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Regardless of how strict and cold Lucifer could be at times towards them, all MC ever wanted to do was earn approval from the first-born demon brother.
One of the principles that Lucifer had always stressed was the importance of maturity, and handling all situations in an adult manner. That was one of the reasons why he heavily disapproved of his younger brothers’ antics, which were often childish in nature.
Whenever such a situation would happen, much to their surprise, Lucifer would direct the brothers’ attention to MC as an example to follow. Even the younger brothers themselves acknowledged this, for it was a known fact that MC was usually the most mature out of all of them.
Although this should have satisfied the aforementioned craving for praise, it only hurt them more and more whenever this happened.
MC was the only one who knew that this ‘mature’ appearance of theirs was only an act, and nights like this were the most solid proof of that.
Long story short, MC was afraid of the dark. Or, more accurately, of the possibility of not being alone in the dark.
This phobia had begun to develop long ago, and even back in the human realm, MC suffered from sleepless nights from time to time.
Unbeknownst to anyone else, arriving in the Devildom had increased these negative effects at least tenfold.
At least in the human realm, there was evidence enough that a person like MC could reason with themselves why their fears were irrational. There was no such thing as monsters, as all humans like them were taught to believe. As a result, the only major fear that had kept MC awake back then was the fear of the human brand of monsters, a paranoia that they could come and attack at any time.
In this cursed realm that lay below, on the other hand, all these fears became painfully real.
It was common knowledge in the Devildom that a major chunk of the denizens were comprised of nothing but purely evil souls, who manipulated and devoured poor little lambs like MC for breakfast. On top of that, these days the human population in the realm was increasing (with certain protections and restrictions, of course) in an effort by Diavolo to mitigate the tensions between the three realms.
Therefore, both sides of this fear of nighttime became an actual possibility.
Still, the worry failed to make sense. MC lived in the House of Lamentation with seven of the most powerful demons known to every single lower-ranking denizen. They had formed alliances and pacts with all of them, and if a common demon dared to lay a finger on them, the wrath of all the brothers would almost certainly be summoned at once.
The problem was, since MC had their own room, every night was spent painfully alone. This loneliness would slowly creep into their brain when the darkness intensified, and rekindle the fears with a renewed strength.
Sometimes, one or a few of the brothers would offer to sleep in their room, as a makeshift sleepover. No matter how much they needed it, though, MC would always turn them down. They didn’t want to show any signs of vulnerability, especially not around Lucifer.
This night, being an even tougher night than usual, MC’s only wish was that they had accepted their kindness.
They couldn’t exactly put their finger on it, but they just felt so damn alone, even though they were technically surrounded in plenty by beings who genuinely cared for them (although some of them chose to hid it in a sort of twisted way).
Complete, pitch-black darkness surrounded them. Asking for at least a nightlight to be installed in the room would be an immediate red flag to Lucifer as to what was going on, so they had kept their mouth shut, letting what felt like claws tear out their heart piece by piece.
Irrationality took over MC’s mind, to the point where even the smallest bump in the night would send them into a crazed frenzy of anxiety and terror.
They didn’t know why or how this was happening, but what was apparent was the sheer shame that became prominent.
The dark is something that only children are known to be afraid of. Letting something so childlike get to them made MC feel embarrassed every time they thought about it, which also contributed to why they refused to tell any of the demon brothers anything.
Although these demons were cunning, they were not mind-readers. As long as MC was stuck in this cycle of self-doubt, they would not even know what was happening, much less how to help.
Unfortunately, this only led to the fears and the anxiety growing stronger and stronger, to the point where MC finally burst into hysterical tears, because it had never gotten so fucking bad before.
To prevent anyone else’s sleep from being disturbed, MC buried their face into their pillow, which effectively muffled out the cries.
Or, so they thought.
Downstairs in the office, Lucifer was still hard at work filing paperwork. In fact, almost all of his nights were spent hunched over his desk. Sometimes he would take an actual nap during the day, but most of the time he functioned on little to no sleep. His brothers and MC knew that Lucifer worked after hours, but they didn’t know just how frequently this was occurring.
However, it was all the same to him. He had grown accustomed to it, such a routine was just another day in the life for him. He was actually thankful in a way to this; his pride thrived off of being able to stick to rigid routines and rituals such as these.
Just as always, all of his things were where they should be. He held his pen firmly in his hand, with a container of spare pens tucked neatly away in a corner of his desk. He had neatly organised the swathes of paper sheets into stacks, one for those that had been completed, and the other for those that had yet to be. The latter stack, even without exaggeration, stretched nearly towards the ceiling.
Lucifer’s auditory company was mainly the metronome-like ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, his regular breathing, and the buzzing of the light as its inner electrical components were hard at work.
Everything was normal.
Almost too normal.
This uncanny feeling was akin to the nonstop buzzing of a mosquito or the persistent itching sensation of a rash - it was extremely difficult to carry on doing just about anything unless the source of said feeling was dealt with.
Lucifer could be stubborn sometimes, but he was far from stupid. Even he knew that he would not be able to complete any work efficiently without pondering on the matter for some time.
Taking in a heavy, defeated sigh, he leaned back in his chair. As his spine stretched in this way, he turned upwards to gaze at the rather decrepit ceiling.
“Urgh, this gnawing inside my chest… Something must indeed be terribly, terribly wrong.”
His mind ran like clockwork, churning out a list of the possible causes and evaluating them one by one.
“Did Mammon steal my credit card again? No, if he did I’d already have his throat on the floor by now… Or what if Satan raged at someone and nearly burnt his room to the floor again? That can’t be it either, it’s way too quiet for that…”
He glanced questioningly at his paperwork once more, as if asking the inanimate papers whether leaving his office to investigate the matter was really worth it.
That seemed to answer itself, as Lucifer figured,
“This work wasn’t going to get done anytime soon anyway… It’ll take no more than five minutes to put the matter to rest, and that couldn’t hurt much, right?”
Yet again, however, Lucifer’s usually razor-sharp guesses had failed him. This was far from the broken wires, misplaced objects, or minor mischievous spirits that he was expecting.
He himself didn’t know this, at least not while aimlessly pacing back and forth around the foyer, still hoping somewhat that the answer would pop out right in front of him on its own.
Unfortunately, as he soon came to realise, this just wasn’t how this situation was going to work. Despite his not being easily inclined to carnal instincts, he had no choice but to simply be led by his gut feelings.
Through this, he found himself trudging up the looming staircase. This gave him more questions than answers, since that was where the bedrooms were, and he had already established that this situation was not the doing of any of his brothers.
Nonetheless, he ultimately decided to let the exploration unfold by itself as he advanced forward. A faint, melancholy cry that suddenly reached his ears, though, made him stop in his tracks as if blocked by a wall.
At this moment, MC’s phobia-induced panic attack had sprawled on for so long that their heart was running at a mile a minute. Continuous sobs had turned into periodic sniffles and cries, as they genuinely felt as if they were going to die as a result of all this.
Like most people, MC had moments where they wished that everything would just stop. Now that this sense of impending doom was consuming them, however, everything was taking a turn for the worse rather than for the better.
There was no end in sight for them. Through the thoughts that ran even faster than their current heart rate, the sheer loneliness was even worse than their current perception of death.
“Maybe I deserve to die alone after all… I’ll never be worthy enough to fit in with the brothers, I’ll never be able to match up to Lucifer’s expectations… I really never deserved their kindness…”
It is said that if you speak of the devil, the devil will appear. Ironically, this was even more true in the actual Devildom. Just as MC was thinking about how much Lucifer would supposedly hate them, the door creaked open.
An “Oh, shit!” alarm quickly sounded through MC’s head, temporarily interrupting the chaos as they scrambled to get the blankets over them. The darkness did not permit them to know who had entered, but whoever it was, the last thing they wanted was to expose any weakness to them.
Unfortunately for them, their reflex actions were far too sloppy, and far too late. Even Mammon wouldn’t have fallen for it.
Standing in the doorway, Lucifer had already heard everything that he needed to know. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, seeing MC like this shook his heart, bringing down his cold exterior. Against all his efforts, he was now trembling like a mouse, eyes gone wide.
He cleared his throat to regain at least a bit of composure before declaring,
“I know you’re awake, MC.”
Lucifer’s deep, immediately recognisable voice did the opposite to MC of what he intended. Rather than bringing them out of hiding, it sent them even deeper, adding onto the fear of the dark the even bigger fear that they had somehow let down Lucifer.
Sometimes, even he forgot how much his disposition intimidated others. As a result, some time passed before Lucifer put two and two together.
When he did, he felt more ashamed than ever before.
He was supposed to be the one protecting the others, especially MC. As a protector, he should have been the first one MC flocked to. Yet, here they were now, trying in vain to escape him like the plague.
In his eyes, MC was a fragile glass that he sometimes believed would shatter if he came too close. Yes, he was well aware that they could be incredibly strong-willed, even stubborn at times as well. At the end of the day, though, this was the Devildom. This realm was just not designed for humans and demons to coexist. Being one of the strongest demons of them all, he feared that he would one day unintentionally hurt them beyond repair. This was another thing he felt guilty about, having fears as the demon that everyone looked up to as fearless.
All that said, he shook all these personal sentiments off for now. As he now knew, this avoidance of his was hurting MC more than it was helping them. Therefore, on this night, he was determined that this would not be the moment where his fears would come true.
He wouldn’t let whatever MC’s fears were come true, either.
Put simply, he wanted to get closer to MC to do this, softening his tone to make himself seem more approachable.
“Hey… Is it okay if I sit on the bed with you? I know I’ve been too overbearing lately… And you don’t have to tell me anything that you don’t want to.”
The anxiety attack had turned their brain to mush, but MC still could not believe their ears. Never in a million years did they imagine that Lucifer would let his persona down, especially not for a human like them.
Not strong enough yet to form words, all they could offer was a simple affirmative hum. Besides, it still felt like they were going to lose their life, so there really wasn’t much at stake for them.
He took heed of their permission, still being as careful and gentle as he possibly could. While he was climbing onto the bed, he was even wary enough to not let the springs of the mattress creak too much under his weight.
Once he was on, he scooted as close as he could to MC while still respecting their personal space. He was never a man of too many words, let alone words of comfort. Still, his eyebrows furrowed softly as he meticulously thought of what he could do or say to overcome this stereotype.
“Is it okay if I hug you, MC?” was what he decided on.
MC paused for a bit to take in the unusual comfort that those words provided before humming affirmatively once more.
Before caution could hold him back, Lucifer threw his arms around MC. He held on tightly enough that they could feel the impact of this embrace, but not so tight that they would suffocate, refraining from mimicking a certain incident involving the seventh-born brother.
Although Lucifer was well-known for having a rough, muscular physique, the effect that this touch had on MC was quite different.
For the first time in what may as well been their entire tenure in the Devildom, MC felt safe and genuinely loved. This was their first time being vulnerable to any of the brothers, Lucifer in particular, but this warm hug made it apparent to them that at least some of the catastrophic things they thought were going to happen could not be further from the truth.
Of course, touch alone did not completely halt the effects that the dark had brought on. It was still dark, as neither of them had turned on the lights. MC’s anxiety, although diminished, was still very much present. As such, more tears came to their eyes that they were still worried about letting out in front of Lucifer. Instead, they opted to bury their face in his chest. They bit their lip, as the stress of holding everything back caused their heart to start racing again.
Lucifer’s heart rate was comparatively low, as cuddling with MC had done him good as well. The difference between his larger, slow heartbeat and MC’s smaller, quicker heartbeat snapped him out of his comfortable trance. He was now more perceptive, and he immediately knew what was going on when the slight wet feeling of a few escaped tears hit his clothing.
MC noticed this too, and felt it necessary to apologise.
“I’m sorry for being so weak… I shouldn’t be crying in front of you.”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow, not knowing what they were going on about.
“I don’t understand. Why are you calling yourself weak?”
“Don’t you feel the tears? I’m crying… You always call out your brothers for being emotional, you always tell them to be stronger… Crying makes me look weak, and that would disappoint you…”
He wasn’t prepared for MC to bring that up, because they were absolutely right. He did lash out at his brothers for showing anger, sadness, disgust, fear… What he didn’t let any of them in on was that he did this to hide the fact that their behaviour reminded him of his own emotions, that he had always made every effort to lock away.
It would be hypocritical if he only told MC now that it was okay to cry, and that they didn’t have to be so afraid of showing emotions to him, when he had never offered those same permissions to himself or his brothers.
He had to own up to his own mistakes first, and be as vulnerable to MC as he wanted them to be to him.
“I won’t lie and say that you’re wrong. As demons, there has always been an expectation on us to be firm and unmoving emotionally as statues. To tell you the truth, though, all of us do feel the same emotions as you humans. Yes, that includes me too.” He clarified.
“Then, why…?”
“I’m not a perfect demon myself, MC, even though I may present myself as so. I have countless apologies that I owe you as well as my brothers, for destroying the health of all of you simply because I was bringing myself down.” He soothed, all the while keeping his arms firm around them.
All of this raw, frank honesty from the demon who was only regarded for his façades and fake appearances softened MC even further.
“It’s okay if I cry to you?”
He smiled weakly but sincerely, as he rubbed their back.
“You don’t ever have to ask permission. I admire you, MC. I believe that you are even stronger than me, for having the courage to admit that you are not well.”
That was all the affirmation they needed. Curling up even further on Lucifer’s chest, they finally let it all out, as it hit them that he did care after all. All the anxiety, all the uncertainty, all the loneliness, all the fear that the dark often instilled in them came tumbling out in the form of tears.
Staying true to his word, Lucifer did not reprimand them even once for this. He didn’t attempt to say anything, really, because all of this had taught him to let go of his very sin, pride. He simply laid his head on theirs and increased the strength of his grip ever so slightly, as a way of showing to MC rather than simply telling them that he would always be there. He even let out a few tears of his own, because MC was truly not alone in this, and nor would they ever be.
When all was said and done, the crying left MC a shaky and snotty mess on the outside. On the inside, though, they had never felt lighter.
Lucifer produced his handkerchief from his pocket, and not caring how expensive it was, used it to gently clean up MC’s face.
“Thank you…”
“It’s really not anything. I simply dislike the thought of anything staining your beautiful face.”
He ignored for the moment how much his compliment had flustered MC, and gathered up the courage to ask the question that had been itching at him all this time.
“MC… I hate to ask this, because it feels like an intrusion on your personal matters, but I really would like to know what caused this to begin with. I especially need to know if it’s a demon to blame for this, so I can take the appropriate measures against them.”
They opened their mouth, but embarrassment still prevented any words from coming out. Therefore, they turned their face away, becoming flustered even more.
With a serious, but not intimidating look on his features, he placed two fingers under MC’s chin to bring their face back in front of his.
Even through the dark, MC could feel how close in proximity their faces were, and were certain that by now Lucifer could feel the heat radiating from their cheeks.
“Even if you’re not comfortable with answering, I would much rather prefer your voice over silence.”
This statement motivated MC to share the truth.
“I don’t know how to explain this exactly, but I think I might have a phobia of the dark-“
“Cover your eyes.”
They had just enough time to follow this sudden instruction before Lucifer jumped off the bed so abruptly that he stumbled and almost tumbled down comically to the floor, and made a break for the light switch. Once the lights were on, he went back to the bed and resumed his former gentle hug position.
Once MC uncovered their eyes, Lucifer could now see the look of pure confusion on them more clearly.
“I apologise, but I did not want your eyes to be hurt with the sudden influx of light.”
The attention to detail from Lucifer put a just so slightly noticeable smile on MC’s face, as their face relaxed.
“Now, carry on with what you were saying.”
“I don’t know what triggered it exactly, but when I tried to go to bed tonight, the way the darkness was just completely surrounding me made my mind anxious even beyond words… I began to imagine ‘what-if’ scenarios of things and creatures suddenly popping out of the dark to take my life… Then, I started sweating all over, and my breathing and my heart became so fast that it felt like I could actually die… Yeah, it all just went downhill from there.”
Lucifer’s first instinct upon hearing this was to ask, “Why didn’t you come to me?” If needed, he knew that he would spend the rest of the night curled up with MC to help banish those fears, and even every night after that. Remembering what they said earlier, though, he kept his mouth zipped and asked something more relevant instead.
“I know you don’t keep a nightlight, but why didn’t you turn these regular lights on to start with, if I may ask?”
“I was afraid of disturbing others… They might wake up, and even if they didn’t, they would wonder why I slept with the lights on.”
Knowing how careful MC was in caring for them, when if anything it should be the other way around, Lucifer couldn’t help but let out a rather cute chuckle. Ruffling MC’s hair in an endearing way, he replied,
“I think you forget what some of us demons have slept through before.”
“That’s true… I was still scared, though, because I don’t know what I’d tell everyone…”
“If there’s one thing that both you and I have learned tonight, MC, it’s being honest with the ones who care about you. No matter how embarrassing something might be, I’m sure my brothers will be here for you as well.”
The honesty part made sense, but Lucifer’s brothers could be quite rowdy at times. Sometimes they questioned how much they cared for them aside from the daily shenanigans, if at all.
Reading their face like a book, Lucifer elaborated,
“I know my brothers are truly the opposite of serious sometimes. They really are. When it comes to you, though, I think you also forget how far they would be willing to go for you. Mammon spends money that he doesn’t even have for you. Leviathan always gets new video games just to have an excuse to spend time with you. Satan would probably travel to the human realm to get any book about human illnesses that he could get his hands on for you if you got sick. Asmodeus would sacrifice all his expensive makeup just to make you feel beautiful for once. Beelzebub would spend every ounce of willpower he has to hold himself back from eating something if he knew you liked it. Belphegor would give you his whole supply of pillows just to see you get a good night’s sleep.”
This whole entire speech, although very comforting, sent MC’s head in a spin. Lucifer stopped himself when he realised how long he had drawled on for, and cleared his throat.
“Point is, I’m not the only one who’s here for you. We all care about you, MC. And if any of my brothers ever do anything that makes you believe otherwise, let’s just say that they will receive a fitting punishment.”
“Mhm…” MC agreed, but they could not say much more, for sleepiness and calm was finally beginning to set in.
“Hm, I really lecture on too much. Let’s get you some much needed sleep, shall we?”
He arranged the blankets and comforters on top of MC, tucking them in soundly and with great care. Once a slowed breathing pattern and quiet indicated to him that MC was fast asleep, he gazed upon their calm expression and smiled from ear to ear.
Nothing could make him happier than knowing MC was safe.
He debated getting up and going back to work now that this task was finished, but he didn’t want MC to be lonely in being the only one to improve their habits. By letting himself sleep as well, he knew that MC would get the memo that he was right there beside them the whole way.
But really, that was an excuse he made up for himself. In reality, he just didn’t want to separate from MC, and sleeping next to them was the completion to his heart that he didn’t know he needed.
“I really do cherish every second spent with you, MC. Whether it’s cuddled up blissfully like this or bravely helping you confront your fears, I love you and every part of you. Someday, I hope you will be aware of this love. I would even set free a million fireflies for you, if that would guard you against your fears.”
He curled up next to them in a spooning position, and drifted off to sleep with the soothing image of MC’s face being the last thing that he thought of for the night.
Unbeknownst to him, MC was still slightly conscious and heard every word of what was said. A genuine smile grew on their face.
Lucifer was supposed to be the darkest demon, the fallen angel rejected from the heavens.
Yet, the light inside his soul was much bigger than his reputation. MC was now also gradually becoming aware of the own light that they possessed as well. Of course, the fear itself might not disappear in its entirety for a long, long time.
With their two lights combined, though, maybe the dark wasn’t so scary after all.