#Dialuci is mentioned but I am still tagging it

[authormars]

Demons and Sleeping

So, obviously we know demons sleep from various texts in the og game (I have no idea about NB, I literally just got OG a week ago. This was totally not prompted by a Mammon text I received)

But according to my canon (which is overly complicated because apparently I enjoy making life hard for my ADHD girlfriend who doesn't remember half the stuff I text her) not all demons have to sleep.

For example, Barbatos. Yes, he can sleep. Yes, he can get exhausted. But the hours of rest he has to get per week is close to 0 because of what kind of demon he is.

Sloth demons always need at least 12 hours a day, normally more like 16-17. Gluttony demons have a tendency more toward 9-11 hours a day. Lust demons can go without sleep for a day, but they generally average 8-10. Wrath demons don't need a whole lot, most only really needing maybe 6 hours a night (which is why I have the headcanon Satan spends half the night reading)

Envy demons don't really have a consensus, but most normally depression sleep for 7-9 hours. Greed demons are like lust where they can go a bit without sleeping, but generally need 7-8 hours. Pride demons, however, are fucking weird.

Pride demons can go without sleep for 3 days and be fine. Their general need for sleep per week is maybe 10 hours. Maybe 14. Which is why I have the headcanon Lucifer legitimately doesn't get tired the first night he pulls an all-nighter. The subsequent days after... Are a different story.

Royal demons are also weird. Due to the Royal Family (Diavolo's family) encompassing all sins, he doesn't really have a set need for sleep. Depending on how he's feeling, he could need 16 hours or he could need 4. Which obviously frustrates his pride demon boyfriend who's trying to do work and his time demon butler/mom who just wants to not deal with his shenanigans during the night

And not just sleeping hours. It's also how they sleep. Demons have to keep their human forms with magic, which is why lower demons don't have a human form. So when demons are asleep, they generally revert into a human-demon shape, not unlike their demon forms. They still look human, but their tails, wings, and/or horns will be out.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. Please ask me things. I love Dialuci. Remember to drink water today <3

[mageofseven]

Repressed Love: A DiaLuci Love Story

Chapter 29

Tag list: @astroseuss @zarakem @brielle043 @missloserqueen

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A few days went by and the secrecy squeezed at the pride demon's heart like he was being choked with barbed wire.

It has been a long time since Lucifer even thought of keeping a secret from Diavolo, but to keep one like this about her father? It was difficult.

Honestly, it was hard not to think about it all, about the state of his fiancée's relationship with her father. There was so much she wanted, no, needed from him and he knew if her father died before giving them to her, part of the woman's heart will never heal.

This is what led the man to convincing Barbatos to talk the king into speaking with him in private, something the butler was not too thrilled with and even tried to talk the Avatar of Pride out of.

Lucifer was already determined though and there was nothing Barb could do to dissuade him.

Sadly, it became another secret between the two men to keep from the princess, at least for right now; both men agreed it was best.

How Barbatos managed to convince the king to speak privately to the man he hated most, the pride demon had no idea, but he still headed to the king's room at the scheduled time.

Like when his daughter joined him, the king was staring out the still-shattered window, something Luce found odd; he would have thought the man would have had it fixed by now so there must be a reason he keeps it broken.

Unlike when Diavolo spoke to her father, the king had no qualms about turning to face him.

"Speak plainly, Avatar of Pride, for I am not in the mood for this conversation."

Lucifer nodded

"Alright. You're dying." The younger man said without even a hint of sympathy.

The king tensed up.

"How do you know that?"

"You should know better than I that nothing stays a secret in this castle." Luce said simply. "Now what is it you mean to achieve?"

"You make it sound as if I have some dark plan," The king complained. "When I am just father trying to prepare his child for the days after him."

"You've done nothing but abuse my fiancée since the day you awoke and even long before--"

"I have never hit my child a day in--"

"Yet abuse is more than how you touch a child." He argued. "It's also about how you talk to them, make them feel, how you raise them to think about themselves--"

"Do not judge me, Avatar of Pride, for you do not truly know how it is to be a parent--"

"I have two children of my own that you keep discrediting the existence of." Luce argued. "Not to mention the fact that I have raised each and every one of my siblings alone so do not lecture me about parenthood for I have known it since even I was a child."

Somehow, the Avatar of Pride made the king speechless. Surely that's an achievement that belongs in a book somewhere?

Lucifer closed his eyes and took a breath; he wasn't here to fight with the man after all.

"Despite everything, your daughter loves you. Surely--"

"I have no daughter; I have a son." He spoke in a low voice. "Her confusion means nothing--"

"'Her'?" Luce pointed out. "You swear she's a man, but still instinctually refer to your child as 'her'?"

The king huffed and turned his back to the man, prompting the pride demon to step closer.

"You knew." Lucifer accused. "You knew your daughter was a girl and forced her to live like that, didn't you--"

"It would have been the embarrassment of the millennia." He said coldly. "The crown prince, our realm's next king, a woman stuck in man's body? Do you any idea how others would have treated her as she grew up if they knew?"

"And instead you made her live in pain? Confusion?" Luce asked incredulously. "You made her grow up hating herself, hating her own body--"

"There are some things you can't take back as a parent...I may not like you, Avatar of Pride, but I hope that's not a lesson you ever have to learn the hard way."

But he has. The king's words brought to mind Satan's childhood, of mistakes he made with his son, of everything he did and did not do.

"I...I am already too familiar with that concept."

Silence filled the room before the king let out a tired sigh and sat on his bed. This was the moment Lucifer could truly see how pale the man was, how weak his body seemed and despite everything, a small part of the pride demon felt pity for this man.

"You are dying." Lucifer repeated slowly. "Surely now, more than ever, you can let yourself be the father she needs."

"I cannot." The king said simply.

"And why is that?"

"Because then she would forgive me for things that should not be forgiven." He explained quietly. "She...she is too much like her mother in that way; I cannot let her be though. She must hate me. She must learn to hate me."

"Diavolo has no room in her heart for such a feeling. If she did, she would have hated you long ago."

The king was silent for a long moment.

"It appears...the hardest truths in life are also the simplest. The ones right in front of your nose that you try so desperately not to think about..."

The king reached over to his bedside drawer and pulled out a small ornate key, shorter than a thumb, before handing it over to Lucifer.

"Give this...to my daughter." He told him. "Tell her to use it on the locked drawer in her mother and my's old room, to read the book before the letters."

The pride demon stared at his almost-father-in-law before slowly taking the key.

"What will she find in there?"

"My failures," The older man said softly. "Which will either lead to her hatred of me, something I've tried to cultivate in her for so long, or pain that leads to the peace she wants so desperately...and then have her see me afterwards."

The Avatar of Pride nodded and closed his fist around the key gently.

Just what was waiting for Diavolo in the drawer the king mentioned? Whatever it was, Lucifer was not going to let her face it alone.

Now was not the time for the princess to stress...but if this could give her the peace she so dearly deserves, why would Lucifer deprive her of it?