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When Mammon walked into the living room and announced to his brothers something was wrong with you, not a single one of them looked surprised. The shift in your mood had been hanging in the House of Lamentation like a cloud for the past couple of weeks.
It had started innocently enough. You had said you were too tired to stay up for family movie night, and in a move that the brothers knew was uncharacteristic of you, you did not give in to their pleading to stay up anyway.
But the next day, you emerged later than usual, looking worse for wear than when they had seen you the night before. Beelzebub had gently prodded, tried to see how your night had gone, and your assurance it had been fine had sent a ripple through all seven of your housemates—after all, every demon could smell a lie like perfume.
The brothers had been unsure on how to press the matter; normally it was you who carefully navigated these types of situations for them. You were kind, caring. Maybe it was the part of you that was descended of angels, but there was something about you that was so achingly soft, that all of them had come to rely on your expertise when it came to troubled emotions. You were their confidant. Their guide. Their protector. And after a few rebuffed, misshaped attempts from the demons to try and return the favor for you, they began to worry amongst themselves.
Asmodeus was the first one to realize you were not showering as often as you usually did. Your hair went unstyled, your uniform looked unkempt. You showed up at RAD every day without fail, but you certainly did not dress like someone who cared they were to be seen.
Satan was the one to realize your temper was shortening. Your boundless patience for the seven of them and their idiosyncrasies seemed to have suddenly run dry. Your smile was almost empty when you greeted them, and when faced with trouble, you no longer seemed to handle the difficulties with the grace you usually did. You excused yourself from the table when the ruckus got too loud, and Satan could feel your flares of annoyance when your DDD went off with a text alert, or Mammon dug himself into some fiasco. You had even allowed Lucifer to wholly own one of Mammon’s punishments, not stepping in to barter a reduction of sentence.
Beelzebub had watched your appetite change. You pecked at food you usually enjoyed, but in between meals you meandered to the fridge to root around for something to munch on. He was not used to seeing you like this; the way you dug through the drawers and shelves was almost mindless, like you were not even aware of what you were doing. More than this, though, when he asked to eat with you, you always had some excuse to simply disappear back into your room.
Lucifer had noted the way you confined yourself away more keenly than the rest of his brothers. You joined breakfast a little later each day, and you left dinner a little earlier every evening. But it was more than this. It was the way your eyes were downcast, the way you gave silent huffs when he or any of his brothers tried to talk to you. The way you suddenly could not look at yourself in the mirror, like you were afraid of what you would see.
Mammon’s final straw, though, was when he had gone to your room to try and convince you to go shopping with him and you had simply called through a locked door that he should go away.
“We can’t keep lettin’ them sit in their room like this!” Mammon announced to his brothers. “They’re gonna turn into Levi.”
“Had to slip in that burn, lololol,” Leviathan remarked, but every single one of his brothers could tell he was actually far more worried about you than offended at the comparison. “I tried inviting them to watch that new anime with me, though, and they said no. Not that I blame them, I’m just an otaku, right?”
“They’ve been irritable, too,” Satan hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve never felt them get overwhelmed by Luke’s talking before, but the other day, it was like watching a kettle boil over. Luckily, Luke did not appear to notice.”
The brothers exchanged a long, strange look.
“Is it a curse or something, do you think?” Asmodeus asked. “It’s just not like them at all, right? And it came out of nowhere.”
“If it was a curse, Lucifer and Satan would’ve been able to pick up on it by now,” Belphegor commented, cracking open one of his purple eyes as he lied upon the sofa.
Another long silence fell over the room; he was right, of course.
“Well, then, I say we host an intervention!” Mammon declared. “They may not want to come out, so we’ll make ‘em come out!”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Beelzebub offered. “I don’t think they’d do it to us like that…”
Lucifer sighed. “We don’t have to drag them out of the room, Beel,” he offered lowly. “But maybe if we all approach in concern, they’ll be willing to speak with us.”
There was no better idea at the moment, so they all stood and moved together as a clump toward your door. Still, when they got close enough to the door to knock, something made them seven of them freeze in place.
Something tingled down their spine; a dark presence that immediately made all of them frown. “The hell is that?” Mammon demanded at once.
Lucifer held up a hand. “Silence,” he ordered. His garnet eyes hardened and he reached, rapping a gloved hand against the door. Your name spilled from his lips, a strong, sincere tone to the sound. “May we speak a moment?”
Inside they could hear the shifting of the bedcovers, though whether you were rolling over to avoid the confrontation or rising they could not decipher at first. The bed creaked, and the sound of the old floorboards groaning under your shuffled feet painted a map of you approaching the door.
“What do you need, Lucifer?” You were asking as you opened the door. Your eyes, blank with flashes of annoyance peered up at him through a crack in the door; you startled when you realized he was not alone. “What’s this about?”
“Please excuse me,” Lucifer drawled, pressing open the door and stepping into your dark room with a purposeful gait.
Immediately you frowned, glaring at him weakly. “I never said you could come in,” you groused. The eldest, though, did not seem to listen to you at all.
Satan and Beel pushed in next, one flicking green eyes through the shadows with an almost dangerous intent, the other setting a hand on your shoulder to guide you back behind his broad back. “Are you all right?” Beelzebub inquired, his low voice gentle and concerned.
You blinked up at him. “I’m fine,” you lied.
“Oh, hon, you can’t lie to us anymore, okay?” Asmo trilled, skipping forward to settle an arm around your shoulders. “Tell us the truth. What’s wrong?”
You looked from Asmo to Beel, to Lucifer and Satan who were still poking around your room, to Mammon and Levi and Belphie who were coming toward you themselves. “I’m not lying,” you said meekly. “I’m fine. Just…tired.”
“Yes, I’d imagine you are,” Lucifer observed. “But it’s not tired in the sense that you want us to believe, right? It’s pervasive. It’s bone-achingly deep.” His garnet eyes slid to you, his face knowing.
You grimaced at the observation. “I’m just—”
Satan interrupted you, his velvet voice uttering your name. “You don’t have to put up a front for us,” he said quietly. “Things have felt harder than usual, right? Like getting out of bed is a giant effort?”
Slowly you nodded. “Everything’s too much. RAD, noise, meals, showers…I just want to disappear,” you said quietly.
“Disappear?! You ain’t allowed to disappear,” Mammon barked with a frown. “The hell do you mean, you want to disappear?”
“Stop it, Mammon,” Belphie chided, giving his brother a small glare. His purple eyes looked back to you. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You’re all going through enough,” you mumbled, fighting back hot tears as Beelzebub’s large, strong hand began to sift through your hair. “I just didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“But we’re here for you, no matter what,” Beel hummed gently. “You won’t make us hate you no matter what.”
“Depression is a stubborn ailment,” Lucifer said quietly. “One that attracts certain demons. They are excellent mimics. They take your voice, they speak to you of things that are untrue.”
“Wait, you mean that presence we feel in here is a demon?” Mammon gasped.
You frowned. “What?”
Lucifer turned, frowning into the darkness. “No demon shall pose a threat to you anymore,” he promised you over his shoulder. He uttered an incantation, the whole room buzzing with his power as he worked his spell. For a moment, you caught sight of an almost formless demon with red, sinister eyes and body made of shadow; but just as quickly as you saw it, it was gone.
“W-what was that thing?!” You cried.
“Something that I will not allow back,” Lucifer answered.
Satan moved toward you, setting a hand on your back in a comforting touch that was almost awkward in feel. “It’s all right to struggle with depression,” Satan said to you. “But we love you, and we won’t let you listen to lies from demons like that.”
You stood blinking as hot tears pressed in around your eyes, and as you began to feel the water slip in sticky trails down your cheeks, arms came around you to hold you close. You lost track of how many of your demons were touching you, cradling you, listening to you sob in ugly, powerful splutters—but you felt their warmth. You felt their safety.
“I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t know what to do anymore,” you wailed miserably. “I just feel like everything would be better if I weren’t here.”
“Shhh,” Beel soothed, his large hand trailing through your hair again as he pressed you closer to his chest.
“That’s crazy,” Mammon declared. “Everything would be worse if you weren’t here!”
“I know it’s rare, but this time Mammon’s right!” Asmodeus chimed. “You have a beauty that transcends the skin. Your soul is a bright little jewel, you know?”
“Lolololol, they don’t want to be told their soul is a jewel, Asmo,” Levi interjected. “What Asmo means is that you’re an ultra-rare pull! Everyone wants to have you around. And maybe you don’t want to hear this because I’m an awful otaku, but you’re my best friend! What fresh hell it would be to have to live in a world without you.”
“What both of my idiot brothers mean is that you’re more valuable than you think you are. All of us would be lost without you,” Belphie drawled, a small smile on his lips.
“The voice that was telling you you’re worthless was that demon,” Satan soothed.
You sniffled, looking up at all their faces before settling on Lucifer. “Does that mean…this will finally stop? I’ll…I’ll feel better?”
“What it means is that nobody will be preying upon you any more,” Lucifer answered. “I can’t promise this feeling will disappear overnight, but…you have my word upon my own name that you will be okay.”
“And we’ll be right here with you,” Beel offered, smiling down at you. “So don’t hide in here. Let’s go get something to eat.”
You slowly nodded. “Yeah…okay,” you murmured, following along with the brothers as they led you back out into the hall. You were not sure you felt better, but as they accompanied you into the light beyond your dark room, you did—for the first time in weeks—feel a sense of hope.