Chapter Text
You finish the last bit of homework you need to do, sighing. You really need to put your foot down about hanging out with the brothers only once you’d gotten homework done. The 3am nights were getting to you.
Yawning, you shove the books you need for tomorrow’s class in your bag and the others on the floor, pausing as your stomach grumbles angrily at you. Right. It had been almost eight hours since you’d last eaten.
Well, perhaps you’d witness a miracle today and Beel would have left something in the kitchen you could eat.
You exit your room just to see another figure walking down the hall. You pause, seeing Satan leaving the library. He turns off the lights and promptly runs into the doorframe, shaking his head slightly and straightening out a ridiculous number of papers in his arms before stumbling off.
“Satan, are you okay?” You ask, walking toward him. He wasn’t exactly the kind of demon that just ran into things all the time.
Satan blinks tired eyes up at you, the shadows under them dark and deep enough that a bear could hibernate in them. “Oh, MC. Didn’t expect you to still be up.” He yawns hugely.
“Um, Satan, again, are you okay?” You ask, unwilling to let it go. Though you kind of already know the answer.
“Oh yeah, fine,” he says. “Just finishing up some paperwork for the Student Council.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “When was the last time you slept?”
He seems confused for a moment. “Day before yesterday? No, wait. It was the day before that. Monday night.” He nods to himself.
“Satan!” You snap. “You need to sleep more often than that!”
“Nah it’s fine. I’m a demoooon.” The ‘O’ on demon gets stretched out as he yawns once again.
You sigh, pinching your nose, a habit you may or may not have picked up from Lucifer. “Satan, for goodness sake, you just ran into a freaking doorframe! Demon or not, you are clearly not okay.”
He straightens slightly, looking a little offended. You roll your eyes. “Go to bed. Now.” You tell him in a tone just short of using his pact to command him.
“I still have a bit of work to do,” he protests.
“It will keep. Now, Satan. Before you run into any more doors.”
“No, I need to finish it so I can go to the Ancient Books Expo this weekend,” He protests.
“You’ll work faster once you get some sleep. It will make up for it.”
He sighs, turning to his room. “You nag almost as much as Lucifer.”
“No, I nag more than Lucifer. Because I care more than Lucifer. Now go to bed.”
Satan rolls his eyes, just managing to avoid running into the doorframe of his room before stumbling inside. You promptly hear a loud, tumbling thump and figure he’s knocked over one of his many stacks of books. You shake your head, hoping he heeds your advice.
******The Next Morning*****
It was immediately clear looking at Satan that he had stayed up all night working. Again.
You feel a muscle by your eye twitching in annoyance. You thought the normally logical demon would heed your warning--even the most powerful of demons need some sleep after three days straight.
You have no idea how he is walking around still, since you feel tired after only getting four hours of sleep. Then again, calling his lifeless shamble walking is rather generous. It’s physically painful to watch.
You sigh to yourself, pouring honey on your scones, certain you are too tired to deal with this. But that little part of you that just can’t help helping someone who was struggling was already eating at you to do something. You resolve that if the stupid demon won’t listen to reason, you’ll resort to more drastic measures.
After school. You’ll resort to more drastic measures after school.
****Last minute of the last class of the day*****
You poke Satan for the upteenth time as he begins dozing. He’d asked you to do it, not wanting to miss the information, but honestly by this point you were certain that you’d spent more time poking him, and he’d spent more time jerking back awake, than either of you had spent taking notes. Or listening, for that matter. You wonder absently if Lucifer will kill you if you ask to borrow his notes from today.
The final bell rings and Satan collapses face-first onto his desk with a groan. You sigh, shoving books and notes into your bag a little more vehemently than usual. After all, you’re tired, too. And exasperated.
“Satan!” You snap at him, and he stirs slightly. You smack his shoulder, knowing that it won’t hurt the demon. “Satan, you should get home before you sleep. You’ll feel better.”
Satan looks up at you, blue-green eyes looking vividly green today, courtesy of the red rimming them. He looks pathetic, and you have half a mind to tell him so. “I know,” he says, but makes no move to get up.
You sigh, grabbing his arm. “Come on, up you go,” you say, tugging him to his feet. In what looks like a trance he manages to put all his stuff in his bag and leans on you rather heavily as you walk the both of you out of RAD and back towards the House of Lamentation.
Passing the grocery store, you remember how hungry you were after staying up so late doing your own work. You drag Satan in to get him some brain food and tell him to eat it as you continue home. You honestly aren’t 100% sure he realized you stopped by a store or that he is now eating. However, once he finishes the snack he looks slightly more alive. Emphasis on slightly.
He finishes his snack and throws the wrapper away in a trash can. Or, rather, he tries to throw away his trash. He misses even though it’s right there, and you begrudgingly pick it up and throw it away properly.
As you turn to Satan, his eyes focus brightly on something. “Hey, look! A cat!” He eagerly heads toward something.
Looking at where he’s headed, you see a rather beaten up grocery bag. You suppose if you tilt your head and squint really hard, it might be mistakable for a cat. You snort, pulling out your DDD. You snap a picture of Satan trying to cajole the very-much-not-a-cat bag before following him.
“Satan, sweety, that’s a bag, not a cat,” you say, using a tone usually reserved for children and the severely delusional.
Satan blinks a couple times before blushing and standing up straight, clearing his throat. You sigh, deciding not to beat a dead horse and remind him once again that this is why he needs to get sleep. If he can’t figure that out for himself from this situation then he’s a lost cause.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” you say.
He nods in agreement, looking down. “Thank you for your help, MC. It’s nice to be so well taken care of,” he says, his fading blush returning even redder than before.
You sigh lightly, smiling in spite of yourself and the trouble he’s caused you. He’s just so darn cute like this! “You’re welcome. But seriously, next time I tell you to sleep, go to sleep!” You use annoyance to cover up the concern and fondness you feel for your pretty blonde nerd.
He smiles sleepily, and the open fondness that borders on adoration in his gaze has your heart skipping a beat before thumping much too noticeably in your chest. You clear your throat as you try not to blush yourself and grab his arm, dragging him along.
He catches up in just a few steps. He leans on you, turning his head to nuzzle your ear slightly, tickling your ear in a way that sends an entirely-too-pleasant shiver down your spine. You glance sideways to see if he did it on purpose and the very content grin on his face tells you he may be enjoying your help just a little too much. After all, you don’t want to reward him for not taking care of himself.
His hand slips around your waist, pulling you closer to him as he steadies himself. His warm hand feels nice, his touch making some small part of you very, very happy.
Oh well. You’ll worry about making sure he takes care of himself better later. After all, Satan isn’t the only tired one here, and your own exhaustion is fogging your brain too much to know how to keep him from feeling like this is a reward.
You arrive in the House of Lamentation to Mammon and Asmo arguing. You quietly put your uniform’s coat on the coatrack, wanting to wear it as little as possible. You try to sneak by, but Mammon’s, “Oi! MC!” let’s you know loud and clear that you’ll have no such luck.
Not that you really expected to have that kind of luck. It’s almost like the brothers have a radar just for you. You wonder absently if having pacts with them might make them more aware of your presence. Then again, it’s much more likely the crushes they don’t-so-secretly harbor for you than any pact.
“Hey! Why is Satan hanging all over you? Let MC go! They ain’t yours!” Mammon yells. You wince slightly at the volume, your tired brain unprepared for Mammon’s boisterous voice.
“Mammon, Satan hasn’t slept in four days. He’s leaning on me because he can’t walk straight. I’m going to help him get to his room.”
“Why’re ya doin’ that for him? Make him do it himself!”
You groan inwardly at the hypocrisy. Mammon would jump all over it if he were the one tiredly leaning on you.
“I’ve already helped him this far, might as well make sure he gets to his room in one piece.”
“Oooo, you’re going to Satan’s room? How naughty! Mind if I tag along?” Asmo says, jumping on the chance to make things as awkward as possible.
“Not everything’s about sex, Asmo,” you groan.
“Are you sure about that?” Asmo says, a wicked gleam in his eye.
You don’t honor that with anything more than a groan and a why me? Shake of your head.
“Well, once you dump Satan off, you wanna come with me to The Fall tonight, right? They’re having a night of black-jack and you wouldn’t want to miss watching THE Mammon wipe the floor with a bunch of losers.” Mammon interjects. You feel Satan’s grip on your waist tighten ever so slightly at the invitation. Some part of your brain finds that very interesting. Intriguing, even. Enjoyable.
“No fair! MC clearly wants to come with me to browse the new fall line at Majolish, right MC? Just imagine, you’ll get to be the first to see all this beauty in the latest fashions! Oh just thinking about how lucky you are makes me jealous,” Asmo says. “Besides, you don’t want to be seen associating with that scumbag, right?” He wrinkles his nose as he looks at Mammon.
“Hey! What’s that s’posed ta mean?” Mammon calls back.
Sometimes the brothers are entirely too loud. Both invitations sound awful in your exhausted state. You remember the promise you made yourself yesterday, and harden yourself against the inevitable disappointment you’ll see on their faces.
“Sorry, guys. I need to study and catch up on some sleep,” you say. “Maybe another night.”
They both start protesting loudly, but you force yourself not to listen to their begging as you turn toward Satan’s room. You’re relieved when they don’t follow you and their caterwauling gets quieter with distance.
When you pass the door to your room, you take the opportunity to dump your bag just inside before returning to Satan’s side. He immediately returns to leaning on you in the very pleasant way he had been most the way home.
You stop outside Satan’s door. “Alright, now. Go straight to sleep!” You instruct him as you start to pull away.
“Well, I will in a little bit. I still have a little more Student Council work to finish,” he says the second you turn away from him.
That lights off your already exhaustion-shortened temper. “For goodness sake, Satan, you thought a freaking bag was a cat! You are going to sleep now!” You just stop yourself from stomping your foot. Tired as you are, you are not a five-year-old.
Determined that he is not going to delay sleeping any longer no matter what it takes, you throw open his door and push him inside, kicking his door shut with a foot before shoving him all the way to the side of his bed. You point at it. “Sleep!”
A smile tugs at the corner of Satan’s mouth, and you find your eyes lingering there entirely too long. Stupid tired brain! You shift your eyes away, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
Satan just stands there, looking at you. You fidget a bit under his gaze. “Well, go on!” You snap at him.
Amusement crinkles the corners of those beautiful eyes. Eyes that just happen to be your favorite color. Eyes that you’ve now been looking into far too long. You pull your gaze away with significantly more effort than you expected.
“Yes, ma’am,” Satan says jokingly, removing his uniform coat and bow tie before throwing both on a small bookshelf near his bed, setting his bag down beside it.
He sits down on his bed and you can see in your periphery he’s still looking at you. “Good,” you say, beginning to turn away. You feel a large, warm, soft hand fasten around your wrist and the room whirls around you. Next thing you know, you’re cuddled up next to Satan, somehow on the far side of the bed from its open edge. You blink, feeling like you left your brain standing beside the bed. Out of reach.
One of Satan’s arms is around your waist, keeping you close to him. The other cups your face. You meet his beautiful eyes, which are much, much closer than you’ve ever really seen them before. At least for this length of time.
“I’m not the only one who’s tired,” he says, thumb tracing one of the shadows under your eyes. “If I’m going to catch up on sleep, so are you.”
You feel a vague protest rising in your throat. You have homework to do. Sleeping in a man’s bed could be misinterpreted. Mammon and Asmo will probably figure out where you are if you stay here, and that could make things awkward.
But Satan’s arm tightens around your waist as you weakly try to pull away, not really wanting to go. You give in, to both him and yourself.
“Fine,” you mumble.
Satan’s hand slips around your face so he can slip that arm under your head. The position is warm and comfortable as he hugs you to him. You sigh contentedly, snuggling close to his broad, warm, muscular chest, satisfaction curling in your belly. You slip an arm around him so you can hug him back to you. You enjoy the feel of his steady breaths under your hand as he almost instantly falls asleep. You aren’t far behind, basking in Satan’s warm affection.