Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Franklin P. Nelson was at the end of his rope when he decided to make a deal with the Devil. Although, to be fair, most people are when they decide to sell their soul to the Prince of Darkness.

To the Devil, Mr. Nelson was practically the embodiment of the textbook ‘customer’. He lived alone, he was distant from his family, he didn’t have any outstanding relationships, he worked at a job he hated. He was just the right amounts of lonely, depressed, and alienated for the Devil to come in and coerce him into a deal. Humans always wanted the same things—fame, fortune, love, success, power. They were easy to please, and when they were desperate enough, they practically begged the Devil to claim their souls and make their wildest dreams come true. Mr. Nelson was the perfect prey.

Mr. Nelson summoned the Devil at three o’clock on a Wednesday morning—candles, chanting, incense, and all—after drunkenly coming to the realization that literally selling his soul to the Devil may be more beneficial than working for Landman and Zack. That, and Mr. Nelson was morbidly curious as to whether or not his soul was actually worth anything. If it wasn’t, that would certainly make some other morbid thoughts of his easier to go through with.

Given so few actually make the effort to meet all the formalities of summoning the Dark Lord now a days, the Devil found himself bemused with the funny little man upon entry, if not a bit smug. This was going to be an easy deal.

Mr. Nelson sat in silence for a few moments after the Devil appeared, heart and breathing rates raised in shock, the salty smell of perspiration tinging the air around them. He listened. He smelled. He tasted. This was how the Devil read his customers, as he couldn’t see them.

A little known detail about the Devil was that he was blind. A consequence of falling from grace. Still, he was a divine being once. He was one of God’s most perfect and most beautiful creations. His senses were far beyond that of a human’s. Blindness was in some ways a hindrance, but the Devil was creative. He could always find something to use to his advantage.

“Wow. You don’t look anything like they said you would. Like, at all.” Mr. Nelson fumbled for words. The Devil smiled.

“I get that a lot. I hope I’m  not a disappointment.”

Mr. Nelson’s heart beat kicked up a few more notches and the Devil’s smile widened.

“No! No, that’s not what I meant,” he interjected. “It’s just…I was expecting horns and hooves and a pointy tail and maybe a really sick beard or something, not…”

“Not what?”

“Not some devilishly attractive, handsome duck guy whose all dressed up in a perfectly tailored suit with the coolest pair of shades ever,” he replied, waving his hands around in exasperation.

For a moment, all was still and silent. The Devil tilted his head, entertained.

“Oh. Fuck. I actually just said that. Out loud. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with—wait, I have Satan in my fucking living room and I just mentioned Jesus, holy shit—“

The Devil cleared his throat in hopes of cutting off Mr. Nelson’s tirade. As amusing as it was, he was there for business. He put on a placid grin and used the voice that had, time and time again, brought mankind to its knees.

“Excuse me, Mr. Nelson, I hate to interrupt—but I’m a bit curious as to why you’ve summoned me here. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Up until this point, all of Mr. Nelson’s movements and responses had been slurred and slowed by his drunkenness. After the Devil spoke, he sobered instantly, growing increasingly somber with every passing second.

“I want to make a deal.”

His voice was cold and detached, practically unrecognizable from the stuttering mess from moments before. The Devil let a vicious smile tear itself across his lips, just the hint of too much teeth turning it into something predatory. Easy.

“Anything your heart desires. No rules, no limitations, no consequences. All you need to do is sign here,” he reaches into his jacket and manifests a contract, holding it out for Mr. Nelson, “and promise me your immortal soul in return. Simple.”

It took Mr. Nelson a few moments before he took the contract from the Devil with trembling hands. This is the part when the customer gets nervous, begins to feel frightened by the gravity of what they’re about to do. It was textbook. He was textbook.

“What does it mean, if I sell you my soul? What do you do with it?”

The Devil chuckled. Predictable questions, predictable misconceptions.

“You don’t sell your soul to me, not exactly. You promise it to me. You give me your loyalty for all eternity. You do what I ask, on the basis of that loyalty. And should you go back on that contract, well. You’re an educated man. I’m assuming you’ve read Dante. You know what types of things happen to liars, to traitors, where I’m from.”

Mr. Nelson shuddered at the thought, because of course the Devil assumed correctly. He contemplated the deal for a few more moments before he sighed in resignation.

“I guess I could do worse than running chores for Satan for the rest of eternity.”

“That’s the spirit,” the Devil replied, his voice dripping with persuasion. “Just sign your name on the dotted line, and anything you want is yours.”

Mr. Nelson read over the contract, a useless formality typical of a lawyer since they both know he’s going to sign it regardless of what the contract actually states. He was too desperate not to. The Devil reached into his jacket once more and manifested a fountain pen, passing it silently to Mr. Nelson.

He signed his name neatly, with a confident, steady hand.

With a snap of his fingers, the contract was gone and the soul of Franklin P. Nelson belonged to the Devil.  It barely took any convincing at all. It was practically a cake-walk. The simplicity of it all had the Devil practically vibrating with glee, which was absolutely as odd as it sounded.

“Excellent. Now tell me, Mr. Nelson, what can I do for you? What is it that you want more than anything?”

In all his years, and that’s a lot, the Devil could scarcely remember a time when he was surprised by a human. They were all prone to the same sins, the same desires, the same selfishness. Mr. Nelson could’ve been reading a script given how expectable all his responses were. He could practically hear what was going to come next—“I want to be rich, I want to be famous, I want to be powerful, I want to be a superhero, etc., etc., etc.” He’d heard it all before.

“Your friendship.”

The Devil’s jaw dropped in embarrassing silence for the first time in his memory.

Friendship was one he’d gotten a few times, relationships tended to be pretty frequent. His friendship was  unchartered territory.

“I-I’m sorry, Mr. Nelson—could you repeat that? I must’ve misheard you.”

“In exchange for my eternal soul, I want your friendship for the duration of my mortal life.”

The Devil’s brow furrowed in confusion as he searched for some form of response, until he settled on, “Why?”

Mr. Nelson outright giggled at him, bright and pleased.

 “Man, you look like this poor, confused puppy. To think, people have quivered in fear of you for centuries. And then there’s all those people who  always talk about lawyers like we’re Satan, meanwhile Satan himself leads with his face way too much to be a trial lawyer, like, dude—“

“I asked a question. If I were you, Mr. Nelson, I would not try my patience,” the Devil growled, immensely displeased with the position he’d trapped himself in and growing more displeased still with every jab Mr. Nelson took at him.

“Eesh, temper. Oh—and please, call me Foggy. Mr. Nelson is so obnoxiously stuffy that it’s reserved for court room purposes only,” he replied, voice light and cheerful and warm. He grew silent for a moment, and just before the Devil could angrily interject for him to answer the damn question, he continued.

“I’ve never been good at making friends. People kinda like me, I kinda like people, but it just…I dunno, it just doesn’t work. Nothing clicks. Nothing fits. And living like that, living alone, living without connections—it’s just not living. It’s lonely, and it’s empty, and it’s pointless, y’know? And I got to thinking and I decided that there was no way I could be alone in loneliness. There had to be someone or something out there somewhere that understood this, that felt this,”

“I did what a lot of sad, lonely guys do when they think too much and I got drunk, and then I saw this old copy of the Bible I got way back in elementary school, and it just got me thinking. You, good sir, are probably the most hated figure of all time. The original super-villain--malevolent, graceless, doomed to an eternity of pain and anguish and hatred. The biggest sinner in history, and I’ll bet not one person thought to pray for you. Not one person would’ve remembered that you were God’s favorite, once upon a time. That you were considered beautiful. That you were beloved. I’ll bet not one person ever thought to be your friend. I’ll bet you’re just as lonely as I am.”

There was a long stretch of stillness.

The Devil couldn’t bring himself to admit that Mr. Nelson was right.

They both knew he was.

“Then, because I didn’t know if you even existed or not, my drunk brain thought it would be a good idea to summon you and strike up a deal.  And so, here you are. Hi.”

Mr. Nelson—Foggy—held out his hand. The Devil hesitated before slowly grasping Foggy’s hand and shaking it, dumbly replying with “hi” in the process.

“This is gonna be fun, buddy. Trust me.”

Oddly enough, the Devil found himself inclined to agree.

Chapter Text

“You’re shitting me.”

The Devil cringed at how sardonic the reply was, but knew it was well-deserved. It wasn’t every day an immortal, practically all-powerful being got conned into playing house with a human for the next couple decades.

“Believe me, I wish I was.”

Contrary to popular belief, Hell was not ruled by a single entity. Rather, the Devil was one of seven devils: Lucifer, Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Beelzebub, Belphegor, and Satan (who, for these intents and purposes, was the Devil). Each was a ruler in their own right with a defining sin that brought about their infamous fall from grace—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, sloth, and wrath, respectively. They all worked fairly well together, though some got along with others better than the rest. Satan, for example, had an interesting relationship with Lucifer.

Mortals often thought of them as being synonymous with one another, and in a sense, they weren’t wrong. Still, the Devil found it amusing when a mortal would incorrectly refer to him as Lucifer, and Lucifer was often likewise amused when she was incorrectly referred to as Satan. Consider it an inside joke between Hell’s finest.

The glare Lucifer gave the Devil in reply was one that would send any mortal running for the hills if they ever found it cast upon them. Luckily, the Devil had been on its receiving end far too many times for it to take its full effect. She shook her head, cursing under her breath.

“I still don’t see why you need to go live among the humans to fulfill the deal,” she sighed. “Surely he could just summon you when he wants your companionship, couldn’t he?”

“He’s a lawyer,” the Devil elaborated. “I considered it, but his wording was, unfortunately, very specific. In order for me to uphold my end of the deal, I need to stay with him for the duration of his mortal life. There’s no way to get around it.”

Lucifer sneered at him. “What, so you’re going to follow him around for every second of his life until he dies? Follow him grocery shopping, follow him to his little law office, follow him to the bathroom?”

The Devil’s features contorted in disgust at the thought and Lucifer let out an icy bark of something that slightly resembled laughter.

“I’m sure there will be boundaries,” the Devil muttered. “He’s pathetic, not psychotic.”

“I hope you know you’re pathetic, and you’re not going to live this down for centuries to come.”

He smiled ruefully at his fiendish friend.

“From you, I wouldn’t expect any less.”

An unsteady muteness fell between the two. There were some things too painful in memory for even devils to discuss. Not among each other, not to themselves, and most certainly not to mortals. They were simply unspeakable things, lurking in the dark corners of consciousness, to be discussed only when absolutely necessary.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve lived there. After last time—“

“I can handle it,” the Devil growled with finality.

Lucifer was doubtful. The Devil could tell by the length of silence before her reply. Lucifer was quick-witted and blunt, and if her biting wit wasn’t immediate, it was something to note.

“Fine, if you say so. We’ll remove you at once if you can’t regardless.”

“You won’t need to.”

“I hope not,” she said, before shamelessly changing the subject. “Any ideas about what identity you’re going with? I hope you go with something funny, like the one you had in—oh, what was it, the Inquisition? That one was punny, I liked that one.”

“Don’t you have something horrible to do somewhere?”

“Hmph. I see how it is. Have fun with your cute little pet, darling. For my sake, I hope he doesn’t last very long. It’ll be far less fun here without my favorite demon to annoy.”

“…you realize we live in Hell, right? It’s not supposed to be fun.”

“I take it back. Asmodeus is my favorite. Now get out.”

“Love you too, Luce.”

The Devil couldn’t help the swell of satisfaction that jolted through him when he heard Mr. Nelson’s high-pitched scream upon entry.

“Good God, are you trying to give me a freakin’ heart attack!? You are, aren’t you? You want me dead so you can take my soul—that is so not fair, man.”

The Devil couldn’t hold back the chuckle that bubbled from his throat at Mr. Nelson’s exasperation. “That wasn’t my intention, although to be honest, it would make my end of things a tad bit easier.”

“Ha ha. Seriously though, warning next time? Please? Send a plague or something, I don’t care, just give me a heads up.”

“Noted. It shouldn’t be much of a problem, since I won’t be traveling home again until you die,” the Devil replied cheerfully.

“Well isn’t that lovely,” Mr. Nelson said, his tone oozing sarcasm, until his breath caught in surprise. “Wait, you’re staying on earth until I die? I figured this was gonna be a soccer mom kind of deal where you drop in on me for awhile in between running all your other evil chores.”

“You said ‘duration of your mortal life’. Not ‘weekends and bank holidays and holy days of obligation’. So yes, I’m on earth until you die.”

“Huh. Nicely done, drunk-me.” Mr. Nelson’s blood was singing with excitement as it pumped dutifully fast through his veins. He seemed…happy?

No, Mr. Nelson did not seem happy, he was happy. Very happy, in fact, with this arrangement.

The Devil was utterly bewildered by it.

Mr. Nelson (“Seriously, pal, call me Foggy!”) sat the Devil down on his sofa, made him some lemon tea, set out some biscuits, and started on about possible living arrangements. Given the Devil wanted this affair to be as not-tortuous for himself as possible, he decided not to point out that he was an immortal being with no need for food, water, oxygen, or any of those silly things mortals needed to survive.

“I guess the easiest thing to do for right now is to be roommates, right? I mean, this place is kinda small and I’ve only got one bedroom, but I can probably squeeze another bed in for now until we can find a better place. It can be like a dorm room set-up, y’know?”

The Devil shouldn’t have raised his brow at that, but it was his knee-jerk reaction to the thought of being someone’s roommate. Lucifer was right. It had been awhile since he’d lived on earth. Manipulating mortals with their lifestyles and fads and cultures was very different from assimilating into them. The Devil wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Don’t trouble yourself to accommodate me, Mr. Nelson—“

“FOGGY—“

“Foggy.I don’t need to sleep, I don’t need to eat, I don’t need anything that I can’t take care of myself.”

“Okay, cool, that’s all well and good Mr. Vampire McSatanpants. You don’t need to do those things, sure, but can you do them?”

The Devil hesitated, slightly confused as to where the line of questioning was going. “I…can, but it doesn’t do anything. It’s unnecessary. Why waste money and effort? Especially given a lack of steady income, it’s not a smart move.”

“I’m going to waste the money and effort, good sir, because if you’re gonna get the ‘Devil Pretending to be a Human with His Best Pal Foggy’ experience, I’m not gonna half-ass it. We gotta go hardcore with something like this.”

Foggy lingered a moment before adding, “By the way, that last sentence probably would’ve been considered rude by literally any other person ever. However, I am going to totally disregard the rude part and only find it to be kinda creepy, because I’ve never mentioned anything work related, or anything about myself really, aside from my name. An explanation would be nice.”

Ah. The Devil was waiting for this part to come up.

“I know everything about you, Mr. Nelson. The Big Guy Upstairs, so to speak, has everything on file. Because of my occupation, I get full access. I’m hoping this isn’t exactly shocking news to you.”

“It’s not,” Foggy started, “it’s just weird is all. Surreal.”

 “Want me to prove it?”

The Devil didn’t give Foggy a chance to answer.

“You were born in Hell’s Kitchen to Rosalind Sharpe and Edward Nelson and you’ve lived there your whole life. Your biological mother left you when you were still an infant, but for some reason you’ve always looked up to her and she’s part of the reason you pursued law, even if you won’t openly admit it. A lot of your career choices have been to gain her approval, and you hate that she’ll never give it to you. Your father remarried and you got along with your step-mother and half-sister well enough, but never felt like you truly belonged. Same issues cropped up when it came to friends and partners. You curse like a sailor. You’re bisexual but haven’t really told anyone, mostly because you don’t have anyone to tell. You enjoy musical theater but never had the confidence to work in it. You’re a terrible Catholic, haven’t stepped into a church in several years now. And yes, God does remember that time you accidentally dropped the Eucharist and kicked it under a pew hoping no one would notice. Tsk.”

The Devil’s senses were alert, catching all the nuances of Foggy’s quickly changing reactions. The man was so unsettled emotionally that it was like sensing the relentless turning of a color wheel. There was the sharp in-take of breath that came with shock, the hammering heart beat that accompanied anger, the sniffling and quivering that came with sadness, and the eventual plateau of evenness among it all when finally, calm blanketed over his system.

“Okay, so you know everything about me. Cute party trick. A real kicker. You should do it at the next office party.”

“You’re unemployed.”

“You’re a dick.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I’m making faces and flipping you the bird, just so you know.”

“Well, aren’t you a sweetheart.”

Foggy took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I take back that compliment from earlier, drunk-me. You made a terrible, irreversible life choice. You suck.”

He let out a sigh and rummaged around for a TV remote.

“Here, you can watch this. Consider it your homework while I head out for some things. It’s a sitcom called Friends, maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“Of course I’ve heard of Friends. I live in Hell, not under a rock.”

“Great. Glad to know that while I’m being tortured for all eternity, I can still get quality entertainment. Good for future reference. Now if you’ll excuse me--” Foggy said, hopping up from the couch, gathering his things, and drifting off into the world for God only knows what. The Devil figured Foggy went off to deal with the harsh wave of negative emotion he’d set off.

In the stillness of the apartment, suddenly so cold without Nelson’s presence, the Devil made a rather disturbing self-discovery.

The Devil felt guilty about his treatment of a sinner.

After approximately a week and a half of living with Foggy Nelson, the Devil made yet another discovery.

The Devil knew absolutely nothing about Foggy Nelson.

Not literally nothing, of course. The file had a pretty significant amount of information—sins, virtues, important memories and actions, important secrets. It didn’t capture these other things though.

The file did not prepare the Devil for laughter whose luminance rivaled the brightness of the sun itself. It did not prepare him for very warm, very unexpected hugs and pats and high fives ‘just because’. It did not prepare him for refreshingly sharp yet altogether ridiculous wit that was somehow both brilliant and moronic at the same time. It did not prepare him for what may arguably be the worst mortal dietary habits he’d ever seen. It did not prepare him for the constant scent of warm vanilla and cinnamon. It did not prepare him for unwavering optimism, kindness, and loyalty. It did not prepare him for equally unwavering determination and stubbornness. It did not prepare him for feeling disappointed when their conversations had to end because Foggy needed to go to work, or go to sleep, or do some other thing mortals did in their day-to-day lives. It did not prepare him for enjoying Foggy’s company.

The file did not prepare the Devil for liking Foggy Nelson. 

“Hey buddy, anyone home in there? Hellooooo? Earth to Judeo-Christian Darth Vader?”

“Please stop snapping your fingers in my face.”

“He lives! Huzzah!”

“I’m immortal, Foggy, there isn’t much of an alternative.”

“What if I dunk you in holy water and throw garlic at you?”

“I’m not a vampire, Foggy.”

“Could’ve fooled me. I was practically expecting you to sparkle like a diamond in the sunlight.”

The Devil groaned and Foggy was hiccupping with laughter.

An easy quiet fell between the two and the Devil rued having to break it.

“Hey—any luck with the job search?”

“Nope. I think the Lucky Charms guy cursed me for stealing his delicious marshmallows.”

The Devil calculated his words as precisely as he could, desperately hoping he wasn’t going to screw up what was—thus far—a pretty good deal.

“Have you considered opening your own firm? Taking your own cases, being your own boss?”

Foggy laughed in reply, usual cheer replaced with a rare pessimism. “C’mon, man, be serious. There’s no way I could do that by myself. I’m broke, I have no law partners, I have no clients, I barely have experience. There’s no way it could work.”

“What if I was your law partner?”

“That is the complete opposite of being serious in every way imaginable. ‘The Dark Lord Satan and Nelson, Attorneys at Law’?”

“Personas can easily be made; I’ve done it plenty of times before. And as an immortal being who’s been around since before the beginning of time, I assure you I’m more than qualified to practice law. The ‘lawyers are the Devil’ joke didn’t just manifest from nowhere, y’know. I can make everything happen with the snap of a finger, and if it doesn’t work, I can make it go away just as easily. All you need to do is agree, sign some papers, and show up.”

Foggy made weak arguments briefly before eventually caving in, just like the Devil knew he would. The offer was too good to refuse.

“Okay, fine. We can try this. Before we even get to the firm portion of it, though, we need to give you a fake name. ‘The Devil Himself’ isn’t gonna fly, especially in a neighborhood this Catholic. Plus it wouldn’t look right on business cards.”

The Devil smirked despite himself. He agreed with Lucifer—he wanted to have a little fun with his new name, if only for his own amusement.

“Should be simple enough—what was your favorite priest’s last name?”

“Uh. Father Murdock was pretty cool. He gave us lollipops for memorizing the Ten Commandments.”

“Murdock…let’s go with Matthew Michael then. Matthew Michael Murdock. The alliteration has a good ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“…Really? An evangelist, an archangel, and a priest? Really?”

The Devil—Matthew—grinned widely with pride. Luce would get a kick out of this one.

“You’re the worst.”

“By definition, yes.”

Foggy tried to hide the smile in his voice. The Devil picked up on it anyway.

“So it’s decided then. Murdock and Nelson, Attorneys at—“

“No. Nelson and Murdock sounds better.”

“You think?

“Trust me, Mr. Nelson. I can’t see worth shit, but my hearing’s spectacular.”

The Devil glowed with pride at making Foggy laugh so hard he cried and clapped his hands to compensate for the lack of air in his lungs. He liked getting that reaction out of Foggy. In fact, he wanted to get that reaction again an infinite number of times.

After gaining some sense of composure, Foggy grappled him into a bear hug.

“Me and you, Matty. We’re gonna do this. We’re gonna be the best damn satanic lawyers this city’s ever seen.”

The Devil decided he wanted his name to be said that fondly an infinite number of times, too.