Chapter Text
You heard them.
It wasn’t new, it wasn’t a surprise. What they spat were just hushed lies pushed past the lips of the undeserving for a millennia.
You heard it, and you felt it. To the very core of you, you felt it.
They knew no better. It’s what they’d heard, so much it’s close enough to the truth at this point. Maybe you knew that, maybe you would have even shared those words were you the oblivious ones, someone on the outside trying so desperately to shove their way in.
You felt every rip through your flesh, the boiling heat rising in your lungs, your heart beating to three times it’s normal pace.
Worst of them all, a guilty sin, you felt shame. Shame because you knew the truth, but because it was impossible for you to show it to them. Shame because despite it all, all the lies and the harsh glares harbored from jealousy, they weren’t always lies.
Because every lie is plucked from a thousand tiny truths.
Scum.
Undeserving.
Ungrateful.
Stupid.
Unable to love a single thing that was not himself.
Still, you stood next to him as the harsh whispers trapped the both of you in it’s unforgiving grip. Still, you wrapped your arm around his and squeezed tenderly, unspoken faith that you were unmoving, always there beside him, that the lies, and even the truths, meant nothing in what you knew in your heart to be true.
His head stayed down. His body grew more tense with each shallow breath. His face contorted into a blank sheen, but the raw pain in his dull blue eyes was something you could see whenever you closed your eyes.
Because he couldn’t show them the truth. He couldn’t talk them down. He couldn’t defend himself. They knew that as well as he did, one single finger pointed towards a lesser demon than he and his brothers and they’d be barreling over themselves in an attempt to be the first demon that gets to tell Diavolo that the fourth most powerful demon in all of the Devildom abused his power. That he went back on the deal his brother sacrificed more than he could ever give to make. That he deserved to be whisked away, to be humiliated, to be tortured for his sins.
That he was everything everyone already knew.
Your hand found itself against his. You squeezed tightly against it, your fingers carding through the slits between his long, soft, slender fingers and holding firmly there.
And he let you hang on. He let you hang on with everything you had, he let you comfort him wordlessly, defend him in the truest way you knew how.
But he did not squeeze back.
‘Lucifer?’
Slowly, his eyes trailed up from his desk to fixate on you, crimson red, exhausted eyes hidden by an extremely thin forced indifference squinting at you as if he just realized you were there. In all honesty, that probably wasn’t very far from the truth.
Gently, he let his pen slide from his hands to lay diagonally across yet another official looking form, stretching his arms above his head as he slowly nodded in your direction. ‘Excuse me, y/n. I didn’t even seem to hear you coming in.’ He tried desperately to hide the exhaustion in his voice, which only made you more worried about yet another brother, but this is something you’d have to tackle later. ‘What did you need from me?’
’I, well. I’m..’ you sighed, clawing your nails just hard enough into your palms for the pain to ground your nerves through the soles of your feet, swallowing firmly against the lump in your throat. ‘I’m…worried about Mammon.’
Lucifer’s eyes widened minutely at the admission, yet they quickly dissolved in a curious half-slit, glaring almost straight through you as he tilted his head slightly in millions of unspoken inquiries. ‘You’re..worried about Mammon?’ Unable to swallow that confounding bundle of nerves trapping your voice in your throat, you could only give a nod of affirmation. Lucifer tutted slightly under his breath, bringing a hand up to rest against his lips. ‘And might I ask why?’
’Well, he..’ you knew what you wanted to say, but you also knew it’s something you couldn’t say. If you were to build a strong case, saying you’re worried simply because Mammon wasn’t giving you as much attention as he used to certainly wasn’t the way to go about it. ‘He’s different. Somehow.’ You sighed, gesturing blindly in the air around you in a frustrated tantrum. ‘He’s not himself. It’s like he’s just..powered down or something.’
‘Like one of Leviathan’s video games?’ If Lucifer was trying to hide the condescending smirk from his tone, he was doing a horrible job of it.
You felt your face flame in both anger and humiliation. You simply couldn’t understand how he could take a situation like this so lightly. ‘I..look, I‘ve been by Mammon’s side since I first arrived at the Devildom, right? So I know how Mammon-feels. And he doesn’t feel right.’ You huffed in exasperation as you continued to dig yourself further into a hole. ‘Ever since those pathetic demons started getting on him..’
’Ah, I think I understand it now.’
You perked up slightly, unsatisfied with his expression. ‘You..do?’
Lucifer nodded, confident smirk tilting his lips. ‘You’re worried those demons are getting to him.’ Slowly, you nodded. It was an oversimplification, of course, but that was indeed one of the problems. Lucifer’s smirk grew wider. ‘You needn’t worry about that, y/n. Your worries are, all-encompassing, misplaced.’
You quirked an eyebrow at that, feeling your face flame again. ‘Meaning?’
’Mammon isn’t worried about what those insignifcants think about him. He couldn’t care less about their opinions if he tried. What’s bothering him now is that he can’t do anything about it.’
You were highly unconvinced. ‘I don’t think-‘
’Think of it this way, y/n. Mammon is the living embodiment of greed, yes? And to what does greed encompass? Power. Privilege. Respect. Mammon craves things he simply can’t have because of those lesser demons, and I can expect it’s driving him mad.’
That, as much as something still stirred ugly inside of you, at least made sense. Mammon craved recognition he couldn’t force on those vile little creatures, and that goes against everything his avatar stood for. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’
‘Indeed,’ Lucifer said proudly, but narrowed his eyes at your mostly unshaken repose. ‘Y/n, Mammon would come to me if something were truly bothering him.’
’You’re sure about that?’
Lucifer paused, his confident bravado slowly seeping into the cracks made by his blossoming anger. His brows furrowed slightly, his lips losing their mirth as they fell slightly. ‘Yes,’ he responded, but you weren’t sure he’d convinced even himself of it. He looked down at his paperwork, an excuse not to look you in the eyes any longer as the pen fell back between his pointer and middle finger. ‘Now if you’ll please excuse me once more, I have a fine amount of work left to do for today.’
You gulped slightly, feeling significantly worse than you did walking in here. Nodding, you watched your feet as you began toward his door. ‘Right, of course. Thank you, Lucifer.’
The door echoed eerily through the halls, your eyes falling on the door leading to Mammon’s room. Your heart fell.
It was closed.
Mammon never closed his door.
The next day was even more worrying for you.
Because the next day, Mammon couldn’t leave you alone.
Ever since you walked downstairs with your backpack ready to walk to school, Mammon was there, at his usual spot, and before you could even say hello, he was on you. Hugging you close to his chest, kissing the top of your head and playing with your hair.
‘Mon?’ You asked, stunned at his sudden shift. It’s not that you didn’t welcome Mammon cuddles, normally you’d die begging for them. And that was the problem. Mammon was a sweetheart, but he wasn’t into cuddling when so many eyes could see. Holding hands, whispering to each other at most. And now, that’s all he seemed to be thinking about.
‘Shh,’ he whispered against your hair, draping his arms around your shoulders as he maneuvered his head to lay a kiss on top of your head. ‘Just, don’t say nothin,’ okay?’
’Was it a bad dream?’
‘Y/n,’ he said in a low, annoyed tone.
You bit your lip, wrapping your arms around his waist and pressing yourself as close as you could to him, ear against his heart as if you could find all the answers in his heartbeat.
‘M’sorry,’ you whispered into his chest, stubbornly feeling as tears began to clog up your vision. ‘But..you’d tell me, right?’
Mammon shifted slightly, and you could tell his eyes were on your head but you kept your eyes shut tight. ‘Tell you what?’
‘If-if something was bothering you. If you needed help.’ The words felt like acid in your throat, and you flinched, ready for the explosion that was sure to follow.
Instead, you heard Mammon sigh-a long, exhausted sound as he almost sagged against your hold. ‘I ain’t worth all this worryin,’ treasure.’ He whispered against your hair.
Mortified, you ripped from his grasp and stared at him with wide eyes, lips parted as your tongue burned with your refusal, until you heard heavy footsteps coming down the steps accompanied with a scoff.
‘Uh-uh. No PDA this early in the morning.’ Levi groaned, flicking Mammon in the forehead when he descended the steps. ‘You normies find new ways to make my stomach churn every single day, don’t you?’
Slowly, Mammon disentangled himself from you, refusing to meet your eyes even once as he ducked his head, reaching blindly behind him until he’d grasped your hand. ‘C’mon then Y/n, we’re gonna be late.’
’Mon,’ you drawled helplessly, feeling your throat constrict tightly around the plea. Mammon didn’t turn back. He just began walking, tugging you reluctantly behind.
And just like that, he avoided you.
Not outright, he couldn’t make it so obvious that the thought of you made him nauseous. He’d still walk beside you, hold your hand, but he wouldn’t lace his fingers around your’s. Wouldn’t squeeze your unsaid love for each other into eachother’s palms like you always would.
Would be as far away as he could be while still letting you grasp his hand tightly in yours. Mentally, and physically.
He didn’t meet you at lunch so you can eat together and gossip about everything and nothing at all. He didn’t wave you goodbye when you separated in the halls toward different classes.
He didn’t wait just outside the school doors after classes were done to walk home with you.
He’d left without you.
Beel offered to escort you home, and while he was warm-you still felt so cold. So empty. So sad. So worthless.
So scared.
So when you marched into his room first thing upon getting home, not saying a word as you angrily stomped over to his slumped form on the couch, not commenting in any way about his groans of protest as his D.D.D made a sharp thud as it hit the floor, not reacting in any way outright as he tried everything to get you to let go of his hand..
You gripped tighter, hiding the tears building in your eyes with a ducked head as you marched with Mammon reluctantly in tow straight to your bedroom, throwing his arm inside as you closed and locked the door behind you.
‘You’re creepy when you’re mad, ya know that?’ He tried to joke, but the flat tone of his usually upbeat, excited tone made your heart’s last string untether.
‘Get on the bed, Mammon.’ You ordered.
He looked at you then, raised eyebrow and curious glint in his eye. His face fell as the command clicked into his brain. ‘Maybe later, human. M’tired.’
You disregarded how Mammon actually took the command, crossing the room and shrugging off your shoes, climbing into bed and draping the covers over you but still holding the edge up as you waited for Mammon to follow.
He didn’t, the seriousness of your tone finally getting to him and making the normally beautifully bright blue eyes lose every once of their sparkle by the second as he stared at you. ‘Y/n,’ he said just barely above a whisper, tone so far away and incredibly empty and you felt as if you couldn’t breathe.
’Get in the bed, Mammon,’ you repeated, almost shouting this time. ‘Something is bothering you, something big, and I don’t know what it is or how I can help you because you won’t talk to me.’ You tasted the salt on your tongue before even realizing your tears had finally fell over your cheeks. ‘You won’t talk to me, and I can’t keep sitting here and hoping you’ll trust and love me enough to open up to me. I can’t force you to say the words you don’t want to say, so you will get in this bed. You will get in this bed with me and you will let me hold you.’
Mammon looked so sad. So incredibly sad as he watched you sob openly in your own bed, balling up the corner of the sheets you were still holding up for your lover, pressing them into your face as your tears soaked the edges. He said nothing as he shrugged off his shoes, bare feet thudding against the floor as he hurriedly rushed to your bed, sliding under the covers and laying with his stomach pressed against yours as he cradled your head into his shoulder.
‘Shh, don’t cry, babe. Please don’t cry over me.’ He mused softly, hand running softly through your hair as the humming of his stomach as he spoke vibrated against your chest.
‘Monnie, please,’ you gasped through your tears, holding him as tightly as you could. You couldn’t make yourself say any more even though you knew you should, knew with everything that you wanted to but you were terrified of what his response would be. Because he wouldn’t tell you. He didn’t want to talk about his pain to you. He didn’t want to burden you with his troubles. This close contact, the warmth of his body still there over everything, the soft cooing of his beautiful, rhythmic voice even though this was the only time in days he’d shown any real emotion, it was all you could have. So you hugged him tighter. You pressed your own hands in that wonderfully soft snowy hair he had, brushing through the strands as you felt him shift so that he wasn’t laying with his entire body on you. Pressing his head onto your stomach and hugging your torso with his arms as he let you comb your fingers through his hair, neither of you saying a thing as your sobs quieted into sniffles that eventually stilled out into deep breaths, Mammon holding you tightly against him until you calmed down enough before burrowing himself tighter against you, making it a point to give off as much warmth and comfort as he could as he slowly drifted off in your arms.
His brows were furrowed, the bags under his eyes glinting an ugly dark color and the wrinkles in his forehead crinkling even in his sleep and it was all you could do but hug him tighter, whispering your empty promises and affirmations of love against his hair as a fresh new set of tears built at your waterline.
‘Aye, zip it up in there. Lucifer says it’s dinner time.’
You jerked awake to Belphie pounding twice in your door, not waiting for a reply as you heard his fret shuffle away from your door and down the steps. You shifted slightly to see Mammon still fast asleep against you, gripping you even tighter than he had been when you fell asleep, breath quickening rapidly and body twitching against you.
‘Mammon?’ You asked, running your hand through his hair and scratching your nails softly against his scalp. ‘Mammon,’ you tried again as his fidgeting became worse and he was softly mumbling things to himself.
He jerked awake with a small yelp, panting as he looked madly around the room, trying to wake up enough to get a grasp on the situation and he only calmed down when his eyes met you. But his eyes only stayed on your for a second before he looked away, slowly untangling himself from you and looking straight down at the pink sheet on your bed.
Your heart wasn’t able to break more, but it did in that moment. ‘Mammon,’ you began, but after seeing the way he physically flinched at the sound of your voice, you bit hard on your lip to keep the strangled sob from rising from your throat as you looked down at the floor. ‘It’s time for dinner,’ you said, cool and despondent as you didn’t even spare him a glance as you felt the bed dip then even out as he stood up.
He hesitated slightly, so tense you could see the rigid muscles of his back through his thin shirt, then blindly reached a hand out to you without looking back.
‘Please, don’t,’ you whispered, unable to speak any louder as you felt no air circulating in your lungs. ‘Don’t hold me unless you really mean it.’
And he stood there, still as a statue, for longer than you could remember. Hand outstretched still, but fingers slightly curling in on themselves. Arm falling slowly, hand drawing backwards by centimeters until eventually he withdrew his hand completely, gathering his discarded shoes in one hand and, without soaring so much as a backward glance to you, walked through your door and slammed it shut behind him.
You had to keep your sobs to a minimum, lest the other brothers take note of your absence and send themselves up to get you.
You don’t know how it started.
You don’t know how any of it really started.
Levi mad that Mammon had such glee even when the situation called for the complete opposite. Satan angry because he was told by his brothers to be angry at Mammon, not because he actually had a reason. Lucifer terrified of disappointing Diavolo and disregarding all his own flaws to project them all on Mammon.
You heard them.
It wasn’t anything you hadn’t heard before. Nothing new.
But they snarled. They growled. They bit. They tore.
And Mammon, Mammon usually would take it with humor. Even as it ate him up inside, tore him down until there were no shreds left, he’d take it with a smirk on his face and futile attempts at jabs back, because that’s the person Mammon was. Self-sacrificing in the name of keeping their brothers happy. Keeping them breathing. Keeping them smiling. If he needed to be the punching bag, if he needed to be the one thing others could turn their frustrations and debilitating sadness on to keep them from having to feel so much pain, he’d do it. Because he was Mammon. And he was Great.
But today was different. Today, the brothers were exceptionally more brutal than they ever had been before.
Levi had called him worthless, a waste of time and space.
Asmo let him know just how embarrassed he was to have Mammon as a brother, and gracefully gave him the option of ending his own existence so his brothers could finally be at peace.
Satan called him an idiot, told him he was helpless and a lost cause and couldn’t have someone as illiterate and selfish as him as a brother.
Lucifer said that if he knew Mammon was going to cause so much trouble and inflict so much stress and anger upon his brothers, that he would never have asked him to fight with them.
And you did nothing, he realized. Normally, you’d be the only one defending him.
Now, you were silent. You didn’t even seem to be paying it any attention, your head down as you slowly cut into your food.
Worthless.
An embarrassment.
Scum.
The words echoed loudly, painfully, in his head. Mammon felt himself drowning, suffocating underneath it all.
Can never do anything right.
Selfish little brat that will never learn.
He felt like he was dying.
Dead.
End it all.
Better off dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
Just like her.
His breaths were shallow. He blinked. He felt his hand brush against something hard and metal.
They wish it was me.
They all wish it was me.
I wish it was me.
When he blinked that final time, a sharp, burning pain screamed in his lower stomach.
The knife. The knife he’d been using to cut into his steak was now embedded deep into his torso.