A.N- Last proper chapter! Yes?

Thank you for reviewing:

WxTxR (Ooh, is it confusing? I try to make as un-confusing as possible. Me and my stupid writing skillz…)

Little Wolf Vamp Hearts Yaoi (Sorry, I just lurrrve cliff hangers ;))

And Annabeth The Unicorn (Interesting thoughts there. I could explain it all in a PM if you want? Or do you want it as a mystery?)

Let's just het straight on to it, shall we?

Hope you enjoy~


Chapter Seventeen: As last words turn to ash

Who is he? He's not Kenny, that's for sure.

He has a dark aura around him; it makes you choke when you breathe the same air as him, it makes you freeze when you look into his wine-coloured eyes. But he is too human-like to be called a monster. That's the most terrifying thing- he is too human.

And that tells me, almost like an instinct: he is too dangerous.

x

The air stops; the room turns still.

What the demon says is something I can't seem to understand, or maybe it's just that I don't want to understand what it meant.

He snickers at our reaction: the only sound, only lively thing moving in this room free from shock. The rest of us, are frozen. Even Kyle's rapid breaths seem to stop for a second, like a choke.

But I try, with my stupid brain.

"What do you mean?"

"Huh?" The demon stops his cackling and turns his head swiftly to look down on me with a wide smile.

I gulp down a chunk in my throat, creating way for words to come out.

"What do you mean the seal isn't broken yet? I was there. I saw Damien pour his blood into the last grave- The seal should be broken now…"

"Yes it should. Strange that, isn't it?" Asmodeus acts out sarcastically with Kenny's finger to his chin.

"Yeah!" I suddenly say with this bursting confidence. "So we're not going to get sucked in by your- your manipulating words!"

The demon looks at me, batting his round wine eyes a couple of times with amusement.

"Well, if you don't believe what I say…" He turns around to the devil frozen a few feet away, a sharp smile still in tact. "Tell me Damien. How do you feel right now? Comfortable? A little cramped, perhaps?"

The antichrist cringes, thin fingers clenching into a tight fists as he grits his sharp teeth together. And he looks down, shaking slightly. It makes the life flow out of me, or maybe it's hope.

"Damien?" I ask carefully. "What does he mean?"

He stays in a heavy silence for a second, listening to Kyle's bated breaths. And then the muscles in his jaw relax and he opens his mouth.

"I feel like there are chains holding me down." He says slowly. "The Devil's seal limits a demon's power to an extent, even before it operates and the demon is sent back to Hell."

Kenny rolls his arms impatiently, waiting for the good stuff. It makes Damien grind his own teeth together.

"It means that the seal isn't broken yet." He concludes. "It means I only have an hour or so before the seal operates, and I am sent back to Hell."

What I feared. Was true.

"But how…?" Kyle asks, scraping out words through his dry and loud panting throat. "After all we did… Are you saying that the way we were trying to break the seal was wrong? Was just pouring your blood and breaking the railway not enough?"

Damien tenses; then drops his sharp eyes to the ground.

"No. The process to break the seal was flawless. Or at least, it was meant to be."

It suddenly pops up in my head. In my slow, not-so-bright head. A scene of the small church of Bailey.

"The church…!" I gasp out. The word grabs Damien's attention and he swings his head towards me. "The church we past earlier. It had a cemetery!" I cheer.

"I told you that that cemetery is too new-" But his frustrated eyes slowly widen in realisation, the subtle colour of life leaving his face in shock. "Unless-"

A loud yawn suddenly interrupts his words. The slovenly sound somehow squeezes us like a dangerous threat.

"You know, as much as I love listening you guys talk about your thoughts and evaluations…" Kenny's voice says, with a cold edge to it. "It is as boring as fuck."

There is a loud BANG of an explosion in my ear, like a sudden piercing ringing. Then everything hurls onto me. Onto us. With pain.

I hear Kyle being dragged off the bed with a heavy thud to the ground. His aggressive breaths turn into a quick squeak. But I can't do anything. Even before I can think about doing anything an instant shock of pain gashes through my limbs, like invisible chains wrapping around me and ripping me apart.

Somewhere not so far, I hear Damien drop to his knees, groaning harshly at the bottom of his throat, probably in more pain than I am in.

I can't even imagine that.

When I'm released from the excruciating pain barely a second later, my whole body simply crashes to the ground, my uncontrollable breaths hitting against the shattered beer bottle under me, the glass ripping my cheek. But that's the least of my concerns.

"I hate being ignored, you know?"

The sound of cracking glass under shoes, and I notice that Kenny- no, Asmodeus, is walking away from me.

"But you already know that. Don't you? Lil' Dee."

He crouches in front of Damien with a dark sneer, Kenny's slender fingers grasping the devil's thick black hair to make him meet his eyes under the immense pain.

Looking into Damien's expression of hatred and fear, he blinks in satisfied pleasure and lets the antichrist go- letting him fall to the ground. I feel slight relief when Asmodeus let's go of him, but it turns into a wave of terror when his feet move towards the redhead lying on the floor, shoulders still rising and falling from his heavy breaths.

Wait- why is he still panting so much?

"Okay, two options." Asmodeus states clearly, scooping Kyle off the ground by his arm and onto his feet.

Kyle's legs are weak, like jelly underneath him. His eyes are glazed over and out of focus, glistening slightly. His cheeks are burning red and his cat-like lips parted for heavy breaths to come out of his wet mouth.

There is something wrong with him. Terribly wrong. And I have only just noticed.

"Options One!" Kenny's voice shocks my attention back onto the demon holding Kyle firmly. "Damien, you come back to Hell with me so you can go back to your dad and I can go back to work. No one gets hurt- that much. I promise." He breathes in the smell of Kyle's hair and lets out a long breath of content, provoking our rage. That get's that option out of the way.

"Option Two!" He exclaims, but the atmosphere around him suddenly cools down, and Kenny's voice comes out much more calmly. "People do get hurt."

Before we can even make a reaction, move a single hair on our bodies, Kyle's excruciating cry of pain rocks our eardrums. The redhead locks his eyelids firmly together and falls to his knees, crying towards the dark ceiling as he does, clenching, digging his thin fingers deep into his stomach.

"Kyle!" I scream. I plead. "Jesus Christ! STOP! What the fuck are you doing to him, STOP!"

"I'm just giving him what he had a couple of months ago." The demon says amusingly, squeezing harder and harder into Kyle's arm. "Without the morphine of course."

I hear coughing in the pit of Kyle throat, mixed with the sound of bubbling blood. The sound of him dying.

My hands, knees, my whole body lifts off the floor automatically to run for the suffering redhead. But before I can do anything, there is a sudden flash of light, an explosion, before my eyes.

Kenny's body is sent flying into the wall behind him, his grasp on Kyle easily broken from the impact. But before the freed redhead crashes to the ground, I'm luckily there to catch him. I can't tell if he freezes or shakes in my arms.

I look back, seeing the figure that sent the demon crashing into the wall standing menacingly behind me. Black clothed arm extended out, long white fingers penetrating the air. His eyes, blazing a dangerous fire, are cold.

"Don't you dare touch him." He hisses, like a shadow creeping out of his mouth.

The demon, Asmodeus, drops to the floor chuckling breathlessly without amusement, cracked layers of paint falls with him, leaving a large dent in the wall. He chuckles, with each small cackle filled with rage. And Damien simply looks down at him with disgust.

"I don't care if you are here because my father ordered you to. I don't care if you are the destroyer or the king of all demons. You will not touch Kyle or Stan. Or you will feel my wrath."

The chuckling stops, and the two demons stare at each other with eyes made of stone. But for a short moment, I see the wine-coloured eyes swift away from Damien and onto me- more specifically, onto the still body lying in my arms.

What's this heat?

"Ngh… huh," A shock of breath wakes me and I look down to see that the heat is coming from the boy panting against me. Kyle, sweat and breath. He's hot. His skin is burning.

"Damien!" I shout in fear. The devil looks at me in alarm and I hold Kyle properly against my chest to show him the urgency. "He's burning up!"

It's a mistake.

The demon uses that one instant of Damien's distraction to punch the devil straight in the gut, only, Kenny's hand comes out the other side. His hand rips straight through the devil's meat, leaving a large hole in the stomach of the antichrist.

At first I can't believe what I see. A hand, Kenny's hand just ripped straight through a man's stomach as if it were paper! But when Damien falls to his knees, and when Kenny's red-coated hand is taken out of the devil's flesh, small bits of organs and thick blood splatters all over the floor beneath him. And Asmodeus looks at him with satisfaction.

"You know you shouldn't talk to me like that Damien, you imbecilic infant."

He says that with Kenny's voice, and lets the young devil cough out blood over his pale hands and onto the floor. The flame in Damien's iris' burn out into a dark charcoal black and they go smaller in the white of his eyes as his eyelids widen up, desperate under the coughing. Asmodeus kicks him in the ribs, crashing him into the floor. Damien lies there, lifeless.

As I watch the horrifying scene in terror, I freeze, and I forget the boy still burning in my hands. When I do get a grip of myself however, it's when the cold wine-coloured eyes move my way.

"He's down." He states, bobbing his towards the broken antichrist on the floor. "Are you going to do anything? Or are you just gonna sit there and shake in your shoes while I drag your demonic friend back to Hell?" His eyes then swim down to Kyle, and he adds, "While you watch your lover-boy burn in your arms?"

Fuck. He sure has a way with his words.

"You won't…" I mutter as I place Kyle gently on the carpet, leaving his heat as I stand onto my feet and face the demon possessing Kenny's body. I breathe and gather up my words with the deep breath.

"You won't take Damien back to Hell." I say clearly, as loud as I can with all the strength I can muster. I look down at the still body of the antichrist lying motionlessly in the puddle of his own blood.

And then I smirk, confidently. "Who else would fix Kyle if you take him?"

You might think I'm terrible. You might think I have no heart, smirking after observing my demon friend's lifeless body.

But how can I help myself?

A loud laugh responds to my words and Asmodeus barks at me.

"How ignorant and selfish!" He cackles, kicking Damien's motionless arm out of the way as he takes a step closer to me. The action makes my heart twitch in response, from agitation and anger.

"You really think you can make me do anything Stan Marsh?" He says as he comes towards me. "You really think you can stop me?"

He looks into my eyes, drilling burning holes into my pupils, and I suddenly feel my whole body melting, like lava, from the pit of my stomach. The pain. The boiling pain!

Do I scream?

I grit on my teeth, feeling my throat blocking up: every feature inside my body swelling up and closing in together. My throat, my intestines, my lungs, my veins- all of them feels like acid is slowly being poured into. I don't even notice myself falling to the ground coughing towards the floor in agony.

"Tickles, doesn't it?"

The demon's voice echoes all around, but he is standing just above me, somehow I can tell that much.

My back cracks and my ribs bang against the floor, and this time, I can hear myself yell at the impact. I feel a foot grind into my spine, digging me into the cold floor.

"How could you even think that you could stop me?" His foot finally leaves and I push myself up to gasp for air, but his foot swiftly slams into chest, making me tumble back a few rolls. "How could you? Being so weak?"

He kicks my arm away, in the same manner as he did to Damien, making free space for his path. His path, to the redhead behind me.

"Now if you don't mind, I'll like to finish off option two." I see his foot move beside my eyes. "I'll like to have some fun."

But before that foot can take another step away from me- another step closer to Kyle, I grab onto his ankle blankly.

"No you won't. I won't let you…" My voice is weak, I know. But my grip is stronger. I move my body to extend my second hand for the other foot and grab onto its ankle. With all my might, with all the power left in me, making sure he can't move, even if it's just for a second.

"We won't let you…"

And so I send the call.

"NOW DAMIEN!"

A shadow slides behind Asmodeus' back, the black of Damien. His flaming eyes leave glowing trails as he flies right up to us. I lose my mind in the raging red.

Oh shit…

I forgot this was Kenny's body…

Damien flings Kenny's body around fiercely, long, thin fingers digging into the blonde's shoulders mercilessly as my hands slide off of his orange parka.

"Damien, that's Kenny-!"

But I'm too late.

Quicker than an instant, the two demons burst into flames, lighting up the whole room in a fluorescent orange. The flames grow higher and higher, until they begin to caress the surface of the ceiling.

My jaw hangs open and my mouth moves without any words as I gaze disbelievingly at the two bodies burning in the silent fire.

A loud horrifying shriek shoots through the air, the sound of something that clearly isn't a human's pierces my eardrums in a queer and gentle way. From the calm look on Damien's face I know that it's not coming from him, so I look at Kenny, and shudder at what I see.

His eyes have rolled to the back of his head, turning into complete white. His jaw is hanging, mouth open wide, so wide, I can almost see the sides splitting through his cheeks. His expression is that of The Scream.

"Don't worry." A soft voice says and I avert my eyes back to Damien's calm expression.

"Don't worry?" I shriek. "You're on fire! You And Kenny Are On Fucking Fire!"

And they are. They are burning right in front of me. But still Damien doesn't change his relaxed muscles. I notice the hole in his shirt around is stomach, revealing clean healed skin. In the flames he stands as if it's just some strong wind. He really isn't human.

"These are the fires of Hell, there are my minions. They will not affect the human vessel." The antichrist explains. "They will only burn us demons and send us back to Hell."

A silence follows as I nod confusingly, trying to sink in his words.

"Wait- us?" The words mutter out my mouth before I even realise the meaning of them. "What do you mean us? You're going back to Hell too?"

"Unfortunately that's the only choice."

"But what-" I shake in frustration, watching the fire grow more brighter and menacing, but there's no heat. "Then what did we do all that for? Why Damien? Why try and break the seal in the first place if it's that easy for you to just give up! Is it really that easy for you? Then Fuck You!" I'm just so confused. "Why just give up? Why?"

The devil looks at me, sends me a firm glance- then drops his eyes to the boy lying behind me. And I realise, the gentleness in his eyes when he does.

"For Kyle?"

He chuckles at my disbelieved words, then gives a pathetic shrug.

"I thought that, if I left your body, stopped being influenced by you, your feelings and your thoughts, I would stop loving him. But why- it confuses me. The feeling is still inside me, as if I have stolen a piece of you away with me when I left your body. Unless, over the time this influenced feeling has developed to become something of my own." A small smile tints his lips, and his eyes fall to a soft warmth inside the roaring flames. "Or maybe this feeling was never influenced to begin with…"

Our eyes meet one last time. The shriek of the demon is nothing but a distant whisper to our ears.

"But it's not just for him."

His thin white lips leave a last smile.

"Thank you. Both of you. For teaching me so much."

The flames turn to ash, then into thin air. Just as quickly as the fire had lighted, it disappears into shadow without a trace.

And he is gone. He returned back to Hell, taking the king of all demons along with him.

Leaving an eerie silence, and those last words behind.

x

Another thing that he left behind falls to the ground with a heavy 'thud'. I look down, at the still body lying on the floor, his blond mousy hair spreading on the carpet, mouth hang open as if to snore.

There is no trace, no sign of burns or pain. He seems fine, too fine- oblivious of his situation.

With mild irritation, I ignore him and turn to the redhead behind me, still panting, still burning. Fuck.

"Kyle!"

I shout, my voice shaking the room, even making the blond behind me jolt up into life.

"What? What?" He mutters, but I ignore him and kneel beside Kyle.

"Kyle, dude, come on, are you okay? Dude, answer me!"

But he simply pants with red cheeks with sweat sliding down them, shaking with each breath he takes in my arms.

"Damn it! Damien was meant to fix you!" I mutter desperately to the sick redhead. But how can he now if he just went back to Hell?

"Dude, chill." A calm, almost blank voice says from behind me. This time I don't ignore him, and I look back to face Kenny. I'm that desperate.

"He's just hot." He states blankly. I blink, then glare at him in annoyance.

"Oh, you think I can't see that Kenny! He's fucking burning!"

"NO! I mean he's really really fucking hot."

"What the fuck do you mean?" I would strangle him if Kyle weren't suffering right now in my arms! Kenny simply sighs and kneels down beside me.

"I guess you haven't noticed it, but look," he points at Kyle crouch.

And sure enough, what I see makes my face instantly heat up.

"Oh…"

"Yerp," Kenny nods in confirmation. "He's got some kind of aphrodisiac working on him. I think I know what it is, but dealing with Kyle is probably first priority here."

"'Dealing'…?" I ask, face burning even more as Kyle's panting seems to become louder to my conscious ears. Fucking hormones.

"I didn't mean it like that Stan, you fuckin' perv!" Says Kenny McCormick. "Although that would be an excellent way of dealing with it. I could go do it for you, except I know you'd kill me so let's get rid of that option hey?"

"Well what are we supposed to do then?" I don't even comment on Kenny's suggestion, not having the time for it.

"You could wait out on it." He shrugs. "Although personally, I think that would be inhumane."

"Why would it be inhumane?"

"'Cause Stan!" He bursts in disbelief. "Urgh. Just imagine it! Having the biggest motherfuckin' boner, like, biggest GODDAMN motherfucking boner, and not being able to do anything about it, like having your hands tied to your back!"

The hot blood in my face travels down as a shiver into my stomach.

"For how long?" I ask quietly.

"For like, hours! I dunno dude. It depends on how strong the stuff is. But I think it works better on virgins."

A pause.

"Really?" The question comes out carefully out of my mouth.

"Yeah I think so-" Another pause. "Wait up Stan, are you sayin'" He looks from me, to Kyle, to me again. "No-"

My grip on Kyle tightens ever so slightly. "Fuck off."

But Kenny ignores my plead and falls into breaths of laughter.

"Dude, seriously? Fuck, with the way you- How can you resist?"

"Fuck you, he says that he doesn't want to yet, okay?"

"Okay, okay that's fine!" He raises his hands in the air defensively. "Wow Stan, that's like, five respect points right there, damn!"

"Could you just, help me get him onto the bed, please?"

And he does, chuckling at me on the way.

The redhead is still panting, hot and heavy, and we lower him onto the bed as carefully as we can but he still squeaks a moan when he contacts the mattress.

Although Kenny might have given me five respect points for restraining myself, my eyes keep on wondering down onto Kyle's erection as I pull the blanket up to his shoulders.

But his panting, his sweat, his flushed cheeks- it seems more agonising than I can imagine. It's amazing he's not begging anyone to fuck him right here and now.

"What the fuck would do this to him?" I mutter. "You said you might have an idea, what?"

Kenny, placing himself on the other bed, flings the top off a new bottle of beer.

"You know that demon Asmodeus?" He asks quietly. I nod. He was just in this room riding Kenny's body a few moments ago. "You know the seven deadly sins?" I nod again. "Well, when he took over my body, he said that he was one of them."

"Which one?"

He looks over to Kyle, and then back to his beer, the answer just too obvious.

"Lust."

He twirls the liquid in the bottle, and stares at it move. "That's why it was so easy for him to take over me, to lure me in. Because I'm such a fucking perv." He finally takes a swig, and I can tell by the long gulps of the alcohol how he's feeling about this whole event. Guilt.

"Dude, how did he, you know-"

"Tempt me?" Kenny finishes for me. "He told me that Damien was up to no good business with you and Kyle. I saw the text message from you saying that you guys were alone on a road trip and I… It kinda, made me worried to the bones man."

I feel a little frustrated towards Kenny's lack of faith in the antichrist, but still that doesn't sound like his fault at all.

"Dude, you were just worried about us. You were doing it for us dude, you didn't know. And how does that have anything to do with you being a motherfucking pervert?"

"Ah- because he said that he didn't need to do the usual ritual if it was with me? Since I'm more corrupted than he could ever wish for in a human?" He says it with disgust.

"Dude…"

"I know…" Another swig. And then, he looks back down at the rim of the bottle, coated with his saliva.

"Why Kyle's like that," he indicates the bed, "I think it's because he drank my beer earlier, before you guys went out. I think my spit had some sort of demonic power in it when Asmodeus provoked him into drinking it. I think that's why Damien got so worked up by it."

"Are you saying that Damien knew that you were possessed?"

"Well he didn't trust me, that's for sure. But when Kyle didn't react to it straight away, I think he relaxed, you know?"

We fall into silence. Kenny offers me his beer and I take one large gulp with ease.

"You were right, you know. You and Damien."

"What?" I wipe my mouth.

"About the seal. Asmodeus buried a goat at the Bailey Church Cemetery just before coming here. I had no idea what is was, but I guess it was important."

I nod. But it's too late now. Damien is gone- returned back to Hell in order to save Kyle and me.

Damien- God, what the fuck would he be doing now? I hope he's getting nothing more than a gay lecture from his dad. Satan? I don't even want to think about it. So I look back to the bed, and feel just as, if not more, bad.

"God. How long is he going to be like that?"

Kenny shakes his head. "I dunno dude. But I'm impressed. If I were him, I would be fucking every goddamn thing that had a hole."

I gaze at Kyle carefully with consideration, watching his body rise and fall under the sheets. And I choose, believing it to be the best choice.

"Kenny, could you step out for a minute?"

"Huh? Why?" I shrug, and so he sighs. "Fine."

He walks out with his bottle of beer, not asking another question. I'm grateful for that.

After making sure that he has shut the door, I move to Kyle's bed, and carefully slide into the covers beside him.

"Are you okay Ky?" I ask him, quietly as possible. He doesn't respond, just desperate to breathe in and breathe out. I curl my arms around him securely, pulling his back into my chest.

"It's okay, Kyle. Everything is going to be okay now…"

His breath becomes heavier and heavier, as if that's even possible, as my hands travel down from his chest, down his stomach, and further.

I repeat those words, calmly and gently, over and over again.

Because everything's okay now.

Everything is going to be okay.


A.N- Thanks for reading guys. There will be one last chapter, but it's going to be real short. Just to stitch up a few things and give it a final ending.

Really, thanks for coming this far. And I will probably say it again next chapter. I could say it over and over again.