Work Text:
“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?” A deep voice sighs behind you.
Hearing a voice you weren’t expecting makes you fumble, almost losing your balance and falling off the chair you’re mostly standing on. You yelp and quickly correct yourself, replanting your feet on the swivel chair. You throw a small glare over your shoulder when you are firmly balanced.
It’s Solomon, leaning against your door frame as he looks up at you with a smile and a raised eyebrow. He’s in his comfortable clothes, having taken off his RAD uniform, his hair is damp from the shower he just got out of. From what you heard, there was a mishap in his potions class, one that only he could fix.
You huff and turn back to what you were doing before you were so rudely interrupted, taking everything off your bookshelf to dust and reorganize. Grabbing the last stack of books, you shimmy the chair to turn and jump off, the books covering most of your vision while you walk to your bed. You gently drop the books on your bed, sighing before looking at the sorcerer that’s still watching you from the doorway.
“I don’t know. Do you?” You quip back, also raising your eyebrow and putting your hands on your hips.
“I heard thumps and stomping. Maybe even a little cursing. For a second, I was almost worried you hurt yourself,” He smiles, moving to cross his arms over his chest, “do you need help?”
You scoff at his teasing, rolling your eyes and walk back over to your -now empty- bookcase. Grabbing the dusting rag from one of the lower shelves, you grunt as you step back on the chair.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a while since the last time I deep cleaned and reorganized my room. I know it’s gonna take a while though, I still need to move the bookcase, mu bed, the dresser, and the side tables. I already did the desk, which is where you heard the cursing. Stupid drawer slipped open and slammed into my hip. There’s leftovers in the fridge though if you’re hungry.” You say as you dust the shelves on the top of the case. Jeez there’s a lot of dust here.
Solomon hums from the doorway, still not moving. His head tilted and eyes curious. He isn’t particularly hungry, still full from the lunch you made him, and he has nothing else to do. He’s heard from the brothers about this little habit of yours, rearranging everything in your room by yourself and giving yourself bruises from moving and shimming heavy items by yourself to their new desired place. He’s heard you do it, but this is the first time he’s seen you in the act.
“Why not use magic to help you? Surely it would be faster and you wouldn’t be as tired?” Solomon asks, stepping over the threshold of your room, looking at the scattered mess that’s on your bed. Your books, binders, figures, stuffies, and little mementos had to go somewhere while you were cleaning. You using your magic to clean would tire you out, if you were a normal human with normal magic, he muses to himself, but it being you, it would be no sweat to use magic to move everything and more.
“Well, I could, but where’s the fun in that? If I use magic to clean it kinda takes away from the purpose of why I’m cleaning in the place.” You mutter, scrubbing the dust in a corner harder.
“Okay… what is the purpose though?” Solomon laughs, picking up a well-loved stuffed animal before setting it carefully back on the bed.
“To get out of my head. Besides, it looks nice when it’s all been moved and cleaned, it’s like spring cleaning!” You smile when you see the shelf has been perfectly dusted.
You nod your head once and turn to look down at the white haired man. Solomon meets your gaze and hums again, walking over to you. He looks over at what your room looks like at the moment. Your bed is moved to the center of the room (instead of right against the wall), your desk, dresser, couch, bookshelf and dresser are all shoved in a new place. All your paper and assignments are nowhere to be found, which is a miracle by itself. The amount of homework RAD teachers hand out is atrocious. He looks back at you to see that you haven’t moved.
“You… You’ve never had the urge to clean?” You ask softly, your eyes searching his. You’re playing with the rag in your hands, twisting and pulling it nervously as you wait for an answer.
“I can’t say I have. I know I’ve had to clean when my workroom gets too full of cursed objects that I can’t use any magic without the chance of setting something on fire. I cleaned Purgatory Hall before Barbatos would come over, but that was never often, believe it or not, angels are pretty tidy.” He jokes, holding out his hand for you to take.
You hesitate before placing your hand in his and look around at the mess all over your room. You started cleaning right when you got home from RAD, the itch under your skin not letting you do anything else and the whispers in the back of your head relentless now that you have stopped moving. There was still so much to do, how could you stop now? Why did you stop now? You haven’t done nearly enough work yet.
A firm hand squeeze shakes you out of your thoughts. Solomon is turned towards you, his eyes locked on yours as if trying to figure out what you are thinking. You smile sheepishly at him and turn back to the bookshelf, but he doesn’t let your hand go.
“How about we take a break? It doesn’t have to be long, but let’s get some water or something, maybe sit for a minute or two.” He smiles, tilting his head and gesturing to the door.
Cold panic seizes up your spine and you shake your head. You can’t stop yet, there’s still a mess, you’ve left a mess you ungrateful spoiled-
“Starlight, you’ve been working for over 5 hours with no breaks and I doubt you’ve eaten since lunch. You wouldn’t let me get away with this, why would I let you?” Solomon’s voice is firm but gentle. Gently scolding you while letting you know that he’s not actually mad at you.
“I left a mess everywhere though, I can’t stop until it’s clean.” You mumble, looking back out at the room. Solomon's gentle hand moves your chin to look at him, he’s still smiling, albeit it’s a little smaller now.
“Lovely, this is your room, and all of this is
your
stuff. It isn’t a mess, and even if it was, it’s okay for it to be. This is your space, it’s okay to leave it to go take a break, you’re not leaving forever and if it bothers you so much, you can close the door while we take a break, no biggie right?” He reasons, still holding your face so lovingly, not letting your brain eat away at you like this.
You chew your lip, the anxiety of leaving everything out of place freezing your nerves, but now that you have stopped, you can feel how exhausted and thirsty you are. You have been cleaning for over 5 hours, but you also were at RAD all day, and while you love them and wouldn’t change them for the world, watching over 7 demon brothers was absolutely draining over long periods of time with no rest.
You were expected to do everything for your own brothers and parents when you were growing up, even though you are the youngest. You are used to giving and giving and giving until you break down and get called selfish before the cycle repeats again.That’s what you are used to, and being far away from that, being far away from people telling you what they need you to do and passive- aggressively guilting you to do it faster was scary to you. It was new and you didn’t know how to handle that.
As if sensing where your line of thought was, Solomon uses his other hand to grab yours. He starts humming a tune that you can’t quite place, but sound familiar all the same. You faintly realize that your hand is shaking. The thoughts that you were trying so hard to escape from have caught up to you now, and you’re briefly thankful that they got you now, and not in the middle of the night where you would feel too anxious to move things around, not wanting to wake anyone up.
“How about this, we finish this together, hmm? I’m sure with both of us working it’ll be done in no time and then we can sit and talk about our day. I might even be willing to do it your way, with no magic, if that’s what you really would prefer, or we could make it fun and have a few magic lessons while we clean, if you still desire some distance from your thoughts at the moment, but know that this isn’t a forever solution, it’s only until you feel like you can be you again, sound good?” Solomon whispers, rubbing under your cheek with his thumb.
You nod stiffly and smile a little, feeling the weight in your chest loosen a little bit, the idea of magic lessons sweetening the deal. You can already feel the sludge of your parents' voices sliding off your back and your energy returning. With Solomon helping you, you’re sure you can get this done fast and still have things in a spot that makes you happy.
Tomorrow maybe you can take Solomon on a hike as a thank-you. You give him a quick kiss before peeling away from him, taking a deep breath and letting it out, smiling at the idea of a challenge.
“Maybe after we clean, I can make you something to cheer you up!”
…and there goes your hope for a peaceful evening.