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The tennis racket was a heavy weight in her hand, swinging with reckless abandon, desperate to rally his serves. A human was no match for a demon after all. It was unfair, really, how he only started playing today. And it was unfair how lavish Prince Diavolo’s tennis courts were. Who knew if he even played? The neon green ball a comet as it whooshed past her ear. The demon’s boisterous voice bringing her back to reality.
“Hey, hey, hey! Another point for me! Suck it!”
She smiled, affecting at amiable, approaching the net to shake his hand in a display of sportsmanship.
“That makes it 30-Love.”
His hand wiggled in her grip, his hackles raised.
“L-Love!?”
He crowed on about pet names, always filled with opinions about every little thing, before she could explain herself. She was too sweaty to bother anyway.
“You won.” She cut him off, taking the ring she wagered off her finger. Despite her history, she was a woman of her word. And it didn’t interest her to find out how demons reacted to being conned. She dropped it unceremoniously in his hand, noting the way his eyes gleamed sharp and gold, the light shifting as he inspected it.
She had heard that pacts bound souls. It was an intimate affair in theory, but that Sorcerer made it seem so transactional and Leviathan so trivial. She knew now to never listen to Solomon or Envy again. This is horrible. It started with his casual demeanor that first week. Then the forced proximity. Followed by casual games of tennis and willingly spending time together. Now, having dinner with a Greed demon, over a cup of Demonus. She realized just how easily his kind slip past defenses.
She ought to be ashamed, forgetting her ways with every second spent around him. But she found herself talking. About her past, her thoughts… Just her.
And he listened. Quite intently, in fact. His head tilted towards her, ears greedy to hear everything she had to say. His loud mouth and bright eyes made him easy to get along with, easy to like. He laughed when he should have, gaped when the stories called for it. He reveled in her history of trickery, a modern-day rogue she’d called herself, swindling money and affections for a good time.
And to reward him, she showed him the treasures of her labor.
“I didn’t expect the Prince to move everything.” She commented, leaning against her dresser. “I don’t even know how he found it. I thought I hid it quite well. That’s my emergency stash, in case I need to make a quick getaway. I’d grab it and go.”
Her remark went ignored, the white-haired demon running his hands over the jewelry box, now down one fairly won ring. While she parted ways with the ring somewhat easily, she felt protective over the other treasures in the box. His head turned to her, staring and deadly still, so at odds with the erratic movements she had come to expect from him. Before she could say anything, he jolted away, far from her most valued memories.
“Did you know that we can tell when you’re feeling our Sin?”
She tilted her head. The Demonus coursed sluggishly through her bones. Her skull felt heavier, lips looser. She bit her tongue so as to not say what she really wanted to.
“Is that so?”
He nodded, hair falling over his face and hiding his eyes from her.
“With the pact, I can feel your Greed more strongly.” He was shifty, twitching. “I won’t touch your things from now on.”
How horrible to be so intrinsically linked.
“What else does the pact do then? There seems to be more to it than getting awesomely strong.”
She asked, trying to shake off her vulnerability. Mammon straightened up, always in on pretending.
“H-huh!? I made a pact with a human who don’t know nothin’ ‘bout them!? I’m so unlucky, man..! I was trapped!”
He groaned, falling onto her bed with all the weight of a secret best kept. And maybe it was the way he pouted, his hands twitching for the gold that lay just out of reach, but she followed him down too. Face to face, she felt at the cusp of some horrible, sickening feeling, her own hands itching to reach out for what she wanted most too.
Maybe it was the soul pact motivating her, but she hoped he felt her Greed then, and hoped he knew it had nothing to do with gold.
But she knew what she told him tonight. He wouldn’t believe her if she told him just how quickly she’d turn her back on her old ways. It could be love, it could be Stockholm syndrome. All she knew is that they were bandits in arms, used to the game of scheming and coveting what belonged to another. Turning onto her back, she gazed at the canopy of a tree, feeling for all the world like a little girl on a picnic blanket in the gardens.
“It’s okay,” She sighed, smiling, eyes drifting close. “It’s only for a year, then you’ll be free.”
To that, he had no response. Seems she still had her tricks about her.
“Dancing is a dangerous game.”
She smiled, as if reacting to an inside joke known only to her. The white-haired demon huffed, stomping away, grumbling something about undeserving, ungrateful humans and two left feet. Mammon was insufferable, yes, but he wasn’t unpopular, easily finding another dance partner who’d gladly take his hand.
She knew what would happen if she took what he offered so freely, what he gave away without knowing. It seemed that, despite being a Greed demon, Mammon was endlessly generous. Just in ways others didn’t see.
She came face to face with another white-haired man, his smile less joy-inducing. His proffered hand invited her to a place she no longer wanted to return to. After a few months, it seems the Devil tempted yet another.
“I heard that you don’t play games,” the Sorcerer commented, hinting at what she hid away. “But I hope you’ll humor a friend.”
Raising a brow, she opted to walk away, not finding much friendship in those graying eyes. Ignoring the hint, Solomon trailed behind her, enjoying her standoffishness. His attention drew hers to Mammon dancing around the room in big, sweeping circles. The Sorcerer’s eyebrows wiggled insinuations.
“You and Mammon are quite close.” He started, getting at something she didn’t bother with. “You can put up with him?”
Noting the lack of response, he continues.
“Most find him annoying, calling him a con man or an idiot. A blubbering fool, I heard once.”
Annoyed, she decided to turn her back to the large space of Diavolo’s ballroom. She knew, of course she knew. And she knew then that she was changing. Mammon was right, in time, she’d feel the others’ sins, she just didn’t expect it to be Wrath. It felt righteous, deserving.
“It takes one to know one.” Her eyes slid to Solomon’s, his reaction pleasantly surprised. She sighed and turned away. Would Satan smell the Wrath on her? Would he similarly be drawn to her?
She thumbed her empty finger, eyes easily finding the white-haired demon. An itch traveled down her arms then, her hands seeking something. She didn’t like the thought.
He tried, once, to give back the ring. She refused, shrugging.
“It’s not that important to me,” She lied. “Why do you think I bet it in the first place?”
Dinner was a loud affair. While Lucifer pretended, he felt too much affection to truly stop the rowdiness of the table. Perhaps he’d miss it. Asmodeus lamented his latest post not gaining its usual attention, leading to Leviathan to launch into an impassioned rant about his newest idol not getting enough streams, resulting in Beelzebub mentioning the grocery store being out of stock of a certain item.
Mammon cut in then, the youngest at the table only getting a frown in, stomach grumbling despite the stacked plate in front of him. Her Greed demon raved about his schemes, buying stock and manipulating market supply to inflate prices. His hands waved around, hair whipping around. A tug in their pact. And so she sympathized with the need to do anything to have what you crave most.
Satan groaned then, deigning it time to knock his older brother down.
“Don’t bother listening to him,” the Wrath-filled one addressed her. “He’s an idiot most of the time, and a moron the rest.”
The white-haired demon’s shouted indignation went ignored by the table.
“He’s right, dearest,” Asmodeus cooed, latching onto any opportunities to hear his voice. Mammon’s glare at the pet name went ignored too. “All Mammon does is talk, think, and dream about money. He’s my older brother, but he’s pathetic honestly~ How you even put up with him is beyond me!”
The demon being slandered could no longer take it, exploding into retorts and shouts at his brothers. She watched his hands move around, dancing his familiar dance of being put down time and time again. Beelzebub shifted slightly, sneaking food off his brother’s plate while protecting his own.
‘Does he ever get tired?’ She wondered, Levi now rolling his eyes at Mammon’s tirade. Her hand stopped his cup from spilling over. She found it unfair how everyone got to grapple with their sins in their own ways until Mammon mentioned wanting another credit card.
“You seem to possess an unending patience for Mammon that even the most powerful demons do not have,” Lucifer commented, eyes cutting into hers. “Even I, as his older brother, find him unbearable on certain days.”
“Hey-! C’mon, man, what is it, ‘Insult Mammon Day!?’ While I’m grateful there’s a holiday for me, there should at least be one where you give me money as an offering! Yeah, that’d be great! ‘Give Mammon Money Day!’ I’m just a simple demon who loves that shiny, gold coin!”
“That’s all you care about! Seriously, do you even love anything else?!”
Mammon faltered, eyes shooting between Levi’s and hers (for some reason).
“W-What!?! H-hey! The Great Mammon has no need or time f-for-!”
His gaze seemed to avoid hers after that, even as the table moved on to other topics.
He was practically moved in. A burrow dug into his side of the mattress, his shoes tossed under the bed, a toothbrush stood next to another. Everyone knew, no one bothered to comment. It was routine to find her demon running around, to follow him where he led astray, dragging her by force if he had to. He didn't have to pull for long until her traitorous legs made her follow after. He'd smirk, satisfied, crow about "humans who learned their place!"
Despite that, he was the one who sought his way into her heart, disrupting her and her lonesome ways despite being perfectly content with it. (She was, right?) But Lucifer couldn't say no to Mammon's puppy eyes when it counted, so how can she when even the Pride demon doesn't prevail?
That's what she would tell herself as she'd fall asleep, hands warm.
She laughed, finding it pathetic how glad she was to be found by him. How he was the first to come.
He didn’t share in her humor even then, eyes wide, arms cradling her like his most precious treasure. He seemed shocked, he didn’t know just how much blood a human stored inside their body. His eyes screamed a million different things, questions, accusations. His recently-freed brother was restrained by the rest.
“Y-you-”
She seemed to have a talent for this. Maybe she could have made great money in wagering with Lucifer and Prince Diavolo to keep Mammon quiet. Once more, and only in front of her, his mouth didn’t run past him.
She laughed once more, a bloody, painful one that seemed to incite more pain in the room than joy. His arms shook, bearing the weight of shared regrets and missed opportunities.
“I told you, I still had some tricks up my sleeve.”
She awoke under the leaves of her bedroom ceiling. The burn of deja vu under her chest, she sat up, feeling the time that passed her by, the time she lived yet didn’t.
She was aware of the temporary ways of life. If she stood patiently in the rushing waters, she could eventually collect enough gold deposits in her measly tin pan. Even if the water bit and sliced at her legs, she would withstand out of pure stubbornness, even with nothing to show for all her suffering. She would remain still just to catch glimpses of the shine she so adored. She knew that the water that passed her by was never the same, all coming from a source she was too afraid to trudge to.
Perhaps she’d be disappointed by what she found there. Or maybe she didn’t want to know the mundaneness that fueled her avoidance. Or maybe she was content staying still, never moving on, never running towards.
“Mammon…” She whispered his name in the dead silence of the room. He wouldn’t show, no one would, still dealing with the aftereffects of her death and subsequent revival, her tampering in timelines. All the while, she stayed still, only interested in what sought her out. The conquests that landed on her doorstep.
Her inaction had her killed. That was certain. And it would seek to ruin her more.
Even now, she missed him, his name hanging from her lips like the Gardens of Babylon. And her affections were plotting her loss in this battle. But she felt it wouldn’t be too bad, to be weak for now then to pass by, like ships in the dark sea, guided away from the knowledge that the wreck would be too great to deal with.
She smiled at the audience before her. She was only here a year and now she was leaving. The time was but a blimp in the expanse of his immortal life. He would be the one to see through forever and more, and she would be a memory wrapped around his finger.
She was a liar, first and foremost. She never did change her ways. Breaking his heart so thoroughly with the betrayal of her short life and the sight of her back. But, as the portal glowed, lighting the way back home, she found humor in her own heartbreak. Even though she ultimately lost, her Greed was boundless. She had pulled off her most successful heist yet, had stolen a heart, but still wanted more.
How cruel of him. Being so hard to leave.
She ignored the tug on their pact, the way his soul would seek her out despite being in front of each other. It would probably continue on when they’re separated by the realms. An emptiness in her heart that’d serve as a reminder of the connection that coiled there, a dragon burrowed in its treasure trove.
She knew that she’d never love again.
Not when the sight of gold no longer stoked her greed, not when the call of domesticity rang in her ears. It filled her with panic, even now, and as she always did, she rallied her defenses, saddling her horses to turn tail. What she had stolen had paled in comparison to what he ripped from her. She had lost the game, and the war.
Forever is the sweetest con.