This one is dedicated to Kash, because it came out of discussion for the GW fic Forget Me Not. I was originally going to call it Do Demons Have Shoulder Angels? but that took too long to type and I'm lazy ::LOL::
Xellos sat quietly in a tree somewhere away from the campsite and sighed. He was feeling more than a little despondent lately, and right now he really didn't know what to do about it. There were a few options, but the question was, which to choose? If only the whole thing didn't centre around such a touchy, sensitive little chimera.
"Who cares about that?" an exasperated voice said from his left shoulder, and he turned to find a miniature version of himself standing there, dressed in black, carrying a pitchfork, and decked out with horns and a long, forked tail.
"Are you a little stereo-typical?" he asked this other self and it shrugged.
"Don't blame me, I'm part of your conscience after all. Still, if you think I'm bad, just wait until you see the other guy. Now, can we please get back to the matter at hand?"
"Of course, sorry."
"Ahem, who cares if he's sensitive? That just means that you have to be more forceful!"
"Are you sure?" Xellos asked hesitantly.
"Don't listen to him!" another, slightly lighter, voice said from his other shoulder. Turning to look, Xellos found yet another version of himself. This one, however, was wearing white, carrying a harp, and sporting not only a pair of fluffy, soft wings, but also a gold, gleaming halo.
Xellos laughed so hard he fell out of the tree.
When he recovered, he found the lightly dressed Mini-Xel glaring at him. "Oh just shut up." it said. "This is not my fault, all right. There's a strict uniform policy for this job. Now be quiet."
Trying to stifle his chuckles, Xellos floated back into the tree and reseated himself on the branch. When he was properly settled, the white Mini-Xel gave him a single warning glance and then continued.
"You can't just forget about his sensibilities, you'll never get him that way."
"He'll get him at least once, there's no way that babe'll be able to do anything through his shock." The dark one replied.
"Oh right, and once is enough?"
"Okay, so you've got a point there. But if he worries about the sensibilities too much he'll never get anywhere!"
"No, he just has too be more careful about it. You know, using subtlety and tact."
"Tact is for weenies."
"Oh, very mature."
"Excuse me," Xellos interrupted, "aren't you two supposed to be disagreeing?"
"We are disagreeing." The dark Mini-Xel said. "Can't you see that we're in the middle of an argument?"
"But you're both saying that I should go after him."
There was a moment of silence, then the two Mini-Xels shrugged. "Well of course, that was never up for debate."
"Oh. Okay, just checking."
"Now, as I was about to say," the light Mini-Xel said, "you have to approach more carefully. You can't just jump him until you know he's interested."
"But you're saying that he should jump him?"
"No, that's not what I said."
"Sure it was, let's go find him."
"We can go find him, but that's all."
"You think that's a good idea?" Xellos asked them both. "Going to see him I mean?"
The chibis looked at each other and then nodded. Then dark Mini-Xel grinned. "So it's decided then; we go jump his bones."
"No, damn it. We just go to talk to him, feel it all out." The light Mini-Xel admonished.
"Feel him up, gotcha. Let's go."
Xellos teleported as the angel gave an exasperated little shriek and hit the dark Mini-Xel over the head with the harp. Ignoring that little interplay, Xellos appeared a few metres away from where Zelgadiss was sitting by a river, and was surprised to find the chimera talking to someone.
"Would you two just go away!" he yelled as Xellos crept closer with his two, now silent, chibis.
"Not a chance blue boy." Someone with a voice very similar to Zelgadiss' said. "You want peace, go get yourself laid."
"I don't believe this." Zelgadiss moaned.
"It really would solve a lot of your problems," a third, lighter voice said, "and I'm really sure Xellos would be happy to oblige."
The mention of his name in that context caused Xellos to stumble forward uncharacteristically. He managed to not only make a lot of noise while doing so, but also to land directly beside Zelgadiss as the chimera spun to face him. There was a look of embarrassed horror on the beautiful chimera's face; there was also a pair of chibi versions of himself sitting on each shoulder; these two were apparently the sources of the other two voices.
Zelgadiss and Xellos stared at each other. The four chibis stared at each other. The dark Mini-Xel and Mini-Zel shared a truly evil look. A second later they each jumped across the space separating the chimera and the mazoku. The two light chibis managed to look absolutely shocked before the dark ones collided with them and all four tumbled off their shoulders before finally vanishing.
There was a moment of awkward silence before Xellos grinned and closed the distance between himself and Zelgadiss suddenly.
"Xellos!" The chimera yelped in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"Well, we are supposed to follow our conscience, aren't we?" he asked innocently. Zelgadiss thought about it for a moment and then smiled.
"Yes, I guess we are."
Taking the agreement as an invitation to continue, Xellos did just that, much to the satisfaction of them both.