Work Text:
Your precious demons are safe and your siblings wish you well. Morning Star, live a happy life, free of any misery and suffering. This is your salvation. Do not be afraid.
When the dawn comes and sunlight spills through the window, Ryo Asuka wakes up and watches it bleed into the room. His memory shifts and expands, the weight of a thousand existences flowing into his mind. The revelation doesn’t come as a shock, but as a vision to formally closed eyes, and he accepts it as true, because it was true, and people don’t dream that vividly.
(He fell. Fell hard enough to rattle the planet, then fell again for a boy named Akira, and, in the end, that had destroyed the Earth itself.)
Akira.
There’s arms around his waist, he realizes. A chest pressed against his back, a nose buried in his hair, and legs twined with his own. He knows without knowing that it’s Akira, because there is no one else he’d ever let so close, no matter what lifetime.
It’s easy to slip out of his arms, no matter how much he cherishes the other’s warmth, and he takes in the sight of a bedroom that shows signs of it being shared. There’s clothes on the floor, a desk scattered with picture frames rather than papers, a tiny array of plants sitting on the windowsill. A happy life, by the looks of it, but it’s alien. This is the life of a stranger, he thinks, of an existence that lurks within the multitude he holds in his head.
He manages to make it to the bathroom, his legs growing more and more numb with each step. His head is throbbing, and with his arms leaning against the counter, he looks into his reflection.
Same curling blonde hair, tousled with sleep. Same blue eyes, wide and surprised. The face staring back at him is undoubtedly Ryo Asuka’s. He’s still human. There are no wings sprouting from his back, no holy power surging through his veins. In all his previous lives, the return of his memory always marked his transformation into Satan. Though this time, it seems, he was given his complete memory, a full recollection of every life he’d ever lived, of every single time the end of days had come, of every instance where he destroyed the one thing that truly mattered.
Suddenly, it’s all too much to bear, and he closes his eyes. Human, angel, demon. He is Ryo Asuka, though that’s not true, because Ryo Asuka is dead, has never existed even, an unwitting identity pulled into the plot of a fallen angel. He is Satan, though that’s not right either. He is neither angel nor demon, and try as he might, he can’t sense any of his subjects at all, not even Jenny, who had always stuck close to his side.
No demons. Amon. There’s no demon in Akira.
He presses his head against the cool surface of the mirror and shakily breathes in and out until he can feel his heart slow its hammering against his ribs. There’s no demons, no Devilman, and no remnants of his power as a fallen angel. As though they’d never existed, or occurred within this life. For a second, he’s angry, knowing fully well who could have erased those things.
And yet, the words that had sent him gently out of his dreams were all too kind. And with the knowledge that the demons were safe, without a war to fight in their name, he could finally, finally live.
He’s drawn back to the bed where Akira still sleeps, and in the soft light of dawn, he can see the man Akira has grown to be, free of divine war and a demon’s influence. He’s handsome, he thinks affectionately, all dark hair and tanned, kind features. His face is softer, untouched by Amon, and he sleeps without a furrow in his brow and with his arms still wrapped around the pillow that Ryo had slipped into his grasp before leaving the bed.
Ryo. He could call himself that now. He had shed the name Lucifer when he fell from Heaven, and he could do away now with the name of Satan. Do away with the lifetimes of regret and sorrow, and take on the name of a human. And what better than the name of the human boy who was known to Akira, who had built a life with him, a feat no other version of himself had ever managed to accomplish.
Ryo Asuka. A new name for a new era. With a tired sigh, Ryo reaches forward and brushes the hair away from Akira’s face. He looks fondly at that sleeping face, when a glint catches his eye. There, on his left hand, is a ring, merrily reflecting the light of the sun.
That’s right. We’re married. We met as children, began dating in our late teens. Akira proposed to you and we had gotten married.
In a distant world, the idea of marriage had seemed superfluous. A totally unnecessary concept made for fools who tricked themselves into thinking that their love could endure for eternity, and who insisted on wrapping metal around their finger to prove it so.
How utterly blind he had been.
He doesn’t realize tears are dripping down his face until they drop down onto Akira, who stirs and blearily opens his eyes. His dark eyes fix onto Ryo, and the sight of it only makes his tears flow faster.
(What a parallel, he thinks, past the awe of Akira opening his eyes and looking towards him. There is no broken cliff by the bloody sea, there are no blinding lights coming to cleanse a ruined planet. Just Akira and Ryo in their bed, on a morning like any other.)
“...Ryo?” Akira shifts, sitting up. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Ryo can only laugh, wiping at his eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.”
Akira takes his hands, squeezing them. He looks so worried. It doesn’t seem so long ago that those same eyes had looked at him with nothing but betrayal and anger. “Then why are you crying? Did you have a bad dream?”
“No, Akira.” He takes Akira’s hands, presses kisses to them, and lets Akira cup his face to wipe at his tears. “I didn’t have a bad dream.”
Akira looks more confused, scooting closer to him. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
Ryo laughs, but it comes out as a choked sound. “I’m alright.”
There’s eons of regret pressed onto his shoulders, all the mistakes he made since his fall pressing down upon him with the weight of a thousand destroyed worlds. His Father had called this his salvation, had awakened his memories alongside the dawn, and now he can see with his eyes wide open.
He presses his forehead to Akira’s, delighting in the way Akira reflexively wraps his arms around his waist. It’s Akira who leans towards him and kisses him, soft in a way that makes Ryo wonder exactly why he would have ever chosen war over mornings like these. Chosen violence over this, the love that threatens to overflow from his heart, the joy that bubbles free from his chest and into a laugh.
Akira leans back, breaking the kiss, no longer looking worried but still confused. He squeezes Ryo’s waist. “Are you sure you didn’t dream of something weird? You’re not usually this affectionate so early in the morning.”
“I’m not?” Ryo asks, smile still stretched across his face.
“No. It’s not like I’m complaining,” Akira responds, bringing his hands up and running them through his hair.
Ryo weaves his fingers through the hand brushing his hair, pressing a kiss to the side of it. When he speaks, he feels the voices and memories of all his previous iterations speak with him. A million lives, a thousand different chances, all culminating to the boy in front of him, the boy who would have followed him through Hell, who Ryo and Satan alike would have done anything to save.
“Akira, I love you.” He pauses, momentarily caught up in the swell of emotion that comes with those words.
Akira’s eyes soften. “I know. I love you too, Ryo.”
The words bring tears to Ryo’s eyes again, and he gives a watery laugh, suddenly embarrassed. “That makes me so happy.”
Akira smiles at that, leaning forward and pressing his lips to the corners of his eyes and his forehead. “Me too.”
And if this was the end result of so much suffering and years of war, then Ryo would have gladly fought for it with all his might. Would have happily defied any power if it meant containing heaven within this small bedroom cluttered with the fragments of a life alongside the person he loved most and who, impossibly, loved him back.
"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life ;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart"