The Devil/Ezekiel Stone (Brimstone)
Title: All This and Blasphemy, Too
Author: Milkshake Butterfly (m_butterfly)
Spoilers: Major ones for much of the series, unfortunately.
Email: milkshake_butterfly @ yahoo.com
Note: Thanks go out to canthlian, writingrose, and dearladydisdain for all their help with this.
Now, it's possible I'm being paranoid here, but I'd like to start off my essay with the following disclaimer: if your religious beliefs give you strong feelings about the incontrovertible evilness and irredeemability of the Devil, please, please, please, put this essay down now and go somewhere else. While Brimstone itself is not incompatible with that, this pairing very often is, and it's probably easier on everyone if we go our separate ways.
On the other hand, if you like taking the canon of the Christian religion and exploring it or playing with it, please, please, please read on, particularly if you've seen the show. (If you haven't seen the show and don't mind spoilers, you're likewise encouraged to read on, but I couldn't do this without basically revealing every major twist, so....)
Brimstone is a large small fandom, but still undoubtedly a small fandom. Brimstone is also one of the few fandoms I know that can honestly tell the Firefly fandom they got a really good deal in comparison; Brimstone also got screwed over by FOX, but Brimstone only got 13 episodes and was never saved in any sense of the word, leaving all its unanswered questions just that: unanswered, forever. We also lack DVDs and have to make do by killing each other and looting the bodies for VCD copies. With so few filmed episodes (and six unfilmed ones about which we know a tiny bit), the show only just had time to introduce the major players, establish some basic mythology, and start to touch on the overreaching plot arc. One other thing was also established within those episodes, however: a pair of characters so slashy that slash fans new to the show will often watch it with their jaws gaping open at the sheer intensity of it. On the Slash Subtext Scale, these two aren't quite Clark and Lex, but given that John Glover is involved in both projects, you may take this moment to wonder if that means something.
And now, a visual aid:
The above is an unused promotional photo from the series, found and given to us by the wonderful sidewinder. For a larger size, click here.
Brimstone follows Ezekiel Stone, who is in a really unenviable position. You see, fifteen years before the show's opening, Zeke was a cop, and a good one (the most decorated cop in Manhattan South, according to him). One day Zeke came home to find his wife, Rosalyn, huddled in the shower after being raped. When the rapist managed to escape prosecution due to lack of evidence, Zeke found him and killed him in cold blood by faking an accidental overdose.
Two months later, Zeke took a shotgun blast to the head in the line of duty. He died, and because he had committed the sin of that murder, a murder for which he wasn't the slightest bit repentant--possibly even proud--he was sentenced to Hell, where he proceeded to spend the next fifteen years in constant torment (what sort, exactly, we don't know--only one of the Damned ever specified what he suffered, and it wasn't Zeke). His wife buried him, mourned him, and tried to move on, with only partial success.
Jump to the present time--or at least 1998, when the show first aired. The unprecedented has just happened: Hell has had a mass escape. Not one or two souls but a full one hundred and thirteen of the Damned have broken free to once again walk on the Earth--only now, already being dead, they can't be killed, and most of them have gained terrible powers from their time in Hell. This is a problem for the Devil, although it's worth noting that the exact nature of the problem--does he honestly want these escapees back as soon as possible, or is he just covering his ass with Heaven?--is never specified. He ends up selecting a single Damned soul still in Hell to hunt down and return the escapees: Zeke. (The Devil's motives for picking Zeke are likewise never outright specified, though through implication and logic one can speculate: he's familiar with modern fugitive pursuit, he isn't really a bad soul despite everything so can hypothetically be trusted, and he wants something that the Devil can use to make a deal. Also it probably helps that he's incredibly cute.)
Zeke's fifteen years out of circulation, and it doesn't help that to send a soul back to Hell you have to destroy both their eyes, a job that's not exactly easy when most of the people you're hunting have strength and ability beyond yours, but does have the result of us both getting to see a hero who thinks and also seeing a fascinating number of things used as offensive weapons. (The list includes a garden trowel, those pens on chains at banks, and a hood ornament.) Zeke gets help from a collection of some of the strangest side characters ever, though, and also has a motive that helps keep him going despite it all: if he sends back all 113 of the Damned, the Devil will give him a second chance at life--and thus a second chance to be with his wife.
Zeke is, for the most part, a genuinely good guy. He's a great friend--he impressed and met his first wife when he used an extremely cute trick to introduce a friend of his to another woman, whom his friend couldn't gather the courage to approach. He was almost always a great husband, from what we can gather--Ros was completely in love with him, to the point where fifteen years after his death, she still hasn't gotten over him. He's an excellent detective, even with a fifteen-year gap, and seems to have a remarkable ability to get people to like, trust, and help him. However, he does have some real, deep flaws, which the Devil delights in pointing out. Even ignoring his pride at the cold-blooded murder of another man--and I remind you that he is by his own admission glad he did it--Zeke can be extremely callous and high-handed in the pursuit of his job, both before and after his death. He's been known to push the line on questioning suspects, he's planted evidence, and more than once he's let what he considered a 'lesser' crime go in exchange for a shot at a bigger one--only to have it later bite him in the ass. However, he is honestly and truly trying to be a good person, to make the world a better place, and even in the limited run of the show he begins to demonstrate that he's getting past some of the problems that landed him in his current predicament.
And then there's the Devil himself, who represents an interesting quandary: despite the fact we see more of him than any other character than Zeke, we are given practically no information about him on the show--in fact, we have only Zeke's belief to go on that this is truly the Devil himself. Most writers and fans take it as a given that he is (though not everyone does), but as Devils go, the one presented to us on Brimstone isn't a stereotypical one. John Glover has confessed to modeling a lot of his behaviors in the role off of the Screwtape Letters, a telling detail in and of itself. This isn't a vast, terrible, and evil Devil; this is a Devil who seems to be almost cheerfully petty in his malice, equally enthused to tie together the shoelaces of homeless people, rip the last pages out of books, give bad career advice to college students, and sell used cars as he is to encourage budding Satanists to kill their gym teachers--and it's worth noting that we never see any really nasty acts on screen, just hear him talk about them. He proclaims to want to have the escapees returned, but despite his constant needling of Zeke, the Devil doesn't seem in any extreme rush--Zeke, on their first Earthside meeting, calls him just another suit covering his ass, a comment that gets him dumped off a fire escape for his troubles. The Devil on Brimstone is playful more than anything, albeit playful with a nasty edge, and shows emotions other than a sort of jaded amusement only rarely, which makes those instances where he does all the more significant and memorable. He also has an extraordinarily strange penchant for showing up in Zeke's life in disguise as something--an advisor at the college Zeke visits, a yard worker in a lawn Zeke passes, an old man with a walker at a beach Zeke goes roller-blading near. It's safe to say the Devil's sense of humor is a little twisted.
Now, to best understand my history with the fandom, you need to picture Brimstone as a brick. Whether or not the brick has cute little horns is up to you. Then you need to picture me, sitting at my computer. Now animate this picture, so the brick flies out of nowhere and crashes into the back of my head. (The look of comical surprise on my face is key.)
I was minding my own business, whittling away at my stacks of WIPs for other fandoms when I happened to reread a pair of really short Brimstone ficlets that got me thinking of and fondly remembering the show, and hunting up more fanfic. Unfortunately, Brimstone fanfic is scarce, and before long I came up with an idea that nobody else had done. I sat down to write it, thinking it wouldn't be that long--15,000 words on the outside--and knew before the end of the Prologue that I was so, so screwed. Halfway is still unfinished. Its wordcount stands at 65,000 and has at least that much to go. In addition to landing an epic, however, I ended up with something much more devastating: an OTP.
They flirt. In my head. Constantly.
Of course, it's entirely possible you could say the same thing about them on the show.
From their very first encounter on-screen in the Pilot, which had to be one of their first encounters period, and quite possibly their first physical encounter at all--remember, we know next to nothing about Hell, and as far as show canon goes the question of whether or not anyone actually has a body there is still up for grabs--there's something there. Sparkage. Snark. And a whole lot of the Devil completely failing to respect Zeke's personal space.
In fact, this encounter sets up a lengthy trend of the Devil cheerfully acting as though Zeke doesn't have any personal space whatsoever. He cheerfully takes repeated liberties with Zeke's person, touching, patting, looming, and leering. In Poem (1:3), the Devil delivers a lecture on love with one hand on Zeke's back, in Slayer (1:5), he goes to deliver a 'thank you' in a way that literally had me going, "Oh my god he's going to kiss him!" and the last time I watched Lovers (1:9) I realized if a used car salesman ever groped me like that I'd hit them with a handbag. We won't even go into how often he stands or sits closer than is remotely necessary. Zeke, on the other hand, deals with this mostly with a weary resignation, the occasional odd look, some determined ignoring, and what might actually be bemusement.
One of the most extreme cases of this occurs in Ashes (1:9), when Zeke wakes up from a nasty dream to find the Devil lying in bed with him and gloating about the nightmare, saying, "If I get one just right, sometimes it'll come back for years." Zeke, while irritated, doesn't exactly leap out of bed, instead taking his time to complain about the Devil torturing him even when he's asleep, too.
The Devil points out he doesn't need sleep anymore, calmly takes the book Zeke's reading, looks it over, rips out the last couple pages, and tucks them away in his jacket.
(A MP3 file of their full conversation can be found here. Thanks to canthlian.)
Of course, the book-tearing is about par for the course on their relationship. Zeke and the Devil spend virtually every single scene they have in the series--around two an episode in the first half of the series, with the exception of only one in the Pilot, and around three an episode in the second half, with significantly more in Helluva Life (1:12)--engaged in constant and continuous little verbal and mental games. The Devil repeatedly tries to intimidate, infuriate, and hurt Zeke, who generally refuses to be bullied, show any real pain, or get mad--with a few noticeable exceptions (most involving his wife and the late, unlamented Gilbert Jax). Impressively, as far as banter goes, Zeke gives as good as he gets, hitting the Devil's sore spots back almost as well as the Devil hits his. In fact, the constant snarky interaction is one of the highlights of the show and the pairing; it's hard to believe that if it was a man and a woman talking to each other like this, people wouldn't be calling it flirting and taking bets on how soon the producers would be getting them together.
Some examples:
Devil: "Ezekiel, listen to me. If your illness prevents you from doing your job, everything we have come to mean to each other will be finished."
Zeke, dryly: "I love you too."
Zeke: "Your reputation precedes you."
Devil: "Oh stop, please, I'm blushing."
Zeke: "Color suits you."
Devil: "Very revealing, if you don't mind my saying so."
Zeke: "I do mind."
Devil: "I know, and I don't give a damn."
(A .wav file of this last exchange can be found here. Thanks to canthlian.)
However, for all the antagonistic edge to their conversations, there's something missing from their relationship that you might expect to be there. The Devil is, as far as Zeke knows, the walking incarnation of evil, and the being that has literally made his life Hell for the last fifteen years--but, somewhat surprisingly, Zeke clearly does not hate him. He doesn't very much like him, most of the time, and sometimes he's absolutely furious at him--but he never behaves as though he loathes the Devil. As a result, the anger that weaves through their relationship gives it the same level of intensity you would find in a relationship between someone and their nemesis, but without the actual nemesis bit--after all, whatever Zeke may think about the Devil in general, it's undeniable that Zeke is in his employ, even if it is for a better cause. So all that passion forms yet another underlying argument for pairing these two: after all, it has to go somewhere. In one of their more angry encounters, when the Devil is trying to insist that Zeke was damned even without Gilbert Jax, the two of them get so in each other's faces that if one of them wobbled they would have been kissing.
For all those intensely passionate moments, however, there's an oddly casual, almost friendly tone to their relationship, once you get past the constant and continuous baiting. Even ignoring the Inappropriate Zeke Touching (and Zeke's Reaction Thereof), Zeke seems fairly relaxed about the presence in his life of the person who is, after all, the Lord of Hell. The relationship reads oddly like an old and established friendship (or marriage) sometimes--for example, in Lovers (1:9), after being bugged by the Devil into going back to work, Zeke saunters out of his apartment and casually calls over his shoulder, "Lock up when you're done." In fact, as far as that bugging goes, the Devil's constant prodding of Zeke to work faster and better is met mostly with a dry look or a small, snarky comment; if Zeke doesn't hate the Devil, he's clearly not afraid of him, either, for all that the Devil really can make his life permanent Hell again any time he chooses. Zeke is so casually accepting of the Devil's presence in his life that at one point he uses the same fork as the Devil did without even seeming to think about it.
This might seem like obsessing over ridiculously small subtext, of course... but there are only 13 episodes, and besides, as far as insignificant subtext goes, I can do even better. For example, given how few shows we had, the Devil smokes around Zeke an awful lot--and while sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes it's also a way of the supernatural being you have kicking around in your life going, "Hey. Phallic symbol here. Are you noticing?"
In fact, there are a lot of little things that seem oddly suggestive when you take a moment to think about it. Even ignoring the sarcastic, "I love you," mentioned above, there's....
Zeke visiting a surprisingly accurate psychic:
Palm reader: "Ai. El Diablo has his hand on your heart."
Zeke and the Devil discussing illnesses:
Zeke: "You get off on this stuff."
Devil: "These microbes never cease to amaze me. An orgy of pain and suffering in such a little package."
(The emphasis is his.)
Zeke and the Devil on a walking tour of Zeke's sins, watching Zeke almost-but-not-quite cheat on Rosalyn:
Devil, happily: "Ah, lust and adultery. They never seem to go out of fashion."
More of the walking-tour-of-Zeke's-sins as the Devil tries to convince Zeke he was always damned:
Devil: "You were meant for me, to quote an old song--**sings** and I was meant for you."
Upon bursting into Zeke's apartment and finding him with an angel--not like that, though the treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide does apply:
Devil: "Well well well well well well well well well well well well well. What have we here? Your new best friend? I feel so hurt. So tossed aside."
The last incident brings up another major aspect of the relationship between Zeke and the Devil: the Devil isn't just possessive, he's almost obsessively so. That's actually most of what Helluva Life (1:12) is--the Devil attempting to convince Zeke that he had always been Damned, and has always been destined to be one of the Devil's, while an angel shows up and tries to argue otherwise. Interestingly enough, there's a cut scene that suggests it was possible that the angel was none other that the Devil himself putting on an elaborate act. Given that it was deleted, it's hardly considered canon for the show, but the fact that it existed at all is a potent argument for how much Zeke matters to the Devil--despite the fact that the Devil dismissively insists in the same episode that Zeke isn't worth setting up an elaborate lie for.
Even beyond that, however, the Devil's behavior in this episode is something of a slash-addict's dream. The argument where they're so close to each other they're nearly kissing occurs before the episode credits even roll, and it just goes on from there. The Devil's possessiveness of all the escaped souls has been touched on extremely briefly in the series--he usually refers to them in such a manner, using terms like "my wayward children"--and we understand that attitude reflects on Zeke at least a little as well, given everything else, but nowhere is it as explicit as it is in Helluva Life. It's not surprising, of course--after all, the very first thing the Devil ever said to Zeke on the show was, "The names of the fugitives. Penned in my native tongue, of course," when Zeke had just discovered he was covered in strange, symbolic tattoos. Even from a non-slash perspective, this is something like writing "Mine" on him with a big sharpie marker, given the fact that as far as keeping track of the Damned go, those tattoos are somewhat less than useless.
In Helluva Life, though, after running into Zeke and his literal angel on one shoulder, the Devil gives the angel a significant look and then turns to Zeke and practically purrs, "You're not up for grabs, you know. You're mine. And you were mine long before you ever came to Hell."
After the first, "You're mine," Zeke swallows.
I invite you to make of this what you will.
In any case, despite the Devil's insistences that a promise is a promise and he will keep his bargain and give Zeke a second chance if Zeke fills his end of things, it's very clear that, at the moment at least, the Devil firmly considers Zeke to be his--and that makes it very hard to imagine the Devil wouldn't try something to spike the deal they made so that he can keep Zeke.
Remarkably, given all that, in the original plans for the show, the Devil was only going to be a recurring character, showing up once every few episodes at most. The producers changed their minds when they filmed the pilot because they were so impressed with the on-screen the chemistry between Zeke and the Devil that they significantly increased his role--and had to fight the network to do it.
As a result, while Zeke has several people in his life who he sees and encounters on a fairly regular basis, people who are friends and sometimes assistants and in one spectacular case simultaneously a love interest and an enemy, none of them are around half as constantly and continuously as the Devil. Given that he shows up mostly to harass and nag, it's a strange sort of reliability, but there it is: the presence of the Devil is one of the very few stable points in Zeke's life. In future episodes, he was planned to be around even more, a fact over which we fans can only sigh, and wish for a kinder universe that would have let us see what was coming next.
And the obstacles?
Well, there's Rosalyn. Zeke was married to her and did love her, and loves her still. In fact, while Zeke and the Devil was unquestionably my OTP, the show did such a wonderful job of painting the relationship between Zeke and Rosalyn that every time I watch it, I find myself rooting for them to get together again and live happily ever after--even though it goes completely against my OTP. As far as that, goes, however, in the words of the Devil himself:
"How did those marriage vows go? Till death do us part? You're dead. You've parted."
Rosalyn and Zeke were a great couple--fifteen years ago. But she did mourn and bury him, even if she's not completely over him, and he did die and go to Hell--and there were cracks in their relationship before that. Neither one of them can say they haven't changed, vastly. And there's evidence in the show, as well, that Zeke can and has fallen for someone else since he got out of Hell: Ashur, who Zeke got involved with without ever realizing she was one of the Damned (the reverse also applies). In fact, Ash is something of an argument for the two of them in and of herself, thanks to what I've started to think of as the Love Polygon, which goes something like this:
First the Devil and Ash were involved. Then Zeke and Rosalyn were involved. Then, after some life-changing events, Zeke and Ash got involved, and then, after some awkward revelations, Ash and Rosalyn got involved, although Ros didn't really realize what she was getting into for complicated reasons. Which suggests two things: Ash is a big giant slut, and oddly enough the Devil is the most faithful person in this picture. It also makes it clear, though, that both Zeke and the Devil are open to relationships--and quite possibly you could make the argument that the Devil should get involved with both Zeke and Rosalyn just to even the score.
(No one I know of has written this. Anyone who does may get my eternal adoration.)
But even ignoring the fact that Zeke did come extremely close to being physically involved with someone since he got back to Earth, and was undeniably emotionally committed, you don't necessarily have to ignore the Rosalyn factor to put Zeke and the Devil together--provided you're okay with or even would enjoy the ensuing angst over the situation. And considering the other major obstacle is, "If it's immoral to sleep with another man, just how immoral is it to sleep with another man who happens to be the Devil?" angst is something of a staple in the fandom when it comes to this pairing. In fact, that last point may be the biggest obstacle with this pairing of them all: most people simply aren't comfortable with the idea of 'shipping the Devil, even a Devil like the one we're presented with on Brimstone.
So why pair them? What are the attractions?
I'd say I don't know where to start--but clearly, I already have. Still, there's a lot of ground to cover. Zeke and the Devil are a strangely flexible pairing, in, come to think of it, more than one sense. In the sense that wouldn't require me to slap an X rating on this essay, however, stories with them have the potential, in the least, to run from love to hate, from light humor to intense angst, and from simple PWP to gigantic, sprawling, mythological epic, all by simply focusing on different elements of the relationship as already presented on the show. In reality, the fic tends to favor the darker side of things. My own approach tends to be more all-inclusive, but I'll start with the angst.
It's not hard to understand, after all. The critics repeatedly called Brimstone a disturbingly dark show--which often puzzles fans, given that we see an equal amount of hope and humor in it. But we don't try to deny that the dark aspects are there. The show deals with escapees from Hell, the hero himself was Damned--for a better reason than most, but nonetheless, Damned--and the Devil appears in every single episode. Given what we know about the Devil outside the show, and certain behaviors within the show, it's not hard to imagine him screwing Zeke over both metaphorically and literally--and Brimstone reflects that by having more than its fair share of fics with non-con and issues of uncertain consent. Despite the fact that the show almost certainly would have given us a happy ending, it did a good job, at times, of giving you the sense that it was possible that there couldn't be a happy ending, really, especially not with Zeke and the Devil, which a number of fic authors enjoy working with.
The 'Hell' and 'Devil' aspects bring in yet another interesting reason for shipping these two: you can do some fascinating things by working with Christian theology. Of course, sometimes this can require alarming amounts of research, but in an odd way Brimstone has not just 13 episodes worth of canon, but the entirety of Judeo-Christian history to draw from. Start yourself at Genesis and work forward: a ridiculous amount of this stuff can be played with in writing for this series, and when you start pairing the Devil with anyone, you almost have to start considering the religious/mythological aspects and implications. And it can, surprisingly, be a ridiculous amount of fun.
Another fun thing about this pairing, opposite from but oddly not incompatible with the angst, is the snark. On the show they exchange witty banter by the truckload, and it's possible and delightful to take it onto the page, too. In fact, my particular versions of these characters snark so much I have a hard time shutting them up--even in bed. It's even possible to write gen with them and realize they're flirting without you even intending to, just by capturing some of the original tone they had. The humor on the show and between the two of them is often dark, but it is there, and consequently you can get some wonderfully sarcastic or black humor going in fic, as well.
And their relationship is unusual to explore in and of itself. There's something about the characters, and how they interact. I mean, here you have a mere mortal, who isn't even that powerful for one of the Damned, regularly standing up to and goading the Devil himself--and getting away with it. Why? How? On the show, the Devil and Zeke seem to have an unusually solid working relationship, all things considered, and it doesn't take that much work to extend it a little bit farther than the strange species of almost-friends they are when things are going well. And when things aren't going well, there exists between them a sort of furious passion that makes one slamming the other up against a wall and snogging him senseless seem entirely possible.
And when you're doing romance and sex where one of the characters is an extremely powerful supernatural being, well.... Let's just say you can be very flexible. It's something of a canonical given, for example, that the Devil can, at any time he wants to, take Zeke into an illusion which not only looks and feels like the real thing, but effectively removes him from wherever he actually was in reality--and that's just the beginning of the fun you can have.
In fact, that's part of the reason why I so love this particular pairing, and why they've eaten my brain: the range of possibility. There are so many potential ways to put the characters together, and so many different possible power dynamics and scenarios that I am drenched in plot bunnies for the pairing, and get new ones on average once a week. You can, in short, do almost anything with these two, and if you give me time I'd certainly be happy to try.
In summation: they fight, they flirt, they spend a ridiculous amount of time looking like they're either going to kiss or kill each other, the Devil can't respect Zeke's personal space, Zeke doesn't particularly respect the Devil's reputation or authority, there's snark, passion, fun religious aspects, built-in angst, supernatural powers, amazing chemistry, extreme possessiveness, and a canonical instance of one character saying, "I love you," even if it was in sarcasm.
All this, and blasphemy, too.
As Brimstone is, as I mentioned several thousand words back, a small fandom, there aren't a lot of resources for it, but there are some. The official website has long since vanished into the mists of the net, but The Official John Glover Website maintains a special section for Brimstone, with a fairly solid collection of information. On LJ, lucifen is the Brimstone community. And I have it on good authority--which is to say, I've nagged the owners about it--that SadLittleLook.com will be up in the next month or so, with the Brimstone section among the first active areas.
On the fic side of things Brimstone is also pretty rare, with a lot of it lost to the vagaries of the net, but there's still some good stuff to be had:
sidewinder is one of the oldest, most-well known, and most prolific writers of Brimstone. Earthbound is her epic, and examines the relationship between Zeke and the Devil from a very unusual angle. Plague of Ghosts is also another excellent one by her, being both something of a romantic story and something of a happy ending in a fandom not known for either.
My two favorite stories by kaiz are actually snippets: Minty Freshness (PG-13), a lovely little Devil POV with some great banter that also explores something that came up in the show involving toothpaste, and Walk A Mile In the Devil's Shoes (R), which features some of the slam-against-a-wall passion I mentioned earlier. These two ficlets are a lot to blame for me getting involved in Brimstone in the first place.
One of the most angsty-yet-good Zeke/Devil stories there is, where the title nearly says it all, is Despair: a Love Story, by buggery. Definitely one of the ones that goes into the darker aspects of the show, but not in a bad way.
thete1 undertook Brimstone for 101 Ways To End Up In A Canadian Shack, and came up with a great little story that nails the darker humor of the series dead on. Primrose Path isn't explicitly Zeke and the Devil any more than the show is... which says a lot about the show, I think.
ciceqi has done two great stories, companion pieces, that do a wonderful job exploring both the somewhat murky consent issues the pairing can have, and the Devil's extreme possessiveness. All night the dreadless Angel is from Zeke's POV, & And season him thy last and sweetest prey is from the Devil's, both describing the same events, and building off of each other in interesting ways, making them much more than just the PWPs they could have been.
As far as the working-relationship, almost friends thing goes, kelex's Man of No Means explores that aspect of their relationship, with bonus sushi.
harriet_spy has only written one Brimstone story, but what a story. The mind is its own place is another one of the darker ones, but it has that same thread of banter the show had, and ends on an oddly positive note. And also it has some extraordinary use of Christian mythology, although in a not-for-everyone way, I suspect.
serrico did a lovely flirty Zeke and the Devil piece for last year's yuletide: Recommitment. The pairing in this one is subtle, but the banter is dead-on.
And lastly, though I'm a bit hesitant to be pimping my own work out, I've written a number of Brimstone stories and intend to write many more. The completed stuff can be found here, and everything but the ficlets is either flat-out Devil/Zeke or at least suggestive in that direction--as I've said, these two can sneak flirting into gen. I expect to have more stories up as soon as the end of this month.
I hope you've enjoyed my manifesto--it's not only late, but it's also vastly over spec, for which I have to beg the community moderator's indulgence: it's a small, odd fandom, so I felt I had to explain more than I might normally have had to just to set the stage. If this essay has either rekindled an old Brimstone interest of yours, or given you a new one, I'm afraid Brimstone isn't the easiest fandom to get into. As I said, we've got no official DVDs, and no station I know of is still airing them in repeat. If you poke around online you can sometimes find episodes of varying quality available for download (DAPCentral.org, for example, though their episode order is incorrect), canthlian has a standing offer on the table to send VCDs for cost of shipping, and decidedly unofficial sets of uncertain quality will appear on eBay from time to time. Outside of that, I don't know of anything--if you do, please don't hesitate to share the information. After all, the show may be dead, but the fandom doesn't have to be.
Author: Milkshake Butterfly (m_butterfly)
Spoilers: Major ones for much of the series, unfortunately.
Email: milkshake_butterfly @ yahoo.com
Note: Thanks go out to canthlian, writingrose, and dearladydisdain for all their help with this.
Now, it's possible I'm being paranoid here, but I'd like to start off my essay with the following disclaimer: if your religious beliefs give you strong feelings about the incontrovertible evilness and irredeemability of the Devil, please, please, please, put this essay down now and go somewhere else. While Brimstone itself is not incompatible with that, this pairing very often is, and it's probably easier on everyone if we go our separate ways.
On the other hand, if you like taking the canon of the Christian religion and exploring it or playing with it, please, please, please read on, particularly if you've seen the show. (If you haven't seen the show and don't mind spoilers, you're likewise encouraged to read on, but I couldn't do this without basically revealing every major twist, so....)
Brimstone is a large small fandom, but still undoubtedly a small fandom. Brimstone is also one of the few fandoms I know that can honestly tell the Firefly fandom they got a really good deal in comparison; Brimstone also got screwed over by FOX, but Brimstone only got 13 episodes and was never saved in any sense of the word, leaving all its unanswered questions just that: unanswered, forever. We also lack DVDs and have to make do by killing each other and looting the bodies for VCD copies. With so few filmed episodes (and six unfilmed ones about which we know a tiny bit), the show only just had time to introduce the major players, establish some basic mythology, and start to touch on the overreaching plot arc. One other thing was also established within those episodes, however: a pair of characters so slashy that slash fans new to the show will often watch it with their jaws gaping open at the sheer intensity of it. On the Slash Subtext Scale, these two aren't quite Clark and Lex, but given that John Glover is involved in both projects, you may take this moment to wonder if that means something.
And now, a visual aid:
The above is an unused promotional photo from the series, found and given to us by the wonderful sidewinder. For a larger size, click here.
Brimstone follows Ezekiel Stone, who is in a really unenviable position. You see, fifteen years before the show's opening, Zeke was a cop, and a good one (the most decorated cop in Manhattan South, according to him). One day Zeke came home to find his wife, Rosalyn, huddled in the shower after being raped. When the rapist managed to escape prosecution due to lack of evidence, Zeke found him and killed him in cold blood by faking an accidental overdose.
Two months later, Zeke took a shotgun blast to the head in the line of duty. He died, and because he had committed the sin of that murder, a murder for which he wasn't the slightest bit repentant--possibly even proud--he was sentenced to Hell, where he proceeded to spend the next fifteen years in constant torment (what sort, exactly, we don't know--only one of the Damned ever specified what he suffered, and it wasn't Zeke). His wife buried him, mourned him, and tried to move on, with only partial success.
Jump to the present time--or at least 1998, when the show first aired. The unprecedented has just happened: Hell has had a mass escape. Not one or two souls but a full one hundred and thirteen of the Damned have broken free to once again walk on the Earth--only now, already being dead, they can't be killed, and most of them have gained terrible powers from their time in Hell. This is a problem for the Devil, although it's worth noting that the exact nature of the problem--does he honestly want these escapees back as soon as possible, or is he just covering his ass with Heaven?--is never specified. He ends up selecting a single Damned soul still in Hell to hunt down and return the escapees: Zeke. (The Devil's motives for picking Zeke are likewise never outright specified, though through implication and logic one can speculate: he's familiar with modern fugitive pursuit, he isn't really a bad soul despite everything so can hypothetically be trusted, and he wants something that the Devil can use to make a deal. Also it probably helps that he's incredibly cute.)
Zeke's fifteen years out of circulation, and it doesn't help that to send a soul back to Hell you have to destroy both their eyes, a job that's not exactly easy when most of the people you're hunting have strength and ability beyond yours, but does have the result of us both getting to see a hero who thinks and also seeing a fascinating number of things used as offensive weapons. (The list includes a garden trowel, those pens on chains at banks, and a hood ornament.) Zeke gets help from a collection of some of the strangest side characters ever, though, and also has a motive that helps keep him going despite it all: if he sends back all 113 of the Damned, the Devil will give him a second chance at life--and thus a second chance to be with his wife.
Zeke is, for the most part, a genuinely good guy. He's a great friend--he impressed and met his first wife when he used an extremely cute trick to introduce a friend of his to another woman, whom his friend couldn't gather the courage to approach. He was almost always a great husband, from what we can gather--Ros was completely in love with him, to the point where fifteen years after his death, she still hasn't gotten over him. He's an excellent detective, even with a fifteen-year gap, and seems to have a remarkable ability to get people to like, trust, and help him. However, he does have some real, deep flaws, which the Devil delights in pointing out. Even ignoring his pride at the cold-blooded murder of another man--and I remind you that he is by his own admission glad he did it--Zeke can be extremely callous and high-handed in the pursuit of his job, both before and after his death. He's been known to push the line on questioning suspects, he's planted evidence, and more than once he's let what he considered a 'lesser' crime go in exchange for a shot at a bigger one--only to have it later bite him in the ass. However, he is honestly and truly trying to be a good person, to make the world a better place, and even in the limited run of the show he begins to demonstrate that he's getting past some of the problems that landed him in his current predicament.
And then there's the Devil himself, who represents an interesting quandary: despite the fact we see more of him than any other character than Zeke, we are given practically no information about him on the show--in fact, we have only Zeke's belief to go on that this is truly the Devil himself. Most writers and fans take it as a given that he is (though not everyone does), but as Devils go, the one presented to us on Brimstone isn't a stereotypical one. John Glover has confessed to modeling a lot of his behaviors in the role off of the Screwtape Letters, a telling detail in and of itself. This isn't a vast, terrible, and evil Devil; this is a Devil who seems to be almost cheerfully petty in his malice, equally enthused to tie together the shoelaces of homeless people, rip the last pages out of books, give bad career advice to college students, and sell used cars as he is to encourage budding Satanists to kill their gym teachers--and it's worth noting that we never see any really nasty acts on screen, just hear him talk about them. He proclaims to want to have the escapees returned, but despite his constant needling of Zeke, the Devil doesn't seem in any extreme rush--Zeke, on their first Earthside meeting, calls him just another suit covering his ass, a comment that gets him dumped off a fire escape for his troubles. The Devil on Brimstone is playful more than anything, albeit playful with a nasty edge, and shows emotions other than a sort of jaded amusement only rarely, which makes those instances where he does all the more significant and memorable. He also has an extraordinarily strange penchant for showing up in Zeke's life in disguise as something--an advisor at the college Zeke visits, a yard worker in a lawn Zeke passes, an old man with a walker at a beach Zeke goes roller-blading near. It's safe to say the Devil's sense of humor is a little twisted.
Now, to best understand my history with the fandom, you need to picture Brimstone as a brick. Whether or not the brick has cute little horns is up to you. Then you need to picture me, sitting at my computer. Now animate this picture, so the brick flies out of nowhere and crashes into the back of my head. (The look of comical surprise on my face is key.)
I was minding my own business, whittling away at my stacks of WIPs for other fandoms when I happened to reread a pair of really short Brimstone ficlets that got me thinking of and fondly remembering the show, and hunting up more fanfic. Unfortunately, Brimstone fanfic is scarce, and before long I came up with an idea that nobody else had done. I sat down to write it, thinking it wouldn't be that long--15,000 words on the outside--and knew before the end of the Prologue that I was so, so screwed. Halfway is still unfinished. Its wordcount stands at 65,000 and has at least that much to go. In addition to landing an epic, however, I ended up with something much more devastating: an OTP.
They flirt. In my head. Constantly.
Of course, it's entirely possible you could say the same thing about them on the show.
From their very first encounter on-screen in the Pilot, which had to be one of their first encounters period, and quite possibly their first physical encounter at all--remember, we know next to nothing about Hell, and as far as show canon goes the question of whether or not anyone actually has a body there is still up for grabs--there's something there. Sparkage. Snark. And a whole lot of the Devil completely failing to respect Zeke's personal space.
In fact, this encounter sets up a lengthy trend of the Devil cheerfully acting as though Zeke doesn't have any personal space whatsoever. He cheerfully takes repeated liberties with Zeke's person, touching, patting, looming, and leering. In Poem (1:3), the Devil delivers a lecture on love with one hand on Zeke's back, in Slayer (1:5), he goes to deliver a 'thank you' in a way that literally had me going, "Oh my god he's going to kiss him!" and the last time I watched Lovers (1:9) I realized if a used car salesman ever groped me like that I'd hit them with a handbag. We won't even go into how often he stands or sits closer than is remotely necessary. Zeke, on the other hand, deals with this mostly with a weary resignation, the occasional odd look, some determined ignoring, and what might actually be bemusement.
One of the most extreme cases of this occurs in Ashes (1:9), when Zeke wakes up from a nasty dream to find the Devil lying in bed with him and gloating about the nightmare, saying, "If I get one just right, sometimes it'll come back for years." Zeke, while irritated, doesn't exactly leap out of bed, instead taking his time to complain about the Devil torturing him even when he's asleep, too.
The Devil points out he doesn't need sleep anymore, calmly takes the book Zeke's reading, looks it over, rips out the last couple pages, and tucks them away in his jacket.
(A MP3 file of their full conversation can be found here. Thanks to canthlian.)
Of course, the book-tearing is about par for the course on their relationship. Zeke and the Devil spend virtually every single scene they have in the series--around two an episode in the first half of the series, with the exception of only one in the Pilot, and around three an episode in the second half, with significantly more in Helluva Life (1:12)--engaged in constant and continuous little verbal and mental games. The Devil repeatedly tries to intimidate, infuriate, and hurt Zeke, who generally refuses to be bullied, show any real pain, or get mad--with a few noticeable exceptions (most involving his wife and the late, unlamented Gilbert Jax). Impressively, as far as banter goes, Zeke gives as good as he gets, hitting the Devil's sore spots back almost as well as the Devil hits his. In fact, the constant snarky interaction is one of the highlights of the show and the pairing; it's hard to believe that if it was a man and a woman talking to each other like this, people wouldn't be calling it flirting and taking bets on how soon the producers would be getting them together.
Some examples:
Devil: "Ezekiel, listen to me. If your illness prevents you from doing your job, everything we have come to mean to each other will be finished."
Zeke, dryly: "I love you too."
Zeke: "Your reputation precedes you."
Devil: "Oh stop, please, I'm blushing."
Zeke: "Color suits you."
Devil: "Very revealing, if you don't mind my saying so."
Zeke: "I do mind."
Devil: "I know, and I don't give a damn."
(A .wav file of this last exchange can be found here. Thanks to canthlian.)
However, for all the antagonistic edge to their conversations, there's something missing from their relationship that you might expect to be there. The Devil is, as far as Zeke knows, the walking incarnation of evil, and the being that has literally made his life Hell for the last fifteen years--but, somewhat surprisingly, Zeke clearly does not hate him. He doesn't very much like him, most of the time, and sometimes he's absolutely furious at him--but he never behaves as though he loathes the Devil. As a result, the anger that weaves through their relationship gives it the same level of intensity you would find in a relationship between someone and their nemesis, but without the actual nemesis bit--after all, whatever Zeke may think about the Devil in general, it's undeniable that Zeke is in his employ, even if it is for a better cause. So all that passion forms yet another underlying argument for pairing these two: after all, it has to go somewhere. In one of their more angry encounters, when the Devil is trying to insist that Zeke was damned even without Gilbert Jax, the two of them get so in each other's faces that if one of them wobbled they would have been kissing.
For all those intensely passionate moments, however, there's an oddly casual, almost friendly tone to their relationship, once you get past the constant and continuous baiting. Even ignoring the Inappropriate Zeke Touching (and Zeke's Reaction Thereof), Zeke seems fairly relaxed about the presence in his life of the person who is, after all, the Lord of Hell. The relationship reads oddly like an old and established friendship (or marriage) sometimes--for example, in Lovers (1:9), after being bugged by the Devil into going back to work, Zeke saunters out of his apartment and casually calls over his shoulder, "Lock up when you're done." In fact, as far as that bugging goes, the Devil's constant prodding of Zeke to work faster and better is met mostly with a dry look or a small, snarky comment; if Zeke doesn't hate the Devil, he's clearly not afraid of him, either, for all that the Devil really can make his life permanent Hell again any time he chooses. Zeke is so casually accepting of the Devil's presence in his life that at one point he uses the same fork as the Devil did without even seeming to think about it.
This might seem like obsessing over ridiculously small subtext, of course... but there are only 13 episodes, and besides, as far as insignificant subtext goes, I can do even better. For example, given how few shows we had, the Devil smokes around Zeke an awful lot--and while sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes it's also a way of the supernatural being you have kicking around in your life going, "Hey. Phallic symbol here. Are you noticing?"
In fact, there are a lot of little things that seem oddly suggestive when you take a moment to think about it. Even ignoring the sarcastic, "I love you," mentioned above, there's....
Zeke visiting a surprisingly accurate psychic:
Palm reader: "Ai. El Diablo has his hand on your heart."
Zeke and the Devil discussing illnesses:
Zeke: "You get off on this stuff."
Devil: "These microbes never cease to amaze me. An orgy of pain and suffering in such a little package."
(The emphasis is his.)
Zeke and the Devil on a walking tour of Zeke's sins, watching Zeke almost-but-not-quite cheat on Rosalyn:
Devil, happily: "Ah, lust and adultery. They never seem to go out of fashion."
More of the walking-tour-of-Zeke's-sins as the Devil tries to convince Zeke he was always damned:
Devil: "You were meant for me, to quote an old song--**sings** and I was meant for you."
Upon bursting into Zeke's apartment and finding him with an angel--not like that, though the treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide does apply:
Devil: "Well well well well well well well well well well well well well. What have we here? Your new best friend? I feel so hurt. So tossed aside."
The last incident brings up another major aspect of the relationship between Zeke and the Devil: the Devil isn't just possessive, he's almost obsessively so. That's actually most of what Helluva Life (1:12) is--the Devil attempting to convince Zeke that he had always been Damned, and has always been destined to be one of the Devil's, while an angel shows up and tries to argue otherwise. Interestingly enough, there's a cut scene that suggests it was possible that the angel was none other that the Devil himself putting on an elaborate act. Given that it was deleted, it's hardly considered canon for the show, but the fact that it existed at all is a potent argument for how much Zeke matters to the Devil--despite the fact that the Devil dismissively insists in the same episode that Zeke isn't worth setting up an elaborate lie for.
Even beyond that, however, the Devil's behavior in this episode is something of a slash-addict's dream. The argument where they're so close to each other they're nearly kissing occurs before the episode credits even roll, and it just goes on from there. The Devil's possessiveness of all the escaped souls has been touched on extremely briefly in the series--he usually refers to them in such a manner, using terms like "my wayward children"--and we understand that attitude reflects on Zeke at least a little as well, given everything else, but nowhere is it as explicit as it is in Helluva Life. It's not surprising, of course--after all, the very first thing the Devil ever said to Zeke on the show was, "The names of the fugitives. Penned in my native tongue, of course," when Zeke had just discovered he was covered in strange, symbolic tattoos. Even from a non-slash perspective, this is something like writing "Mine" on him with a big sharpie marker, given the fact that as far as keeping track of the Damned go, those tattoos are somewhat less than useless.
In Helluva Life, though, after running into Zeke and his literal angel on one shoulder, the Devil gives the angel a significant look and then turns to Zeke and practically purrs, "You're not up for grabs, you know. You're mine. And you were mine long before you ever came to Hell."
After the first, "You're mine," Zeke swallows.
I invite you to make of this what you will.
In any case, despite the Devil's insistences that a promise is a promise and he will keep his bargain and give Zeke a second chance if Zeke fills his end of things, it's very clear that, at the moment at least, the Devil firmly considers Zeke to be his--and that makes it very hard to imagine the Devil wouldn't try something to spike the deal they made so that he can keep Zeke.
Remarkably, given all that, in the original plans for the show, the Devil was only going to be a recurring character, showing up once every few episodes at most. The producers changed their minds when they filmed the pilot because they were so impressed with the on-screen the chemistry between Zeke and the Devil that they significantly increased his role--and had to fight the network to do it.
As a result, while Zeke has several people in his life who he sees and encounters on a fairly regular basis, people who are friends and sometimes assistants and in one spectacular case simultaneously a love interest and an enemy, none of them are around half as constantly and continuously as the Devil. Given that he shows up mostly to harass and nag, it's a strange sort of reliability, but there it is: the presence of the Devil is one of the very few stable points in Zeke's life. In future episodes, he was planned to be around even more, a fact over which we fans can only sigh, and wish for a kinder universe that would have let us see what was coming next.
And the obstacles?
Well, there's Rosalyn. Zeke was married to her and did love her, and loves her still. In fact, while Zeke and the Devil was unquestionably my OTP, the show did such a wonderful job of painting the relationship between Zeke and Rosalyn that every time I watch it, I find myself rooting for them to get together again and live happily ever after--even though it goes completely against my OTP. As far as that, goes, however, in the words of the Devil himself:
"How did those marriage vows go? Till death do us part? You're dead. You've parted."
Rosalyn and Zeke were a great couple--fifteen years ago. But she did mourn and bury him, even if she's not completely over him, and he did die and go to Hell--and there were cracks in their relationship before that. Neither one of them can say they haven't changed, vastly. And there's evidence in the show, as well, that Zeke can and has fallen for someone else since he got out of Hell: Ashur, who Zeke got involved with without ever realizing she was one of the Damned (the reverse also applies). In fact, Ash is something of an argument for the two of them in and of herself, thanks to what I've started to think of as the Love Polygon, which goes something like this:
First the Devil and Ash were involved. Then Zeke and Rosalyn were involved. Then, after some life-changing events, Zeke and Ash got involved, and then, after some awkward revelations, Ash and Rosalyn got involved, although Ros didn't really realize what she was getting into for complicated reasons. Which suggests two things: Ash is a big giant slut, and oddly enough the Devil is the most faithful person in this picture. It also makes it clear, though, that both Zeke and the Devil are open to relationships--and quite possibly you could make the argument that the Devil should get involved with both Zeke and Rosalyn just to even the score.
(No one I know of has written this. Anyone who does may get my eternal adoration.)
But even ignoring the fact that Zeke did come extremely close to being physically involved with someone since he got back to Earth, and was undeniably emotionally committed, you don't necessarily have to ignore the Rosalyn factor to put Zeke and the Devil together--provided you're okay with or even would enjoy the ensuing angst over the situation. And considering the other major obstacle is, "If it's immoral to sleep with another man, just how immoral is it to sleep with another man who happens to be the Devil?" angst is something of a staple in the fandom when it comes to this pairing. In fact, that last point may be the biggest obstacle with this pairing of them all: most people simply aren't comfortable with the idea of 'shipping the Devil, even a Devil like the one we're presented with on Brimstone.
So why pair them? What are the attractions?
I'd say I don't know where to start--but clearly, I already have. Still, there's a lot of ground to cover. Zeke and the Devil are a strangely flexible pairing, in, come to think of it, more than one sense. In the sense that wouldn't require me to slap an X rating on this essay, however, stories with them have the potential, in the least, to run from love to hate, from light humor to intense angst, and from simple PWP to gigantic, sprawling, mythological epic, all by simply focusing on different elements of the relationship as already presented on the show. In reality, the fic tends to favor the darker side of things. My own approach tends to be more all-inclusive, but I'll start with the angst.
It's not hard to understand, after all. The critics repeatedly called Brimstone a disturbingly dark show--which often puzzles fans, given that we see an equal amount of hope and humor in it. But we don't try to deny that the dark aspects are there. The show deals with escapees from Hell, the hero himself was Damned--for a better reason than most, but nonetheless, Damned--and the Devil appears in every single episode. Given what we know about the Devil outside the show, and certain behaviors within the show, it's not hard to imagine him screwing Zeke over both metaphorically and literally--and Brimstone reflects that by having more than its fair share of fics with non-con and issues of uncertain consent. Despite the fact that the show almost certainly would have given us a happy ending, it did a good job, at times, of giving you the sense that it was possible that there couldn't be a happy ending, really, especially not with Zeke and the Devil, which a number of fic authors enjoy working with.
The 'Hell' and 'Devil' aspects bring in yet another interesting reason for shipping these two: you can do some fascinating things by working with Christian theology. Of course, sometimes this can require alarming amounts of research, but in an odd way Brimstone has not just 13 episodes worth of canon, but the entirety of Judeo-Christian history to draw from. Start yourself at Genesis and work forward: a ridiculous amount of this stuff can be played with in writing for this series, and when you start pairing the Devil with anyone, you almost have to start considering the religious/mythological aspects and implications. And it can, surprisingly, be a ridiculous amount of fun.
Another fun thing about this pairing, opposite from but oddly not incompatible with the angst, is the snark. On the show they exchange witty banter by the truckload, and it's possible and delightful to take it onto the page, too. In fact, my particular versions of these characters snark so much I have a hard time shutting them up--even in bed. It's even possible to write gen with them and realize they're flirting without you even intending to, just by capturing some of the original tone they had. The humor on the show and between the two of them is often dark, but it is there, and consequently you can get some wonderfully sarcastic or black humor going in fic, as well.
And their relationship is unusual to explore in and of itself. There's something about the characters, and how they interact. I mean, here you have a mere mortal, who isn't even that powerful for one of the Damned, regularly standing up to and goading the Devil himself--and getting away with it. Why? How? On the show, the Devil and Zeke seem to have an unusually solid working relationship, all things considered, and it doesn't take that much work to extend it a little bit farther than the strange species of almost-friends they are when things are going well. And when things aren't going well, there exists between them a sort of furious passion that makes one slamming the other up against a wall and snogging him senseless seem entirely possible.
And when you're doing romance and sex where one of the characters is an extremely powerful supernatural being, well.... Let's just say you can be very flexible. It's something of a canonical given, for example, that the Devil can, at any time he wants to, take Zeke into an illusion which not only looks and feels like the real thing, but effectively removes him from wherever he actually was in reality--and that's just the beginning of the fun you can have.
In fact, that's part of the reason why I so love this particular pairing, and why they've eaten my brain: the range of possibility. There are so many potential ways to put the characters together, and so many different possible power dynamics and scenarios that I am drenched in plot bunnies for the pairing, and get new ones on average once a week. You can, in short, do almost anything with these two, and if you give me time I'd certainly be happy to try.
In summation: they fight, they flirt, they spend a ridiculous amount of time looking like they're either going to kiss or kill each other, the Devil can't respect Zeke's personal space, Zeke doesn't particularly respect the Devil's reputation or authority, there's snark, passion, fun religious aspects, built-in angst, supernatural powers, amazing chemistry, extreme possessiveness, and a canonical instance of one character saying, "I love you," even if it was in sarcasm.
All this, and blasphemy, too.
As Brimstone is, as I mentioned several thousand words back, a small fandom, there aren't a lot of resources for it, but there are some. The official website has long since vanished into the mists of the net, but The Official John Glover Website maintains a special section for Brimstone, with a fairly solid collection of information. On LJ, lucifen is the Brimstone community. And I have it on good authority--which is to say, I've nagged the owners about it--that SadLittleLook.com will be up in the next month or so, with the Brimstone section among the first active areas.
On the fic side of things Brimstone is also pretty rare, with a lot of it lost to the vagaries of the net, but there's still some good stuff to be had:
sidewinder is one of the oldest, most-well known, and most prolific writers of Brimstone. Earthbound is her epic, and examines the relationship between Zeke and the Devil from a very unusual angle. Plague of Ghosts is also another excellent one by her, being both something of a romantic story and something of a happy ending in a fandom not known for either.
My two favorite stories by kaiz are actually snippets: Minty Freshness (PG-13), a lovely little Devil POV with some great banter that also explores something that came up in the show involving toothpaste, and Walk A Mile In the Devil's Shoes (R), which features some of the slam-against-a-wall passion I mentioned earlier. These two ficlets are a lot to blame for me getting involved in Brimstone in the first place.
One of the most angsty-yet-good Zeke/Devil stories there is, where the title nearly says it all, is Despair: a Love Story, by buggery. Definitely one of the ones that goes into the darker aspects of the show, but not in a bad way.
thete1 undertook Brimstone for 101 Ways To End Up In A Canadian Shack, and came up with a great little story that nails the darker humor of the series dead on. Primrose Path isn't explicitly Zeke and the Devil any more than the show is... which says a lot about the show, I think.
ciceqi has done two great stories, companion pieces, that do a wonderful job exploring both the somewhat murky consent issues the pairing can have, and the Devil's extreme possessiveness. All night the dreadless Angel is from Zeke's POV, & And season him thy last and sweetest prey is from the Devil's, both describing the same events, and building off of each other in interesting ways, making them much more than just the PWPs they could have been.
As far as the working-relationship, almost friends thing goes, kelex's Man of No Means explores that aspect of their relationship, with bonus sushi.
harriet_spy has only written one Brimstone story, but what a story. The mind is its own place is another one of the darker ones, but it has that same thread of banter the show had, and ends on an oddly positive note. And also it has some extraordinary use of Christian mythology, although in a not-for-everyone way, I suspect.
serrico did a lovely flirty Zeke and the Devil piece for last year's yuletide: Recommitment. The pairing in this one is subtle, but the banter is dead-on.
And lastly, though I'm a bit hesitant to be pimping my own work out, I've written a number of Brimstone stories and intend to write many more. The completed stuff can be found here, and everything but the ficlets is either flat-out Devil/Zeke or at least suggestive in that direction--as I've said, these two can sneak flirting into gen. I expect to have more stories up as soon as the end of this month.
I hope you've enjoyed my manifesto--it's not only late, but it's also vastly over spec, for which I have to beg the community moderator's indulgence: it's a small, odd fandom, so I felt I had to explain more than I might normally have had to just to set the stage. If this essay has either rekindled an old Brimstone interest of yours, or given you a new one, I'm afraid Brimstone isn't the easiest fandom to get into. As I said, we've got no official DVDs, and no station I know of is still airing them in repeat. If you poke around online you can sometimes find episodes of varying quality available for download (DAPCentral.org, for example, though their episode order is incorrect), canthlian has a standing offer on the table to send VCDs for cost of shipping, and decidedly unofficial sets of uncertain quality will appear on eBay from time to time. Outside of that, I don't know of anything--if you do, please don't hesitate to share the information. After all, the show may be dead, but the fandom doesn't have to be.