He waits in seclusion. An almost brooding silence, beyond his usual, a slight darkening of his already coal-black, raven-wing aura. It engulfs him, makes him crueler, less likely to show the mercy that so rarely makes an appearance anyways. Everyone burns harder, the flames arching crimson and scarlet, much deeper colors than those of the physical world. They twist like snakes around the skinny and sagging bodies of their victims, and the screams rise higher, weaving a net of terror and agony up to the highest, dark-misted cavern roof, caterwauls, shrieks, sobs blending into a single massive cacophony of negative energy, of thousands of years' worth of tales, fables of the Devil. The Underworld itself whirls with his frustration, shadows stretching just a few inches farther, ice settling into the previously flaming hearts of every one of its occupants. They deserve it, though, because they're the wrong, the broken, the sinners, the liars, the beggars, the thieves, the charlatans, the killers.

They catch glimpses of him on occasion, usually nothing more than a flash, or a vague figure, blurrily silhouetted in the constant backdrop of flaming smoke. The stronger, however, can sometimes draw a clearer shape, that of a boy—a young boy, fourteen or fifteen, clad in baggy outfits that seem to be woven of material darkness, fingers gripping elbows and glinting with an assortment of silver rings that shine even in the gloom, an icy, detached glitter. His face is pale, struck across with dancing shadows, and his eyes blaze the deepest ruby that any human could possibly imagine, shining through the haze, fierce and unpitying. Angry. Impatient. Hungry. Showier emotions that mask what tears at him the deepest, gnawing, nagging, insistent and unrelenting.

He's lonely.

It's a single thread of blessing in the veil of curses that engulfs his victims that he's not always like this. Because he's waiting, always waiting for someone. And that someone is hardly an infrequent visitor to Hell.

Some say that the golden-haired boy doesn't belong there. That, in the end, he was an angel, that he saved lives, loved his friends, ended it all by sacrificing himself. And often enough, truth resonates throughout these arguments, but he's a sinner, that cherubic-faced teenager—blood and drugs and sex, a mouthful of cuss words and cigarette ash dusting the sidewalk, too many used condoms and even more unused ones. Poverty, grime, filth. He's a dirty being, the most meaningless of them all, insides the perfect opposite of his white teeth and flushed cheeks, his large raindrop-blue eyes and his rather tufty shock of blonde hair. He's the lowest of the low, the weakest of the weak. Scum, trash.

And yet the truth remains that he's the only one who can, in all literal sense, assuage the fires of Hell. His presence is a cooling thing, healing and mending, though he never knows it, knowing his surroundings only through his own awareness. Screams are still heard, pain still felt, but in a slightly less dramatic sense, a low tide in the oceans of the underworld, pulled by the golden moon who seems to be the only thing ever holding back the son of the Devil—holding him back with whispered ropes of clouds and pearls, faint, sweet suggestions that somehow end up so many millions of times stronger than the bloody iron chains that he so often relies on.

They never communicate much when he's there, nothing more than a quiet look in each other's direction, scarlet eyes blazing like hot coals calmed by the pools of docile summer blue. The blonde boy smiles whenever he can see his imprisoner, and his white teeth shine against the dirty grease of his sweat-stained cheeks and chin, muscles pulling in them as unwilling tears cut salty lines down his face, clear trails in the smoky overlay of his suffering. Because he does suffer, if only for a night before his rebirth—he's burned and twisted in all the wrong directions, raw, primitive methods of torture, the goal of which is only pain—as much pain as can possibly be gathered. He gives in to that pain willingly, knowing that he absolutely deserves it, and knowing that it's worth it for the glimpse of the other boy that he receives.

And the other, the dark-haired—he doesn't mind seeing the blonde in such pain, not really. He's had it coming for him. He doesn't care if he suffers, because he doesn't care for his well-being. That's what stops his fascination from being love—Kenny McCormick's happiness is no concern of Damien Thorn's. It's for purely selfish reasons that he appreciates having him around—he desires his presence, that little light in the darkness, a weak candle flame struggling to remain resilient against a constant, overpowering cloak of deadly blackness.

But it always ends, always commences after only a few hours, and then he's gone away like a wisp of a dream, leaving Damien to produce a whip of fire and score burn after welt after wound over the backs of the worthless, those who will never be more than cattle, unable to compete with the mocking fallen angel who can never stay around long enough to matter.