#yes there will be more parts ilu guys ty

[elsecrytt]

The Price of Wrath

The relationship starts off purely transactional.

A human in the Devildom was bound to get harassed.

It's terrifying, even without the hostility - being kidnapped, trapped in a wholly unnatural world, thrust into classes and a culture unfamiliar.

There isn't a way to fight back, at least not early on.

With only Mammon - a certified slacker - as an appointed guardian, and then a coerced pact, they can't exactly command respect.

Much less convince lesser demons to stop harassing them at school.

Elsey can't even get their housemates to stop threatening to eat them.

Sometimes you have to call it quits.

But not all their housemates are useless.

Satan - the pretty one, the beautiful one, not like Lucifer whose face feels sharp enough to cut with a look or Asmo who looks so polished their eyes water - is helpful.

He's smart. Friendly, personable. Even if it's clear that's not all he is.

It was obvious he was annoyed the first few tutoring sessions but they drank in his every word, sat in rapt attention and asked as many reasonable questions as they could.

Satan liked having his ego stoked, too, especially when Elsey didn't make it obvious that's what they were doing.

He liked being able to explain concepts to an attentive student, to play teacher - master - and show off his knowledge to a suitably impressed audience.

What Elsey didn't realize, was that he had noticed them.

Not their stolen glances at him in class or their light flushes when their bodies touched or brushed in passing.

No.

What Satan noticed was their... humanity, for lack of a better word.

He didn't come in contact with humans too often. The ones he did encounter were witches, sorcerers.

It's not to say that his knowledge about them is lacking - no, if anything, he had too much knowledge.

His curiosity is almost clinical, but as soon as the questions come to him the urge for answers wells up inside him, and they're always right there - across the desk, in the same class, so accessible and willing to help.

Satan is curious about them. Their features are smooth and pretty, but not particularly feminine.

Most humans were born with one of two sets of genitals - which one does Elsey have? What do they look like?

He hasn't seen much of the more delicate parts of humans, hasn't cared to see it. But now the answers are inches away from them.

It's more than a little bit intoxicating. They speak to him as an equal, ask him genuine questions, thank him kindly for his time, but...

In the end, they're a human, and he's a demon. The knowledge that he could rip them apart like so much tissue paper lingers in his awareness.

He's so much more powerful than them they may as well be an inanimate object. They can't hurt him, can't fight him.

They wouldn't even try. They're too smart.

He's the Avatar of Wrath. They'd been warned about him the moment they got here.

And they take him up on every tutoring session, eagerly.

They have to know what he could do. That he could do it.

Perhaps that's what's the most fascinating. Elsey is as engaging and intelligent as any demon he's ever met - more than many of them, he'd even admit - but they're so weak that it all means nothing.

In the Devildom, strength is everything.

And they know this - they have to. He's seen them threatened by his brothers, harassed by lesser demons in the halls.

He's felt their anger. The burning humiliation of being unable to defend themselves, of knowing the best option they have is to shut up and take it.

And they do, because they're too smart not to.

But they're probably not smart enough to not take a deal with a demon. Especially not when he's offering such a good one.

He can get rid of those pesky little demons that harass them. It's no trouble for the Avatar of Wrath.

They just need to help him... satisfy his curiosity.

Elsey knows a dangerous bargain when they hear one, of course.

It's obvious he doesn't know about their crush. That he doesn't have any underlying motivations, either (even if they squint really really hard, they can't quite convince themselves of it).

But it's so fucking frustrating. Being tripped, shoved, spat at, insulted.

And Satan is the vision of their personal avenging angel; electric green eyes, bright golden hair, a smile like a knife and an aura of danger wherever he goes, lurking just beneath the surface.

There's a thrill to knowing something like that is going to be staring down their tormenters.

That anyone who does toy with them will be facing the incarnation of wrath himself.

But the real thrill that consumes them is the one in his eyes - hungry, all-consuming... even if it's not in the way they want it to be.

Even if he's just curious.

And fuck, he's hot, he's asking, and every part of their body wants him already.

So there was only really ever one answer.