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One of the scariest final steps of being christened, what people don’t talk about often, perhaps because they’re scared, or perhaps because they don’t know, is that the devil tests your strength. He‘ll corner you, he’ll penetrate you, he’ll find a way to get inside you and linger until you’ve driven yourself mad. It’s a challenge. It’s a threat. It’s a question of loyalty. He stares you down and waits for an answer. Are you truly devoted? Are you willing to give it all up? Will you throw it all away?
Eli Sunday knew this. Obviously, he knew this. He, of all people, should’ve known this best of all, but he was weak, horribly so. If you were to ask him before, he’d have assumed himself stronger, a divine test he surely would pass, but that was the juvenile pride that still thrived in him talking. He was a teenager, fresh-faced and oblivious to what would come, a lily-white lamb walking blindly into the slaughterhouse. Oh, he'd known nothing. Nothing at all.
From the second the man and his son set foot on his land, it was as if a curse had bound itself to Eli, burrowing a new home right where a soul should've been. All it takes is one look. Like Medusa, you meet his eyes once, and you’re nothing but stone. He could feel their burn even as he looked away. The man’s gaze on him was loaded with thousands of questions as if he’d wanted Eli to unravel right in front of him so he could study what remained. Who do you think I am? Is this something I could be, want to be?
This would never change, as the years turned to dust behind them and the decades passed, that never changed. But Eli still found himself returning to that first look, that first moment. There are thousands of words Eli could have used to describe it, all contradictory yet somehow still true. Curious. Doubtful. Mystified. Petrified. Struck, with lightning, with a fist, with love, they all feel the same, anyway. Pure hatred. Cruel. Yes, always goes back to cruelty when it comes to those two.
Eli wishes he could return back to that day, grab him by the collar of his shirt, push him to the ground and say You can’t come here. This isn’t yours. This is mine. M-I-N-E, mine. Stay away, you’re not wanted here. We don’t want to be destroyed. Don't drag us into your mess. Back when the land was solely his own, it was the Sunday farm first, after all. Without Eli, really, Daniel wouldn’t be much of anything at all. Oh, how he wishes he could do it all again. Back when there was plenty that was Eli’s, only his. Before him. Before Daniel Plainview had to ruin it all.
There are plenty of different beliefs on what the devil looks like. There were warnings of a hideous beast. There were warnings of a beautiful creature. The stories didn't warn you that the truth lay somewhere in the middle. There was beauty within the ugliness, that's how he gets you. Eli wishes he could go back to being blind. To notice what is beautiful means you will inevitably be tempted, to be tempted means you will give in, and to give in means you've sinned. There really should've been more warnings, Eli thinks. They said that he’d manipulate you and ruin you once you were in his grasp, but there was plenty there were no warning signs for. They didn’t warn you about his hands, slick with the inky black oil he’d spelled out a name for himself in. The hands that could light a fire that never burns out, growing larger and larger until someone inevitably gets burned. His soul, which he’d learned was coated in the same ash, too black and bruised to be salvaged. Of his hateful eyes, how even through the bitter gaze, made you feel seen for the first time in your life. How sin glinted in them like a lost gem amongst the filth. Wasn't that a great way to describe Daniel Plainview, anyway?
Eli’s thoughts were slowly corrupted. Well, in hindsight, you could pretend it was slow, creeping up and wrapping its hands around his throat until there was no air left in him, but that simply wasn't the truth. It'd been developing since that first handshake, remaining dormant in his heart. Soon after, everything somehow trailed back to that horrible man. To notice what is beautiful means you will inevitably be tempted, and Eli was giving in. His thoughts quickly spun into these sick, violent flashes. Pushing him down, the sound of his body crashing hard against the wooden floor. Pinning Daniel's wrists down, holding him in place, feeling as he squirms under him and knowing there's no escape. Sharp teeth biting down and his mouth filling with the blood they drew, skin splitting under Eli’s angry fists, the same hands that were made to heal destroying all he can get them on. Grabbing Daniel by his hair, throwing his head back, and tugging until tears escaped his eyes and he had to plead for mercy. Eli wanted to make him cry, see Daniel so pathetic and fragile, that he had to beg for forgiveness. Eli wouldn't ever forgive him.
As much as Eli didn't like the violent thoughts, he much preferred them to the others.
The worst ones came up late at night, sneaking up when least expected. The ones that spun a web of sin inside his soul, one thread after another, until he was left a mess of guilt and tears. The thoughts where his attempts at an ambush backfired, and Daniel was the one on top of him once again. Violent, dark hands grab Eli and hurt him in the worst ways imaginable. Eli pleaded for mercy as well. Please. I'll do whatever you want. Eli begged to be destroyed. There was not a drop of mercy in Daniel Plainview’s body, but there was more than enough destruction.
Eli was going to confront him, look him right in his eyes and tell him what it was he wanted. The money, obviously. It was all for the money, it was for the church, what else could it be for? He'd played through the scenario in his head. He wouldn't leave without getting what he was promised, he would put up a fight if need be. Of course, the idea of the fight he would put up often overtook the imagined pride at the finish line, welling in his chest. No, the fight was what made it worth it wasn't it? Who respects the soldiers from a war gone unfought?
Daniel wrapped his fingers through his hair and pulled, forcing his head back so Eli’s chin was facing upward. Eli closed his eyes as a high-pitched whine escaped his lips. “Look at me,” Daniel said. Eli shut his eyes tighter and shook his head rapidly, earning him another tug on his stinging scalp, grimacing as he breathed in through his teeth. “I said look at me.” Daniel repeated. Eli does. He always gives in to the temptation.
“Daniel. I don't ask much of you. Why must you act as if I am somehow wretched for asking for what I was promised?” Eli said. “I promised you nothing.” “Don’t lie to me, Daniel. It’s not fair.” “And what did I promise you?” Daniel asked. Eli's gaze remained steady. So did Daniel's. Eli couldn't handle the eye contact, so his gaze dropped down and studied the body in front of him, trailing down the curves of his clothes and wondering what it all must look like bare. He shook his head slightly at himself, and Daniel tugged once more to continue forcing Eli's eyes on his. Cruel. Cruel. Cruel. "I just want the money. I will take it and leave you be. We can continue on separately as soon as I get it all. That’s the only reason I’m here.” Eli said. “That’s the only reason?” Daniel challenged, remaining insouciant through it all. Eli swallowed. “Yes. Why must you keep drawing this out?” The fantasy image of Daniel smiled wickedly. “Oh, you know why. Don’t you, Eli? Don’t you understand?” The hand that wasn’t gripping his hair caressed down his face. It goes downhill from there.
It was as if Daniel could read his mind when the actual event took place. Eli walked up to him, all confidence, optimism and ambition, and the man just had to knock him down. Daniel dragged him through his self-created filth. What else was to be expected from him, dragging Eli through a mess of his own creation and finding a way to blame the other somehow. Nothing was ever enough for Daniel, no amount of slaps to the face, no amount of tugs to the scalp, no amount of fingers swiping mud across Eli's tongue just to be spit right back at him. The man is ruining him, and Eli isn't putting up a fight, he's trying to pull him closer. It was an attempt to escape at first, sure, you could say that. Eli grabs handfuls of the fabric of Daniel's shirt and holds it close to him. He was nearly standing up, anyway, and with the added support, he could've made his way up to his feet. Daniel knows better. He pushes him down. Don't even try it. Now lying flat on the ground with one of Daniel's legs on either side of his waist, he doesn't try to push him away. He could, but he doesn't. Daniel pins Eli's anxious wrists down when he notices how they grapple for him. Once the other's hands are occupied, Eli moves his own back to the original position, clutching the fabric and trying to pull Daniel closer. He pins them down again.
I'm gonna bury you underground. The man says, and you, flat on your back and covered in muck, wish he would. Because you're humiliated. Perhaps for all the wrong reasons, but you are. You're filled with shame. You walk home as the dirt on your clothes dries and ignore looking any of your family members in the eye. You sit at the dinner table and you can't stand to look at your father because, really, it's all his fault. You want to hurt him back. You hate him. You hate him because he created a monster, the one you see in the mirror every day. Well, Daniel created it, and your father allowed Daniel to come here. Daniel. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Your brother would never have hurt your father, but to Hell with your brother, he left, now you're all that remains, and you're bursting at the seams with something you don't understand. Your father is lying flat on the floor as you were a few hours earlier, staring up at the wood ceiling instead of the insultingly blue sky, and you leave him. You weren't planning on eating anyway, you'd lost an appetite for anything else after feeling the evil man's hands in your mouth. You were officially, undoubtedly ruined.
So, Eli would spend hours on his knees, remaining in place until he was sore and deep purple scattered across his kneecaps. Hands clasped tight together, head pressed against the pew in front of him, feeling his breath hot on his skin, muttering pleas for forgiveness. Please. Please. He’d stay in that same position, repeating the same words until the day had turned to night behind his back. I am sorry, Lord. I am a sinner. Please forgive me. Please punish me for what I've done. Punish me once more when I do it again, and once more after that. When the rest of the town was sound asleep, and tear stains had soaked through the fabric of his clothes, he’d run out of prayers to speak. He’d run out of things to beg for. From God, anyway. Somewhere along the way, his name became a prayer.
Daniel Plainview. A blessing and a curse.
Eli was a hypocrite above all else. Yeah, there’s all the other things. A phony, a deviant, a sinner, whatever else, but hypocrite was the word that most accurately described him. What kind of sick person stands on a stage and yells at others for what he’s done wrong, blaming innocent people for your crimes? Addressing the vague “sinners” when he should be shouting to a mirror instead? He preaches the gospel, yet his thoughts betray him each time the candle is blown out.
Perhaps the devil caught hold of him in ways that before he never could've imagined. Perhaps he let another man get too close. Perhaps he let the hands of another man leave a mark when he was touched. Perhaps he sinned. (And perhaps it didn't feel as such. Perhaps it was more revelation than devastation.) Perhaps every night, he’d think back to this experience and would be so overwhelmed with guilt once finished, sin dripping from him, making sure through tears of shame, he does the sign of the cross before his hand could even dry. Perhaps he feels the worst about whose hands he pretends are his own, the same name that remains bitter on his lips, even after all of this time.
Oh, he was so full of sin.
The story had all been written out before. Father. Son. Does that make Eli the Holy Spirit?
But Daniel had asked for forgiveness before they'd parted ways. Eli could see through him, he knew it wasn’t genuine, he knew there were ulterior motives, there always were. Surely, a baptism wouldn't work anyway. Oil and water don't mix. If Jesus walks on water, the devil walks on oil. Sometimes, he also walks right into your church, asking to be bathed in the blood.
Despite everything, Eli was the only person that could do it, ironically enough, he was the vessel for the one that forgives. He didn’t want to. He would’ve fully humiliated him. He'd have refused him, stating he was too evil to be forgiven. He would’ve made it so nobody ever looked Daniel in the eye again. But he didn’t do that. He did expose his sins for everyone to see, and he made him admit them, loud and clear, Eli's words becoming his own. Eli was the one in charge for once, and he could’ve made Daniel do and say whatever he wanted, but holding his head back, hair between his fingertips as the blessed water doused him, he wanted more. You want the blood? Then beg for it. You're already on your knees like I want you. You know I'll do whatever you want, so ask for the blood, and I'll make you bleed.
Daniel's hand grasps his, dampened from a few moments earlier. They both knew, right away, that as soon as Daniel was off of his knees, he would be the one back in power. Eli would go back to being the idiotic child for the other to look down upon. All of the power would be handed back to Daniel, he'd hold this power over Eli's head somehow, it was just a matter of how he did it. Unfortunately, he always knew just what to say. Not in that poetic, love-letter way people usually mean it, but in the way that he knew how to make Eli squirm, to make him angry, to get a rise out of him, he knew how to get his words to stick with Eli like they were written in stone.
Daniel leans closer, and Eli can't predict what's coming, he never can. He tries to keep his face blank, but he knows his thoughts show on his expression. Daniel whispers some words that Eli never forgot. They were effortless, said so casually that to anyone else, they would have been as significant as commenting on the weather. But Daniel knew. He knew what he was doing, and God, did he get it right. Eli never forgot those words. His later sins could all be traced back to them.
Luckily, after that, they were apart for many years. Eli barely thought of the man anymore. He was happy. He was successful. He was living the life he was meant to live, and Daniel Plainview was nowhere in sight, nothing but a brief callback in Eli’s past, something no longer needing to be mentioned. Eli didn’t think of him anymore. He didn’t think of any of it. He swears, that none of it crosses his mind anymore.
Just when Eli thought he’d finally been entirely rid of him, Daniel had to steal the one final part of himself. Even if it wasn’t direct, it was a stab in the back, and they both knew it. The only thing that was still his and only his. His name. Sunday. All he had left that was solely his, ripped from him like it was nothing.
“Plainview?” Eli asked, hoping he’d simply misheard the initials. “Yes.” His sister replied, eyes widened in nervous anticipation, confirming his horrible suspicions. She awaited a reaction. “No.” He responded finally. “No? What do you mean ‘no’?” “No. No, that family… they’re not good people, Mary. Our Lord doesn’t support people like them. They’re... they’re sinners, Mary.” He explained. Mary looked down to the floor. “Why? Why are you so upset?” She asked. Eli couldn’t tell her the truth.
When the formal wedding invitation arrived, Eli stared at it, at the effortless twirls of the handwritten cursive that belonged to his sister, then went on to rip the paper to shreds.
He didn’t attend the ceremony. Perhaps that made him a bad brother, but he’s used to that. He’s been worse.
Weeks later, he heard that the elder Plainview didn’t show either. Two sides of the same coin, aren’t they?
The truth Eli was now realizing that he wished somebody had told him sooner was that the devil isn’t just one singular force, but he’s all around. He corrupts all you care for. So the matter isn’t just in taking him down by the horns, but being able to turn your back on someone you loved because he got to them. Give up on yourself because he got to you, too.
The contrast is that perhaps, holiness is forgiveness. They go hand in hand, don’t they? Perhaps true holiness is found in reconciliation, showing up at someone’s door after a decade, being the bigger person and saying “I’m sorry.” Eli wouldn't know, because he had nothing to be sorry for. He wanted to be the one told, "I'm sorry." What he wanted, what he craved, was above holiness. He knew what he wanted most was vengeance. Revenge, ice-cold, and piercing, sharp enough to draw blood.
Perhaps the saints were forgiving, but Eli was no saint. No, no, he was a prophet, an oracle. The truth is set and he simply spoke it, and the message of God was not always kindness. He drowned the earth in floodwaters, didn't He? He set cities alight in great fire, didn't He? Sure, He doesn't want anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. Well, Eli was no God, and he wanted someone to perish. Eli could cause a flood, too. He would strike the match and light the fire, too.
There was no way for Eli to know what was to come, showing up on Daniel’s doorstep to ask him another favor. And yes, perhaps it was an attempt to have the last laugh. To say sure, I may need you a bit, but see how great I’m doing without you? Perhaps it was also to strike that match, laugh as it all ended in flames.
Daniel could see right through him as if he was invisible, just a heart and a mind and possibly even a soul. He knew Eli was a phony. He knew Eli was a sinner. He knew he was a false prophet, and he made him admit it, shout it to the audience as if the crowd was more than a drunken man and the weight of his own sins. Just as Eli made him scream his wrongdoings, Daniel made him scream his own.
Eli felt ashamed in so many ways. He cannot believe he allowed himself to pass Daniel's threshold with any hope remaining inside him, and he cannot believe that in some weird, sick place in the back of his mind, he was hoping Daniel would be proud of him. Nice job, Eli. You made a name for yourself. I knew you always could. That small part of him was hoping he would be happy to see Eli again, his old friend, now his brother. They were family. They were one and the same. Even if not bound together by the blood in their veins, they were bound together by something greater, something undefinable, something unspeakable. This was impossible, it's laughable now, seeing the way Daniel stares him down. Like he's still the child he'd met all those years ago, like he's nothing but a shell of a man, like he's nothing at all.
"The Lord sometimes challenges us, doesn't he, Eli?" Oh, if only he knew. Our Lord has sent Eli many challenges in his time, yet the greatest stands right in front of Eli right now. Eli was at his most vulnerable, and Daniel still wouldn't let him off the hook. Eli did what he asked. He admitted it, wasn't that what Daniel wanted? He said he was a false prophet. He said he was full of sin. He said he needed a friend and wanted to turn to his oldest one for help. What else did he want? What else could Daniel have possibly wanted from Eli? What else was there for Eli to give away? He had nothing left. He'd grab the Lord's hand for help if he could, but the Lord no longer wanted him, so now all there is anymore is Daniel, and he would never offer his hand to Eli. Rough, calloused, stained dark, the hand was made to push down, not help up. Some hands are designed to heal, others are intended to give the beatings. And Eli was about to receive the worst one of all.
We're brothers. We're family. We're friends. We're so much, Daniel, please. I'll forgive you if you forgive me. Please. You say you'll eat me and I'll let you devour me whole, just please, let me go. Let me go.
Even in death, Eli Sunday could not be rid of Daniel Plainview. He died the way he lived, on his knees, searching for an escape, trying to avoid the fact that Daniel Planview was going to be the death of him, in one way or another. If there was a God up there, as he was beginning to doubt, surely he was laughing down at Eli Sunday, crawling away pathetically from the beautiful man that reeked of alcohol and viciousness.
Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. The bible said it first. The story has all been written out before, I told you.
In life, in death, Eli’s blood stained Daniel’s hands. Daniel watched as Eli crumbled once more, for good. If only Eli had gotten the last laugh, had been the bigger person, but we knew that was never going to happen. Now, Daniel is sat on the floor, crimson pooling on the hardwood. He wore his blood like a badge, like a prize. Heaven only knows the way Daniel will burn.