A/N: I apologise in advance for any mistakes in this fic and I hope you all enjoy this work :)

~K'rasu xx

Winter Moments — Mammon

Day Two of K'rasu's Christmas Advent

"... Christmas trees, carolling, making decorations, stockings, yule logs, movies…" Belphie listed them off on his fingers.

"They also said nativity plays, exchanging cards, eggnog, and gingerbread houses." Asmo continued the list with an excitable nod. "Oh! And giving gifts, of course!"

"What was the difference between Santa Claus and secret Santa again?" Beel mused aloud in a thoughtful voice.

"Are ugly sweaters really a tradition in the human world?" Satan asked curiously.

"Humans have this many traditions just for Christmas, huh?" Mammon said with a thoughtful hum.

"Oh!" A thought suddenly crossed your mind, "I forgot about advent calendars!"

You were met with five blank stares.

"What's an advent calendar?" Mammon asked.

"It's a calendar that's used to countdown the twenty-four days until Christmas from the first of December," you explained, "you open one door each day and receive gift, usually it's just a piece of chocolate or a small toy, but nowadays the gifts inside advent calendars vary depending on which company makes them."

You glanced at each of the demons only to see their confusion deepen.

"Some companies will offer advent calendars that contain stuff like perfume or candles, depending on how expensive the calendar is." You elaborated. "And some even only have twelve doors rather than twenty-four."

"So whoever has an advent calendar gets a present everyday for twenty-four days?" Mammon murmured to himself with an awed expression. "Man, humans are real lucky."

"There's loads of other traditions too," you steered the conversation back to its original topic again, "how about we write our list down and then vote on which human world traditions you guys want to try? We can get Lucifer and Levi to vote too…"

In the days after your discussion about Christmas traditions with the brothers, you noticed that Mammon spent less time at the House of Lamentation and was quick to leave RAD after classes, even going as far as chancing Lucifer's fury and skipping out on student council duties and meetings.

You soon found yourself staring at Mammon's empty seat at the dinner table during mealtimes while a worrying thought began to surface in your mind.

"Mammon's absent again?" Asmo pointed out as his eyes followed your gaze to the vacant seat.

"He's been doing shifts at Hell's Kitchen in the evenings nearly every day this week," Beel said.

"Hell's Kitchen?" Levi blinked at his younger brother with a confused expression. "I saw him working in Electric Demon after RAD this week."

"I swear he was working on the checkout at Devilmart when it was my turn to do grocery shopping yesterday," Asmo murmured to himself.

"I've heard that he's been picking up consecutive shifts all over the Devildom," Satan said as he shook his head with a sigh, "and he hasn't been coming home until late at night. He must've ran himself into debt again and he's trying to pay it off before the bills fall into Lucifer's hands."

"Don't look so worried," Asmo chuckled as his eyes returned to you, "Mammon's doing stuff like this all the time, I'm sure he's fine."

You tried to push your worrisome thoughts to the back of your mind as you set aside a meal for the second-born demon and tried to turn your attention towards your RAD homework instead, but you couldn't help growing more concerned as the hours ticked away and Mammon still had yet to return home.

Later that night, you gave his bedroom door a soft knock and peered inside, only to frown when you found that the room was dark and vacant before you closed the door again and headed back to your own room where you found yourself listlessly checking the time on your D.D.D every so often before you eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

"Hey, Mc."

You woke up to the sound of a whispered voice and someone gently shaking your shoulder.

"Wake up for a sec, will ya?"

"Mammon?" You asked in a groggy voice as you slowly propped yourself up on your pillows and rubbed the sleep from your eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's about half past twelve."

"In the morning?" You yawned as you felt around your bed for your D.D.D.

When you finally located the device, you pressed the wake button and turned your unfocused gaze towards the homescreen, you recoiled slightly as the brightness of the D.D.D screen made your eyes sting and squinted while you waited for your eyes to adjust before you tried to look at the screen again.

00:38

Tuesday 13th December

"Have you just got home?" You asked as you became more aware of your surroundings and turned your attention towards the Avatar of Greed with a frown.

"I got home not long ago," Mammon nodded earnestly, "I was gonna wait until morning, but I wanted to give ya this as soon as I could!"

Mammon held out a handmade advent calendar.

Mammon watched you with a tentative expression as you took the calendar into your own hands to inspect it closely before you found the first door and opened it to find a slip of paper inside.

You carefully unravelled the slip of paper to find a note scrawled across it in Mammon's handwriting that read:

A candlelit dinner with the great Mammon at Ristorante Six

You stared down at the words written across the paper.

"There's a different surprise just for you written on a note behind each door," Mammon's voice pulled you from your stupor, "some of them are gifts and some of them are… well… you get the idea…" he let his sentence trail off as he averted his eyes and a deep blush crossed his cheeks.

You felt your eyes widened as realisation dawned upon you, "wait, so all of those shifts you've been working—?"

"Yeah…" Mammon nodded sheepishly as he ruffled his hair nervously and refused to meet your gaze, "...I wanted to treat ya to summin' special. I know this calendar only has twelve doors, so…" he paused for a moment before he forced his eyes to meet yours and continued, "let's celebrate the full twenty-four days together next year, okay?"

You felt a smile spread across your face as you nodded at the demon.

"I bet ya don't get advent calendars like this in the human world," the demon returned your smile with his usual grin but the blush that still tinted his cheeks gave him away, "so… uh… what d'ya think?"