's got plenty of alcohol. (Drunks, the lot of them, they're all just fucking alcoholics, I swear...*g*)

Forgotten how much I like Jance. I liked Cara just as much, but of course I had to go and kill her off permanently. She, unlike Lucifer, didn't have any contingency plans. *sigh*

The butterflies are a reference to Cara in her demon form; she had giant black and irridescent blue butterfly wings, and antennae. Jance looks somewhat like a lizard in his demon form; rather scaly skin and a tail. Horns, too, and spinal ridges. Ought to see if I can't draw them...

la.