Chapter Text
It’s long past midnight, and yet Sandalphon doesn’t feel an ounce of drowsiness in his body. He stays motionless on his bed, trying to think of all those yoga-meditation videos they make you do in middle school—relax your toes, loosen your ankles, let your knees go slack, get distracted thinking about that stupidly pretty customer—
He wants to scream. He really does. The only thing stopping him is that the next door neighbors might call the cops if they heard a sudden shriek at whatever ungodly hour it currently happens to be. Signing in frustration, Sandalphon stares enviously at the other side of the room where Belial sleeps like a fucking rock, snoring just quietly enough that it doesn’t force Sandalphon to wake him up. He listens to the cadence for a moment, syncing his breathing to the slow noises—in, out, in, out—until his mind wanders yet again. Soft, sky colored eyes paint the back of his eyelids until they can no longer stay closed against the barrage of imagery.
This really is no good.
Resigned to his fate of a sleepless night, something not entirely unfamiliar to him (or any college student), Sandalphon stands up to quietly retrieve his laptop off his desk. He’s careful not to let the plug or metal prongs clack against the desk or the plastic top of the device as he shuffles across the floor, then settles back in bed with his knees drawn up and the laptop braced on his thighs.
The laptop turns on with a flash of light so blinding that Sandalphon’s entire vision swims with green and violet spots for a few moments before he furiously and repeatedly slams the brightness down button on the top of the keyboard. His eyes have begun to water from the intensity of the light, and he wipes them clear before typing in his login and plugging headphones into the side of the laptop. Combining the bright light, the clacking of his keys, and the faint hissing the old laptop makes, Sandalphon is almost sure his roommate has woken up.Yet, a glance over reveals that he sleeps like just as much of a rock as he always does.
The browser tab opens up automatically a few moments later, displaying an article Sandalphon had been reading about the effects of climate conditions on the flavor and quality of coffee beans. Having only been halfway done the articles content immediately draws him in, and distracts him for at least a few minutes while he finishes reading.
Out of words to read, the darkness starts to press in around the corners of his eyes, and Sandalphon sighs and rubs them with the sides of his hands. A new, blank tab is opened, and he clicks on the most visited website that displays itself on the screen, Youtube.
The home page is filled with horror recommendations and Sandalphon immediately suspects that Belial had been using his laptop again without permission. Sandalphon doesn’t watch that stuff, it freaks him out (much to Belial’s amusement) and even the variety of thumbnails displaying mutated humans with grainy red filters is enough to make him uncomfortable.
(One time, he’d asked Belial, “How do you even watch all of that?”
Without looking up, he’d gotten a response of “Because my dick is big.”
And after that, Sandalphon had sworn off asking unnecessary questions.)
The sound of Belial shuffling around in his sleep is enough to make Sandalphon drop a headphone, closing his laptop halfway and looking over with a paranoid glance. His fingers still rest on the keyboard, and he makes damn sure that Belial isn’t actually awake and messing with him before opening the screen just enough for it to be legible. He stares at the search bar, and before his mind can catch back up to his fingers, they’re typing the word “lucifer” into the search bar.
Oh, right. Lucifer is the devil. That would explain the sudden influx of satanic search results.
Sandalphon changes his search query to add the word “model” at the end before hitting enter again. This time, the results are much less satanic, luckily, instead filled with what looks like commercials for various day-to-day companies. Yea, there’s a soda company there, a television network there, and a….yogurt advertisement, of all things.
It seems like a rather trivial industry to involve someone who is supposedly a large name model in—unless this is some designer yogurt company, the type that appeals to middle-aged white women with too much money to spend on groceries. He clicks the link out of sheer curiosity, and is immediately greeted with a close up of Lucifer’s face. He shoots another glance in Belial’s direction just to be sure, before turning his attention to the advertisement. Curiosity killed the cat, after all, but maybe in this case the cat can be Belial.
There’s a spoon in his mouth...fair enough for a food commercial, Sandalphon decrees, while a “voice of God” talks in the background and Lucifer acts out various, non-verbal responses to whatever the unimportant voice says. Then, the voice asks something that must surprise the character the model plays, as the spoon is quickly removed from his mouth in such haste that a smear of off-white dairy product streaks across the model’s chin. It’s probably an unfortunate coincidence, but it looks a hell of a lot like something else, and well...Sandalphon isn’t sure he like how that makes him feel.
Before he can process anything else, the model is eating more, and okay, this is definitely a thinly veiled innuendo. No one eats yogurt with that much movement of the mouth, puffing out their cheeks and drawing their lips over the shape of a spoon with such care! It feels dirty to watch such a thing, but of course it can only get worse. Lucifer holds the spoon somewhere off screen, having pulled it from his lips with painstaking slowness, smearing more of the product across his cheek. Then, donning a coy half smile, one eye closes in a wink in response to whatever the voice of God has just said, and—
“Hey, Sandy...what the fuck.”
Even with headphones on, Belial’s confused and mildly agitated voice is clear as day. Sandalphon jumps enough to nearly fall off his bed, and slams his laptop shut with such force that the finger he almost catches inside surely would have been broken. The light between their bed flickers on, and Sandalphon is caught as a deer in the headlights, the look of embarrassment obvious on his face as he tries to process what the hell was that?
“Was that...a yogurt commercial?”
“I think so.”
“You sure look like it wasn’t.”
“I look perfectly normal, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“It’s okay, I know you were thinking that spoon in his mouth was something else.”
For the second time that night, Sandalphon reigns in the urge to throttle his insufferable roommate.
“Why were you watching?”
“He’s a pretty guy, Sandy. Miles out of your league, a shame.” He knows Belial only says these things to get to him, but God, that does not make it any less infuriating.
“I’m going back to sleep.” The light turns off. “Have fun with your jack-off yogurt commercial. Don’t make too much noise unless you want me getting involved, ‘kay?”
Sandalphon nearly throws his laptop across the room. Could a laptop fracture a human skull, if thrown hard enough? Then again, Belial’s skull is so dense that Sandalphon doubts anything could crack it. A cinderblock, perhaps? If he had the strength to throw it, that is.
As he lies there, lamenting his life, something occurs to Sandalphon. Now, at least, he’s got something he could use to initiate a conversation with Lucifer, about Lucifer. It might actually be one of the worst things to use as a conversations starter considering, how about, common sense (“I saw your yogurt commercial that looks like you’re sucking off a spoon!” doesn’t seem like it’ll fly), but it’s..something? Something.
The next day, some strange dreams about anthropomorphic spoons has left Sandalphon rather exhausted both physically and mentally. The alarm clock chirping at 11 am is almost head-splitting, and he smacks with enough force to knock it off his bedside table. The damn thing continues to make noise, and so Sandalphon leans rather ungracefully off the side of his bed, feeling quite the unpleasant headrush as he finally shuts the alarm off.
Friday’s are his favorites. Belial has classes in the morning, and then goes out at nights, often not returning until the next morning or even Sunday, if Sandalphon is lucky. He doesn’t know where he goes, per se, but he also doesn’t really care so long as he can spend a few hours away from that pervasive red gaze. He takes his sweet time making coffee to go with his breakfast (leftover, slightly soggy takeout from three nights ago), measuring out the beans and water with the utmost care.
If it was a viable career option, there’s no doubt that Sandalphon would love to pursue professional coffee making. It just doesn’t seem practical. Not for the amount of care he puts in.
By the time he’s freshly showered and out the door, It’s well after noon. His shift starts at 1:30, so he’ll still probably be early, something Sandalphon both dreads and looks forward to. More minutes in the shop is more money, but it’s also more time surrounded by the catty laughs of teenagers and the annoying buzz of people that seems to get under his skin even more than his pesky roommate.
With just a bit of luck, Sandalphon hopes that the “Lucifer” from yesterday will stop by. Maybe that man really is the devil, and that’s why Sandalphon has the profound inability to banish his face from the depths of his brain. That’s definitely the best explanation as to why Sandalphon can’t think straight--witchcraft, black magic, and definitely not being really, really gay.
Although he knows he’s the latter as well.