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dawnsbreaking · 1 year

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She found him in the library, where she often did, alone. The Avatar of Wrath, for all the deafening thunder of his fiery reputation, lived for the solace found in quiet corners of the Devildom. He was most at home in the library or his room with a book, a cup of tea, and the hum of a fire to quiet his thoughts. - family therapist strikes again

pairing: satan/mc (she/her) word count: 1,725

read on ao3 want to be tagged when i post fics? spoilers for after lesson 16!

"Hello," she said, "I knew I'd find you here."

Satan gave her a gentle smile.

"I'm easy to find, if you know where to look." There was an intimacy implied between them; she always knew where to look.

The events of the week before had been taxing for everyone. The revelation of Lilith's human life and the repercussions of Lucifer's deal with Diavolo reverberated through the House of Lamentation like a bell had been rung, calling them to mourn their sister anew.

The elder brothers—Lucifer, Mammon, and Leviathan—sulked in their collective guilt while the younger brothers—Asmodeus and Beelzebub—worried after the recently freed Belphegor.

Satan, as always, was caught in the middle, twisting silently with complicated emotions. He’d escaped to the solace of the library, leaving his brothers to their grief. It had almost been prophetic of a Diavolo to assign him the role of the middle child. It suited him, the oft-forgotten fourth brother, as he was long-suffering despite his fatal sin.

“How are you?” She asked, sitting carefully on the arm of his chair. If he were in a better mood, she’d turn and rest her legs across his lap or drape an arm across his shoulders. If he were in a better mood, he’d loop an arm around her waist or pull her from her perch and into the large chair with him.

His hands remained firmly on the book in his lap. She kept her distance.

Satan turned, looking her up and down. His expression was soft but reserved, like he was holding back crashing waves with nothing more than an umbrella.

“Family therapist,” he accused.

She only shrugged. The joke held a piece of the truth. She’d been checking in on all of the brothers since the incident, offering an empathetic ear. And, on a grander scale, she was always attentive of the brothers’ feelings.

In the beginning, this had been a method of survival—she’d felt it prudent to avoid demons in poor moods for her own safety. Now that she no longer feared the brothers, she found that a lot was to be gained by allowing them to open up to her. She’d made herself indispensable to the Devildom, just by being a good friend to her hosts.

"Your friend," she reminded him, though she'd be lying if she said she didn't desire to be more. And there'd been whispers between the brothers that Satan felt the same.

They all cared for her, that was abundantly clear in the way they doted on her and fought constantly for her attention, but they were starting to catch on to the special care she gave to Satan in return.

Just before the incident, she'd finally made her pact with the Avatar of Wrath. The other pacts had been easy enough—any reluctance had been mostly for show—but Satan had been more sanctimonious about the ordeal. In private conversations, he’d expressed that he feared for the transmutation that their relationship would undergo by way of the pact. He was afraid of the commitment, too. Her reassurances had been enough, in the end, as well as the knowledge that she'd been afraid of the same things.

When the pact was finally formed, it was true that something had shifted between them. There was that same supernatural feeling of trust that she'd been imbued with, just like with the other pacts. There was that same intimacy, as well, when they touched foreheads and she got the tiny glimpse into his mind that such contact afforded her. There was something else with Satan, though, that took some time to appear.

By the time she'd fully inhabited the feeling, they were swept up into Lucifer's revelations and into Belphegor's escape from the attic. There was no time, with the brothers so out of sorts in the fallout, to wonder after the pit in her stomach.

Satan hummed noncommittally. Fear of his fatal sin kept him from allowing himself closeness to others, she knew this. Still, she pushed.

She didn't fear him.

Really, of all the brothers, she'd always felt safest with Satan. He was soft-spoken and stoic but he never came across as cold or intimidating. His characteristic silence came with a strong, calming aura. Silent moments by his side felt like taking refuge in the shade beneath a tall camphor tree.

"You know, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want to," she said, "but I enjoy hearing your thoughts."

Satan usually responded to gentle prodding. He needed to know that she cared, that she wasn't just checking with him out of some sense of obligation.

"My thoughts are complicated."

She laughed. "Aren't they always?"

Satan sighed, dropping the book from his lap onto the table next to him. He surprised her, then, by taking one of her hands into his own. He was careful, balancing their interwoven hands on her knee.

He didn't like to be touched when he was upset, so, even though he'd initiated contact, she kept still so as not to overwhelm him.

"Tell me," she said, after a moment of silence passed between them. "Even if I don't understand, I'll listen."

He squeezed her hand and began, "You know that I wasn't born in the Celestial Realm like the others, right?"

"Right." She didn’t understand this exactly, but she knew enough to follow the threads of worry that extended from the event of Satan’s creation.

"That means that I never met Lilith. I know about her, but she was gone before I was..." He hesitated to say 'born.’ That wasn't quite the right word. He shook his head. "I have these bits of me that aren't me and all of those pieces remember loving her."

She held tight to his hand as he shuddered. Though she couldn’t quite grasp the way Satan had come into being, she knew that he struggled with feeling like some part of him would always belong to something or someone else.

It was where his anger toward Lucifer stemmed from, this feeling of a debt forever unpaid.

"Do you wish you had gotten to know her?" She asked, unsure if this was the right question but hoping it would keep him talking.

"Maybe." He frowned. That wasn't it. "I think... I resent the inauthenticity of the feelings."

The answer was so precise, so narrow. He'd pinpointed the issue exactly. She wondered how long he'd had to sit there, half of his mind occupied with a novel while the other half grasped for the perfect verbiage to wholly encapsulate his frustration.

“That is complicated.”

The problems that the demons had were far beyond her as a human, though this was something she’d never admit to any of the brothers out loud. She usually found herself unable to offer advice. This time, though, she had a unique perspective in that Lucifer had offered insight on this same issue.

While Satan was created from Lucifer’s wrath and bore the curse of this as his fatal sin, his positive traits were all his own. He was uniquely able to mitigate the effects of his flaw, and uniquely steadfast in his concern for doing so.

It was a testament to Satan’s will that Lucifer so often found it hard to relate to him. Those parts of Satan that held foreign memories weren’t so much pieces of Lucifer as they were the foundations of Satan’s own life.

These feelings for his sister and these echoes of the Celestial Realm were as much Satan’s as they were Lucifer’s—they were his birthright.

She took a breath, wishing she shared Satan’s grasp on language as she searched for the proper words to express all of this.

“You’re going to hate that I’ve heard about this from Lucifer,” she began, finding it easiest to come clean ahead of what she had to say, “but I know he worries about most of the same things you do.”

Expecting anger, she paused, waiting for Satan to object. Instead, his face remained fixed, his mouth a thin line, his brows furrowed as he listened intently.

It struck her, in times like these, how much the brothers trusted her. Against all odds, against everything they’d been taught to believe about humans, they cared for what she had to say.

“All of those feelings are yours, because they’re a part of you.” She spoke in a soft voice, hoping to convey that she believed this to be a good thing. “That’s enough. There’s no use ignoring the way you feel just because it doesn’t make sense.”

“Hm.” Satan was thinking, there was no use for words as he took in what she was saying.

“When I made the pacts, there was this sudden wave of trust and affection every time. Those feelings are real, even if they originated from some place outside of me.”

“Right.” He nodded, looking away. She could see the ideas shifting behind his flickering eyes.

She squeezed his hand, bringing him back to her.

“I’m sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, I just worry about you.”

“I know.” He laughed. “You’re the only one who ever does.”

“You know that isn’t true.”

He turned back to her, flashing an odd grin. “I’m not just taking your word for it.”

“Fine.” She could convince him that his brothers cared for him another day. It was enough, in that moment, that he knew she cared for him. That war had seen many a losing battle.

“Thank you,” he said. “For finding me.”

Satan wouldn’t admit it, but she could tell by his lightened mood that she’d gotten through to him. This was as close as she’d get to him admitting that she was right. The problem wasn’t solved, necessarily, but he could move forward with new, more hopeful datapoints to tangle with.

He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist.

“You always know where to look.”

i want to maybe do one of these for each of the brothers and i was going to write them in birth order but then a satan event happened. also my allegiance is to the smart, stoic ones. i mean, have you seen the way i write? like obviously. obviously!

comments/reblogs appreciated. pls yell with me about these men. <3

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dawnsbreaking · 1 year

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chapter 2/2

Rose ties up her loose end. (fic description: Lucifer's pact arc but he and MC have an established relationship.)

read on ao3

Mammon is quick to join Rose on the stairs, rushing to her like there’s been an emergency.

“You’ve been gone for so long!” He says, throwing himself down on the steps. Rose can hear the jangling of keys and loose change in his jacket pockets with the harsh movement. “Got me all worried.”

Rose sighs and leans her head on Mammon’s shoulder, letting her eyes fall closed. She loves that she can always trust Mammon to be on her side, that she doesn’t feel the need to explain herself. She’s tired and overwhelmed, his shoulder is there for her. It’s as simple as that. She says nothing, waits for him to connect the dots himself.

Mammon’s voice is softer when he speaks again, more intrepid. “Was it the music? Too loud?”

“A little.”

“You coulda said somethin’.”

“It’s not just that.”

“My idiot brother still bothering you?”

“Yep.”

Mammon heaves a dramatic sigh, drooping his head to the side to rest his cheek against the crown of Rose’s head. They sit like that for a moment; soft breaths, sweet understanding.

As the second youngest brother, Mammon is most well acquainted with Lucifer’s flaws. He’s seen the worst of Lucifer’s stubbornness and pride up close. Even still, it’s clear that he admires his older brother more than anyone in the Devildom. Because of this duality, Rose can always trust him to be fair to Lucifer, while the younger brothers’ opinions on the eldest skew one direction or another.

“What should I do?” Rose asks, carefully breaking the silence

Mammon shrugs, the motion upsetting Rose’s head on his shoulder just a bit. She readjusts, not ready to let him go just yet.

“Satan said you were thinking about goin’ to talk to Lucifer.”

Rose frowns. She knows that the brothers talk about her behind her back and that they mean well, but she wishes they wouldn’t bring the meddling to her attention.

“I was thinking about it,” she confirms, “but, I don’t know…”

“Tell me what you’re thinkin’.” Mammon nudges her again, successfully freeing his shoulder from its duty as a headrest. Rose turns to meet his eyes, finding a careful, reserved expression that does its job to make honesty just a bit easier.

“I’m worried that going to find him would giving in. Like, am I going to have to find him every single time? Is he ever going to find me?”

Mammon is still for a moment, mulling over Rose’s words with care. Rose loves these moments with him, when he’s not showing off for his brothers or pulling off silly schemes. She basks in the idea that he feels comfortable enough around her to let his guard down and just be, without all the fanfare.

“I know what it’s like to be disappointed by Lucifer,” he says, finally, “but I also know that he’s trying his best. And he usually makes up for things in other areas when he’s lacking.”

“So…”

“Maybe it’s worth it to find him. Even if you always have to find him, he’ll make up for it somehow.”

This is enough to convince Rose. She pulls out her D.D.D. and scrolls to her thread of texts with Lucifer. Then, after typing out a message, she thinks better of it. It shouldn’t be hard to find him without texting.

“You’ve made up your mind,” Mammon laughs, “that was easy.”

“Thank you, oh, Great Mammon,” Rose deadpans. She stands, adjusting her skirt and pocketing her D.D.D. again.

Before she leaves him, Rose leans over Mammon and drops a kiss on his forehead. This wordless bit of thanks is genuine.

As soon as she exits the stairwell, Lucifer’s location in the House of Lamentation is made abundantly clear. One of Lucifer’s records is blaring from his study in the library. Rose giggles at this, despite herself. It’s obvious, for one that Lucifer has been expecting her to come find him. For two, Rose thinks he might be sulking.

She follows the music to the library, stalling in the door to the study.

Lucifer seems to sense her presence and calls for her before she’s ready to face him. “Instead of lurking around inside, why not come in?”

The words themselves are harsh, almost teasing, but Rose isn’t sold on the delivery. Lucifer’s voice is soft, just barely carrying through the open door.

Sometimes, Rose thinks that Lucifer plays a caricature of himself, leaning into his fatal sin as a way to separate himself from uncomfortable human feelings. When it doesn’t harm her, Rose is unbothered. Sometimes, she even finds it endearing. She knows him well, and this is a great honor in itself.

Lucifer gets away with a lot of pride and a lot of apparent indifference because Rose sees right through it to the core of his fears. He pushes her away, needing confirmation that she’ll come right back. He acts like The Avatar of Pride, needing proof that Rose sees the difference between the persona and Lucifer’s true self.

“You’re having a party upstairs,” Lucifer says, neglecting to add a question mark. He may not have been invited, but very little happens inside the House of Lamentation without his knowledge. “I’ve been enjoying my records alone.”

“What are you listening to?” Rose closes the study door behind her. Privacy is rare and precious to both of them. She’s still a bit edgy, still a little hurt from him not attending her party, but the sight of him softens her. His hair is ruffled like he’s been worrying an unsteady hand through the strands, his tie is loosened and off-center. Lucifer doesn’t often look relaxed, but he looks even more ill-at-ease than usual.

He entertains her question about the record, it’s one that Rose borrowed from Levi as a favor. The golden thread of an admission beneath Lucifer’s choice shines through. Rose has mastered the art of seeing through the dark glass that shrouds his romanticisms. The record reminds him of her, and it reminds him of how good she is at handling his brothers. Levi would have never loaned that record to someone without having complete and total faith in them.

Rose moves closer, her gentle footsteps padding across the parquet flooring. She takes her favorite seat on the arm of Lucifer’s chair. It is a testament to their care for each other that he doesn’t flinch at the intrusion. He so rarely lets anyone close to him in this way.

“I was in this very room when I selected you for our exchange program.” Lucifer slips an arm around Rose’s waist, holds her steady. “When I first welcomed you here, I was only doing it for Diavolo. I figured that if you managed to survive a year here without any incidents, that was really all I could ask for.”

She’s heard this speech before in bits and pieces. It’s so difficult for Lucifer to admit to himself that he cares for Rose. He tells the story of her few months in the Devildom back to her, completely astonished at all of the changes to his own role in it.

On the surface, the thesis is that he can’t believe how much cares for her—a lowly human. Beneath the pride, in the hidden corners only Rose can bring light to, it’s that the thing between them is fate. That it feels quite a bit bigger than the sum of the parts.

“How do you feel now?” Rose asks. She’s humoring him for the sake of his nostalgic mood.

Lucifer leans back, looking pensive, and trails a hand up Rose’s back. The backs of his fingers brush along her spine. He turns his hand to take a piece of her hair in his palm and studies the shiny strand.

Rose’s heart pangs. She misses quiet moments like this already. She makes her legs feel the warmth of the fireplace and makes her hands feel the sturdiness of the leather chair, cataloguing each sensation as if recalling it later will feel anything like luxuriating in the real thing.

“What do you think?” Lucifer drops her hair and curls his arm back around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. Soft words fall on her neck when he speaks again. “I think you know the answer.”

Again a reminder: she knows him. She’s the only one that knows him like this. She’s silent, greedy in hoping for further confirmation.

Lucifer gives. “I made the right choice selecting you for the program.”

The tiny pinprick to his pride bursts forth with light. Rose feels warm and dizzy, so she takes the opportunity to lean fully on him for support. Her cheek brushes a curl of his dark hair. She stays quiet and lets her eyes drift closed. She is safe and warm in a steady embrace.

Rose feels a hand move her hair again, sweeping it over her shoulder. Lucifer presses a soft kiss to the back of her neck.

“I’ve had more fun in the last year than in my whole life, I think,” he muses, sounding as if he’s speaking more to himself than to anyone else.

“Fun?” Rose asks. She places a hand over his on her waist, squeezing his gloved palm.

Another kiss. His lips linger and he hums against her neck. “That’s right. You’ve made yourself well worth all of the trouble.”

A smile comes to her lips unbidden. Praise from Lucifer is worth more to her than anything else in the Devildom. The power of it makes her feel lightheaded and bubbly. “Good.”

“What about you?” he asks. There’s an unfamiliar trepidation in his tone. He swallows his words before speaking them. “Are you satisfied with your time here?”

Rose twists around to meet Lucifer’s eyes. Seeing her intention, he chuckles and makes things easier by pulling her down into his lap. He holds her there with both arms, though she doesn’t try to escape.

It takes a moment to regain her composure, but Rose knows exactly what to say when she does. She loops her arms around his neck but pulls back to meet his eyes. They’re quiet for a moment, taking in the feeling of both of them knowing exactly what’s missing and what it would mean to make things right.

“I still haven’t made a pact with you.” Rose traces Lucifer’s jawline with a thumb, feeling the tightness of his muscles there. It’s a big ask and she knows it. The Avatar of Pride has been vocal against the idea of a pact with a human. Rose can’t even bring herself to imagine not doing making a pact with him, though. Leaving the Devildom bound to only six of the brothers, leaving out her favorite of them, would feel like leaving one of her limbs behind. She can only sacrifice so much.

“You’ve made pacts with all of my brothers. I think you’re getting greedy.” Lucifer scoffs. His indignant tone doesn’t do much to hide the uncharacteristic meekness on his face and in his slouching shoulders.

When she made her first pact, the one with Mammon, Rose hadn’t yet understood the severity of what she was asking. She was a foreigner in a strange land, completely oblivious to the Devildom’s customs and social norms. In the light of their relationship and all of the feelings shared between them, asking Lucifer for a pact now was tenfold the effect of asking his hand in marriage.

She only smiles at his accusation. Maybe she is greedy to hold all of the brothers hearts this way, but she likes to think that she’s earned the privilege. The trust and love gained from the seven feels fought and died for at the end of a long year.

“Do you really want to make a pact with me? Truly?” Lucifer’s voice drops to a whisper. It feels so antithetical to his nature that he might be seeking validation from her, but Rose sees no other explanation for the hitch in his voice, the sudden avoidance of eye-contact. He continues, gaining steam as he remembers himself. “I don’t know how my brothers felt about making pacts with you, but I am more than a name to be crossed off of your list.”

This part of the speech feels rehearsed—maybe something he came up with before their relationship reached a certain point. There isn’t a question that Rose holds him in higher regard than the other six, but it might have been a worry when he first began considering the pact. He always knew she’d ask.

“You know I don’t think of you that way,” Rose chides.

A hint of a blush colors Lucifer’s cheeks. It’s as good as verbal praise, if not better.

“Good.” He pinches her waist. “I can’t have you lumping me together with everyone else. That won’t do.”

He’s leisurely in standing, kissing the back of Rose’s hand and holding it as she slides to her feet. He encroaches upon her as he stands, looming above her head. When he finally tries to drop her hand, Rose holds tight to it for an extra moment. It’s a familiar dance of rejection and reassurance, and Rose can tell that Lucifer never tires of it.

Rose is so preoccupied with tracing the edges of Lucifer’s smile that she hardly registers the wings that sprout from his back. The transformation to his demon form is instant, a little flutter at the end of a blink. Rose only grins, tilts her chin up to see his smile a few inches above its usual place. Maybe her time in the Devildom has made her strange. She finds even this version of him comforting when it should be terrifying.

“You’re too brave for your own good,” Lucifer chuckles. “That used to annoy me.”

“And now?” She raises a careful hand to the edge of one of his wings. She likes toeing the line of what she can get away with because of his affection for her. There’s intoxicating power in having the hold on him that she does.

“It’s terribly endearing,” he admits.

Rose watches glittering light from the fire reflected on the black feather between her fingers. Every part of him is gorgeous—beautiful in that overwhelming, otherworldly way. Lucifer’s hand strokes her face, then two fingers lift her chin. It is now her turn to struggle with eye-contact. He's renewed his ability to intimidate by taking on a more powerful form. His wings make him broader and pull him back, making his new height all the more daunting.

"I want you to hear what I'm saying," he says. His tone matches the commanding aura of his demon form. He sounds almost stern. "I will not be your possession. I will not belong to you."

"Of course." Rose fights to keep a serious expression. He is all too predictable at times.

"Rose," he says, leaning almost imperceptibly closer to further underscore his point, “you will belong to me."

She wants to tell him that she already does, that she has for a long time. All of the pacts with all of the other brothers have only been means to the end that is this moment. Her love for Lucifer bleeds through her and into the entire Devildom. Every corner of every hallway in the House of Lamentation, every R.A.D. classroom, every plant in the garden, is wrapped up in associations with him. Dappled light from the secret study's fireplace flickers over every single memory of the last year. Her whole world is framed by these quiet moments alone with him.

The pact is important to her, but, in some ways, it's only a formality.

“Will you make a pact with me?” she asks him, placing them again on equal footing. He is not a great and terrible beast in her presence, and she isn’t intimidated by him. The dance goes on. He pushes away, she pulls herself in. It’s an exercise in trust for both of them, in patience for one of them.

Lucifer answers by inclining his head forward, bowing to her. He lets his eyes fall close and waits for her. It’s striking how vulnerable he looks, how beautiful and at peace. Rose likes to watch him sleep when she stays in his room, she likes to watch the weight of the world fall from his shoulders. He looks like that now, like he’s finally letting himself give in to a moment of rest.

She takes her time making the pact, luxuriating in the moment she’s waited so long for, taking his hands in hers and kissing his cheek before inclining her head forward. When their foreheads touch, theres the familiar rush of warmth and affection that she’s felt six times with six pacts before. This time, though, it’s more intense, amplifying all the things she already feels for the demon. She holds tight to Lucifer’s hands and he helps her keep her balance. When it’s finished, every part of her is buzzing. It takes her a moment to feel stable enough to open her eyes again. Lucifer holds her steady until she does.

When she looks up at him, there is unmistakable affection in his eyes. His usual veneer has slipped a bit, he fails to hide a smile, his eyes are glossy.

He clears his throat. “So, that takes care of your unfinished business, then.”

“Almost.” While the after-effects of the pact have made Lucifer shy, they have only emboldened Rose. She reaches for his face, holding him with gentle hands. She has to pull him toward her a bit to reach him, but he obeys and lets her press a kiss to the corner of his lips.

This certainly isn’t the first time they’ve kissed, but it carries a new weight. If Rose imagines this pact like a marriage, this kiss is the first after exchanging vows.

Lucifer’s hands find Rose’s waist as he kisses her back. Rose can feel his lips smiling against hers. Everything feels complete and perfect, like they are two pieces that fit just right. That love is all there is. The freight feels proportioned to the groove, and it is enough.

- thanks for reading! comments/tags appreciated <3

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