Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I bet Mammon whined like a baby,” Belphie laughed.

Unable to see his dry expression through the attic door, the human laughed along. “Especially after I told him you can buy those at any corner store in the human world?”

Some things haven’t changed since Belphie was first locked in the attic. His family is chaotic as ever, and Lucifer is still the asshole Belphie should’ve recognized him as all along. The other transfers all seem to be doing better than this poor, powerless little human. Among them is the great sorcerer, Solomon, which Belphie already knew, because he guest stars in the dreams of one of his brothers often.

He faked being surprised anyway.

The way Lilith used to pretend when they were young angels, probably no larger than Luke, and Belphie would hide behind corridors in an effort to scare her. Usually, he wound up scaring Mammon or Asmo instead. Or Lucifer, on a really good day.

Lilith was the bravest among them, and he doubted now that anything had ever truly scared her. Belphie had gone to her for every bad dream, every stubbed toe, every cough or complaint or missing answer. They’d spent so many curled up in the same chair, with Belphie on one side and Beel nibbling his own fingers on the other, Lilith’s hand stroking his hair while he read.

So when the time had come to fight, of course Belphie had approached Lilith first. Despite her preoccupations in the human world. In spite of them. He was probably jealous, just a little bit, that someone else had so much of his beloved sister’s attention now.

But he’d still been willing to fight for her cause. If anyone in this universe deserved happiness, it was Beel… or Lilith, who’d introduced him to the concept of love in so many forms, and then -- 

Belphegor closed his eyes to deter the memories from returning, as if a veil of self-induced darkness was all it took to ward them off.

How much does the human know? he wondered. Every time he tried to find out, the human suddenly turned shy.

Beel didn’t deserve to be haunted by these memories anymore than Belphie did. He still blamed himself for the death of Lilith, however, and Belphegor has never found the words to convince his twin otherwise. In a way, it’s his fault too. Maybe if he’d focused on his astronomy studies instead of the human world, maybe if he’d begged Lilith to bring him stars instead of old books and candy, she would never have met that man and fallen in the first place.

“It’s getting late,” the human muttered. They sounded awfully sad, for someone talking to a door. “I should probably get going before Lucifer… you know.”

“Maybe he’ll lock you into a cell next to mine,” Belphegor joked.

It was odd that his pretentious, prick of an older brother had allowed him a visitor in the first place. He brought the youngest food on a regular basis; books, music puzzles to occupy his time. A few minutes of idle conversation a day, that usually involved reminding Belphie how much of an asskisser to Diavolo he was and how Belphie had brought this on himself, and that Belphie should learn from his mistakes. They ended awkwardly and abruptly whenever he realized, again, that Belphegor was never going to hand Diavolo a leash the same way Lucifer had. In exchange, Lucifer remained determined to keep Belphegor’s life as empty and isolated as possible, preferring to watch Belphie suffer and being slowly driven towards insanity over admitting he was wrong.

“Maybe he’ll lock us in the same cell,” the human replied.

“I’d finally get to see your face!”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” There was a pause as the human, clearly hesitating, searched for another excuse to stay. “...If I were locked in the attic with you, I wouldn’t be able to bring you treats anymore.”

Belphegor still ate their human world candy, but he didn’t enjoy it the same way he once had. They didn’t taste the same as when Lilith had been the one to always bring him food.

Must have changed the recipe, or something.

On the other hand, he never craved the taste of processed sugar and artificial coloring the way he once had.

“But I’d get to spend more time with you,” Belphegor said. The smile on his face so fake, it might make him sick. “Wouldn’t that be even better?”

“I wouldn’t have any more stories from RAD to give you.”

The human laughed, as if that were supposed to be a good thing. Jealousy was Leviathan’s domain, but that didn’t make Belphie immune. Was he supposed to be happy about the human’s freedom? That they had the privilege of walking the hallways of his own home while he was trapped inside of a single room? Were a few pointless stories supposed to make that all go away?

Satisfied with that excuse, the human finally gave him a “good night”. “See you tomorrow,” they said.

They couldn't have made it sound anymore like they were going out of their way if they tried. Tomorrow would eventually turn into next week. Next week would turn into "soon". They had no idea what being locked up was like, how irritating it was to be caged like a pet, and played with at someone else's convenience. It wasn't like they were doing him a favor. Even if they fooled themselves into believing that was the case, Belphegor knew better -- he wouldn't be fooled into befriending a human the way Lilith had been.

His sister had died for someone who's life was that of a fly's compared to demons or angels. For a race who claimed ownership of such a brief existence, they treated meaningful encounters like nothing. Loss and grief and perseverance all over the place in human stories. Happy endings occurred when the main character moved on.

The romanticism of it all was lost on Belphie when Lilith died, when he thought of Lilith’s lover moving on like the hero of a story book.

And then they lived happily ever after.

The end.

Except he couldn’t. Neither could Beelzebub. He thought he’d been in understanding with Lucifer too, until Lucifer once again opened his arms to the very creatures that caused so much pain and suffering.

Fucking exchange program. Fuck Lucifer , too, for prioritizing Diavolo over his own family. Or, Belphie thinks darkly, don’t . He was pretty sure the rumors Asmo had spread about Lucifer and Diavolo being enamoured were true, and if that were the case, it would be far more fitting to wish for Lucifer to have a cold bed.

Agitation crawled through Belphegor’s veins. Rare as it was for the Avatar of Sloth to feel restless, there were occasions where he just -- 

Beelzebub in this situation would be doing pushups, or pacing the attic to wear off energy. Feeling restless only made Belphie want to nap.

His mind had always been busier than his body, Belphegor remembered. Even as an angel, he’d appreciated a nap and a good story, the company of Beelzebub and Lilith, more than anything else.

Becoming Sloth incarnate didn’t have anything to do with how tired he suddenly felt. Though it was, at best, only a small consolation, at least he could say he’d always been the type of person who could fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

And Belphegor did, actually, have one way of leaving the attic. It wasn’t easy, and it left him drained afterwards, but a good, extra long nap was actually what he needed. He also needed to be asleep to do it.

Most importantly, Lucifer couldn’t stop him. The spell on the door may be too strong for Belphie’s physical body to escape, but not even Lucifer could stop him from dreamwalking. Not entirely.

After half burying himself in a mountain of pillows and old, quilted blankets, Belphegor closed his eyes and sighed. Lucifer didn’t deserve thanks for this, not after all of the other things he’d done to betray Belphegor and the rest of their family after falling, but at least he’d had the decency to give Belphie a comfortable place to sleep.

Though it wasn’t much, the extra weight on his back was soothing. His feet, still dressed in socks he hadn’t felt like taking off, poked out of the pile to avoid overheating. He could feel his breath being reflected back at him by the pillow he was hugging to his face.

Within moments, his shoulders were sagging. His expression relaxed, the rise and fall of his chest became more rhythmic, and his mind cleared.

To dreamwalk properly, Belphie first had to leave his body behind. The sensation, which felt a little bit like floating, was second nature to him by now. There was no weight to his movements anymore, aside from the momentary pressure that accompanied leaving his body behind now; a significant amount of magic was required to get past the attic door.

From there, he just…

...Chose the person who’s dream he wanted to enter, and sort of directed his conscience into it. There wasn’t an exact science to dreamwalking, as far as Belphie was concerned.

Beel .

His twin was always the first person he checked on in his dreamwalking escapades. Seeing Beelzebub dreaming peacefully was usually enough to put Belphie in a better mood. It was also, aside from his talks with Lucifer and the human, his only form of social interaction.

Tonight, Beel was talking to someone in his dream. A human. The human.

“Great job, Beel!”

Owing to the impossible, hazy nature of dreams, the human was somehow tall enough to ruffle his hair, despite how obviously Beel towered over them. To an outsider like Belphie, the human appeared to have impossibly long arms and legs. From Beel’s perspective, it probably made perfect sense -- as long as he was asleep, he had no reason to question it.

“So this is the transfer student?” Belphie muttered. Quietly. Thinking and talking were the same action when he was projecting himself directly into someone else’s mind. “...They don’t look like anything special.”

He didn’t say -- well, think -- anything else for a while. If he kept his mind as empty as possible, and just observed, Beel would never notice he was there.

And what Belphie observed left him scowling.

“Good boy, Beel!” the human continued, and Beelzebub smiled like he hadn’t in years . 

Was that really what he wanted? To have his head patted, to be praised and listen to the human call him “good boy” like he was some kind of dog? Belphegor couldn’t believe it. Nor did he want to believe it.

He filled his twin’s dreams with plates full of roasted shadowhog and hellfire newt soup, figuring that would make Beel just as happy, at the cost of giving Belphie a stomach ache tomorrow. Food dreams usually resulted in Beel devouring his furniture. “We’ll buy new ones together,” Belphegor thought fondly, as he slipped out of Beel’s dream, “once I’m out of the attic.”

Once he left Beel’s dream, he only had a few seconds to jump into another dream before he woke up. He reached blindly for one of his brothers’ unconsciousness -- Mammon -- and found himself sitting in the passenger seat of a speeding car. The radio was turned all the way up, and Mammon was singing along to some song with unclear lyrics, meaning Mammon’s sleeping brain couldn’t remember them, and was filling in the gaps with nonsense.

Belphie threw a few obstacles into Mammon’s dream. Things that would get the second born’s heart racing, let him pretend he’s in an action movie for a few hours. Mammon is easy to amuse.

Satisfied, Belphie is just about to leave when he hears Mammon dream think, “the human is going to think I’m so cool!”

He reached for Asmo next, not understanding what was so special about the human .

Asmo’s dreams were typically a crapshoot, involving anything from food to massive parties. Or

parties involving food. And by “parties”, Belphegor typically didn’t mean the birthday or holiday kind.

“Well,” Belphegor smirked at his own sense of humor, “I kind of do. The ‘partygoers’ are in their birthday suits.”

Though his dreams weren’t as explicit as most demons tended to believe, Belphie still had a higher chance of stumbling upon something unsavory than with any of his other brothers. Whenever that was the case, Belphie left as quickly as possible. He didn’t need Asmo chittering at him for violating his privacy, and he wasn’t that interested in knowing what kink of the day Asmo was exploring either, but if the human was in Asmo’s dreams too, he could at least trust Asmo’s subconscious to give him a brutally honest, critical perspective. 

As much as he was looking forward to the trash talking, Belphie soon found that Asmo wasn’t even asleep. He could still feel his conscience, however, meaning his brother was at least in the House of Lamentation.

Depending on how late it was, he was probably in the kitchen. Eating his nighttime snack, waiting until nobody else would see him.

Belphie visited Satan’s dream next, expecting something boring and receiving exactly what he expected. Satan was also trickier than Asmo, the most likely of the brothers, other than Lucifer, to notice Belphie’s presence if he wasn’t careful. Lucifer had hinted, on multiple occasions, that there were worse punishments than solitary confinement -- so he made a few small adjustments to Satan’s dream and then left, hoping that if Satan did suspect he wasn’t in the human world, he’d continue to not say anything to the rest of their brothers.

The human wasn’t prominently featured in Satan’s dream, but Belphie could tell there was something different about his brother. He didn’t usually feel this light any time he entered Satan’s dreams. Even in his sleep, Satan worried about not being good enough, kind enough, strong enough -- that other demons would see his title and assume.

Tonight, however, being inside Satan’s mind felt peaceful. When Belphie tried to think of what could have possibly changed since the last time, only one thing came to mind: the transfer student.

They’d mentioned making a pact with Satan.

And Belphie had forced himself not to laugh, thinking there was no chance of his most level headed, cautious brother making a pact so easily. The human had been lying, obviously.

“Unless they weren’t.”

He didn’t like that explanation.

No, they were still lying about something. They must have lied to Satan instead of Belphie, done something to trick Satan into believing the pact was a good idea. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but neither did one human managing to win over five of his chaotic brothers.

Shockingly, Leviathan was also asleep.

It wasn’t often that Belphie was able to enter Levi’s dreams, leaving Belphie to wonder if he’d fallen asleep uncharacteristically while streaming or marathoning an anime.

Levi’s dream was obnoxiously bright, filled with fluorescent colors and neon. Everything looked like a caricature. He was drawing something, no -- he was a famous mangaka -- and his desk sat in the middle of an island. Anime figurines poked their heads above the sand every so often like crabs. The waves in Levi’s dream were noiseless. He was so hyperfixated on whatever he was doing that he wouldn’t have noticed Belphie’s presence had his younger brother flown in on the back of a phoenix while dropping trombones from the sky.

“This might be a good place to take a break,” Belphie thought, and as soon as he sat down, he realized his mistake.

The transfer student, quite literally, crawled out of Levi’s page. They were 2D in Levi’s dream, and everything else was 3D, but that didn’t seem to matter to Levi, who was laughing almost manically. “I did it, I did it!”

He grabbed the human by the hands, spinning them around in a merry dance. Dream Levi was almost always in his demon form, and his serpent tail encircled the two of them like some kind of protective halo.

“Thank you for bringing me to life, Levi,” the human cooed.

They didn’t sound anything like this in reality. They didn’t talk like this in reality. It was like watching a really, really bad anime. “Why is it always them?” Belphie glowered. “Why this human? Why any human at all?”

“Ouch! ...Haha, papercut. LOL.”

Guilt pricked at Belphie. That had probably been his fault for getting annoyed. Still, he didn’t understand what was so special about this human.

“How many of my brothers are they going to… infatuate… by the time I’m out of the attic?”

If he found the human in Lucifer’s dream too, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from screaming. It took all of his self-restraint not to lash out at Levi, to not turn the dream he was having into a nightmare, and he eventually left without making any adjustments to Levi’s dream at all.

He headed in the direction of Lucifer’s subconscious next, only to be put off by the sound of the demon prince’s voice, rough with exertion. Then Lucifer contributed a low, lewd moan that erased any doubts Belphie may have had about the kind of dream the eldest was having.

“F-fuck!”

Knowing that sound was going to haunt him whether he woke up now or not, Belphie hesitated before jumping into another dream. Maybe Asmo was asleep now. Or maybe he should visit Beelzebub again.

“Fuck,” Belphie sighed. This human was ruining everything. A morbid part of him believed that if he were to revisit Lucifer’s dream, he’d probably find the Avatar of Pride sandwiched between Lord Diavolo and them . “I wish Diavolo had never come up with this stupid transfer idea. I wish Lilith had never...  I… wish…”

He couldn’t do anything about Lilith or the human who’d seduced her, he realized, unburying his face from his hands. “But I can take it out on the transfer student…”

The spells on the attic were tugging at his subconscious. He had to climb into another dreamspace soon, or he’d be forcefully dragged out of his current state, and why not the human’s? They’d caused him enough misery just by being here, and it was time to return the favor.

Belphie entered their dreamspace with ease, almost sick with delight at how unprotected, how vulnerable they were. Diavolo, too, was every bit the fool Belphie had accused him of being -- had he really invited a human with no magic, no power with which to defend themselves, into a realm occupied by demons? In the name of “good will”?

As soon as Belphie regained awareness of his surroundings, his mirth faded.

There was blood.

So much blood.

No human could possibly bleed this much, and the human was always so… so innocent whenever they visited him. There was no way a dream like this could belong to a foolish, empty-minded human that could make Beel smile and spoke every other sentence with a laugh.

A sharp crack caught his attention, and Belphie’s head whipped in the direction of someone who was unmistakably a smaller, younger version of the human in three of his brothers’ dreams.

He almost can’t see them, because they’re huddled in a corner, trapped by two large, dark figures. Similar to the excessive amount of blood in the room, these figures are unrealistically tall. Their features are obscured by shadows. One of them is bleeding, and that’s where the blood is coming from.

The smell of fear, blood, pain, and sadness is so thick in the air, Belphie felt like he was being choked. And then one figure reaches out towards the other -- 

Belphie winced as the human child screamed, their sharp cries cutting through the atmosphere. He hoped, really hoped, that the scene playing out in front of him hadn’t been influenced by him. Then he realized how incredibly fucked up that was.

This wasn’t an ordinary dream, or even a nightmare. These were memories.

One of the figures was still screaming, louder than the child now. The other figure gurgled. They’d survive. Belphegor didn’t know how he knew they would survive, but he was confident. Possibly due to the nature of his powers, and the fact that his mental state and the human’s had to be linked in some way for entering their dream to even be possible.

His eyes snapped shut as the yelling grew even louder, in spite of how impossible that seemed. “Fuck you, fuck you!” They had to have known they weren’t going to get an answer, but they continued to shout, “Who are they?! Tell me who it is!”

The second figure dropped to the floor, the hand not supporting them reaching for their neck -- where their neck would have been, if they had any clearly defined features. “The human’s parents?” Belphie guessed. “Why don’t they… have faces…”

There was a long, far too long, moment where the fallen figure struggled to catch their breath. Instead of running away, they launched themselves back at the first. “I already told you…!”

Belphie flinched again.

Somehow, the second figure managed to land a few good hits in. Their voice was still raw. Their punches were sluggish. When the first figure finally struck back, they didn’t get back up. Immediately. Like the last time.

“Does that mean the fight is over?”

Fuck. He’d forgotten that he was still in “dreamwalk” mode, that he had to be careful about his thoughts. If he wasn’t, the figures might turn their attention on him next -- 

“I can leave any time I want,” Belphie remembered, thinking out loud again already. He felt numb saying it, as if he didn’t believe it. Then he realized why he felt that way. “The human.”

At this age, they must have felt cornered. Like there was no way they could ever escape. Demons in the Devildom were nothing compared to this horror, if this was what their daily life had been like as a child in the human world. No wonder they laughed whenever they made a joke about Beel eating them for dinner. Humans gave demons a bad reputation, then committed the worst crimes imaginable themselves.

The scene froze. Belphie’s powers had nothing to do with it, and his intuition told him that the dream would probably play on a loop unless he stopped it. He’d come here to torment the human. For fun.

His eyes met the human’s.

They were nothing like the human he’d seen in Beel’s dreams, or the human who visited him outside of the attic door daily. That human was cocky, self-assured. That human had vowed to stand up to Lucifer for him, and snuck candy through the gap at the bottom of the attic door.

This human was frozen, a hollow expression carved onto their face. If Belphie hadn’t heard them scream earlier, he might have thought they were made of stone.

The human clearly didn’t need his help to sleep miserably.

He could exit their dreamscape right now, go back to Beel’s dream. Go back to the attic, even. “That’s what I should do,” his brain supplied. His mouth didn’t have to move for him to speak in the world of dreams, but his tongue felt dry and heavy regardless. “This is a stupid idea.”

Awareness didn’t stop his feet from propelling him forward. Knowing that he shouldn’t be doing this didn’t stop him from kneeling in front of the human, placing his hands on their shoulders and forcing eye contact. Every logical piece of him was telling him to leave, that he shouldn’t be conversing with his enemy, that messing with any dreamscape directly was a bad idea.

Confusion washed over the human’s face. Their tear tracks dried instantly, as was the nature of dreams -- as soon as something was no longer relevant, it was forgotten.

“You’re surprised,” Belphie realized, “because this has never happened before in your dream?”

His voice causes something to click in their tiny human brain. “I know that voice.”

The voice Belphie is used to, their regular, less childlike voice, sounds strange coming from a creature who is scarcely waist high on him. Their voice changing was the first sign that their dreamscape was beginning to crumble.

Blood and misery stopped perfuming the air.

Walls melted.

Belphie could no longer feel the imposing, uncomfortable presence of the two shadowy figures behind him.

Soon, the two of them are standing on a hill. Stars provide Belphie with just enough light to make out his surroundings, and the two of them are surrounded by nothingness as far as the eye can see. There’s a breeze, but it’s not enough to even roughly the hair on his head.

“My dreams are always the same.”

They were still speaking in their non-child voice, and it was a little unsettling. “Not this time,” Belphie replied, wondering why he said anything even as he spoke. “I should leave.”

“Don’t!”

The child’s voice was back. He stared at them, trying not to think about what might happen if he dropped them back into their original dreamscape and left afterall. “Lucifer would probably find out,” he decided, and cursed, because it was getting harder and harder to keep his head clear with this human around. “That must be how Beel feels.”

He let out a family of choice words this time, well aware that the human finding out his secret would mean complications in his future. Not only with Lucifer. The human might start expecting things from him, perhaps anticipating that he would be willing to save them every night.

“Don’t what? ” he settles on finally, undecided if he’s more annoyed with himself or the transfer student right now.

“Leave me!”

Their honesty startled him.

“...Belphegor!”

Then he forced himself to laugh, because a demon would never admit to being that powerless. If he went back to his original plan, and began tormenting them right now, maybe they would decide that he wasn’t the sweet, lonely demon from the attic after all.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Belphie lied.

“If this really is a dream,” the human replied, “you’re Belphie.”

It made complete sense and also no sense at all. The human must have been smarter than he gave them credit for, Belphie realized, and thankfully, he maintained just enough influence over his powers to prevent the thought from slipping out. That was how things usually worked in dreams -- once a sleeping brain decided on something, it found a way to become true.

“If this is a dream?”

They hesitated for a moment, chewing their lip before explaining, “Like I said, my dreams are usually the same.”

Their adult voice was back.

“You said ‘always’ before,” Belphie replied, unable to stop himself.

They huffed, and for an instant, it was almost like talking to the transfer student Belphie was familiar with again. “I’m sorry if my use of the word ‘always’ is offending you.”

“I can’t be Belphie,” Belphie tried again. “You don’t know what Belphegor looks like.”

Although Belphie couldn’t convince himself that the human believed him, they dropped the subject. Their body didn’t morph into adulthood, even though their personality and their voice already had.

“Do you recognize any of these constellations,” the human asked, pointing to the sky.

Slowly, Belphie began to realize why.

“Those are…” Constellations from neither the human world nor the Devildom. “The Celestial Realm?” he guessed, struggling to remember. That had been thousands of years ago. Yet he swore he could remember bits and pieces of the Celestial Realms skies, all of the constellations that he and Lilith had identified together while she was still alive. “We must be in… Are you in my dream?”

“Is that even possible?” the human shrugged, sitting cross legged on the highest point of the hill. “Remind me to look into it tomorrow.”

“No.”

“I could ask Solomon or Satan too,” they continued, completely ignoring Belphie’s lack of enthusiasm. “Do you want to look at the stars with me?”

Aside from a few muddy images from Beel’s and Levi’s dreams, Belphie didn’t know what the transfer student looked like as an adult. When he’d started out in this dreamscape, he’d been inside their mind.

Something had happened, and it was the other way around now.

“Did I draw you into my mind by accident?” he really had to work on that ‘thinking inside of dreams’ thing he was suddenly having trouble with. It was so much easier to quiet his mind when he was in Beel’s dreams. “That doesn’t make any sense. My connection with Beel isn’t even that strong.”

“Like I said,” they reminded him, “I’ll look into it.”

They were a lot calmer now than they had been in the last dream. Belphie stared at them, unsuspecting, thinking about how easily his hands would fit around the neck of a human child. He could conjure a dagger instead. Or cast a curse on them that caused their feet to swell and their hands to shrink. 

He couldn’t bring himself to torture a child. Not after what he’d seen. Maybe another night.

The human patted the ground next to them, inviting Belphie to sit down. He did, hugging his knees to his chest and pretending he was holding onto another one of his pillows. 

“You said these stars were from the Celestial Realm?”

“I suppose.”

“Are all angels like Simeon? ...And Luke?”

“Not really.”

“Do you remember what being an angel was like?”

“No.”

“Did you have wings?”

“No.”

“A shiny halo?”

“No…”

The human laughed, and Belphie realized they knew he was faking his answers. “Not all angels are like Simeon and Luke,” he grumbled, frustrated. “Angels are every bit as diverse as demons or humans are, just with more rules they have to follow. I didn’t have wings, I didn’t have a halo. Yes, I did dress in pure white, in case you were wonder--”

“Does that mean you do remember what being an angel was like?” Belphie balked. “...Because that’s the only question you didn’t answer?”

“I…”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” the human soothed.

“Good.” Belphie wished he had something other than his own legs to hug and hold onto. “Why do you want to know anyway?”

They shrugged, but they also had an answer ready, “You guys are interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“Yes. I want to know more about you all… Tell me a story?”

“...”

“Aw, come on. You’ve already seen part of my past.”

Quite involuntarily, Belphegor wanted to add. He located the willpower to be nice instead, “I guess I could tell you about the times Lilith, Beel, and I went fishing.”

“Did you catch any big fish?”

“No. I usually fell asleep on the pier.”

Talking about his old childhood memories made him feel… smaller. “Hey…” the human was smiling at him. They unfolded their legs, stretching out on the grass instead. “Does the sky seem bigger to you all of a sudden?”

“Why do you ask?”

He scowled when their grin widened, not noticing that he could no longer see the top of their head while sitting. But a yawn cut through the anger, and the human laughed instead of cowering, as they should have, at the sight of one increasingly annoyed demon.

“You get sleepy even in your dreams!” they pointed out mirthfully.

Belphie blushed, the familiar sound of the human’s laughter hitting his ears more harshly than usual. It wasn’t an unpleasant sound either, making matters worse.

He yawned again.

Okay, slightly annoyed, but also mostly tired.

“Take a nap?”

“But I’m not...” Belphie stopped himself from grumbling when the human patted their leg, inviting him to lay down. A warm lap did sound good. Brought back memories of Lucifer scolding him, for trying to use his legs as a pillow every time Lucifer sat down, too. “Don’t assume this means anything, okay?”

He very pointedly refused to look at the human, not wanting to see their reaction.

They ran their fingers through his hair in response.

Every muscle in Belphie’s body went slack, like a kitten on the verge of sleep. “Lilith used to do this too,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“You’re cute when you’re like this.”

“Like this?” Belphie asked.

His hands were so… small. He wiggled his fingers in front of his face, almost failing to believe that these chubby, short little things were a part of him. At some point, he must have shifted from his adult form back into a child. Without realizing. 

“So much for being a powerful demon.”

The human politely chose to ignore that comment. “I heard it was impossible to see your hands while you’re asleep?”

“For normal demons, maybe.” Belphie stifled another yawn. “Humans too, I guess. Your brains are pretty small, after all.”

“You think you’re that much smarter than me?”

“Yes.”

He wished the human would say something stupid, for once. Knowing that he wasn’t the only one losing control of his dream thoughts would be comforting.

Then again, so was the way they smoothed their hand across the top of his head to the back of his neck. It reminded him of stargazing with Beelzebub and Lilith. Lilith, even though she was younger and smaller than him, had always let Belphie rest in her lap and played with his hair.

Lilith.

The memories still hurt , no matter how many times he tried to push them back down.

“It’s because of humans like… like you, ” Belphie snarled, jumping to his feet,  “that my sister is dead!”

The human still didn’t look half as scared as they had in their nightmare, although Belphie was back to being four times their size. In his demon form, even, tail lashing wildly through the air. He curled his hands into fists, needing the tension in his body to go somewhere -- even if it was just squeezing his fingernails painfully into his own palms.

“But you don’t care at all, do you?”

“Belphie, I’m doing this -- ”

“Why do you look so confused?” he snapped.

The human struggled to explain, still not nearly as frightened of him as they should have been. “I saw how Beel blames himself for Lilith.”

The stars began to disappear from the sky. The hill lost its texture. The human’s face started to blur. Dreamwalking only worked when Belphie was able to keep his mind neutral, in a state of pliability and open mindedness that allowed him to adapt to others’ subconsciousness.

Especially since he’d become the Avatar of Sloth, that sort of thing usually came to him naturally.

Now his head was filled with thoughts, screaming, competing with another, and ripping his ability to stay in the dreamscape to shreds. Anger. Pain. Regret.

“Beel is, he’s lonely without you…!”

Hatred.

“I want all of you to be together again!”

“Shut up!”

Maybe the human would convince themselves this was all a bad dream when they woke up, and Lucifer wouldn’t put his own hands around Belphie’s neck for traumatizing Diavolo’s precious transfer student. Or maybe he’d get lucky, and break the limitations of the dream world right now, killing the human himself.

He leaped forward. Uncurled his fists, arms outstretched, reaching for the human, and -- 

Belphie woke up.

Sweat and salty tears stained his pillow. The fortress he’d buried himself in to fall asleep no longer felt warm and safe, but suffocating. He thrashed to get out, heart pounding, anger compounding when even his own blankets seemed determined to trap him.

By the time he’d managed to roll mostly free, his breathing was almost level again.

He glared at the attic ceiling. No more stars. After Lilith had died and they’d all fallen, the stars had never been as bright as they’d once been anyway.

“That stupid human,” Belphie growled.

This time, he wasn’t talking about the man who had taken his sister away from him. The man that he would’ve killed himself, had he known the price for letting him live.

Belphie wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

He’d already lost one sibling. The human must have tricked his brothers, and he wasn’t going to lose six more.

They’d deceived him too.

They had to have known he was coming, somehow. Lied about not being able to use magic, then fooled him into lowering his guard by showing him a fake “memory” of their past. Probably assumed they wouldn’t hurt a child. Wanted to use his pity as leverage, to manipulate him into making a pact so they could put a collar around his neck and control him the same way they had his brothers.

How wrong they were.

He’d show them. Prove that he didn’t care who they were, what lies they told. That Belphie wouldn’t be as easily charmed as the others. He would save his brothers from following the same path as Lilith, devoting their lives to a fragile creature that lived for only a wink of time and spent most of it hurting others without concern.

He was going to destroy the human world, just as he’d planned before Lucifer had locked him up.

Starting with the transfer student.