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You were a light sleeper. A very, very light sleeper.
There had been several times during your stay at the House of Lamentation when Mammon scared the living daylights out of you by crawling into your bed in the middle of the night. Eventually, you just flat out told Mammon that he had to sleep with you because you were not going to be able to rest otherwise. He stuttered and blushed and fumbled over his words, denying that he had any idea what you were talking about, but in the end, he had taken up semi-permanent residence in your room.
When you start sharing a bed with someone on a regular basis, you begin to learn a lot about them that you wouldn’t know otherwise. Like whether they hog the blankets, if they prefer sheets over thick comforters, if they snore. And you, likewise, started to notice some very peculiar traits of Mammon’s.
For example, he preferred to sleep entirely nude. Of course now that he was sleeping in your room most of the time, he made the effort to wear something. But it wasn’t unusual for him to wake up in noticeably fewer clothes than when he had fallen asleep.
One night in particular, you were about to learn yet another thing about Mammon.
————
Mammon had fallen asleep long before you, and you had stayed up to keep reading a book you had borrowed from Satan. As you got sleepier and sleepier you realized that maybe it was time you called it a night. So you rolled over to turn your lamp off, only to find that you couldn’t reach it because a certain demon of Greed was starfished on the bed, essentially trapping you in a corner.
You thought for a moment about what you should do about this situation you found yourself in. At first, you didn’t want to disturb Mammon. His sleeping face was just so cute! But you were tired. And despite the fact he looked absolutely adorable next to you now, this was the same little shit that woke you up frequently for reasons much more frivolous.
“Pssst, Mammon. Wake up,” you nudged him with your elbow. When he didn’t stir, you gave him a bit of a kick with your foot. And when he still didn’t wake up, you put your hand on his shoulder and gently shook him.
“Wassup?” he finally answered as he sat up in bed.
“Turn off the light.”
“‘K.”
Having successfully woken him up, and trusting that he could manage a light switch on his own, you rolled over, turning your back to him, preparing to go to sleep. But after a good minute or two, you realized the light was still on. So you rolled over halfway, and repeated your request.
“Mammon, the light.”
“Right. Right. Gotcha.” And with that he finally reached over to the lamp and flicked it off, before snuggling back into your blankets and curling up behind you.
————
The following morning, you were the first to wake up. You looked over to Mammon, who was still taking up a good ¾ of the bed, and you couldn’t help but smile. It really was nice waking up with someone else beside you. Even if that someone was a bed hog.
When Mammon woke up a few minutes later, it was only to find you staring at him. He blushed awkwardly as he looked away, which just made you laugh.
“Whattaya lookin’ at?”
“Oh just a cute demon, hogging the bed.”
“Oh...uh...sorry,” he replied, pulling his limbs to himself as he rolled on his side away from you.
“It’s fine. So long as you are willing to turn the light off for me,” you said, smiling and laughing softly, as you snuggled up next to Mammon, wrapping your arm around his waist and spooning him from behind.
“The light?”
“Yeah, like last night when I was reading. If you’re gonna hog the bed, then be prepared to be woken up to turn off the light.”
Mammon rolled over a little to get a better look at you, certain that you had to be teasing him or setting him up for a joke or...something. But you were just smiling at him like normal.
“What’s up?” you asked.
“I dunno whatcha talkin’ about. I didn’t turn off a light last night.”
“Umm yeah you did. You even sat up and talked to me.”
“Noooo I didn’t…” he furrowed his brow in confusion. What on earth were you trying to pull?
“Ok fine. It doesn’t matter. The deal still stands. Hog the bed, be put on light switch duty. K?” you asked, leaning forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek, something that you knew would fluster him.
“Uh yep. Got it. Light switch duty,” he said as he rolled back over to hide his face from you. Without even meaning to, he shifted back slightly so that he was pressed more fully against you, and you simply smiled and hugged him in return. You were such a brat sometimes...kissing him on the cheek like that out of nowhere. You could at least warn him. Not that he liked it or anything.
While you did find it a little odd that Mammon didn’t remember the light incident, you just wrote it off as one of those things. It’s not like it mattered whether or not he remembered, anyways.
————
A few days later, you returned to your room after a study session with Satan only to find Mammon already passed out on your bed, once again leaving very little space for you. It occurred to you then that perhaps he was doing this on purpose so that you’d have to sleep practically on top of him, so you decided to have a bit of fun.
Instead of crawling over him, you climbed in next to him by the edge of your bed, and poked him in the side.
His reaction was immediate. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes...and then he just sat there.
“Mammon? You can lay back down.”
He mumbled something.
“Mammon?”, you sat up to get a better look at him. His eyes were open, but only just, and his gaze was unfocused, “You can lay down now.”
“I don’t wanna,” he whined.
“Mammon, are you still asleep?”, you had heard of sleepwalking before, but this was a whole new level of weird.
“Nooo.”
Sensing that it was perhaps better not to argue with him, you laid down in your bed and tugged on his shirt to get him to join you, “Come cuddle with me then so I can go to sleep.”
Without further complaint, Mammon complied and curled up next to you, resting his head on your chest and wrapping his arm around your middle. It didn’t take him long at all to fall back asleep, leaving you even more certain that he must not have been fully awake to begin with.
————
After that, there weren’t any more unusual episodes with Mammon for awhile, so you had almost forgotten about the whole thing.
That is until one night when you had been just about to fall asleep, and a notification came thru in your DDD. Usually you would put your device on silent when going to sleep, but tonight you had been so exhausted that you forgot. So when the notification went off - it was LOUD.
Mammon immediately sat up, dazed.
“Sorry about that,” you said, turning the sound off on your DDD.
“Fin stis.”
“Huh?”
“Den sai tis id.”
“Mammon, I think you are asleep.”
“Noooo! Am not!!!”, Mammon replied, as he started to act like he was about to get out of bed. Concerned about the sort of trouble he could get himself in while in this state you tried your best to stop him.
“Mammon, where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, but at least he stopped trying to get up.
“I think you’re asleep. Please, don’t get up.”
“I’m not asleep!” he snapped. You were surprised by the tone of voice he was using with you. Yeah he was loud and yelled a bunch, but you had never seen him actually angry with you. Not wanting to provoke him further, you decide to drop the issue and try what had worked the last time this happened.
“Ok Mammon, then just cuddle with me.”
“Fine.”
“Yeah, just lay back down with me so I can sleep.”
There was incoherent grumbling from Mammon as he wiggled back under the covers, still clearly annoyed with you for accusing him of being asleep when he knew he wasn’t.
“We can talk in the morning. Just cuddle for now.”
Once he was laying down again, you cuddled up next to him and wrapped your arm around his waist, hoping it would at least give you some warning if he would try to get up again.
————
“Sooooo, Mammon. Do you remember last night?”
“Huh?” Mammon turned around to look at you from his seat on the floor by your bed. It was Saturday morning, and he was browsing Akuzon on his DDD, trying to decide what to buy with his latest modeling paycheck. You had been laying on your bed, “helping” him with his shopping by occasionally texting him suggestions that you found. They might not have been the most helpful suggestions, but at least they were making the two of you laugh.
“You yelled at me,” you said, turning off your DDD and turning your head to look at Mammon.
“Whattya talkin’ about?? Why would I yell at you??”
“Because I told you that you were sleeping.”
“You’re makin’ that up.”
“Mammon, have you ever had trouble with sleepwalking?” you were genuinely curious if perhaps some of the things he got accused of were the result of him wandering the House of Lamentation unconsciously in the middle of the night.
“Huh?! No! Of course not! What are ya trying to pull? Seriously, is this like a joke or somethin’?”
“No, I’m telling you - you got woken up by a notification on my DDD, and when I tried to get you to go back to sleep, you yelled at me.”
“There’s no way that happened. I woulda remembered it.” Mammon eyed you suspiciously. He was sure this had to be a prank of some sort, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what the punch line would be. Why were you being so insistent?
“Well it did,” you mumbled under your breath. If he was going to be so stubborn, you were just going to have to prove it to him. The next time - you were going to catch it on video.
————
Not wanting to wait until Mammon would have one of his “episodes” on his own, you decided you’d have to try to trigger one yourself. Based on your observations, you needed to wait until he was *just* asleep, and then wake him suddenly - either a moderately loud noise, or a forceful movement.
So the following night, you made sure your DDD was fully charged...and you waited.
It didn’t take long for Mammon to pass out. You had made sure he spent the day running around the Devildom taking you shopping, and doing other “date” things, just to wear him out. And since this was Mammon, it took a LOT to wear him out. If it wasn’t for the fact you were on a mission, you’d probably have nodded off yourself long ago.
You pulled out your DDD, turned on your camera to record video…and then delivered a swift kick to Mammon’s butt.
As expected, Mammon sat up almost immediately.
“Hey Mammon.”
“Mmmm?”
“Are you asleep?”
“Nooo,” he whined. You snickered at his response. This was going perfectly.
“I need you to do something for me in the morning.”
“Sure, whattttayaaa want?”
“Can you make me breakfast?”
“Sure.”
“So what are you going to do in the morning?”
“Everryyythinnnn.”
“Are you going to make me breakfast?”
“That’s part of everrryyythinnn’.”
By now you were having a difficult time maintaining your composure. You only just managed to keep your DDD steady enough to get a decent video. You hadn’t tried talking to Mammon this much the other times, and were surprised at how long he was able to keep this up. Seeing as you had nothing to lose, you decided to keep going.
“Can you say it for me in a complete sentence? What are you going to do in the morning?”
“Breakfast and bugggsss.”
“What?”
“Breakfast and bugggsss.”
“Bugs?”
“Yesh.”
“So one more time, what are you going to do in the morning?”
“Killlll everythinnnn’.”
That was apparently your breaking point, and you had to cover your mouth to stop the loud squeals of laughter that weren’t threatening to escape. This had gone far more perfectly than you ever could have imagined. There was no way he was going to be able to deny this now. Imagining how red his face would get as you showed him the video had you giggling even harder.
Pausing your recording, and safely tucking away your DDD, you decided that you had had enough fun for the night and that it was time to give poor Mammon a break and let him rest.
“Ok Mammon, will you come cuddle with me now?”
“Fiiinnneee,” he said, slumping down onto the bed and rolling over so he could snuggle up to your side. You really had exhausted him that day, so he deserved a bit of rest. Gently combing your fingers through his hair, you thought about how exactly you were going to make use of this video as you drifted off to sleep.