#hellicho

“Are you feeling alright, Jericho?”

Jericho offered a smile from beside Natalie, stopping briefly from pouring drinks to answer. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

Natalie lowered her eyes briefly, a timid expression taking over her. “I don’t want to seem rude. It’s just, you’ve looked tired this week.” She pointed to her undereye to subtly comment on the darker-than-usual color under his.

That was because the memory of Hell’s voices coming out of her mouth was haunting him all hours of the day and he was struggling to settle his constantly pounding heartbeat for long enough to get anything more than sporadic bouts of sleep during the night. When he did sleep his dreams were full of fire and blood and screaming and he woke in a panicked sweat to the sound of their laughter in his ear, like the voices had invaded his mind and made a home there without him realizing.

“It’s being observant, not rude. I uh-. I haven’t been getting much sleep. Schools just been really overwhelming lately.” Jericho brushed off her concern with a trained grin.

Her timidness shifted to concern. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you had such a workload at your school. Are you sure you should be here? You don’t have homework or something?”

He bumped his arm against hers teasingly. “Like I’d miss out on a chance to spend an evening with the prettiest girl I know.”

“Hardly…” she protested, but smiled regardless. Jericho watched the blush bloom across her face. “That’s nice to hear though. I was beginning to think that you were avoiding me.”

Rightfully so. Because he was. Just seeing Natalie that week had him so scared and excited he could hardly sit still. It was a struggle acting normal around her. He was honestly amazed she hadn’t said something sooner, but that possibly had something to do with the fact that he had been straight up avoiding her on as many occasions as he could get away with. The only reason he was there for her to be questioning him was because he had ran out of both excuses and fear. His desire to hear those voices come from her mouth again, to promise himself to them as had been requested, was utterly consuming once he got a handle on his terror.

Unfortunately, it looked like it wouldn’t be that particular night that he’d get to speak to Hell again, since Natalie had invited Stan to tag along once more. Thanks to his “select interests” as Natalie so politely put it, another movie night was all she could get Satan to agree to, so they were in the kitchen preparing snacks together for a cozy stay-in film viewing while the third wheel waited in the living room.

If Jericho was at all actually interested in Natalie, he’d probably be annoyed at this point that Satan was somehow always part of their plans. Sure, Jericho had encourage meeting Stan in the first place but the fact that she so willingly inserted him into their plans since then would make any guy feel insecure.

This thought turned a kog in Jericho’s head.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was blowing you off or anything, Natalie. On the contrary, I was really happy to finally get some time with you when you invited me over again.” Jericho paused strategically, giving a sheepish grin. “Although I admit… I was sorta hoping it was going to be just us tonight.”

Natalie’s blush deepened, and Jericho bit back a successful smile. “Well, actually… that was kinda my plan too but Stan said he wanted to come.”

Jericho tried not to show his suspicion. “Did he? I guess I was right about us getting to know each other better, huh?”

She bit her lip, as if considering just letting Jericho go with that answer but being unable to hold back the truth. “Well… not exactly.” She stopped for a moment to cringe, obviously not fond of what she was deciding to say. “I didn’t really want to say anything once you told me about how school has been kind of stressful. But, he said he wanted to come because he doesn’t trust you.”

Jericho’s offense was probably overacted. “Doesn’t trust me? Why?”

“He said it was because of something you said last time. At the theater. Something about him being jealous. He said he felt like you were trying to get him away from me.”

He had to grind his teeth together to keep his annoyance under wraps. It was his own fault, to be perfectly honest. He shouldn’t have been so eager to piss Satan off but he just couldn’t help himself. At the time, the thrill was too addictive. If only he’d known the type of fear and adrenaline he’d experienced only a little while later, he might have had the patience to wait.

Satan underestimated how sneaky Jericho could be though. If he was going to cling to Natalie to try and protect her, then Jericho would just have to convince Natalie to shake him off.

Jericho lowered his eyes, sighing. “I’m sorry. He’s right, I did say that. I never meant for it to sound so mean though. I only said it because I was upset. He had threatened me and-.”

“He threatened you?” The color on Natalie’s cheeks went from rose petal pink to flaming red.

Jericho held the frown on his brow. “Oh dear. It’s not what you think, Natalie. He was just looking out for you…” While his words read objection, he didn’t try very hard to stop her when she spun around quick to return to the living room. Instead, he followed to the threshold of the kitchen, then stood there and listened to the argument he triggered.

After a few heated words exchanged between the two of them, Satan was storming out of the living room to go for the door. Jericho was leaning against the wall waiting, a smirk playing on the corner of his mouth. He caught Satan’s gaze briefly, the air fleeing from his lungs at the flames in the Devil’s eyes. They both know that Jericho had won this exchange though, and Satan was out the door with a slam that shook the house.

Jericho had to hang back a moment and brace himself on the wall, his heart beating so fast that he felt light-headed from the blood rushing to his brain. He bit at his knuckles to suppress the grin he fought. Going toe to toe with Satan was like playing chicken with a train. No, a fucking fighter jet. It was still addictive as hell, but the high dulled quickly, not nearly as effective as he remembered.

He was craving something else now. Something much more dangerous.

When Jericho entered the living room, Natalie had her head in her hands, sitting on the couch. When he called for her, she sat up and quickly swiped at he eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect that to get so out of hand.”

Jericho fought through his indifference to sit down next to her and reach for her hand. “Don’t apologize. You two are friends, of course someone new coming into the situation would cause some strain. I should be the one apologizing.”

Natalie waved his words away, new tears finding her eyes as she shifted close. “I just don’t understand… after everything that’s happened… why he would just leave like that…”

She wasn’t going to ask for one, but everything about her body language screamed that she wanted a hug. Jericho wrapped around her and pulled her into his collar before allowing the grimace onto his face,  letting her cry it out into his shoulder despite immediately wanting to shove her away again.

He hadn’t thought this plan through very well. Comforting a wet, blubbering idiot was not how he had wanted to spend the night. While rubbing a flat palm over her shoulder and rolling his eyes, Jericho realized that he had surprisingly less patience with Natalie’s crying than he did with her talking. He never thought he’d actually be wishing for her to talk, but he’d take her constant narration over the fat, wet tears she was spilling onto his shoulder.  

She managed to get a handle on her emotions after a little while of Jericho’s insincere comfort, sniffing up her tears and offering another apology. “I feel so stupid. This is not how you should have to spend your night.”

Jericho forced a smile past the sarcasm that instantly came to mind. He pulled her head back to his shoulder and put his lips to her hair instead. “Don’t be silly. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel better.” He nearly gagged on those words and their cheesiness. Natalie didn’t seem to notice though. She hummed into the fabric of his shirt, shifting to sit even close, curling her knees up under her.

With dry eyes and nothing to say, she wasn’t nearly so offensive to be cuddled up with. Pressed so close into him, he could feel her racing heart and through her chest, slowing down a little as she settled against him. With the arm he had around her, he trailed his fingers along the skin of her shoulder and neck, and it triggered goosebumps on her warm skin. Jericho bit at his lip, edging his curiosity and keeping his other hand to himself.

She adjusting to speak to his collar. “I don’t understand how Stan can dislike you so much?” She stopped,  lifting her head a little, her nose brushing his neck, a breath pulling his own goosebumps to his skin. “You’re so sweet to me… Je-ri- cho.”

Finding himself a little stunned by her forwardness, Jericho just managed to use that free hand to catch one of hers around the wrist when she slid her fingers up around his neck. “Uh… Natalie?” With an awkward laugh he moved to pull away from her a little just as her lips grazed his ear.

She stopped him with a murmur. “Guess again, clever boy.”

Something about how they always slipped out of Natalie when Jericho least expected it was deliciously terrifying. The fear always felt fresh and new, unique, like it was planned meticulously, cementing his bones and collapsing his lungs. He wish he knew how to say how much he appreciated the art of their terror.

This was nothing like the fear he knew. This wasn’t dangling his toes off the edges of buildings or playing on train tracks. This wasn’t watching Titus murder, or tugging at Satan’s last nerve. The fear he felt hearing that blend of voices, sultry and satin, murder and morbid, was like a hand around his throat, bringing him right to the edge of death and keeping him there. Right there, between that line of life and afterlife, between consuming and consumed. There were no words for that kind of fear. There were no words for that kind of excitement.

Not-Natalie’s lips had moved to ghost along his jaw, but when they didn’t get a response, a pout sprung up on their face. “Have we scared you stiff again? That won’t do. You really need to learn how to loosen up around us.” The hand that Jericho had attempted to stop before snaked up around his neck, fingers kneading through his hair, then pulling his head back to lean against the back of the couch and direct his gaze to her.

Catching her bi-colored eyes, Jericho barely held down a whimper.

The voices crooned as they sat up a little, contorting Natalie’s face into a concerned frown. “Look at you. It looks like you haven’t slept a wink. Have you been thinking about us, sweet boy? Have we been keeping you up, alone at night…” When Jericho had shut his eyes to fend off the tortuous nature of their suggestion, Not-Natalie had smirked, returning back to his ear to add a whisper. “Why don’t we give you a better reason to be up all night?”

She shifted in her spot, unfolding a leg and slinking across him to place herself astride his lap. Jericho tried to shift away, pushing himself further into the couch, but it was no use. He was trapped there, pinned between her limbs, at a lost for air and words and reality. The only thing keeping him even slightly afloat was the bite of his nails digging into his palms, as he fisted his fingers up tight while trying to control his shaking.

Not-Natalie’s free hand joined the one already in his hair, combing, tugging, then sliding down the back of his neck, triggering goosebumps chasing up his arms and down his back in a violent, almost pleasurable chill to go with the cold sweat he was experiencing. She slid her fingers around his neck, guided his lips up to meet hers, only to tease the intended kiss over his mouth in the most sinfully delicious form of agony Jericho had ever experienced.

He had kissed his skin with lots of things before. Blades. Brands. Bruises. He never thought the absence of a kiss would be just as painfully effective at exciting him. A breath teased across his teeth, and his previously fisted, trembling fingers were gripped around her hips to ground himself. She shifted in his lap closer, squeezed her thighs tighter, rolled her hips against his jeans to encourage that excitement even further, and a moan that shouldn’t have been sitting in his throat escaped out into her mouth.

The voices giggled, tiny and feminine. “Oh dear. Seems like we really did scare you stiff.”

Through his panting Jericho somehow managed strangled words. “Why… are you doing this?”

“This?” Not-Natalie shifted on his lap again, her lips spreading when he shut his eyes tightly. “Because it’s fun.”

The voices lingered for a moment, letting it sound like that was their only reason as they giggled at Jericho’s exasperation. Catching his gaze with those eyes that weren’t quite Natalie’s, they offered a real answer as a whisper to his lips. “Because you have potential. You have so much to offer. No one else sees it, but we do. And we want it. We want you, Je-ri-cho.”

The way they said his name. Like a sigh. Like a scream. Like a calling. Like they were begging for him. Growling. Moaning. Ecstasy. He didn’t stand a chance. He was already gone. Already broken. “I want-. I've never wanted something more in my life. You’re everything I’ve been searching for. I was meant for this. I know it. I want to serve you.”

“Do you?” There was excitement in their voices, an energy that seemed to make the air around their body vibrate with the thrill. “Will you swear it? Will you promise yourself to us? Every piece of you. Every bit of flesh and bone. Every drop of blood. Your whole mind and soul. Is it all ours? Are you ours, Jericho?”

His name again, said in that indescribable way, sucking the air from his lungs as he sighed in torture bliss. Her lips, always right there, so close, but never touching, dragging him down to the inferno he longed to waste away in. “Yes. P-Please. Let me give myself to you. Everything. Use me up… consume me.”

Not-Natalie smiled. Wide, twisted, and satisfied. “Sweet talker,” the voices murmured, and brought their lips to Jericho’s, delivering the kiss they had been teasing for so long.

It was slow and deep at first, turning his mind to mush and his previously solid limbs to puddy. The fear was still there, but it was viscous venom now, coursing thick and slow through his veins with every hard pound of his heart, making his eyelids heavy and filling his skull with the echo of their voices even though they had gone silent for the moment.

Jericho expected her to still taste like he imagined Natalie would taste. Strawberry lip balm and and sweetness on her teeth from the sugar of her personality. But when she eased his lips apart to tease her tongue across his, she might as well have been pouring flames down his throat because that’s what she tasted of. Ashe and heat and barren death. It made him cotton-mouthed and thirsty for more. This wasn’t Natalie at all anymore. It was the fires of chaos kissing him, and Jericho couldn’t think of a better way to die.

The heat picked up, catching tinder on his flammable desires, the exchange of fire lasting longer, pushing deeper, until his lungs were smoldering, warming those twisting, hungry snakes in his stomach again. She kissed him until Jericho could barely breath. Eating up all the oxygen with the licking flames that were her lips. Suffocating him. He pushed for more, loving the head-spin. The crash and burn.

Like a greedy child, all in without a second thought, Jericho was already prepared to be smothered by her. By them. They had bigger plans though. He had made a promise, after all. To serve. To give everything to the chaos. And what better way to keep a servant of Hell, than hungry and aching for more?

She ended the deep, molten, consuming kisses with a swift snuff-out. Grazing her teeth across his lower lip at first, the teasing pressure instantly became a bite that broke through the tender skin with ease. As Jericho withdrew with a swear and the dousing iron wetness of blood on his tongue, Not-Natalie gave a satisfied smile.

She licked the red stain off her lips and teeth, another small, girlish giggle crossing her throat before she leaned over over to tease a hum over his ear. “No need to be in such a rush. We have eternity together now, Je-ri-cho.”

Eternity.

Waiting to go home had felt like an eternity. After the voices gave Natalie her consciousness back, Jericho had to convince the red-head she had fallen asleep on him, while gripping a couch pillow to his lap and trying to conceal his quickly plumping lower lip.

He sat through a movie with her, but was barely there mentally, and left as soon as she’d allow, citing his massive amounts of homework excuse. She followed him to the door when he left, all smiles and blushing cheeks, but he was still hiding a split lip and wouldn’t be able to let himself get near her even if he wanted to. Instead, he stuck his shaking hands in his pockets, nodded, and fled, hoping he wouldn’t have to lie himself out of her offense later.

Home, finally alone behind a closed door in the blue and black of his dark room, Jericho let out a weighed, shaking sigh. He was drenched in a cold sweat that had him shivering, thoughts of sin and sulfur burning him up despite the permanent chill up his spine. Leaning his back against the wall, he licked his tongue across the healing wound, his next exhale a breathy laugh. Despite his pounding heart beating so loudly it felt like it would give up on him, despite his ragged, broken lungs, Jericho felt at peace for the first time in his whole life.

All this time, feeling out of place. A jagged, messy puzzle piece that never fit in the hole he was being forced into. A misprint. A mistake. No… not a mistake. Misplaced. A piece meant for a much bigger picture. Nobody ever saw it, but Jericho knew. He knew he was better than the humanity that confined him. He wasn’t just a kid with a death wish and a fetish for everything sin and sinister. He had ambitions, of fire and chaos.

So long he had spent searching for that place he belonged. Trying to tuck himself into cracks and corners that were too tight and uncomfortable. Under Titus’s command, snaked into Natalie’s favor, stuck in Satan’s craw. Never quite fitting right though. Always itching for something more.

How fortunate he was, that his destiny had found him. To serve darkness itself, a nightmare worthy of lulling him to sleep. He wouldn't let himself down. He wouldn't let them down.

He was so excited to be theirs.

Jericho could hardly contain himself. He smiled again, shutting his heavy, exhausted eyes, letting the memory of their voices bounce around in his skull. Haunting, assaulting, ensuring he’d never forget. We need you. We want you. Words to make even the strongest man bend his knees. Even if he hadn't wanted to, how was he suppose to refuse them? How could anyone?

A twist of the lock on his door and Jericho’s smile faded to strained pleasure, finally able to tend to the aching pleasure in his jeans that Not-Natalie had left him high and dry with. One hand, flat on the door and the other wrapped around his dick, already hard and throbbing as he recollected the ashe of their taste on his tongue.

His heart was somehow both in his skull and in his pelvis, it’s loud, deafening pound pulsing blood to his ears and through his shaft with each stroke.  Their voices still somehow louder in his head than the hurricane of his shallow, hitched breaths and heavy, thumping back beat of his heart. Like they were still there, tagging along home with him as smoke in his lungs. Molten snakes wrapped around his neck, his stomach, twisting and tangling up in his abdomen, hissing whispers in his ears that made his neck prickle with terror. Are you ours?

“Yes…” A shaking sigh, a plea, to untangle him, to tear him apart, even though he knew their voices were just a figment of his own desires this time. Tightening his fingers, Jericho leaned forward to bite his sweater at the wrist to smother a groan that ripped through his throat.

Curses riddled off the tip of his tongue in barely breaths, he pressed his forehead firm against the wood of his door as he ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. Damp with lingering sweat, accumulating at his hairline from the heat building under his collar, in his pelvis, burning in the palm of his moving hand.

He shifted the fingers in his hair from an absent-minded gesture to purposeful. Rough, tugging, gripping, pulling, like they did with Natalie’s hands. Why don’t we give you a better reason to be up all night. Sweet boy. A whimper escaped between his heavy exhales. The taste of embers on his teeth and licking snake tongues in his ears. The liquid fire serpents burning him up from the inside, knotting and squirming, bringing him right to the edge of unbearable.

Jericho pulled his lower lip into his mouth, biting down. The tender skin protested with sharp pain but his dick pulsed with pleasure, so he bit harder. And harder. Je-ri-cho. His name punctured to the beat of the pounding in his skull and the rhythm of his pumps, and as the spilt in his lip tore open, the iron of his blood hitting his tongue again, Jericho came into his hand with a choking, stuttered moan that he barely managed to stifle in the bend of his elbow.

Catching his breath, vision spotted and limbs weak and shaking, Jericho swore he could hear their giggling in the dark corners of his fading consciousness.

Jericho had heard the rumors among Titus’s demon followers about Oregon, but he had quickly dismissed them as gossip. Consumed by Hell… it sounded fabricated, a story meant to jostle reactions out of fellow demons. And even if it was true, if Stan was so weak to let Hell consume him, it just meant Jericho was hedging his bets on the right horse.

It wasn’t something that had concerned him at the time, but since his brief encounter with Not-Natalie, he found his mind wandering back to the thought. Wondering. The voices that had come out of Natalie’s mouth certainly weren’t hers. So who’s were they?

While in his head, Jericho had left his eyes on Natalie’s lips for a moment too long, resulting in her turning away from the movie screen and catching his gaze. She had smiled small, pink coming to her cheeks, and Jericho blinked his gaze away and blushed as well. He’d let her think that he was dwelling on a more innocent fantasy, and not the recollection of a voice that wasn’t hers breathing into his ear from those same lips.

On her other side, Satan sided-eyed them, a look that dripped with disgust. He had made it very clear that he was only there per Natalie’s request, but Jericho honestly hadn’t expected him to quite so reactive to every little look that Jericho gave the girl between them.

Distracted momentarily from his musing, Jericho opted to test an alternative theory that had sprung to mind recently. With a carefully executed awkwardness, he slip a hand over to Natalie’s and tested her reaction with a brush of his thumb against her palm. She had flinched ever so slightly, but then curled her fingers to meet his, and immediately her cheeks found a deeper shade of red. She kept her eyes forward to avoid further blushing, but tangled their fingers together when he slid his palm up to meet hers.

Jericho followed her lead and kept his face forward, but he could feel the burn of Satan’s gaze from Natalie’s other side and felt his lips pull up into a smirk as his heartbeat picked up an extra pace per second.

After leaving the theater, while waiting for Natalie as she used the bathroom, Satan finally got to say what Jericho knew he had been itching to say for the whole movie. “Listen, kid. Natalie has asked me to trust you, so don’t make me regret trusting her. You won’t appreciate what I do to your face if you hurt her.”

It was hard to breath, under his piercing gaze, and Jericho loved it. He couldn’t help but be painfully aware that in a place like this, surrounded by strangers, he could really test Satan’s patience. The possibilities of both his options and their outcomes, nearly resulted in heart palpitations. “Green isn’t a very good color on you, Stan.” Jericho had to literally bite his tongue to keep himself from smirking.

Satan narrowed his eyes. “What did you just say?”

The smirk itched on the corner of his mouth. “I understand that you and Natalie are close, but the fact is, I asked her out, and we’re dating now. It’s not my fault that you didn’t have the nerve to tell her how you felt when she was available.”

Satan’s fingers curled into fists. Jericho might as well be poking a bear at this point. Only this bear was Satan and Jericho was practically offering his neck. “I’m not jealous, kid. Don’t worry about my relationship with Natalie.”

Jericho nodded, his heart racing under Satan’s fiery eyes. “I’m sorry, Stan. I guess I read your intention wrong. I’m not really a violent person so what you said came off a little aggressive. Certainly wouldn’t want Natalie to think that you’d fight someone over her favor, huh?” He had to keep his hands in his pockets to hide how bad they were shaking. He couldn’t hold it back anymore. The smirk tugged up at the side of his mouth. “Besides. You’re a little young for her anyway, don’t you think?”

When Natalie exited from the bathroom, she found them staring each other down. She opened her mouth, and Satan was turning on his heels to leave. “I’m going. Don’t stay out too late.” The tight hold he had on his patience showed on his tone as he delivered his dismissal.

Natalie blinked as she watched Satan go, then turned to Jericho with a questioning look, and he returned a sheepish smile. “I uh-. I might have asked Stan if he couldn’t give us a little privacy on the walk home.”

When he nodded his head to the side to invite her to leave with him, she wrapped her arm around his and followed, curiosity crossing her brow briefly. “That was… thoughtful of him.¨ Her tone read obviously suspicious.

Jericho chuckled. “That seems to surprise you.”

“Thoughtful isn’t usually a word I use when talking about Stan,” she added.

“I think maybe you’re judging him too harshly, Natalie. I feel like Stan and I have really started… warming up lately.” He couldn’t help himself. The smirk slid back onto his face.

She hummed, her concern slipping away. “Well, that’s good to hear then.”

The voices that had spoken to Jericho through Natalie had been completely silent since the first occasion. It had been a week, and not a single recurrence. Jericho might have been inclined to write it off as just an unusual dream, if he hadn’t expressly remembered not getting a wink of sleep that night while dwelling on paralyzing fear he had experienced and how badly he wanted to experience it again.

His alternate theory was that the voices were being a little shy with Satan around all the time, so during the week Jericho had been trying his best to get Natalie alone for even just a small moment. He was hoping that if he could figure out how to trigger the voices back again, he could perhaps get a little bit more information about what they were than their brief, cryptic words had offered last time. 

He had very little success finding a moment with Natalie away from Satan, until now. It seemed that it the dark, alter-ego Natalie carried somewhere inside her was still playing hard to get though, leaving Jericho stuck walking home with the far less enjoyable company of her constantly blabbering mouth.

As much as he found himself generally turned off with Natalie altogether, Jericho often fantasized about their faux relationship getting serious enough for Natalie to allow him to kiss her. It was an enjoyable thought, being able to politely shut her up for once instead of being forced to pretend to be listening to her rambling like he actually care. If he wasn’t so positive of her prude status, he would have tried it already. She’d probably sound much cuter while putting her tongue to better uses than talking.

Despite the fact that he literally would rather gouge his ears bloody with a knife than listen to Natalie a second longer, he kept his attention a little more focused on her than usual, hoping that if he was patient enough the bone chilling voices he was waiting for would finally pay a visit. She talked, and talked, and talked though. The entire walk back to her house, the same painfully irritating pep to her voice that made Jericho grind his teeth until they hurt.

How disappointing.

If what he wanted was going to continue to elude him, then he wasn’t going to force himself to spend any more unnecessary time with her. His quota of fake politeness was up for the night, and he was itching to get away from her. At her door, Jericho finally interrupted. “Natalie. I don’t want to keep you any longer than I already have and make your father worry, so maybe I should just go for now. We can pick up this conversation next time?”

Like every other time he was forced to cut her off, she nodded and smiled sweetly. “I had a really nice time tonight, Jericho.”

“Me too.” For different reasons, he was sure, but a nice time all the same.

She lingered there in front of him, color washing across the apples of her cheeks. He was generally disinterested with everything Natalie said and did, but he wasn’t blind. He knew a signal when he saw one. Even the signals he wasn’t particularly inclined to follow. Jericho couldn’t risk ruining this relationship though by moving too quickly. They had only just started hanging out, and he wasn’t playing the part of a guy that would act on a possible invitation like the one he was fairly certain she had just given him. He was the sweet, younger boy who actually respected this girl in front of him.

Jericho repeated that reminded in his head a few times, and choose a course of action. Leaning down a little to meet her, he brushed his lips sweetly across one of her flushed cheeks and punctured the kiss with a murmured, “Goodnight, Natalie.”

When he went to stand straight again, her hand came up to grip around the nap of his neck, keeping them cheek to cheek. She didn’t say anything at first, not even a breath across skin. Just her fingers, slipping up into his hair smoothly, then clawing ever so slightly at the skin.

He had opened his mouth to question her behavior, but the breath he inhaled was stolen from him.

“We’re hardly ready to say goodnight, Je-ri-cho.” Even whispered on a sigh in his ear, the tangled weave of countless voices left his lungs solid and his skin pimpled up in goosebumps immediately. When he instantly stiffened in her grasp, Jericho felt her lips pulling up into a grin against his cheek. “We didn’t mean to frighten you.”

He didn’t know how to express that the fear he felt was more that welcomed. He didn’t know how to speak at all with that voice on his ear and a hand that for the moment wasn’t controlled by Natalie wrapped around his neck.

She had pulled away, dragging her lips along his cheek just barely until they were eye to eye, and whatever corners of Jericho’s body weren’t already filled with mind numbing fear were taken care of when he found her gaze this time. Natalie’s forest green eyes were no longer staring back at him, but a pair of mismatched irises, brown and blue, with chaotic intention lingering in each one of them.

Jericho didn’t know who or what this was speaking through Natalie, so he didn’t fully understand why he was so frightened. It was like his soul understood something that his mind hadn’t quite grasped yet though, and the unknown only made the terror all the more delicious. He managed a strained smile himself, because this fear… this was something new entirely, and he loved it.

She grinned further, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “You’re so cute when you’re scared. All tongue-tied and shaking like a nervous puppy.”

Even through his uncontrollable trembling, his curiosity was always able to help him speak. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back. I wasn’t sure you were real. Please... tell me… who are you? What are you?”

Not-Natalie tilted her head and tsked her tongue against her teeth. “You’re a clever boy. We know you can figure it out.” After a moment though, she seemed to reconsider, and added with a twisted smirk. “But if you really want, we’ll give you a hint.”

Digging her nails into his neck, she pulled him a fraction closer, and Jericho flinched unintentionally at the pain in the tender skin. She waited for him to look her in the eye again, before teasing her words across his lips on a breath. “What do you want, more than anything else, Je-ri-cho?”

What did that mean? How was a question a hint? Was it a test? And if it was, what would happen if he answered wrong? Jericho had to swallow down his nerves, her fingers helping with soft, gentle circles on his scalp. He stumbled out an answer. “I want to watch the world burn while serving the True Satan.”

Her eyes lit up with excited flames, and Jericho let out a breath of relief, thinking the answer had satisfied. The moment he relaxed a fraction though, she was gripping his hair and dragging him down to her to reach his ear again. He winced with the pain, but as quickly as she had went violent, her touch switched back to comforting, petting her hand down along his neck as she crooned to his ear. “You think that’s what you want, and to be fair, we wouldn’t expect such a young soul to know any better. Satan is only a middleman to what you’re truly looking for, though. You’re so lucky we found you.” That haunting mixture of voices that buried itself into his skull and made a home in the core of his bones: He’d never forget it. She’d see to that.

“I… I don’t understand.” Jericho offered a reply, shutting his eyes with a cringe as her hand cupped around his cheek tenderly.

“You don’t want to serve someone else. Not really. No one is ever enough, are they, Jericho?”

He let out a shaky breath. How did this voice know what was in his head like that? “No. They aren’t. Satan is weak. And Titus… Titus is painfully dim-witted.” With his words, Jericho’s timid tone found a darker note, admitting the things aloud that he had so far only kept to himself.

She had laughed, a lifted, inhuman noise, finding some sort of humor in his words. When she pulled away to look at him again, her eyes were gleaming with something consuming. “That’s because you don’t want to serve someone, but something. Imagine yourself: Je-ri-cho, servant of chaos.”

Chills assaulted him at that title, sucking the little breath in his lungs away from him and curling up in the pit of his abdomen like a twisting, knotted pile of snakes. A smirk shook onto his lips. “How? Tell me.”

Not-Natalie smiled back, that dark look in her eyes seeming to deepen. “Promise yourself to us instead.”

He frowned hard. “What are you?”

She gave that terrible giggle again. “We’re everything you’ve imagined and more. We’re your dream, Jericho. Your worst nightmare.” She paused, then moved forward quickly, as if to kiss him, but stopped just shy of his lips so he could feel the next word. “Hell.”

Jericho didn’t have time to react. As soon as the word past her lips, she slumped forward and he was forced to catch her. In his arms, Natalie came back to her senses, her voice returning to her.

“What… happened? I remember…” While finding her feet again, Natalie put her fingers to her cheek and glanced at Jericho, color coming to her face.

He fought through his paralyzing shock to reply. “I can’t say it’s every day that a girl swoons for me when I kiss her cheek.” He knew his smile was forced, but he hoped it read as awkward and charming, and that she didn’t notice the cold sweat at the back of his neck.

Thoroughly embarrassed, but grinning despite herself, Natalie said goodnight and went inside, leaving Jericho to recollect himself from the assault he had just experience. Assault, because there was no better word for it, but it certainly didn’t make him feel assaulted.

He had felt this before. When stumbling across Titus murdering an angel in a dark alley. When first meeting Satan. It had never been quite like this though. This was the fear he had always been looking for. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest it hurt, and he could feel the blood through his veins and his trembling fingers, shaking so bad he could barely manage them through his hair to try and calm himself down. The snakes in his belly were twisting tighter and tighter.