by Cryptic Fawn
"And all we do here, all we've ever done, is mindlessly kill and feed and survive, with no purpose, and no hope. You feed and feed and try to get strong enough so that maybe you don't have to live in fear of becoming another demons snack, and end up being completely obliterated from the Rebirth cycle. Don't you get it Rhoads? This is what Hell is all about. Once you die here, you no longer exist at all."
The scowl had reluctantly fallen away from Elsi's face, replaced with the beginnings of enlightenment, and a sense guilt and shame that she swore she had no cause to feel. She still refused to look at him though.
"Welcome to Hell, Rhoads. Don't worry. You won't be staying long."
~~~
"Tenuxhal" Elsi didn't want to talk to the knight, and it showed in her voice when the demon's name came out sounding all too petulant and pouty.
"What?" The sharp snap of a question was loud in her ear.
"When did you start drinking?" Elsi didn't want to talk to the demon, but her curiosity was getting the better of her.
Tenuxhal blinked at the strange question, sparing Elsi a sideways glance as they moved slowly towards the bathroom.
"You don't seem like the... umm... type." Elsi winced against the stiffness of her maltreated body and underused muscles.
"When you got here." That had been close to a week ago now. Tenuxhal didn't say when he'd actually started drinking - didn't want to bring up that wretched moment ever again.
Elsi looked away and snorted at the implied insult, surprised and genuinely offended.
"Shit mellows me out. Keeps me from killing you," the demon added bluntly.
Elsi's blood ran just a shade cooler as those particular words came out of the creature who currently had a powerful arm wrapped around her small, plump body. It hadn't escaped her notice, though, just how gently Tenuxhal was holding her, avoiding her most painful wounds, offering just the right amount of support to allow Elsi to do some of the work herself. She supposed that the vodka was working.
It was laughable really. Tenuxhal the Demon Knight was getting shit-faced just for her. Not that she would thank him for it. Not ever.
Elsi was relieved when they finally stepped across the threshold of the bathroom, the fatigue she felt, all out of proportion to the short walk. The bathroom was spacious enough, a large tub already filled with hot water, covered in a thin froth of soapy bubbles. Huh, who knew they even had bathtubs in Hell. She was learning new stuff every day it seemed.
Tenuxhal let her go, and Elsi just stood there looking pale from the exertion and beginning to sway. Tenuxhal reflexively grabbed her arm, steadying her before she could fall.
"Well, get in then before you fall down. Idiot."
Elsi felt warmth seeping into her face and she looked away. As IF she was going to undress in front of the demon. No way. That disturbing idea ranked amongst the top ten things Elsi Rhoads would never do in this lifetime.
"I am not undressing in front of you, Tenuxhal."
The demon's mouth fell open. It hadn't even occurred to him that this would be an issue. The knight sure didn't care about things as petty as being naked, and being stared at or gawked at. Not at all. He had bigger things to be petty about.
"You fucking humans are retarded. Get over it."
"Look, I can do it myself. I don't need..."
"Suit yourself then." Tenuxhal suddenly let go and Elsi, unprepared, promptly stumbled backwards and landed awkwardly in a heap on the hard floor with a thump, jarring her ribs and unhealed wounds as she did. She writhed in pain and cursed through gritted teeth.
"Fuck!"
Tenuxhal displayed a mouth full of teeth in triumph. Rhoads rarely said anything worse than 'shit' or 'bastard.' That must have hurt.
Tenuxhal squatted beside Elsi, who was breathing hard, but who now lay relatively still, her head and large breasts resting on the cool tiled floor, face full of death glares turned towards Tenuxhal.
"You're making this awfully fun for me, witch." He was still grinning. This vodka was an excellent invention and one of his better ideas. The human was testing his phenomenally short patience, again, and Tenuxhal hadn't actually hurt her yet. Rhoads had done it to herself.
"Fuck off, Tenuxhal. You're an asshole." She didn't bother to mumble the sentiment this time. At the moment, she was far more pissed off at Tenuxhal than she was afraid of him. If she'd had her strength back right now, she'd gut him where he stood.
Tenuxhal tilted his head, a thoughtful smile reaching his silver eyes.
"Yeah. I am aren't I."
Besides, he’d already seen her naked.
~~~
Tense negotiations ensued.
After making several half-hearted promises to keep his head turned until Elsi's lower body was safely hidden beneath the confines of the water, Tenuxhal finally manages to coax Elsi out of the white bed sheet. In the end it was a simple matter of Tenuxhal offering his arm for support and Elsi reluctantly dropping the sheet slowly from her body and that was that. She was as naked as the day she’d been born.
And when he did turn his head, Elsi didn't notice, and Tenuxhal didn't comment. If he had, the little bitch probably would have gone into hysterics.
~~~
That fucking asshole had looked.
Elsi was mortified and completely incensed, wanting to tear into the perverted bastard, but she was much too tired to voice any more complaints. And she was already dreading the return trip. The walk had been physically draining and... oh shit. They were going to have to go through all of this again when she was finished in the bath. And this time she was going to be naked and wet. Maybe this was how Tenuxhal, with all his big threats, was actually going to kill her. Through sheer humiliation.
Before Elsi could actually die, Tenuxhal had left the bathroom, and after a minute or two of listening to the peaceful sounds of water lapping against the porcelain tub, Elsi had finally begun to relax. She let the hot water soak into her aching body, ignoring the pain it caused her deeper wounds, the ones that were still on the raw side. All in all though, she had to admit, she was healing quite well on her own here, having received only the most basic of medical attention. Must be all that energy that originated deep within Hell, mingling with her own.
She closed her eyes and let her thoughts slide towards home and dwell on the prospect of getting there. She decided that she could use this time to relax and think, but as Elsi was beginning to learn was the norm, the quiet respite was short lived.
Applying the theory of 'if one is good, then two is better,' Tenuxhal had returned within minutes to the bathroom with a second bottle of vodka, and had sat perched on the edge of a small stool, to make sure his idiot prey didn't drown herself. Oddly, the alcohol didn't seem to Elsi to be having any noticeable effect on his coordination, just his temperament. It wasn't long before the demon had started complaining about shit Elsi didn't care about.
"That asshole gave me a 'gift.' He made me stronger than holy hell, and then he left me with nothing to rule. You said so yourself, 'what's the point in being strong and ruling if you don't have anyone left to rule?' Well Rhoads, do ya see anyone else around here? Do ya?"
Elsi automatically looked up despite herself at the question. Tenuxhal's arms were up in the air as he gestured at the infinite space outside of the four walls around them, the bottom of his short vest rising above his muscular chest as he did. Elsi raised her eyes and stared curiously at the bland black wall past the knights long red ear and horn. Tenuxhal was too involved to notice.
As far as the demons vodka consumption was concerned, Elsi noted, it appeared there was indeed a definite line between him "mellowing out" and "becoming a head case". Tenuxhal was up and pacing now, agitated beyond consolation, sword swishing back and forth in its strap connected to the lowest belt, as he turned at the end of each run, a restless caged cat.
Did he ever bother to take it off?
"What in the fff-FUCK...," he spat the word out, "am I supposed to do now? HUH? Sit here and go cataton
ic?"
Elsi blinked at the question. Hmph. Cat-atonic. That was funny. Well. What was a demon supposed to do? Well. Who cared?
The knight stopped suddenly, running long fingers through white coloured hair, then whirling around to face Elsi again. His voice, for a moment, seemed drained of energy but began to rise again as he spoke.
"I have nothing Rhoads. The only thing that kept me going was you. You said you'd fight me... whenever I want. That's what you said...!" He snarled, sharp-fanged teeth flashing.
Elsi was speechless. A hundred thoughts spiralled through her mind... "Only thing that kept me going...," all vying at once for her attention and only one of them actually succeeding, "...was you."
Her?
Bullshit.
She didn't want to be the knights raison d'etre.
She didn't want to give him hope.
She didn't really want him to die, not once you dug underneath all the scabby layers of hate and bitterness, but she would prefer it if he just disappeared, stayed the hell away from her, her world, and all the things in it that were irreplaceable and precious to her. She'd never given any thought to how any knight left alive would want to spend its days after the war, and she didn't care. But here one was, a former knight of the most powerful army from Hell, a bitter rival, standing in front of her and asking her what he was supposed to be doing with himself now that the war was over. Tenuxhal was one seriously dazed and confused man.
Once the outburst had ended, the bathroom had become uncomfortably quiet. A long moment passed, and Rhoads was actively considering sinking under the still water and drowning herself just to cut the tension.
She aimed a cautious glance sideways, away from the calming ripples, and towards the now silent demon, who was staring at her with an intensity and unreadable expression that was beginning to unravel her already frayed nerves. He seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from Elsi. Well, what the hell was she supposed to say to him?
There there, it's going to be okay, Tenuxhal? I'm just glad that I kept you going? Yes, of course I'll fight you? I made a promise after all?
"Uhh... ehm... " Elsi attempted to speak and failed miserably.
Tenuxhal let out a long suffering sigh and scratched his fingers roughly through his thick white hair when he realized Rhoads wasn't going to give him any coherent response. She didn't have the words Tenuxhal needed to hear. But was it really any less than he'd expected? What was one human woman going to do for him?
He never should have brought it up. He'd never even intended to, but lately his "emotions" had become even more unstable than usual as the realization of what lay ahead for him in his own solitary existence had really sunk in. Feeding and existing wasn't enough any more. And now on top of it all, he was disgusted with himself. He was being a total pansy ass piece of shit, crying like a bitch about his problems to his sworn enemy. An embarrassment (just like Beelzebub and all of the other knights had thought).
"Never fucking mind Rhoads. Just wipe the crap off yourself. You smell like something I wiped my ass with."
Elsi glared hotly at the side of the tub, reluctant to send any kind of challenge to the clearly unbalanced demon. The human found it debatable that Tenuxhal would even have the kind of intimate knowledge necessary to make a remark like that when he so obviously had an exceptionally long, sliver infested stick permanently jammed up his ass.
Elsi took an exploratory sniff and frowned. Disgusting as Tenuxhal's comment was, it was true. Even through the lightly scented bubbles, she smelled rank. She wondered offhandedly how Tenuxhal had even managed to stand being so close to her while she'd slept. So close to her. A shiver ran through her at the thought, even though she lay wrapped in the warm caress of the water.
Tenuxhal stood and turned away, hiding the heat spreading across his face as he fully realized what he'd just done, how he'd just fucking bared himself to this bitch. Fuck. Well, it didn't matter, 'cause he was gonna kill the little shit soon anyway. He couldn't leave things like this right now though. He needed to reassert himself, regain some sort of normalcy... the little good it would do at this point. As he passed through the door he growled out a command.
"Call me when you're done, and don't try to get out by yourself 'cause you'll just end up falling on your ass again." After he had disappeared around the corner, he yelled, "And don't take too fucking long."
Elsi sank lower into the water, not bothering to glower at the empty doorway. God he was bossy.
This just sucked. She needed a plan to get out of here. She doubted he could take her in a fair fight once she was healthy, not at his current power levels. That had already been proven. Maybe if she actually got to know him better they could work things out. She wondered if just getting to know Tenuxhal would be enough. In Elsi's experience, it usually wasn't. Once you got past all of the "crazy" from some of the archangels from Heaven, there was just more... "crazy."
She doubted Tenuxhal would be any different.
Eight
The trip back to bed had been uneventful aside from the demon giving Elsi a new, fresh and clean basic v neck black dress, that he found in one of the many cabinets built into the Black Citadel. It reached a few inches past her knees, most likely a sleeping gown, with a high waisted strap she tied behind her hugged the fabric to her chest but flowed away from her torso. Apparently demons are allergic to color that isn’t their own skin, everything in this place was so bloody plain and boring, but it was better than the bedsheet she had on earlier. It felt like cotton, but she wasn’t entirely sure.
He had also given her a fuzzy scarf that was small enough for her to wrap around her shoulders and chest, a clip on one end attached it directly to the opposite end, mumbling about how easy it was for pathetic humans to get cold as he threw it at her head. She wasn’t going to ask what it, or any of the human clothes and food, was doing in Hell, of all places, nor did she particularly care, though she was thankful to have been given any clothes at all. Though he hadn’t bothered to give her any kind of shoes. Oh well, better not press her luck.
Tenuxhal repeated the routine from before, figuring that holding his arm out and turning away would be the best way to keep Rhoads from whining about her brief exposure. It’s not like she had anything to be ashamed of. This time, he didn't even look. He was in no mood to play games right now, and after helping Elsi back to the edge of the bed, he just turned away and dumped himself onto the couch.
Well, he wasn't going to fucking tuck her in now was he?
He watched as Elsi briefly arranged herself under the covers of Tenuxhal's double king sized bed and then closed her eyes and stilled.
Elsi couldn't fall asleep. She could feel it. The demon had been staring at her from across the room in silence for the past ten minutes. Eventually, Elsi turned her head so that she faced the wall, but it didn't help. She knew he was still watching her. With an internal sigh, Elsi finally broke down and gave the Knight an annoyed and questioning look, prompting Tenuxhal to tilt his head slightly. Elsi figured he was finally about to share whatever deranged thoughts lurked in there. Tenuxhal didn't disappoint.
"I'm getting fucking tired of waiting for you, Rhoads. Why don't you call up that Wisp power of yours and heal yourself?"
"Huh?" Instantly more irritated at what seemed like a ridiculous question, Elsi responded quickly and snapped. "What the hell are you talking about? I can't just heal myself. That's stupid!"
Tenuxhal's nostrils flared in response and his eyes narrowed dangerously, but he didn't reply. He wasn't going to ask the bitch twice.
Elsi paused for a long moment, glowering back at the demon "What even makes you think I can do that?"
The knight regarded her with cool eyes, Elsi's insolent tone grating on his nerves. He breathed deeply and continued.
"I know you can heal yourself," he growled irritably. "You did it when Beelzebub blew a hole through you." He nodded his head upward. "Up on the roof."
"On the... uh... how do you know it wasn't M
ason that healed me?" Elsi asked, genuinely curious. Mason was a regular human male, aside from the fact that he had healing powers that had somehow passed from his witch mother to him. Highly unusual, considering all witches were supposed to be female. The males in their families typically never got any powers from their mothers.
Tenuxhal rolled his eyes, growing annoyed with the 'question with a question' routine. He leaned further back against the couch and huffed.
"Dipshit! I felt everything that was going on up there. You two dumb shits were releasing so much energy that all of Hell could feel ya. And I know it wasn't the man that fixed ya. So it had to be you."
Elsi blinked. He could really feel all of that from down there?
"Ya, well it wasn't. It was my Dark Wisp. Not me. I had zero control over that form."
There was a long pause as Tenuxhal assimilated the new information. So the Dark Wisp had the instant regeneration, the thing that had emerged after Rhoads died up there on top of the Citadel and then beat the shit out of Beelzebub. That was how Rhoads had survived, he reasoned.
"So get it to heal you then," he ventured, sounding and looking almost bored at the obvious answer.
Elsi's temper flared.
"I fucking can't! It doesn't work like that. If I let it out, then I have to fight it for my body back. Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is!" Elsi stopped just short of yelling out her explanation. All witches were capable of falling prey to the Dark Wisp, an evil manifestation of their standard Wisp form that literally and quickly killed them from the inside out if not forced off by another witch or through sheer will power fast enough. It was a rare occurrence that seemed to happen at random, and most witches that fell victim to it died from such an encounter. It was a risk they all took every time they donned their Wisp form.
But not Elsi. She still didn’t understand why it had healed her, instead of killing her.
Tenuxhal sneered and it quickly stretched into a wicked grin.
"I can guess."
Elsi snorted and gave him a withering look, then shut her eyes. Tired from the mental fatigue of dealing with Tenuxhal, and already beginning to drift, she effectively ended the conversation.
