i posted this on tiktok but i feel like the obey me fandom is mostly here so might as well drag it here
the game moved on from this too quickly i'm so sickly mad i hate this guy and i hate the writers and i hate this lesson and everything that came after it
TW: Depictions of Lesson 16, implied death mention, protective Mammon. Gender-neutral MC.
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Mammon is quick to forgive, but the second born never forgets. He loves his family above all, but his love for this human has grown too, somehow just as strongly. He'll do everything in his power to keep his brothers safe, happy, and together no matter how much they tease or talk down to him. However, he's still haunted by the night he held this fragile, broken human in his arms. Belphies maniacal laughter rings out over his racing heartbeat, the limp body no longer moving, the dark bruising around their throat was a horrific visual he doesn't think he could ever fully scrub away.
To keep his family together, he keeps the peace. He tells himself everything has worked out, and his human wants to repair the relationship between themselves and his youngest sibling. And he wants that for them too, genuinely. He couldn't imagine his life without either of them now. And yet, he holds his humans hand a little tighter when Belphagor is around. He finds himself always placed between them, no matter the occasion. He plays his part cool, but he always has his eye on one of them, just to make sure there's no threat or shred of discomfort. It's become a subconscious thing, too. And it never seems to go away, the small pit of anxiety he has whenever the two of them are in the same room.
Even years and years later, when the bond between his human and Belphie is long since mended and stronger than ever, Mammon will always remember.
Second oneshot of Scars, Wounds and Minor Inconveniences: a oneshot series featuring slice-of-life snapshots of the aftermath of Lesson 16. Naturally, features spoilers for OG Obey Me! up until that point. Each oneshot will have an associated headcannons post, which will be linked when it goes up!
“You will tell me what happened, Leviathan.”
Lucifer raises an eyebrow at the scene before him. You, on the floor and clutching your wrist. Leviathan, on the other side of the room and in demon form, holding a first aid kit he had taken out of the cabinet. Lucifer had opened the door just as Leviathan had taken out a bandage and started swinging his arm, as if to throw it to you as if feeding a scared, wild animal. When Lucifer had asked, his younger brother suddenly couldn’t look him in the eye - instead, Levi looks to you for a response.
You say nothing. This is hardly new to Lucifer, who had noticed that he only tends to see you in shared classes or family dinners recently. He’d watch you joke and laugh with his brothers so easily, which was pretty good news. Finally, the human was behaving themselves. Strangely, though, Levi’s face takes an uncharacteristically serious expression. As if steeling himself for your sake.
“W-We, uh, were trying out this new video-game I got for family game night. There’s, like, a mat… A mat! With arrows you hop on. To, um, play.” Levi explains. “But they… they fell. Their wrist, they fell on it and it got hurt. Badly.”
“I’m fine, Levi. My wrist is - ah, ah - weak, anyway.” You try to respond, growling through gritted teeth when you try to roll your wrist around. Your heart softens when Levi mumbles what seems to be “… because of me.” and shake your head. You clamp your eyes shut to prepare and attempt - again - to rotate your hand about your wrist.
The pain is brutal… but at least it distracts from the even-more painful memories of a quiz with a demon; and the injury to your wrist that resulted in it being so prone to injury.
“You’re not going anywhere like that. Here.” Lucifer sighs, massaging his forehead. Weak, vulnerable humans. He doesn’t see you freeze. “Take my arm. We’ll go to the dining room, get you some water and sit you down with an ice pack.”
“…”
You don’t respond. This is hardly new to Lucifer, yet he finds himself irritated.
“MC. That’s not a request.” He raises his voice, moving closer and offering his hand to you - and you flinch. Away from him. Lucifer is confused because what had he done, other than offer you assistance?
You, frozen as solid as ice, provide little to no answer to that question. Out of the corner of his eye, Lucifer notices Leviathan gulp, holding his breath, eyes darting between his older brother and his best friend. His concentration flickering and one can almost see the imaginary cursor struggling to choose between two options of the visual novel scene playing in his mind.
‘Say something.’
‘Say nothing.’
Levi chooses the latter, but turns to you. He opens his arms rather awkwardly. And then, you have to make the choice instead.
Inwardly, Lucifer huffs. Levi had caused your injury then, and he had caused it now. And offering a hug, of all things? How naive. Lucifer let his eyes meet yours, not feeling the need to offer anything more than he already had.
… But Lucifer feels something foreign and unpleasant in his chest when he watches you walk across the room - and into Leviathan’s arms. He watches the third-born brother stutter in shock, taking a few minutes to process - before scrambling to meet you halfway. And why wouldn’t he need to process that? Why wouldn’t Leviathan be surprised, after being the reason for your weak wrist in the first place? After all; Lucifer had been right there, the eldest’s arm slightly bent at the elbow, ready for you to place your hand. Ready to lend you support. Irritatingly, annoyingly ready to do anything for you… and for you to do anything - anything - remotely significant to him.
Ready to receive the forgiveness you seemed to give to everyone else so damn easily over the last few months. Had you forgotten that all of his family, in one way or another, had a part to play in your hurt just as much as Belphegor?
You, Diavolo’s exchange student, had finally been behaving, ever since Belphie. Lucifer had been proud of himself for taming you, because murder was commonplace in the Devildom. He had thought that witnessing it for yourself was just the lesson you needed to stay away from danger. You never speak to him unless spoken to. You had stay in your room when he was home. You freeze when he’s near. You let yourself be cradled by demons who had almost snapped your arm in the midst of a fit of envy; and would rather that than even come within six metres of his arm. You stayed far away from danger. You stayed farther away from Lucifer. And the combination of his pride and distance from you had made admitting that impossible for him. Admitting that his brothers had been spending the past few months trying; reaching out to you.
Lucifer, Avatar of Pride, had not.
So - having met in the middle of the room - Lucifer watches as you stay with Leviathan. Levi doesn’t quite know what to do with his arms, so the two of you huddle together like penguins looking for warm, under Lucifer’s icy stare. Every now and again, you cautiously peer over Levi’s shoulder. Your knuckles turn white from gripping Levi’s hoodie fabric. Your eyes meet with those of the Avatar of Pride - you immediately look away.
Lucifer stands apart from you, still by the room’s entrance. The arm he had offered for you to is retracted, as it’s nowhere near enough to reach you. And nowhere near a hug.
A horrid, awful truth dawns on him, making his stomach drop like butterflies turning to lead inside.
His would only ever allow him to take half a step forward.
And, in return, you would take ten steps back - far, far away from him. Even farther than from the demon who had broken your wrist.
And it would be a long, long time before you would let him get close enough to reach you.
…
…
“… Lucifer.” You murmur; voice barely above a whisper. His eyes meet to yours faster than he would like. “C-Could you, um… Could you get me a glass of water? Please.”
He stays there, for a few seconds. His breath hitches.
He… eventually nods, turning to leave the room. He gets the water; and doesn’t realise he’s slightly rushing.
He returns a few minutes later. He sees that you’ve detached yourself from his brother and, when your eyes meet his, you take half a step forward. He glances away.
He doesn’t look at you when he makes his way across the room to where you’re standing. Nor does he realise he’s walking quicker than normal.
Suddenly, the sound of gentle scales scraping against wood echoes to break the deafening silence and Lucifer finds Levi’s tail at his feet. Right in front of you, and right in front of him. A barrier.
He glances at Levi, one of his beloved baby brothers, and sees that he’s holding his breath again. His eyes are trained on you.
And when you smile at Leviathan, your shoulders relaxing a millimetre, Lucifer realises this is as far as he goes.
… Then it happens.
He hands you the glass of water.
You take it.
He feels your fingers brush. The tiny, minuscule contact sends electricity through his gloves, down his fingertips, and the feeling surges through his arms and straight to his heart.
After a few minutes, Leviathan gradually begins to say something about new video-game suggestions for family game night. The words are hazy and unclear - Lucifer’s too busy focusing on how it felt to be near you; to touch you; to hear you speak to him without being spoken to first, for the first time in months. The first time in what had felt like millennia.
It would be a long time before you would let him get close enough to reach you.
But, as you give him the smallest of smiles as thanks for the water, he’s somehow reassured that the time would come.
The least he could do, after all he’s done, is wait.
(i know wanted to see some lucifer-centric stuff, so here it is! they specifically mentioned mammon and satan, and those will come in a later chapter since i more see them as stuff lucifer doesn’t pick up on; or, at least, stuff that doesn’t require him to face you directly, so he gets to keep his pride. all of the brothers have hurt mc in one way or another, so i wanted something clear and concrete and emotional that set lucifer apart. i figured, the phrase ‘to keep your pride’ is used often used to stop people from apologising, taking responsibility or doing something with humility - so i figured it would be the same with the avatar of pride. he won’t be the first to address it.)
(please look forward to the next chapters, as well as their accompanying headcanon chapters! some people have also asked to be tagged in the posts relating to this series, so please comment below if you’d like to be tagged too)
(finally, massive thanks to @kittylilyheart for submitting the original idea and check out Phantom Pain in the pinned masterlist post to see it! my ideas inbox is still open, so please read the rules in the pinned post and submit something obey-me related you’d like to see me write!)
It'd be funny to see Lucifer with a mc who actually gets worse to deal with after they get in a better place physically and/or mentally. Like imagine you are Lucifer. You have this manageable human who barely speaks or asks for anything and follows orders to a T. You decide to give it proper health and medical care because it's showing some concerning symptoms and hell, they're already doing pretty good with their studies but this will probably help them out some and make the exchange program conclude smoother than originally expected. Exchange student brightens up more. Good! They socialize with their peers more. Also good! Their studies improve. Excellent! On the down side though, they've become more bold... Why's Belphegor out the attic?
Lesson 16 angst with Belphie killing MC, but she’s his half demon daughter.
Themes: fem teen mc, angst
Belphegor was evil, the villain in everyone’s fairytale, disrupting the small moments of peace they got and wrecking their lives like a cannonball - this he knew for certain.
The hatred he felt for humans had been simmering for centuries, the last image of his sister burnt into his eyes, his sister who’d fallen into a tragic love story with one of those lesser beings, this revelation continuously haunting him; her death plaguing his mind even before he knew about her unknown love life.
It had gotten worse when Diavolo announced his dream plan: bringing demons, humans and angels together to, hopefully, live in harmony, the exchange program being borne from this.
It had disgusted Belphegor and he became disgusted at his brothers for holding no objections, following the princes plan like NPC pawns as though they had forgotten the past.
A past Belphegor couldn’t let go of.
The rage and hatred rose until it was boiling and threatening to spill over, wanting to incinerate every mortal that dared to walk the earth, wanting revenge for Lilith.
A small, indistinguishable part of him knew his sister wouldn’t want what he was planning, but he refused to heed it, dismissing the only sane part of his subconscious.
Everything he was doing, it was for her, his baby sister who had been taken far too soon before her time.
After all, if it hadn’t been for the human race, she would still be alive and with them.
But, she wasn’t.
Despite being locked up and outcasted by Lucifer, the saint among demons, Belphegor’s hatred only grew with a burning passion that glowed as deep and bright as the Devildom itself, the younger twin becoming the embodiment of rage and wrath, the latter usually reserved for the emerald eyed cat lover.
He spent the year locked up, but it gave him plenty of time to concoct a plan none of his brothers would expect and it began with the arrival of a young human.
Belphegor hadn’t quite known what to make of the human who discovered his prison and, due to her smaller and younger stature, stirred up a mix of emotions he hadn’t felt for a long, long time.
Although he put any positiveness aside, filling himself up with nothing but hatred, there was something about the girl that didn’t sit right with him, a long buried memory surfacing each time he saw her.
However, he drowned it deeper and deeper in his mind, focusing solely on the teenager he’d convinced to do his bidding, her humane innocence almost laughable.
But, still.
The way she sometimes tiredly dragged her feet across the concrete floor, her deep violet tinted eyes, the faint senses of power he recognised in her . . . they reminded him of himself.
That brought him into wondering who she really was and whether the others had noticed (though her power felt so faint they probably hadn’t), temporarily taking him out of his anger if only for a fleeting moment.
As the weeks trailed on, Belphegor still hadn’t figured her out though his hate continued to blaze fiercely, the realisation that he would soon be freed taking over his rationality.
And, then, with full scale dramatics, it happened.
The magical barriers put in place by his eldest brother faded away, leaving a bare spot for him to walk out of, the girl seeming to be a picture of both curiousness and wonder.
“Wow, Belphie, you-“
The demon cut her off, pouncing on her neck in one swift swipe, his hands blocking her windpipe as she thrashed uselessly in his grip.
Belphegor chuckled darkly, his mouth ready to speak a list of taunts but, before he could do so, the humans figure changed with a light poof.
Curved black horns, slightly smaller and less developed than those of other demons, sprouted from her head as alternating black patches crawled up her neck, a thin tail wrapping around her lower body.
Her deep purple eyes, a perfect replica of Belphie and Beel’s, rolled back as she struggled to breathe, her body going limp from asphyxiation as the elder demon threw her body to the floor, a sickening crunch reverberating in Belphegor’s ears as crimson bloomed around her head.
He hadn’t meant to throw her that hard.
The once forgotten memory returned in full force: the only time Belphegor had visited the human world, the woman he had met there who defied all of his expectations, their blissful night together.
He was sickening.
He fled back inside his holding cell, disgust coiling around his stomach.
I just went through lesson 16 and… god, there's so much inconsistency in Diavolo's characterization in this part of the story, it's like they can't decide how they want him to act regarding the situation.
1 - There's the fact that apparently both he and Barbatos didn't know that Lucifer had Belphegor locked up in the attic, how is it possible that they could hide something like that from both of them when a) Barbatos can see the future and b) It's Diavolo's school, one of the reasons why Lucifer had Belphegor hidden is so that he wouldn't pay the consequences of his actions and pretended that he had sent him to the human world as an exchange student, Diavolo at least from the original timeline wouldn't allow him to be an exchange student after threatening to massacre every single human to stop the exchange program with so much passion, literally allowing it would be too risky and foolish an action.
2- This is not so much an inconsistency but it is a detail of the game and it is that the game tries to put Diavolo as the bad in this situation because Belphegor is one of the dateable characters and part of the seven brothers but it makes complete sense that he tries to put Belphegor in prison because he being free threatens the safety of the player as well as the relationship of Devildoom with the human world.
3 - After we travel to the other timeline, die and revive in the body of the MC from the other timeline, Diavolo arrived and starts talking about how the MC is a descendant of Lilith, this seems rushed and inconsistent due to the fact that they try to make it seem as if Diavolo had known about it all this time and that's why he accepted MC in RAD but in reality it seems like something that Barbatos told him 5 minutes ago and he had no idea about it and suddenly he doesn't care about the fact that Belphegor killed MC even asking Belphegor if he didn't want to hug MC too…☠
