Chapter Text
And you don't even notice, do you?
Everything perfect to you
Think you loved the idea of us more than the real thing
Hope your heart don't break too much
--- 1 SIDED LOVE by Blackbear
Lucifer was not a fan of surprises, in any shape of form. Even “good” or “happy” surprise were lesser for having come out of the blue, in his opinion.
Therefore, when he walked into the room expecting a solo audience with Lord Diavolo, he was less than pleased with the sight that greeted him.
There, at the head of the table, where Lord Diavolo typically sat, was Paymon, sporting the messiest case of bedhead he had ever seen and a black-and-white striped shirt so wrinkled and stretched out that it was an insult. Seated to their left was Lord Diavolo, acting like teatime with a gremlin was a natural occurrence and not in any way out of the ordinary.
Lucifer’s hands immediately itched. If he carded his fingers through that rat’s nest atop their head, it might look like more of a deliberate style choice rather than a result of laziness.
He had a comb tucked away on his person for such occasions, but Paymon hated it and would naturally raise a fuss the moment he took it out. Not to mention there was also the possibility that their hair would defeat the comb. It had broken many a hairbrush in the past.
Nothing short of a portable steamer would save that shirt.
More than anything, Lucifer wanted to pull Paymon out of their seat, out of the room, and reprimand them for appearing before Lord Diavolo in such a state. Where was their uniform? Classes were barely out of session. They had no time to change. Were they skipping school again?
Most of all, what were they doing here? Had their presence been requested? If so, why didn’t Lord Diavolo ask him to send along the message?
“It’s a cultural fa- fem- fenomamona-“ Paymon sputtered, banging the heels of their palms on the table as if they could jostle the word loose from their tongue. In reality, all they were really doing was rattling porcelain and silverware.
“Phenomenon” was likely the word they were trying to pronounce, but Lucifer made no move to help them. He was still too busy wracking his brain for a reason why they would possibly be here.
“Take your time,” Lord Diavolo said as he watched them intently with wide eyes filled with wonder. A textbook example of patience and consideration, two virtues that Paymon sorely lacked.
“It’s this cultural thing!” they spouted out at last, gesturing wildly. “It’s a picture or phrase passed from person to person, with very slight differences, but anyone who’s seen it once can recognize it in an instant.” They emphasized their point with a snap of the fingers.
“Absolutely fascinating.” He said, grinning and looking at them with a certain measure of pride that made Lucifer uncomfortable…
Those two were certainly a pair.
Paymon was like a puppy abandoned in a cardboard box when it came to affection. They treasured every scrap they were given and returned it ten-fold. And Lord Diavolo, for all his majesty, was like a child who never got the puppy he so desperately wanted. Naturally, they were as thick as thieves and lived to make his life harder than it needed to be.
Or, at least they were before Paymon’s tantrum at Lord Diavolo’s birthday ball. Then they went from talking his ear off and trying to climb him like a tree to flat-out ignoring his presence. Lucifer tried disciplining them, but Lord Diavolo explicitly instructed him to drop the issue.
It was good to see them getting along again, even if it spelled trouble for him.
“Lucifer!” Lord Diavolo called across the room, having finally taken note the shadow looming in the doorway. “Come in! Sit down! Paymon was just telling me more about the world above.”
“Oh?” Lucifer asked, feigning interest poorly as he took his usual seat, putting him on Paymon’s right.
Lord Diavolo and his absurd enthrallment with human culture. Only the Demon Lord knew what nonsense Paymon had been peddling to his son, but undoubtably it would all the prince talked about for the next week or so.
He looked over to Barbatos’ meeting minutes to see if he missed anything of importance, but only strange doodles covered the paper.
He examined them as if they were a courtroom sketch but couldn’t decipher their meaning or relation at all. There was a woman with a beehive hairdo holding a vegetable aloft in one hand, two men in skin-tight suits pointing at each other… More nonsense.
The demon butler simply smirked, forever the enigma, before getting up from his seat by Lord Diavolo’s side to serve tea and desserts.
“Oooh, let me-! Let me!” Paymon crowed, eyeing the Black Forest gâteau like a vulture surveying carrion.
Lucifer despised sweets in general, but he especially hated Barbatos’ Black Forest cake. It was rich and moist, everything Devil’s food cake should be, but the mouth feel... It had the texture of raw meat. Of course, Paymon, the contrary child, found it absolutely divine.
“Let Barbatos,” Lucifer chided, lightly slapping them across the knuckles when they reached for the cake stand with grabby hands anyway. “You always cut too much. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”
Paymon scowled, nearly snarled, at him before their expression smoothed and settled into a pout. He would stop treating them like a little kid when they stopped acting like one.
Barbatos seemed to be sympathetic to their guest and cut them a heaping portion of cake, much to his displeasure. They immediately tucked into it, like they were afraid Lucifer would pull the plate away any second.
It wouldn’t surprise him if the demon butler was as soft for them as the rest of his brothers. Those around Paymon long enough turned into putty in their hands.
It seemed like he was the only one in the household capable of telling them no. That was likely the reason they resented him so much. Someone had to be the responsible one, though.
“And to what do we owe the pleasure of Paymon’s company?” Lucifer inquired, as Barbatos cut him a small slice of cake as well. They both knew he had an aversion to sweets. Instead, he favored bitter treats, such as hell coffee, preferably brewed by their resident human.
Lord Diavolo, suddenly solemn, looked restlessly between him and Paymon for a moment before opting for the most direct approach.
“Paymon has requested to be moved to Purgatory Hall for the remainder of their time in the exchange program.” Lord Diavolo said nonchalantly. No preamble whatsoever. Just dropped the bombshell on him then and there.
Lucifer slowly turned to face Paymon, who was still shoveling cake into their gob like this wasn’t such a big deal. They faltered for a second under the weight of his gaze, fork halfway to their open mouth, frozen like a mouse under the eye of a hawk.
After a beat of silent vehemence, their mouth closed with an audible click. Their eyes flicked from him to Lord Diavolo and back again, as the change in atmosphere started to sink in. At last, they put down the fork and drew themselves up to their full seated height.
“Is that so.” There was no questioning lilt to his voice, only glacier ice. “This is the first time I’ve heard of such a request.”
“They approached me with this directly.”
How dare they go above him and trouble Lord Diavolo. And what a demand to make, behind his back!
“Seems like an incredibly trivial thing to bother the Prince of Devildom about,” Lucifer commented lightly, keeping a tight lid on his growing fury.
Someone had to be the adult here. Changing into demon form would render any point he tried to make moot.
“Regardless, there is a process in place to handle these requisitions. I will walk them through the necessary paperwork, Lord Diavolo. Moving on-“ There was no point in wasting anymore of Lord Diavolo’s time on this topic, not when it could be handled behind closed doors.
“Paperwork usually needs someone to sign off on it,” Paymon interrupted, choosing the exact wrong time to open their mouth, further trying his patience. “Whose approval do I need to get?”
Of course Paymon wouldn’t make this easy for him. Once they were safe and sound back at home, he had no intentions of going easy on them either.
“Considering your status as a human exchange student, you will need Lord Diavolo and me to sign your accommodation forms, as well as the stamp of approval of a RAD Student Residential Services representative.”
Paymon gave a derivative laugh at his explanation. “How necessary is it? If I have Diva’s approval, don’t I automatically have yours? He is your boss, after all.”
“That’s not how it works,” Lucifer hissed in return, letting off some steam. “And before you get Lord Diavolo’s approval, you need my approval. His approval does not factor into mine.”
A lie. One he could be easily caught in. Lord Diavolo could utter a single, three-word command and Lucifer would have the forms completed in a heartbeat. But he wouldn’t that. Not if he valued their working relationship.
“Ok… So, do I have your approval?”
“No,” Lucifer stated primly. “You haven’t provided any good reason behind your move.”
“Oh?” They said, tilting their head slightly and looking to Lord Diavolo.
There was a challenge behind that single questioning syllable. A word of warning, betraying outrage simmering underneath their seemingly tranquil expression. It used to be, “Oh, worm?” but Lucifer nipped that right in the bud. He refused to stand by and allow a mere mortal to call him a worm.
“Paymon has made serious claims that you have been infringing upon their privacy and personal freedom.” Lord Diavolo interposed with the tone of a negotiator, leaning forward with his hands folded in front of him on the table.
That little hypocrite. They could stick their nose in his family business to their heart’s content without a single repercussion. But he went through their phone once when they were borderline blackout drunk and, suddenly, he was worse than scum.
He wouldn’t have even done so if he hadn’t seen the flood of new messages from unsavory sources pouring in… Undoubtably demons from the club that Asmo took them to that night. Paymon was quite liberal with their affections. They probably gave out their Chat ID like a party favor.
However, demons other than his brothers couldn’t be trusted. They had only one thing on their minds, and that was eating Paymon’s soul.
All he did was delete some inappropriate pictures and block a few contacts they shouldn’t have had in the first place. He hadn’t abused his authority as their guardian. And he refused to apologize for doing what was right.
“Just as RAD is not some run-of-the-mill human community college, the House of Lamentation is no ordinary student residence. There are rules. Rules that Paimon has broken time and time again and received a mere slap on the wrist in comparison to punishments other RAD students would experience.”
Poking fun at Paymon’s mundane life in the human world was a low blow to be sure. But, if they wanted a fair fight, they should have approached him with their request first. The answer would have been the same, but there would be a modicum more tact in this argument.
“Bullshit!” Paymon shouted, standing up and slamming their hands down on the table, making the tea set -and only the tea set- shudder in terror.
Lucifer was not so easily perturbed, however. As Lord Diavolo gently rested one hand on their shoulder -which they immediately shrugged off- and murmured for them to sit back down, he continued, “Surely you understand rules and their importance. You yourself have made rules for your pact mates that infringe upon their personal freedom.”
After all, Paymon made almost as many rules for his brothers as he did. To name a few…
No pouncing on Paymon as soon as they walked through the door. (If not, Levi would be the only one who ever saw them at home.) No interfering at work. (Beel got fired from Hell’s Kitchen for diverting all his attention to his favorite human and away from the other customers.) No coming up to them when they were with other friends. (Jealousy was etched into Mammon’s DNA, making it incredibly difficult for him to share without a pact order to keep him in check.)
Of course, these rules didn’t apply to Lucifer because he wasn’t a pact mate, but that never stopped Paymon.
“Fuck you! I make rules to set boundaries. You make rules to justify crossing them!”
“These rules are not new,” Lucifer stated in a matter-of-fact way, the calm to Paymon’s storm. “I’ve been honest with you since the day you came to Devildom. I introduced you to Mammon, let things grow from there. Nothing has changed-“
“Everything has changed! And I ‘came’ to Devildom? You fucking kidnapped me! You ripped me from my home-“
“Enough, Paimon!”
In all his reports detailing how all of the exchange students were faring, Lucifer was careful not to mention Paymon’s lingering homesickness and how it was impacting their enjoyment of their stay here. Now was not the time to reveal this to Lord Diavolo.
It seemed too late for that, though. Lord Diavolo had ceased his efforts to deescalate the situation and just watched the altercation with a dangerously neutral expression.
“No! I want to go home!” Paymon was screaming at this point, angry tears running down their face.
“I said, enough.”
Lucifer’s tone left no room for argument. Paymon could scream and cry and bang on the table to their heart’s content. It wouldn’t get them what they wanted. His word was final.
“Fine,” they said through their clenched teeth, as if it physically pained them. Their frame fell inward in defeat. “Fine.”
They reached underneath the table and pulled out their bookbag. Without another word, they swung the bag onto their back and swiftly headed towards the door.
Lucifer stood abruptly, prepared to stop them by force if need be. They weren’t remotely done here. Lord Diavolo hadn’t made any motion to dismiss them. And, now that they were there, they might as well stay until the meeting was adjourned. The Devildom was dangerous at this time of night.
“Let them go,” Lord Diavolo whispered, though. They were already out the door at that point. They were sure to slam it on their way out. Their immaturity knew no bounds.
That was the only sound for a long while. A heavy silence hung over them like the sword of Damocles. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. When Paymon left, it felt like all the air left the room with them.
Lucifer, for all his millennia of wisdom, didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Lord Diavolo was the one to speak first.
“Be honest with me, Lucifer,” Lord Diavolo ordered, sounding repentant for the first time since he offered him that deal. “Am I putting too much pressure on you? Would reassigning Paymon’s care be beneficial to you?”
His eyes were soft. His brow furrowed. Lucifer never hated him more than in that moment. He was the avatar of pride. He didn’t need anyone’s pity.
But wasn’t that food for thought?
At the start of the program, he would have gladly handed off responsibility for the obnoxious little human to someone else.
At that time, they were just one more item on his plate, something he could neither eat nor throw away. Instead he had to make do with pushing them around with his fork, futilely trying to keep them from contaminating his other foods.
But now?
Of course, the angels would be willing to take over guidance and protection of such a pure soul. Luke already followed them around campus like a lovestruck puppy. He was basically a Chihuahua that convinced itself it was a guard dog.
Lucifer didn’t trust them, though, not with Paymon’s life. And if he didn’t trust the angels, he sure as hell didn’t trust Solomon.
He knew they had been sneaking out. He would be a fool not to. The moment he insinuated that Paymon should stay away from Solomon, that he was dangerous, they started prancing off to him whenever they were the least bit miffed.
He tried limiting their contact, but it backfired on him. Solomon saw it as a kind of game. Lucifer would ward the exits to the house to enforce curfew, and the damned warlock would devise a new spell or potion or rune to get around them.
It was infuriating… Almost enough so to distract from how his stomach twisted up in worry whenever he passed Paymon’s room at night and found it empty.
“No.” Lucifer grit out from behind closed teeth, maintaining eye-contact as to not show any weakness or uncertainty.
Lord Diavolo stared at him for a long time, as if expecting his armor to crack. When his defenses never fell, he hummed and rested his chin in one broad palm. Golden eyes aglow, still unblinking.
“It must be kinda nice…” He paused, absentmindedly stirred his herbal tea, red as bloody bathwater. “Having all your family under one roof. Having eyes and ears on them at all time. All your ducks in a row. All your chicks herded into a safe corner.”
Lucifer said nothing.
“Still, you should stop controlling Paymon,” Lord Diavolo advised, peeking out at him from beneath short, spikey lashes.
Should, he said. Like a suggestion, not an order. Lucifer was too good at maintaining his posture to allow his shoulders to sag in relief, but he did relax a little.
“They’re human, and a very young one at that. They need supervision. Curfew. D.D.D. messages checked,” Lucifer argued, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. Just because Paymon resorted to emotional warfare on a whim didn’t mean he had to follow suit. “Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.”
“There are ways of ensuring Paymon’s security without jeopardizing their happiness.” Lord Diavolo talked down to him, like he was the one at fault here. Lucifer bristled but didn’t interrupt. “Paymon’s happiness is key for the success of this program.”
Happiness, he said, not privacy.
There was a crucial difference. He was dancing around the topic, obviously not wanting to be the bad guy… But that one statement let Lucifer know what he needed to do.
Lord Diavolo must have seen something click in his head, because he grinned wolfishly and continued, “It was nice, being able to interact with such a bright young soul. I’d like you to invite them to more of these get-togethers in the future. I have some ideas for how to keep young Paymon occupied and out of trouble.”
And there it was again. That pride. As if Paymon was progressing brilliantly and didn’t devolve into a screaming infant the moment someone told them no.
Still, they were doing leagues better than when they first arrived in Devildom.
Those early days, taking care of Payment was like socializing a feral kitten. They liked to squeeze into small spaces where the brothers couldn’t get them and then attack when they tried. The top of the fridge was their favorite, since it gave them an eagle eyes view of everyone in the kitchen.
Whenever touched by a demon, even one of the brothers, they would bite and scratch. They ran, which was the most nonsensical things of all. Where were they going to go? Who knows? He would often task Beel with dragging them back, something he feels some minor tinges of regret for now.
One time they ran right into a wall by accident, breaking their nose in the process. The little terror wouldn’t even let anyone get close enough to assess the damage. Instead, they ended up wedging themselves underneath their bed and glared at him from their hidey hole, despite having one eye glued closed with clotted blood.
It was not a high point in their relationship, for sure. He should have been gentler, more compassionate at the time, but he needed some semblance of control to keep the situation –and Paymon– in check.
They were still better at touching than being touched, but they acted less like a beaten dog now. They no longer lashed out when Asmo stroked their hair or Beel pulled them into his lap or Mammon grabbed their hand… Old habits die hard, though. It was obvious their first instinct was to pull away, to get away, even if they were actively fighting it.
This recent rebellion felt like a regression. Paymon needed both a firm hand and constant coddling in equal measures. It was exhausting, but he was up to the task.
“What kind of ideas, my lord?” Simply thinking of what he could mean was bringing on a migraine.
Lord Diavolo just waved off his concern before carefully picking up his teacup. The tiny teacup looked ridiculous engulfed in his fist, like a mouse resting in the paw of a lion. Lord Diavolo had always been good handling small things. Maybe that’s why he was so good with Paymon.
“Relax, Lucifer. Stress isn’t good for you.” His remark was dismissive, borderline mocking considering all the work he did to keep RAD running like a well-oiled machine. He took a slip of his tea before setting the delicate piece of porcelain down once more. “Now for the student council budget…”
Curiously, Lord Diavolo didn’t make a move to reclaim his seat at the head of the table, now vacant. Instead, he casually dragged Paymon’s half-eaten slice of Black Forest gâteau to his side of the table before resuming the meeting.
Barbatos drew a thick black line in his minutes journal to mark the change in discussion topics. Then Lucifer found both him and Lord Diavolo looking to him to continue as if nothing happened. And he obliged.
He would deal with Paymon when he got home.