(Untitled)

[_to_the_bone]

Things are better.

Jack is in.

Playing toss catch toss with a crystal ball on a couch, a suitable distance away from the fire.

Comments

[burning_evil]

Satan wanders over, looking as though he's in need of some entertainment.

'Evening Jack.'

[burning_evil]

'The Vatican? Or Hell?'

He grins, because he figures Jack meant Italy and it would be no fun to just answer.

'They're much the same.'

[_to_the_bone]

"Hell."

He's wrong.

"Does it never snow?"

[burning_evil]

'In Hell?'

Cue 'bzuh?!' look.

'No. Never. Why would I want it to snow?' He thinks for a moment, then adds, 'Not in the general place anyway. Personal hells, maybe.'

[_to_the_bone]

"I like snow."

He shrugs, ignoring the stunned look.

"What is it like?"

[burning_evil]

he leans back, spreading his arms over the back of his chair and tilting his head at him.

'Why don't you come visit?' There's a vicious grin. 'Although there's that saying about snowballs and Hell, right?'

[_to_the_bone]

"You remember what happened last time you said that?"

He frowns at him.

"I think it would be like that only thrashing and not controlled, and I cannot come and will not explain that so do not ask, but please tell me? I have never been, nor do I truly understand it. I would like to, but I cannot trust you that way at all, you know. It is your realm and you could hold me so very simply."

[burning_evil]

Belial smirks at him.

'Talkative tonight aren't you? I don't see why you can't trust me Jack, I haven't hurt you in a very long time.'

Frost is a different thing.

'Hell is...' He shrugs. 'For the most part, whatever you don't want it to be. If you want to spend your afterlife drinking with beautiful women but you've let me get your hands on me during your life, then you'll probably end up face drinking water and being sodomized by demons and your worst enemies - all men. For eternity. See how it goes?'

[_to_the_bone]

"Backwards. Quite contrary, Belial. That is almost artful."

He draws back, very slightly.

"It was me whose back you branded. And only me."

[burning_evil]

'Not exactly backwards. It's more complicated than that but I'm not sure you'd understand.'

Not getting into the whole 'worst nightmare' thing in detail, and where demons come into it and work and fear.

There's another shrug though, at the statement. 'When you first got the tattoo, it was the other. I remember it well and you weren't there then.'

[_to_the_bone]

"And it was him who put the second stupid thing there, but it was me whose neck you grabbed and me you yanked and me you pressed a callous palm to and sent me tumbling, Belial."

He sets his chin on his knees.

"You are not allowed to say you do not hurt me. I remember it very clearly too."

[burning_evil]

'I'm allowed to do whatever I like.'

A cigarette appears between his teeth though his arms don't move from their relaxed sprawl.

'And it would have been Frost that got my handprint but he was too much of a coward to put in an appearance. Blame him for that.'

[_to_the_bone]

"Well, you cannot say it and have it be true" he replies, calmly enough, spirits too high to really be dampened by all this.

"I wish you two would not argue so. You have told me a dozen times over that my feeling only the pain of it is not fair. What is night life, Belial?"

[burning_evil]

Satan tilts his head and refuses to accept the topic change for the time being.

'Are you saying you want to feel the pleasure of it as well?'

[_to_the_bone]

"I am saying that it does not matter, it is not really my choice. Unlike him, I do not take pleasure in burning. Nor in even that sort of pain, no matter what is fiddled at me."

The incident makes a shudder crawl up his spine, and he tilts his head, beseechingly.

"I do not know and you must."

[burning_evil]

'I wasn't talking about pleasure in burning. I was talking about the pleasure that doesn't involve any kind of pain at all.'

He leans forward slightly and his shades vanish to reveal the shining blue eyes.

'Maybe I should show you before this Salvatore gets his hands on you, hmmm?'