*// @stardwelt / @perfectbluu @mammoneyyy / @wrathveil
suffer with me.
it is strange , he thinks , how he finally learns to value his own life on the verge of death . forced to bow , he can see the edges of the audience to this nightmare through the corner of his eye . beelzebub is , of course , still fighting , that idiot - he should know that the verdict , once passed , is absolute , and yet he still fights , raging against hell itself for him .
, , , , , , , , sorry , beel. he’ll be meeting lilith first ; though he has missed her most of all , he never intended to leave him behind , not like lilith. he hopes ,, , he won’t blame himself too much . it was never his fault ; and the thought of it , of beelzebub ,, greiving , the last of the three of them left behind - and it is this thought , of how hard he’s fighting the inevitable for the even the smallest chance of his redemption , the true realization that the grief has resided within him since lilith’s death; beelzebub will carry that , and his death will only crush him further and he doesn’t deserve that , has never wanted him to hurt and the realization of what he will leave behind -
and though it starts with one , it’s enough to for his mind to claw itself out of it’s self induced fog . it is not just beelzebub he is leaving behind ; beside him , his brothers , all of them , are protesting the verdict - he can’t , he can’t seem to think , their clamor a dull roar to the dawning horror , the desperation , the flood of regret and fear . a sudden crash startles him , and against the bindings and the spellwork and the guards , he flinches , eyes seeking out the cause .
- satan . resplendent in his ferocity , there is little left of the image he tries so hard to uphold . his efforts are just as fruitless as beel’s , but its not for lack of trying . the grounds themselves have been reinforced , refined with magic and power and all things unholy ; he can feel it under his skin , pressing down on his powers and pinning him to the stone , until he can do little but fold , stripped of even the right to raise his head in the face of the successor . he doesn’t doubt , even for a second that his brothers can feel the same , for try as he might , mindless in his wrath , lashing out and wreaking utter havoc in the way belphegor knows he only does when has nothing else to resort to - he is still so easily contained , losing ground slowly but surely in the face of the ground’s restrictions and diavolo’s guards .
by his side , through sheer stubbornness borne no less out of love , is mammon , as loud and as foolish as he always is , fighting his own battles , but never forgetting to curse , to argue against the judgement already set in stone with the belief that things can still change , that belphegor’s fate can still be salvaged .
, , ,, , he doesn’t know whether the shaking , the hysterical reaction of something is more tears or laughter at his baseless confidence ; it’s a knife burning in his gut , at the love he has always dismissed - though the second born is a fool , his every action now betrays his absolute faith , and his brashness only serves to show his feelings are genuine , instinctual and immediate .
even now , he is joined by asmodeus and leviathon , both pleading his case to a cruel and apathetic judge , sitting above them all as he waits for the farce of a trial to settle down . asmo is , more serious than he’s ever seen , he thinks - the perpetual smile , the air of superficiality and disinterest ; it’s fraying , now , and his expression is thunderous - he , who cares so much for his appearance , for how he is perceived ; he , who wields his charm as a weapon , and cares only for how to better show his faces ; he hides within him a venom rarely shown to the public , and if he could see himself through belphegor’s eyes ,, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure as his opponents sway to his tune , soft but no less dangerous for it -
the third born , the one who seems to care only about his own hobbies , is now arguing vehemently , uncaring of his own carefully crafted persona as he shrugs off his own opponents in favor of him , and though belphegor is most intimate with his obsessions and his lack of interests outside of it , he has never before seen him like this - has never before felt the extent of their familial bond until now , has rarely ever seen this side of levi , and , , , and that he will never have the chance to connect further , to see the other sides he tries so hard to hide , that he will never know his brother as well as he thought he did , and never have that chance to -
the dam , the fog in his head - everything he’d put at arm’s length , when the despair and apathy voided his mind , left him an outsider to his own execution - it collapses in a second , and the sudden weight of his own emotions threatens to drown him .
- i don’t want to die i don’t want to die i don’t want to die I DON’T WANT TO DIE
he can’t breathe he can’t think he can’t see , not anymore . they slam against him , the ravenous waves of fearregretnostalgiapeaceangerdespair , until it’s as if his head has started spinning and he’s lost his footing amid this storm , unable to tell one voice from the next or what exactly it is they say -
until lucifer . the eldest of them all , the most powerful , the one to guide and lead them all ; he stands there , silent , his cadence absent in what the otherwise familiar din . and despite himself , despite how he had learned , had thought himself resigned - the betrayal still burns , intense in how it lodges itself in his stomach , so cold that it runs through his veins , freezing them in raging fire - oh , he had thought himself overwhelmed before , but it is NOTHING to what he feels now .
he’d sworn himself to him , once , following the morningstar out of heaven for how he’d fought for her , placed his trust and his heart and his everything under his care - and he knows , he learned this oh so intimately in the isolation of his cage , that lucifer holds diavolo above them all , that the demon inhabiting his body was not the being he’d followed for all the millennia , but small , small part of him ,, , some ridiculous , sentimental thing buried beneath his hurt had still , , hoped, somewhat , that lucifer still cared . that lucifer would , even out of obligation and respect for the lifetime spent as brothers , even try to do something , anything -
and this lack of action , this silent approval of his own death - if he still had his freedom of speech , if his lips not rendered shut and his vocals silenced , it would change nothing , for his hurt reaches deep , deeper even then the anger and despair ; he can only shake , trembling pathetically with the onslaught of it all - he cannot look up , could not bear to even if he were allowed , for he is afraid of what he will see in the eldest’s eyes . perhaps it is cowardice , but if he does not see it , it must not exist - he cannot face the eldest’s disdain , nor the hopelessness , the fury and the hurt in his other brothers’ eyes -
and as the din raises higher and higher , approaching the culmination of it all - belphegor closes his eyes , and everything
s t o p s .
