All in Due Time

Chapter 8

Mammon was angry, or at least, he was sure he should be.

Peeling open his eyes, he pushed himself up from the couch with a groan. For a moment, he was confused. But he quickly realized that he must have fallen asleep because the projector was off, and Levi was nowhere in sight. He stretched out his stiff neck as best he could before pulling his D.D.D out of his pocket and using its dim light to navigate himself to bed. The white-haired demon flopped down onto his mattress with a groan, dragged his duvet halfway across his body, buried his head into Belphie's cow-print pillow, and just laid there.

The avatar of greed liked to think he knew his brothers pretty well, an inevitable side effect of knowing them for as long as he had. But despite that, he couldn't for the life of him figure out why they decided now, of all times to start pretending to care. Every time he had come down with one sickness or another, his younger brothers had never acted like this. Sure, they would take over whatever chores he had for the day, and whenever they would pass him sprawled out on the couch, they would ask him how he was feeling out of common courtesy. But aside from that, they usually just made jokes the whole time he was sick about how pathetic he was; one of the strongest demons in the Devildom, and he couldn't even take care of himself.

So, as Mammon let the events of today play across his mind, he couldn't help but wonder why they were acting so out of character. Like Belphie napping with him despite his claim that it was uncomfortable to sleep on sick people because of how sweaty they were. Or Beel not rushing when he carried the second eldest to bed and got him situated at the beginning of lunch, despite his grumbling stomach. And especially Satan; despite how groggy he was, the avatar of greed had still managed to piece together the fact that Satan had willingly gone and spoke with their eldest brother because of him. As he lay in bed, staring into the darkness of his room, the second born wracked his brain tirelessly for an answer.

And for a moment, Mammon had almost believed that they cared.

But a second after the thought had popped into his head, a nagging voice—one that sounded awfully similar to Lucifer's, the avatar of greed noted—reminded him of his reality: they didn't care, and Mammon wasn't sure they ever had. Just the thought had a burning sense of anger festering in his gut. He was tempted to scream at the next person to walk into his room. To use what little energy he had to call them every name in the book, to let them know just how angry he was that they all decided to swarm him the minute they found out he was sick, each with their fake pity to share. To yell until either; his voice gave out, or they finally left him alone.

But the second eldest knew he didn't have the heart to do it. He couldn't get the look of relief that crossed the avatar of wrath's face when he had said he wouldn't get up and walk around again. Even if his brothers were only taking care of him out of some sense of brotherly obligation, if it made them feel better, he'd let them continue. It wasn't like he hated the attention either: no, Mammon loved it. He just hated that it'd be gone the second he was better, and they would all go back to not caring.

"Mammon? You awake?" Mammon was ripped from his thoughts by the sound of Asmo's voice and the lights flicking on. There was a moment of silence as the blond closed the door behind him and started walking slowly down the stairs.

"Uh, ya." He pushed himself to sit up, leaning almost all his weight onto his left arm stretched out behind him. His pounding head lolled to the side to rest on his shoulder.

"Great!" Mammon listened as his brother's footsteps sped up. And a moment later, the fifth born plopped himself down at the foot of his brother's bed with a large brown paper bag in hand. The white-haired demon stared at the bag for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed. "I passed by Hell's Kitchen on my way home and decided to grab us some dinner." He watched with interest as the younger pulled out two brown soup takeout containers, placing one between his crisscrossed legs and handing the other over to the second born, which he eagerly took. "They have this new Bisque soup that's supposed to be like suuuuuper tasty." Mammon nodded his head. Mumbling out his thanks as a plastic spoon was shoved into his hand.