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Asmodeus was the narcissistic fifth-born of his brothers. One of the seven rulers of hell. One of the most beloved, powerful and feared demons in the entire devildom.
He could charm anyone within the three realms if he so wished for it; Everyone was but an outlet for his desires and nothing more--
Or so they said, his name on their tongues whispered like that of a mythical creature’s.
He stared dazedly at his candy-coloured nails as he sat up in his bed, satin sheets pooling at his waist and the only light in his room emanating from the pink-tinted candles he had set on his vanity; Even with all the rose golds and light pinks he embellished his room with, it still had a depressing darkness to it,
So very different from his own room back in the heavens, when sunlight would stream through his pale blinds relentlessly every morning.
Everything was glittering back there, to the point it was almost blinding. There was just so much white-- on his wings, on his robes, on his adornments-- it verged on excessive.
He squinted, trying to remember how his room looked with the sun’s blessing washing over it; his roses glittering in the morning glow instead of casting shadows that danced about his curtains that it now did, almost taunting him with what he had now lost.
The jewel of the heavens, they called him…
He was a jewel indeed, always radiantly sparkling in the sunlight; but now that he was cast in darkness, what used to dazzle wherever it went was now but a dim glow.
He was well aware of how he no longer possessed that spark any longer; though his face was still the very definition of divine, he could never hold back the suspicion that it was as if he had lost a portion of his beauty to no longer being a pure, unblemished entity hailing from the celestial realm.
No, he now inhabited the likes of the devildom he so very often used to view as dirty and uncouth, back when he rested on golden laurels above the clouds.
He was one of those now.
That suspicion peaked right after he and his brothers had been cast down to hell, however,
That tainted insecurity only grew heavier, similar to how an ink blot only spread further and further throughout the fabric the more you prodded at it. He reminisced the many, many hours he spent in front of his vanity angling his face in all the ways he knew how, desperately trying to figure out why he felt so imperfect; why he felt so foreign to himself.
The tiny little cherubs that mounted the head of his mirror only seemed to mock him further with those obnoxiously rosy smiles of theirs, too.
He remembered anger snapping inside of him and the unbearable urge to berate them, to tell them that though he was no radiant, rosy-cheeked angel any longer, he used to be the most beautiful of them all and that was what mattered, even with the dark tears of mascara rolling down his cheeks and staining his seat-- Asmodeus gave a wry smile to himself at the memory.
He’d long accepted the fact that he was no longer the radiant white angel he had so prided himself on being in the past, now engorging himself on carnal pleasures almost out of spite towards his lost purity--
Since, if he could no longer be the sparkling jewel of the heavens, he may as well be the ultimate seducer in the devildom.
Or so he tried to comfort himself.
The chastity he was meant to embody by God’s hand was now but the furthest thing from his grasp, yet it didn’t stop every fiber of his now ‘corrupted’ body to long for it every hundred years or so.
And everytime it did, it ached .
What he just couldn’t understand, for the life of him however, was why it ached as much as it did. What was done was done, so why couldn’t he move on? Just what was so different that it hurt him so?
Counting his blessings was but an easy task; a perfect body that was sculpted in all the right places and a face carved by the angels themselves, maddeningly flawless technique in bed, the ability to charm whoever he wanted whenever he wanted-- he was the exact recipe for perfection, so just why couldn’t he feel like he loved who he was, despite his narcissistic persona?
Maybe ..
Maybe it was because it all felt so superficial. Maybe it’s because none of that actually meant anything. And maybe it’s because he knew that better than anyone else.
Because beneath the cracks of his almost perfectly sculpted persona, he knew that all he desired was the warmth of genuineness.
His ability to charm whoever he wanted to was convenient, yes, but everything was just so…
Fake .
Even with his cheerful and charismatic everyday, sometimes the thought would occur to him that if not for his ability to charm others, nobody would care about him .
And his blood would run cold at the mere notion, before he had to snap back into his shameless self in order not to gain any suspicion. Nobody would want to willingly bring attention to the tiny cracks on their beloved sculptures after all.
For he felt like, despite his own words, he no longer deserved love as much as he used to back when he was an angel. After all, who in their right mind would have been able to sing the same praises towards tarnished copper that they did of gold?
And though he felt like his own ability to charm robbed many of their free will (and thus, preferred to use it as little as he could), not having it on standby at all times made him feel so very… vulnerable.
Perhaps, in his heart, even though he only wanted to be loved sincerely, without his charm having any effect on how they thought of him;
Yet he still didn’t want that to be hate, or worse, indifference .
So when the new transfer student from the human world had come to the devildom, so completely ordinary, yet completely unaffected by Asmodeus’ charm-- he felt conflicted, to say the least.
At the middle of that conflict he felt something unpleasant snaking up from the pits of his stomach to gripping his heart in cold sweat-- because though he considered his charm something ingenuine, he still grasped for it needily at any given moment or he felt like he would actually be trodden into the dirt like a rusted jewel nobody yearned for any longer.
Maybe it was insecurity knocking on his doors again now, for the first time in a few thousand years. For the first time again since his fall from the glittering gold arches of the celestial realm.
An unwelcome visit it was, despite its suffocating familiarity.
And oh, how his heart tightened whenever he saw that transfer student get so friendly with his brothers; his lovely brothers, who he treasured so dearly, but who he couldn’t help but feel his veins roar with a jealous fire towards.
Yet, every instance they came to him with that cheeky grin on their pretty little face, enthusiastically agreeing and listening to him and giving him that big smile that never failed to lift his spirits, as if it was not only lighting up their face but his very being as well,
Asmodeus couldn’t help but feel like he was being sincerely loved from the heart like he always wished to be; his ugly insecurities hiding themselves away when they were around, for they sparkled with a bright sheen in a way only the most precious of diamonds could-- so enrapturing that he wouldn’t want to tear his eyes off it for anything else in the world.
He couldn’t help but be filled with sweet nostalgia for once at the times the sunbeams had exalted him, instead of the grotesque regret that chipped away at his heart.
And even though the devildom was devoid of a sun, the moment they kissed him he felt like he could glitter again as he was meant to, like everything in the world was made whole again, like he felt perfect again,
Like he didn’t need to borrow his oh so holy father’s radiance in order for his beauty to glow anymore, as long as he had them.
They were their sun now, their affection for him as warm as the blazing star; and just as radiant.
And as he stroked their face and kissed a lock of their hair as they slept peacefully in the bed next to him; he felt like the warm glow of heaven had returned, no longer from the sun’s rays however but from their existence blessing him all the way down to his very soul.
He smiled gently, his heart swelling that finally, he could be held dear.
Hallowed be his love.