#because Nikolai's always searching for peace in the wrong places

[kikizoshi]

It's amazing how much of my progress with understanding and working with Nikolai as a character is predicated on his backstory. His backstory, which is exclusive to me, because I'm the one who made it. But every time I'm working on any questions to do with his philosophies or motivations, I have to delve into his past. It's so essential. No wonder I couldn't get anywhere with canon Nikolai--there literally just isn't enough there. Not enough for someone like me, anyway. I'm sure it's possible.

[writeblrfantasy]

born from the prologue of the way of kings, some old school supernatural inspiration, and my entry into the hannibal fandom, i give you cyril's hell! all the characters in this are gods of actium state and urkon, and this happens well before acogs takes place. nikolai and katya tell this story over the fire over the course of the book. it's a mythology story.

cw blood, very vague descriptions of pain and torture and injuries, everything you can think of about someone being tortured in hell basically

word count about 7000

thank you guys for all the love on the summer of seret ashling, it definitely inspired me to write another short. i love writing shorts--you get the serotonin from finishing a wip and seeing people's reactions to it much faster. lower stakes. i have plans to write many more :)

enjoy! <3

Cyril wakes to burning pinpricks of agony seared into his arms. Unfortunately, this is perfectly normal.

The ghost of Alabaster’s laugh echoes in his ears, slowly fading out, but never completely. He never leaves Cyril alone, whether he’s sleeping—if you can call it that—or widely, excruciatingly awake. He’s dropped Cyril back in what has become his home, a room brightly lit with distant fire and a musical background consisting of the screams of the damned.

This place, out of all, is probably the safest for him, despite the metal piercing his arms, the chains connecting him to the ceiling. His arms went numb from the angle minutes ago. He tries not to jostle them, as well as his collection of new wounds, only healed enough not to kill him.

What does Cyril have to do to prove he knows he can't escape?

It’s not about that, he knows.

Alabaster's hell is more than pain, more than agony. It transcends anything Cyril has ever experienced, and yet every week Alabaster finds ways to show him something else new.

How long has it been?

Does it matter?

Alabaster’s cologne lingers on Cyril’s skin, one more layer of invisible pain. The worst thing is perhaps how he’s unable to wipe away the sweat dripping into his eyes. It only takes minutes after Alabaster deposits him back in here for his whole body to become soaked again.

Cyril naively thought, when Alabaster first brought him here, that it wouldn’t be so bad. That everything he’d be made to endure would be softened or cushioned in some way, more about drama than actual pain.

How wrong he was.

Alabaster, or perhaps just his own mind, has trained him to be relieved when he comes to unlock Cyril’s door every week. Freedom, he thinks, respite from the endless heat and sweat and reprieve for his aching arms. For the first few seconds, Alabaster’s smile looks pleasant. He’s undoubtedly excited to see Cyril, but Cyril somehow manages to forget every single time that smile means nothing good for him.

“Hello, beautiful,” Alabaster always says, in such a familiar tone it’s imprinted in Cyril’s dreams. “Let’s go.”

Reprieve turns into regret quickly.

Cyril has learned how to manage this, somewhat. Stay very still, don’t trigger anything, don’t tense up, try to sleep. Doing nothing but sleep for the whole week until Alabaster comes still won’t do enough, but in sleep, he has relief for a bit longer, a chance to see Damokles’ face again.

Tonight, when he closes his eyes, it’s not just Damokles’ kind eyes waiting for him, it’s Thea’s dark ones, clearer than usual, almost like they’re calling out for him.

He opens them and jostles himself a bit by accident, groaning in agony. He searches the shadows in the corner of the room for her face, and he could’ve sworn—

There’s nothing there but the sweat in his eyes.

***

As he drifts through sleep and wakefulness, Thea’s dark eyes return to him. He sees flashes of her through the haze of flames and screams, a striking dark clarity and a sense of peace.

The days just before Alabaster collects him are the worst. He finally has his strength back, or as he much as is possible down here, and it’s a new kind of agony to feel so glorious the day before his feet will be knocked out from under him. In the early days, when he still believed he could sway Alabaster by repetition alone, that if he begged just enough, Alabaster might listen, he pled to be left alone for just one more week.

“Not this time,” he’d sob, back when he still sobbed, when he gave Alabaster the pleasure of savoring his carefully crafted creation. Let him see, let him have it, he once thought. If he gave Alabaster what he wanted, he’d get a reward, because that’s how fair people work. All it did was make Alabaster hungry for more of his tears.

“Thea?” he whispers, low, as he swears her face appears in the shadows again. She’s exquisite, and she’s not real. if he’s not just seeing things, she’s one of Alabaster’s new experiments designed to drive him out of his mind.

Cyril will not fall for it.

“Thea?” he asks, still, hopeful and naïve despite everything.

The darkness in the corner moves, too clear to be a product of the shadows cast by the flames. Cyril stands straight so that his feet are supporting his weight instead of his arms, alleviating the perpetual ache in his back for a precious moment.

Theadora, in all her glory, walks out of the corner, dripping darkness and shade. Her long dark hair flows behind her, and her skin shines under the straps of her long dress. She doesn’t seem to walk on solid ground—her feet and the bottom of her black dress melt into shadows before his eyes.

Cyril loses his breath. She’s just as beautiful as he remembers. Most wonderfully of all, she’s clean, her face free of sweat and her arms free of blood and age old wounds.

She rushes over to him immediately, cupping his pale, ashen face in her dark hands. “Cyril,” she whispers, perhaps afraid of disturbing nonexistent peace. Cyril would be more afraid of drawing Alabaster’s attention.

“You’re not real,” he murmurs as she presses their foreheads together. She smells like their garden in the clouds, sweet and fresh, not a trace of smoke anywhere on her. She kisses him, and Cyril melts into it like liquid, imagining he can sip freezing water from her lips. She’s so refreshingly cold. Her heart is the only part of her that’s warm, and pleasantly so. It burns for him.

“He fabricated you to taunt me with for his pleasure. You’ll be gone in a moment, and I’ll be screaming for you because I still haven’t learned after all this time, and in a few days he’ll come in to see the results.”

“No. Cyril, I am real.” She touches one of his hands, clearly resisting the urge to squeeze it but knowing the ramifications. The way she stares at the chains holding him to the ceiling makes him shiver. He’s almost forgotten any type of power existed other than hot, burning, prodding pain.

How he’s missed the icy power of the moon.

“I am here to get you out,” she insists. He closes his eyes—they’re the words he’s dreamed of thousands of times, exactly in her sweet, desperate voice, but it’s too good. If he concentrates hard enough, he can see Alabaster’s grin in Thea’s eyes.

“You can only open the door from the inside, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let you in,” he argues. Anything else pleasant would tear him apart when it inevitably crumbles down on him. “You—you wouldn’t happen to have any water, would you?”

“Of course.” She brings out a jug and raises it to his lips. He drinks eagerly, the water sweet and cold, probably from the Pelia, her favorite. He doesn't care if it's poisoned.

Her silver bracelets sparkle in the firelight, and his eyes follow her fingers as she wipes the swipe off his face with a velvet cloth. He jerks his hands towards her as she begins to pull away on instinct, remembering his chains with a sigh. She’s still close enough for him to press his lips to her dark wrist, light as a feather.

He jerks again when something wet hits him, but his heart lurches when he looks up and sees that it’s her tears. For a moment, the only sound is the crackle of the fire lining the walls and the distant screams of Alabaster’s victims.

Cyril has never wanted his hands back as much as he does now. He wants to wrap his arms around her, whisper assurances in her ear like he used to when she grew worried. Instead, she wraps her arms around his torso and buries her face in the hollow his neck, crying quietly. The slight twinge of pain her salty tears bring to his hundreds of wounds old and new is more than worth it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, closing his eyes.

She gathers herself enough to say, “What? Why?”

“I’m sorry for getting caught. I never should’ve left you. I should’ve been smarter, shouldn’t have let him anywhere near me, I knew what would happen—”

For a moment he's back in that seedy human tavern with both of them, intrigued but not alarmed by Alabaster's sudden presence and mischievous grin. What a fool he was to let Alabaster take him outside. Before he knew it, he was here.

“I would slap you," Thea says. "This is no one’s fault but Alabaster’s.”

He raises his eyes and smiles at her through his lashes. Thea makes him feel young again, as free and painless as if he’d never been dragged down here.

She pulls back, dries her eyes, and says steadily, “Me and Damokles have been waiting outside the door every night. Alabaster has been greedy, going out more often to collect new victims. He’s been careless. He leaves the door open enough for me to slip in through the darkness. He’s bright enough to take up all the light, he doesn’t notice me.”

Cyril’s heart pounds. Damokles. He resists temptation to ask about him—Thea would tell him if something was amiss with him—and instead asks, “How long have you been trying to get in here?”

“Too long. I’ve only been able to set foot inside some of his maze before he comes back or locks the door. This place is convoluted.” She swallows. “Do you even know where you are?”

He doesn’t care about where he is, he cares that she is actually starting to sound real, which is the worse option. If she’s just Alabaster’s creation, she’ll be ripped away from him. if she’s real, she’ll be ripped away from him when Alabaster discovers them together, and that will hurt ten times as much.

“Yes,” he says, smiling. “The eighth ring of hell. I’ve been through them all. The misconception is that each gets worse the further up you go, but that’s not true. Each sector of hell is just as bad as the last, just in different ways.” He licks his lips.

“Alabaster has spared nothing spared nothing in my tour of his domain. He’s shown me every piece of what he calls art. I have become so intimately familiar with the beauty of hell, the beauty of pain, the purity of it. He says it reduces us to our most basic needs again, tears down our walls and erases our dignity. He loves watching the change.”

Her mouth drops open. “He—” A distant creak draws her eye, whipping her hair into his eyes.

“That’s nothing,” he says. “I hear that ten times a day.”

“Nothing for you, maybe. That’s the sound of Alabaster opening the door.”

“Really? It’s that quiet? That’s a bit anti-climactic.”

She hasn’t taken her eyes off the door. “I need to go.”

“No,” he says, rattling his chains, which is more likely to draw Alabaster than their voices. He seems to have a sense for when Cyril is struggling or in pain more than when he’s talking to himself. “Please. Don’t leave. I won’t survive it.”

I won’t survive it? He’s survived far more corporeal pain than Thea’s absence. Moreover, where is this panic coming from?

“I’m sorry,” she echoes—now she’s the one with nothing to apologize for. The last thing he wants is her getting trapped down here too. He’d sooner endure everything Alabaster has done to him again than let him touch her. “I’ll be back, I swear. Damokles and I miss you more than you know.” She feeds him the rest of the water and kisses him one more time, a break from the endless heat. He takes it greedily. He’ll take everything he can get.

“That one’s from him,” she says, longing eyes raking him over one last time, before disappearing into the shadows of the corner. He knows she’s gone—the flames flicker, almost going out, before returning in full force. The sweat she wiped away from his forehead returns quicker than he would’ve liked, but at least Alabaster doesn’t come running.

***

“Hello, beautiful. Let’s go.”

Alabaster sweeps into the room in a ray of light blocking out the darkness of the hallway behind him. The clank his lantern makes when he sets it on the floor is a noise Cyril hears in his dreams.

Cyril stopped speaking to him long ago, and he ignores Alabaster while he reaches up, spreading his sweet smell everywhere, to free his arms. Through gritted teeth and a stifled shout, he lowers them, resisting the familiar temptation to shake them out.

“You know you don’t have to hide your sounds,” Alabaster says. “They’re like music to me, the finest lutes and cellos all at once.”

“That’s exactly why I do.” It’s the first time he’s spoken in a week, and his voice is hoarse and dry with thirst and underuse. “No water this time?”

“I have something better.”

“Better for you, maybe.”

Alabaster grins, showing sharp white canines, running a hand through white blond hair. He’s always chosen a wickedly tall body with long, pale fingers, skinny as a stick. The sleeves of the crisp white shirt under his brown waistcoat are always rolled up above his elbows, ready at a moment’s notice to get elbow deep. Black trousers are always stainless and black shoes are always shined perfectly.

He never wears a hint of the filth that lives in his mind, the grime that’s often under his fingernails. The only light he gets is that of the flames—he’d never go near Cyril’s sun if he could help it, just in case it might hurt him. He only leaves to draw in more victims, never under Thea’s moonlight. Cyril has been around him long enough to know that he’s not invincible, not mentally, at least. He does have fears.

To be fair, Cyril can’t think of many who wouldn’t be terrified of Theadora.

Alabaster rests a hand on his lower back as he escorts him out of his little room; Cyril jerks out of the way.

Alabaster is a whole head and slim shoulders above him, and Cyril hates having to look up at him, but his power on this place prevents Cyril from changing his own appearance. He’s been stuck with white skin, plain blond hair and sea blue eyes for however long he’s been down here, a short body with a bit of fabricated muscle—Thea liked that. He hasn't seen his own shirt since he got here, and his pants are somehow still clean.

Gods don't need to eat, so Alabaster never feeds him. Just one more pleasure he can deprive Cyril of.

After this, when he gets out, because there will be a when, Thea will come back—he’ll never be able to stomach wearing a toned body again. Perhaps the strength Cyril gave himself improved his endurance a little bit, but he stopped counting his blessings long ago.

He and the others are the ones who give the blessings. They shouldn’t be able to take them from each other, but Alabaster has taught him with not just words that anything can be broken if you try long enough, human or god.

The only thing Alabaster doesn’t have control of down here is his eyes, orange like his flames. Every master of hell has to don them while they’re down here.

The orange glows and dispels all hints of innocent gold. That gold fades every time Alabaster sets foot here in his heaven, and returns when he mingles with normal humans, enticing them with his beauty to follow him to the point of no return.

“So,” Alabaster drawls as they walk out of Cyril’s little prison room into the darkness of the hall together, the screams louder and everything dirtier, “you’re in a rather good mood.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You’re glowing. I work hard to make sure no one glows except me.”

Cyril rolls his eyes. Let Alabaster psychoanalyze him all he wants, that won’t change the fact that for the first time, Cyril has hope built on fact. Hope is something Alabaster can beat out of him, but not if he doesn’t know why Cyril has it, and he’s already exhausted the Thea-and-Damokles-aren’t-coming-to-save-you angle. It’s a novelty now.

Alabaster shepherds him to a room Cyril could easily find on his own now, hell’s elevator, or as Alabaster likes to call it, the hellevator. The box of iron bars is decorated with skulls. Cyril started naming them a while ago to occupy his mind. Tiana stares down at him from the top corner, Alis from the outside looking in.

He waves at them. Alabaster doesn’t keep him in chains outside his room, since there’s no hope of him escaping hell. Only the master of hell can open the door, and only from the inside.

The elevator takes off with a lurch that knocks Cyril backward. It's nothing more than a cage, and no more stable, but Alabaster is convinced of his own invincibility, that nothing will ever befall him in his own domain. Cyril is determined to prove him wrong.

As the elevator finally stops, he lands with another lurch that ends with him face first in the filthy ground. It’s far from the first time, and he picks himself up with what dignity he has left while Alabaster strides out upright.

Alabaster brings him past room after room, cell after cell of unfortunate people like him who have endured Alabaster’s abuse like him. They stop in front of a pair of bone decorated double doors that stretch up toward the sky, shadows licking at the walls. Screams seem to come from within, or perhaps that’s just Cyril’s mind.

The doors open slowly, apparently triggered by Alabaster’s presence. “Welcome to my newest creation,” Alabaster says with a grin, spreading his arms. The room is large and shiny and new, not yet tainted with bloodstains and misery. Cyril is here to break it in.

Cyril lays on the table where Alabaster asks him to, doesn’t try to run. He’s tried, so many times. It gets him nowhere. It’s easier just to submit.

Alabaster probably likes this best. Not the physical pain, the scars, the blood, but rather watching all the joy and hope fade from Cyril’s eyes.

Alabaster loves nothing more than inflicting pain, but he has too many unwilling participants to get to. He only personally tends to a handful of his favorites, but he’s made it abundantly clear that Cyril is his ultimate favorite. “I’ve managed to capture a god,” he said when Cyril asked. “An equal. How could I not treasure that? I will find time to visit you personally every week however long as I keep interest in you.”

Alabaster will never lose interest.

What gets Cyril through it this day is the memory of Thea’s icy hands on him, her tear filled kiss, her promising words. Hope. Hope will get you killed here, or it can sustain you if you’re lucky. If you hide it well enough.

Hope is the memory of the natural warmth of his sun on his chest instead of the harsh heat of hellfire. He thinks of one day in particular, laying in a field north of Actium, flowers arranged in his hair by Thea, the wind threatening to blow them away while Damokles’ fingers carded mindlessly through it.

They had so few worries, then. They are gods, what do they have to worry about? They are eternal. Nothing can hurt them but themselves and each other.

The irony of that, as Alabaster does what he does best, is striking.

***

The next time Thea visits, she brings Damokles.

Damokles has no control over the shadows, the darkness, hell, and especially not keeping silent, so Cyril doesn’t know how Thea managed to sneak him in, but that’s not the important part. The important part is that in seconds, Cyril has Damokles wrapped around him for the first time in who knows how long.

Thea stands to the side, her eyes brimming with tears but letting a weeping Damokles have his moment. Not much except pain can bring Cyril to tears, but the deep, chest wracking sobs Damokles lets out nearly do. “Oh, Cyril,” he cries, clearly unafraid of drawing Alabaster’s attention the way Thea was. “Sweet, sweet Cyril. My love. What has he done to you? I will rip him apart with my bare hands.”

Cyril smiles. “I’ve always loved your passion, but I think Thea’s iciness will be more lethal. You are nothing but fire, and while it is beautiful, Alabaster revels in it. Is resistant to it.” He looks over Damokles’ shoulder at her, the way she crosses her arms and passively admires them both.

“Fair enough.” Damokles kisses him with salty tears trapped between them, igniting the fresh wounds on Cyril’s face, but it doesn’t matter. His lips stretch his wounded cheeks into a stinging smile.

“Cyril, have you seen yourself?”

His smile fades. “No. Why?”

Damokles slicks back his black hair with his hand, and Cyril gets to admire the way the firelight dances off his olive skin. Cyril has a love hate relationship with the flames and the light they paint onto his lovers’ faces.

“Thea, can you get him a mirror?” Damokles asks, now decidedly not looking at him. Cyril’s heart begins to sink.

“I’m ugly to you now?” he asks quietly.

“No, no,” Damokles predictably says, cupping his cheeks. “Nothing could ever make you ugly in my eyes, or hers.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, Damokles.”

Thea passes Damokles a mirror, who holds it up in front of Cyril’s face.

The sight there takes his breath away.

Alabaster never gave him a mirror down here, ever, and for good reason. What has to be months and months, maybe even years of abuse and torture is shown on his face in lines of scars like claw marks. There’s an x over his right eye—he doesn’t even remember that one. What Alabaster does to him sometimes bleeds into mindless waves of pain.

“Tilt it down,” he breaths in a voice deep and full of grief that’s not his own. Thea takes in a sharp breath, and Damokles searches his face uncertainly before complying.

Cyril has never been vain about his looks—how could he when he could just change them anytime? But Alabaster’s hell is different. He can’t just wave away his scars. Anything etched into his skin down here will remain, which is probably why Alabaster has been so thorough in marking him.

The first time Alabaster brought him out of his little prison room, freed him from his chains, Cyril attacked him. Alabaster would’ve hurt him regardless, but the fire in his eyes increased after he pried Cyril’s hands from around his neck. He gave Cyril his first scar, a slash across his palm that cut deep and bled deeper. Before Alabaster put him back in chains, which effectively cut off his powers, Cyril tried to heal himself. Alabaster’s laugh afterwards still haunts him.

“That won’t work,” he said, smiling. “Hell’s scars cut deeper. They can’t be wiped away by anyone but me. I am going to enjoy making a canvas out of you, beautiful.”

Cyril spat in his face, but that didn’t change the outcome. Now, Alabaster’s masterpiece is unveiled to him for the first time. The body looking back at him in the mirror is unrecognizable in its horrors, faded pink lines wrapping around his torso like a rope, a collection of slashes over his heart, one long cut from his jaw to his collarbone.

He remembers that one, remembers wondering how it didn’t kill him. Of course, Alabaster would never let him die. He has utter control of every piece of matter in every circle of hell, from the worst torture rooms at the top, to the sixth ring where Cyril’s prison lies, to the door leading to the outside world at the bottom.

Cyril is strangely fascinated by his new appearance. A wave of panic that he’s stuck with this now washes over him, but he stubbornly pushes it back. He’s survived so much worse than vanity.

“Please, be honest,” he begs, hanging his head, letting his arms hold his weight like he does when he’s alone. “You truly don’t think differently of me?”

Thea and Damokles are silent for a long time, exchanging uncertain glances, which does nothing good for Cyril’s esteem. Finally Damokles turns to him and says, shaky and angry, “Of course I view you differently. I view you as someone who’s gone through pain and horrors I can’t even imagine, with scars he would probably love to get rid of but can’t. Cyril, I’m pissed.”

Cyril swallows. Thea murmurs Damokles’ name and lays a hand on his arm, but he shakes it off. Damokles never hides his emotions. There isn’t enough space within him to contain everything he feels—it’s the reason every human looks to him for guidance with the head and the heart.

“I’m pissed that Alabaster did this, more pissed than I could ever express. I’m a little pissed at you for not being pissed at us, for thinking we’d ever abandon you, that we haven’t been trying to find you. Don’t deny it, I know that look on your face. Most of all, I’m pissed that we took so long to get here. I’m pissed at myself for not doing more.”

He pushes his hair back again, long curls always falling into his eyes, and seems to get some of his sense back. “Thea will attest that she had to hold me back every time we watched Alabaster leave hell. I could barely keep my hands to myself, I wanted them around his pale little throat. His unmarred, unscarred throat.” Damokles’ fists clench. Cyril shivers under the burning rage in both their eyes, boiling—or in Thea’s case, freezing—just under the surface.

“Cyril, you are the bravest thing I’ve known. I love you. Nothing could ever change that. How could I ever be anything but horrified for you?”

“I don’t want you to be horrified,” Cyril says. “I want you to treat me the same way you always have. I just want to go back to how things were before I was abducted.”

Thea’s sad eyes tell him what he already knows: things will never be the same again. But Cyril can shut his eyes and pretend, just for a moment, that they’re back in the field under the sun with Thea’s flowers and Damokles’ fingers in his hair.

“Can you hang in here just one more week?” Damokles asks. “We’ll get you out. I have a plan.”

Cyril’s eyes dart to Thea, raising an eyebrow. She’s staring at Damokles like she’s never seen him before.

Cyril swallows all his questions and nods. “Okay. I trust you.”

Damokles breaks into a blinding white grin and kisses him again, sweet and hot in the way Cyril needs. Thea is wonderful, and sometimes is the break from reality he needs, but Damokles is the dose of truth no one else will tell him.

Thea’s icy kiss comes next, with both of them their arms around him to follow. “When you’re out and completely free of pain,” Damokles says, a promise burning in his eyes, “I’ll show you exactly what I think of your scars.” Thea hits his arm, calls him inappropriate, but Cyril’s grin reassures them both.

They disappear into the shadows, Damokles holding tightly to Thea’s arm. The heat of the flames doesn’t feel so intense, now. When Alabaster comes the following week, Cyril is almost grinning, and no question Alabaster poses in between cuts and bruises can make him give them up.

***

It’s not Alabaster’s abuse or declining sanity that will kill him, it’s the anticipation, the waiting. When Thea and Damokles finally melt out of the shadows, after an eternity of waiting, Cyril’s stomach is in knots. Even stranger, both of them are empty handed.

“How are we going to get me out of here if you have nothing to do so?” Cyril demands before noticing the expressions on their faces. Damokles’ mouth is set in a grim line, and he tries to force a smile that just doesn’t stick. He’s uptight and determined about something, or, more accurately, stubborn.

Thea is furious. She’s perfectly composed and neat as always, but her fists are clenched and the air in the room is more frigid than usual. Cyril isn’t complaining about the latter, but they’re obviously withholding information. “What’s going on?”

“We’re here to get you out, like we promised,” Thea says in a far stiffer tone than he pictured her saying those words, glaring at Damokles’ back. Cyril has tried getting her to budge when she shuts herself off before, and it’s a fruitless effort, so he doesn’t even try now. He’s always been the calm force keeping those two storms from destroying each other. Without him there to separate them, who knows what they’ve gotten up to.

“And how are you going to do that?” Cyril asks again, shaking his chains. “Only Alabaster can get me out of these.”

“Oh, love, is that what he’s been telling you all this time?” Damokles asks with the pain of the heartbroken. “We can’t open the doors of hell, we can’t remove your scars, but gods have more influence in hell than you would think.”

Cyril’s blood begins boiling just under his skin. “Are you telling me I could’ve freed myself somehow this whole time?”

“No, those chains are as anti-god as I’ve ever seen. We didn’t free you before because we didn’t know—we just found this week—but it’s probably a good idea we didn’t. I would’ve hated causing you the pain of replacing them before Alabastard got back.” Damokles closes his eyes and breathes slowly, fists clenched at his sides. The fire flutters in the room, and a pop of air follows.

The breath is knocked out of Cyril as the chains abruptly break and drop his arms from the ceiling. Much like the elevator, he falls to his knees with the force of it. Thea is there immediately to hug him while Damokles deals with the noise of the chains. Cyril leaves the possibility of Alabaster in their hands, they’re not stupid. He allows himself to bury his face in her neck and shake, weak with relief.

“It’s okay now,” she murmurs into his hair. “You’re going to see your sun again soon. My moon.”

He begins quietly sobbing.

He told himself, all the times he foolishly dreamt of freedom only for Alabaster to drive the dream out of him, that he wouldn’t cry. He’d stay strong, he’d pretend he was fine. Damokles and Thea are too perceptive, too sensitive, he didn’t want to upset them any more than he knew they would be.

So much for that.

“Please,” he begs, a word he’s used so much, but never like this. He’s shaking all over, bleeding from his lip, bleeding inside, burning. He’s always burning, always bleeding, always pleading. Alabaster thrives on it. “Help me. Get me out of this place. Can't you just take me out through the shadows?”

“We will get you out,” she says shakily, dodging the question, cradling the back of his sweaty, bloody head against her. She’s on the verge of tears. Damokles drops to the floor to join the pile, wrapping chiseled arms around them both. They sit there in silence for a moment, grieving and celebrating and fearing and hoping. Cyril’s heart is so full of love for both of them he could burst.

“What about Alabaster?” Cyril has to ask at last. They can’t avoid him forever.

Damokles stands and suddenly shouts, “Alabaster! Come out, you bastard. Face us.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Cyril hisses, but Thea holds him down. "Let's just go out through the shadows." He'll leave Alabaster behind, he'll leave it all behind without revenge if it means he can just be safe.

“He’s an idiot,” she says, “but you have to trust him. He has a plan.”

“I know how hell works, Thea. I know the limits of Damokles’ stupidity.”

She just cradles him closer. He should've known Damokles wouldn't be able to leave without revenge.

After a few minutes of nothing, a great rumble begins shaking the room. If Cyril still hides his head in Thea’s neck, who’s to judge?

Alabaster has never made a dramatic entrance like this before, which must mean Damokles is onto something.

Cyril hears the moment Alabaster enters the room, firm boots on stone, Thea’s inhale. Cyril raises his head and sees Damokles standing tall and strong, his favorite handmade sword stashed somewhere else. It wouldn’t do anything against a god—Thea begged him not to include that in the list of things it could slice through like bread, and he loved her enough to agree.

Quick as Thea’s lightning, Damokles lunges forward and wraps his arms around Alabaster from behind. He is the patron of soldiers for a reason, his strength is unmatched, his grip sure. Alabaster struggles to no avail.

Cyril studies the contrast in them with pleasure. Damokles meets his eyes, panting, and smirks. Alabaster isn’t struggling, bucking Damokles off like he did so easily with Cyril. Perhaps it’s Damokles’ natural strength, maybe Alabaster is more afraid of him than Cyril.

“Oh, Alabaster,” Cyril says, smiling. “You spent so long trying to teach me the beauty of your ways, but you never believed I’d start agreeing with you. Well, here you go.” He raises his arms, trying to hide a wince and stifle a groan of pain. Thea’s hands on his waist help steady him—though that might just be her calming powers. “Here is the result of your hard work in all its glory. Are you happy now?”

Alabaster looks at him through long, pale eyelashes. He manages a manic grin through the grimace breaking out on his face, licking the sweat off of his lip. He’s blinking and flicking his hair like that will do anything about the sweat. Cyril is looking forward to watching him realize nothing will work.

“This won’t work,” Alabaster says. “Keep me as long as you want, but you’ll never leave. Only the master of hell can open the door, and from the inside, and I swear I’ll never open it for you as long as I live.”

“Good thing you’re not going to be the master of hell much longer,” Damokles says, lowering Alabaster to his knees in front of him, hands held behind his back. His eyes meet a breathless Cyril’s. “Shall I place him in your hooks?”

Cyril, open mouthed, is speechless even for that question. He can only manage a small shake of the head. “Keep him low, where he belongs. Don’t give him the dignity of meeting your eyes.”

Damokles nods in approval. Thea helps Cyril to his feet to avoid that exact issue, and Damokles ties Alabaster’s hands more securely with some rope. “What the hell do you mean?” Cyril asks.

Damokles meets his eyes without fear, a dark, intense stare. “I mean, I’m going to kill Alabaster and take his place.”

The whole room freezes. Even the fire seems to still.

Cyril looks at Thea for help, but her arms are crossed and her face set in that same muted furious expression she arrived with. He understands the fierce determination in Damokles’ eyes now.

“You’re not.”

“I will. That bastard doesn’t deserve to live, and you two deserve to get out.”

“Why can’t you just take both of us through with your shadows?” Cyril demands of Thea.

She’s crying now, silent and strong, even with her cheeks shiny and wet. “The moment Alabaster places his mark on someone, like a scar, they are bound to this place and its rules. No shadows for you.”

“Not even after his death?”

She shakes her head and squeezes his waist. “I tried so hard to talk him out of it,” she says, gesturing to Damokles. “His mind can’t be changed.”

“Damokles, no,” Cyril says. This can’t be real. “Don’t do this to us. I can’t lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” Damokles says, his own eyes shining. He’s smiling, though. “If we could, I would have you kill him.”

Cyril breathes out. “I don’t want you to get trapped down here! At least, uh”—he rubs his forehead— “you be the master only until Thea and I can find someone to take your place. We’ll find a way to do it without you having to be killed.”

“You would involve a human in this mess? An innocent?”

“I won’t lose you.”

“It’ll be preferable to what you went through,” Damokles counters, though Cyril sees his hands trembling. Cyril’s lower lip begins trembling.

“I’m not sure it will be,” he chokes out. “You’ll be without the physical pain. The rest is the same. I never had to manage the eight rings of hell.”

Damokles shakes his head, turning his eyes back to his prey. He sighs, then his hands are moving.

“Damokles, no!” Cyril yells. Thea’s hands hold him back, but it’s too late—rather, Damokles ignores him. He wrenches Alabaster’s head to the side with a crunch as satisfying as it is agonizing to watch. Thea squeezes his hand and lets out a harsh, shuddering breath, as Alabaster’s pale head falls limp.

The room begins shaking again. Thea falls to her knees and presses her forehead to the ground, Cyril is rooted to the spot. Damokles stands tall and breathes in, embracing his new role. When he opens his eyes, they’re bright, flame orange.

“You idiot,” Cyril hisses, shoving him back. “You didn’t give me any time to input. You never think. We could’ve worn him down in one of the hundreds of rooms alone I was sent to. We could’ve gotten our revenge and our freedom. Instead, you decided to become the master of hell instead. We’re split up again.”

“Better me than you.” Damokles yanks open the door of Cyril’s little room and walking with purpose. Cyril follows him. “Tell me where the door to this place is. I don’t know this place from the inside yet.”

“West,” Cyril says automatically, then curses himself. “You can’t just leave with us. Too long away and you’ll start to wither away, and I’m not coming back here if I can help it. This isn’t a solution. Far from it.”

“Hell no you’re not coming back here. Never again, for you.” Damokles takes a deep breath as Cyril guides him to the elevator. Thea is hot on their heels, shadows licking the ground. “Cyril, I did this because I love you and Thea more than I’ve ever loved anything. I would set fire to our Actium in a day if it meant protecting you. I didn’t care what it would take to free you, I just didn’t want you to suffer you anymore.”

“When you described how we’d spend our time when I was free, had you made up your mind then? Were you lying through your teeth?”

“No, dammit,” Damokles growls, turning around and pushing him against the wall. It burns Cyril’s back, but not as much as his kiss. “Don’t worry about me.”

“What if I love you, too?” Cyril yells back. “What if I never wanted us to be apart again? I will find a way to fix this. We will get you out.”

Damokles doesn’t argue.

When they reach the door Cyril tried to break out of so many times, tall, white, and uncharacteristically clean, Damokles kisses Thea goodbye. Tears begin filling Cyril’s eyes again as Damokles presses both hands to the door and murmurs something under his breath. It opens as easily as a human door.

“There you go,” Damokles whispers. Cyril can smell the fresh air, and it almost brings him to his knees, but he doesn’t look yet. He stubbornly looks back at the aching oranges and blacks, the smell of smoke that’s ingrained into his soul now, the blistering heat they’re leaving Damokles behind in. Thea’s hand snakes into his, and Cyril squeezes it like he’ll die if he doesn’t.

“We’ll meet again,” Damokles promises, before the door swings shut and locks with a boom. Cyril misses him immediately in a wave of incredible grief.

He turns around.

The sky is so very black, the stars so very bright, the air so very cool. Cyril closes his eyes and breathes in, long and slow the way he dreamed of for so, so, so long. But his right hand is painfully empty, the pains of hell too fresh. He needs a thousand baths, a thousand days in the sun, but he’ll never stop wishing Damokles was there.

Cyril breathes, closes his eyes, and with barely any effort changes his hair to a dull, mousy brown. It's an immediate relief, enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Cyril says, “but I already want to go back.”

“Yeah,” Thea murmurs, thick with tears. Cyril lets her cry, too in pain and exhausted to do anything but hold her hand and stand in solidarity.

In his mind, he’s in the field with flowers and fingers and laughter in his hair, the sun warming them all.

It's so peaceful at night.

It's wrong.

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