Work Text:
"Hell is A Deep Fryer"
Absolute bullshit written by FicticiousDelicious.
If heaven is free of sin then Hell is where it’s stored.
One hot and sweaty Friday in Hell, one of the ten demon guards, Destruction, went missing and most of the other guards looked high and low but to no avail. Skulls needed stomping, churches needed burning, who was going to run the wrecker and shred past-date tax documents?! Destruction couldn’t just go AWOL; they needed him! However there were a few indifferent faces; Sacrifice was more than fine with writing this off, so were Solitude and the voice nagging in his head - both counted. Emptiness didn’t have an opinion or didn’t share it, Age had no time for this, Rage was too angry to really be helpful past a point and Despair had a brooding appointment. So after Rage and Despair dipping early…Intoxication, Greed and Madness had given it the good ol’ college try and still no Destruction, so they told Satan about this mess and instead of having them hung up by their toes Satan found a detective to solve the case of Destruction’s disappearance. Three-for-one…a detective force so clever, so experienced and so despicably handsome that they were called ‘The Divine Trinity’, or ‘Mister T’ for short…two thinking heads, one body and a sagely inner monologue that was actually just an imaginary friend. A mind like a fork, three points…and all of them stabbing away in the same direction – toward truth and justice. Satan had only seen this guy on posters in his left-hand’s office because Blindness was a big fan. This two-headed detective had real names though: the ginger head was named ‘Ichigo’, the whitehead- that sounds disgusting let’s try again…the albino was named ‘Ogichi’ and their inner monologue was Zangetsu. Starting with a general description of the missing demon guard, THEY WERE ON THE CASE.
The first thing to look at were Destruction’s chambers so Mister T got an informational map and navigated Satan’s headquarters and its freakshows until they came to a grand hallway with an excessively big wooden door with the metal number ‘666’ nailed to it and ‘knock first, cunts’ on a piece of copy paper taped above a doorknocker…that looked like a pair of brass testicles. While Ichigo covered his face with their left hand Ogichi grabbed the knocker and slammed it against the door a few times. When no one answered they heaved…and heaved…and heaved until the excessively big door creaked open. There was a smoldering crater where a room should be behind that door. ‘Knock first’? More like ‘Keep away from edge’. Right away Zangetsu had suggested to them that maybe Destruction had been paradoxed and accidentally destroyed himself but the heads thought that was unlikely. Without a room to search for clues and nothing strange in the hallway it was up to Mister T to sniff every other logical place, every corner and butt to find the clues they needed. To get a starting point they would need information from the other demon guards about happenings and Destruction himself.
Using the helpful informational map Mister T went to the next-to-nearest guard’s chambers and hoped he would be there: Madness. They found a sensibly sized door this time made of stone with the carving ‘Laboratory’ on it and two levers on the right and left of the door. Knock, knock, knock…and no answer. The levers were labeled; right was ‘down’ and the left was ‘up’. Great…a puzzle. Well the levers were both facing up so Ogichi grabbed hold of the right one and yanked it down. The floor made a shifting sound. Narrowly catching the edge of a sudden gap in the floor, avoiding sailing down into a pit of hellgators when a panel on the floor slipped away, Mister T’s two heads were breathing a little bit harder as they saved their collective hide and clawed their way up and away from the deadly trap. Just then the laboratory door slid aside and there was Madness. Having heard the bell for his trap he’d come running to see what he’d caught! He was disappointed the trap hadn’t worked. After huffily answering the detective’s questions the self-taught scientist straightened his glasses and pivoted with the flick of his pink hair and stormed back into his laboratory. Suspicious, but Mister T learned that Destruction had broken into the lab recently. Madness certainly had the means and motivation to doom a certain someone…
Not all of the guards lived at headquarters but another few that did were Emptiness, Age and Despair. Emptiness first. It was a quick visit. Just find the hole…the hole in the wall which served as a cave and Emptiness’s beady green eyes peered down at his visitor as he hung from the ceiling at the front of the cave’s mouth, wrapped up in his own wings. Mister T’s two heads questioned the bat man for clues. Apparently Emptiness did not associate with Destruction since Destruction had snuck into his room destroyed it like he was good at, hence the massive open-mouthed cave instead of proper chambers. Emptiness was not so empty after all, he said that Rage was probably the last one to have seen Destruction and then there was Emptiness’s implied disapproval of the missing guard’s attitude and afterlife choices based on shitty, unsolicited renovations. Hearing more distaste for Destruction from fellow guards Ogichi was starting to suspect that Destruction was in fact an asshole. While Ichigo suspected that the other guards might have something to do with this, Zangetsu tried to connect those two things but they told him to shut up. Emptiness was too sane to have anything to do with the disappearance though – probably.
Hot on the trail Despair was next, actually found with Greed and Intoxication indulging in some…recreational substances at Despair’s chambers further up the hall. For a knock the door opened and let out the fumes of a few hours of hotboxing. Mister T’s eyes watered. That was some mean lettuce. Potent…but where better to blaze than in the blaziest, hottest fucking place in the whole universe? The three queer demon guards would only talk if the detective joined them. No harsh vibes here. So Ichigo hung up his shame and Ogichi rubbed his palms together looking forward to smokin’ peace-pipe while their inner monologue screamed and went to hide in the deepest recesses of their minds. They mingled with the lava lamps and weird vibes and five hours later detective work had managed to get one piece of vital information out of the three stoned demons: ‘not here’. Destruction was not here, nor there, nor anywhere. He was in fact still missing. Profound… So Mister T, the two-headed detective who was as herbily lapidated as you please, stumbled out of that den of sin and luckily the heads were so high that they didn’t even care that the demons had wasted their time. Partaking in some of the culture, aaaah that was just part of good detective work, right?
Speaking of something like time… Barely able to read the trifolded map Mister T stumbled their happy stoned arse toward Age’s chambers next, too high to even anticipate what awaited them. After going around long confusing hallways a large open doorway, held up by Roman columns, framed one’s way into Age’s chambers: a gallery of surrealistic art and a sophisticated exhibit of decaying things behind glass so that they couldn’t be disturbed. Things like half-eaten hellbeasts, moldy bagels, human cadavers and radioactive waste. There was also an enormous hourglass in the middle of the room with black sand slowly draining through its tiny center and Age was standing alone facing it, hands behind his back and a calm stance – staring. Two still very high heads, Ichigo and Ogichi, had the very strong impression that all of these artsy things were super significant but it was just a lot to grasp right now… They shuffled up to Age and when the large and foreboding demon guard turned to look at them with a cold judging eye…there were no eyes…Age was just bones. Their monologue, Zangetsu was dubiously squinting from his mindful hiding place and wondering if what their body had smoked was actually weed or something hallucinogenic. The detective heads asked a lot of seemingly deep questions, like if drinking milk helped a skeleton’s complexion and how a melting clock worked, but none were relevant to the case… Conversing with Age hurried along the time it took that devil’s lettuce to get through the two-headed detective’s system. Age also didn’t have a nose to smell the drugs so he was none the wiser, but it was never a waste of his time to talk art. Mister T left more confused than they’d walked in, but as their herbal condition wore off they remembered that Destruction might be in trouble if they didn’t stop putzing around with demon guard ‘culture’. ‘Because we got high’ was not a good enough excuse for neglecting Destruction. Zangetsu tried to remind his two-heads that they hadn’t asked Age any case-relevant questions but was told to ‘shut up’ again. Drawing the crumpled and bong-water stained map out Ichigo snatched the thing away from Ogichi and flipped it over to the other side and made the next decision about where they were going more carefully than their reckless albino head was bound to…they were going to see Rage; according to Not-So-Emptiness, Rage was the last to see that blue-haired demon guard and probably chock-full of clues.
This is a FicticiousDelicious fanfiction, exclusive to my Ao3.org. This fanfiction is not approved for any manner of AI use. If you’re reading this writing from a source other than https://archiveofourown.org/users/FicticiousDelicious/pseuds/FicticiousDelicious then it’s not the original and it’s not me posting it!
They had to leave Satan’s headquarters to get to Rage’s citadel, call an Uber-mensch driver, travel to Hell’s southern border then hike up a hopefully dormant volcano. At least they’d gotten a pamphlet or two off of that driver for some weekend attractions and vacations spots; cool chick other than the Enya she was playing on the stereo…it just didn’t fit the mood. Ichigo and Ogichi also found that the pamphlets made nice DIY fans to flap as they roasted on their treacherous hike up the volcanic slope and breathed what was probably toxic air. When finally they reached the summit of the volcano there was an igneous citadel with rigid spires jutting right up from the crater…a crater that was filled in with dirt. Legend had it that Rage had yelled this volcano into submission and it had been quiet ever since. The ten foot and three-hundred-pound demon guard was right out in the front yard when the detective rushed over to him waving pamphlets. Rage turned around, looked at the two eager heads, the pamphlets and at the footprints that had carelessly mashed down the dirt and seeds he’d been scattering and then back at the detective. Mister T was hurled screaming off of the volcano summit as Rage disposed of a solicitor who had ruined his gardening without asking questions or being asked questions…
Volcanic soil was almost as rich as the snapshot of Mister T’s handsome faces hitting the ground with a painful smack a mile away from the volcano. They’d landed in the middle of a road through Hell. As Ichigo and Ogichi lifted their delirious faces off of some kind of sulfuric pavement, blinking to remind themselves that they were still a functioning body albeit in an unflattering pose, they saw a shadow come over their lowly form… Hell’s mascot herself, the four-headed goatwoman of the apocalypse. Handsome still, despite some gritty road-rash, Mister T’s eyes went wide… Sacrifice was hitching a ride on the goatwoman’s back and leaned one way to see around all the many heads at what dead carrion had landed on the sulfuric road this ti- oh it wasn’t dead and Nel hadn’t trampled it yet. Before any trampling could be considered Mister T found this convenient and as they picked their body up they questioned the hell-babes about Destruction’s disappearance. Sacrifice insisted that Destruction’s disappearance was sacrificial for some peace and quiet, and not to ruin a good thing – and also that she had nothing to do with it. When goatwoman Nel spoke all of the four heads spoke the same simultaneously with a surreal harmony that was both precious and irritating…something about Destruction and a lake. Sacrifice hushed her mount and a moment later they ditched the detective and were charging into the distance up the road leaving a trail of flames in the wake of swift hooves. Mister T had to squint two sets of eyes just to follow that sudden departure. The two-headed detective watched the majestic duo gallop away and both heads wondered…could they ever have a chance at love? With a beautiful creature like Nel that had enough heads for both of theirs? …oh love. Sweet multi-headed love.
The ginger head, Ichigo packed away his hopes for love and reminded himself that doing what was right was all that he should ever need. Ogichi sternly disagreed, this sort of shit was why they were still virgins…or virgin…it was hard to figure out plural or singular for two brains and one meatbag. Almost as if it were fate, or just some sad country-western film clip, the two-headed detective pressed on through the heated winds of Hell along this lonely sulfuric road, suffering from the munchies and thirsty for the truth…they must find this lake but something was going to get in their way yet, Solitude… Still picking gravel out of both faces from that landing, Mister T squinted at a rippling on the road ahead. Water?! Did this road lead right into the lake?! They stopped fussing and started running, two minds, one body and some really sore parts moving as fast as their legs could carry, but as they got closer they slowed their stride as a demonic-looking man with horns and wearing hellbeastie chaps, ass-less like they should be, all the rest leather and the steepest dipping cowboy hat to ever sit on a head, came out of the mirage they’d seen. Solitude… One demon guard that was as hard to find as ice cubes around here. Mister T’s two sets of eyes watered from the open heat blowing across the broad sulfuric road. Solitude’s eyes were covered up by the hat so much he could hardly see where he was going ahead, walking in a squiggle line, the voice in his head nagged him to walk straighter! His leather jacket’s excessive amount of tassels fluttered and his spurred cowboy boots clacked steadily as he tried to make himself walk straighter. The spurs on his leather boots made menacing little jingles and Solitude carried a single pistol out of its holster. Wary Mister T stopped cold, being approached from a distance. Then, twenty feet away with the winds of Hell blowing between them, Solitude stopped too and as he looked up he spit a lock of brown wavy hair out of his mouth that had been caught up against his lips the whole time. The demon guard took his hat off and threw it. He couldn’t see with it anyhow… Raising his pistol he aimed it at the two-headed detective claiming that he would not surrender this place to any goodie-two-heads without a fight. The ginger head, Ichigo, pushed question after question about the lake insistently. What did Solitude know about a lake around here, if anything at all?! Solitude gave nothing up and fired…BB after plastic BB until the detective finally approached him and yanked the gun out of his hand then tossed it aside. Solitude was tough though, this fiend couldn’t have his land without the deed and only he knew where it was, so he swallowed poison that was actually just some fizzing candy and flopped down on the road and lurched around a bit before playing dead with a gurgling sound. The voice in Solitude’s head complained about the performance. Ichigo and Ogichi shook their heads, what a tragic man…damned by determination…it was so majestic. Inside the deeper recesses of Mister T’s collective consciousness Zangetsu shook his head in disbelief and secondhand embarrassment – his mood for this whole case really.
At the very least before moving on they rolled Solitude off in a ditch by the road where he wouldn’t get run over and really die and left him lay next to an unlicensed pedal tricycle with leather tassels that was probably how Solitude had gotten out here in the first place. Solitude continued to play dead or he’d fallen asleep. Oh well! Onward with the case…over the bodies of their enemies, remorseful for those they had to put down to get closer to Destruction. Sweaty and lamenting their munchies and afflictions, what they wouldn’t give for a gremlin pulling a rickshaw and a bag of flaming hot chips right now… Mister T walked boldly through the winds of Hell on the sulfuric road, deeper into the territory, and traveling the road eventually they saw their first sign: ‘1/2 mile Burning Lake Reservoir – no fishing without permit, boating permitted’. The detective picked up the pace! Justice, truth, clues and dangerous water sports awaited! After painful minutes of running, the totally normal burning lake of fire was beside them! They were shown another sign: ‘Burning Lake Reservoir – boat ramp/dock, south side entrance’. The detective’s determination for truth and justice was paying off! It had been such a long- All thoughts stopped as the weary detective saw a whistling form hunched and crouching at the side of the lake behind the road sign. It could be another mirage so the detective carefully marked steps and got closer…then got hit in the face with a deep-fried blooming onion because looking down at one’s feet while walking warranted such. Careless pedestrians. Now the delicious smell of cooked batter, vegetables and meat was balls-deep in every nose around. Ogichi licked his chops. There was a loud sizzling. Ichigo demanded this fiend’s name and the detective earned the irked attention of a demon guard that introduced himself as ‘Destruction’. They had found him! …and he…he was deep frying another blooming onion. Destruction was using the legendary burning lake of Hell as his personal deep fryer on an EIGHT-HOUR lunchbreak.
Another batter dipped onion in the fryer basket sizzled, much like Ichigo’s mind while Ogichi was deflowering that first blooming onion and stuffing it in his face. Destruction had a pile of deep-fried amalgamations and abominations in a basket next to himself. This was madness! No wait…it was definitely Destruction. That blue hair was unmistakable. “What happened to ‘all things are consumed’?!” How was that food not disintegrating in the infamous fiery lake?! How it was on fire did not matter. It was just a lake on fire and that was intense. Ichigo pressed the questioning, “This food…the fryer basket… Where did you even-?!”
“I ‘borrowed’ ‘em.” Likely from Rage’s garden and Madness’s laboratory... Destruction glanced bitterly at the one head of the detective’s that was pigging out. “And all things are consumed…eventually. Shut the fuck up and be grateful that I shared… Did Belial send you?”
“Borrowed?!” That seemed like a lie. “AND YES, HE SENT ME. But the lake! You’ve been here this whole time?!” Ichigo couldn’t believe that this was the end of their case…
Destruction just gave a hell-class scowl that flattened out. Translation: ‘duh’.
“Couldn’t you have left a note?!”
“Stop asking me questions before I finish what Rage’s toss didn’t.”
“H-How in the hell did you know he threw us?”
Intended or not, that pun was stupid. “… Heard you guys screaming. There’s a difference between a loud girly shriek and the cries of the damned… If ya don’t wanna be both stop askin’ me questions and get lost.” Then Destruction went back to his whistling and cooking, deep frying everything from mushrooms and onions to hellbeast steaks…premium cuts need only apply. The lake was simply his deep fryer, and everything else was just sizzling in it…waiting to be consumed. This destructive motherfucker really didn’t give a shit about anything.
Thinking harder on where this food Destruction was frying had probably been ‘borrowed’ from, Ichigo and Ogichi were getting the uneasy feeling that they might have to come back to investigate another disappearance when karma swung back around. This was madness- no wait…Destruction- It was then that their sagely inner monologue, Zangetsu, gave them some sage advice: to stop getting between a demon and his lunchbreak, lest they suffer unsolicited bodily renovations. Goodbye arms. Goodbye legs… They had already been testing the demon guard’s patience…best not to push it more. Plus, Destruction had done them a favor! He had cured their munchies! A favor for a favor perhaps, and a job well done. So with Ogichi licking his side’s fingers and a long sigh from Ichigo, at least half of the detective was full of pride that they had solved their case and the rest was full of greasy blooming onion… As Ichigo stared at the flames across the Burning Lake of Fire, he wasn’t sure if they had gotten on the right bus to the correct Hell…but a solved case was a solved case! And he just felt a little fried himself… “Do you think they have deep fryers in-?”
Destruction shot the detective an agitated glare. “Do you get paid to be this annoying?”
That’s when they realized…they weren’t getting paid at all.
Read ALL my fanfictions on ArchiveofOurOwn.org. Art via: DeviantArt.com/FicticiousDelicious or FicticiousDelicious.Tumblr.com