It's Valentine's Day in Hell

Damien was wandering the outer wastes of the third level when he heard a young boy crying. It wasn't unusual; this was Hell, there was lots of crying. But something about this crying struck a chord and sounded familiar. He made his way around a rock outcropping and saw the crier in question: a boy who looked about his age, wearing a floppy cap and white knee socks, bent over and sobbing into his hands.

"What's your problem?" Damien asked, and the boy startled. He hugged his elbows and stared at Damien fearfully, his shoulders hunched.

"I died," he said, and the stupid accent gave it away: Damien knew this boy from his short and unsatisfying time on Earth. The British kid who everybody hated.

"Did the other kids kill you?" Damien asked, walking over to sit beside him. Pip shook his head and sniffled, rubbed at his raw face.

"I was crushed by a giant robot, I'm afraid."

"Ah. Sounds very South Park. I hate that place."

"I don't understand why I'm here," Pip said. "I was a good lad, I swear it! What have I done to deserve Hell?"

"You weren't Mormon."

Pip stared at him, blinked. Damien shrugged.

"It's stupid up there anyway," Damien said. "In Heaven. It's worse than Earth." Damien thought about what a hopeless Melvin this kid had been in life and realized he might have actually liked playing charades with a bunch of jolly chodes for all eternity, but he didn't mention it.

"Heaven or Hell aside," Pip said, "I was so looking forward to growing up. Moving to a new town, making some actual friends, developing some confidence. My childhood wasn't the happiest, you see."

"Cry me a fuckin' river," Damien said. "I grew up here. The one time my dad let me go to Earth, everybody hated me."

"I thought you seemed familiar." Pip gave him a shaky smile. "Damien, was it?"

"Yeah, and you're Pip. Welcome to hell, I guess."

"Well, thank you, I suppose."

"Listen," Damien said, noting the soft blond hair that fell almost to Pip's shoulders, his plump lips and soft blue eyes. "There is a way to grow up in Hell, even if you're dead."

"Oh?"

"I asked my father if I would have to go to Earth and steal a mate once I came of age. He said that might start a holy war, and that I could just take a mate down here when I'm ready. He'll allow that person to age along with me, and we can also choose when to stop aging, so we won't have to grow old and weak."

"Fascinating," Pip said. He looked frightened.

"You could be that person," Damien said. "I don't want to mate yet, but I like the way you look. We could go through puberty together. There's just one catch," he added, though his father hadn't told him this part. He was making it up himself. "You'd have to be my slave and do whatever I say, forever." He'd always wanted one of those, and not just the mindless black imps that scampered around Hell and served the royal family. Those things had never been human and did not possess souls. Damien wanted a soul enslaved to his, not just a body.

Pip sighed and put his hands on his knobby little knees.

"I'm frightened of this place," he said, quietly. "And of you, a bit. Would you protect me here, if I accept this proposal?"

"Of course." Damien put his hand on Pip's back and used his powers to make his palm warm. Pip shivered, then gave him a small smile. "I would protect you," Damien said, leaning over to stare into Pip's eyes. "And you would serve me."

"Serve?" Pip swallowed; Damien could hear it. "Well, I-- I am quite good at service. I was in service even as a child."

"Really?"

"Well, in a sense." Pip took a deep breath and leaned into Damien's half-embrace when his hand slid down to Pip's waist. "You're quite warm," Pip said.

"Everything down here is," Damien said, withholding an insulting remark about the stupidity of that observation. "And I'm half-demon, of the fire variety."

"Half, oh? And the other half is-- human?"

"That's right. So are you in, or what?"

"I suppose I'm in," Pip said.

"Then say you'll be my mate," Damien said, his grip on Pip's waist tightening.

"I shall be your mate, Damien."

"And you'll do whatever I say!"

"Ah, yes. I'm at your command, er. Master?"

"Don't call me Master. My father's name is Master. Damien is fine."

He moved Pip into the family mansion that evening, and rejected his father's suggestion that Pip have his own room. There was plenty of room in Damien's sprawling chambers.

"Are you sure you want to commit to a mate now?" Satan asked. "You're only nine."

"This one's special," Damien said, glowering. "You wouldn't understand, slut."

"It hurts Daddy's feelings when you talk to him that way, son."

"Fuck you! I don't care!"

Satan sighed and cast the spell on Pip that would allow him to 'age' in Hell. Pip looked wan and terrified, and every time Satan moved he flinched. When the spell was complete, Damien grabbed Pip's hand and dragged him away.

"Welcome to the family, Phillip!" Satan called as they left. Damien looked back over his shoulder and hissed at his father, wanting him to stay the hell out of it.

Pip was agreeable by nature and typically quite trusting; his period of shrinking fright didn't last long. Soon he was humming as he did Damien's bidding, which mostly involved fetching things Damien wanted and playing games with him. Hell had seventy-two miniature golf courses, and while Damien had always thought mini golf was lame and boring, it was fun to have a friend to play with. Sometimes Pip was irritating, too cheerful and overly talkative, but every time Damien raised his hand to slap him, Pip would cower and make a soft noise, bracing himself for impact as if he was very familiar with the feeling of being hit. Damien could never actually do it when he saw this. Soon he stopped raising his hand at all, and Pip had no reason to cower.

Puberty came like a bitch in Hell. Satan had warned Damien about this. While Damien's skin was still alabaster perfection and his voice change was as smooth as light jazz, Damien's sexual urges were enormous and all-consuming. Fortunately, Pip was aging along with him at the exact same pace, and he became needy in the same way. They had already been kissing for some time, usually just to say good night or good morning in the bed they shared, but suddenly that wasn't enough.

"I'm ready to have sex with Pip," Damien announced at dinner with his father, on an evening when Pip was off visiting with his own dead parents. Satan looked up from his corned beef hash and frowned.

"Well," he said. "Okay. You're about old enough, I guess. Just be careful."

"Why? What could go wrong?"

"Oh, you know." Satan cleared his throat. "Bottoms like to feel cared for after sex. Don't be an asshole and rush off as soon as you've finished. Cuddle him, um, and let him know he's your special guy."

"Don't project your pathetic needs onto Pip," Damien said, sneering. He was planning to hold Pip once their physical union had commenced, as he always did after they had frantically rutted each other to orgasm in recent weeks, but Satan didn't need to know that. "I'm asking about mechanics," Damien said. "So far we've just been rubbing against each other and using our hands. There's more to it, I'm sure. But what?"

"Ah," Satan said, glancing around as if someone else would appear and answer this question. It was just the two of them in his massive dining room, eating at the end of his very long table. "Well."

"You mentioned 'bottoms.' What does that mean?"

"Son, when two-- men love each other, very much--"

"Who said anything about love!" Damien flushed; he didn't care about that sappy shit, which was solely for humans and dogs. "Pip is my eternal slave, body and soul. That's all."

"Uh-huh. Is that why you journeyed to the seventh layer to find his parents for him? 'Cause he's just your slave?"

"Shut up! Tell me about bottoms at once, old man."

Satan sighed. "Well," he said. "When two men want to make love, in the, um, traditional penetrative way, one takes on the role of the bottom, and the other guy is the top."

"Explain further."

"Uh. The top, he puts his erect penis into the bottom's, um. Butt hole."

"Gross!" Damien said, flushing again. "Why?"

"Well, it feels pretty good."

"You're perverse," Damien said, pushing away from the table.

Later, he told Pip what his father had described. Pip agreed it sounded gross, but, like Damien, he had gotten an erection while they discussed it.

"I asked a friend about this," Pip said.

"Friend? What friend, you're not allowed to have friends."

"Oh, hush." Pip seemed to have figured out that he didn't actually have to do everything Damien said, which was very annoying. It was also evidence that Pip was smart, which made Damien strangely proud. "It was Kenny McCormick," Pip said. "Down here for one of his temporary jaunts. He described something that sounded, well, also strange, but a bit more appealing."

"Yeah?" Damien was breathing heavily already, thinking about Pip's butt. "What?"

Pip demonstrated, and Damien came almost as soon as those plump lips circled his dick. They held out for a few more weeks before trying what Satan had described. Damien really hated it when his father was right.

They avoided Satan for the most part, but he was the Prince of Hell, and when he formally summoned them they had no choice but to suffer his company. Pip claimed to like him; Damien didn't see how that was possible. His father was the most insufferably pathetic pretender to evil who had ever ruled so much as a lukewarm rock, and he was always wanting Damien to meet some new, awful boyfriend. When Damien and Pip were seventeen, the boyfriend of the hour was Ricky, a guy with a dumb handlebar mustache and assless chaps.

"I thought we could have a little picnic," Satan said when Damien and Pip materialized according to his summons. "You know," he said, holding a wicker basket in front of him and looking like a nervous school girl, despite his size. "Like a double date."

"Christ," Damien said. His father frowned. That was the only curse word he really objected to.

"That sounds positively lovely!" Pip said, clutching at Damien's arm and giving it a subtle tug. "We'd be happy to join you."

Damien grimaced and accepted that they would have to. Ricky skipped into the room with a bottle of wine.

"I got this from the cellar, doll," he said, showing it to Satan. "Is it okay to bring along on our outing?"

"Perfect," Satan said, and he kissed the top of Ricky's stupid head.

The picnic was an exercise in excruciating torment, but Pip seemed to enjoy himself. Damien sat glowering while the others made dumb chit chat. He accepted the morsels that Pip passed to him and drank two glasses of the wine, which was the only bright spot. His father had admittedly excellent taste in wine.

"How long have you two been together?" Ricky asked at one point, reclining against Satan's chest.

"Since we were nine years old," Pip answered. He smiled and leaned onto Damien in a similar fashion, reaching back to caress his cheek. "You know, I was always so lonely up on Earth. I simply had to come here to find my soul mate. Who would have ever thought!"

"It's so magical," Ricky said, tracing circles on Satan's chest in a way that made Damien snarl with disgust. "Hell is really a beautiful place to fall in love. Probably because it was designed by this big softy here!"

"Oh, stop," Satan said, visibly blushing. Damien mustered all the strength he had, willing himself not to stand, grab the blanket they were sitting on and yank it away hatefully, sending everything atop it flying.

"Love?" Pip said later, when they were in bed. The lanterns in Damien's room were all turned down, only a few candles glowing. They were naked under the sheets, still breathless from sex. Pip was curled under Damien's arm, snuggled up against his chest.

"Hmm?" Damien was more than ready for sleep. The Herculean effort not to spoil that picnic had thoroughly exhausted him.

"Why do you so resent your father?" Pip asked, speaking softly. "He's an awkward chap, I'll admit, but he seems to really love you."

"Nonsense. He wouldn't embarrass himself with all of these men if he gave a damn about me. He's the laughingstock of his own dark kingdom."

"Oh, but I feel for him! He has been unlucky in love, but not everybody is as charmed as we are. He's just trying to find a companion, yes?"

"I don't want to talk about him," Damien said. Pip sighed and rolled over, pulling Damien into the big spoon position as he did. Damien smoothed Pip's hair, kissed his neck, and ignored the tiny pinprick of sympathy he felt for his idiot father and everyone else in Hell and on Earth who didn't have a boy as warm as this one sleeping in their arms.

Damien had been born on Valentine's Day. When he turned eighteen he was summoned to the mansion, and he followed his father to his office for some kind of important announcement about his destiny or whatever.

"Son," Satan said when he was seated at his enormous desk, Damien standing petulantly near the door. "Now that you're eighteen, you can return to Earth if you like, and when you like. You don't need special permission from me like you did when you were a boy. But I don't want you starting any holy wars up there, understand?"

"Like I'm stupid enough to trip over my dick and start a holy war. That's your department."

"Damien, goddammit, you're an adult now. Can you stop talking to me like a hormonal teenage asshole?"

"You want my respect, you've got to earn it. Anyway, I'll be going now. I'd like to surprise Pip with a trip to Disney World for Valentine's Day."

"Now wait a minute, son," Satan said when Damien turned for the door.

"Fuck, what now?"

"Pip can't go with you to Earth." Satan actually looked kind of sad about this, which was all the more infuriating, because that meant there was nothing he could do to change the rule. "I'm sorry, but he's dead, and there's no going back unless he wants to remain there forever as a ghost. Ghosts can't make love. They can't hold your hand, or cuddle with you by the lava lake."

"What the hell do I care?" Damien said, though he felt robbed, and like he'd just had a hole ripped in his chest. Pip had been looking forward to Damien's eighteenth birthday, trips to Earth, a bit of normalcy. "Why didn't you tell me this was the case?" Damien asked, his teeth grit.

"Well, I knew you'd shoot the messenger, for one thing. Why are you so angry, son? I've tried to give you everything you need, and most things you want."

Damien wanted to shout at his old man for that, but he couldn't come up with any bitter retorts. He huffed and looked away.

"Can I go?" he asked. "I'd like to spend Valentine's Day with my boyfriend." He almost felt bad, saying so, but it wasn't his fault that his father didn't have a Valentine this year. He was 'taking some time to work on himself,' again.

"Go on," Satan said. "Tell Phillip I said hello."

"I've asked you not to call him that."

Damien left the mansion feeling dejected. Worst of all, he now had no Valentine's Day gift for Pip. He wandered the first layer, kicking rocks and hissing at scampering imps, trying to come up with something to ease the blow of this news about not being able to go to Earth. He smiled to himself when he finally thought of a good present.

Damien waited until Pip had found the last of the three gifts he'd made, each placed strategically around the mansion in places where he typically went. He walked into their chambers with some champagne stolen from his father's collection and a single red rose, which he felt was classier than a dozen. Pip was holding the third gift, looking confused.

"Darling!" Pip said, brightening when he saw Damien. He held up the third gift, a stone with the face of a certain cruel dodge ball player drawn on it. "I found this odd rock in our bed," he said. "And there was a similar one in the breakfast nook, and a very large one in my bath this evening."

"Yes," Damien said. He set the champagne down and brought the rose to Pip. "Happy Valentine's Day. I'm sorry these effigies are so crude, but I had to make them in a hurry."

"Effigies?" Pip took the flower and sniffed it, smiling. "Whatever do you mean, love?"

"That doesn't look familiar?" Damien asked, pointing to the dodge ball head. "Like someone you knew on Earth?"

"Well, no." Pip examined the thing again, frowning. "It doesn't even look like a person."

"I'm not a fucking artist, okay? Listen, um. I paged through your memories a bit and came up with the top three people I'm going to kill to avenge you. People who made your life miserable up there. Remember when you went to China, the dodge ball player who taunted you until you blew up on him? Well, he's dead meat, and so is Eric Cartman. The fat head in the tub represents his. The one in the breakfast nook was Kyle Broflovski. He was always calling you French."

"Damien." Pip stood and took his hands. "Darling, no. Please don't kill anyone. They were foolish children, that's all. I don't hold a grudge."

"But your life was already hard, and they piled it on you, called you Fart Boy and--"

"It doesn't matter anymore!" Pip smiled and shook his head. "That's all behind me, and I'd like it to stay that way. I hate the thought of you killing anybody. I got the best revenge there is already, darling. A life well lived."

"Not much of a life," Damien muttered. "You can't even come with me to Earth. I just found out."

"Oh." Pip's face fell, but he recovered quickly and grinned, shrugged. "Well, we can do a little redecorating down here, in that case. Build a Disney World Hell, with your father's help. I think he would like that, don't you?"

Damien imagined asking his father to construct a replica theme park so that his boyfriend could see what it was like to visit the one on Earth. It actually sounded like the kind of thing his dad would do for him in a heartbeat. Maybe the guy wasn't that bad after all.

"Now promise me," Pip said, leaning up to kiss Damien's face. "You won't kill anyone. Hmm?"

"I won't," Damien said. He stroked his hands up and down Pip's sides, getting hard from the sweet smell of him. "You won't have to worry about it, because fuck going back to Earth. It would be lame without you, totally pointless."

Pip's smile widened, and his plump lips parted for Damien's tongue when they kissed. Damien reached down to squeeze Pip's ass, because it always made him laugh, and he liked it when Pip laughed against his mouth. He liked making Pip happy.

"Let's go to the bed," Pip said, his eyes taking on the slightly wicked tint that crept into them when he wanted to be fucked hard. Damien nodded, always happy to oblige.

They had sex three times that evening, ate a decadent meal prepared by the imps, and finished the bottle of champagne. Pip was dozing on Damien's chest when Damien attempted a telepathic connection, mentally paging his father.

Yes? Satan answered. He was moping, lonely; Damien could feel it over their connection. It made his skin prickly with secondhand embarrassment, but he didn't break the call. Instead, he fed Satan a stream of images: his proposed plan to make a Disney World in Hell, dedicated to Pip. He could feel it when his father smiled warmly, which normally disgusted him. Tonight it wasn't so bad, and Damien felt himself smiling, too, when Satan agreed to make this happen.

Thanks, Dad, Damien sent. He was only a little mortified when that sentiment felt a bit more like Thanks, Daddy as it was delivered. He could sense Satan's eyes welling up a little, his happiness.

Sweet dreams, my little prince of Hell, Satan sent back. Damien broke the connection and scooted down to hug Pip closer. His father was still a mushy fool, but he had made all of Damien's dreams come true already. He'd given him his Pip. For that, Damien would be nicer to his old man, maybe, in the future.

THE END

If you enjoyed this story, remember to check out the original artwork that inspired it!