Chapter Text
Satan wasn't a loved child , wasn't a cherished child. But now he atleast starts to feel like he is loved, like he is cherished.
The past can be described as rocky at best, the brothers shrouded in sorrow, wearing the veil of mourning and Satan drowning in his wrath. Neither of these two parties had made especially good decisions. But it's okay now, that's one thing Satan firmly believes.
The brothers have learned how to deal with their loss , Satan has learned how to deal with his anger. Now, he joins them in their conversations during dinner, joins them for game and movie nights. He joins their sleepovers, pillow fights, cuddles and he's being let in on their secrets.
Slowly, they have become a family. The loneliness long left behind, the silence replaced by chatter and laughter and Mr. Kitty catching dust in some corner in his room. But Mammon is still there, part of his family no matter what family Satan chooses.
Lucifer is in neither of those families. Satan will never be treated like he is his brother and definitely not like his son, Satan has given up on that many centuries ago. They're acquiantances at best and strangers living in the same space at worst.
But it was worse once. Because once there were unnecessary reprimands accompanied by screams and explanations that fell on deaf ears. Once there was hatred, loathing.
Now there is nothing. Not a single emotion , not a single sentiment that has remained. Now , there is only silence between them.
Any sorrow ,any resentment that has survived the years , that remains from what was once a young boy, has been locked away ,never to be heard or opened ever again.
And if there ever was a crack in his carefully crafted walls ,Satan would loose himself in his books , curling around the false comfort brought by the words of strangers ,until the walls would be repaired ,and no one would be able to see even a glimpse of what's behind.
Sometimes, in the dead of night , his old companions would return, the silence deafening, the loneliness gripping him, and his walls would come crumbling down. It is then that he remembers the sobs ,the disgust ,the hatred and the loathing.
It is then that he thinks about what would have happened if he had disappeared back then , if he had died. He wonders if they would be happier. But then he remembers Mammon and what he promised him and he stops thinking, making sure that his walls are up again before anyone can see. And he leaves his old companions ,his old family ,behind.
When he was younger Satan wanted nothing more than to be a part of Lucifers family. Now that he's older he realises that it was nothing more than some distant dream ,never to come true.
Lucifers has a different family than Satan does, and Satan just never seems to fit in there. In Lucifers family there are ,much like in Satan's, the brothers. And recently there had been a new addition , a little boy named Buer. Red eyes and black hair that make him look just like Lucifer , just like his father. Because that's what Lucifer is to Buer and what he will never be to Satan, a father.
The little boy tumbles around the house, coos and smiles following him everywhere he goes. A big smile is always plastered on his tiny face , laughing without a care in the world. Because Buer is a loved child, a cherished child. He is happy and well-behaved and everything Satan could never be.
Satan told himself that it didn't bother him how everyone in this house loved and adored this child even though he hadn't done anything significant , he told himself that he didn't mind how Buer was never screamed at and was always told calmly about what he did wrong.
He told himself that it doesn't matter to him how Buer is always being comforted by everyone at the slightest hint of a tear ,how he is always being showered with gifts. Satan told himself that he didn't care that Lucifer cared about Buer and treated him like his beloved child.
He told himself that he didn't really care about the fact that , even though he and Buer are so similar, Satan had to fight for every single thing that Buer gets just for existing.
And he believed it.
Satan didn't pay much attention to the child. He had his family after so many years ,after so much effort, and Buer wasn't a part of it.
Satan certainly doesn't feel a sting in his chest when he goes in the library and sees Lucifer reading something to Buer when Satan's every request had been turned down in the past.
He certainly doesn't feel tears burn at the back of his eyes when he sees Lucifer running around with the child in the backyard when Satan had always been out there alone in the past.
And he definitely doesn't feel a seething jealousy when he sees Lucifers hug the child in an attempt to comfort him. When Satan was still a child he was locked in his room and he was choking on his own sobs , struggling to breathe with his vision blurred because of tears and his chest hurting like it's being squeezed together.
A family trip , that's what they were supposed to be doing today. In the end ,Satan found himself all alone in the house that now feels so much bigger than it actually is. That's when he realises that it wasn't a family trip for Satan's family but one for Lucifer's, the one where Satan doesn't have a part in.
Being alone hurts once you got used to company , being forgotten is a stabbing pain once you experience being noticed. When you feel like you lost your family it feels like you're dying.
Atleast Satan thinks dying might feel like this, being suffocated by emotions ,unable to breathe, having your vision completely obscured and blurry. Satan feels as though something was ripped out of his chest and his walls were torn down.
Satan felt the green flames before he saw them, searing around his fists. He tried to calm down, running to the library ,to the books that would always ground him.
It's fine. It was fine.
It had been fine, the first few times it had happened.
'They were stressed, it was no big deal that they forgot to tell me.'
'A little child takes a lot of attention , especially that one , no wonder they forgot. '
'Next time ,surely, they'll remember.'
Things Satan had told himself , things he had wanted to believe. Once they were back they apologised after all , they didn't mean to forget.
But seeing your family slip further and further from your grasp was terrifying for the little child that hid behind the walls. The little child that was hurt, sorrowful, resentful and lonely. The little child that sat alone at the dinner table in the middle of the night with nothing but a cat plushie, the silence and the loneliness to accompany him.
Behind the walls ,the little child felt content. Without them, the little child wanted to see the world burn, hurt everyone as much as he had been hurt , it was only fair.
The little child let loose despair and rage , and Satan was drowning in it.
Drowning in the despair, the sorrow that threatens to tear him apart as it was sitting in the base of his throat and his chest ,drowning in the rage that was consuming every vein of his like a wildfire.
The library was burning, some of the bookshelves reduced to nothing more than a few scrap pieces of wood.
But Satan didn't notice it , couldn't see the flames through his tears, couldn't hear the crackling of the fire through his screams , couldn't feel the pain in his hand through the pain in his heart.
He hadn't heard the door opening, he hadn't heard the hurried footsteps. But he did come to when arms were thrown around his upper body.
He noticed a hand rubbing his back, trying to calm him down, noticed the white hair. And once he did, it felt like the dam broke completely , as he loudly wheeped in his brothers arms, gripping the back of Mammon's shirt so tightly one might be afraid that it would be torn, while the front was stained with tears.