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The majority of the time, you felt perfectly fine. You enjoyed the chaos within the House of Lamentation. It was fun to mess around with the brothers, and if anything ever went too far, you took care of it. It was all just a part of living in the Devildom, and you loved it.
Maybe that’s why it was so annoying when you felt like you were falling back into old habits. It was disappointing to feel yourself reacting the way you used to. You knew that the brothers weren’t that person. You knew that their raised voices and occasional destruction weren’t for the same reason. Repeating that sentiment to yourself, for some reason, still didn’t seem to register to you.
The effect was draining to say the least. Even the minor things added to the pile of thoughts that reminded you of moments you’d rather forget.
These past few days were beginning to weigh on you. You did your best not to let on to how you were feeling inside, but it was proving to be difficult.
Lucifer’s lectures or his shouting at his brothers grated on your ears. The lectures left you wanting to stare off into nothingness, but you tried to make sure that didn’t happen. Luckily, they were rarely directed at you. You didn’t want to know what the eldest brother’s reaction would be if he thought you were purposefully ignoring him.
Another reason was that Levi had taken up hounding after Mammon for the money he had borrowed lately. Their spats didn’t usually bother you that much, since they were a little entertaining. Despite that, sometimes their raised voices were enough to make your heart beat a little faster. Your amused smile would become slightly strained.
The others had been fine, no one had stolen Beel’s food, so he remained his cute hungry self.
There hadn’t been any food-related rampages.
Asmo hadn’t had anything go wrong with his beauty routine, so he was still content to cling to you.
He hadn’t burst into any rooms to express his grievances.
Belphie seemed more or less happy to sleep through or ignore in any case involving Lucifer, whatever commotion was going on.
In favor of his sin, he hadn’t gotten angry enough to do anything other than tell his brothers to shut up or whine about his sleep being disturbed.
To be honest, you were surprised that Satan had maintained a good mood during the time you’ve been on edge. Perhaps it had to do with the new rare book he’d been excited to get a hold of? Whatever the reason was, you felt grateful.
It made you feel a little guilty for thinking of them as some sort of ticking time bombs. None of them would hurt you on purpose, but there was an underlying anxiety when you were around them.
Especially with Satan. There were times when he would get mad at the slightest things. Even if it wasn’t a full-blown rampage, you weren’t sure if you could handle his anger at the moment.
You know he does his best to keep his anger at bay. It’s known to you that cares about his sin in a way that it can be an insecurity to him. You love him and you’re proud of him, so it bothers you to think of someone you hold so dearly in your heart, so poorly.
You were anxious though. You didn’t want to be crushed under the weight of your memories and overthinking. Most certainly though, you didn’t want that to happen in front of any of them. You did all you could to keep that to yourself and your room. That was for you and the time after you were sure it was too late in the night to be bothered by anyone.
___
You found yourself in the common room of the house with the brothers, minus Mammon and Satan. You didn’t know where they had snuck off to, but you and the rest had adjourned to the other room after dinner.
On one sofa, Levi had Beel as a captive audience while he explained some game he was into currently. The other sofa consisted of Belphie and Asmo taking comfort in you. Belphie laid his head on your thigh to use it as a pillow so he could nap. On your other side, Asmo leaned his head on your shoulder as he scrolled through Devilgram. Lucifer sat in the armchair reading a book, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere.
You too felt at peace. That feeling had felt all too rare lately, so you soaked it in. One of your hands brushed through Belphie’s hair as you rested your head back and closed your eyes.
It was too bad it didn’t last.
One moment you’re enjoying your mind’s quietness, next, Mammon is rushing into the room panicking.
“Satan’s gonna kill me! MC, can you-” Mammon didn’t get to finish asking his question before Satan came in hot on his heels.
“Mammon, you greedy bastard, you’re going to pay for stealing my book!”
Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the scene unfold. Your heart began to beat faster. Satan approached Mammon with murderous intent, so to try and save himself, Mammon dove next to you. His sudden movements disturbed Belphie and Asmo, forcing them to disgruntledly move from their spots. Mammon grabbed your shoulder to try and hide behind your back, startling you.
“MC! Tell Satan that he definitely shouldn’ kill me! You wouldn’ want your poor Mammon dead, would ya?” Mammon jostled your shoulder as he pleaded with you.
“Mammon, why would you even think of stealing Satan’s book?” Asmo asked as he moved as fast as he could to get out of the crossfire. Belphie groaned to himself about his idiot brothers as he plopped himself next to his twin.
“I heard somewhere that it would sell for a decent amount! I’m short on Grimm right now, okay? MC, hurry up an’ tell Satan to chill, he’ll listen to you!”
The sudden change in focus on you made you freeze up. You couldn’t say anything as you looked from Mammon to Satan who now stood in front of you. He seemed to tower over you, his figure intimidating you.
Lucifer’s book snapped shut, but before he could tell the two of them off, you spoke. You didn’t want Lucifer to escalate the delicate situation.
“Satan, Mammon can give it back if you-”
“Don’t waste your breath defending him, and don’t waste my time, MC. He already sold it!” Satan seemed to be getting worked up again, his voice taking on a slight growl when he told you what Mammon had done.
You felt your hands shaking slightly, so you clasped them together in your lap. You looked unbothered by Satan’s rage, but you could feel your control slipping away.
‘Just don’t start crying,’ you thought to yourself. ‘Anything but that.’
“Move MC, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t dare think of stealing from me again.”
You cleared your throat to get rid of the lump that had formed in it earning you a glare from Satan.
“We can work this out, would you please just back up a little?”
“Why are you defending him? Do you think it’s okay just to let him get away with it? For the last time, get out of my way!” He leaned down, staring you dead in the eye.
You felt yourself tremble slightly, the feeling no longer exclusive to your hands. Mammon seemed to notice as he looked at your face and saw the fear creeping up in your eyes.
“Oi, Satan, back off,” Mammon tried to say.
“Shut up! You think you can tell me what to do?”
“Satan, stop, you’re scaring MC.” Beel’s voice was stern, but Satan didn’t seem to care.
“S-Satan, maybe you should c-calm down a little…” even Levi chimed in, despite his own fear.
By now you could feel your eyes prickling with tears, and your breaths getting shallow.
His brothers' interjections only made Satan’s wrath flare up. Blinded by it, he was oblivious to the way you looked, what he saw was an obstacle. He never intended to hurt you though.
He turned to shout at his brothers.
“Stay out of this! Unless you are trying to pick a fight with me too, I suggest you keep your worthless mouths shut. All you ever do is-,” suddenly his fiery gaze snapped back to you, no longer finding it worth it to explain himself to them. “Damn it MC, I told you to MOVE!”
You didn’t have any time to react as his hand shot out to grab your wrist so that he could yank you off the sofa. His grip was painful. He had moved so fast that all you could do was let out a surprised yelp as you found yourself now standing.
At that, chaos broke out.
You heard Satan’s brothers shouting at him, but their words were drowned out by the blood rushing in your ears. All you could do was stare wide-eyed at the man you loved as tears rushed from your eyes.
You could feel Mammon’s arms around your waist as he tried to pull you back from Satan’s grip. Lucifer’s demon form was out as he and Beel had both gone to pull Satan off of you. You could see the other three were standing off to the side, but no less prepared to jump in if need be.
Satan seemed to finally have snapped out of it, as he was too stunned by what he’d done. He let himself be pulled away and he watched as you cradled your arm to your chest. He could see the bright red on your skin, he hadn’t realized how tightly he’d held you, would it bruise?
“MC, I-”
You remained silent. Your mind was stuck on the way he had been looking at you. There wasn’t a trace of the loving care he usually graced you with. Instead, all you saw was the malicious way he had looked at you.
You felt dizzy.
Were you getting too much air, or not enough? You didn’t know.
You dug your fingers into the arms around your waist, desperately trying to remove them.
“L-let go.”
Once they fell away, you tried to stand on your own, but your head felt too fuzzy. It was hard to tell what was going on.
You felt someone guide you to sit back down. A voice was gently trying to get through to you, you could tell that much. You tried to focus on what they were saying instead of your thoughts. Their voice sounded nice.
Your vision wasn’t swimming anymore and you could see Belphegor sitting next to you trying to get you to breathe along with the numbers he was counting off. His words became clear as you regained your composure.
“There we go.” Belphie offered you a soft smile.
“Thank you.” Your voice was small as you looked down at your lap.
Asmo sat down next to you before asking if he could hug you. You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak without starting to cry again. It didn’t matter though, as soon as his comforting arms were around you, you couldn’t help but softly weep.
“Oh, hon, it’s okay. It’s alright,” he consoled you gently.
You raised your head from his chest to look around the room. You met Lucifer’s gaze, he searched your face as if to make sure you were doing better.
“I’m sorry, MC.”
You heard Satan ‘tch’ at Lucifer’s words from where he stood next to him, refusing to look at you. You felt as if your heart cracked a little at his attitude.
“It’s okay, Lucifer. I,” You didn’t know what to say. “I think I’m going to go lay down for a bit. I’m tired.”
No one said anything as you got up and made your way to your room. Once you had made it there and had the door closed behind you, you slid down and rested your head in your arms. You let yourself zone out as you thought to yourself.
Should you have stayed there? Should you have explained what had happened, or why? This had never happened before, even with all the anger and frustration that came about in the house. They had never seen you like that before. You wondered how you were going to explain it.
You really hoped none of the brothers blamed themselves if you told them. It’s not like those reactions were something that happened all the time. You buried your head in your arms, you had worked hard to act normal around them. Were they going to think of you differently now?
You’d have to check in on Mammon. You hoped he wouldn’t be blaming himself for what happened. You were his human, and he felt a surprising amount of responsibility for you. You'd have to talk to him once you were feeling a little more up to it.
And then there was the obvious problem. You weren’t sure how to talk to Satan at all. It worried you that he might still be angry at you. He had refused to even look at you, maybe he needed more time to himself? No matter what, you needed to talk with him. It would be worse to just ignore what had happened, even if that seemed more appealing.
You sat like that for a while, too caught up in dwelling on the ‘what ifs’ of it all. Though the knock on your door was soft, it still startled you.
You scrambled to stand up, wincing at how your body disapproved. You opened the door and to your disbelief, Satan was standing there somewhat awkwardly. Opening the door a little wider, you offered for him to come inside.
“Are you doing okay?” He asked.
“Yeah.” You paused. “Did Lucifer get mad at you?”
“Of course he did,” Satan frowned, clearly annoyed by the memory before he looked regretful. “He wasn’t wrong to do so, though.”
Satan hesitated to hold your hand, but when you didn’t deny him, he held it tenderly.
“I’m so sorry, MC. What I did was unforgivable.”
“It’s okay, Satan.” He looked so sad. It made you want to reach out to him.
“It’s really not. You didn’t see how you looked. I was heartbroken when I saw just how scared you looked. How scared you were of me. The way you were shaking- that- that was because of me. I’ve never wanted something like that to happen, MC. I love you and I’d never want the person I love to be scared of me.” The green of his eyes shined even more brilliantly with the tears that began to gather within them. You needed to hold him close, so you did just that.
Satan was unsure whether or not he deserved your forgiveness, but he couldn’t resist wrapping his arms around you in return. He felt like he could melt at the way you buried your head into his chest.
“I want to be honest with you. I,” you paused, unsure if you were ready to tell someone. “I really was scared, but if- maybe if I wasn’t like this, things would have gone better?”
Your words confused him. “What do you mean ‘like this’?”
“This past week has been really stressful. There’s been so much noise, and it’s not like that normally bothers me, but it just added to the stress of everything. A lot of things are reminding me of someone, or I guess some moments that I wish I could forget. When you got in my face,” you took a deep breath, “It just made it really bad.”
He repressed the anger that welled up at the idea of someone making you repeatedly feel that way. What you needed was someone to understand and to care. He did not want you to feel uncomfortable.
“Oh, MC,” he brought his hand to caress your cheek as he raised your head to look at him, and you leaned into his touch. “Why didn't you talk to me, or any of us about it? You know we want you to be happy and feel safe.”
“Because it's embarrassing. It makes me feel pathetic. I hate feeling like that and I don’t want you guys to think of me differently because of it.”
“MC, please don’t feel embarrassed about your needs, or talking about them. I know my brothers and I aren’t… the best at communicating, but we wouldn’t spare any effort to make you feel comfortable. We all care about you. I care about you. I need you to know that you can always talk to me.”
You searched his face for a moment, taken aback by the amount of sincerity it held. It felt awkward to accept help, but you wanted it. It hurt you more to go through it alone, and you knew you could trust him. You nodded at him and he leaned down to place a soft kiss on your head. He pulled your head back to his chest and the two of you simply held each other.
“You know that I’m not really scared of you, right? I understand you,” you told him.
“Hm, you definitely are more than capable of telling my brothers and me off. Sometimes your sternness rivals even Lucifer’s.”
You laughed a little at that.
“I’m serious though, Satan. I want you to know that I care a lot about you too.”
“I know, MC.” He smiled at you. “Thank you.”
“Hey, Satan?”
“Hm?”
“I really am tired, would you mind reading to me in bed until I fall asleep?”
“I’d be more than happy to.”
You led him over to your bed and crawled under the covers. You held up the blankets for him as you looked at him imploringly. Satan couldn’t help but blush, but he tried to play it off by clearing his throat. Once he was next to you, you reached over to grab a random book from a pile that sat next to your bed to hand him. With the book in his hands and open, you cuddled up to his side. His familiar scent and warmth combined with his lovely voice lulled you to a gentle sleep.
Satan knew you were well asleep by the time he stopped reading. He set the book down to his side and looked at your serene expression. To himself, he promised to be there for you. He wanted to help bring you peace, even if that wasn’t in his nature. For you, he would try.
Later on in the day, Lucifer went to check on you. When he knocked on the door and didn’t receive an answer, he waited. When he didn’t hear anything, he quietly opened the door. He was greeted by the sight of you and Satan curled up together under your blankets soundly asleep.