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“Morning,” Mammon pushes open the door to the room gently, careful not to step on the creaky floorboard. He sets down a tray of scrambled eggs and slowly pulls apart the curtains, letting the morning light—if light is what this murky greyness could be called—and turns on the bedside lamp.
On the bed that he’s yet to grow into, the blonde-haired…offspring of Lucifer’s stirs, hair sticking out and all over. “Mammon,” says the kid blearily. “What time is it?”
Mammon smiles. It might be a good morning just yet, he thinks. “Late enough,” he says. “I brought breakfast.”
The kid looks on over at the tray on the table, and his eyes harden so fast it would be a lie to say that it doesn’t scare him slightly—the narrowed eyes, harsh eyebrows, mouth curled into a snarl, all features that should be foreign on a child’s face. “I don’t like scrambled eggs.”
“Yesterday you said it was your favourite.”
“I changed my mind!”
“Kid,” says Mammon. “It’s what you got for today. If you want something else, let me know and I’ll make it tomorrow, okay?” He picks up the plate and turns around, trying to show it to him. “See? It’s just egg—”
The kid launches himself at him like a flying bullet and grabs the plate, hurling it across the room. Egg splats onto the walls, the floors, and the plate itself shatters everywhere. Mammon’s lip curls into a disapproving frown, then he sighs and shakes it off.
“Good work,” he says, looking between the heaving, clenched-fist kid and the mess in front of him. “What are you going to eat now?”
“Something else!”
“But there’s nothing else,” he knocks him on the head lightly, a small rap of are you an idiot? “And who do you think is going to clean this up? It’s not gonna be me, kid.”
The kid looks at the mess on the floor. His anger dissipates quite as quickly as it came, and now he seems almost sheepish. Diavolo should just hurry up and name him—there’s no one more suited to the Avatar of Wrath title than Lucifer’s…uh…cellular division. He should probably stop trying to think of this in a logical way. That line of thinking never suited him anyway.
The kid takes a step and Mammon grabs his shoulder. “Don’t move,” he warns, bending to pick him up and hold him against his hip. “The floor’s going to be sharp now. Do you want to hurt your feet?”
The kid shakes his head.
“Good. Now you know where the cleaning supplies are kept,” Mammon carries him over to the entrance of his room, where he helps him put on a pair of shoes so that he won’t hurt himself on the ceramic. “Go get them.”
“I don’t—”
“If you make a mess, you clean it up,” Mammon says firmly. The kid starts to sniffle. “No crying now. You did this to yourself. I know that,” he bites his lip, then sighs and takes his hands in his. “I know controlling it is hard, kiddo.”
Another angry glimmer in his eyes. Mammon hastens to explain before the forest-green turns to jade and he loses all rational thought. “I want. It’s all I do, okay? I want things and when I don’t have them it makes me feel—sick in the stomach. Hurts right here,” he pokes the kid’s belly, and he slaps away his hands, growling. “Doesn’t matter if it hurts, or if I want it to stop. I just keep needing more, and more.”
Truthfully, it’s hard to get the rest of his brothers onboard with the let’s try and help the kid control his anger program because they just simply aren’t around to be party to it. Asmodeus is off starting wars with his dick and Leviathan hasn’t come out of the sea since he left all those years ago. Belphegor and Beelzebub do help out, but more often than not they’re clinging to one another like they’re each other’s security blankets, staying in their room and emerging only to eat. Lucifer—he bites back a curse.
It’s a lie to say Mammon doesn’t hurt. Mammon hurts every time his brain stops to think about it. Lilith had been his, too. Mammon is greedy for everything—everything is always his, and if it’s not his now, it will be later. But there’s nothing he lays claim to more than his family. They are all his, and he will not share. If his selfishness was a problem during the past, it was his only strength during the war. All of his family were his to protect and his to have. Then they took her away.
But there’s this kid that needs him now. Needs someone, at least. Mammon’s not a very good parent, but he’s going to try.
The kid’s eyes fade back to normal. He fights back a relieved sigh.
“Then what do you do?”
This makes him pause. He’s really not the best to ask on the control of newfound demon urges. But then he considers the fate of the rest of his brothers and sighs. “You can try taking deep breaths.”
Even at such a young age, the kid looks at him like he’s an idiot. Mammon expects to see more of those looks later on in life. “I’m serious,” he whines. “Come on, try it. You first need to recognize the signs of your anger, okay? When you feel it all bubbly and your head going all foggy. Then, you take a deep breath, and you count to ten. And when you let it go, you imagine all these little anger bubbles in there, and they’re all flying away and out of you. And you repeat it as many times as you need to.”
The kid considers this, then looks away. “Will it really work?” He asks, voice small. He looks uncharacteristically vulnerable, and it makes Mammon’s heart melt.
“Only if you really really really try. You have to want to be calm. But you’re the best kid ever, right?” He ruffles his hair roughly and chuckles at the dark look he gets given. “You’re getting advice from the great Mammon himself! There’s no way you’ll not get the hang of it. I’ll be here,” he drops a wink and messes his hair up some more. “Now come on. Go grab the napkins—”
“You’ve never pointed your horns at me,” the kid suddenly interrupts, a curious mix of assertive and shy. Mammon blinks in slight astonishment. “All the other…all the brothers have. Is it because you do this breathing?”
“Have you been trying to get me to point my horns at you?”
A reluctant, sheepish nod.
“Stupid kid,” Mammon flicks his nose and laughs as he scrunches up his face. “I’ll never point my horns at you. If you must know, I don’t even have to do any breathing,” he brags. “Guess why?”
Wide eyes stare at him.
“Cuz you don’t make me angry at all,” he sticks out his tongue and the kid gasps. “I am immune!”
“Nooo! You’re lying!” The kid whines, stamping his feet.
Hah. So he did just want a reaction from him. All this acting out—the other day, chewing on the kitchen table leg, the time he attacked Mammon with his claws—“Okay, I’m not, you’re just not as annoying as you think,” he noogies the kid’s head and laughs again. “I was the original annoyance, kid. There’s nothing you have done that I haven’t done already and better!”
“That’s not true!”
“Uh huh, so is,” Mammon grins at him. “These horns are for bad people only! And you aren’t bad, so why should I?”
The kid chews on his bottom lip, then makes a face and stamps his feet again. “I’m getting the napkins.”
“Good good, listen to your big brother,” Mammon nods sagely. Satan makes an even worse face at him and perhaps if he knew them, would’ve said some choice words. “Don’t forget the spray cleaner!”
Although this hadn't been the first time that Satan has thrown a tantrum over nothing, it certainly wouldn't be the last. Yet Mammon does see some improvement in him as the years go by, and praises them extensively. He knows how difficult it is to control one's impulses and instincts, and feels a sense of pride for how far Satan had come.
It’s the naming ceremony that actually sends them back to square one. When Diavolo held the assembly before the entire Devildom and announced the kid as “Satan, Avatar of Wrath”, Mammon thought this could be good. A name, a position in the hierarchy, something to call yours. But the child—now much older, but still a child to Mammon—had instead completely disintegrated, and everything Mammon had tried to instill in him had completely vanished, as if it hadn’t been there at all. If anything, he was worse.
At the rate he was going, he would be bound to attract the ire of Lucifer, who up until now had done an impressive job of simply pretending like he wasn’t there.
“Kid,” Mammon looks around at the disintegrated bedroom. Claw marks line the walls, and his bedsheets and mattress are more fluff than anything resembling what they once were. He wonders what to say next.
“You’re angry, aren’t you?” Comes an accusatory voice from the corner of the room, where Satan sites huddled, head in his hands. “You’re going to be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad,” Mammon says gently, as gently as he could. “Hey, listen, I’m really not.”
“Liar!” Satan hurls something at him and Mammon dodges neatly—it’s a black fountain pen, and it shatters all over the wall behind him, spraying red ink everywhere. “I’m the Avatar of Wrath, so that’s what you’re going to do! All I do is make people angry.”
“Who says?” Mammon asks, taking small steps towards him. “I’m the Avatar of Greed, and I don’t see you being particularly greedy right now.”
“People pray to me,” Satan’s hands curl into his fists. He looks like a cornered animal—his eyes wild and scared. “I can hear their voices, in my head,” he hits his head hard. “They all want revenge, or to punish someone, or to rant and vent. Why do they have so many problems? Why do they come to me?”
The voices. Mammon knows what he’s talking about, can hear them in his head, the voices of people who indulge in his sin or wish they could. He’s long since tuned them out—buried them deep within him in a box they can’t leave. “I can hear them too,” Mammon replies. “At night, especially. What they want, their deepest desires. Everything they crave.”
Satan hiccups on his next breath. Mammon worries about a potential panic attack, and wonders if there’s anything in the near vicinity that could calm him down. “They won’t shut up! I’m sick and tired of it. I don’t want to be Satan. I never asked for it.”
“I know,” Mammon soothes. “I know it’s hard. There are ways you can take care of the voices, though. Even I’ve managed it, so it can’t be too hard for my genius little brother, right? You think your entire existence boils down to Avatar of Wrath? You think too highly of your title. I don’t see anyone whose only purpose is to get angry being able to solve mystery cases like you do. Those take serious time and smarts you know! Cool-headed thinking and all that. Besides, being the Avatar of Wrath is lame.”
“I guess it’s only impossible for you?” Satan retorts, but at least he’s making jokes now.
“Haha, of course I could do them if I wanted to,” Mammon bluffs. Satan sees right through it, as per usual. “We both aren’t only what our Avatar is. You can be better than that, even if, uh,” he rubs the back of his head. “Even if I can’t, you know? You did so well with your control before the naming ceremony, so why should a title change anything?”
Satan seems to consider this, but just as he opens his mouth, the door slams open. Mammon cannot think of a worse timing. In the doorway stands a fully transformed Lucifer—wings and all, face contorted into an ugly snarl that somehow gets worse when he looks behind Mammon and sees the splatter of red ink there.
“So it was you who took my pen,” the very floor seems to rumble with the force of his voice. Mammon winces and immediately shifts to put himself between the boy huddled on the floor and the towering force of Hell behind him. “You stupid boy.”
“Now now, Lucifer, he’s going through a hard time—”
“Shut up,” Lucifer looks directly at him and Mammon immediately casts his eyes away. His rage feels like an intense pressure between Mammon and him, a physical wall he cannot cross. “He knows the consequences of his actions. He isn’t a child I can leave running around anymore. Discipline breeds good behaviour. And I expect my family to be on their best.”
“Yes, well, we can talk it out,” Mammon tries to dredge up a cheery smile. “Right? He’s still a kid.”
Lucifer glowers at him in silence. When he opens his mouth, his voice is like ice. “I should’ve known leaving him to you would make him turn out like this. I should’ve properly disciplined him from the moment he first acted out.”
“Ah, see, that’s also a bit harsh,” Mammon laughs weakly. “Come on, let’s all take deep breaths and—” A rush of wind is all Mammon gets to experience before Lucifer bats him out of the way, sending him flying into the wall. Pain is—well, it’s not something he experiences too often since Lucifer has more or less been a hermit the past several centuries. Satan gasps from where he sits.
“Get up. You’re coming with me.”
“Why would you do that to him?”
“What?” Lucifer sneers at him.
Satan’s voice is trembling, and Mammon doesn’t think it’s from fear. “What do you mean, leaving me to Mammon made me turn out this way? Mammon has been nothing but kind to me!”
“Being kind doesn’t get you results. Mammon is deeply flawed and so are you. You act out against Lord Diavolo, you are a menace in the home, and you destroy anything given to you. I cannot let it slide any longer.”
Mammon clambers onto his feet and shakes off the residual dizziness. “Guys, come on, please cool it. Lucifer, I’ll pay for the damn pen. Satan—”
“You stay out of this. This is your fault.”
For some reason, this makes Mammon bristle. “I don’t see how it is.”
Lucifer whirls around to stare daggers at him. “You took care of him—”
Mammon rarely sees red, but now he does. “Because you wouldn’t!” He yells. “Was there anyone else around, huh? Sure, maybe I didn’t do the best job of raising him with morals or whatever nonsense you’re going to come up with now, but fucking hell, did you do anything either? Me and Satan counted, you know! We went two decades without you even speaking to him!”
Actually, he doesn’t think he’s ever been this angry. Lucifer thinks he can pawn off his responsibility onto others by simply ignoring it, but then he gets angry when the kid doesn’t turn out the picture perfect brother he wants everybody to be? Is it only when they’re perfect that he’ll take pride in them? But being perfect is fucking impossible to do, least of all when you’re an actual fucking demon without a respectable parental figure in the mix.
“I have my reasons.”
Mammon feels the rage build inside him. He wonders briefly if Satan was right, and if people in his vicinity can just get angrier quicker, but he doesn’t think so. He thinks this is just a culmination of all the years he spent looking out for his little brother and all the times he watched his face sink when Lucifer strode right by him.
“Get out of the room,” Mammon says, suddenly calm. “Get out.”
Lucifer’s face is so shocked it could be comical. Even Satan seems to do a double take. “You would order me around?”
“Get out.”
“Mammon, I’m warning—”
“Satan,” Mammon dusts off his shoulders and heads out to the door. “Come here, now.” In a flash, Satan is by his side, eyes wide. Lucifer’s aura grows even more intense behind him.
“Hey,” he says in a quieter voice, meant only for him to hear.
“What are you doing?” Satan hisses. “Are you crazy?”
“Look,” He points at his head. Satan stares at him uncomprehendingly. “No horns,” he says, cheeky smile on his face. “You can do it too. You can be better than him,” he gives Lucifer a withering look, one of the first he’s ever dared to direct to him. “That’s somebody who is ruled by his pride. You don’t have to be like him.” He shrugs his shoulders. “That’s a decision for you to make. But I know you’ll make the right one. After all,” he wiggles his eyebrows. “You have this big brother to look up to, right?”
Satan’s face crumples, and for a second Mammon thinks he’s going to cry. But then he doubles over and laughs, and laughs, and says, “Look up to you? You’ve been caught fourteen times for fraud.”
“All convictions expire one day,” he sighs, pulling open the door and hastily ushering Satan outside. “Sure, maybe one day you’ll see eye to eye with Lucifer on my scumbag tendencies. We’re not all perfect. But that’s not for a while…right?”
Satan scoffs, but there’s—well, he might be imagining it, but he thinks there’s a hint of love there—“You’re an idiot,” Satan grins. “But you know what? Maybe you’re the most decent out of all of us.”
“There’s the compliment I’m looking for!” A cheeky smile. “Now, how fast are you?”
“What?”
The door bursts open behind them, and Mammon takes off sprinting, laughing maniacally to hide Lucifer yelling his name. “Run!”