Losing Control

"Dad, can I go home now?" I whined from the floor. The heat was getting to me or something. I had a headache.

"No," he called, his voice ricocheted off every fucking wall. I couldn't possibly tell where he was.

I groaned and stood up just to sit back on the Throne.

Basically, my dad had dragged me to hell. Literally. I hadn't wanted to go, but he snapped and here I was.
Right. Didn't you know? My dad was the king of hell. He'd been trying to get me to be is protege, or apprentice, whatever.
Problem was, I wasn't only a demon. I was half angel, too. And I didn't want to be the king, even if it did mean having the ability to have a kick ass job with the perk of super cool evil minions. I was just a lousy kid that shouted in a band, not hell master material.

I draped an arm over my eyes and sighed, kicking my legs over one side of the Throne carelessly.

Stupid bastard. When would he realise I didn't want to follow in his footsteps? After all he'd put me through.

"Now, is that any way to think about the King?" A female voice tsked in my ear.

I sighed and moved my arm to look at whoever it was, only to shut my eyes and internally groan.

"What do you want, Taylor?" I asked, irritation slipping into my voice.
Taylor Momsen. Beautiful, seductive, greedy, possessive and completely evil. Not to mention the second half of my placement marriage contract.

"Daddy sent me to make sure precious little baby is okay," she snorted, sitting on my lap.
I resisted the urge to shove her off- even if she was insane and I couldn't stand her, she was still a lady.
"And I volunteered."

I rolled my eyes and glared up at her.
"What do you really want?"

She looked down and me and moved so she was straddling my waist. She cocked her head to the side and her long blonde hair fell over her shoulder.

"I wanted to see you. I haven't seen you in ages," she admitted, running her hands over my chest. "Don't you miss me?"

The hope in her voice made me queasy. I kind of missed her... on occasion. I mean, I was around her a lot growing up. She had been my friend at some point. That is, until she went mad and killed a bunch of humans. I stopped associating with her at that point.

"Sure," I muttered, fixing my glower on the weird fiery ceiling.

There was that whole eighteen ordeal in hell. That was the reason why I was in hell then. That was the reason Taylor was signed over to my dad to marry me. Because when you're eighteen and a demon, you finally get your wings. Crazy, yeah? But I guess you go through a long process of being chained up in the Pit and they pop out of the scars on your back. No scars, no wings, no problem. But my mum had been an angel, a fallen one at that, so I was a hybrid. Hybrids didn't grow wings. Only purebreds had wings, but since my dad was all powerful and shit I had them, too.
So I had to go through that, then I had to have some kind of satanic wedding with Taylor (even though I didn't want to, I guess I didn't get a say), then we'd have to mate and she'd have kids and we'd live happily ever after as the new ruling generation of hell.
But I didn't want that.

"How's the human world?" Taylor sighed, snapping her long fingers in my face as she changed the topic.
Her pale blue eyes bored into mine and a rueful smile played at the corners of her lips.

"Fine. Can you get off?" I mumbled, squirming uncomfortably under her.

Taylor wasn't too fond of the in between because she liked being superior. Normal people, to her, were inferior, so she hated them. I preferred them to demons. They were just more innocent and pleasantly oblivious to what they chose not to believe in.

"How's Phil?" Taylor pressed on, ignoring my request for her to move.

"Fine," I repeated. I was going to get a headache pretty soon.

She just nodded and kept looking at me until I was at the point of my eye twitching and the urge to throw her across the room was physically draining for me to hold back.
I could almost feel her probing my mind for any information she could find useful, but I held back and slammed my guards up whenever I was around her so I wasn't particularly worried about her finding anything. Just another perk of being demon. Mindfucking superpowers that kids read about in comic books, I had them.

"Not on the Throne," my dad demanded, appearing behind Taylor's shoulder. A huge scowl was on his face as he glowered at me disapprovingly.

"We're not even doing anything," I scoffed, sitting up a bit straighter. "You honestly think I'd do something with Tay?" Alright, a little harsh, I'll admit. But it wasn't like I'd do anything with her. She wasn't my type, plus she was a psychotic bitch from hell- literally.

"She's going to be your wife in a few weeks. So, yes. I do," my dad informed me, raising an eyebrow as if challenging me to argue with him and say otherwise.

"Yeah, we were gonna fuck on your Throne," I said exasperatedly, shooting a death glare at my dad. "Because guess whose Throne this'll be in a month or two?"

Dad's jaw clenched and I took satisfaction in seeing I'd hit a nerve, just like I knew I would. Taylor looked long and hard at me, her eyes swirling angrily at me before she stood up and stormed off to wherever she went to pout.
I just rolled my eyes and slumped back.

"Can I go home now?" I asked after a minute.

"This is your home," my dad sighed, raking a hand through his hair.
He sat on the edge of the Throne and made sure not to touch me, but it was still a fatherly gesture coming from him.
Ever since I'd gone to the human world for the first time, hell had become a bit different for me. It had become less and less appealing to me over the years. And my dad's futile attempts to make me feel all cozy and comfortable was just making it worse.

"No it's not. It will never be my home," I snapped. "I belong up there. With my friends. Not here, not with you, not with Taylor. I belong with my friends. They're my real family. My biological family is dead. All I want is to be normal and I can't get that in hell. Not when I'm a freak and my dad's a reigning demon."

My dad looked at me angrily for a second before the look dissipated and left hurt in his eyes.

"You know I want you to be happy," he said softly. "But you have responsibilities down here."

"I don't want them," I mumbled. "I have responsibilities up there. I want to marry someone who I actually love, not an arranged marriage. I don't want to be a king of anything. I want to be a stupid kid in a stupid band that does stupid things. And I want to grow up happy."
There was a moment of silent thinking before I finally just looked at my dad.
"Can I just spend my last few weeks as a kid with my friends? That's all I'm gonna ask for. No more running, okay? Just let me be happy one last time."

Not happy.
The words spun around my dad's head. So powerful that they filtered out of his mind and into the room. He honestly didn't know that I wasn't happy. How would he know? He had much more important things to worry about that his son's petty feelings.

"Oh... Okay," he muttered, pressing his lips together into a thin line.
He stared at me for the longest time, his thoughts thinly veiled, tempting me to see what he was thinking, but I kept myself from falling into the trap. It was a trap, wasn't it?
He sighed, resigning for once, and snapped his fingers. I looked up and a black hole of nothingness appeared in the fire covered ceiling. It held all the damned souls. It was the only escape from hell.
I cringed at the sight and looked back to my dad.
"Go," he ordered, his authority back in place. His eyes still held unspoken emotions, but other than that, he was recollected.

I glanced back up at the ceiling nervously.
I'd only left hell with my dad before, because I was his kid, and he wanted to make sure that I didn't get stuck. But I was seventeen. I didn't need his help anymore, or so he thought.

I dropped off the Throne and awkwardly embraced my dad. He didn't move away, but he stiffened.

"Thank you," I whispered, and I meant it.

I shut my eyes, and then I was levitating. Closest I could get to flying without my wings.
I focused on the portal, and I was in it. It closed behind me and I focused on my house, or Phil's. Both. I didn't exactly know how to work the portal.

I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, I was in a dark room. I could see because of the moonlight filtering through the window, but the room I was in wasn't mine and it wasn't Phil's.

I looked around and saw Alan in his bed, and I mentally slapped myself.
Why was I in Alan's room?
At least he was asleep.
I sighed and crept over to the door, but stopped and looked back to his closet. The picture of him and Dean was on the floor, crumpled into a ball.

I got sidetracked from my exit, and walked over to it, confused. When I knelt by it, I saw it was ripped in half.
I looked up at Alan curiously, and his eyes were shut tightly. He clutched his blanket to his chest and he almost looked like he was in pain.
Without making a sound, I stood up and walked over to him. His eyes shifted around restlessly behind his eyelids.

"What happened?" I mumbled, noting the way his breath came raggedly.

I sighed and went to the other side of the bed to pick up his blanket, but froze when I saw his back.

His scars were charred. They looked like they'd been in a fire, and skin was ash flaking off.

"What happened?" I repeated, leaning over the bed to brush my fingers against the marks.
Alan shivered and I pulled my hand back and ducked, but he only curled tighter in on himself and continued his light breathing.

I grabbed the blanket off the floor and carefully placed it over him, then went to the bathroom and found a towel to clean off his back.

I didn't think Alan knew yet, but I was pretty sure, like 99.9% sure, that he was an angel. I suspected it when I felt the scars, and now that I'd seen them burned, I was almost positive that that was the reason behind them.
It could have been some kind of accident, but what was the actual likelihood of someone getting scars the exact length and in the exact spot angel wings were unless they were, in fact, an angel? It was pretty damn near impossible unless it was supposed to look like that, and why would someone go through the pain of getting inch deep cuts on their backs to be a part of some fad?
Anyway, I only knew he was an angel and not a demon because if one of his parents were demons, I would've been able to tell instantly, because we have this weird smell. Like burnt firewood. And if one already had wings, a demon could see them. Or more of a dark outline behind the person.
He too level-headed and nice to be a demon, too.

I sighed and walked back to Alan's room, shutting the door quietly behind me. He was still asleep, curled in on himself.

Wing scars burn when a demon or angel is angry. What had Alan been so angry about?

I glanced back at the fallen picture as I sat on the bed, then went back to gently working the burned skin off Alan's scars. When I was finished, I shoved the towel under his bed and picked the photo off the ground. I smoothed it out and stared at the slightly younger looking Alan and the guy that he'd been in love with.
It was sad. It really was. I could imagine the exact pain he felt because, well, my mum. It was hard to imagine that this Dean guy was gone, because in the picture, the way they looked at each other was so lively and real.
I sighed and imagined the halves mending themselves, and then they did. The edges were still slightly bent, but other than that, it didn't look like it'd been ripped seconds before.

I taped it back on the door and walked away, then to the window.
I glanced at Alan one last time before ducking out of the window and climbing into the bushes beneath me.
I plucked twigs and leaves out of my hair as I walked home in the dark. The roads were unfamiliar, but I was pretty confident I could find my way home. I liked walking outside at night. Not so many cars disrupting the silence, no one talking to me, just me and my thoughts. It was strangely comforting to be on my own. Just a moment of stress-free peace and quiet. But if I was left too long, I didn't like it. Not at all. Because then I think too much... About everything. Like my mum. And myself.

Okay. Stop.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called the only number I had on speed dial. Or, the one of two that still had someone to answer it.

"Hello?" Phil answered sleepily. I could almost imagine him sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah, Phil, hey. Uh, I need you to pick me up," I said, glancing at the street name.

The shadows around me flickered, or maybe it was just my imagination. My dad wouldn't send anyone after me, would he? I was only going to be gone for a few days.
No it was just my imagination. It had to be.

"Austin?" Phil mumbled after a yawn. "Why?" There was some shuffling and then a jangling of what I assumed to be his keys. "Where were you today?"

I sighed and shook my head even though I knew he couldn't see me.
"I'll explain later."

"Alright," Phil sighed.

I muttered the address before hanging up, then looked around again.
The comfort from the silence was long gone, and all I wanted was to get home and sleep. I liked it up here better than hell, of course, but I was exhausted and the dark was threatening to swallow me whole. Then what would happen? Maybe I would disappear. But hell needed me, I guess, so that wouldn't work.

I sighed and sat down on the curb, dragged my knees to my chest, and rested my chin on them.
It almost felt like there was a weight on my shoulders, a physical one, and I couldn't shake it. My dad used to be so keen on my education and choices, but now all that seemed to pertain regarding me was that I needed to fulfill some kind of destiny and take his place in order to even be considered his son. When I wasn't in hell, I didn't matter, and it made me feel like complete shit. He was my dad. He raised me. Wasn't I supposed to be more than a student that gets left behind after he graduates?
Without my mum, I was nothing. My dad was stone cold, and he didn't care about anything anymore. Only Phil knew what really happened to her, everyone else just assumed that she walked out. And since I lived alone, others could just believe that I'd moved out.
I loved my friends, even if they didn't love me as much. They were my family, not my dad, not Taylor. I'd be perfectly happy just staying in the human world, never having things expected of me. I could just live my life out like a normal kid.
I just wished I had a normal family. My mum wouldn't be dead, my dad wouldn't be the king of hell and he'd love me, I wouldn't have my scars and I wouldn't have wings, I could just be normal for once. I could carry out my dream of being in a band, things wouldn't be so difficult.
It all started with my mum. I wanted to hate her for it, but I couldn't. Whatever I did, I couldn't just hate her.

"Austin, I've been sitting here for two minutes and you didn't even look up," Phil called. I looked up slowly and sure enough, Phil's car was parked in front of me.

I forced a little laugh and stood up, then got in the car. I buckled my seat belt and rolled the window down, instantly looking out the window.

"Where to?" Phil asked.

"Home," I replied with a shrug. "Just home."

The trees and houses and street lights passed in a blur of meaninglessness, and I just stared, transfixed.

"Where were you today?" Phil asked, and I could feel his eyes flicker over to me.

"Sick," I attempted.

"Sick," Phil repeated. "And why were you by Alan's?"

I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face.
"I was by Alan's?"

He laughed and flicked my arm, so I looked over at him after a moment of hesitation.
"Something's wrong," he said carefully. "What is it?"

I just smiled passively and shook my head.
"I don't feel too good, like I said. I probably don't need you to pick me up for school tomorrow."
I'm gonna miss you.
I stared at my best friend and just smiled sadly as realisation hit- I would probably never see him again when I became ruler of hell.
"Pull over, would you?" I mumbled, trying to keep my smile.
Without any protesting, Phil did what I asked, then turned to me with concern in his eyes.
"I love you, got it?" I muttered, pulling him to me. He flailed a bit with surprise, then gave in and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.

"I love you, too, Austin," Phil chuckled. "Wanna tell me what's wrong now?"

I pulled away from the embrace and finally allowed my smile to slip away.
"Nothing," I said after briefly considering telling him.

Phil nodded, then started driving again.

When we got to my house, I thanked him then went inside and just fell asleep.