AN: Sorry I haven't posted anything in the last couple of weeks. It's been tough- I fell in love with a cat, adopted said cat, and found out I'm awfully allergic to cats. So I've been dealing with that emotional and required cleaning fallout of that. Also, I have a LOT of old fanfics that are from old fandoms that are all half-finished. I decided to take some time and go through and scrub my fanfic folder. Some I ended up keeping and will try to finish. Many I just ended up deleting. But yeah, so I've also been doing that, which is another reason why I haven't really been writing much- reading and sorting and all that fun stuff takes quite a long time. And between things being a bit tough at work, it's just been a couple of weeks. But now I'm good to start writing and posting again! :D I hope you guys enjoy this- it's a little look into what things might have been like if Xena had been forced to be Queen of Hell. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Xena.
Hell wasn't that bad, actually.
The screaming, the crying, the constant curses that followed her around on her daily walks through Xena's domain- Gabrielle had gotten used to them, over the years. If she thought about them, they pained her, yes; Xena teased that she still had a soft heart, even after all this time. But she had learned how to drown them out, and now they were exactly like the rooster's crow she had had to live with every day of her childhood: something she recognized, yes, and flinched away from, but never fully noticed.
The sight of the demons no longer bothered her either. The first couple of decades they had, she would admit- even knowing what to expect, the sight of the scales and horns and tails and claws had still startled her. It wasn't like she saw them in the mirror- Xena had used her powers to protect her, no matter how much of the food and wine she feasted upon, allowing her to sate her thirst and hunger without losing her humanity. And while Xena herself had a more fearsome form she took when addressing her subjects, when it was just the two of them? She looked like herself, like the same woman she had been before the title of 'Queen of Hell' had been forced upon her. Before she had failed at leading the angel Lucifer through the seven sins, allowing him to be cast out of Heaven to take her place.
The same eyes, the same smile, the exact same form Gabrielle had fallen in love with all those years ago, back when they had been alive and fully human. Back before Xena had been dragged to her throne, and back before Gabrielle had followed right after her. When it was just the two of them, everything about Xena was the same- except for the wings. No matter how much Gabrielle complained about the giant leathery appendages taking up almost more room in the bed than the two of them combined, Xena just gave her that wicked little smirk of hers and used them to send a breeze to ruffle her hair. She had grown fond of them, and to see Xena without her wings was almost akin to seeing her without her chakram at her side, or her sword on her back- something that just didn't happen.
So between the two of them and her frequent visits topside (a gift given through her own powers- not one of Xena's subjects, not even truly dead but trapped in that state between life and death from the way she had chosen to follow Xena into Hell, she could come and go as she pleased, so long as Xena opened a door. Which she did, whenever Gabrielle asked, so long as she took her guards with her. During the years she had gone back to the mortal realm to visit Lila and Sarah and Aphrodite and Eve, her 'pets' had never been far from her side; the two large, mean looking 'dogs' that attacked anyone who came too near without her permission always close, always watching, and always more than ready to protect her. For even though they were demons, they still valued their own skins, and knew their lives were forfeit if any harm came to their Queen's love), it had taken her a long time to get used to the demons. To get used to the twisted forms that had once been human, that still showed hints of their former selves if you looked close enough, could see through the layers of evil to that last shred of their former lives. Lives that scared her almost more than their current forms did now, to see what had sent them down here in the first place.
It had taken a long time, but Gabrielle had gotten used to the sight of the citizens of Xena's domain. It was almost a game now, seeing the wide variations demons could take, viewing and cataloging the variety of horns and wings and tails that could mash together to create the creatures of nightmares she was used to. If she saw a particularly interesting one, she mentioned it to Xena the next time they were together, which almost inevitably led to Xena trying it on for size- mostly just to get a laugh out of Gabrielle, for she never kept them long, instead preferring her own twisted mutation, when she wasn't putting on her human front.
The pain of Hell had almost been the worst of it all, had almost been the hardest thing to get used to. She never felt it herself- Gabrielle had never been destined to end up there, had instead willingly walked into Hell after Xena, refusing to let her soulmate go. Not fully dead, not fully alive, the afterlife had no idea what to do with her, so it left her be. She still hungered, still thirsted, still felt a need to rest and sleep, but she never aged, never changed, and though her mind continued to grow old, her body stayed much the same. She felt pain if she was harmed- she had learned that the hard way her first week there, when she had tripped over a stone and, before her guard could catch her, fell to the ground, slicing open her leg on an outcropping of rock, splitting skin and muscle from her ankle to her knee.
Xena had often claimed her the one good thing between all three, the one good thing in all of Heaven, Hell, and Earth combined, oftentimes before stealing a kiss. So, when the guard had landed with her in its arms, bleeding and pained, when Xena had seen her 'one good thing' shaken and pale and hurt?
Gabrielle had learned later that the city was named Pompeii, that it had been destroyed in a flood of ash and fire the same instant Xena had lashed out at the world for daring to hurt her soulmate, even if by accident and her own clumsy fault.
So she could still be pained, still felt the human desires, but she didn't suffer. Her wounds, even the worst of them, healed, and healed quickly, leaving no sign they were there. Her needs could easily be met, leaving her comfortable until the need for them came again. She could be uncomfortable, but she didn't suffer, not like those who had ended up down here for their crimes did. Them, they never found rest- they could eat and eat and still hunger, could drink an entire lake and still feel thirst, could watch the blood drip from their fingertips for days and never have the pain of the wound fade. They could watch their worst nightmares play out before their eyes, again and again, and do nothing to stop them, change them, could only stand here and scream and beg anyone who passed for them to do something, anything, just please make it stop.
Xena teased her about still having a soft heart, even after thousands of years of residing with her in Hell. But maybe only because she could sense the pain that lived there, the heavy blanket that none of the demons nor Xena ever seemed to notice. She could almost taste it on her tongue, the thickness of the air in certain places of the realm, where so many years of so many souls drenching it in despair had left a physical change on the land. She could feel it on her skin, a crawling itch that, when she went too close, took hours to leave- as if the hurt and the anger and everything else those souls felt were trying to find its way into her. It caught in her throat when she tried to breathe, stilling her lungs like the hot summer days once had, when the heat was too high and the air too damp, making it feel like she was breathing water instead of air.
It still haunted her, even after so many years, but still, Gabrielle had gotten used to it. She had learned the places to avoid whenever she went outside of Xena's palace, had learned how to shake off the pain that was not her own, and had learned how to ignore it when it caught hold and refused to let go. It still made her skin crawl, still choked in her throat, still tried to dig its invisible claws into her and drag her into the depths the dead had been living in for so long, but she had learned. Had learned that a hot bath, some food and wine, and curling up into Xena's side was enough to drive it away, if just for a little while.
Xena teased that she had a soft, human heart, but still she had managed to get used to the pain that permeated Hell.
The only thing she still had trouble with, the only aspect of her chosen world that Gabrielle still, after thousands of years, couldn't stand, was the smell.
Shit and piss and rotting, cloying blood- the smell of death before the world could wash it away- never mixed well. On the handful of battlefields she had ended up on during her life, the smell had been bearable; more often than not, the bodies had been collected and either buried or burned before they could start to stink too badly. And there a breeze was always an option if the winds were on their side, driving away the stench at least for a little while. Long enough for them to leave, if the battle was already won, or for Xena to finish it up before the wind died and the corpses were given free rein to stink once again.
Up in the mortal realm, there was relief. But down here, down in Hell? The world reeked of death, and no matter how long she had lived down there, Gabrielle just couldn't shake the smell.
Xena tried- for the Queen of Hell, she hadn't changed much, at least when it came to the two of them. Somehow able to retain her humanity, her ability to love and be loved in return, to actually care about the happiness of someone other than herself, she tried. Inside the castle, it wasn't quite as bad. Small portals to different places in the mortal realm let in the smells of that world without the risk of a soul or a demon getting out, replacing death with the smell of the forest, or the beach, or a bakery that opened long before dawn each morning and filled the room with the smell of fresh baked bread. Candles and scented oils were brought back by the demons Xena did let into the upper realm, demons that explored and learned and brought back information about the changing world without interfering within it. Those helped, in the places Xena couldn't open a portal, or when she had to close them to take care of some more important matter that required all of her attention. Soaps and lotions and perfumes, all infused with herbs and flowers and a thousand other things to mask or hide a smell were brought to her, for her use when she wanted to leave the palace and wander the realm.
Nothing entirely worked- if she forgot to concentrate on the others, even under the strongest of smells, she could still catch a hint of the world that she had chosen as her own, inevitably sending her stomach flipping and her most recent meal returning from her stomach to puddle on the ground wherever she was. Even after thousands of years, Gabrielle still couldn't get used to the smell.
But for Xena she could bear it. Even when the bile was rising in her throat and every instinct within her was begging for her to run, to escape to the upper world for good, to use her strange almost immortality to make a new life somewhere far, far away from Hell and its Queen, where she could breathe deep without feeling the putrid stench in her lungs, she could bare it. She would never get used to it, no- she would spend the rest of eternity with a cloth doused in perfume pressed over her nose when she went for a walk, with candles always burning to try and lighten the air in her quarters, with her face pressed against Xena's neck- the only placed in this entire world where the only thing she could smell was Xena and nothing else-whenever she got the chance. She would never be used to the smell of Hell.
But in life, they had promised each other eternity, and to keep that promise, to spend the rest of their time in this existence together, to ensure she would never again be separated from her soulmate, Gabrielle could bare it.
So yeah. Except for the smell, Hell wasn't that bad, actually. Especially since its Queen was worth it.