cursed seat is back babyy set before this
Daniel opens the door just a few seconds after the doorbell rings. “Oh, I’m so happy you could make it!” he exclaims and watches in fascination how Charles’ magic flows out of him in a wild dance, red translucent flames making him look like he’s on fire. Charles, recreating the girl on fire on his back porch. The sparks are making their way to Daniel, reaching for him in a way that startles him. He itches to cover his curse mark for some reason, maybe because Charles is eyeing it curiously.
“Well, someone’s happy to see me,” Daniel says, surprised. He looks at Alexandra and smiles widely. This has never happened to him with Charles before. His own magic stirs in his stomach but doesn’t make itself known in any other way. And that’s okay, too - he made peace with it.
He beckons the pair further into the apartment, to the terrace where Max waits patiently for them. Daniel opens the champagne, apron-clad body moving quickly around the guests, pouring water with fresh mint into their glasses, then handing them the champagne flutes. He has been leaning heavily into the housewife label, and everyone accepts it and finds it cute as well, even though they all know he ordered all of the charcuterie boards laid out on the table.
Charles leans into his side when Max whips out his phone, showing Alexandra a new photoshoot he made for Jimmy.
“How are things?” he asks, accent heavier than usual.
Daniel shrugs, “Nothing new.” Charles clicks his tongue but doesn’t follow up.
Daniel was scared that the new memories would make him forget the friendship they had built. He was petrified that he would always connect Charles to cold nights in Lithuania. The metal smell of Charles’ blood as he paid with it for them to be able to enter a weird wizards club of some sort; Peru and Brazil and the humidity that made Charles’ hair so frizzy he looked like he was the one who had a desperate need to get rid of the dark magic, not Daniel. Charles’ hushed voice as he called with Max, when Daniel was too sick to give out updates to his boyfriend.
But when he looks at Charles now, he still remembers the night in Vegas clearly, the other memories muddy. He doesn’t know if it’s because of all the pain he was in at the time or if it has something to do with Charles rearranging his thoughts after every ritual that didn’t go well, and he is too afraid to ask.
Charles' red light starts to crawl to him again as if he knew what he was thinking about and Max looks up from where he is smiling over Alex’s phone.
“Your little friend is making you a little rowdy, isn’t she?” Max snipes, doesn’t like anyone using magic around Daniel.
Alexandra shakes her head. “I believe it’s your little friend, Max, who is making him this way,” she smirks and Charles seems to be chastised. The lights disappear suddenly. “Sorry, guys,”
It took them five weeks to learn more about the curse someone put on Daniel. He was cursed never to use magic again. His power fought against it, making him feel the pain Daniel couldn’t describe in words. It started as a stomachache when he used a simple spell, grew to fits that left Daniel screaming in agony as his magic fought more and more. The only advice he would get in the doctor's office was not to use magic, under no circumstances. The irony was the fact that the curse itself wasn’t causing the pain - it was his own magic. Someone put cruciatus on Daniel once. This was worse. His mother cried for hours when he gathered the wherewithal to call her when he and Charles finally returned to Europe.
Daniel claps his hands loudly to snap him out of his thoughts. “I’m going to fetch the cake!” Alexandra stands up, makes her way to the washrooms.
And listen, Daniel doesn’t want to listen in on their conversation, it’s just that the window in the kitchen is open and Charles isn’t exactly quiet.
“- You just have to stop it, okay? It’s disturbing the vibe of the whole paddock, disturbing my vibe! It’s calling to him! He will find out and then - “
Daniel opens the tap to become more conspicuous. “-and using all of this dark magic, just to keep it a secret! It must have made you so weak!” he hears Charles’ voice, his accent more pronounced now. Then he sees a blue light coming from the terrace, so familiar in its shape that he immediately feels better.
“Just because he has lost his magic, you don’t have to-”
“He’s not magicless!” Max exclaims, loud enough for him to hear even if he wasn’t trying to listen. Daniel quickly makes his way to the terrace, meeting Alexandra in the corridor, who smiles tightly. He must not have been the only one hearing bits of the conversation.
“Ta-da!” he exclaims, both Charles and Max flinching. “It’s strawberry!”
