Notes:
So like, I hurt my own heart with this made up OC that was just supposed to be a plot device for Briar Rose Syndrome to give me another king I could curse/kill off without messing with the actual kings so the aoex series plot made sense still.
I guess he now gets his own mini collection of sides where I can get all those feelings out lololol
Enjoy the Abduxuel sides, aka Rin gets 3 baes for the price of one epic quest~
Song of the Chapter:
Hanging in a Void by Barcelona
"You know, it would have been his favorite drink, had he made it back from that final trip to Gehenna."
Rin watched as Mephisto swirled a deep green liquid in a small glass. They leaned on the railing to the large balcony outside of Mephisto's bedroom where Rin had found him alone when he'd woken in the middle of the night.
Not that Rin did much sleeping nowadays after he'd broken his sword in Gehenna.
The slight breeze cast strands of his hair across the small horns usually hidden beneath his shaggy white fringe, but Rin barely noticed, caught in the surreal mood surrounding Mephisto.
"I could see it," a laugh that sounded too forced in the quiet night, "and then I couldn't, when he was cursed. And I knew then that he would die."
Mephisto tossed the remainder back in one smooth motion, but returned to contemplating the glass in his hand.
"It took me four years before I couldn't fight that future anymore."
Four years wasn't even long in human terms, much less to an immortal demon king of time. Rin tried to imagine losing Yukio in that span and couldn't, unable to think about what he would do in Mephisto's situation.
"Such a short time, in the scheme of things," Mephisto finally looked fully at Rin, expression void of anything definable, almost like the mask of sleep he'd worn in the week he'd been cursed, "but I couldn't keep two bodies from decaying for any longer than that."
There wasn't anything Rin could say. He hadn't even been alive the two hundred years ago it had all happened.
So, he stepped the rest of the way to Mephisto's side and leaned against him in silence.
"Come," Mephisto said some time later, startling Rin into blinking up at him as he smiled in a faint quirk of his lips, "Amaimon is likely awake now and raiding my kitchen."
"Dammit, he'd better not eat the ingredients I was saving for dinner tonight," Rin grumbled, already moving to head off disaster while Mephisto chuckled and followed behind.
The bell rang, signalling the warning to make it to the next class or be late. Rin ignored a slew of looks from the other students, having grown used to them and knowing they would probably follow him forever with his transformation.
Not that the students without mashous could even see his horns, claws, or slit pupils, but they could definitely see his white hair.
Or that had mostly been the case, except the barrier between Assiah and Gehenna had dropped, so not only were the exorcists around the world busier than ever putting out fires and calming the panicked masses, but more and more people could see the demonic features he didn't care to hide.
It meant Rin had to deal with a path clearing wherever he walked nowadays, though that might have had something to do with the menacing aura Amaimon wore.
Sighing, Rin sent a sideways glance to Amaimon where he walked with an apathetic glare that scattered other students before they even consciously registered his presence. A raised brow met his sigh, so Rin explained, "I hate this class, the teacher's so boring. Who even needs demon history?"
Amaimon scoffed and ate another handful of the chips he was working his way through.
"Who cares about any of them?"
Ok, Rin should have expected that answer from Amaimon. He felt better anyway, laughing.
A long silence pricked Rin's attention and eventually pulled his gaze to see shuttered gold eyes staring at the chip bag with a strange look that made Rin frown.
The bag vanished in a motion of Amaimon's hands, smoke clearing around the claws he pressed to his fingertips with an absence of something to hold.
He'd slowed, and Rin fell back with him, frown deepening as he started to ask what was wrong.
"When I was bored," Amaimon said like he'd fallen into a memory, faraway and voice drifting from his lips, "I knew all I had to do was find Abduxuel."
Oh. Rin slowed further, getting a slow blink from Amaimon like he'd finally noticed Rin waiting for him to continue.
His hands fell to his sides, thumbs rubbing to his fingers in that familiar fidget Rin had come to recognize.
"I would get stuck, fights would get boring. I'd stagnate." Rin could imagine the centuries passing like that for Amaimon, a string of fights, chasing the high battle brought, and each moment between becoming harder and harder to exist in.
Amaimon stopped then, staring at the floor, before his head rose in a slow, creaking motion. His expression looked lost to Rin, like he didn't know what to do with what he'd revealed now that he'd said it aloud. "And then he would take me to some new place I had never seen before and I wouldn't be bored anymore."
Rin didn't know what to say for Amaimon that could make him less lost, but he did know what he could do, at least.
"Hey," he said, smiling and cocking a thumb over his shoulder, "let's skip class for the day and go play."
Light returned to Amaimon's eyes and Rin could see he'd come back to the present.
"You can teach me more fighting stuff," he continued, excitement creeping into his voice now that he'd thought of the idea. "You promised we would after we made it home, remember?"
"Yes!" Amaimon cheered as he raised a hand, his other coming to clasp Rin's just as he snapped to take them from the school.
Yukio might be pissed when he learned Rin had skipped for the day, but this was more important, anyway.
"Ach!" Mephisto growled from his seat in front of a projector screen.
Rin hummed, glancing to see a scowl on Mephisto's face and a teary-eyed anime girl from the newest dating sim game he had up.
"Of course, I should have known Sayaka would prefer a more straightforward compliment." The mutters from Mephisto had Rin quirking a grin as he kept his focus on not getting killed in the shooter game he'd loaded for himself on another screen.
"Well yeah, Mephisto," he said, then grumbled when a headshot took him down and he had to wait for the respawn, turning to Mephisto again and explaining, "She's a sisterly type, so she'd like the straightforward options."
A raised brow answered him before Mephisto huffed a laugh and Rin went back to the game.
"I play more of these games than you've seen in your life and yet you've managed to break the mechanics down to something so simple." Mephisto clicked the straightforward option after he'd reset the save file and got a delighted grin from Sayaka, animated hearts rising on the screen.
That made Rin snicker. "You sure it's not just you picking the answer you'd want to hear?"
When Rin noticed the sounds that went with the cartoon hearts hadn't faded, his brows drew and he realized Mephisto had frozen, staring at the screen.
Had he said something weird? Rin tried to understand where the strange mood might have come from, but couldn't and took himself from the match to focus on Mephisto.
"What-" Rin began, only for Mephisto to blink out of his stupor, fingers tracing over the controller in his hands in absent patterns.
"Demons are inherently selfish creatures," Mephisto said, falling into the melancholy Rin noticed only arose when he talked about one very specific topic. "We aren't formed with the empathy that comes naturally to most humans."
Something Rin had learned more about with every meeting he'd had with the other ba'al and culminated in his second clash with Satan in Gehenna. He'd seen the strange bonds they had with each other and the way they contrasted with Satan, who couldn't seem to think beyond his next impulse.
"I was selfish, I am." Mephisto finally looked at Rin, expression almost pleading, as if Rin would have an easy answer for him. "But I can't understand any other way to be."
That Mephisto had come far enough to recognize it in himself was still groundbreaking as far as Rin was concerned. Self reflection was hard enough for Rin, let alone a full demon with his own nature working against him from the start.
He stood and walked to stand behind Mephisto, feeling him stiffen when Rin put his hands in his hair and began to brush it, heat concentrated into his fingertips he massaged through the strands.
After a long moment, Mephisto relaxed into the repetitive touch and went back to his game.
A round shape launched itself at Rin's face with a snarl.
Rin slid to the side just as it reached him, grabbing a viciously clawed hand and flinging it into the air.
Amaimon caught his Behemoth and laughed, tossing it above his head once before spinning to throw it back to Rin.
It was the most baffling game of catch Rin had ever played and also the most fun one.
They'd had to come at night to the field because Mephisto didn't want them causing a scene when they played. Then Amaimon had reintroduced Rin to the demon he remembered getting attacked by during the forest fight that felt so long ago.
Behemoth was kinda cute, now that Rin wasn't racing to save Shiemi from Amaimon's clutches. He'd always wanted a pet dog, and Amaimon's hobgoblin was probably the closest he would get.
He grinned and caught the Behemoth-shaped comet Amaimon flung towards him, continuing the game.
Later, once they'd worn themselves out with the game of catch, Rin flopped back to the ground beside Amaimon, sighing in contentment.
Next time he would bring Kuro, but his cait sidhe familiar had been spending time with Yukio for the week and Rin wasn't about to wake him up in the middle of the night just to invite Kuro to play.
Not after the last time he'd tried and gotten a gun pointed in his face from a sleep-deprived Yukio after he'd startled him awake, at least.
Snores already came from Behemoth, having fallen asleep the moment they'd settled. The steady sounds filled the clearing as Rin's panting breaths faded and he got comfortable next to Amaimon.
They lay in silence, Rin's head nudged to Amaimon's shoulder, and Amaimon with his hands folded to his stomach.
Overhead, stars made it through the widening breaks in the clouds until Rin could see them clearly.
Closing his eyes let Rin concentrate on another light, the glow of their claim bond a soft presence he liked to run his aspect over whenever he noticed it. Doing it now made Amaimon shiver and tilt his head to Rin's.
"When you do that, I can feel it," Amaimon said as Rin blinked his eyes open.
"What, really?" Rin had definitely not known that, an embarrassed flush rising to his cheeks that he'd been feeling Amaimon and Mephisto up randomly throughout the week and neither had seen the need to clue him in.
"You guys could have told me sooner," he grumbled, though it was half-hearted. It wasn't like he wouldn't still do it when the mood struck, in the same way he liked to brush against them to enjoy the way their scents mingled with his.
"Hmm," came the non-committal hum, then Rin flinched as he felt a return sensation ripple over him like a wave of static and realized Amaimon had returned the touch.
He laughed, partly in disbelief, and partly that he had someone who was his for an eternity, or however long they'd live for. "I can't believe this is my life now. I still barely understand claims or anything about demons."
A heartbeat stuttering drew Rin's attention to Amaimon as it smoothed out again. He waited, knowing he'd stumbled upon another moment he was beginning to recognize the more they happened. Was it the claim thing? Rin went back over the last minute while Amaimon chewed at the inside of his cheeks before speaking.
"What you accomplished," Amaimon said, a murmur that just reached above the soft snuffles from Behemoth and quieted Rin further, "was impossible- or what I thought was impossible."
That again. Rin's chest squeezed at remembering the terrified way Amaimon had looked at him, at Mephisto, the day they'd broken the curse. His apathy had torn apart to reveal the fear beneath it, that his use to them had ended with Mephisto's waking. All because Amaimon couldn't comprehend them not caring about the unspoken hierarchy that governed demons and it somehow meant he wasn't strong enough to be a part of their claim bond.
Which was bullshit and Rin had made it clear in as many ways as he could, many times.
"I used to watch them," Amaimon kept speaking, gaze turned to the stars that reflected on the faint inner light from his eyes, "their claim."
The only claim Rin knew that Amaimon might be talking about was…
"And I wanted to be a part of it," his breath shuddered out, "so badly it ached."
Oh. Rin's mood plummeted, aching with Amaimon at the thought of him sitting by, desperate for something he thought he could never have.
He had Rin and Mephisto, but that wasn't what was causing the current tangle of emotion in Amaimon just then.
There wasn't anything Rin could do about the past for Amaimon even if he wanted to.
"Then he was gone and I knew it would never happen," Amaimon sounded utterly emotionless, despite the subject, his face void of anything definable. Except he'd begun those same tears he'd silently pressed to Rin's hair when he'd thought he had failed them both.
Rin wasn't sure if Amaimon even realized.
"Why would Samael look at me when he'd had Abduxuel?"
When he'd had Rin, too, Rin remembered. Amaimon had been so sure that it was just Rin's kiss that had broken the curse, that it was only natural. Rin's power made him a true match for Mephisto, and Mephisto for Rin, something Amaimon could never hope to compete against.
A growl fought in his chest, furious without a target. There wasn't a physical enemy to fight, just Amaimon, blinking up at the stars like they held the answers.
In his mind's eye, the shape of their claim remained a steady glow. Rin curled more against Amaimon and let a gradual bit of his aspect out to unfurl along the bond.
After a moment, Amaimon came back to himself, and Rin felt a return touch, knowing he could speak again.
"I love you." And, "You're mine."
Possession for the demon, and comfort for the strange piece of humanity that had grown in Amaimon.
He couldn't keep the past from hurting, couldn't bring the dead back, but he could keep Amaimon in the present and give him the future to look forward to.
Two blank stares met his words.
Rin crossed his arms and waited.
"Well I," Mephisto said, breaking off and frowning before trying again, "you see- hm."
"What's the point?" Amaimon cut in with genuine confusion drawing his brows together
A sigh huffed out of Rin, wry smile forming as he prepared to walk them through the problem.
"You guys went this whole time not letting yourselves grieve and ignoring what happened," and then made him unwitting counselor to centuries of demonic issues.
While it was amazing to have their trust and vulnerability, Rin had realized there wasn't a whole lot he could do besides hear them out.
In the same way he'd had to come to terms with Shiro's death, they had to do the same, he knew that much. So, the next step he could think of was, "Making a spot for him will let you guys- uh, wait, I know there's a phrase for this- you know, put him to rest, make peace, give you a, uh…"
"A sense of closure?" Mephisto finished for him, though it was said in a questioning tone as if he was still stuck on the concept Rin was trying to get across.
"Yeah, that!" Rin nodded, gesturing to the yard surrounding Mephisto's property. "So, pick a spot and make something for him."
Birds chirped and cicadas buzzed, the only response he got.
Twin expressions of bafflement met before returning to Rin.
"What should we make for him?" Amaimon said after Rin waited them out. The question sent more amusement through Rin as he shifted to prop a fist on his hip.
Even Mephisto seemed stumped, so Rin helped. "What's something you associate with him? Anything that makes you think of him would work so when you see it, it's a reminder."
"...Space?" Amaimon ventured, looking to Mephisto as if checking to see if he thought it was okay.
"Sure!" Rin said, trying to aim for encouragement and hiding the snicker bubbling in his chest. He knew it was more serious than that, and if he never had to see Amaimon crying again or the deep melancholy Mephisto fell into in the early hours before his masks went up, then it would be too soon. Still, "If that reminds you of him and you can find a way to make something representing that, then-"
"His heart."
Rin stopped talking, gaze jerking to Mephisto at his sudden words and trying to connect the meaning. It came to him and his smile softened at the carefully steady look appraising him from green eyes.
"Yeah, that's a good one," he said, voice low.
"Or…" Mephisto frowned, gaze going inward in thought.
Amaimon had quieted too, fingers twitching like he wanted to fidget, as Mephisto snapped and brought out a coin-sized, nearly transparent green stone set in some kind of metal circle, the branches coming around it in a protective cage. Rin peered closer. Jewelry?
"What's that?"
"A gem the humans call moldavite," Mephisto said, thumb brushing over the surface and fixated on it. "It's a fragile thing, brittle and easily broken. But it fell from space with an asteroid and the color reminded us of his eyes. It was a joke, a piece of irony that he liked to wear. Then, when he vanished from existence, his things became mine, and I have this now."
His eyes? Rin's gaze flicked to the green of Mephisto's and back to the gem, the colors nearly the same.
"Good," he said instead of questioning it, "so, I'll let you guys get to it and start making lunch. Ok?"
A soft goodbye from Mephisto and an acknowledging sound from Amaimon trailed after him as he left them to their closure.
The phenomena known as Rin left them, then it was just Mephisto and Amaimon standing in his courtyard over a piece of material that would soon become a memorial for his other half.
"He's so human," Amaimon said, though without the derogatory inflection that would have coated it in reference to anyone else.
"Given the way we've been acting, I don't think we have much room to speak," Mephisto said with his own snort of disbelief.
It was true, in a baffling way, and he couldn't imagine the creature he was before the curse understanding him as he was now. He didn't have the human creativity to conceptualize it, could only accept that he had changed.
This thing he had changed into had strange motivations and ambitions he had been learning every new moment.
Whether Rin's suggestion regarding his other half would settle his mind- let alone Amaimon's- remained to be seen.
"What should we make?" Amaimon's quiet question drew him from hypotheticals, seeing Amaimon chewing one of his claws and gaze pinned to the pendant containing the moldavite.
Right, he had to think about this logically.
"We'll have to make something that will protect it from the elements," he said, humming as he considered the most optimal way to display the piece of Abduxuel he held.
An answering hum from Amaimon, his look turning contemplative, murmuring to himself, "Somewhere out of the sun, covered but still visible, no humidity…"
Mephisto wanted to laugh at the measures. It seemed, if it were up to Amaimon, the gem would be sent straight back to the space they hid things, safe from any conceivable harm.
He was right, though. Mephisto cast an eye around his property, considering the best placement.
Perhaps…
"Over there, in sight of my office." He directed Amaimon's attention to the raised pond beneath one of the cherry blossom trees he'd had planted for the cultural aesthetic. The koi swimming beneath the tree were nearing their two-hundredth year.
"I can make a glass bubble around it," Amaimon said, already snapping and bringing a pile of sand from the ether to start shaping it, the gleam in the sunlight reflecting off the area.
"Since we're going with a space theme, I suppose a meteorite base would suffice?" Even saying it out loud sent humor curling inside Mephisto at the near ritualism of what they were doing.
Amaimon already moved to bring out another dark material that would become the pedestal of the monument.
The gleam from the surface drew Mephisto in, watching in silence as Amaimon shaped the pedestal with one hand and continued the glass sphere with the other.
Was this a form of creation? How close were they to humans in this moment? The concept took him in, and Mephisto played with it in his mind, Amaimon's work nearly meditative as he fell into the rhythm of formation.
Soon, a black obelisk stood under the branches of the tree, a lone pillar with a base Amaimon settled the glass sphere into, and, in a final sweep of his hand, affixed the two together. Mephisto knew the base would be near impossible to move unless Amaimon himself shifted the earth, solid so that nothing would be toppling the monument except time.
They would be around enough to repair it even with the natural state of decay all things suffered.
Gold peered up at him from beneath Amaimon's lashes, waiting.
Ah.
"Beautiful, Amaimon," he gave the praise, receiving a nod in turn as Amaimon stepped back.
It was his part now. He snapped, the pendant appearing in the protected glass on the raised bed Amaimon had created, slotting into place with finality.
And, etched into the face of the pedestal, was Abduxuel's name. A thought occurred to him and he snorted, another snap etching letters that Rin would be able to understand. He'd been behind all of it, so it was only fair that they incorporate a language he could read.
There, it was done.
Nothing earth-shattering happened at their completion. The world kept spinning on its axis.
Still…
"It's nice," Amaimon said, head cocked as he took in their work.
It was.
Time drifted, Mephisto losing himself in the green of Abduxuel's pendant beside Amaimon.
"I'm going to go to Rin, now," Amaimon broke in a few moments later.
He paused, a slow blink of his eyes up at Mephisto. The hesitation passed, Amaimon swaying to brush their shoulders together in a bold, for him, expression of affection.
His heat and the sensation of his touch lingered when he vanished.
Mephisto released a long exhale, another, it trailed into a shiver at the end. Without his say, he found himself kneeling, body numb to the environment.
That first day back in Assiah after he'd let go of Abduxuel, he'd returned and seen the evidence of his failure. Instead of his own eyes in the mirror, Abduxuel's stared back, accusatory, he'd thought, and a golden sheen crowned his hair in place of the purple that should have been there.
He'd shattered every mirror in the house.
Killed the demons that had served him, because they should have remembered Abduxuel, but didn't, and so also became reminders of his failure.
And then Lucifer had snapped, deciding if he couldn't have a body that worked, then no one should. He didn't have time to mourn after that, his plans hinged on too many moving pieces to focus on the one thing he couldn't change.
Even now, he didn't have time. The gate had opened, Lucifer's perfect vessel for Father neared readiness every moment this timeline's derailed plot moved forward.
Yukio Okumura was on schedule, had spoken to Lewin and received his mission, but the gate was opened too soon. Who knew if Yukio would defect in the following months in time for the events on the Dominus Liminus to happen.
Now that Lucifer was aware his plan had succeeded, their little disagreement was back on track. He would just need to get all his pawns in their roles.
The green faceted gem called him from his plans, a wry huff leaving as he sat back against the raised pond, tilting his head and closing his eyes.
Demons weren't prone to wonder, or thinking about could-have-beens, but he was now realizing that he'd always been curious. He wanted to know the nature of demons and of humans.
Abduxuel had never wondered, too caught in the present, the future too esoteric, but he'd let Mephisto ramble, became excited about the new with him when they discovered it together.
Would Mephisto have discovered the definition of love he'd been lacking without Lucifer's interference? If he'd had more time with Abduxuel, would the same evolution Amaimon had undergone completely alone have happened to him, to them?
Lucifer's words rose in his mind, that the reason he'd failed was because he saw Abduxuel as a piece of himself and their bond formed from a desire to be whole.
And Rin's words followed, that if what they had was enough for them, then it was enough.
It had never been enough.
His vessel ached with memories and, without his say, his hand clenched over his stomach to grip the fabric until he knew it verged on tearing.
It had never been enough, and he'd spent every moment in every timeline after chasing something indefinable.
Ambition, hunger for more, for anything outside the status quo, beyond what their other kin were content with, he'd wanted it.
It had taken almost true death to realize that his ambition was a separate thing altogether.
Why had it taken him so long? Why?
A spasm, his claws tore through his suit and the irrational urge to laugh sent his stomach lurching.
At every turn, he'd fled. Right up until the end when even hearing Abduxuel attempt to call him "love" had slid a discordant note through his body like the cruelest knife.
Had that been a sign? Had Abduxuel meant it as more than a mimicry of the humans?
How could he ever know, now?
In Abduxuel's last moments under the curse, had he remembered his own name, Mephisto's? or had he died nameless, without any memories of them.
"Hah!" the sound gasped from his lips, burned on his tongue. His stomach gave another lurch, heaving with the silent laughter.
He'd tried. He'd tried! Rin had said as much to Lucifer, that at least he'd tried, for as long as he could.
He'd tried, had Abduxuel seen that?
I tried I tried I tried
"I'm sorry," the words burst out, choked, his claws dug into his palm, eyes squeezed until they hurt, and the sting of both didn't cover that wet heat slid down his cheeks.
"I tried," the words left him weak, a bare whisper.
Two hundred years too late to matter.
But, "I tried, love."
Saying it out loud, he accepted the truth, a dogged shadow he'd been evading for centuries.
And he knew-
Vertigo. The world spinning, reality twisting around his vessel, his aspect, a wash of knowledge that swept his mind beneath torrential waters and stole his breath from his lungs.
"Ah-hhh."
Mephisto heard the broken utterance through miles of water.
It hadn't come from him.
He opened his eyes.
Green stared back, it wasn't his reflection.
"Sam…ael?"
Notes:
:D
Starting things right with another cliffhanger ayyyyy
Hope you guys are ready~