What we do in the Dark

Chapter Eight

[Thorin's P.O.V]

The flames of hell burned pleasantly on my skin as I descended back to my home. It's hardly that though, more of an eternal prison. I smiled at the thought. What a shity existence.

I walked on the hot red ground as it burned the bottoms of my feet. You get used to the pains of hell. Well, we demons do at least, the humans, on the other hand, are another story.

We don't keep humans on the same level as us. They are further below, I've only seen them once. Never again, it was awful. I don't even want to think about it...

They didn't deserve that. Just how we don't deserve this.

Soon enough I got home. Well to my house I guess. I don't go home often anymore. I opened the door before I got up the steps. And slammed it after I passed through.

"Who is i- oh it's just you." Vihaan came to greet me at the door. "You little shit." He raised his hand and slapped me across the face.

I smiled, he could never hit hard, he didn't have it in him to hit his own child like that.

Vihaan had piercing red eyes and short raven black hair. He wore a black get-up that the humans would call Victorian-era gothic. But we invented it first. Victorian era my ass. If he wanted to he could have all the ladies of this realm all over him, but he was too soft. The ladies of hell didn't like soft. The soft don't usually survive long around here.

"Where in the 7 circles of hell have you been! I've been so worried! I almost thought about leaving to go find you!" He was angry, but his kind of angry. I once told the human Jasper that full demons were very dangerous. Well, Vihaan was the only exception.

"I was with the humans. I wanted to spend some tim-" His eyes widened with more shock and anger.

"Didn't I tell you to stop doing that?" A sigh left my old man's lips. I can take angry but disappointment, I don't like that. His voice turned into a whisper. "What are you doing with them- you're not healing the sick are you?" He was so blatantly worried it was almost comical.

"Uhh..." Oops. I did heal Jasper's hand.

"Gods of the underworld, they'll execute you for that type of stuff! You can't be doing that." He spoke softly, a change from his previous tone. He smiled softly looking down. "You know, you get it from your father, and me raising you. But mostly your father." Ah, my other old man. "Come, I prepared a bite to eat."

I walked over to the tables and pulled up a chair across from him. "You know I find your urge to cook weird." Demons and angels alike don't need to eat, we can, there's no harm, but it is seen as odd.

Our house seems to have a reputation for being 'odd' around here. I mean a half-breed, a demon who took in that abomination and is scared to leave the house. That's what we were known for. Being odd.

"Well keeps me busy. It gets lonely around here with you all grown up. Off doing things you're not supposed to." He is the only known father figure in hell. Demons don't love, we're not creatures of friendship, romance or family really. Sure we have people we hang around but it's not the same. Vihaan was different. He has always wanted the company of another being, friends or family, even a pet maybe. Maybe that's why he took me in.

"Well, I'm still here." I took a bite of the food he prepared. It was a stir fry. Vihaan loved to cook like the humans, he remakes recipes from the same cookbook over and over again. He has for over a hundred years now. The thing is barely hanging on, I give it a few more years before it just gives up and falls apart. "But you know if you leave this place there are plenty of demons that would love to pretend to be your friend, or even in the human's realm, the humans are nice, but not fake nice, you know. You should go up ther-"