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It began like any other acute illness...
Nausea, lack of appetite, fever, coughing, sneezing, joint aches...
Barbatos was prescribed cough medication and painkillers, and given a week off work..
The symptoms didn't get better.. no... They slowly worsened... With time, nausea turned into a complete rejection of anything consumed orally, whether it'd be something as big as a roast dinner, or as small as a sip of water...
A cough slowly turned into coughing up blood and finding it difficult to breathe...
Joint aches soon turned into loss of muscle tone, and an inability to stand for long periods of time..
And soon, the ability to even stand up at all...
And the ability to hold his head up diminished slowly, as well as his abilities to hold anything heavier than 200g..
A week turned into two, then three, then a full month, and soon, Barbatos had been off of his job for 2 years, with no idea as to when he would be able to work again..
The memories play again and again in his mind...
Memories of before this all happened...
Cycling in the woods, giving speeches in public, catering for elaborate banquets and gatherings, eating his favourite foods, playing chess with Diavolo...
Little things that he once took for granted...
He never could've anticipated what was about to happen...
He feels his eyes tear up..
They've been doing that a lot recently, which is weird because he never used to cry so much before...
Then again, he used to be able to distract himself with sewing or baking or anything else that he fancied doing..
He glances at his dusty sewing machine, the thread from the last project still threaded into the needle..
How he wishes that he could just get up right now and do something productive with his time instead of rotting away in his bed, just waiting for death to take him away.....
He hasn't been outside since he lost the ability to stand and walk...
He yearns to feel the sun on his skin again, to yank out the stupid cannula in his wrist..
To feel like he's actually alive for the first time in years...
He hears a knock at his room door..
'c-come in..'
Diavolo walks in, with a little vial of life elixir.. the only reason that Barbatos is alive..
He's given this every 2 waking hours... It's the only think that his stomach won't reject when consumed..
He wishes that it wasn't though, because he absolutely hates the elixir..
The only thing it's doing is keeping him alive. Not stopping the pain, not making his joints stronger, not giving him an appetite again... No. All it does is prolong his suffering..
And Diavolo does this because he's too scared of letting the inevitable happen.. He doesn't want to let Barbatos die.. He loves his butler too much to let that happen..
And he's too stubborn to accept that there's no hope...
'P-please stop giving me that stupid elixir...'
'why? It's keeping you alive!'
'thats the problem- *cough*-... Im in constant pain, and I have begged you countless times to just let me die..'
Diavolo looks at Barbatos with sadness in his eyes...
'look, I know you're in pain Barbs.. but if I keep you alive for longer, then maybe they'll find a cure...'
'they won't find a cure... Please just let me die peacefully..'
'i am not letting you die Barbatos! I will keep fighting to find you a cure!'
Diavolo pops open the vial and forces Barbatos to drink it, then leaves the room..
Time passes... Barbatos is hanging on by a thread, completely dependent on an oxygen cannula, a constant vitals monitor, and an IV nutrition drip... He also needs to be turned every few hours as he cannot move by himself to prevent pressure sores..
On top of all of that, he is in pain 24/7.. the doctors have told him that he is terminal, that all they can do is prolong his life... He doesn't want his life prolonged, though.. it doesn't even feel like life anymore.. it just feels as though he's watching himself and the others in the castle become more and more miserable each day...
'oh Barbs, I've got your elixir!'
'no... No... please... Stop doing this to yourself young master... You're only giving yourself false hope...'
'oh come on, stop asking me to let you die... I'm not letting you go... I love you too much to let you die...'
'but somehow you do not love me enough to realise that you are harming me more than helping me... The doctors have already said that there's no hope left for me... All that's happening is that I am getting worse... Please just stop giving yourself false hope...'
Diavolo feels his heart stop at that response... Is that truly how his butler feels?... Has he really been that heartless?..
'l-look.. I know you're hurting... But please... Just drink the fucking elixir...'
'even you seem to know that it doesn't work anymore... You just do not want to grieve...'
'i have already grieved.. do you think that I am genuinely happy and cheery on the inside every single time I have to come into your room and take care of you?! Do you not think that I'm fucking done taking care of a person that's a shell of what I used to know?! Look, I do love you Barbs.. I really do.. and that hasn't changed... I just cannot stand seeing you like this... I want you to recover... I want the Barbatos I used to have to come running into my arms again..'
'I know you do... I want to run into your arms too... But that won't happen... And you know it... Keeping me alive whilst I'm absolutely miserable isn't doing anything.. and you know deep down that what I am saying is true... You're just refusing to acknowledge it because you're scared to lose me... Trust me... i would rather stay alive too.. but this doesn't feel like life anymore.... I feel like a corpse with a slow heartbeat... Please.. you and I both know that the best decision is to let me go..'
Diavolo stares down at his feet and sighs..
'f-fine... Any final wishes?..'
'I wish to be disconnected from all of my medical devices and monitors, and taken outside.. I also wish for a cup of tea with a teaspoon of poison added, enough to take my life but not enough to be tasted..'
'o-ok..'
Diavolo carries Barbatos outside, then prepares a cup of tea for him.. he feels his heart shatter into pieces as he adds the poison into the cup, crying as he mixes it in...
He then takes all of the devices and cannulas off of Barbatos, and helps him drink the tea, as they both lay underneath a tree, feeling the springtime sun on their skin..
'i-i am so sorry Barbatos..'
'Don't be young master...'
'i.. *sigh*.. thank you for all your hard work over the years..'
'y-you are.. you're w-welcome.. y-young ma.. master...'
Diavolo hugs Barbatos closer as he feels him slowly drift away... The tears rush down his cheeks, as he starts to feel as though he's not even real.. reality warps itself, making him wonder if it was all a sick nightmare.. but a bee on his leg soon confirms that it did really happen..
Barbatos is gone now...
The next day, he is buried in a black and silver casket, with his teacup, his duster, a couple of chess pieces, a picture of him and Diavolo, and in a neatly ironed uniform... That uniform shouldn't be neatly ironed... It should have stains from cooking and wrinkles from someone moving around inside of it...
The casket is closed and his body is lowered into the ground, where Barbatos will stay for the rest of time..
No more warm, comfy bed.. no more chamomile tea.. no more getting to plan the young master's schedule... Just a cold, dirty resting place in the ground..
Months pass.. Diavolo tries his hardest to move on from Barbatos' death... But he can't... No matter how hard he tries, all he can feel is the consuming guilt of letting his butler die.. of killing his butler with poison...
He tries a noose on a branch of the same tree that his butler passed away under..
He sticks his head through and kicks the chair underneath him, feeling his world slowly go black..
He wakes up again, though this time his body doesn't feel real...
'oh, greetings young master!'
He spots a much healthier looking Barbatos.
'you weren't supposed to come here yet young master...'
'w-where am I?...'
'this is the afterlife... You are dead... You shouldn't be dead yet, you were perfectly healthy when I left...'
'i-i know Barbs... I just.. I couldn't bear loosing you... And I.. I went to the tree you died under... and I...'
'I know what you did...*sigh*... Come here..'
Diavolo approaches Barbatos, who wraps his arms around him...
'you did the right thing by killing me.. I asked you to... I don't want you to be here in the afterlife...'
'but I thought you would be happy to see me again..'
'n-not like this... I mean.. it is great to see you... But I cannot bear the thought of you killing yourself on purpose just because you were saddened by my passing...'
'Im sorry Barbatos..'
'It's alright young master... The afterlife is a great place... The only con is that it makes everyone that's not in the afterlife sad....'
'i know... I can see my own funeral from here... Luci's in bits... And so is Luke..'
'Luke was shattered into pieces at my funeral as well... I do wonder, who will be king now that there's no heir to the throne?.. the plan was originally for me to take over but I cannot do that anymore..'
'Lucifer will be king... And his brothers will be princes....'
'that sounds like a great plan young master!'
They both embrace eachother tightly, happy to finally see eachother again..
Meanwhile, in the Devildom, Diavolo is buried right beside his butler... He is buried with his own teacup, his favourite band CD, and also in a neatly ironed uniform, complete with his freshly polished medallions and shoes...