Chapter Text
Satan, the demonic Avatar of Wrath, has been slipping, lately. His carefully-polished grip on that smiling unbothered mask he wears, I mean. Especially considering Lucifer’s consuming, star-shattering fury brought Satan into existence to start with, it’s pretty impressive how much of a handle he’s usually managed to keep over his defining sin. Particularly compared to every other one of the seven demon brothers still eternally tied to a heaven that doesn’t want them... Mammon with his unpayable debts, Asmodeus with his obsessive need to be wanted, Belphegor always, always, always barely even trying to keep his eyes open once they start drifting closed.
To be born of a sin, bound to Wrath from the first howling instant of his creation, but still keep ahold of himself? Still refuse to bow and succumb helplessly to his own crueler impulses, the way the others so often do, if only as a point of pride… if only to be better than that… if only because his rage extends, of course, to the raw concept of Wrath itself.
Well. It’s something for Satan to smirk about softly, now and then, watching his brothers stumble over themselves. Those brothers that tasted the Celestial Realm, once — that know what it was to exist as avatars of something, anything, beyond sin. Those brothers that will never learn.
Satan’s angry — nothing new — but today he’s envious, too, mulling it over like the sour truth it is. Envy is Leviathan’s sin, and Satan doesn’t always feel it churning coldly, sickly all through him, the way it is now.
See, that’s the thing. Satan’s carefully-practiced hold on his sin is slipping, and he thinks he knows why, much as he loathes it. Not only does his own Wrath have a fiercer, harder-to-smother-down-and-smile-through sway on him than usual, but his brothers’ sins are leaking into him, too.
What has Satan ever been but a vessel, conjured to contain and carry sin?
What has he ever been, anyway?
Satan blames this one book he found at a hellish estate sale, to be honest, not that he’d physically be able to growl those words out through his aching teeth, right now. The demon who died, whose children were selling all her treasures for cheap, just to shed them like a disquieting, ill-fitting skin, didn’t even know what the book was. What it is. What it wants: to unravel and reveal and behold.
Satan doesn’t know much about this book — though obviously he knows more than the haggling, backtracking, simpering children who sold it to him. He knows that… used correctly… the spells in this book could wind curses and tricks around Lucifer so utterly that even he’d struggle to be rid of their stain. Heh. He knows that the book was, supposedly, written in smeary green venom, drawn from the author’s own fangs. The author always wore a veil, back when they walked the Devildom, so it’s said, gauzy grey-green mist holding them in tenderly. Maybe they were a demon, or maybe an angel. Maybe something else entirely.
To see, but not be seen. To reveal, but hide forever, without trading away even their name.
Satan might appreciate this masked author’s audacity, except that he feels their wiggling fingers in his mind right this moment, loosening all his carefully-tied knots. He feels the cracks forming, spreading. Letting everything through. And what can he do to stop it?
Maybe it would have been different if Satan had only glimpsed through the book, instead of trying to follow its spindly green-ink instructions. Instead of offering it a little blood and a few promises, instead of pinning in a ribbon of each brothers’ stolen hair. Asmo’s, smelling like roses, sleek with conditioner; Beelzebub’s, orange-red and crusted with splattered spicy dipping sauce.
Today, Satan’s been trying to lift the book’s grip on him… except when he forgets that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. Except when he feels too changed, and sin is all he can think, and —
Oh, fuck. Satan’s rounding a corner in the House of Lamentation, now, when he comes back to himself, and he hears the human Yuki’s voice down the hall. Sometimes, hearing Yuki’s laugh makes Satan’s venomous demon’s heart skip. Sometimes, hearing Yuki’s voice lilt into a question makes Satan strain to listen like he’s never strained before, hoping that he alone will have the answer for them. All his books; all his years; all his self-control.
Satan can’t let Yuki see him like this. They’ll worry. They’ll know. It could well be none of Satan’s brothers have figured out something’s afoot with him, yet, but… it’s Yuki.
They know him.
Satan hangs back, trailing his sizzling-sharp fingertips against the wallpaper. He listens, for just a moment, before turning back the way he came.
That moment is enough.
On the other side of the hall, Yuki is talking about some of their latest Devil Detective theories. Satan’s insides settle, just a little, listening. Always so insightful, Yuki. Putting puzzle pieces together, empathizing even with fictional characters. So endearing. So soft, so honest…
But then, answering Yuki, Leviathan the Avatar of Envy says, “Lol. You make a good point… but you’re forgetting season three episode twelve. Remember: the greenhouse key dissolved in the hot springs already.”
“You don’t think they could’ve reformed it in ice? Someone might still have the original mold.”
Levi pauses, and when Satan imagines the awestruck, gentle look passing over his brother’s familiar face, he’s overcome by a sheer biting surge of envy, Envy like he’s never felt. It’s like he’s mirroring Levi’s Envy back, imagining him reaching out to shake Yuki’s arm, going, “Omg. Omg omg, Yuki, that’s… you should post that online.”
If he could know what Satan’s feeling, Levi might connect it back to that moment in The Tale of the Seven Lords when the Lord of Masks breaks his favorite mask during a spell gone wrong, and for a moment everyone glimpses his true face for the first time in centuries. They see themselves horrifically reflected back in him, but he’s the one who chokes on a scream, struggling to hide his face again before anything awful happens. Before they go somewhere they won’t be able to come back from.
Listening to Yuki bashfully thank Levi for his enthusiasm, his compliments, his steadfast companionship breaks something new, in Satan. Everything around him breaks something new, now.
Crack, crack, crack.
Satan is a mirror.
Satan is a well of emotion and Wrath and helpless selfhood, denied too long.
Satan is a stormy ocean trapped in a glass jar.
Crack, crack, crack.