Darkness. Endless, thorough darkness, consuming and depth, the homeland of death.
Slade hated passing out. He hated waking up from passing out even more. Blinking his one operation eye experimentally, testing his depth perception, Slade tried to remember what had happened.
He remembered fire. 'Well, that's a gimme,' he thought, thinking words that he would never dream of saying. 'I'm a demon's servant.'
Slade sat up, finding that he had been out in an armchair. His eyes glancing quickly at the brandy decanter on the table next to him, he wished that he had been out due to alcohol, but this was not so, since his head wasn't throbbing.
Aside from fire, he remembered his master's daughter. Spawn of Trigon. Raven. He remembered her aging and recessing and aging and…standing up to her father! Slade jumped his feet, ripped off his mask, and felt his forehead. The mark was not there. Moreover, he had skin on his face.
Slowing sinking back down into his armchair and gripping the arm with his left hand, Slade replaced his mask and gazed at the fitful embers burning in the grate.
He was in his library, a magnificently large room full of red wood bookshelves and thick, dusty tomes, and an ornate fireplace. Gazing back as his brandy decanter, Slade noticed that the level of alcohol was much lower than it should have been.
Silently cursing himself for not noticing, regardless of the state of his conscious thought. He held his breath, silencing his entire body, straining his ears for the lightest snippet of sound. The embers in the grate crackled. Downstairs, his androids purred and buzzed.
There! The armchair next to him (there was no reason that he had a second chair, other than he sometimes fancied sitting somewhere else, and Slade was a man who liked to have options) rustled, as if someone sat in it. Slade carefully drew breath and turned to face the armchair.
"Are you going to show yourself? Or would you prefer that I simply toss alcohol on you to see where you are?"
Suddenly, Trigon, much bloodied and reduced to the size of a human male, wavered into sight. He seemed to flicker back and forth between visibility and invisibility, proving his weakened state. Regardless, he clenched a generous glass of brandy in his claw-like grip.
"Good evening." Trigon winced with the pain of vocalization.
"Good evening. Would you care to remove yourself from my house?" Slade pointed to a mahogany door in the corner. "I believe you are now small enough to leave through normal doors."
"I did not come here merely to leave."
Slade sat down again, deciding that the demon would take some time to banish. He noticed that the fire was now roaring, going through logs of wood that hadn't been there a moment before. Creating things out of nothing seemed to be easier than vocalization for Trigon. "So was there a reason you came?"
"What, I can't drop by to see my beloved follower?" Slade's silence, as expected, answered Trigon. "Well, I need a place to rest and recuperate before I try to dominate the world again. As you've noticed, I fixed your flesh. It's only expected that you return a favor."
Slade glowered. "You should have given me my face back when you had the world in your control. So we're even. I owe you nothing." The lack of belief hurt the demon.
Trigon flickered violently, and a choppy, annoyed growl echoed in the vast room. Invisible, the demon's voice was disconnected, like a scratched vinyl record.
"Ican'thelp…that…now…butIcanguarnteeavast…re…wardifyouassistme." Slade waited until the demon flickered into view. He was fuzzy, like a television out of focus. Apparently he was in severe pain, seeing as he was shaking violently, every muscle straining to relax.
The villain quietly tapped his fingers against the armchair, considering, as the demon flickered in and out of view rapidly. Eventually, Slade got annoyed at Trigon, whom it was impossible to glare at when invisible.
"I will give you enough power to stay still. If you try anything, I loose belief and return to my previous state of solitude." Slade thought for a few moments, remembering Trigon's rampage, his voice, all the conversations they'd ever had.
The belief from his ex-servant clearly reduced Trigon's weakened state. As soon as the demon could stay materialized for over ten second, Slade severed the connection. Now that Trigon had the ability to remain still, he could sap some, but very little power, from his followers elsewhere. Any more belief from Slade would prove not only disastrous, but stupid, as well. If he were to have the upper hand, Slade would need some betting chips, so to speak.
The demon slumped back in the armchair and took a long pull of the brandy.
"Good follower," Trigon muttered, no longer in pain at verbalization. Slade glared and felt against the face of the right arm of his chair, and found the small, hidden compartment there. Amongst assorted poison darts and small knives, there lay a small insert religious symbol that is not a pentacle here on a silver chain. Slade took this out and closed the chair, just as a precaution.
"I was not aware that you were partial to the alcoholic drinks of humans," Slade said, fully prepared to lure the demon into a state of relaxation in order to find out exactly what his reward would be. He briefly thought back to all of the church services he had attended as a child (there being a whopping final count of two) in order to recall everything that the priest had said about damnation and hellfire. There was a lot of that. Slade selected the one prayer he remembered, the Lord's Prayer, unless he was much mistaken.
"You have terrible taste," Trigon replied evenly. "This is watered down and cheap." The demon took another sip of his drink.
"Why are you still drinking it, then?"
"You have nothing better and alcohol has the opposite effect on me that it has on humans. It wakes me up, in case you need a translation."
Slade tossed the necklace with the religious symbol at the demon. Trigon, who hadn't been expecting that, squawked and swore in a guttural language before lifting the chain up and into the fireplace, where the embers feasted on the metal. Slade opened the compartment and selected a replacement.
The demon rubbed his thigh, the brandy mostly sloshed on the floor and chair. Trigon either didn't notice, or (more likely) didn't care. He glared with all four eyes at the mortal seated across from him, who was idly twirling a silver chain with a insert religious symbol here pendant around his fingers.
The demon threw the rest of the brandy onto the fire and placed the glass on the floor, watching with slight amusement the fire reaction to alcohol.
"Don't need any more waking up, then?" Slade asked snarkily.
The demon did not dignify the question with a response, and merely closed his eyes, retreating within to feed the weak flame of his power, sending the clear message that the conversation was over.
After gazing at Trigon for a few more moments, Slade shrugged and began to walk out of his library. The demon's voice brought him back.
"I will require a chamber in which to…sleep, you call it? No matter…I will require a chamber in which to unconsciously build my power," Trigon said, his eyes never opening.
"You seem comfortable in the chair. It will do," Slade responded, not caring that the demon would eventually be able to smite him. There was no visible reaction from his immortal companion.
Slade went to his rooms and collapsed on the bed, asleep before he hit the pillow.
Slade woke up the next morning at nine fourty six (and twenty eight seconds), fully aware and alive ((A/N: Unlike both Semine and Kali)). He got out of bed and dressed, leaving his mask off, but remembering his houseguest. Great. I'm the newestroomie in the Odd Couple.
He sulked off to the bathroom, coming out half an hour later sqeaky clean and in a much better mood. Until he remembered his new roommate. He sulked out to his kitchen, half heartedly putting on a kettle for his white tea. ((A/N: irony ish teh funneh))
Trigon entered the kitchen, slightly larger and more stable than the previous night. Slade grumbled.
"What, no tea for me?" Trigon lifted a bushy eyebrow.
"Make it yourself." Slade finished his tea and put his teacup into the dishwasher. Walking to the cupboard, he fished out a teabag of black tea and tossed it to the demon.
"Oh, I am so impressed by your faith in me. I feel as if I could destroy the world again," Trigon said as he glared at the kettle, which immediately started to whistle shrilly.
"Glad to help. I'm off to do this newfangled job thing." Slade left the kitchen, leaving Trigon to fend for himself and find a mug.