Work Text:
In later aeons, Hastur had to admit it had looked rather suspect. At the time he mainly wanted to eviscerate whoever had ratted him out.
* * *
Hell, like all bureaucracies, is fuelled mainly by a mixture of gossip, spite and bad coffee. As a Duke of Hell, Hastur's coffee was usually quite drinkable, even if it was served at a temperature that could impart third degree burns to mortal flesh. As Hastur didn't mind it being served that cool, he rarely complained, unless he was making a point about the proper cowering stance a minion should take, or he was trying to impress Ligur. Gossip rarely interested him, unless it was about the other Dukes of Hell, and spite was something he had to guard against only from a small and powerful group of demons. As far as he was concerned, underlings were either respectful and terrified, or they were tortured and transferred when he got bored of seeing them squirm. And he had a very high attention span.
The trouble started, as far as he was aware, when some of his minions began adopting facial expressions that verged on almost allowing themselves to think about smiling whenever they announced Ligur's presence.
"Your Grace," they'd say, "a slave of Duke Ligur's craves admittance for his master."
"Show 'im in," Hastur would say, and away the minion would slink, with an almost-thought of smiling drifting round its head.
His guards never gave him that sort of cheek, not since the first time he'd taken discipline into his own claws. They would stand behind him, respectfully silent, and Ligur's would stand behind him respectfully ditto, and then he'd say, or Ligur'd say something about important inter-departmental affairs that had to be discussed in private and none of the guards would almost-think of sniggering.
It was only when things came to a head that Hastur realised with some cringing horror that the spiteful gossip of minions and underlings actually could reach him. The little bastards - or maybe Ligur's little bastards - gossiped to other departments full of little bastards, who were probably spotted almost-thinking of smiling. All it took was for one other powerful demon to idly torture the truth out of his office staff, and that was that.
When the time came, Hastur was discussing things pretty intently with Ligur on the floor of his private office, so intently that neither of them paid much attention to the screams and sounds of fighting in the outer rooms. It wasn't till his door was bashed in and the unfamiliar soldiers scurried in that he realised something was up.
"Don't get up, my dear Hastur," Belial simpered, poncing in and licking the blood of Hastur's minions off his claws. He grinned at Hastur in a friendly manner. "Hello, Ligur," he said. "Are you feeling quite as ill as you look?"
"Crap," Ligur said, or at least that's what Hastur thought he said, he was always difficult to understand when he spoke with his mouth full.
"I'm glad I saw this with my own eyes," Belial said cheerfully. "You wouldn't believe the things the lower orders say about the two of you." He paused and looked them both up and down slowly. "Or maybe you would."
"Maybe we c'n come ter some arrangement," Hastur said, wondering if he had any guards left in fighting trim outside.
"Oh, no need, no need, my dear Hastur," Belial said. "There's no point, anyway, I'm just satisfying my own curiosity and settling a few bets - it's the really big boys you should be worrying about. My advice is for the two of you to throw yourselves on the mercy of the courts and beg for leniency."
"Very funny," Ligur said.
"Oh, I thought so," Belial smiled, and dropped the friendly act. "How disgusting, acting like mortals. But you know what they're really going to nail you on, don't you? You look like you trust each other."
He gathered up his guards and swept out. Hastur listened to the sound of wingbeats fading into the distance and sat up, belatedly wishing some clothes into existence. Ligur made a sound like a sad dog and clambered up onto his feet.
"On a scale'v one ter infinity, 'ow screwed d'yer fink we are?" he asked.
"Wot sort of infinity?" Hastur said gloomily. (1)
* * *
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, Hastur thought, doing his best to loom over the demons who ran this department in the Seventh Circle. A quick spot of ritual humiliation and he and Ligur could get back to tormenting their underlings to discover who the filthy little traitor was. He glared down at the demon shuffling paperwork before him. The little ponce smiled up at him brightly, and didn't seem at all dismayed.
"Duke Hastur! It's so nice to have someone of your prestige come and visit us. So many people avoid us and say we're beneath their notice, isn't that strange? And Duke Ligur! Oh, my, we are lucky! Why, I was saying just the other millennium how lovely it would be to have the Princes and Dukes pay attention to our little department, wasn't I saying that?" he appealed to the demon at the next tastefully accessoried desk.
"Oh, yes. Yes, he was, and do you know, he's right - you wouldn't believe what we've done with this place--"
"Shurrup," Ligur snarled.
"No, but really, it was so dark and miserable--"
"Shurrup," Hastur agreed.
"I mean, I know Pandaemonium's awfully majestic, and you really can't fault the exquisite taste of the Designer --"
"If you do, it's treason, so shut yer mouf," Hastur said in fury, then looked a little closer at the facial feature in question. "Are you wearin' lipstick?"
"Service with a well-made-up smile, that's our motto!" the demon trilled, and pulled a file out from the towering stack of parchment on the desk. "Here we go, I just need you to sign . . . two weeks? Well. I must say it's nice to have friends in low places, I don't call that much of a punishment." He winked at Hastur in a friendly manner. "Not that we think you boys did anything worth punishing, of course."
"Give me the paper!" Hastur yelled. "I'll sign, just shut up!"
It was when they got out of the office and down to the fiery racetrack that Hastur realized no punishment in Hell was complete without one final spot of unpleasantness.
"Wot's he doin' 'ere?" Ligur muttered.>
"Dunno. Reportin' back on us, maybe? Ignore the little bastard."
Crowley shifted uneasily from foot to foot, looking at them as if he was expecting to be torn from limb to limb. It was tempting, but Hastur decided the dignified approach was probably the one to take.
"Hello," Crowley said nervously.
"Start runnin'," Hastur snapped, and led by example.
* * *
When it was all over, and Crowley had slithered back Upstairs, Hastur stalked back to his department and reigned in absolute terrifying power over his minions until he was sure, quite sure that no one was watching him. His underlings and guards scurried around him, unwilling to catch his eye. No one spoke in a voice raised above a whisper, unless he'd decided to make them scream. It was all very peaceful. It was also, he decided after an immeasurable amount of time, boring. He had no one to talk to, no one to lurk with, no one to -- well, it seemed like Ligur wasn't coming back, anyway. After another immeasurable amount of time he decided he didn't care, it didn't mean anything and his feelings certainly weren't hurt because he didn't have any.
Shortly thereafter he whipped his guards together and headed off to avenge in ichor the insult of being dumped.
Ligur didn't put up much of a defense. His guards didn't even have their weapons to hand, and seemed surprised and dismayed when Hastur's demons quickly overran the outer rooms. Hastur himself hurled a firebolt at the huge and heavy iron doors that gave entrance to Ligur's personal apartments, blasting them asunder. He marched straight in to be confronted by a sight he hadn't seen in uncounted aeons. Ligur stopped desperately trying to get his armour on, and came at him, sword in hand.
"Yer pathetic," Hastur sneered, knocking the sword across the hall. "I told yer to keep yerself in fightin' trim, but you just can't lissen, can you?"
"Hastur?" Ligur said hesitantly.
"'oo'd yer fink it was?" Hastur said, pushing up his visor. "Where you been, then?"
"Er," Ligur said. "I've been stayin' home. Quiet, like." A small, unpleasant smirk crept onto his face. "Did you miss me?"
"No," Hastur said, and edged round to block Ligur's path to the sword, in case he wanted to be stupid. The little demon just stood there, though, looking at him quizzically.
"I thought we should take fings easy, claw back a bit of distance --" Ligur started.
"You don't fuckin' dump me!" Hastur screamed. "If anyone's doin' the dumping, it'll be me!"
Ligur blinked. After a moment, so did Hastur. It wasn't quite what he'd meant to say.
"You're dumping me?" Ligur said.
"I will if I want to," Hastur muttered.
"You fink I've got no pride?" Ligur said. "You fink you can just waltz in here and insult a Duke of Hell by telling 'im 'e's dumped?"
"You fink you can insult me?" Hastur snarled.
Ligur cast a longing glance over at his sword, and glared through narrowed eyes at Hastur, who readied himself for the attack. He was taken aback when Ligur relaxed and stepped back.
"Awright," Ligur said. "You don't want yer ducal pride walked on, and neither do I. So if yer not dumpin' me, I ain't dumpin' you."
"OK," Hastur said. "As long as yer not."
"I just wanted the laughin' an' pointin' to have a chance ter die down," Ligur said.
"Oh. Well, it'll take millennia. You know what Belial's like. We'll be gettin' people go limp-winged at us for ages."
"Fuck 'em," Ligur said after a moment.
"Yeah. Fuck 'em," Hastur said with rather more relief than he'd expected to feel. There was an embarrassing pause during which Ligur examined the walls, the ceiling, the floor and the blood under his claws. "Are you wonderin' if it's worth it?" Hastur asked at last, uneasy at Ligur looking so contemplative.
"Wot? The continual 'umiliation of Belial gettin' his people to act out the scene? Or the bit where we might get sentenced to anuvver round of sprintin' through the rain of fire?"
"Yeah," Hastur said. "That stuff."
Ligur shrugged and wandered over to his doors, shaking his head over the state of the hinges. Hastur followed him and looked out in some disbelief at his guards. One of them was bandaging up one of Ligur's, and they all looked less gung-ho in the defence of his honour than he liked. He cleared his throat and they all came to guilty attention.
"Shall we kill them, my lord?" the captain asked.
"Don't you go slaughterin' my guards," Ligur said peevishly. "There's no need, we're not fightin'."
"Er, yeah. Stand down, lads," Hastur said, thinking he'd let slide the matter of Ligur giving his guards orders, just this once.
All the guards looked relieved - not that they almost-smiled, which Hastur still couldn't stand. Some of them outright just plain grinned, but before he could gut them for insubordination, they were cheering him and Ligur and clapping each other on the back.
"Crap," Ligur said. "Are they friends?"
"I suppose they got acquainted when we were, er, discussin' interdepartmental affairs," Hastur said. "Be a bit awkward if we ever went to war, I suppose."
"I told you, I ain't dumpin' you," Ligur said testily, giving the guards his version of a gracious wave. (2) He looked up at Hastur cautiously. "Seein' as yer here, you may as well stay a while. Dinner's in a bit."
"I was hopin' we could discuss stuff," Hastur said.
"Wot?"
"Interdepartmental affairs?"
Ligur grinned, all cheerful fangs and forked tongue again.
"Why not?" he said. "It's been ages. I could do with a good, hard discussion. So wot if we get in trouble, a bit of runnin' won't hurt us."
Hastur followed him back into the gloom of his apartments. He hadn't expected things to work out so easily, and was pleased, if puzzled.
Ligur still wanted him around. Ligur trusted him enough to let him walk, armed and armoured, at Ligur's unguarded back. Maybe Belial had a point, Hastur thought. That much trust was unnatural. Ligur grinned back at him and he decided he didn't care if it was unnatural or not. He just hadn't expected it to make him feel so much better. But he thought he could get used to it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
(1) Demons have a natural affinity for abstract mathematics, and can easily distinguish between the various sizes of infinity, whether it's the regular infinite sort or the infinitely bigger sorts that tend to make mortal mathematicians go mad or sign away their souls.
As St Augustine said, "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell."
(2)The effect was rather spoiled when he picked his nose.