That’s the worst part. Lucifer was expecting it to be a relief once you were gone. He was expecting to feel like he could breathe freely again. You occupied so much of his time, running through his mind so often he was surprised you weren’t exhausted when he saw you. He had to watch out for you constantly—making sure you didn’t get yourself killed by a demon (again), keeping you and Belphegor and Satan from causing him too much frustration with your stupid “pranks,” generally trying to keep you out of trouble.
It was exhausting.
Then you kiss him.
Then you leave.
Then it’s quiet.
Lucifer's brothers miss you too. Leviathan holes himself up in his room and doesn’t emerge for almost a month. Mammon goes on a shopping spree so intense that the packages he’s ordered from Akuzon (all unopened, even weeks later—the objects less of a goal than the spending itself) flood his room and spill out into the hallway. Satan and Belphegor’s pranks take on a somewhat malicious nature, as if they’re silently asking Lucifer, “why didn’t you make them stay?”
(Lucifer asks himself that sometimes, too.)
Lucifer never once shows his brothers the depths of his grief for you (because that’s what it is, isn’t it?). He doesn’t hide the fact that he misses you; they’d never believe him even if he tried. But he only allows them to see the shallows, never letting them wade deeper for fear they’ll find him drowning. He doesn’t have time to drown anyway; he has to keep charge of the student council and make sure his brothers’ vices don’t destroy them.
Lucifer never slacks in his duties. Never acts upset.
But he misses you.
Lucifer was the first to meet you, and the last to form a pact with you. He was the last to kiss you. To spend the night with you. He still remembers that night, will always remember it, keeps the memory tucked close to his chest in your stead. He remembers the shape of your body pressed against him, your laugh as you teased him that his bed was far too big for one person, your steady breathing as you fell asleep in his arms just before dawn. He remembers you looked so very beautiful and so very fragile in the faint Devildom moonlight. He remembers you.
And he misses you fiercely.
Lucifer’s bed wasn’t too big for one person before you pointed it out. Now, it is far too big and far too empty. Some nights Lucifer wakes, wondering why he feels terribly alone in its huge expanse. Beside him, the screen of his D.D.D. glows in the darkness. He reaches for it. Opens Contacts. His finger hovers over your name.
Then stops.
It’s too early in the morning. He doesn’t want to wake you, as much as he aches to hear your voice (aches to have you back with him, truthfully, the pain of his desire so solid in his chest that it feels as if his sternum will split in two). He’ll talk to you tomorrow, he decides. He sets the device facedown and rolls over, gazing across his bed (too big, too big, too big) and closing his eyes.
The brothers looking after you in pain - Obey Me! HC collab
Myself and one of my best friends Vic - faikittyy on twitter - wrote these together!
I did: Belphegor, Leviathan and Mammon and they did Lucifer, Satan, Asmodeus and Beelzebub.
We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed writing them. We both suffer from chronic pain, so these are rather dear to us <3
Belphegor
This isn’t the first time he’s seen you suffer. But it’s different now. It’s through the eyes of love, and you’re his.
This isn’t the first time he’s felt helpless. But it’s different now. Now, it’s you, and you need him.
His acts were simple at first, methodical. As if reading from a list given to him by Beel. It almost was. He’d sought help from his twin, with quiet, humble words. “What do I do?” as you’d lain on his bed, your body wrapped around his pillow, indenting the soft down as you curled into yourself, whimpers of pain muffled.
Be there.
Beel’s defining advice rung through Belphie’s head as he knelt by your side, timid fingers clutching yours, willing you to hold tighter - as tight as you needed. It was all he could do at first, for he knew what his touch could do to you, and he was afraid if he touched you now, he would just rewind, and press play.
So he sat, until his legs were numb; until you woke up.
“Belphie.” That singular plea, it was enough.
He lies at your side now, asking you if you’re hungry, what’s your favourite Devildom flower, where would you like to visit next - inane distraction. He’s still afraid to touch you too much, but there’s a compromise. The delicacy of his tail tuft draws up and down your body as you sleep. And when you wake, it rests where it hurts, and you clutch the soft warmth against you, fingers weaving out the knots.
He doesn’t often struggle to sleep, but times like now when he does, watching you sleep is a comfort. And he talks to you, about things he won't. Words that can’t usually find form, do. And part of him wants you to wake up and hear. But he knows in time you will. For it’s not only you who’s recovering, as you lie side by side, fingers kissing.
Satan
Satan turns to distractions when things are difficult for him. He isn’t like his brothers. He didn’t fall from the Celestial Realm. He was never created to be his own person; he was created by what Lucifer rejected. There are times when it is all too much, when the unfortunate circumstances of his birth claw at his heart, when the hatred that was drawn from Lucifer’s veins and injected into his own fills him with a fury that can never be resolved. He struggles with it. He has a sense, sometimes, that the fires of rage he has tried so hard to put out will day burn him up from the inside. So he distracts—or avoids, some might say—thoughts of his tumultuous entry into the world and the wrath that wounds him if he allows himself to feel it too deeply.
But you can’t avoid your pain. He knows that. It is a physical part of you and is all-consuming at times, in the way that his anger is to him. The pounding in your head, the inflammation that freezes your joints, the stabs of electricity shooting through your abdomen… Whatever your pain may be, it is unavoidable.
So Satan distracts. He sits with his back to the wall, your head in his lap and a book in his hands. You close your eyes and concentrate on his reading aloud instead of the pain that constricts your chest and sends waves of nausea through you. His voice is like those waves, pitch rising and falling with the characters’ dialogue, but it is gentle and laps at your mind like the ocean surf at your toes. You can’t always follow the story; sometimes the pain makes it incomprehensible. But you can always hold onto his words, his voice, his presence. And for Satan, this—his ability to distract, to be there for you, to be needed—makes the pain of his birth and his anger worthwhile. He forgets he was born of hatred when he feels such love for you.
Levi
You’re half asleep, buried in blankets and plushies that Levi’s cushioned you with, when you feel him wrap around your back, so careful, so slow, his handheld that you were playing lazily together sitting on the sheets in-front of you. He pulls free your tangled hair.
“A-any better?” he asks, the words as careful as his touch.
You shake your head.
He’s quiet for a while. Longer than he wants to be, his tail perfectly still, but you feel his heart beat wild with worry. Helpless. Hopeless. Useless. That’s all he is.
“But I can cope when you’re here,” you whisper, moulding against his body. Levi’s tail curls to an O behind him at your words, and he lightly kisses your neck.
A wave of pain hits so hard it catches your breath, the nausea raw, and you claw, and claw, digging nails into your arm as you try and ride it out. You can feel Levi behind you, a small noise of worry touching your ear as he tries to find the words. But they’re stuck. He sees you scratch, nails pulling so hard at skin it breaks.
Levi almost breaks.
He whispers your name; he holds your shaking hand, and beside your arm, cool and smooth and steady, curls his tail.
“Use my tail instead,” he says, placing your hand on it, his words timid. “I know it’s not much, but I can take the pain. For you.”
He notices you’re clutching one of his priceless, ultra rare Ruri-chan pillows. It’s pressing an enchanted heat pad, eternally warm, against your pain. He pauses, wondering if you know how much that cushion means to him. But when you turn into his chest and smile for the first time in hours, aglow from the light of his phone, the only thing of meaning anymore, is you.
Lucifer
Lucifer worries about you more than the others do, even as he shows it less. He struggles with kind words—a consequence of keeping so many secrets inside for so long. But he does worry, over your health, your safety, urging you to take care of yourself with a gentleness that he has never allowed himself. Therein lies the difference, though; he is a demon, and you are a human. You are fragile. Breakable. He is scared—yes, scared—to even touch you when you are in pain, fearing that he might hurt you worse.
He has hurt you before, after all. He would not be surprised if you didn’t want his comfort at all.
It doesn’t stop him from wanting to offer you comfort, though. The sight of you looking so small and miserable, your body a tiny heap beneath your blankets, fills Lucifer with an emotion he cannot identify. Sadness, perhaps? Fear? Above all, a fierce protectiveness and gnawing helplessness. He is no stranger to pain himself, after all. The Celestial War left him with wounds that time will never heal. He knows how mind-numbing pain can be. How frustrating, when it feels as if it will never end. He tries to help you; he brings you teas from Barbatos, potions from Solomon, pills from the human world. And on days when none of the remedies work, when your pain still has you nearly in tears, he wonders, and he wants. He wants to help. To touch.
Until finally, he swallows down his fear, and asks if he can.
Yes, you whisper. Yes.
Lucifer transforms in a heartbeat. His wings, black as pitch, engulf you as he pulls you into his arms. Feathers brush lightly over your skin as he settles in with you against him. You rest your head on his chest and close your eyes with a sigh, grounding yourself in his touch. His fingers play in small circles on your skin, offering small comforts, and you accept them—accept him. You were always going to find peace in his arms. He never needed to be afraid.
Mammon
Mammon’s never been so quiet.
He doesn’t just see you in pain, he feels it too. He’s always held such strong empathy with those around him, especially with those he loves - really loves.
At first, he won’t leave you, forgetting his own needs for all of yours. He’s like a shadow, echoing your movements, making sure that anything you need, he’ll fulfill; anything you do, he’ll do instead. It’s endearing at first, and the consistent company helps distract you, but a part of you begins to worry for him. He still barely talks. But when he does, his stutter is more prominent, and there’s a pitch to his voice you’ve never heard before. You think it’s fear.
He’s careful when he gets closer to you, when he touches you. He’s never been reminded so keenly of your fragility - and mortality. It’s something he doesn’t like to visit, because if he does, he’s not sure how to come back.
As he gently ties back your hair, brushing it off your sticky face and neck, he wonders if you know that he’d give up everything - everything - to give an extra ten years to your lifespan, a year, a day.
“What can I do?” he asks.
“Relax, Mammon,” you smile, with closed eyes. You’re sure he smiles in kind.
And somehow, he does. He joins you on bed, and he holds you skin to skin, face to face. You fit against him as you listen to him breathing against your palms, pressed to chest. Then the soft rumble of his voice returns. He tells stories. Of him, of his brothers, of their early days in Devildom, and there’s even one from the Celestial. The image of him as an angel fills your head, and you wonder. But you don’t ask. It’s not time.
“Tell me what else I can do” he says, almost begging, as you wince in his arms, forehead touching chest.
But you just shake your head, and look up into his wide, worried blues, slow fingers tracing the slide of his jaw. “I couldn’t ask for more.”
Asmodeus
Asmodeus is often slow to notice when you’re in pain. It isn’t his fault, you remind yourself. He is the Avatar of Lust; he is the star at the center of his own galaxy. He shines so brightly it’s only natural that he would be blinded by his own light. It doesn’t make him uncaring. When he finally does notice, he feels terrible for not realizing it sooner. Sometimes, he hurts you accidentally. He is simply so full of affection that he can’t hold it in, so he is always jumping at you when he sees you, throwing his arms around you, nuzzling in against your skin. His body is propelled forward by a desire to be near, but he never means to hurt. So when you give a pained hiss and shove him away on instinct, his gaze turns almost immediately from wounded to worried. He fusses over you, never once listening to your insistences that you’re okay. He clicks his tongue at the dark circles beneath your eyes, scolds you for letting your pain keep you from getting your beauty sleep, and hauls you off to his room before you can say another word.
Clothes never stay on for long in Asmodeus’s room. He strips your shirt from you and eases you onto his bed, laying you on your stomach. You’re hit with the scent of lavender; then his practiced hands touch you. The moment his palms, soft and slick with lotion, meet the bare skin of your back, they’re all you can focus on. The pain is still there, still probing at the outer recesses of your mind, but his touch is there too, far more significant. His dexterous fingers play over your muscles, working out knots you didn’t even know you had, and you give an unintentional groan as your eyes flutter closed. You hear his bell-like laugh; you feel his breath hot on your ear as he leans over you and whispers suggestions of what he’ll do to you later to make you repeat the sound. But for now, he says, just lay still. Let him do what he does best. Let him take care of you.
Beelzebub
Beelzebub feels useless when you’re in pain. He doesn’t know what to do. It isn’t that he doesn’t understand the sensation; he does, all too well. The chasm of emptiness in his abdomen gnaws at him constantly, urges him to feed it lest it consume him whole. It is not mere hunger. It is a void at the core of his very being, a black hole that swallows up all he swallows down. But his problem has a simple solution: food. Even if eating does not cure the starvation completely, it dulls it for a short time. Makes it bearable. So the first time he finds you, balled up on the couch with your hair all amess and your eyes squeezed tightly shut, he asks himself what he would want, if he were you. The answer? Food. He decides right then: he will bring you his favorite custard, a panacea if there ever was one. It will help.
But it doesn’t. You take one look at the open cup, and your face turns green. You turn your head. You push him away. And suddenly food is no longer the answer, as the question shifts to become: what can he do, if the only thing that helps him hurts you?
Beelzebub leaves and returns empty handed. He sits gingerly beside you, his thoughts a mess. Useless. Useless. Still, he can’t bring himself to leave you alone, not even when his stomach growls its low complaint.
Good. You don’t want him to.
Beelzebub gives a quiet, startled sound as you shift to lean in against him. His arms go around you automatically, and you sigh. He is warm. The constant release of energy as his body burns through calories makes him feel like a blazing fire, his skin fever hot. Better than a heating pad. Better than a hot bath. Because it’s him. After a moment, he tugs you into his lap to encompass all of you in this warmth. And he realizes: maybe he is not so useless after all.
@absolutely-existing and I disliked how Flanagan described Lydia in this scene, so I rewrote it with a bit more historical inspiration and female gaze <3
They turned to see Lydia. They had noticed her earlier in the evening, always with Rollond at her side.
She looked beautiful, Hal thought, wearing a deep green woolen overdress that swirled around her and showed off her red-embroidered kirtle, with matching wildflowers twined in her hair. He'd given her an obsidian bracelet on her previous birthday and was pleased to see she was wearing it. She was wearing soft leather slippers that had green and white semi-precious stones sewn to them. Like her brooches, they glittered in the in the wavering fire and lamplight.
He looked at her admiringly. He was more accustomed to seeing Lydia in her leather overjacket, woolen leggings, and tightly laced boots, and with her hair pulled back into crew braids and twisted into a secure knot. He sensed that Stig was gazing past him, admiring her as well.
"You look wonderful," he told her and she reddened slightly, then smiled.
"Thanks, you've brushed up pretty well yourself."
Hal was wearing a white linen shirt, a woven belt, black trousers bound to the knee with dark blue tapes, and short sealskin boots. A silver sword pendant hung at his throat. Like Lydia's outfit, it was a change from his normal rough and ready seagoing clothes.
Lydia glanced at Stig and included him in the smile.
"And how about you? I never knew you were such a dandy."
Stig was dressed in similar style to Hal. But his open linen shirt was embroidered with intricate orange patterns, matching his winingas, and a silver snake bracelet was fastened on his right wrist.
Lets imagine there are blackberry bushes along the walls of dogwarts.
They're brambles, good for defences, good at guarding the high walls. Early on, they gave some extra food for the villagers, so they didn't get tired of the carrots they farmed. In the hot months the shiny fruits gleamed and glowed against the thick foliage, picked at by birds but still abundant.
Their juice was sweet and stained the lips of all. The king and his hand gathered baskets and brought the delicious morsels as gifts to their brothers in arms, all feasting on a rich harvest, a bountiful banquet.
But the cold- a sudden snap, a dogwood winter, it came and it killed.
The night winter came, the blackberries froze.
The vines sickened in the sharp cold. Frost shrunk the leaves, stripped the branches bare, but for their thorns. The birds had once spread the delicate seeds, but now the food waned and the birds went.
The chill was deep. Bone deep, although the king never seemed to feel it- then again his skin was cool as stone. Little comfort came but for nights the by campfires and the cold comfort of the distant stars.
Ember baked loaves grew thinner and carrots rotted under piles of snow. The moon stole away her sister, snow-filled clouds smothered her. The banners stained the drifts a bloody mess.
But perhaps in all this someone had the foresight to take some berries, pat them dry, and place them by the furnace to store. Let's say the Hand tucked some away for when the chill sunk too deep, for a rainy day, for a hoped-for celebration feast.
It's in this heart stopping cold he takes them again, takes pine needles from the bitter slopes, takes honey from the precious stores below. He soaks them in the snow-melt, strains them gently out, makes tea- adding pine and wild mosses, boiling 'til it lightly simmers. He grinds the renewed berries, and purple the juice runs down- scooped up in careful fingers, mixed with honey, mixed with salt.
Now on ember baked loaves, flat and dusted with dark soot, he spreads the makeshift jam, a violet stain vivid, soaking through spongy bread. As purple as the sky is bright when it peeks through stormy clouds. As deep as the lasting look into the eyes of a lover. As rich as silken cloth with royal Sidonian dye, trimmed with gold.
And of course, a royal treat, then it must be shared with kings.
So to the King the Hand brings this secret delight. A sweet, staining surprise that, perhaps, brings a smile to the bloodied face.
A dipped finger, touched to the tongue, reveals the honey-bright and ambrosia-sweet taste. The berry's flavour entwining itself among their senses, blossoms out in renewed life. And the dark, swirling tea brings a bittersweet warmth to their bones. Like red infused with green, with blue, the warming tea diffuses through their worn out limbs, replacing, just so briefly, all their fear.
Let us imagine tender words suffused with love that dance in the curling breaths they speak into the winter air. Dwell on the gentleness of these who live, surrounded by rock and ice and sand and snow.
Let's imagine the fingertips, warmed by wooden cups, clutching for more. Eyes drooping in sweet sleep. Cups lying long empty. Reams of poetry spilling from purple-stained lips. Soft humming songs echoing off the harsh walls.
The slowly fading, lingering taste of blackberries.
And all this while still the brambles snarl around the frozen stones below the ramparts, and the cold digs it's claws closer to their hearts.
You know, I’ve never seen untrodden snow
or even, for that matter, snowflakes fall,
not ever seen afar a blizzard blow
through frigid streets and rows of cars that, parked,
form walls around that lone and shiv'ring soul.
But I have seen a vast expanse of sand
All baking under brilliant blinding sun
That, cooking in an oven of the land
Does shift and change and so deceive the eyes
Of lonely trav’llers parched and weak of thirst.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hiiiii!! i put my little fic onto ao3 because it was about time i made an account
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Martyn Littlewood & Rendog
Characters: Martyn Littlewood | InTheLittleWood, Rendog (Video Blogging RPF)
Additional Tags: Fluff, platonic or romantic you choose - Freeform, Light Angst, in the sense that 3rd life was always going to be a tragedy. and Martyn knows that
Summary:
A rainy day in Dogwarts, a quiet moment between the battles, a single sweet second before the end.
Where Martyn is preoccupied with the ever present threat, and Ren has made candy.
