“Why aren’t you crying?”

The question was asked by a demon a bit larger than himself, older by at least 400 years. The demon looked down at Jungkook, a sad expression on his face.

“You’re allowed to cry for your parents.” He added as he knelt down next to Jungkook, placing a hand on his knee.

Jungkook looked through the bars on the window of the dungeon he was locked up in. His parents were on the other side of the room, awaiting the trial that would claim both of their lives, and maybe Jungkook’s too, for being the child of traitors such as them.

“My parents are traitors,” Jungkook said with a frown. Ever since he was a child, and some might argue that he still was a child, he dreamed of serving the royal family. He wanted to become best friends with Prince Taehyung and serve dinner to the Devil Namjoon and his bride Seokjin. He never dreamed of his parents betraying the very family that he admired so, and he thought they deserved whatever punishment that came to them. He would rightfully accept his own punishment as well. “They deserve to die.”

“I can’t say that I disagree, but,” The demon bit his lip and looked up to meet Jungkook’s eyes. “Do you know what this means for you?”

“I am aware of what this means,” Jungkook crossed his arms and slumped back against the walls. “It’s rather unfortunate that my parents are traitors, but, if I must die at the hands of the royal family to prove my loyalty, then I will die with that honor.”

*

The courtroom was loud. There were hoots and hollers and cheerings for Cerberus to devour the traitors that sold secret demon information to the gods, enemies of underland. Rows upon rows of demons screamed insults, not even caring that there was a young demon among the accused. As far as the demons were concerned, a crime was a crime, regardless of the age of the committer. It didn’t even matter that Jungkook had not committed any crimes.

Jungkook stood on the stand, his fathers on either side of him. When he looked in front of him, he just saw the giant dog that would probably be gobbling him down like French appetizer. To his left, he saw a few demons. Among them, the familiar face of the demon who had come to visit him in his cell last night. He was standing next to the prince, who looked on with an apologetic face.

“It has been brought to my attention that you, who stand before me, have committed treachery in its worst sense,” Namjoon’s voice boomed loud and clear in the noisy hall, over all of the screams. The cheering demons quieted down to hear the trail. “For that, I sentence you, and your son, to death. Cerberus—”

“Wait!” Taehyung shouted. He ran to stand between Jungkook and Cerberus’s middle head. He held his arms, stretched out at his sides, as if to protect Jungkook from the dog that was eighty times his size. “Why must we kill the child? He did nothing wrong!”

Jungkook glanced over at the familiar demon from the night before, his cheeks flushing when the aforementioned demon offered a small smile. Had he said something to Taehyung to change his mind? Did he speak of how Jungkook was going to accept this as an honorable death?

“Taehyung, move!” Namjoon demanded, his voice booming louder than it had in the beginning. “The child of a traitor must pay for the crimes his parents committed.”

Really, if Jungkook thought about it, that didn’t make much sense at all. It was more reasonable for the parents to pay for the child’s crime because they were responsible for their children. For the child to pay for his parents’ crime? That just didn’t make any sense.

“But he is not a traitor!” Taehyung demanded, flames flaring up around him in his anger, his tail swishing back and forth aggressively. “Do you see him begging for his life? Or crying even? He’s accepted his fate with honor, and I’ll not have Cerby munch on a loyal and innocent child.”

“We’ll have the hound decide,” Namjoon commanded.

Upon those words, Taehyung stepped aside. Jungkook would later discover that Cerberus was a dog of many abilities, and seeing into the hearts of people was one of those abilities that he had. If Jungkook was a traitor, Cerberus would know.

The dog lowered his massive heads, sniffing the three demons that stood on the stand before him. All three heads snarled their teeth and lunged down to gobble the demons up. Jungkook didn’t flinch, knowing that Cerberus had no reason to touch him, and the middle head stopped just before taking Jungkook into his mouth.

“That’s a good boy,” Jungkook hummed, petting the middle head on his muzzle.

He looked once again to the friendly demon from the night before, reminding himself that he would need to thank him.

*

“So, Cerberus deemed this boy loyal enough to survive,” Namjoon noted, walking down the halls with the rest of the royal family following close behind them. Just behind the royal family was the friendly demon from the night before, and one other demon, which Jungkook assumed to be the friendly demon’s alpha. Behind those two demons, two guards were holding onto Jungkook, making him follow along. He could walk for himself, and he wouldn’t escape, but he stopped fighting for that right after enough blows to the head. It took a lot for demons to feel pain, but the royal guards seemed skilled in ways to physically harm other demons. “We will take him to the servant’s chamber, and he will work as our servant until I feel that he has proved his loyalty to us.”

“Don’t mind him,” Taehyung was suddenly behind Jungkook. Damn those royal demons and their ability to teleport. “He doesn’t trust anyone, and the fact that your parents were traitors make it harder for him to trust you than most. Don’t take it personally.”

“Oh, I won’t,” Jungkook assured him.

When they reached the servants chambers, Jungkook was thrown onto a bed in an unoccupied room. Everyone, except the friendly demon and the alpha, left him there alone.

The friendly demon came to sit next to Jungkook, on the bed. The alpha followed and stood close by. He seemed really protective over his omega. “Are you okay?” The friendly demon asked, looking Jungkook over. He turned around to the alpha. “Hoseok, make sure they didn’t hurt him.”

The alpha demon, Hoseok, nodded, and he placed a careful hand on the back of Jungkook’s throbbing head. Jungkook winced as the contact reminded him of the pain that was once there, and he saw Hoseok frown. “They nearly gave him a concussion,” Hoseok stated with a tsk. “I don’t think it’s bad enough to bring him to the exam room.”

“Good,” The kind demon said, and he looked back at Jungkook, a warm smile on his face. “I’m Yoongi, and this is my pact holder, Hoseok. That was a terrible thing you had to witness today. I just want you to know that it’s safe to cry around us. We won’t report you for treason for crying over your parents.”

“My parents were traitors,” Jungkook said, holding back a sniffle. “Rather than crying over losing them, I feel like crying because they betrayed me by betraying our people.”

Yoongi shook his head, his tail slowly swishing behind himself. He cupped Jungkook’s face in his large hands and looked into the kid’s eyes. “They were your family, Jungkook,” Yoongi reminded him. “And I’m guessing they were the only family you had. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve now, it will hit you harder later.”

Maybe it was the way Yoongi was so understanding, or maybe it was the way he seemed to know what Jungkook was going through. Jungkook didn’t know what it was, but something about Yoongi’s words brought the tears to Jungkook’s eyes, and then he couldn’t stop them. Yoongi pulled him into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around him, and petting his hair.

The first time Jungkook had ever spoke to Yoongi, he got to see the demon’s softer side. He would later find out that he just got lucky. No one who wasn’t a friend of Yoongi got to see his soft side.

*

His first month living in Hell with the royal family was spent training. He learned how to do many things like tailoring clothes for the royal family, preparing and serving food for them, and cleaning the castle. Jungkook didn’t mind most of the jobs, but he hated how cruel Namjoon could be sometimes. Namjoon was meaner to him than the other servants, and Jungkook knew it was most likely because of his parents. So, he didn’t let it bother him. He did his job to prove that, while he may have been the child of his fathers, he was not a traitor like them.

“Jungkook,” Namjoon said after Jungkook had served dinner to the royal family. It was his first time serving alone, and Namjoon had stopped him before could hurry away.

Jungkook froze and turned to look at the devil. “Yes, your unholiness?” Jungkook’s voice shook. He knew he would mess something up on his first day of doing this job alone.

“You are supposed to wait until we’ve tried the food to walk away,” Namjoon reminded him, and Jungkook lowered his head. “I do not want to have to summon you back if there is something wrong.”

“Oh, sorry, your unholiness,” Jungkook said, and he stood by to wait for Namjoon to try the food. He had forgotten that part of his training because he only trained on serving once before being left on his own.

Namjoon tried each part of the meal, and he looked up at Jungkook. “It is fine,” He told him. “You may go, but I’m going to have to make you skip dinner. A day without gluttony may just remind you to do it right the next time.”

“But—”

“Do not argue with me!” Namjoon demanded, and Jungkook flinched. “Unless you want to be put into your place.”

Jungkook bit his lip and lowered his head again. He had never been punished by the guards. He trainers have on multiple occasions, and always on his behalf since he was training and they were responsible for them, but he hadn’t been punished by them. He saw enough servants return from their fiery wrath to know that it wasn’t a good thing. “May I return to my room?” He asked.

“That is fine,” Namjoon said, calmer this time.

Going to bed without a meal wasn’t bad for a demon, considering they didn’t actually need food to survive. It was the sin part of it that . Demons needed to commit sins to survive, and a day felt empty without all the sins they could commit.

Once Jungkook was locked up in his room for a while, a knock came to the door. No one ever came to visit him in his chambers. Curious, he slipped out of his bed and rushed to the door. He was pleasantly surprised to see Yoongi and Hoseok standing there, a small little basket held in between them in their hands.

“Taehyung told us that you were ordered to skip dinner,” Hoseok said with a smile. “So we bought you some food from the diner.”

“This was Hoseok’s idea,” Yoongi mumbled.

“Actually it was Yoongi’s idea,” Hoseok said with a laugh. “Taehyung told us that you had to skip dinner, and he responded with ‘why is he telling us this? Are we supposed to bring him some food?’ Because I said that we should, it’s suddenly my idea.”

“Sounds like him,” He laughed and waved the two demons into his room. They sat on his bed, and Jungkook shared his food with them. It felt weird eating by himself.

This was when he learned that Yoongi and Hoseok were probably his best friends in Underland, and Taehyung was probably more afraid of his own father than he’d like to admit.

*

“You know, you can hardly call yourself a demon,” Yoongi said one day when they were all in the Great Halls of Hell.

Taehyung invited his friends over for a chat, and that happened to be one of the rooms that Jungkook was cleaning in. He didn’t have a lot of time to chat with the demons in his own time, so Taehyung made sure to invite them over when Jungkook would be around. Jungkook knew he did it on purpose.

“Me?” Jungkook asked, looking over at Yoongi from where he was dusting off one of the shelves.

“Who else would I be talking to?” Yoongi asked.

“Why’s that?” Jungkook was only slightly offended.

“Because you’re not much of a sinner,” Yoongi pointed out. “I’ve never seen you get angry about anything, so I don’t think you even know what wrath is. You stay up all night reading instead of sleeping, so you’re not very familiar with sloth either. You haven’t grown up enough to know whether your alpha or an omega, so I would hope you haven’t met with lust. It’s no wonder your horns are damn small. The only sin you know well is gluttony.”

“That is not true—” Jungkook snapped. The worst thing you could possibly tell a demon was that they weren’t sinful enough.

“Speaking of which,” Hoseok cut Jungkook off, completely ignoring his almost outburst. “What happens if Jungkook turns out to be an alpha?”

Oh, right. Jungkook hadn’t thought about that. Servants were always omega demons because a position of servitude was no place for an alpha, who should be in a position of power. Like Yoongi, there were omegas in better positions, but they had to work their asses off to get there.

“He probably won’t,” Taehyung shrugged it off, “I mean, can you imagine a cute demon such as himself coming out as an alpha?”

“ You’re an alpha,” Yoongi noted, narrowing his eyes at Taehyung.

“A demon of royal blood can’t be an omega,” Taehyung explained.

“Says who?” Yoongi’s eyes narrowed more. “You’re our only example of that, excluding Namjoon, but he wasn’t born a demon. We would need more test subjects to know if that’s accurate.”

“I’m working on it,” Taehyung insisted. “I just haven’t found the right human to be my bride. I don’t get the next one until—”

“Guys,” Jungkook cut them off. “Really. What happens if I am an alpha?”

“Namjoon would probably have you killed,” Taehyung said like it was nothing, and Jungkook swallowed thickly. “But by then you just may have convinced him that you’re worth keeping around. If that’s the case, you’ll be placed in a position where you can still be monitored until you gain his full trust.”

*

It wasn’t long after that conversation that Jungkook got summoned to the royal conference room. He was in the middle of cleaning up after dinner when he was suddenly in the conference room. It wasn’t very often that Namjoon summoned the servants in that manner, and the only time they were allowed in this room was to clean it. So Jungkook knew something big was about to happen.

“You’ve been serving us for nearly ten years now,” Namjoon said. Ten years wasn’t a long time, but it felt like it to Jungkook. Maybe it was the nearly daily beating that he received from the guards, and sometimes Namjoon himself, that made the years drag on so long. “In that time, you have never gave me reason to question your loyalty. Somehow, you’ve made me forget that you were the child of two of the worst traitors we’ve ever had in our kingdom.”

Jungkook couldn’t wipe the dumb grin off his face. Hello, pride. Is this what that sin felt like?

“So I’m moving you,” Namjoon said. “You will no longer be staying in the servant’s quarters. You have nowhere else to go, so you will still be in that castle. You’ll be in our wing, and you can have the room next to Taehyung’s. I’m promoting you to keeper of our records. That’s the position that one of your fathers held before he was killed. I’m trusting you with this, so don’t let me regret it.”

“I won’t,” Jungkook chimed.

Jungkook would be the youngest record keeper of all time. Considering he hadn’t developed yet, he was one of the youngest demons to ever receive a professional position such as this. Pride would become a close friend of his.

*

It wasn’t long after Jungkook got promoted that he finally went through his major development stage. He had been record keeper for nearly thirteen years, and he discovered that he was an alpha. He knew because his sense of smell had heightened overnight. He woke up in cold sweats after having filthy dreams, most of which involved Yoongi, and, if Jungkook wasn’t already in Hell, he’d think he would be going to hell for having such thoughts about Hoseok’s omega.

The worst part was his stiff phallus. He had to beat himself off before he could convince himself to go out of his room and see the royal family.

Ever since Jungkook got promoted to his new position, he had been having dinner with the royal family like he was one of their sons, Taehyung’s brother. It was nice. The conversations they had at the dining table covered any range of subjects. On some days, their conversations consisted of a lot of laughter, on other days it was more coated with wrath as Taehyung learned more and more how to stick up to his own father.

“Ah, what a beautiful time,” Taehyung was the last one to join them this morning. He ruffled Jungkook’s hair before going to sit at his usual spot. “So you are an alpha.”

“Wha- how did you know?” Jungkook asked, cheeks flushed.

“We can smell it, Jungkook,” Namjoon said.

So Jungkook had been sitting at the table with the royal parents this whole time, and they already knew? Or maybe it was just Namjoon.

“We just didn’t say anything because we didn’t want to embarrass you,” Seokjin said with a soft laugh.

Not just Namjoon, then.

“So both alphas and omegas can smell it?” Jungkook asked. There was so much he didn’t know about being a grown up demon.

“Well, typically an omega only has heightened senses during their heat,” Seokjin explained, “Whereas you alphas have them all the time. I’m just different and have the sense of an alpha.”

“Which makes it hell for both of us when his senses are even stronger during his heat,” Namjoon pointed out.

Jungkook found out what they meant by his senses being heightened. He never noticed that Namjoon and Taehyung smelled so strongly like alphas before. Their scent was stronger than any of the other alphas Jungkook ran into. Maybe it had something to do with them being the alphas of the alphas - the leaders of the pack.

*

It was Jungkook’s day off from work, and so he and Taehyung spent the day out of the castle, with their friends. Everything got a lot worse for them when they met up with Hoseok and Yoongi at the usual diner, and Jungkook could smell Yoongi’s heat. Of course he had to be in heat today of all days.

“Is it always this bad?” Jungkook asked, looking at the two other alphas with them as Yoongi went up to pay for the food. He insisted on doing it, and Hoseok was watching him like a hawk. An omega walking around during their heat was basically free game to other alphas.

“The smells? You get used to it,” Hoseok assured him. He sniffed the air and frowned. “It does seem like there are more omegas in heat out than usual. Must be rough for your first day.”

“You know,” Taehyung said, a coy smile on his lips. “There is one thing we can do to help the kid out a little.” A grin grew onto his face as Yoongi returned to their table.

“What?” Yoongi asked, looking at him. “Stop grinning at me like that.”

Jungkook already caught on. “No, I couldn’t—”

Yoongi looked at Jungkook and then back at Taehyung. He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Are you serious?”

“What? It’s his first day as an alpha, you’re in heat,” Taehyung said, placing his hands together as if telling Yoongi to put two and two together. “Besides, you were the one who said you wanted him to be alpha because—”

“I did not!” Yoongi shouted, quickling covering Taehyung’s mouth with his hand. “I said no such things!”

Hoseok carefully grabbed Yoongi’s wrist to pull his hand away from Taehyung’s mouth. “You did say that,” Hoseok stated. “But we don’t have to do anything either of you aren’t comfortable with.”

Yoongi looked at Jungkook, biting his lip. “If Jungkook wants to, I don’t mind.” Yoongi announced. “His scent is driving me crazy right now with it being his first day and all, so someone is going to need to do something about it.”

Part of Jungkook wanted to refuse because he didn’t want his first time with Yoongi to be just for the sake of him getting himself off. It’s too bad that was a very weak part of himself, and the stronger part of himself was screaming at him to go for it. It was the stronger part of himself that brought the four of them back to the castle where Taehyung led them into one of the play rooms.