i feel like beel and lucifer sharing a darling would be a great dynamic! beel takes care of the darling and lucifer disciplining them. especially since beel would do whatever lucifer asks of him.
This slowly became more of an ‘every brother sharing a Darling’ piece, but I think I still got my point across. Beel’s just so nice, so caring, so devoted to his family… It’d be perfect, if Lucifer could hold himself back when he knows he won’t be the one cleaning up the mess.
Title: Devotion and Discipline.
TW: Blood, Imprisonment, Mentions of Torture, Mentions of Neglect, Delusional Mindsets, and Slight Stockholm Syndrome.
You’d always liked Beelzebub the most.
To be fair, it wasn’t a steep competition. Out of all the brothers, Beelzebub and Lucifer were the only ones who performed their duties with any regularity, the only brothers who thought of your upkeep as a priority, rather than treating your captivity like a convenient past-time to be indulged in. With the others, chores could be exchanged or forgotten with reckless abandon, and they wouldn’t bat an eye when you went a day without company or complained about how long it’d been since you went outside or begged for something to eat. Demons were different than humans - they didn’t need things the way you did, they’d live with or without substance, and they never really grasped that you couldn’t do the same. Beelzebub wasn’t forgetful, though. Regardless of who was tasked with bringing you dinner, he’d check in on you after every meal. When one of his brothers left you too bruised and battered to move properly because you’d squirmed too much when they held you or refused to kiss them, he’d run a bath and tuck you in, even though he hadn’t caused the damage. He was empathetic. He was nice. He wasn’t forgetful.
Lucifer was the only one who matched Beelzebub’s persistence. He wasn’t forgetful, either.
You just wished he was a nice as Beelzebub, too.
Whereas Beelzebub made sure you were alive and healthy, Lucifer ensured you were obedient. He was the one who kept you bound to your room with curses and chains, the one whose attention meant you’d done something wrong and you were going to pay the price for it. His bruises took the longest to heal, his wounds cutting the deepest, his stare the coldest as it bit through your skin, reminding you of every act of rebellion you’d ever dared to attempt without the need for something as messy as words. Even hours after your most recent punishment had ended, your ribs still throbbed from the pressure he’d put on your chest, your throat was still dry and your neck still pulsing, the pain sourceless and constricting, making it difficult to breathe. You were bleeding in a dozen different places, aching in another hundred, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You couldn’t bring yourself to do anything about it, not on your own. Luckily, you didn’t have to
Beelzebub was there before you could lift a finger, a balm in one hand, a roll of gauze in the other, and a smile, one bright enough to make your heart skip a beat. Always a smile, these days.
With a sturdy, helpful hand, he helped you to lean against your headboard, pulling your legs over the side of your bed and settling between them, starting with the most visible of your injuries - the scratches along your legs, deep and jagged and bloody, more befitting of a bird of prey than anything remotely humanoid. “He was really mad, today,” Beelzebub mumbled, absent-mindedly, his fingertips skittering over the edges of the open wounds, rubbing something cold and sterile into your torn skin. Weeks ago, you might’ve been embarrassed. Now, you were just thankful his touch never lingered for too long. “What’d you do?”
“I… I’m not sure,” You admitted, wincing as he wrapped the first bandage around your thigh. Blood soaked the cloth almost instantly, and you tried to look away, keeping your eyes focused on the floor. You continued, speaking more to keep your mind off the pain than to answer him. “He walked in while I was messing with the window, last night. He might’ve thought I was trying to find a way out.”
Another bandage. Higher up, and tighter than the last one. Thicker, too. You had to wait a full minute before the first specs of red started to poke through. He didn’t try to meet your eyes, didn’t look away from his work, but smile wavered. “Were you?”
You didn’t respond, not immediately. He didn’t have Satan’s temper, he wasn’t as impulsive as Mammon, and you knew he wouldn’t hurt you, but having to tell him you didn’t love him, having to tell him you couldn’t love any of your kidnappers… It was a different kind of torture. One that left you feeling guilty, rather than vengeful. One that made you wish you were just a little less stubborn. “Wouldn’t you?”
Another pause, another tense silence. This time, his smile dropped completely, and you mourned its loss as a small frown took its place. Troubled, but not cruel. “Lucifer says it’s safer for you, here,” He explained, his voice low, stern, bordering on strict. It was obviously something he’d been told, a mantra he’d rehearsed time and time again, but it was clear he believed it. Enough to hope you would too, anyway. “The Devildom can be dangerous. If another demon attacks you, it might get... bad.” He paused, perking up to rest his hand on your knee. “You could get hurt.”
“I could go back to the Human Realm,” You mused, fighting the urge to kick him away. If only out of habit, at this point. “I could get away from demons entirely. I’d be safe there, right?”
He caught the inside of his cheek between his teeth, his shoulders squaring definitely. His task wasn’t forgotten, but his attention drifted, your care deemed more unimportant than proving that this was for your sake. That you didn’t have to be grateful, but you shouldn’t hate him for it, either. “Lucifer says you wouldn’t come back, if we let you go.”
You wouldn’t. You’d run fast and you’d run far, change your name, dye your hair, do something drastic and irreversible to make sure you were never made into a prisoner again, to make sure you were never hurt by the people you used to trust again. You’d promised yourself as much, sworn that you’d take the first opportunity you got to escape, but when you looked at Beelzebub and tried to form the words, they felt wrong on your tongue, like you’d be kicking a puppy who’d only ever shown you loyalty. If it was anyone else, you would’ve yelled, you would’ve screamed, but it wasn’t, and you didn’t.
It was all you could do not to let your voice break as you forced yourself to speak. “I want to be free, Beel,” You started, balling your sheets under your fist, willing yourself not to cry when you were supposed to be strong, when you were supposed to be able to get through this alone. “I can’t be happy, like this, I don’t want to be happy. If I’m not being demeaned, I’m being starved, and if I’m not being starved, I’m being beaten. I’m in pain, I’m miserable, and there’s nothing you can do to make any of this better, not when your brothers are such monsters.” You grit your teeth, straining to keep your anger under control. “It doesn’t matter how much you pity me, you can’t fix this. You shouldn’t try to.”
He went tense, and for a moment, you thought he would lash you. That his patience would thin and your guardian would disappear, that someone dark and honest would take his place. You flinched back, shutting your eyes and preparing yourself for the blow, but to your shock, the pain never came. Rather, by the time you dared to uncurl yourself, a wide, wild smile had broken out across his features, careless and bright and hideous, made no better by the way he leaned against your bandaged thigh, never taking his eyes off of you as he spoke. “That’s alright, you don’t have to be happy! He says it’s still too early for that, that you’ll come around eventually, but… I don’t think it’d be so bad, if you didn’t.”
He stopped, squeezing your injured thigh, the gesture nearly playful. You might’ve believed it was, if he’d stopped when your blood began to stain his fingertips.
“I wouldn’t mind taking care of you for a little longer.”
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