Work Text:
Why should I play this game of pretend?
Remembering through a secondhand sorrow?
Such a great son and wonderful friend
Oh, don't the tears just pour
Dead.
His brother, the face that featured so often in his nightmares (second only to the look of betrayal in Gelda’s eyes--betrayal, but not surprise that he chose ambition over her, no shock despite the anger he saw there, burning like the flames she commanded, second only to the worst decision he’d ever made in the course of his two and a half centuries on this earth) had fallen, lay dead at Estarossa’s feet, seven swords still piercing a body eerily similar to his own as Estarossa flicked away his tears with the swipe of a hand, dark wings forming on his back. Zeldris knew the curse would bring him back eventually, knew this wouldn’t last, knew that his insufferable smile (like he’d done nothing wrong, like he hadn’t killed the woman he loved, like he didn’t deserve all of it) would be back as soon as their father was done with him.
It was…not what he expected it to be. It did not feel as he expected it to feel. There was no triumph, no dark, wicked glee--a flicker of vindication and then nothing as he watched those bright green eyes close. Nothing but emptiness.
I could curl up and hide in my room
There in my bed, still sobbing tomorrow
I could give in to all of the gloom
But tell me, tell me what for
Meliodas had been his nightmare, his enemy, his monster (and once, the brother he’d adore more than anything in the world, though those days were long, long gone). He’d always been some kind of…larger than life presence, almost--implacable, invincible, first the ideal to which Zeldris had always been held and then the cautionary tale he’d been told a thousand times to keep from going down the same path. Somewhere along the way, he’d come to be more myth than being, more of a legend than his flesh-and-blood brother.
He looked…small, in death. Fragile, and terrifyingly mortal. His greatest enemy lay slain, and yet Zeldris felt no more joy or grief or rage than he would for any of the victims of the Ten Commandments. Maybe it was because he knew he’d return to haunt him again, once more that impossible standard, the black sheep of the family that his father still wanted to pull back into the herd. Maybe he just…didn’t have anything left to give now, even that ever-present rage starting to burn itself out.
It had been like that for a while now, when it came to Meliodas--that apathy.
Why should I have a heavy heart?
Why should I start to break in pieces?
Why should I go and fall apart for you?
He was glad of it, too--after all Meliodas had done to him, all he’d taken, he didn’t deserve anything else, love or mourning or anger or spite. Let him rot in Purgatory, die in the arms of his lover--
His lover. It wasn’t anger that resurfaced now, but envy, frustration. Why did Meliodas get a thousand lifetimes with the woman he loved and then rob him of the one chance he had? Why was he jealous of his brother for it, when the toll it had taken on him was so painfully clear to anyone who was watching--and why was there concern beneath the emptiness, worry nagging away at the careful shield of disinterest in anger?
You don’t get to make me care about you, he seethed at the body. I just want you to go away and stay away. A childish wish, maybe, but one he’d give everything for now. I hate you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, but I should hate you so much more--
Why should I play the grieving boy and lie
Saying that I miss you
And that my world has gone dark without your light?
I will sing no requiem tonight
Perhaps it was because he’d once adored his big brother, clung to his every word like a it was a miracle, every scrap of praise like a star come down from the sky for him and him alone. Even through the brutal training, the discipline Meliodas would put him through when he was still the cold-hearted monster he remembered so clearly, he idolized him for the pride and savagery he’d never been able to quite reach, the dark majesty he’d always wanted to achieve. He’d loved his brother, once, too, for the nights that he had awkwardly comforted him after a particularly hard training session, or when he’d snuck into his room when Zeldris was a child and read him stories. Even after the affection dried up, he still adored him, clung to him, would have done anything for him.
Zeldris’s loyalty had belonged, he supposed, to Meliodas, not the Demon King. He wondered distantly, staring down at that battered, broken body, if Father had known that, if he’d had a hand in all the pain and disaster of the past centuries, his brother’s past millennia. If all of this was his fault and not that of the man who lay dead before him.
You were the flood that swallowed us whole
Refusing a love we endlessly gave you
You were a fire out of control
The blaze that couldn't be tamed
It didn’t matter now, and even if it had, even if he’d cared to dig deeper, still loved his brother enough to want to forgive him, it was far too late for them to ever reconcile. Not after… everything. “I hate you,” he said to the corpse of his brother. “I’m glad you’re gone.”
Why should I have a heavy heart?
Why should I say I'll keep you with me?
Why should I go and fall apart for you?
No reply--but then again, even in life, his brother barely listened to him. Never provided an answer for--for anything, really.
Why should I play the grieving boy and lie
Saying that I miss you
And that my world has gone dark without your light?
I will sing no requiem
Tonight
The people who loved his brother would come soon, Zeldris knew--the latest reincarnation of the lover he’d chosen over duty and family, that strange immortal he’d befriended who was loyal enough to walk into the heart of an assault by the Ten Commandments to save him, those comrades-in-arms he’d found and named the Seven Deadly Sins (still lying to them, to everyone, always lying) , the human younglings who looked up to him as he once had. Zeldris pitied them, mourned for when Meliodas would eventually let them down, when those shining eyes would turn to envy and hate like his own.
He knew what he was--bitter and savage and hateful and cruel, a beast whose heart was nothing more than warped glass and poisoned thorns, who now lived only to serve his father (even if he hated what he was doing, even if tearing everything away from innocent people once again felt twisted and wrong and pointless ). A monster, yes, but one shaped by the darkness that once resided in the corpse of the man before him. “I hate you,” he gritted out, his fingers curling into fists as he stared down that soulless body, those haunting eyes finally closed.
'Cause when the villains fall, the kingdoms never weep
No one lights a candle to remember
No, no one mourns at all
When they lay them down to sleep
Zeldris’s eyes burned unexpectedly. He wasn’t stupid. Meliodas was the hero in this story, and he was the villain--the dark star to his supernova, the sun that the eclipse blotted out and hid from the world. His tale didn’t matter, his side was pointless. He was the bad guy, the lesser brother, the weakling, and he always would be.
So, don't tell me that I didn't have it right
Don't tell me that it wasn't black and white
After all you put me through
Don't say it wasn't true
That you were not the monster
That I knew
But Meliodas was his monster, his worst nightmare.
And Zeldris hated that he suddenly didn’t know who he was without his brother to stalk his darkest dreams.
'Cause I cannot play the grieving boy and lie
Saying that I miss you
And that my world has gone dark
This was not the end--not yet.
I will sing no requiem
So there was no reason to mourn. No way that Zeldris possibly could, anymore.
He left the body of his brother behind as the first rays of dawn crested over the horizon.
I will sing no requiem tonight