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Changing the past

Summary:

This was a request : Barbatos with mc, who has the same powers as him but is more unhinged and careless about it?

Notes:

I had to look up the lore about Barbatos. I hope I did well :)

Work Text:

When you were in the human world and even after your arrival in the Devildom, you knew you didn’t have any powers and you didn’t understand, for the life of you, how you got them but when the first time they appeared, you got scared.

You were in the past, watching yourself getting into shenanigans with the Anti-Lucifer league but a few seconds ago, you were being scolded by Lucifer for a prank that had gone wrong and he was actually getting really angry. He was scaring you, being all menacing a dark aura surrounding him, his demon form was out and it was the first time you saw him that furious. You had closed your eyes, wishing you could change the outcome of that prank and you knew what was your mistake. You were conflicted. Should you stop the prank or improve it so it would work better but you thought about the angry demon and decided to abort the prank once your past self and the Anti- Lucifer league finished installing it. You ran quickly to the device and broke it. You sighed in relief and willed yourself to the present. You were still standing in front of Lucifer but this time, he was just casually talking to you about his new purchase. You remembered that was what you wanted to do. While he was talking, you felt something in the back of your brain and your memories started to meld together. Once he dismissed you, Satan and Belphegor came to see you. “What happened? What did go wrong?” You shrugged. “I guess it was not meant to work.” You left them, speechless.

After your new discovery, you tested your abilities, what you could and couldn’t do. You did it discreetly, changing tiny details during the day for the next few days until you felt confident enough to do something a bit bigger. A couple of weeks ago, you had a test that you knew you failed so you waited for the results and you were right! You had failed miserably. So you went home quickly after class and redid your test with the correct answers and went back in time to swipe your test with the new one. You were back to the new present and you shuddered at the idea of Lucifer giving you an hour-long lecture about how you couldn’t fail as an exchange student. You were glad you avoided it! Your memories melded together again. New memories colliding with your old ones making your head hurt. You cried out in pain and everyone watched you then you passed away.

You woke up in your bed. Lucifer and Barbatos were standing next to you, talking. Your head was still hurting and you were still in a daze. You couldn’t understand what they were saying. Lucifer finally looked at you and bent down a bit so he was at eyes level. “How are you feeling?” You nodded slightly your head. “My head still hurts a bit.” He stood up. “What happened?” You looked at the two demons who looked a bit intimidating from your point of view. “I don’t know! I just had a piercing headache and I blacked out.” Barbatos looked at you suspiciously. You haven’t told them about your powers, the same ones as Barbatos, as you now realised. You winced at the realisation. Maybe he knew? He approached your bed and put a gloved hand on your forehead. “We felt some sort of magic when you were asleep. I didn’t think you had any?” You shrugged and looked away as to not to reveal any information. “No, I’m a simple human. No magic, nothing noticeable about me.” Barbatos hummed but what you didn’t know was that the Butler felt that some changes had been mad in the Time and had been investigating the source. He hadn’t said anything to Lord Diavolo or Lucifer yet but he had his suspicions which you just revealed unknowingly. You hadn’t managed to damage the timeline yet so he decided that you were a responsible human usually and would use your powers accordingly. You fell asleep even though they were talking to you and left you alone.

You carried on testing your powers. You went back in time to eavesdrop on other people, to play some tricks on Lucifer or his brothers and one time even on Lord Diavolo. It was all very harmless but you did everything to steer clear of Barbatos. The stoic Butler had a way to make you feel embarrassed and scared. You knew he knew and you waited for him everyday, after a trip to the past, to come and kidnap you to his secret dungeon that everyone knew he had but he never did such a thing, which was nerve wrecking at the same time.

Creating new memories while you still had your old ones started to change something in your brain. You were slowly getting reckless during your travels in the past. You would confuse the new and old memories while talking to your friends and sometimes act like you never changed anything. You didn’t notice but Barbatos who was watching you did. He sometimes dropped by the House of Lamentations and would ask the brothers how you had been but he was always disappointed that they didn’t see any changes. You were still normal most of the time but your time travel would always take something from you and Barbatos knew that. That’s why he never did it himself unless he was asked to. He decided to talk to you before you would make a horrible mistake.

You were asleep when you heard an unusual ringtone. You followed the sound half-asleep and realised it was your phone from the human world. You answered as it was someone from your family. They said that your parents were in an accident and they both died. You dropped onto your knees. Maybe if you didn’t spent your energy going back, you could have tried to see if you could see the future. You thanked your family member and hung up. You stayed on your knees, the news hadn’t really kicked in yet. Maybe, maybe you could go back and prevent that accident. You stood up and left the HoL. It was still the middle of the night but you didn’t care, you were still in your pjs but you didn’t care, you were an easy prey for the demons roaming about but your mind was numb and you ran to the Castle of Lord Diavolo. You were about to knock when the door opened. Barbatos greeted you. “Please come in.” You frowned but entered inside once he stood on the side to let you in. “Lord Diavolo is waiting for you in his office.” You nodded and followed the Butler.

You were sitting in front of the Young Prince, a cup of tea in your hands. Lord Diavolo looked at you with a small smile. “What brings you here in the middle of the night?” You looked up at him, suddenly realising why you were there. “I need to go to the human realm. I just learned my parents are dead.” He nodded and looked at Barbatos. “Sure, take the time you need. Do you need to go back to the House before going?” You shook your head. “No, I’m fine.” He shrugged and Barbatos left and came back with a few clothes. “You can’t go back home with your pyjamas.” You chuckled at the silliness of the situation. “No, I can’t, can I?” You put some clothes on top of your pyjamas and Barbatos opened a portal but before you passed it through, he grabbed your wrist. “We need to talk when you come back.” You nodded and jumped through the portal. You were in an empty alleyway near your parent’s building. You looked around to make sure no one was watching and went back to the past. You arrived at your parent’s the day before their accident and knocked on their door. You spent the day with them and as you didn’t know what happened exactly, you just did everything in your power to prevent for them to take the car.

With the death of your parents averted, you went back to the Devildom and went back to your life. The death of your parents from the old timeline had made a mark on your mind. You didn’t have time to grieve them that you saved them and your brain couldn’t process all these informations at once. It messed up your thought’s process and now you were changing the past more and more. You trained yourself to see the future but with so many futures to look into, your brain would freeze up and you would end up with a massive nosebleed so you eventually stopped doing it. You were obsessed with improving your past. You had an argument with someone, either you went back to the why or you went back to the argument itself and answered differently. It was like a drug and you were addicted.

Barbatos had had that talk with you but you didn’t change or stop, you were more and more reckless and now you didn’t care about the consequences as long as your immediate present was better. No guilt as you changed your mistakes, no grieving as you would prevent the deaths of your loved ones, no anger as you would resolve whatever problem would make you angry. It was liberating to change the past as you pleased and nothing bad had happened and the more you did it, the less you felt it actually changed anything in the long run. The thing was even if it was only the people surrounding you that was affected by your time travels it had affected all the Devildom. Your powers were almost as strong as Barbatos and the demon knew he had to do something before some catastrophic events happened. Barbatos, as a demon, could look into the future without being affected and the more futures he looked into the more he got worried. In all of them, something bad happened unless he did something to you. A thing he never would want to do but he had to if he couldn’t find an alternative. He finally talked to Lord Diavolo about his worries and the Lord gave him permission to go about and find a solution without physically hurting you. Barbatos went from libraries to libraries, met with witches and sorcerers alike, went back in time a couple of times, and finally he found the solution. He was going to build a cell and a helmet with a metal that suppressed any magic. It pained him but it was a necessary step to avoid an inevitable end of the world.

The next time you travelled back, he would be ready. He used some of his powers to track you wherever and whenever you were. Nobody but he knew where you went so he grabbed you and put a hand on your mouth. He opened a portal and jumped through it while his grip around you tightened so you wouldn’t fight. He didn’t need magic to subdue you, you were just a human after all. The portal brought you right in front of the cell. He threw you inside and jumped on you to put the helmet on.

You tried to use your powers and the more you tried the more your head ached. Finally you passed out. Barbatos took you in his arms and gently lied you down on the bed he installed there for you. His chest tightened. He didn’t want to do that but you were leading them to grave danger. He put a hand on your cheek and rubbed some circle with his thumb. You looked normal, sweet and lovely while asleep. He had noticed that your eyes had become deranged since you came back from the human world. He knew he shouldn’t have let you go there but your parents had just died and now they were alive again. He knew going back to the past and changing things could affect the mind of a lower demon, so for a human it must have been even more dangerous. He scolded himself for not thinking about this and stopping that sooner, but you were, well used to be, so sensible and rational. He thought you might have been able to stop when everything went out of control.

You opened your eyes. You didn’t recognise your surroundings. It was dark, a small source of light coming from a small lamp on a desk. You rubbed your eyes and felt something on your forehead. You touched it and realised it was some sort of helmet. You wondered what happened, then memories came rushing back. It finally happened. Barbatos kidnapped you and imprisoned you in his dungeon.