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mask131 · 2 years ago

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Dante’s Hell: The bottom of Hell

Before moving on to the next parts of Dante’s Hell, I want to insist on something I haven’t clearly spelled out before… But in the poem it is make clear that Hell, the Christian Hell depicted by Dante, is the same dimension as the Greco-Roman Underworld. When Theseus and Hercules went into the Underworld, they actually just went into Hell – but a Hell that didn’t have yet all of the sinners it has now since, before Christ’s death, all souls went to Limbo and the other circles were empty, or merely filled with the mythological creatures we get to see in Inferno (Furies, Medusa, Cerberus, etc…).

XV) The Giants

As our duo arrives at the end of the Eighth Circle, through the murky mist and thick darkness Dante identifies what looks to him like the great towers of a city… Only for Virgil to inform him that these are not towers, but Giants, who stand in the “Well” that is between the Eighth and Ninth Circle – their feet resting at the bottom of Hell and their bodies appearing at the border of the Eighth from the navel upward. Now, what does Dante means by “Giant”? Well, he uses this term to cover both the Greco-Roman “giants” (Giants and other affiliated big-sized monsters “sons of the earth”) and the Biblical “giants” (in the Biblical myth, it is believed that there were giants that existed in the early times of Earth, mostly but not all wiped out by the Great Flood), united here in their “evilness”, as both were seen as hostile, monstrous, destructive species that had to be wiped out. In Dante’s own words, it is because, unlike other “natural” giants like elephants or whales, which just had “brute force” and great size, these Giants had too the gift of “intellect” and an “evil will”, which made them true threats.

The first giant they meet belongs to the “Biblical giant” category – it is Nimrod, the man responsible for the creation of the Babel Tower, and the resulting divine punishment of not two men speaking the same language on Earth. Nimrod has a special punishment in this pit: he is now doomed to speak nonsensical gibberish no one understands, while not understanding the words anyone says – as a reference to the outcome of the Babel Tower. Whenever he is angry, all he can do is blow in some horn he wears around his neck, which causes a great, loud noise. The second giant the duo encounters is Ephialtes from pagan myths, who, for his “rebellion against the almighty Jove and the gods” is now bound with heavy chains twisting his limbs so that he may not move anymore – Virgil mentions Briareus is also suffering from the same punishment. The thing to understand here is that Dante (the author) creates a parallel between the Biblical and Pagan Giants: both are seen as figures that rebelled against a form of divinity and were punished for it. Dante identifies Nimrod’s Babel Tower, a rebellion against the God of the Ancient Testament, with the Gigantomachy and the various Giant rebellions against Jupiter/Jove, ruler of the Roman gods (and while Virgil name-drops the “gods” in plural, there is a clear focus on Jupiter/Jove, making him somewhat the Roman incarnation of the one the Hebrew would call their God). It is another attempt to unite the Inferno’s rivalling sources, Biblical and pagan traditions, with this very prominent concept of the Greco-Romans as being “proto-Christians”.

PLUS, Dante also places a high focus on the motivation of this rebellion: arrogance. Nimrod’s actions, with the Babel Tower, are highlighted as “prideful”, and the Babel Tower stays one of the most famous Biblical fables tied to “the pride before the fall” ; and similarly, Ephialtes’ rebellion against Jove is said to have been born out of an arrogance making him try to match Jove’s power. This all is meaningful in two ways… One, this makes the Giants aligned with the various fallen angels of Hell – who rebelled against God and were punished for it – especially with Lucifer/Satan, THE embodiment of rebellious pride and vicious arrogance, that is located right beyond the Well of Giants. In fact, many people have pointed out that Dante (the character) mistaking the giants for a “city with great towers” is meant to evoke the Walls of Dis, with their great towers, and filled by the various fallen angels and demons. Second, this shows that despite Dante stopping the “seven deadly sins” list at the Walls of Dis, seemingly forgetting the last two vices – he actually still has them in Hell. It is just that Envy and Pride are widespread among the various sins of Malice, and here the Giants embody these two vices perfectly well.

Virgil finally reaches the third giant and the one he wanted to see in the first place: one that can “speak and is not chained”, unlike the previous two, Antaeus (who is apparently in a similar situation to Tityus and Typhon. Virgil says that these giants are not chained because they did not participate in the “rebellion of the sons of the earth”, aka Greek Giants, against the gods/Jupiter, but still went to Hell for their other various crimes – however, if you know your Greek myth, you know Typhon definitively would be chained… But Dante had a very medieval grasp of the ancient myths, through the prism of both exclusive access to the Roman texts and massive Christian readings of all these texts – so a very… bizarre grasp (the same one that makes him identify Briareus as “having rebelled against the gods during the Gigantomachy”, for some reason). After bribing Antaeus with some flattery (Virgil promising that Dante will spread the giant’s fame and glory on earth, again some sin of pride here), the giant agrees to take them in his hands and lower them through the dark abyss that is the Pit/Well of Giants, so that they may end up in the ninth and last Circle of Hell…

XVI) The Ninth Circle: Treachery

We have arrived at the last of the Circles of Hell. The Ninth Circle. The smallest of them all, but reserved for the worst of sinners. We are at the bottom of Hell, where the devil dwells. Here, all the rivers of Hell pour into one giant lake, the Lake Cocytus (which IS the Ninth Circle, the same way the Styx marshes ARE the Fifth Circle). Cocytus is however constantly frozen due to the low temperatures and high, cold winds of the area – so you walk on ice rather than earth. This was Dante’s own little play on the very popular and widespread conception of Hell as a place of eternal fire and constant burning – a belief as much in actual Christian religion than in folk customs and popular art. He did play this concept fully with the City of Dis and other places of Hell – but for the very heart of the infernal realm, he decided to do a full reverse and rather have a land of eternal coldness and painful ice. An ice even said to be “more like glass” than actual ice, due to how it doesn’t crack or breaks in any place – it is a perfectly smooth, translucid “endless plain” of glass-like ice. And this ice is the punishment of the sinners, as they are stuck in it, unable to move, suffering the consequences of the extremely low temperatures and freezing winds.

And what is the sin of these damned souls? Treachery. Now treachery is similar to Fraud, in that it is the act of deceiving, tricking, cheating, lying, falsifying, stealing, etc, etc… BUT there is a big difference that Dante is clear about. Fraud is basically deceit towards people that did not place their trust in you. A thief steals from persons he doesn’t know ; a maker of false-money cheats out a system, etc etc… But Treachery, however, is what happens when you commit fraud on someone who expressly placed their faith and trust in you. It is betrayal, and for Dante it is the worst form of evil a man can commit, because while Fraud destroys the “bond of love” that is “natural” and innate between two members of the same species, here two humans, Treachery destroys a special, “extra” bond of trust and love that is not natural but rather made between two specific individuals – and thus to be cherished much more than the simple natural trust between two humans.

Similarly to the Seventh Circle, the Ninth Circle is divided into four “rings”, each of them covering a different form of treachery and betrayal depending on who was the victim of it – the outer ring being the “least worst” treachery, the inner ring the “worst of the worst”. Keep in mind that through this travel, Dante throws in some heavy commentaries about the own civil war, political struggles and social betrayals he witnesses and live through in his life, and putting this into context explains the specific hierarchy he makes here. The outer ring is called “Caina” (after Cain, who killed his brother) and is dedicated to those who were traitors to their family – they are plunged waist-deep into the ice, their upper-body bowing against the strong winds, their teeth constantly chattering. The second ring is Antenora (named after Antenor, the Trojan warrior who betrayed his city to the Greeks during the Trojan war), where the sinners are plunged neck-deep into the ice, their faces “purple with cold”, for they were traitors to their country, their city, or their political party.

The third ring is called Ptolomea (after Ptolemy who killed his father-in-law and brothers-in-law to a feast and killed them ; or maybe after Ptolemy XII for the murder of Pompey) – it is where the traitors to their guests, who broke the sacred law of hospitality, are sent. Only their face pokes out of the ice, constantly stuck contemplating the dark void above the circle, and the harsh winds making their tears turn into ice right into their eyes… Interestingly, by speaking with one of the shades there, the Pilgrim/Wanderer learns that Ptolomea (or Tolomea) is a specific zone of Hell where the souls can end up BEFORE their natural death (evoked here as the work of Atropos, one of the three Moirai/Parcae) – indeed, if someone ends up betraying by breaking the sacred vow of hospitality, sometimes their living souls ends up in Ptolomea while a demon from Hell goes to the surface and inhabits the body of the betrayer… As for the final, inner Ring, it is Judecca, named after Judas – the Ring of those who betrayed their lords, their benefactors and their saviors, punished by being completely frozen into the ice, unable to move. Some are parallel to the surface, other perpendicular with their head or feet up, some even have their bodies “curved” like bows... As all their love in its warmth and life had been destroyed in life, they are now frozen, mute and immobile in eternal coldness, forever…

XVII) Lucifer

We’ve arrived. The very center of the Ninth Ring, the bottom of Hell. We have arrived… to the one call Dis, Satan or Lucifer. We have arrived to the one who’s fall created this crater that is called “Hell”. We have arrived to the Devil himself.

And… he isn’t sitting on a throne. He is actually stuck in the ice of Cocytus, like the other sinners here. He is stuck in the ice up to his chest, of such an enormous size that even the Giants of the Well could barely match the length of one of his arms, and all the wild, violent, freezing winds of the Ninth Circle, those same ones that keep the ice from returning to water? They are caused by Lucifer’s wings – six huge wings, similar to those of a bat (a parody of the six feathered wings of the seraphim, the supposed highest choir of angels) ; six wings that he constantly flaps around in hope of releasing himself from Cocytus, to no avail. It is something Dante really wanted people to focus on, and his own interpretation of the Christian Devil – he isn’t a king of Hell, he isn’t a true ruler of demons, Hell isn’t his private domain he can do with as he wants. We saw previously in the poem that most of the structure of Hell was ordered by the will and power of God, not by the Devil… Because the Devil was actually the first sinner sent in Hell, the first prisoner of the infernal realm. He is damned, like all of the others, and suffering for his betrayal of God. Dante particularly highly that by showing that Satan is actually constantly weeping… It is “his” Hell yes, as in his eternal punishment, not his “domain”.

Dante also added a very specific and unique aspect to his Devil. “Once the most fair” of all angels, now turned into a “foul” monster by his fall, Dante decided to have the Devil sport three faces on his head, each one a different color: one in the front, bright red, one above his right shoulder, colored a blend of yellow and white, and one other the left shoulder, the color of “the skin of those who live below the river Nile” (aka black). The decision to have Lucifer wear three faces is very clearly a way to show him as a perversion of the Holy Trinity, Christianity’s interpretation of God as manifesting simultaneously through three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The choice of three different colors for the faces has been a subject of debate for a very long time: what would be the meaning of this? Some interpreted these faces as embodying the fundamental sins and manifestations of evil (for example some read it as a manifestation of Aristotle’s tripartite evil as being made of Incontinence, Malice and Bestiality – Dante reused the first two for his Hell hierarchy, and while he mentioned the third category through Virgil’s word, it never appeared in the Circles of Hell) ; other rather chose to see the three faces of Satan as representing the three known continent and human populations at the time (the black face for Africa, made evident by the “Nile” remark ; the pale-yellow face for Asia, and the bright red face for Europe). But the most agreed on and popular theory rather points out that, if the three faces are a parody of the Holy Trinity, then each color must reflect a perversion of the three main features of God. Since God is All-Knowing, the keeper of truth and the highest wisdom in the universe, one face of the Devil represents pure ignorance (black) ; since God is all powerful to the point of omnipotence, a second face represents impotence (the yellowish white) ; and since God is the strongest and purest form of love to exist, the last face represents pure and undiluted hatred (red).

The Devil cannot actually speak because his mouths are full – in each of them is a sinner, that the Devil constantly bites, chews, munches and rips apart, not with his teeth but also with his claws. And the bloody saliva that drips onto the Devil’s chin from this final torture mixes with his tears as they drop to the icy ground of the Cocytus�� Who are these sinners? Well none others than the worst traitors of all time, the very embodiment of Treachery itself! On one side you have Judas, aka the one that betrayed the Christ and led to his death – it does make sense that in a Christian Hell he would be seen as the worst of the worst, having betrayed basically God Himself… And on the other side you have Brutus and Cassius. You know, Brutus and Cassius. The guys who plotted to have Julius Caesar murdered. Now you might be wondering: wait, why is the betrayal of Julius Caesar on the same foot as the betraying of Jesus? And if you have been paying attention, you just need to remember what Dante’s mindset is. To take back an image which has been shared a lot on the Internet – Dante was a massive Ancient Rome fanboy. This is why he reused a lot of Ancient Roman literature and legends to create his Hell, and why so many figures of Roman history appear in his Divine Comedy. But to simplify this as just one’s man obsession would be a mistake, because the truth is that it was one NATION’s obsession. We are at the end of the Middle-Ages, at the early times of the Renaissance – an era where the Greco-Roman Antiquity will be “rediscovered” and heralded, among other things, as a golden age of humanity ; but we are especially here in medieval/Renaissance ITALY, which already out of national pride had considered the Roman Empire as THE golden age of Italy, back when it was the greatest and most influential power on Earth, and all Italians glorify this long gone past, or strive to return to it. And Julius Caesar, as the “first of the Roman Emperors” (he wasn’t ACTUALLY an Emperor but he was on his way to become one in all but name, and it was in his honor that the next, actual first emperor of Rome called himself “Caesar”, and that all of the other Emperors also called themselves this), was heralded as a great national and cultural hero, as one of the noblest and best men of Italy AND the founder of the greatest empire and best civilization to have ever been. Dante here depicts the worst betrayals of history, on both a religious level (Jesus’ betrayal) and historical/civilizational one. This is doubled – well, tripled by two other things to consider. One, Dante’s personal conviction – having lived in a time of civil war and perpetual conflict between independent City-States, Dante hated to see a self-divided, self-destroying Italy, and glorified Ancient Rome as the “great united Italy”. The betrayal of Caesar led to, at least to his knowledge, big first “real” civil war that split Italy and the whole Roman nation into pieces – the civil wars concerned with Caesar’s succession. As such, he considered Brutus and Cassius as the first to have “broken” an unified and pacified powerful Italy. Plus, there is also a Christian conviction here – f you don’t know, the Roman Empire was one of the first nations to convert themselves to Christianity and make it an official, public religion. In fact, it was thanks to the Roman Empire’s conversion to Christianity that the religion could spread so fast so quickly, and it was thanks to the Empire that the very Christian Church rose up as an institution (and it was also because of the split of the Empire that the religion divided itself between Catholic and Orthodox). As a result, in the Christian mindset of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, the Roman Empire was seen as the first true Christian nation, and as having been formed by God’s will precisely as a tool and mean to spread Christianity across the known world. There is a whole logic in Christian cultures of the Roman Empire being a proof and manifestation of Providence, and the Roman Emperors having been tolerated or created by God in preparation for the arrival of the true heads of the Church – which is quite funny, because it is a paradoxical logic that also recognized how the fall of the Roman Empire was something also needed and ordered by God’s Will and Providence, due to them needing to pay for their pagan ways, their antagonistic role in Jesus’ time, and the whole thing of being the main persecutors of Christianity for a very long time… It is one of the many paradoxes of Christian culture, but let’s skip it over – let’s just say that for the Christian mindset of the time, the Roman Empire’s formation was seen as something approved and pushed forward by God himself, and as history of the time agrees, Caesar would have been the first Emperor and form the Roman Empire, if not for his brutal and tragic murder – which means, these traitors were seen as also killing a man appointed by God to do a very important and holy task favoring humanity, thus the parallel between Jesus and Caesar…

XVIII) Getting out of Hell

Okay, so… our duo got the very end of Hell. Now… where do they go? In Dante’s guided tour through the afterlifes, the next destination is Purgatory, but how to escape Hell? Do they have to go all the way back? No!

You see, when the Devil fell on earth from Heaven, it formed a crater, right? It was because earth itself was so reviled and disgusted by the presence of the Devil it “fled” away as much as it could… And so where did all of this “fled earth” went to, as the big crater formed itself? To the other side of the world, where it formed a mountain paralleling the conic form of Hell. And this mountain, the “twin sister” of Hell, became Purgatory, a way to ascend from Earth to Heaven. So Purgatory is found at the exact opposite point on the Earth’s globe to Hell. And due to the formation of one creating the other, there are actually cracks into the very Earth that inter-connect the two – so Dante and Virgil merely crawls through one of these earth-cracks around Lucifer’s falling ground, to them cross throughout the globe to Purgatory.

There is only one thing… these cracks are where Lucifer fell. Aka, they are basically around Lucifer’s body. It is the fact his body got stuck into the earth that caused them. So… to reach them and travel through them, Dante and Virgil actually have to climb down Lucifer’s very own body. Doing so proves itself quite easy however, because Lucifer has a very hairy, almost furry body, and so they can cling onto the Devil’s fur to climb down and down into the Earth… and then up and up. Dante (the author) has a lot of fun playing with the physics of the world as they were thought at the time, and so while at first they go down, towards the center of the Earth, where gravity becomes stronger and stronger, Dante (the character) quickly says to Virgil “Hey wait… We are going back up! We are going backwards! We are in the wrong direction!”, only for Virgil to explain that no, they are going the right way. It is just that the center of the Earth, which is also the gravitational point of the planet, is located around where the Devil’s hips are, so by crossing this, the gravity reverses and so does human perception. While, from the flanks to the waist of the Devil, Dante had the feeling he was climbing down, starting with the Devil’s thigh, he now feels like he is climbing up, and he does – climbing up to the surface, to the other hemisphere, to Purgatory…

#dante #dante's inferno #hell #circles of hell #rings of hell #ninth circle #treachery #giants #devil #lucifer #the divine comedy #satan #dante alighieri

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fairyysoup · 20 days ago

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the devil i know

chapter eight: back in hell at least it's comfortable

(repost)

fic tag | fic playlist | fic masterlist

pairing(s): crossroads demon!eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: Rabbit Season Duck Season ft. your demon boyfriend who doesn't want you to google him.

cw: explicit, smut, monsterfucking (no monstery stuff comes up but he is still a demon), blowjob, ball play, facial, making a deal with a demon (eddie's version), lover's spat but in the most hilarious way don't worry, sacrificial computer killed by fire, death mention, trauma, bullying mention, inspired by american and european folklore, sacrilegious themes, horror, witch!reader, reader is 21+ in modern day, eddie is immortal, sex pact, marking, possessive behavior, animal death, trauma, reader is ostracized by her very religious hometown, dark comedy, dead dove: do not eat

please check masterlist and individual parts for content warnings before reading. this fic contains dark themes. your media consumption is your own responsibility.

ALL OF MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

So. You’ve been at war with Eddie for two days now.

It started as a joke. You got curious– you didn’t really mean anything by it. Maybe you knew you were poking a hornet's nest, but you don’t recall him giving you any specific instructions not to. And what were the odds that this demon, in his wisdom, gave you his real, full name in a moment of crisis? What were the odds that you would actually find something about him?

You googled the name Eddie Munson.

At first, you did it on your phone, in bed, and your google search was limited to your IP address location. You got a ping for an Eddie Munson from one town over, who apparently bombed a car or something a few years back. The articles were bleak and didn’t include a lot of information. But otherwise, nothing from around Eastwick.

Then you widened your search parameters. Demons are supernatural, paranormal beings, right? Eddie said he used to be human, so you figured you should treat it like trying to find a ghost. And you didn’t know how old Eddie was– he could have lived at any point, from the last 60 years to the last 6,000 years. Although, for some reason you had a hard time picturing him living in 4,000 BCE.

You searched Eddie Munson folklore.

What are you doing?

You jumped at the sound of Eddie’s voice in your ear, locking your phone and throwing it across the bed. “Uhhh, nothing?”

Riiiight.

“What’re you– did I call you again?”

Yeah. You do it a lot, you know.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to.”

Mm. Go to sleep, sweetheart.

And you heard nothing about it. Until the next morning, when you unlocked your phone again and saw Eddie Munson folklore had brought up a few strange results.

Eddie Munson Serial Killer

Eddie Munson Satanic Panic

Eddie Munson Cult of Hawkins

You stared at the different search results with your morning coffee poised in the air, completely halted in place. You weighed your options, wondering what on earth you were going to find, should you click on any of them.

Was it really him? Was this even worth the effort and the possible janky links to a Subreddit you didn’t need to be scouring through?

You clicked on Eddie Munson Serial Killer, just to see what would come up, if there was a Wikipedia article with the guy’s face that you could honestly identify as Not Your Eddie.

And your phone died.

You scowled, and set down your coffee so that you could try turning it on again, but all you got was a dim low battery notification. Down by your knees, Dante whined and bumped his nose against your leg to get you to pay attention to him.

“Sorry, baby,” you cooed, shoving your phone onto a charger and forgetting about it. You stooped to scratch Dante behind the ears, and kissed him on his little hellhound head. “Let’s get you some food, yeah?”

You didn’t try again until much later, when you sat down with your computer in your living room. Now it was a little bit more serious, less of a joke. Even if this ‘Eddie Munson Serial Killer’ wasn’t your Eddie Munson, you’d never heard of the guy before. And you genuinely thought you were pretty checked out on various serial killers throughout history, with your penchant for true crime podcasts.

You picked at your nails for a moment, your hands hovering over the keyboard as you weighed your options. Then, you typed the words quickly into the search bar, and hit enter.

And your fucking computer glitched, blue screened, and died.

You stared at the black screen in front of you with a feeling of exasperation that bordered on irritation. You looked up, and made eye contact with Dante, laying on your floor in a patch of sunlight. The Rottweiler gazed back at you with eyes that glowed a little bit red in the sunlight, almost knowingly.

“Eddie, what the fuck is this about?” you asked the empty air.

No answer.

“Eddie?”

Radio silence. Dante yawned and rolled onto his side. The clock in the kitchen ticked on ominously. You waited for something– Eddie’s voice in your ear, or a footstep behind you, alerting you of his presence. Nothing came.

You stared into thin air, thinking over your options. You figured you could just be looking too deeply into things. You reached forward, and tried to turn your computer back on.

The screen popped once, like there was a power surge, and then the keyboard started smoking.

“Eddie!” you screeched, flinging the computer away from your lap. Flames burst from it just as it hit the floor. Dante leapt up and barked excitedly at it. “What kind of Looney Tunes bullshit–”

The burning computer’s screen blinked on, and from behind the crackling flames, a video started playing. Off-key, jazzy fanfare blasted from the burning speakers, sounding a bit screechy and tinny, and then Porky Pig appeared from within a red circle.

“That’s all, folks!”

“Oh, I see.” You chuckled, slowly nodding in indignation. “This is war, you little shit.”

So, that brings you here. The Eastwick Public Library is a tiny, one story unit in the town plaza’s main strip mall. Situated at the end of the building, it boasts a row of about fifteen bookshelves, half of which house the ‘religion’ genre, and maybe six computers. Seven, if you count the one behind the librarian’s desk.

You keep your head down as you log into one of the public access computers. It’s been ages since you set foot in the library, and you highly doubt any of your beloved neighbors would like to see you in here, looking up obscure serial killers. You can almost imagine their lack of surprise.

You type in your keyword search for a third time, and wait for the computer to spontaneously combust. It doesn’t. Instead, a few images pop up, followed by a Wikipedia article, followed by a few newspaper links.

It’s him. It’s your Eddie.

“Edward ‘Eddie’ Munson was an alleged American serial killer. He is the only known suspect of the Cunningham-Benson-Mckinney murders of Hawkins, Indiana in the Spring of 1986, and was presumed dead after the fatal 1986 Indiana Earthquake.”

The first image that shows up is obviously a yearbook photo– the typical blue background, a close up headshot of the grin that you know and love. The second photo is in black and white, a missing persons poster. And the third photo is yet another yearbook photo, but this time it’s a group shot. A bunch of teenage boys all lined up against a brick wall, under a banner that says Hellfire Club.

“No way,” you mutter incredulously, clicking on the photo and zooming in to find Eddie in the corner, sticking out his tongue and using his fingers to create a pair of devil horns over his head.

The link for the photo is for a yearbook pdf from Hawkins. The title of it reads HAWKINS HIGH DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS HELLFIRE CLUB, 1985-86.

You press your lips together, feeling yourself gearing up to grin. Quietly, and with the most affectionate tone of voice you have ever used in your life, you croon, “You were in a D&D club?”

One by one, each computer along the row you sit at pops and fizzles with sparks before shorting out. You pull your hands away, giggling and watching the sparks come down the line until they reach your computer, and then it goes dead.

And so does the rest of the power in the building.

You let out a blast of laughter, clapping your hands over your mouth while a group of teenage girls in the back corner scream bloody murder. The library has gone dark, and the cranky librarian at the front desk is simultaneously shushing the screaming girls and herding them out the door. You’re still giggling when you get up, and you have to hide the smile on your face when you duck past the librarian on your way out.

“Don’t.” Eddie materializes in your entryway when you get back home. Melting out of the woodwork, a shadow that forms into his pouting visage. He shakes his head at the floor, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t say anything, I’ll–”

“What?” you ask him, tilting your head. You bite your lip to stop yourself from giggling again; it had been so hard to stop your fit on the way home. He looks sheepishly away from you, a bright pink blush coloring his cheeks. “You’ll what, Eddie?”

He tries to look severe, but he can’t hide the smile beginning to wobble its way onto his lips. “I’ll Looney your Tunes so fucking hard–”

“You can’t Looney my Tunes motherfucker, I’ll Looney your Tunes.” You point an accusatory finger at him. “You owe me a goddamn computer!”

You’re not actually that mad about the computer, it was a piece of shit anyways. But Eddie surprises you by producing a new one from behind his back, and holds it out to you.

You give a placated hum as you take it from him. “So. That was you, huh?”

“No, it’s not– not technically–”

“Did you think I was gonna… gonna judge you, or something?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything in response, his eyes flicking from yours, to the computer in your hands, and back.

“You’re a demon. I made a deal with you, I sold my soul.” You screw up your face. “You’ve offered to kill someone for me like… what, three times now?”

Eddie sucks on his teeth and looks away.

“I think I’m past the point of judgment, honey.”

“It’s not that simple.” His brow furrows, and he chews on his bottom lip, stripping chapped skin from it with his teeth. “Believe me, I wouldn’t– I wouldn’t care, except that shit… the shit you read, that’s not the truth. I swear.”

“Then what is the truth?” You ask him mildly. “Were you a serial killer?”

“No.”

“But you were in a D&D club.”

He heaves a sigh, rocking back on his heels and tilting his head up towards the ceiling. You stare at him for a moment, watching him squirm a little bit like he’s looking for a way out of the conversation. Then, he grumbles, “Yeah…”

“You are so fucking cute.” Eddie’s cheeks turn bright red, and he spins away like he’s going to walk back through your bedroom door and disappear. You leap forward and grab his arm, giggling, “Nonono, don’t go. Come back here. So you’re a nerd, it’s okay. I’m a nerd. We’re nerds of a feather.”

“Sure.” Eddie snorts loudly, pulling you into a hug. His smoke surrounds you, as comforting and warm as his embrace. He buries his face in your hair, nuzzling against the side of your head. “M’gonna give you the truth, okay? The whole truth. And you have to promise not to run away.”

“Okay, Eddie.” You sigh and close your eyes as he lifts his hand and cups the side of your face. You lean into his touch. “I’m not running. I promise.”

HAWKINS, 1984

There are a few things Eddie Munson hates in this world. He has an abundance of annoyances, yes, but only a few things that he despises more than anything else. One of them is bullies- no matter where they come from. School, law enforcement, employers, whatever. It’s something he can’t deal with, and oftentimes out of his own propensity for self preservation, he spends his time avoiding them. He’s never been a fighter. He’s never been tough enough to defend himself, but running away is usually just as effective.

The second thing that he hates is loneliness. He likes to tell himself that, had he known that living in Hawkins would make him lonelier than anything, he’d have chosen to go live in Indianapolis with his Great Aunt Shirley instead of Uncle Wayne. But that’s not true at all– he loves Wayne, whenever he crosses paths with him.

But he’s being held back. Senior year of high school, and he’s not fucking graduating, and he doesn’t know if he can stand another year of bullshit from the assholes in town who can’t fucking stand him.

“You’re the only student we have who isn’t attending graduation this year,” Principal Higgins had told him, with his nose endearingly turned up in disdain. “You should feel lucky that we even offered to allow you to repeat the grade, considering your… track record.”

And so, thanks to his own irresponsibility and bad habits, he’ll be subjected to more loneliness. More bullying. More of the things he hates.

Unless.

Eddie’s done stupider things. His copper item is a… fucking moscow mule cup. Old and tarnished, but properly made of copper. He’ll get a new one for Wayne at some point, but he hasn’t seen his Uncle touch it in all the years that he’s lived with him. Eddie dirties his hands as he buries it in the wet earth, where the creek that runs through the woods behind Forest Hills trailer park splits in two. Eventually they converge again, somewhere down by Lover’s Lake, but here they create a fork.

He didn’t bother casting a circle. He doesn’t even know how the fuck that’s supposed to work.

His shoes are wet. He stands in ankle deep water, and he splashes around uncomfortably. “Hey, uh. I don’t know what I’m doing, but um. I’m– I’m here to make a deal. I guess.”

“Who’s the genius who uses a river as a crossroads?” says a woman’s voice, startling Eddie out of his wits.

Eddie jumps and loses his balance turning around in place, toppling down in the water. He looks around, hoping that he isn’t hearing things at the ripe old age of 18.

“Over here,” the voice says again, and Eddie catches a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye. When he follows it, he finds a lady waving at him, crouched down beside a tree on the outer bank of the creek. Her dark hair hangs in her face, but she has a vaguely golden aura about her that makes her stand out in the night.

When she gets a good look at him, her sarcastic smile turns into a laugh. “Well, what do you know? It’s Jim Morrison.”

Eddie frowns. “I’m not Jim Morrison.”

“Obviously,” she says blandly. “Could’a fooled me, though.” She pauses, and then looks at him curiously. “What are you doing down there?”

Eddie glances down, at where he sits up to his waist in the water. He throws his hands up in defeat. “My delicates.”

She laughs and raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you cold?”

“Yes.” He struggles up, dripping water all the way. “Y’know this is a sacred river? It was the birthplace of a love goddess or something.” He looks over at her again, and motions generally at her. “I can see the myth was true.”

The lady giggles, standing up from her crouched position. She wears a long green skirt that brushes the ground when she walks, and a crocheted shawl over some kind of halter top-looking doohickey. He tilts his head, being reminded of an old record that migrated to the back of his collection. Woodstock, ‘69. Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane.

Grace Slick– or, at least, the demon who looks an awful lot like her, considering Grace Slick is definitely still alive– grins wickedly. “Oh, a charmer. Are you flirting with me?”

Eddie cracks a smile. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

The lady hums, standing directly across the water from him. “You wanted to make a deal. I’m here to make it with you, so if you don’t mind. What is it that you want?”

“How about being the greatest guitarist who ever lived?” Eddie gestures vaguely around at his general being. Ankle deep in water, soggy and probably looking very pathetic. “I figure maybe it’ll make things easier in the meantime. What does school matter to a rockstar, y’know? Maybe it’ll help me get the fuck out of town, for starters.”

The lady tilts her head. “And you’re not Jim Morrison, huh?”

“Was Jim Morrison a guitarist?” He rocks on his feet, nearly losing his balance again as he splashes around a bit. He plods awkwardly across the water, shoes squelching and pocket chains jingling. “What do I have to do, huh? Beg on my hands and knees? I’m already out here, soaking wet, in the middle of the night–”

“You’ll be a guitarist,” the lady tells him, her voice a bit sterner now. She regards him closely, her dark eyes narrowed at him. “The greatest who ever was and ever will be. I can see why your petition came to me.”

“My… what?”

“Your request for a demon to make a deal with. It came to me, because I favor musicians and performers.” Shortly, she produces a small, spiraled notepad that has a bunch of messily scrawled words on it. “I’ll give you your greatness. In return, you give me blood each full moon. A few drops on a tissue will do. Burn it in a dish on your window sill.”

“Is that normal?” Eddie asks, “Y’know, considering you’re also getting my soul, and everything.”

“It’s what I ask of you for veneration. Each demon asks for something different. I just find it easier than asking for a sex rite.”

“Excuse me?”

“After you die, you’ll become one of us,” she continues. “A demon of the crossroads. I don’t keep your soul. But I get power for securing it.” She snatches his arm, as he reaches towards her notebook. “Is that a yes?”

Eddie blinks, flushing pink from the cold and the woman’s grip, burning his skin. Her hand is unbearably hot, almost enough for him to jerk away. “Yes.”

The woman smiles with unnervingly sharp, pointed teeth. “Good.”

It takes a second for the pain to register; when it does, the notebook in the demon’s hand is already splashed with Eddie’s blood. He gives a pained whimper as he recognizes the pain of the wound on his arm, and begins hyperventilating the longer it grows, reaching up his arm, slicing into his muscle. His body tenses up and starts to shake, her grip on his arm disturbingly strong.

When she lets go, he curses and glances down to find a new mark on his arm. A black inked tattoo of a swarm of bats.

“So… you fought the forces of evil by playing Metallica?”

“Well, it made sense at the time.”

Teeth dug into the plush skin of your bottom lip, you suppress another giggle as you sweep your fingers through Eddie’s hair, pushing his bangs back away from his face and letting them stick up into the air as you release them. He has a tiny scar on his forehead, just shy of his hairline, which you never noticed before now. You want to kiss it.

Instead, you trace it with your fingers. Eddie’s chin rests on your stomach, his eyes dark and wanting as they gaze up at your face. He has the prettiest eyelashes you think you’ve ever seen, and he bats them at you like he means to use them for your demise.

He lays between your legs on the couch. You’d moved there naturally, with his hands coaxing you and yours pulling him like a life raft. It isn’t easy, having the contents of someone’s life– two years’ worth of it– dumped into your head all at once. When he said he was going to give you the truth, he quite literally gave it to you. Directly. Into your brain.

He gave you everything, from the time that he made his deal, all the way up to his death. You saw him forming the Hellfire Club only a few months after the deal was initially made, and watched as it evolved into a gaggle of friends that he cared for and loved. And you saw the way that he protected them until the very end, when he played the greatest rock concert ever given.

“You were so sweet, baby,” you whisper, with a tightness in your throat that tries to constrict the flow of air from getting out.

“Wonder what happened.” You bop him on the shoulder with your palm and watch his lips quirk up into a smirk. “Hey, I mean. You don’t sit through torture seminars in Hell without getting a little bit screwy on your way out.”

“They have seminars there?”

“Are you kidding?” Eddie snorts, his eyes lighting up briefly with a little bit of fire. “There’s a whole circle of Hell that’s just one big long TimeShares seminar. I’ve been to it. Probably the most horrible thing I had to experience before I could go off and start making deals. They use it as training.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“It is fucked up. It’s Hell, and I’m a salesman. Arthur Miller should have written something about that.”

“So… does God exist?”

“Oh, sure. Lots of gods. My favorite one is Hades. Cool guy. He runs Hell– the Underworld. Same thing. Persephone is kind of intimidating, though. Don’t get on her bad side.” Eddie tilts his head at you. “Pretty much any mythological figure you can think of exists on some plane of the Otherworld. Think of… gods and angels as my coworkers, in different departments. Maybe I don’t like all of them, but I work with them.”

“The Otherworld is a department store?”

“Precisely.”

Your fingers fumble with the collar of his shirt and hook around the metal chain he wears around his neck. “Can I ask you a serious question?”

His eyes bore into yours. “Anything you want.”

“How many, um–” Your eyes flutter when he shifts, and your fingers dip beneath the collar of his shirt just enough to feel the burn of his skin there– “how many deals have you made?”

“Including you,” he says, heaving a sigh that you can feel expand in his chest, “three. There was Charlotte, in ‘91, and then Adrian, in ‘99. Neither of them held up their end of the deal.”

“The… the full moon?” You can’t imagine how it could be that much of a sacrifice, being required to sleep with him once a month. You’re so pent up, so eager to do it already that the notion that someone wouldn’t seems absurd to you.

Eddie nods. “You don’t hold up your end of the deal… the contract is up. And then Hell comes to collect.”

You let that information hang in the air between you. You stare at it, the empty space over his head, as you try to process it in the silence that follows. “Quick way to an early grave?”

“Happened to me,” he mutters. “Forgot to prick my finger and rub it on a napkin during all that mess, fighting for my life. If you can believe it.”

There’s an unspoken air of heaviness in the room– the knowledge that he died far too young, protecting his friends with the talent he sold his soul to have. Far too quickly to make selling his soul even worth it in the long run. It weighs on you, pressing down on your lungs at the same time as Eddie’s weight presses in between your hips.

Your own rite looms over you, just a few days away. Something in your gut tells you that Eddie is giving you this– the honest truth– so you know what you’re in for. You promised him you wouldn’t run away.

You sold your soul and promised that you’d meet his demands if he met yours; you never expected that it would get to this point. That you’d be lying here, with him curled between your legs, and you’d have to accept that the attraction you feel towards him isn’t just due to the terms of the deal anymore.

You know him, now. Or, at least, you know him a fair bit better than you did.

You tilt your head, realizing something out of the blue. “You didn’t have to make my deal include the sex.”

“I never claimed to not be a pervert, sweetheart.” He flashes you a sharp grin. “I am your average horny little devil, you know.”

“And you didn’t have to mark me with your name,” you point out, with a note of curiosity in your voice. “Your demon didn’t.”

Eddie chuckles. “Yeah, but that’s ‘cause I’m disgustingly obsessed with you and need you to be all mine, so.”

Your heart flutters at that, singing along to the tune of some stupid love song you haven’t heard in a long time. You hum, holding Eddie’s face in your hands. His eyes flick down to your lips, and then back up to meet your gaze.

“I still think you’re sweet,” you tell him earnestly.

“You think I’m sweet?” He parrots, his hand sliding up the curve of your thigh and over your hip, his fingers curling into the hem of your shirt. He looks incredulous, like he doesn’t really believe you.

“I mean, sweet like a feral dog I have on a leash who’s out for everyone’s blood except mine. Y’know.”

He grins wickedly, a deadly twinkle in his eye as he shifts further down, his head lowering toward where your shirt bunches up around your waist, exposing a sliver of your stomach. You shudder as his hot breath hits your skin. “Is this sweet?”

Eddie presses a lingering kiss onto the soft skin just above your navel. You sigh, your fingers sliding through his hair and gripping at the roots, and he pauses. His breath hitches in his throat at the feeling of your hands in his hair, his eyes flicking up to meet yours as he hovers there, with his lips pressed softly to your stomach.

He puffs out his cheeks and blows a raspberry.

“Eddie!” you squeal, trying to get away from him as he cackles, holding you hostage to his assault. You kick your legs and manage to squirm until you throw the both of you off of the couch, rolling with him onto the floor.

Dante gets up from his spot at the end of the couch and disappears through the wall like an apparition. He tends to disappear off into the aether at random times, only to reappear later, whenever he’s hungry or if you call him. You guess that life as a hellhound is busy work. Or, maybe he’s just sick of you and Eddie being revoltingly touchy-feely in front of him.

“I take it back! I take it back, you little fuck–”

“Can’t take it back!” He rolls with you gripping onto your kicking legs until you come to a stop beside the coffee table, straddling his hips. You sit back on your heels to glare down at him, but he’s still chuckling. His eyes twinkle in the low light of your living room. “No takesies-backsies.”

This position is… too familiar. It’s intimate– it’s like you’re two normal lovers on an autumn afternoon, kicking around and doing stupid shit and just enjoying each other’s company.

Something is changing. No matter how sexually charged the relationship has been until now, something feels different. It’s in the way he looks up at you like you hung the moon. It’s in the way you lean forward and trace his lower lip with the tip of your finger, humming to yourself all the while.

Eddie stares directly into your eyes as he slowly opens his mouth and takes your finger between his teeth, his lips curving up into a mischievous smile.

“No,” you sing at him, soft but stern like he’s a misbehaving pet. “Open.”

He blinks, and releases your finger with a curious expression. You lean further down, nearly nudging your nose with his as your fingertip strokes gently down his extended tongue, his hot breath coming out gift wrapped with a sigh. Eddie snakes his arms around your waist as you replace your finger with your own tongue, sealing your mouth against his.

Handsy. You guess that’s what you can call him– you haven’t kissed him like this before, soft and sensual and unrushed. While his tongue works against yours in a way that has your mind reeling, his hands wander down to cup your ass and squeeze, until you squeak against his mouth and lurch against his touch.

The thing about this is… well. You’re not entirely sure where you stand with him anymore. Is he your patron demon? Is he your boyfriend? Infernal demon boyfriend with a sweet streak that only you get to see?

Every nerve in your body is on fire, and he’s seemingly happy to drive you crazy while you try your best not to grind down onto him. It’s all a little bit too much for you to process right now– with the way things are going, you’re wondering if you’re set for life. Who the fuck is going to compare to a demon, now that you have one? What human person will ever match up?

“I think you’ve ruined me for everyone else,” you whisper conspiratorially, letting your lips drag against his.

“Tell you a secret?” Eddie’s voice is warm in the back of his throat. He peers at you through his lashes, eyes heavy-lidded and twinkling with the barest flicker of a flame in his deep brown irises. “That was my plan all along.”

“You monster.”

“You got me all figured out.” He snickers once, dimples indenting rosy cheeks that are much too pretty to belong to a demon, but you’re starting to suspend your disbelief. Eddie’s laughter dies in his chest when your mouth attaches to his neck; a hollow noise takes its place, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows it down.

Hands hiking his t-shirt up over his stomach, you’re inching your way down his body like you have a plan, and Eddie’s frozen beneath you like he’s trying to figure out what it is. It takes him just a couple seconds, until your tongue connects with the trail of hair running down his stomach, and then he smirks knowingly.

“Oh, I see,” he hums, his eyebrows raising as you lick your way down toward his belt. “You’re a keen little thing, aren’t you? Don’t have to prove anything to me.”

“Shut up, Eddie.” It doesn’t come out as sharp as you intend for it to, because your hands are fiddling with his belt. You pull it free from his jeans and fling it over the coffee table with more force than necessary.

“Buy my silence,” he mutters sarcastically with a shit-eating grin. A playful glimmer sparkles in his eye as you curl your fingers into his waistband and tear at them, but he doesn’t move to help you at all. “Nine ninety-nine a month, with tax. Quick, before the rates go up.”

You’re shaking your head, shooting him a caustic glare as your mouth finds the soft skin just beneath his waistline. You just want to get his pants off however you can– if you have to rip them off of him, so be it.

“Oop– ten ninety-nine a month. Better think fast, baby.”

You yank them down his hips, just low enough that you can nuzzle and lick into the thick patch of hair over his groin. You breathe in the scent of his skin, lingering just beneath all his usual smoke. Warmth and salt, as though he’s real and not just the corporeal manifestation of a spirit.

“...E-eleven– ninety-ni– hmm.” Eddie’s giddy voice dies as a purr in his throat, his head rocking back against the floor. He gasps when drool rolls off of your parted lips, wetting the skin of his hip just before you suck a hickey there. He squirms. “Fuck it. You get it for free.”

“Just wanna suck you off,” you whisper, a little more slack jawed and unhinged than you were before. You suck in a deep breath and lave your tongue over the base of his cock, as it peeks out over the waist of his jeans. “Wanna taste you everywhere, baby.”

“Christ– M’not gonna stop you. Go ahead, take what you want, sweetheart.”

Eddie hisses through his teeth, his hips jumping when you lift his cock out of his pants. Warmth settles in the pit of your stomach, pulsing between your legs when you wrap your fingers around it. It’s so much better than in your dream– it’s thicker, massive, the vein along the bottom pulsing in your hand.

You spit onto it, mixing your saliva with the bead of precum gathered on the head. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Eddie.”

He gasps, kicks his hips up into your fist. “Y–you’re so fucki– hhng–”

You shush him, and look up as you trail your tongue along his shaft, feeling him twitch against you. Mouthing kisses along it, wet and soft, you suck just a bit with each one to watch his chest leap with his breath. “I wanna take you to pieces.”

“Shit–” Eddie lifts his head to gaze down at you, eyes glassy, lips red and parted as he pants. “You’re gorgeous. Oh, honey…”

Eddie moans when you slide his head into your mouth, letting your tongue glide gently over his slit. His hand flies down, tangling into your hair, the metal of his rings digging into your scalp.

You open your mouth and take him in as far as he’ll go, until he hits the back of your throat and you choke.

“Such a good fucking girl for me,” Eddie breathes, his hand on the back of your head grounding you like an anchor. “Just look at you, baby. So fuckin’ perfect, god.”

Actually, you feel like a mess, with spit dribbling down your chin and eyes watering when he hits the back of your throat. Sniffling from the tears and the lack of air, gagging on his cock. Drunk on sin and the taste of his flesh.

You imagine that’s probably what he considers perfection, though.

He stiffens when you swallow around him, your hands wrapping around his hips in an attempt to hold him down. Eddie makes a soft sound in his throat– something you might mistake as submissive, if his hand in your hair weren’t pushing you harder down onto his cock, forcing you to gag on him. The tightening of your throat around him is enough to make him twitch in your mouth.

He sucks in a sharp breath. “Fuck–”

Lips dripping saliva, your throat flexes just before you pull off with a wet gasping noise that makes Eddie curse and tighten his fist in your hair. You can’t be coy, can’t pretend like you aren’t fucking wrecked; you’re a mess of spit and tears, the salt of his precum on your tongue and in the back of your throat.

Dipping your head, you nuzzle down to suck at his balls. Slick lips latching onto soft skin, suckling just enough to make him howl and buck his hips up against your hold. You lap at him with your tongue, hearing his moan crackle in his throat with a prideful grin.

You gaze up at him with glassy eyes when he reaches down with one big hand to fist his swollen cock. Rings glint in the light and catch on his skin with a sharp edge, contrasting your light touch on his balls, making him flex his hips up into his own hand.

You’re mesmerized, watching his hand work in front of your face, with your spit and his fluids spilling over his knuckles. It kicks up a sticky, wet sound that makes something deep in your gut flutter.

“Open your mouth,” Eddie grits out, in such a commanding tone that you don’t even think to question him. You just do.

The muscles of his stomach tightens when he cums, his breath hitching on the inhale. Ropes of white spurt from his tip while he groans so loud it could rattle the ceiling. Some of it gets in your mouth, but most gets on your face– large drops on your cheeks, clinging to your lips and your chin. You moan when you lick the excess from your lips before you swallow, your eyes fluttering shut.

“Fuckin– filthy little girl, aren’t you?” Eddie murmurs, and reaches forward to snatch your face with his wet fingers. His rings dig into your messy cheeks, smearing his cum across your skin.

You gasp, your eyes flying open to meet his, as he grins evilly down at you. It makes you shudder, a moan caught in your throat. Your face burns. The mark on your wrist throbs in the shape of his name.

“Yeah, sweetheart. My dirty girl, all covered in my cum like that.” His thumb pets your cheek, sticky on your skin as he plays with it. “What a pretty fuckin’ painting.”

You whine as he pulls you upwards, clambering over his body. Your cunt throbs between your legs, and it turns worse when he yanks you toward his face.

Eddie’s tongue drags up your cheek, licking his cum off of your face. It makes the blood rush beneath your skin, makes your body heat up with just how filthy it all truly is. He hums low, licking your mouth and letting the tip of his tongue catch on your teeth, leaving your skin wet and stealing the breath from your lungs.

“Hm,” he grunts after a moment, tilting his head as he looks at you. Your cheeks are pinched between his fingers, your lips puckered in a way that you’re sure isn’t very sexy, but he doesn’t seem deterred by it. Eddie cracks a grin and says, “No, I don’t think I’m very sweet. Tastes more umami.”

“Oh my god.” You bark a laugh, ripping your face away from his grip so you can roll off of him.

Eddie snatches you before you can get away, pulling you down so that he can playfully bite at your cheek, giggling along with you. “No, don’t go baby, I gotta clean you up–”

“You’re obnoxious,” you cackle at him, letting him roll with you across the floor, feeling a sort of obsessive delight consume your voice.

He smushes his face against yours, and you can feel his teeth as he grins, scraping your skin. There’s an undertone to your thoughts as he does, which makes your heart pound in your chest when you acknowledge it for what it is.

You love him. You love him. You love him.

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #stranger things #tdik!fic #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #demon!eddie munson #demon!eddie #stranger things fic #roses*

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