Midnight Bullshit with Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber

 What the fuck was that? A monster? A myth? 

Nope, just two annoying voices on either shoulder as they argued with each other. A very, very cliched and disgustingly perverse devil on his right shoulder, and an equally disgusting, uptight angel on his left. Wow. Who knew Christianity got it right? Or maybe this was a late-night hallucination, fueled by too many cups of coffee and a few puffs of cannabis that his roommate Mark had so graciously shared with him before greedily sucking the rest of it down his smoke-filled gullet.

"Would you two shut the fuck up? You're giving me a headache," Ethan spat out the last word, his hand floating to the bridge of his nose, pinching it as if that made a whole lot of difference. The devil let out a sound of disbelief, rolling her eyes before continuing on.

"Oh shut it cunt. You deserve it for downing five cups of coffee... Now, how's about some vodka for a late-night snack?"

The grin was met with a sharp disapproval from his other shoulder, to which the devil promptly held up her middle finger, seeming happy to withdraw only when the angel gasped and covered his face. They were an odd pair. The devil was, by all accounts, what he had jerked off to when he was thirteen, playing Bayonetta III on his computer, occasionally looking over his shoulder to check if the door was still locked.

Tan. Big blonde hair. Ample tits. Too bad she was the size of a Barbie Doll. She waved the forked tail, slashing it against his cheek occasionally, which honestly just felt like a rubber band snapping into place. She kept whispering nonsensical things into his ear just to piss the angel off. It worked too, for they started up their argument again.

"Cease your blathering, vile demon!"

The angel, on the other hand, was not a handsome, dashing figure, but more like a forty-year-old salaryman, fed up with his life, and one meltdown away from divorcing his hypothetical wife and being left penniless from the alimony he would have to pay. Sheesh. They were like opposites, the two of them. But, then again, he supposed, they were meant to be opposites. Angels and devils weren't exactly the best of friends. Not according to the Bible, or literally any mass media portrayal of them.

"Now, Ethan, what you need right now is sleep," The angel's voice cut him off from his train of thought. Assuming a tone of faux authority, he continued, glaring at the devil who kept on making rude gestures at him from his other shoulder. "Make yourself a warm glass of milk and march yourself to bed, young man, or I'll-"

"Young man? You're not his dad, asshole. I think Ethan here can make his own decisions, thank you very much. Fuck off."

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and focused her gaze on Ethan, beady eyes darting around him. When she smirked, Ethan saw two tiny fangs, glinting maliciously as he tried not to cringe at how she was playing up her role a little too much. In fact, both of them were. Why was this ridiculous thing happening to him in the first place? And why couldn't his mind come up with something better than an extremely stereotypical image of his superego and id conversing with each other? Jesus, was the pot really that good? It sucked ass the first few puffs, but left him feeling an overall happy, dazed sort of way. Whatever it was, it might be good to indulge in this nonsense for a little while longer until the sun came up, and then he had to go shower for another extremely long day, bagging groceries for customers while trying to smile his way through polite but ultimately useless conversation. He wished he could light one up the next time someone asked him how his day was going. Obviously, no good if he was stuck listening to his manager prattle on about customer satisfaction for hours while he did the same thing on loop every day for minimum wage.

"Oi, you listening to me?"

The devil huffed, crossing her arms, shooting him a look that was equal parts disdain and frustration.

"No one should be listening to you, you Jezebel," The angel managed to sneak something in before being met with an exhale of disbelief and another middle finger.

"The highest compliment you ever paid me, fuckwad. Jezebel's famous in Hell."

She waggled her eyebrows, smirking as if she'd gained the upper hand before continuing spitting out insults at the angel, who responded with a stoic face that was gaining a new ounce of colour, anger clouding his features as he inhaled with as much control as he could muster, trying to not reveal that this was getting to him. He was, obviously, failing. A really shitty actor, this angel was, because his cheeks had started to redden with that deep hue of barely restrained frustration before all Hell (pun intended) broke loose.

"Lord, give me the strength to not choke this abomina-"

"That's not what happened last night, though..."

The devil smirked, flitting from her designated (if you could call it that) shoulder to the angel, watching his dumbstruck face turn a deeper shade of red, not from anger this time, as he tried to think of a suitable retort. Ethan blinked slowly, watching the devil wrap her tail around one of the angel's legs, her face twisted upwards like a salacious theatre mask, while she cornered him, both literally and metaphorically. The angel gulped, turning his face and arms upwards to the high (heh, that's what Ethan hoped he was) Heavens as if searching for a saviour to rescue him from this compromising situation.

"No! That was nothing but a mistake! A horrible, terrible hour-"

"The whole night, babe. Not an hour or two. A whole night of delicious sex with your big, massive-"

"A-alright alright! I concede! But that is the last of that for I was in the throes of... of... oh never mind that! Rest assured, it won't happen again, harlot!"

The angel cleared his throat, clearly ashamed as he managed to cut off her sentence for fear of it becoming a little too graphic, much like the night before. But Ethan's mind, half-buzzed as it was, only manifested in one of the stupidest questions that one could possibly ask during a midnight hallucination of subconscious Catholic guilt.

"Wait... you two had sex?"

With his head tilted like that, and that bewildered expression, he looked more like an innocent boy asking his parents about how babies are made. And apparently, the angel took it like that: a jumpy parent unwilling to answer his little boy's question. He appeared even more horrified, contrasting the vigorous nodding of his arch nemesis, whose Cheshire Cat smile had already parted as she licked her lips, tongue gliding over her fangs as she lustfully gazed at him out of the corner of her eye, looking as if she wanted to bite him all over and more.

"W-well, I... er... um... That's really not to say that we-" Before the angel could blabber on much longer, the devil shushed him, pressing a curved claw to his lips as she continued with her precise explanation.

"Duh. It's the twenty-first century, idiot. How else would we pass the time when you don't call us?"

At that, Ethan blinked again. Huh? His mind was blank save for one word. Call. He couldn't remember, even when sober, if he had called these two... whatever they were. Then again, his mind had conjured up weirder shit once or twice when he had taken a little too much of his happiness potion. Still, that little part of him that was already half retreated into darker recesses now curiously posed a one-word question, perhaps the most challenging one he could have asked that entire night.

"I called you?"

"Do ya really think we wait around for your fatass all the fucking time with nothing better to do? Of course, you call us. Why would we show up randomly? We... I have better things to do. I was in the middle of polishing my goddamn-" She paused, taking great pleasure in the fact that the callous word caused the angel to wince as if someone had shoved a stick up his already tight ass. "Horns and the next thing I know, I've been pulled onto your dandruff-infested shoulder. Uh, shampoo much?"

She stuck up her nose in disgust as Ethan tried to swallow the insults, although he was getting increasingly irritated at her propensity for cursing him out. Well, that and he had shampooed today specifically to take care of his flaky problem, so that kind of hurt. But before she could continue on her rant without really explaining anything more of real significance to him, the angel let out a cough, partially to clear his throat from not speaking for so long, but moreover to put her back in her place as he glared at her obvious disinterest. He shooed her back to her shoulder, standing squarely adjacent to his collarbone as he puffed out his chest a little proudly.

"I, the guardian of your soul, the brilliant light that shines the path of true goodness, have only made my appearance now because you, dear Ethan Clarkson-Wright, have called on my services at this critical junction of your-"

"Boo! Too long! Cut the crap and move the fuck on. This isn't your one-man show." And right before the angel could express his great disapproval for being cut off, like that one news channel too annoying for anyone to sit through, she clarified the rest. "Basically, you were whining about guidance and God and shit, so I'm here to remind you that big Daddy-o up there ain't solvin' any of your problems." After a short breath, she added, "That and you kinda really need it."

Oh great. Now is when he needs guidance, is it? Where were Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber when he was debating on getting that shady alleyway tattoo (which later culminated in a very bad infection-induced rash), or when he was deciding on colleges with his 2.7 GPA (and eventually decided to not apply at all), or even when he got drunk and decided that he couldn't live without his one and only love, Katie, so he climbed up her window Romeo and Juliet style and broke his fucking neck and went nearly bankrupt paying the hospital bill. Now of all the goddamn times! He needed a drink.

And that's when it happened. 

"Is that... am I... uh... astral projecting...?"

He tried, pulling out the most spiritual explanation he could muster (for the sake of whatever little sanity he had left), eye twitching as he stepped into the living room. There, sprawled out on the dusty ass rug, was him. Well... the other him, he guessed, lying face down, arms and legs spread-eagled. 

"Ya dead."

The angel inhaled sharply at the devil's lack of tact, eyeing Ethan like a concerned father trying to gentle-parent his child out of a meltdown. Though Ethan, if anything, was more silent and shellshocked than flying into a fit of panic like he had expected. He gulped once. Then twice. Then almost fell to his knees, wobbling a bit before he kept staring, open-mouthed, mumbling about the hallucination being a little too weird for his tastes. And then he let out a soft scoff.

"I... overdosed..."

A statement, not a question. As if Ethan had already predicted it. This kid, despite thinking the whole thing was a pot-filled illusion, was dealing with his surprise death better than the other ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the world would have. Well, the angel supposed it hadn't sunk in yet.

"You betcha." 

The devil's chirpy tone only fuelled the angel's annoyance further. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he fought the urge to reach out and shake some sense of propriety into her. But before he could do that, Ethan's body began to change. It morphed into little globules of light, shifting around in the midst of a sandstorm.

"Sleep now, child," The angel's voice was firm this time. Firm but calm. Before Ethan disappeared, he managed to muster the smallest indication of good faith in a reassuring smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth. He didn't know what kind of a fate awaited another young nobody from nowhere. He had stopped that line of questioning that still pierced his skull sometimes a good many centuries ago.

Zip. Then there was nothing. Except Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber.

"This one was way more boring than the others."

The devil rolled her eyes once the last blob of light faded into nothing darkness, and she absentmindedly twirled a strand of hair around her claw-finger, eyeing the suddenly serious angel with obvious interest. Letting out a sound that was half a sigh and half a purr of a prowling leopard, she shot him a look. And that apparently broke him out of his trance. He looked rather alarmed, stepping back, wings curled around him protectively, feathers sharpened to sword edges.

"Well, I guess there's nothing to do now."

She let the offhand remark roll off him like the beads of sweat that had collected on his brow. Only when he tucked his wings back again and sighed in relief did she casually eye him again.

"Nothing to do... except you!"

And before he could respond or fortify himself, she pounced.