I was attacked with this tweet this morning (thanks justine) and then my brain had the great idea to write something so HERE YA GO (pls suffer with me)
The memory of you comes on slowly. Without meaning to, Satan sets an eighth plate at the table. Mammon hovers at the front door on his way out as though waiting for someone, a complaint already dangling off his tongue. When he turns around, the corridor is empty. There’s a cold spot on the bed no matter how closely Beelzebub and Belphegor huddle together. Leviathan has a second controller he never uses and Asmodeus has taken to hanging out in his brothers’ rooms, muttering something about needing the company.
It’s Lucifer who makes the connection when he’s pouring a second cup of tea, a human blend gifted to him some time ago.
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen them, hasn’t it?”
The melancholy that has plagued the House of Lamentation is suddenly lifted by the revelation of you. Quickly, appointments are set aside and arrangements made. Diavolo himself handles the travel request to the human realm and he delivers the form on the day of their departure. The foyer is excitedly loud and Lucifer misses his lord’s comment.
“Please, pass on my condolences.”
Long enough for them all to shuffle through, the front door opens to an unfamiliar sky. It’s quiet here and the rolling hills are dappled with flowers, dark clumps of forget-me-nots spaced evenly. There are no houses but the travel form has directions and you’re not too far from here, just over that hill, actually. And maybe this is your garden, they think, so they keep their distance lest they trample over your hard work.
“You guys.”
The brothers turn to Mammon, alone still on the hill. At the crest, they see not flowers but a single slab of stone fitted into the dry soil that they had walked over. You greet them with the etching of your name.
The breeze whispers through the leaves of the cypress tree that shades you. Each brother can hear it reading the dates on your grave. There’s a box with a glass front, one that normally holds candles, but this one is crammed with a notebook that crumbles in Lucifer’s palm. They each recognize the coveted diary of their human friend, remember the open secret not to pry if they saw you writing in it. It had been half done when you left, but it’s filled now with scribbles and drawings of them, images warped through the lens of time and human memory. But the pacts, lined up neatly on the back cover, are perfect.
Each takes their time. It’s Mammon who breaks first. He’s frantic, flipping through the pages of the notebook, surveying the area as though for a ghost. The others only react when he throws the book into the tree.
“Why are they the only one here! Why—!”
The stone hurts his knees but he can’t feel it. Only the wetness of his face. Only the wrenching of their hearts over the memory of you.