http://archiveofourown.org/works/5844106
David’s day started out normal, many customers came in to buy some charms and ruins and some even calling in for him to ward their houses. Pretty good work day, until a man and woman came in with a briefcase. The man was very tall, intimidatingly tall, had red hair, glasses and a face full of freckles. His clothes were the kind a lumberjack would wear, except the flannel he wore wasn’t a shirt, but a sweater. The woman was of average height, had long brown hair, and an…. interesting sense of style. It looked like she was in elementary school. She had colorful and silly earrings, light up sneakers, and a bright pink sweather that had a summoning circle on it. It was a strange sight to see, but when you worked in sales you have to expect weird customers.
They walked up to the counter and smiled. David did his normal greeting. “Welcome to The Enchanter. How may I help you?” The man spoke, “um yes we have some…. items we would like you to put your best wards on.”
Usually people came in to just buy some protection necklaces or spell and maybe some government officials warding some top secret information, but never had a normal person wanted an object warded. Not that he could really call them normal, but how important were these things that they would want to put the most powerful incantations on? It was very weird. “Yes of course and what items would they be?” He had been expecting some kind of family heirloom or safe or… or.. anything, but THIS.
The couple had placed their briefcase on the front desk and poured the contents out. He couldn’t believe it, forks honest to goodness forks! What?! It was completely baffling. He examined the forks trying to see if it was made out of some precious metal or gem, anything that would make it worth protecting. The only thing he noticed was that the tips of each looked like it was gold, but looked different on each one. The tips looked as if the gold was just splattered on. Well it was definitely… interesting, but so was their sense of style. He shrugged it off.
“Alright I can ward these for you, it will cost $500 each.” The woman snorted, which made him get annoyed. What did she expect? She came to him the most knowledgeable and famous incanter in the world, of course it was pricey. Irritation pulled at his face. He was about to ask them if there was a problem when the woman blurted out a question. “Do you have the best ruins on your door?”
…..what? “Ummm weird question no I don’t.” Oooh did he say weird question out loud? She grinned widely and he got very creeped out by it. “ That’s great!” ….Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten out of bed today. “Well if everything’s fine, ill get started. They should be ready in about 2 hours.” They both nodded and walked out the door. Suddenly the room felt brighter and it was easier to breath. He sighed. This was becoming an exhausting day.
An hour into enchanting the forks and he was getting very frustrated, what the FUCK was wrong with these forks! Normally it took an hour to set the spell and he could use other hour to check it, but the damn things refused to take it! He was hardly able to finish when the couple came back in Right. On. Time. Shit! There wasn’t anymore time to check over it for mistakes, although in all his years of spellcasting he had never made any mistakes before. It would be fine.
As he walked to the front of the store, he noticed the room had darkened again. Just who were these people? Whatever, he sighed, as long as he got this done quickly.
He brought out their items and was ringing them up as fast as he could. They were about to pay ‘FINALLY’, when, “you have a guarantee about if the wards aren’t flawless, they’re free right?” GOD DAMN IT! He just wanted it to be over with and he was finding it hard to be civil to them. With a strained voice he replied “yes ma’am.”
She started cackling. ‘Jesus David, what have you gotten yourself into?’ He was quickly losing his mental state and she just pulled out a piece of paper. What was sh-OH GOD! She was taking a needle to her finger piercing it and OH, OH NO! She was bringing down on the paper, which he now recognized as a summoning circle. He was petrified, and could do absolutely nothing and he so, SO wanted to do something.
He knew enough of demon summoning to expect Latin chants, but what came wasn’t even close. “Dipdops come here.” was all she said and a man in a suit popped into existence hovering close by her. A man who looked human, except for the sharp teeth, yellow on black eyes, and wings on his lower black. Alcor, They were so dead.
In the middle of almost fainting Alcor spoke, “Mabes, for the millionth time I’m telling you, his charms won’t work.” The woman replied snarkily, “and for the millionth time I’M telling you, I don’t care! I’m tired of finding you and my forks covered in gold!” She glared heavily at the floating man, who had a look of…. guilt?
Wait! Back up! What? What?! He had the most powerful charms, there was no way they wouldn’t work, right? Sure Alcor was a powerful demon, but he couldn’t just break them. Yeah he definitely couldn’t break them, no way!
………He broke them. He just reached out and grabbed them easily, not even hesitating slightly.
“see Mabel? I told you!” That was the moment his mind broke. He lifelessly watched as the couple frowned in disappointment and Alcor smiled in victory. The demon still smiling turned slowly towards him and stated “Well like I said it didn’t work, which means it’s free.” They grabbed the forks, put them in the briefcase, and walked casually out the door.
The last thought he had as he fainted was, “It had to be because I didn’t check it.”