Work Text:
Lucifer trudged home after a long day discussing things at the palace with Prince Diavolo. It seemed like his workload was only going to increase, which meant more late nights for him.
He closed his eyes in preemptive exhaustion as he made his way up to the door and entered the House of Lamentation.
He was greeted by the sounds of loud arguing as usual, and expected to see Satan throwing a fit again but as he got into the parlor he saw it was actually just Mammon and Levi.
“Oh, Lucifer, you’re back,” Belphagor said from where he was lying on one of the couches. “Beel and Asmo are making dinner tonight.”
Lucifer shut his eyes briefly. “I suppose I should go make sure they haven’t either eaten everything or burned the kitchen down.”
The kitchen was just as chaotic but Lucifer was thankfully able to help straighten out the mess and come up with something presentable for dinner.
When everyone was called to the table, Lucifer looked around.
“Where’s Satan?”
“He hasn’t come out of his room all day,” Levi said.
“That’s not true, he did once, and then had the nerve to growl at me when I crossed paths with him,” Asmo said, obviously offended.
Lucifer felt a headache starting to form behind his eyes. “Can someone please at least go tell him dinner is ready?”
There was a quick squabble before Lucifer snapped, “Mammon, go before the food gets cold.”
“Aw come on, why do I gotta do it?” Mammon muttered as he left the room.
They waited, Lucifer piercing Beel with a look to keep him from eating anything. Mammon eventually hurried back.
“Where is your brother?” Lucifer asked.
“Dude, he can do whatever he wants. All I did was knock on his door and he threw something it at. I’m not gonna let that be my head next time.”
Lucifer huffed a sigh and stood. “Fine, all of you can eat, I’ll go talk to him.”
Lucifer made his way upstairs and toward Satan’s room. He knocked.
“I said go away!” the voice snarled from the other side of the door.
“It’s time for dinner,” Lucifer said firmly. “You should come down before it’s all gone.”
Something heavy hit the door. “Leave me alone!”
Lucifer gritted his teeth and yanked on the door handle only to find it locked. “Don’t make me get the key for this door, Satan—I told you before we had a rule against locking doors.”
“I’m not hungry, just leave me alone.”
Lucifer fought the urge to tear his hair out and decided to let this one go. “Fine. If you’re so eager to stay in your room do it. Your dinner is forfeit. Don’t even think of sneaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night. I don’t want to see you out of this room until you can be civil.”
Another thump against the door had new rage flaring through Lucifer. “Use this time to fix your attitude.”
He spun on his heel and headed back to the table.
His food was cold by that time, but he was too exhausted to care.
“So, no Satan?” Mammon asked.
Lucifer grunted. “He’s decided to hole himself up in his room so I told him to stay there.”
“We can save him some dinner,” Beel said even as he reached for seconds.
“He’s being punished, everyone needs to stay clear of him,” Lucifer said.
He honestly didn’t know what he was going to do about Satan. He had hoped the anger issues would work their way out after a while and he would get to know everyone. But he only tolerated the other brothers at best. Every time Lucifer thought progress was being made, something always happened to cause him to fly into a fit and make everyone his enemy yet again.
Still, the fact stood that Lucifer had too much to worry about to fix his brothers’ issues. He put Mammon and Levi on clean-up duty and headed to his office to work late into the night.
When he finally left his study and crept upstairs he spotted a shadowy figure sneaking from Satan’s room.
“I told you to stay in your room,” he snapped.
The figure, wrapped in a blanket, froze, swaying slightly as if unsure of which way to go.
“Satan, you are welcome to come and join the rest of us tomorrow if you are feeling more civilized.”
“Fuck you, Lucifer,” Satan growled before he turned around and slammed his door purposefully.
Lucifer winced, hearing several complaints from rooms further down the hall.
He felt like he was doing everything wrong, but what was he supposed to do?
***
The next day Lucifer kept Satan in the back of his mind as he went about his business. There was still no sign of the demon anywhere, to the point where Lucifer started to get worried.
By the afternoon, he decided that he was going to have to have to be the one to go to the demon and try to make amends. Satan could resent him all he wanted, but that didn’t mean he had to be completely miserable here. Lucifer didn’t want that. At the end of the day, Satan was one of his brothers and he loved him just as much as all the others.
He knocked quietly on the door. “Satan, it’s Lucifer.”
There was thankfully nothing thrown at the door this time. “Is it alright if I come in? I want to talk.”
There was still no answer. Lucifer frowned and tested the door. It was unlocked this time, which he took as an improvement.
“I’m coming in,” he called and opened the door.
The room was full of books, stacks of them spilling off the shelves. Lucifer wended his way through them until he got to Satan’s bed where a pile of blankets was bundled in the center.
Lucifer sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you awake, Satan?”
There was a brief stirring from the blankets and Lucifer took that as confirmation. “I’m sorry I had to punish you yesterday, but you really need to work on your temper. Everyone was just concerned that they hadn’t seen you and all you did was throw books at them and tell them to go away.”
He frowned as he felt an almost imperceptible shivering coming from the blankets. Was Satan scared of him?
“Satan? Come out of the blankets.”
The demon made no move to do so and Lucifer finally reached out to peel one blanket away from his face.
Satan’s eyes were closed, his cheeks flushed. Sweat beaded on his brow as his breath came labored and wet.
Lucifer stared in alarm, quickly pressing a hand to the demon’s cheek. He was burning up.
“You’re sick,” he said in realization.
Satan’s eyes flew open briefly, fluttering in panic. He struggled, trying to swat Lucifer away.
“G-get away from me!” he whimpered. “Go away!”
“You need to cool down, let’s get some of these blankets off,” Lucifer insisted.
But Satan flailed and clawed at him, snarling as Lucifer tried to remove the blankets. “Don’t touch me! You didn’t care before, d-don’t bother pretending now!”
Lucifer was taken aback by that. “How was I supposed to know you were sick if you didn’t tell anyone?” he snapped.
Satan ignored him, body shuddering in fevered shakes.
“Have you taken any medicine?”
“How could I find any? You wouldn’t let me leave my room!” Satan croaked, before he coughed into his pillow and turned his back further on Lucifer.
The eldest demon felt his heart sink in realization. That was probably why Satan had been out in the hall last night and Lucifer had told him to go back to his room. “You should have told me.”
Satan ignored him, simply shivering, and Lucifer sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder, even as he stiffened. “I’ll be back.”
He hurried out of the room, meeting Mammon in the hallway.
“Still being a little shit?”
“He’s sick,” Lucifer snapped. “I need to go pick up some medicine.”
“Oh, is there anything I can do?” Mammon asked, instantly sympathetic.
“If you could maybe put some soup together, something that would be easy on his stomach.”
Mammon nodded giving a small salute. “I got it.”
Lucifer hurried into town, buying a few items he thought would help Satan feel better. He, on the other hand, felt awful. He should have been able to tell something was wrong, that was his job after all, to look after his younger brothers. He could blame his near constant exhaustion and heavy workload, but in reality, it was because he had distanced himself from all of them. When he should have been forging stronger bonds, and new ones with Satan, he had instead pushed his brothers away.
When he was on his way home, he passed a bookshop and hesitated. He should get something in apology, something Satan would hopefully like.
After making a decision on the gift, Lucifer hurried back to the mansion and brought all the things into Satan’s room along with a cup of tea and some water and cool cloths.
Satan moaned as Lucifer started to peel away his covers. “M’cold.”
“I know you feel cold, but that’s because of the fever,” Lucifer said quietly. “We need to get you cooled off in order to lower it.”
Satan turned away in annoyance and Lucifer turned to open the bottle of medicine he’d bought, measuring out the proper amount.
“Here, can you sit up and take this? It will help with the fever.”
Satan shook his head into the pillows and Lucifer closed his eyes briefly, begging for strength, before he reached down with the intent to prop Satan up.
He squirmed away though. “Don’ touch me. Ev’rything hurts…”
“I know, fevers aren’t pleasant,” Lucifer said, his heart tugging painfully. “Here, how about this then?”
He slipped a gentle hand behind Satan’s head and shifted his pillows to prop him up a little straighter. Satan winced but didn’t protest again.
“Here, now take the medicine.”
Lucifer brought it to his lips but Satan turned his head to the side like a petulant child. “I can do it!” he snapped.
He extricated a shaking hand and tried to take the tiny cup from Lucifer, but he was shaking so much several drops spilled over his fingers.
“Satan,” Lucifer warned. “Just let me help.”
“I don’t need your help, I never did! I don’t even know why I’m here—no one likes me anyway!”
Lucifer was taken aback by that sudden admission. “Is that what you think?”
Satan angrily drank the medicine, some of it dripping down his chin which he wiped against his sleeve. “D-don’t pretend it’s not true!” he snapped. “No one ever invites me to do anything. They all just shut up and walk away when I’m around.”
Lucifer frowned as he sat on the side of the bed. “Satan, the only reason they do that is because you were so adamantly against doing anything when we first got here that you would fly into a rage when anyone so much as looked at you.”
“So it’s my fault?!”
“It’s everyone’s fault for not trying harder—especially mine,” Lucifer said quietly. “But at the end of the day, you’re our brother and we love you.”
“You’re lying!” Satan’s eyes started to glisten, his face crumpling in anger. “I don’t believe you!”
Lucifer simply reached out and pulled Satan in against his chest. The demon shuddered, trying to headbutt him and shove him away but he was quite weak from the fever at the moment.
“Let me go!” he wailed, batting at Lucifer’s ribs.
But Lucifer simply held him tighter, pressing his cheek against the top of Satan’s head. “I’m sorry we made you feel like that, that was never my intention. But I would never lie to you, Satan, especially about family—about being family. It’s very important to me, and it’s important that you know that I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
The tears began to overflow and slip down his cheeks and he finally slumped against Lucifer, exhaustion winning out. He shook and hiccupped as Lucifer rocked him gently back and forth.
“I don’t want you to feel alone here, because you’re not,” Lucifer told him. “You’re one of us.”
Satan finally pulled away, scrubbing at his face, obviously embarrassed. Lucifer opened the new box of tissues he’d gotten and handed it to the younger demon silently.
Satan blew his nose and slumped back on the bed. “This is miserable.”
“I know,” Lucifer said, taking up the cool rag he had brought and squeezing the excess water into a bowl. He settled it against Satan’s forehead and the blonde groaned lightly, eyes sliding shut.
“Can I get you anything else?” Lucifer asked.
Satan shook his head.
Lucifer stood and pulled the last item from the stuff he had bought, setting it on the bed beside Satan. “I also got you this, I thought you might like it.”
Satan shakily took up the book of silly cat comics Lucifer had picked out after some deliberation.
His eyes widened. “Wait, how…?”
Lucifer smiled. “You’re always talking about cats, I know you like them. I thought this might make you feel better.”
Satan sniffed, clutching the book tightly. “Lucifer…I’m sorry…”
“So am I,” Lucifer said. “Let’s all agree to do better, okay?”
Satan nodded and Lucifer settled a hand on his head, ruffling his hair gently.
“I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit. Mammon’s making some soup too, would you like me to bring you some when it’s finished?”
“Okay.”
Lucifer pulled a light sheet over Satan and made his way out of the room. Was he confident that peace would last forever? No. But maybe at least everyone would be a little more civil going forward.