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Satan's earliest memories of devildom contained no one but Mammon.
A demon born from anger and grief, a child that was far from easy to deal with. Everything he touched is ruined. Everyone looks at him like he's some ticking time bomb. Like he would lash out suddenly, attacking anyone blindly.
But he isn't like that.
He didn't mean to be...to be angry all the time.
"Why don't you prove them wrong?" The older demon mumbled, caressing the buised fists of his baby brother. His skin violet and red.
Satan sniffled, wiping his face with his arm as he stared at Mammon— big green eyes staring up at the other with tiredness and anger.
For a child like him, he shouldn't hold such gaze.
"But how?" Satan had asked, gripping Mammon's shirt with his free hand.
"It's easy to prove them right," He sobbed, shaking his head. "I'm tired, Mams, I don't want to be angry all the time."
Mammon looked at him with a gaze he doesn't know. He looked sad, guilty, and regretful.
"I know, Tan," He whispered, pressing his lips on the other's forehead. "I know."
He can still remember it clearly, how his other brothers would look at him. How those red eyes bore through his skull and soul, and how the cold looks would make him freeze.
For the longest time, all he received was silence from them.
The only one who would talk to him until bedtime, who would make sure he eats a lot and bathes him, was Mammon. His 'Mams', as he would call him.
Those warm hands would always find their way on his hair, combing it gently as he tell him stories from a lomg time ago.
About angels, demons, humans, everything.
Even when Satan would scream and scratch, even when the sin of wrath would throw meaningless words, Mammon stayed.
In the eyes of a child who only knew anger, Mammon was light.
Satan trembled, his knees giving out as he collapses on the floor in fear. His head hung low, both his palms pressed against the wood to steady hinself.
"Don't wander around this place."
A cold voice said, his voice laced with annoyance.
The child of wrath bit his lower lip, anger and fear running through his veins as the figure walked closer.
But before the shadow fully loomed over him, he heard the rush of footsteps, and then before he knows it, he was raised from the floor. Cradled by someone.
His ears were covered, and Satan could hear how his older brother's heart beats loudly, and the vibration as he shouts.
'Please don't hurt my brother', Satan pleaded, closing his eyes shut. He's aware that this person his older brother is talking to, is more powerful. Mammon told him so. 'Please don't hurt Mams.'
'I don't want him to get hurt because of me—'
"Hey, little guy, you okay?"
Satan opened his eyes in an instant, staring up at Mammon who looked at him with worry. The demon child looked around, and only then did he notice that they were already outside that room.
He looked at Mammon again, before fat tears gathered in his eyes, as he raised his fists.
"What took you so long?!" 'I'm glad you came.'
"I hate you! I hate you!" 'I'm sorry.'
Mammon rubbed his back, whispering words that Satan couldn't understand due to his wailing.
"I'm sorry, I won't leave you alone ever again, okay?"
But as he grew up, Satan also became selfish.
He can still recall it so clearly. The moment Mammon's gaze changed.
"You were the one who stole it, weren't you?!"
His blue haired brother yelled, gripping Mammon's shirt. The demon of greed shook his head, yelling back with excuses.
Satan sat not far away from them, his gaze worried. Mammon had been by his side the whole day! It wasn't him who—
"What's happening here?" Lucifer's voice was heard, his shoes clacking as he walked inside. Satan saw how his frown deepened as Leviathan spoke and explained.
"This scumbag stole my things again!" He hissed, glaring at the white haired brother.
Mammon glared back, pointing at him. "I was with Satan the whole day, dimwit!"
After a few minutes of yelling, Lucifer held up a hand to shut them up. He turned to Satan.
"You."
The demon child flinched, he gulped and glared right back. "Is it true that Mammon's with you the whole day?"
He stopped, opened his mouth to agree. But then, his other brothers entered the room, and suddenly, Satan's mind shifted.
He was aware of how the others would always pick on Mammon. Aware of how much the other's belittle him all the time. Aware of how much of an idiot his family makes out of the demon of greed.
Satan hated that.
"Mammon's..." He started, swallowing the lump in his throat.
'Isn't this an opportunity?' The voice inside his mind mumbled, a cold sinister laugh followed. 'If you trample on Mammon, wouldn't the others think of you as someone on their level?'
Satan shook his head, no. He can't do that. Not when it was Mammon that raised him. He can't—
'Come on, Satan,' The voice chuckled. 'Give in.'
"...he's lying," He forced out, looking away from Mammon when the other's eyes widened with hurt. "I...I saw him steal it."
Starting from that moment, everything changed.
As much as the guilt and self-hatred ate him alive, doing that also made him satisfied.
Since then, the brothers who could only look at him with coldness, started to speak to him. They started hanging out with him, until he no longer bothered with Mammon.
The older demon refused to look at him whenever he would join their insults. But he never stopped taking care of Satan. And that seems to be seen as a weakness.
"Don't go here anymore!" Satan yelled, throwing a book in Mammon's way, flinching when the tray clattered on the floor.
Mammon stared at it, closing his eyes and sighing.
"I...I don't need you anymore," Satan gritted his teeth. It hurts. It hurts saying that. "You're embarrassing me."
He muttered.
"Don't take care of me anymore, I hate you!"
And Mammon, ever so understanding Mammon, fulfilled his wish.
Fron that point on, Satan and Mammon went their seperate ways. The bond they shared buried deep beneath the ground.
To not be remembered, to not be recalled.
Mammon never brought it up since then, and Satan...Satan was too afraid to talk about it.
He could only stare from a far whenever his older brother would care for someone like he did for Satan before he changed.
Satan could never tell him how much he misses it. How much he craves to experience that childhood again.
"You've been limping a lot," Satan mentioned, sipping from his coffee as he stared at Mammon walking past him in their own library. Thousands of years had already passed since then, and Satan can probably count the number of times they talked normally with his fingers.
"Gee thanks, never noticed it," Mammon replied with his usual sarcasm. He seems desperate to get away.
"What happened to you?" Satan pushed, stopping infront of Mammon as he crossed his arms. "Just so you know, if you're causing trouble, that means trouble for us too."
Mammon huffed, looking away as he averted his gaze. He sounded almost...bitter.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"You're lying."
"Leave me alone, Satan."
"Just tell me what's wrong!" Satan yelled, glaring at his okder brother. He doesn't know if it's from anger, immense concern, or both.
He saw how Mammon looked at him, how Mammon frowned and closed his eyes shut.
"...I don't think we're close enough for me to tell you my business, Satan," He whispered, teeth gritted.
Satan stared at him then, his anger running out from his veins and being replaced by an emotion he had never felt before. He stood there, staring at Mammon like he told him all cats became dogs.
And before he knew it, the other already walked past him.
Satan stood there, alone.
It made him remember the first night when he slept on his bed on his own when he was a kid, with no Mammon rocking him to sleep. With no Mammon.
With no Mams.
Thinking about it now, maybe the future events could've been avoided if Satan intervened further.
Maybe if he didn't became angry and ignored his brother for who knows how long, or if he told anyone— Lucifer, even, maybe the future could be avoided.
Then maybe...maybe..
The night when it happened, everything felt upside down.
Satan stared at Lucifer, who was yelling and shouting— though not from anger. From worry. From fear. From the horrified thought that Mammon is...
"Why didn't you tell us anything?!" Lucifer yelled, gripping the second born's shoulders. His expression desperate and horrified. "Answer me, Mammon!"
Satan was a few inches away from them, but he felt like he was a planet away.
He stared at Mammon— his eyes full of life bow devoid of anything other than the visible tiredness. His body that became thinner, everything screams that he's—
"You're dying!" Lucifer shouted, voice bouncing off on the walls and making his ears ring. But Satan couldn't careless. He sat there, unable to form a single thought other than the fact that his brother was dying.
Mammon, Mammon?
Mammon's dying?
He's going to die?
Why?
"Please just..." Lucifer whispered, kneeling on the ground now.
Satan didn't pay him any attention as he stood up, and walked away.
Mammon's dying.
He pushed the door to his room, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Mammon's going to die.
He opened a book, flipping through it as a few drops of water touched the pages.
His Mams is dying.
Mammon, in Satan's eyes, is the definition of hope.
He was the hope that brought Satan to where he is now, and the hope that brought them all together.
He's their scumbag brother, who, despite everything, never failed to care. He's their older brother who, after everything, stayed.
He's Satan's Mams.
And Satan would like to let that memory of Mammon be the only thing he remmebers when he's asked about hid brother.
Because he do not want to remember the sickly, bedridden brother that he was before he left.
"You need to eat," Satan mumbled, nudging Mammon's arm as the other rested on the couch, covered in a blanked and surrounded by pillows. "Lucifer will be angry at the both of us if you don't."
"Let him," Mammon mumbled, too weak to let it sound sarcastic, too weak to sound so smug. "I'm not hungry."
"You always say that," Satan frowned, huffing as he pressed the spoon on Mammon's lips. "Just a few bites?"
The older of the two stared at him, his eyes traveling from Satan's eyes to the spoon, before he nodded weakly.
"M'kay.."
He witnessed how Mammon withered away.
How he lost his own hope.
The fourth born's fingers combed the white silky hair, humming a tune as he read his book beside the bed.
Mammon's too weak to get up now.
"...Tan?"
Satan paused, his breath hitching before he looked at Mammon. He never used that nickname since that day.
"Yeah?"
Mammon stared at him, his blue eyes searching his face for something.
"Don't leave me."
Satan scoffed. "I should be the one saying that."
Mammon smiled at his feeble attempt to joke, and closed his eyes again.
"Night.."
"Goodnight, Mammon." Mams.
If Satan could go back to the past and change it, he will.
Before any of this happened, before he and Mammon went on their seperate ways.
Before he died.
"I...forgive...you..y'know..?"
Mammon whispered, catching his breath with every word he spoke.
Satan looked at him, his eyes that were red from crying holding confusion. He grasped Mammon's hand, pressing it on his forehead.
He's turning a bit cold.
"...I know...you blamed...yourself," He whispered, his finger touching Satan's nose. "Back then...when..you were a...kid..."
Satan nodded, biting his lower lip to stop his tears. He and Mammon were the only ones left today. Lucifer and the other's went outside doing who knows what just to find something that could ease Mammon's pain.
"Don't worry, tantan.." He whispered, smiling sadly as he blinked. "I never...blamed...you..."
Satan sniffled, burying his face on the crook of Mammon's neck, shaking his head.
"You shouldn't," He whispered, which earned a chuckle from the other.
"It's...okay..." He whispered. "Everything...will be..over...soon..."
The sounds of Asmodeus' wails and his brothers cries echoed in his mind.
That day, when Satan walked into the room, his world came crashing down. His gaze locked on the limp hand of Mammon, held by Belphie, as his complexion became deathly pale.
He remembers the way Lucifer kneeled on the ground and wept— crying for someone that they took for granted.
Mammon was never meant to be taken so early.
He was never meant to die, on that bed, in this house.
They were meant to live forever.
It wasn't—
It wasn't fair!
He wasn't even able to...apologize...
"Mammon...?"
He whispered, hands reaching out towards the bed. Suddenly, he was a kid again.
He was a kid running towards Mammon's room because he had a nightmare.
Yes, nightmare...
Maybe this was...just a fucked up nightmare...
"Mams...?" Satan whispered, wrapping his hand on Mammon's cold body as he cried.
Come back.
I won't be angry anymore.
You can steal everything you want from me.
I'll help you with anything.
Mams?