Love Matters in the Dark (Septiplier/Jack x Dark AU)

Step 26: Team building exercises are a great way to build company morale.

I hate making decisions. It's bad for your stomach along with your mind, and I already feel both reeling at the idea. Mark and Ethan are both looking at me like I'm the most important person in the world. That anything I say will be jumped up and done like I'm some sort of royalty. I hate it. I absolutely hate that they think I'm so amazing.

At least with Mark, it makes slightly more sense. We're bonded through sex and some sort of weird magic synergy that comes with what we are. At least, I think that's what I understood it to be. As far as Ethan...shock and my scrambling his brain is why he is looking at me so affectionately. The puppy dog eyes and smile melting any ability to run screaming towards the front door. 

"My love?" Mark whispers. "Is everything all right?"

I laugh at this. It's high pitched and sounds odd in my throat. Nothing has been 'all right' since I took this job. Ethan's smile leaves his face and then shifts his gaze back at the table, and then sniffles. 

Oh Christ, he's crying again.

"Hey, hey..." I squeak, leaning in and wrapping my arms around his shoulders. "I...ok, I won't try again, all right? I'll leave you the way that you are."

The cheer from Ethan makes both Mark and I jump, and he hugs me as tightly as he can. Even Mark looks relieved at my choice, and leans heavily against the closest wall. Everything about this seems like a mistake. Ethan is an actor. He could be acting like my friend and plan on selling Mark and I to the local tabloid as  soon as he leaves the house. There's just something about him though that helps me think that he won't do that. Maybe some magical intuition that I'm still figuring out. 

"So, how about a drink to celebrate our new friendship?" Mark asks, rubbing the small of my back. "I have an amazing red wine for when..."

He pauses, with his brown eyes looking thoughtful before he gazes at me again.

"It's...just an amazing red wine, darling. I think that you and the human will love it."

Part of me is wondering what the fuck Mark was going with that initial sentence. An amazing red for when he sacrifices humans, or ingests souls or something even worse.

The slamming of the door is what causes both Mark and I to look to see where Ethan has gone, and it's Mark who makes a slightly concerned noise in the base of his throat. His dark eyes shift to red for the quickest of moments before they go back to the warm brown. The door that Ethan had gone through was large and thick with etchings around the edges in a language that I didn't understand. 

"Mark," I start, and I'm very aware that he's looking even more concerned than before. "What does that door lead to?"

He shuffles his feet and bites his bottom lip. The same expression is back of a small child that needs to tell an adult a secret that he knows is probably going to get himself in trouble. 

"Mark?" I say again much more sternly, and the large wings break free from his toned back and curl around him almost defensively.

"I'll tell you as long as you promise not to get too upset," he mutters as his eyes look over the edge of his right wing and at my face. "It's just that you seem to really have liked that human, my love and - "

I hold up my hands at the past tense of his sentence. 

"Wait...what do you mean by I liked that human? Are you going to tell me where in the hell that door goes to or not?"

Mark nods his head, and I am just more confused. 

"You already guessed it," he mumbles. "That door leads to the under realm. To Hell."

It takes a minute to really understand what Mark is meaning. He has an actual door into the underworld? That wasn't some sort of weirdly placed metaphor. What the actual fuck?

"What the actual FUCK?!" I say way louder than I realize. "You just let him walk into the main gate to fucking Hell?!"

I'm already pushing my way past him to get to the door. I can't just let Ethan burn in...wait, what exactly was Hell made out of anyway? Fire and brimstone? Smoke and ash? The souls of the damned? Which actual 80's song was the most accurate?

"Well, it's not all as impressive as the main gate to Hell," Mark says to my retreating back, as if he's almost embarrassed. "More of a side door? I have a little pull with - "

"How do you open this thing?" I grumble, pushing at the door and trying my best to ignore him for the moment. "Is there like a special lock or some weird incantation I have to scream? Sacrifice a goat? Help me figure this out!"

Mark walks the few steps and bites his bottom lip shyly and pulls the large door opened. I had been trying to push it instead of pull. Stupid door should have had a sign on it. We both peer inside and into a vast dark void, with the occasional harrowing scream piercing the air. I shudder at the sound, and look over at the demon next to me.

"We got to save him," I say quickly. "How far could he have gotten?"

Mark grits his teeth and his full height and horns come out. The claws on his hands and skin grow darker, and the eyes become a deep crimson again. He grabs at my wrists and the heat is almost blinding, but I don't flinch.

"Depends on if he was able to get past the bouncers," Dark answers simply. I already can feel my mind reeling.

"Bouncers?"

I'm getting way too used to the confused look that he gives me regardless of his body shape and eye color. It was so much easier when I was just chasing his fucks for the night down busy LA streets. 

"Yes, my love. The bouncers. Hell isn't like you see in the movies. It's way more complicated than that. Now, make sure to grab Madie before we head inside. We're going to need all the help we can get."