Nicholas Greyer, the Anti-Hero

Chapter 2

Chapter 2
The Naked Wizard in the Kitchen

The sight of it was horrible: skin wrinkled and pink as if someone had melted a baby, eyes sunken below bushy gray eyebrows that spiked off of Grynivold’s face and curved around to join his massive beard that luckily covered the shriveled remains of what humans call ‘family jewels.’ Every joint in his body looked oversized compared to his muscle absent limbs. The only bit of fat on Grynivold’s body was in his belly, with its outward belly button protruding through the gray tangles of beard hair. The bloated belly, on a cat, Nicholas had always assumed to be due to worms. In fact, it just so happened to be from the transfiguration potion Grynivold had to drink daily to remain a cat.

Grynivold heard Nicholas at the door way, now, if only because of the loud bellow that escaped Nicholas’s mouth at the sight.

“What the FUCK? Who the FUCK are you? Get the FUCK out of my house!” Nicholas shouted.

Grynivold winced at every use of the word “Fuck” as he never quite understood, linguistically, why one needed to place emphasis on a word that didn’t makes sense in the sentence to begin with. No one was fucking, so there was no “fuck” to emphasize upon. Still, it seemed to Nicholas’ favorite phrase, so he assumed he should be used to it by now. After all, he’d been a menagerie of pets to Nicholas since they discovered his birth. He was the puppy Nicholas’ parent’s bought for his birth to grow up alongside him (that ‘died’ with Nicholas’ parents in a house fire when Nicholas was five). He had been the goldfish that was flushed alive (by Nicholas’ grandmother who was not very fond of the boy), the parrot that was too annoying to keep around, that iguana that was too boring for a ten year old, the snake that was supposed to be exciting (but was only exciting while eating live mice, which Grynivold preferred not to do), the tarantula that every angsty teen wants during that gothic brooding stage, and when he moved he was at last the cat Mr. Mittens. So by now, he had grown accustomed to Nicholas and his habits. However, this time, those words were directed at him, in his naked 647-year old wizard glory, caught in the act of basically poisoning his present company. So, of course, he flinched.

He tried to come up with an excuse, and knew of plenty. He could pretend to be a senile old man, as he was sure that’s how he appeared. He could also charm Nicholas into forgetting the whole thing, if Nicholas was not a wizard himself. He could kill Nicholas, although actually he couldn’t due to the Committee of Wizarding Rights and Responsibilities, and their decree that Nicholas was to be kept alive. Alive, and as far away from magic as humanly possible.

Not that keeping a wizard from knowing he is a wizard was an easy task. Hence, Grynivold. Hence his living there, covering up magical instances. Which Grnivold began thinking upon rather than coming up with excuses, which made it too late to give excuses, as Nicholas had already dashed towards his bedroom for his cell phone in order to call the police.
Grynivold snapped out of his thoughts at the sudden movement, and in a panic used his magic to prevent Nicholas from getting to his phone by calling Nicholas’ phone to float passed Nicholas and to his hand. The spell for this was quite a simple one that most wizards use more than twice in a minute, which was why it had become such a second nature that Grynivold did it without noticing the repercussions.

“What the-Where-WHOA!” Grynivold heard Nicholas exclaiming down the hall as the phone zipped passed him. Though shocked, Nicholas still attempted to grab the phone in midair and chased it back into the kitchen until it reached Grynivold’s wrinkled hand.

“Uh, erm. I’m going to…call…okay, I get that you’re an intruder and all, but how the HELL did you do that?”

Grynivold sighed as he realized what he had done. There wasn’t any turning back now, as he looked into 26-year old Nicholas’ dark black eager eyes.

“Well, if you must know, which you mustn’t, I’m a wizard,” Grynivold replied. He watched Nicholas for a response before deciding how to respond next.

“Holy fuck this is a weird dream,” Nicholas said.

Grynivold sighed a bit in relief before replying. “That it is, erm, young padawan, errr, you should return to bed as you’re late for work and not wearing clothes in public, as well.”

Nicholas was already naked, from preparing for his shower. Just for emphasis on the ‘you’re dreaming’ idea, Grynivold chanted a spell in his head that made the kitchen appear to be Pizza Joint with all Nicholas’ coworkers. Luckily, for Grynivold at least, the Secunde he had swallowed was already wearing off, as he’d only had about a minute’s worth. Therefore, Nicholas began falling for the rouse, as he didn’t have the slightest bit of belief in magic. Grynivold moved towards him, wrapping a wrinkled, bony arm around his shoulders and led him back to bed.

There Nicholas reluctantly, but still quickly, fell asleep.

“Well…as you would say: Fuck. That was close,” Grynivold said over the sleeping body of Nicholas.
That was their first true meeting. They had both been naked. Grynivold laughed to himself now that the event was over, at the memory of Nicholas’ gawky tan limbs flailing about after the cell phone.

Then, he realized, for a moment he had been smiling over Nicholas’ body as if he were a proud parent tucking their son into bed, and he recoiled. He certainly didn’t want to think like that. Especially not towards Nicholas. His smile faded and he went back to the coffee pot, where he stood steely faced doubling up the regular dosage of Secunde.