#the absolute lack of confrontation after the ENTIRE debacle of season 1 is SO frustrating

[the-auguer]

Fright Night

Just a li’l something that’s been sitting in my drafts for a while. It was titled ‘the girls are fighting’ so do with that what you will.

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Mammon’s nails dig a little bit into your arm. It’s not harsh or purposeful. It just happens. Like how his arm constricts around your chest and squeezes you a bit too tightly. You crane your head to stare at him. His eyes are a harsh blue, the yellow near his iris ablaze, and he’s not looking at you. 

Belphie retracts his arms slowly, a frown marring his previously soft face. 

“Mammon.” he says slowly. Tightly, like Mammon’s arms. “What are you doing?”

Mammon’s grip tightens a little. You push at Mammon’s chest, and try harder when he doesn’t budge. 

“Mammon, let go.”

Mammon glances down at you. “What?! Why!?”

You glare at him. “You’re squeezing.”

Mammon’s hold on you loosens, but he doesn’t let go. You push uselessly at him again, unwilling to Order him, but getting close to it. 

“Mammon,” Belphie says again, his light frown beginning to pull into a scowl. “Why?”

“Whaddaya mean, why?” Mammon snipes back. “You were touchin’ them.”

“We were hugging.”

“Yeah, and you’re not allowed.”

“Not allowed? Then what are you doing?”

“Wha— well obviously they want the Great Mammon to hold them. I’m allowed.”

“And I’m not?”

“No!”

“Why?”

Mammon splutters. “Why? Be-because you’re not allowed, that’s why!”

Levi snorts, sinking deeper into your bed and not glancing up from his D.D.D. “I’m telling Beel that you hit Belphie.”

From his hold, you feel Mammon’s body tense. “I didn’t hit him!”

“You shoved me,” Belphie says, confusion fading into anger. “When I hugged them, you shoved me.”

Beel walks back into your room, a tower of snacks in his arms. He drops them irreverently to the ground and they crackle and crunch at his feet. “Who shoved Belphie?”

Levi cackles. “Mammon.”

Mammon startles, backing both you and him up a few steps. “I did not!”

“Yeah, you did,” Levi sings.

“Yes, you did!” Belphie yells. 

You drive your hand into Mammon’s face to  create more space between the both of you. You were just trying to watch a movie. Why did watching movies always evolve into shit like this? It’s not fair. 

“Let go, Mammon. Now.”

“No!” Mammon shouts, obviously panicked as both Beel and Belphie begin to advance on him. Levi lifts his D.D.D, obviously recording. 

“Why not!” You yell back, wedging your elbow against his cheek and push with all your might. Mammon squawks and tries to pry your arms off his face. 

“Because!”

“No one should push Belphie,” Beel intones, moving closer and closer. 

“They’re not something you can hog all to yourself, Mammon,” Belphie says darkly, in step with Beel.

“Let me go right now!” You shout. If this continues, there’s going to be a dog pile on Mammon and you are not the slightest bit interested in the broken bones that will follow if you get caught up in that. 

“Fight, fight, fight, fight,” Levi chants.

“Mammon,” you scream as Beel gets closer. He’s so obviously focused on Mammon and not on you. Maybe Beel doesn’t even see you right now. “Now!”

“No! He’s not allowed!”

“Why!” Belphie howls.

“You’ll hurt them!”

Belphie freezes his prowl forward, and you pause your attempts to pinch under Mammon’s arms. 

Levi lowers his D.D.D. Beel stops moving entirely. 

Mammon’s eyes dart around anxiously, sensing the change in the room. 

He laughs nervously. “Yeah, you’ll just hurt them, so it’s better for me to hold them. See,” he jostles you, “no harm done.”

You shove Mammon harshly. “Get. Off. Me! Get off me now!”

Surprisingly, Mammon lets go of you this time. His eyes are big and wet. “Why?”

He looks hurt, and usually you would backtrack right about now. You would assure him and explain to him. Sighing, you try. 

“Belphie won’t hurt me.” You say, tiredly. You motion for Levi to put his D.D.D down. “Is this about how you were late? I told you what time I was starting the movie and you decided to stay out shopping.”

“No, it’s not,” Mammon says, sounding petulant. “I’m not mad because of that. I’m mad cause yer lettin’ him touch all over you and he’ll hurt you!”

“No he won’t,” you say, exasperated.

“No I won’t,” Belphie presses.

“No he won’t,” Beel echoes, confusion evident in the furrow of his brows. 

Levi stays quiet, his D.D.D laying on the bed next to him. 

Mammon is your friend. A close friend, even if he’s really bad at being a friend sometimes. You try to understand, despite the throbbing of your head. 

“What do you mean, Mammon? You have to expla—“

“Whaddaya mean, whaddaya I mean?” Mammon interrupts, frustrated. “He already did! He— he—“

Mammon clamps a handful of his hair in his fist, tugging ineffectually. “He hurt you.”

Mammon’s eyes are more than just wet now. He’s tearing up, staring at you imploringly, worse than when he begs you to hide him from Lucifer. It’s almost too much for you to bear. 

Belphie snarls. “That was before— that was because I— I said I was sorry! I’m not going to do it again! You’re just jealous they want to spend time with me, so you’re making up excuses!”

“No I am not!” Mammon yells back, tears disappearing under a rare bearing of fangs. “I’M their first, so there’s nothin’ ta be jealous of! I’m bein’ honest here!”

“You know why you’re their first?” Belphie says dangerously. Beel puts a worried hand on his shoulder, but Belphie shakes it off. “Because Levi threatened them into it to get his money back! They didn’t want to form a pack with you, they had to.”

Levi sank deep into your comforter, mumbling something indistinct as he attempts to be absorbed by the sheets. 

“It’s different now! And that doesn’t matter anymore!”

“Mammon‘s right, Belphie,” you say. “It doesn’t. But both of you need to calm down so we can talk this through.”

“Talk through what? How Mammon thinks I’ll hurt my contractor?”

Beel moves forward, pressing a hand on Belphie’s chest. “That’s right,” he stresses, brows still drawn together. “Belphie has a contract with them. He can’t hurt them.”

“Yes,” you agree, pouncing on Beel’s statement with vigor. “No one in this house can hurt me. See? It’s all fine.”

You glance at the clock, prepared to make an excuse about how late it is and how you are oh so tired and they’ll have to watch a movie another night. 

“But Mammon hurt you,” Levi pipes up, peering out from inside the cocoon he made out of your blanket. “Just now. You’re bleeding.”

You glance down and yeah, the skin of your upper arm is a bit red and there are small cuts where Mammon’s nails had dug in. They’re not bleeding, per se, but they are raw pink and surrounded by ripped skin. 

Mammon almost falls over with how hard he startles. “What! I didn’t— but I didn’t— I didn’t mean to! That was an accident!”

You poke experimentally at your arm. It stings, but no more than it should. You’re fine. 

“I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt.”

You try to smile soothingly at Mammon, who is staring at you like you are the killer in a slasher film, his honey brown skin pale and stricken. 

“Hypocrite,” Belphie crows vindictively. “All that talk and you’re the one who hurt them!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Mammon swears, louder than before. 

“Are you okay?” Beel asks worriedly. He plucks a bag of chips off the floor to press into your hands. “Eat something, it’ll make you feel better.”

You open the bag eat a chip to stave off his fretting. “I’m fine, Beel. It’s fine.” You look at Mammon meaningfully. “I’m fine.” 

“Go-good. And what the hell, Levi!” Mammon shouts, gaining back steam. “Why’d ya have to go and bring that up?”

Levi burrows tighter into your blanket. You wouldn’t be surprised if there’s rips stressed into it by the end of the night. “Just leveling the field. Now everyone in here has hurt them. Balanced team. Every RPG needs a balanced team. All the Seven Lords hurt Henry before they became friends. It’s the way it is.”

Everyone shifts uncomfortably at that. The air around you is suffocating. You suddenly ache to be the one in Levi’s cocoon. Preferably alone. 

“Thank you, Levi,” you grit out frustratedly. “So. Much. Since this conversation is over, I think I’m done with movie night. You all can go back to your rooms.”

Belphie startles. “What did I do? It was Mammon that started this!”

“Belphie.” Beel glances at you, uncertain and guilty in equal measure. You want to hide in your closet to avoid his gaze. “Let’s just go. We can talk about it later.”

Levi slowly extracts himself. He looks at you like he wants to say something, but turns away instead. 

Mammon clenched his fists. “I wanna talk more. Are ya sendin’ me out cause I hurt ya? I didn’t mean to, honest.”

“I know Mammon, and I’m fine,” you sigh. “I’m tired, though. We can talk later.”

Belphie shakes Beel off again. “Sure. We can talk later.” He gives Mammon a nasty smile. “We’re all on the same team, after all.”

Mammon is across the room in the blink of an eye, Belphie’s collar clenched tight in his hand. Belphie rises to the tops of his toes and snatches Mammon’s collar in return. 

“I am not on the same level as you. As any of you. Because I never tried to kill them.”

And there it is. Exactly what you were hoping would never be said. Ever. 

“I never almost killed them. I never actually killed them! You did that!” Mammon yanks at Belphie’s collar. “Ya killed them! And said sorry ‘cause a’ Lilith! Ya didn’t mean it!”

“Yes I did!” Belphie howls. He releases Mammon’s collar to claw uselessly at Mammon’s hands. His horns curl out of his hair and his tail lashes behind him like a provoked cat. “I meant it! I meant it, you selfish bastard! You just wish I didn’t cause you want them all to yourself!”

Beel is shifting from foot to foot, obviously longing to step in or speak up, but does not move. His eyes are locked on Mammon, unsure. He doesn’t seem scared, but he is uncertain. Levi moves between your table and the wall, like the added barrier puts him further away from the situation. 

“Ya didn’t! Ya killed them! Ya killed my best friend! I had ta watch them die!”

Mammon is not in his demon form, despite Bephie’s bared fangs and the flashes of purple singing through the air. He holds Belphie captive like it doesn’t mean anything, like Belphie’s struggles to free himself don’t require the smallest hint of his demonic power. 

“Stop it.” Your fists clench. “I don’t like this.”

Mammon continues to yell, and tears are falling freely down his cheeks. Belphie curses him, screams his name and damns him in every way he seems to know how. 

“Ya don’t know! Ya laughed! Ya laughed when I cried an’ they weren’t breathing! No one cared but me! They were dead an’ no one else cared!”

The shockwaves of Belphie’s power grow more drastic, more erratic.

“You didn’t notice I was gone!” He bellows. “Lucifer kept me in the goddamn attic and you thought I was playing nice with humans! You were supposed to be my big brother! You were supposed to come for me!”

“How could you?” They both wail and wail and wail. 

Why.

Why did you have to break up the fights between beings that are thousands of years older than you? Why did you have to be the one with the level head in a room full of people that could kill you on a whim? In a simple accident? Is it because you dared to care about them? Is it really that bad to care about them? God help you, you care about them so much. 

Shouldn’t this feel vindicative? Shouldn’t you feel better now that the confrontation has happened, feel more seen? Shouldn’t you want your housemates, your friends, to acknowledge you and your past pain? Why did you feel so drained and defeated, then?

Maybe because you were always going to die. 

From the moment you arrived in that throne room with the most powerful demons that gave less than a shit about your continued existence, you were always going to die. Maybe it was not a possibility but a race of circumstances. A race of who would do it first.

Leviathan in the Tales of the Seven Lords trivia competition, the first to charge at you. His scornful gaze as he verbally contemplates the pros and cons of killing you. The force in his eyes as he made you a pawn in a game of revenge against his brother. 

Beelzebub in the kitchen, your room in shambles afterwards. The knowledge that that could have easily been you. His flat, hungry eyes in the student council room, and a few more places beyond that. 

Lucifer in the crypt, bearing down on you with the light of heaven’s finest and looming power of the right hand of the ruler of hell. A hand clamping down on your injured wrist. Lucifer time and time again reminding you of how easily he would kill you if you stepped out of line. Would. Not could. 

Asmodeus’s hypnotic gaze training itself on you dozens of times, certain you will yearn for him, certain you will bow to him. His annoyance when you do not. Cerberus’s breath lashing across your heels as you run, heart plummeting to your stomach. 

Satan’s room, green flames licking at the walls and beginning to scorch your skin. His claws reaching for your throat. 

Mammon. Mammon never… but he did. He left you for dead, time and time again in the beginning. He was told to watch you, to guard you, and he left you in the clutches of demons. Again and again. 

And you were so focused on the contestants in front of you, the ones already at your throat, that you didn’t think to look out for the knife behind you. The hands at your neck, the bind around your trachea, the arms around your chest. The sight of your own body, limp and lifeless. 

Belphegor. 

Where was Lucifer? You reach into the pocket of your pajama pants, scrambling for your D.D.D. 

Your shaking fingers manage to navigate to Lucifer’s contact, and you find you can’t do more than hit the call button. The dial tone is lost in the cacophony of your room, and you find you can no longer see Beel or Levi past how hazy Belphie’s power is making you. 

Your D.D.D falls from your limp fingers, and you find your eyes getting heavy.

Well… well shit.