After the fuss made over Mammon’s pact, the reaction to Levi’s seemed almost anti-climatic. Asmodeus was probably the one who made the biggest fuss over it, alluding to all sorts of things in his teasing fashion. And Levi denied it all, of course, for even if there had been a desire somewhere in his heart for that kind of attention, it certainly wasn’t a fact he could honestly admit to. Really, Asmodeus was just excited for Levi, and showing it the only way he knew how. He had been wrong before about Levi warming up to the human, but now that was obviously not the case, even if it seemed completely platonic. Baby steps, after all, was the only way to move some people along. Mammon grumbled a great deal about how much everyone had teased him for his own pact, but didn’t have anything bad to say about the pact with Levi itself.

Eventually, however, the novelty wore off. No one seemed terribly concerned that Melody had made two pacts; neither one of them had been her idea to begin with. The first was to satisfy Mammon’s greed and his debt to Levi. The second one had been for her safety, true, but Levi had been the one to suggest the pact, not Melody. The remaining brothers felt it had no real bearing on them, other than the fact it made her safety more likely, which meant that Diavolo wouldn’t have a reason to breathe down their necks. As affable as the Prince was on most occasions, he was still an absolute monarch, and not a person to be dismissed. So, with that excitement over, things slipped back into their usual groove.

Midterms were stressful for Melody, but she managed to pass all her courses with decent to good grades. It gave her a sense of satisfaction to do better than she had in her years of public school. Even so, the relief of making it through was stronger than her satisfaction, and she almost wanted to just sink into the ground for the rest of the year. But, she knew that this was only the beginning. There were the actual end of term tests, but two other whole terms to get through. She had been so nervous during the last week before the tests, and the actual tests themselves, that her appetite had dropped sharply. Now that she had seen her grades, it picked back up, and she found herself snacking more than usual.

Sometimes she would run into Beel in the kitchen, but not matter how hungry she got, she never tried to cross the Avatar of Gluttony. Although he was pretty mild most of the time, the moment food was involved, he could be pretty scary. So, she was always nervous around him in the kitchen, or dining room, but when they meet in the common areas, or the halls of RAD, she found him to be quite different. Even so, she tried to be polite, and always greeted him when they crossed paths. If there was plenty of food, she would take whatever was left. If it was something that was easily shared, like a bag of chips, sometimes Beel would give her a few, but he always ate the major share. Since she didn’t challenge him for food, he soon started to let his guard down a bit when it was involved; she never lectured him for eating too much, though he could tell she was sometimes disappointed if there was nothing for her to eat.

But, mishaps were bound to happen. Melody was up one night, looking for a drink. She had padded into the kitchen. Beel wasn’t there at the moment, so she decided to take her chance with the fridge. It was largely empty, though there was a jug of juice in there. She was just about to pull it out when a loud sound startled her. The jug tipped slightly and spilled, the liquid dripping past the bars further down. Flailing slightly, Melody scrambled to turn the jug back upright, then fished into her pocket and pulled out her DDD with shaking hands, turning off the notification. Somehow her volume had gotten bumped way up, so the magnitude of the sound had left her rather high strung.

Melody couldn’t just leave a mess in the fridge. Carefully she pulled out everything that had been spilled on. There wasn’t much left except condiments, but she did find a cup of custard with writing on it: Property of Beelzebub. You eat it, you die. Yikes. It was another case that Melody would have not taken literally back home, but she could never be certain whether the demons were being serious or not when they threatened someone with death. Certainly they all seemed capable of delivering said threat, if that was their intention. And, as the biggest brother of them all, Melody was sure she would be in big trouble if she got Beel angry. But she had zero intention of eating his custard. However, she did have to clean it off.

Gathering up everything that had been spilled on, she took it all to the sink and started rinsing it off. Unfortunately, the writing on the custard package was mostly washed away. Melody would have to fix that. But, she had to finish rinsing everything else first. It took her several minutes, but finally she turned off the water. When she dried her hands off and walked back to the counter where she had left the newly rinsed items, she realized something was wrong. The custard was not where she left it. Not only was it not where she left it, Mammon was eating it! Already, Melody could feel her heart rate start to pick up.

“Mammon, no!” she called out in panic. Turning at the sound, Mammon looked rather startled to hear Melody call out like that. It was effective in halting him, but it was too late; the damage was done. The custard was down to the bottom. What’s worse, Beel had just walked into the kitchen at that juncture. And he was not a happy Beelzebub at all. By the way he glowered at Mammon, it was clear he saw the custard and knew it was his.

“Wh-what’s the big idea sneakin’ up on me like that?” Mammon said with a squawk.

“Did you eat my custard?” The question was asked directly, with no wavering. “Did you actually eat my CUSTARD?! Answer me, Mammon!”

“N-Now wait a second, Beel! Lemme explain! There’s a good reason for-” Mammon honestly hadn’t known it was Beel’s custard. Melody tried to speak up, but Beel was already talking again; her small voice couldn’t compete.

“You did, didn’t you?” In an instant Beel had changed, just as Melody had seen Levi do a while ago. Only this time, the anger was directed at someone in the room, not someone through a computer screen. Melody felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising. But she did notice that Beel had wings instead of a tail, wings that looked a great deal like a fly’s. “You… ate… my… CUSTARD…!” With the crown-like horns on his head, and the heavily studded jacket accenting his rage, Beelzebub was definitely an intimidating figure to behold.

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“Uh-oh…!” Mammon was worried, and that only made Melody more anxious. Moving faster than she expected, Beel was already charging towards Mammon, and Melody finally found her voice.

“Mammon; get down!” Although she hadn’t meant to, Melody invoked the pact, and instantly Mammon threw himself on the ground. Beelzebub charged right past him, crashing heavily into the wall, ending up in Melody’s room. The impact shook the house heavily, and it wasn’t long before the other brothers arrived on the scene, Lucifer being the first, and Levi being last. What they saw was a somewhat stunned, but still angry, Beel standing in the wreckage of Melody’s room, while Mammon was lying prone on the ground, and Melody was huddled in the corner, looking pale and afraid, but unhurt. While she wasn’t happy about using the pact, she was relieved it had at least saved Mammon from getting caught up in that destructive force.

Lucifer gave direct orders for Melody and Mammon to go into his room and stay put while he calmed down Beelzebub enough to join them there. More orders were given to the other three to make sure that the wall was at least stable enough to not make things worse, while he stepped into the mess that had once been Melody’s room. It took Melody a moment to release the command on Mammon so he could stand up. At which point he put a careful arm around her shoulders and ushered her out of the room. While he was shaken as well, he knew that even if Beel had hit him directly, he would have been okay in the long run. Melody wouldn’t have been so lucky, and if Beel had gone after her instead, the program likely would have ended that very day. Seeing her fear, he didn’t bother coming up with a snappy retort as he saw her down the hall.

Once there, Mammon helped Melody over to a couch and had her sit down. At this point Melody was largely unresponsive, and just curled up into a tiny ball. For his part, Mammon wasn’t sure what to do with her. But he did notice that she had never used the pact to protect herself from him, but she used it rapidly to save him from Beel, even though he was much stronger than she was, and more powerful overall than Beel, even if his younger brother could likely physically twist him into a pretzel. Shifting his vision, he looked over her soul. It just kept getting brighter every time he looked. There wasn’t anything unusual about a human’s soul getting brighter, or dimmer, over time. But it was not a usual phenomenon to grow brighter after associating with demons, especially not after making pacts with them.

Melody was still doing an impression of a roly-poly by the time Lucifer and Beel entered the room. Lucifer was still looking quite cross, but at least Beel was back to his more human-looking form. Gone were the wings and horns. He glared at Mammon as he walked in, but didn’t say anything immediately. Lucifer shook his head and let out a sigh of disappointment. Why couldn’t his brothers just behave for once? The damage had been extensive, but at least this time the human wasn’t harmed. Melody was definitely scared though; it radiated off of her in waves.

“Alright. Start from the beginning. What happened?”

“I was hungry, so I went to the kitchen lookin’ for something to eat… and there was this custard just sittin’ out on the counter. It looked good, so I decided to help myself. Beel just came outta nowhere and attacked me!” said Mammon, starting off the tale.

“You ate my custard.” Beel’s objection was simple.

“How was I supposed ta know it was your custard!?”

“I made sure to write my name on it, and you still ate it.”

Things went back and forth between the two of them for a while, getting more heated, until Melody burst into tears behind them. Turning towards the sound, the three demons just stared at her. She had uncurled from the ball she was in, and her hands were in small fists, digging deep into her thighs as she struggled for breath.

“It was all my fault,” Melody said between sobs. “I spilled juice over everything, and I was trying to clean it all up, but it rubbed the letters off the custard. By the time I had turned around, Mammon was already eating it, but he couldn’t have known it was Beel’s so it was all my fault!” Melody certainly didn’t look her best with her face red, puffy, and streaked with tears. Lucifer crossed his arms and shook his head.

“Even if you made a mistake in the first place, my brothers both made their choices. But, I thank you for your honesty, Melody,” he said firmly. “And for looking out for Mammon when you saw what was happening.” Melody took in a deep breath and nodded her head. While she didn’t feel completely absolved, she was at least able to start calming down.

“That was my custard,” repeated Beel, though now he sounded more sad than angry, his hand going up to his stomach.

“Give it up already,” grumbled Mammon.

“That’s enough out of you two.” Lucifer’s voice was clipped and cold, bringing both his brothers to attention. “However it all happened, the fact remains that the kitchen is now completely unusable, as well as Melody’s room. Trying to figure out who to blame isn’t going to fix either room.” Both younger brothers hung their heads; Lucifer was right.

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” said Mammon, waving the issue away with a hand.

“I’m hungry,” complained Beel.

“Melody, it seems you won’t be able to use your room for some time. You know, since it lacks a wall now,” Lucifer said, addressing Melody directly, since she was at least taking the matter seriously. “So, for the time being, I want you to stay in Beel’s room.” Melody stared at Lucifer in shock. After Levi had gone on a rampage, she had been told to stay out of his room. But now that Beel’s rampage was over, she was being told to share a room with him? It didn’t make any sense to her. But before she had time to say anything, Mammon spoke up.

“WHA?! Now just a second. Why’re ya puttin’ Melody in his room? I mean, there’s enough space in my room, isn’t there?!” Melody was in his charge, helping clear up his debt. Mammon certainly didn’t want her sharing a room with any of his brothers. How could he protect her in there? Not that he objected to Beel specifically. Next to him, he was probably the most likely to protect Melody, having a very protective nature. The only problem was, food could make him lose it, while a loss of income just made Mammon whiny.

“This is a trivial matter, Mammon. Don’t get jealous over it. It shows immaturity.” Lucifer’s words were calmly dismissive.

“Wha… jealous?! Wh-wh-who’re you callin’ jealous?! As if I’d be jealous… pff!” No, of course Mammon wasn’t jealous! Melody was just a duty, after all, but she was HIS duty. His, meant he had a claim on her, and his greed simply wouldn’t have her placed elsewhere. “Anyway, Melody has a pact with me!”

“Your pact is irrelevant. Also, if I’m not mistaken, there’s an extra bed in Beel’s room.” Lucifer was still calmly rational, spelling out his reasoning with complete dispassion. Mammon grumbled, feeling defeated. It was true; there was an extra bed in Beel’s room. And while his own room had space, it wasn’t space suitable for Melody to stay in. Mammon fell silent in acquiescence, so Lucifer turned his gaze on Beelzebub. “Do you understand, Beel? This isn’t a request.”

“…Yeah. I understand.” Melody was surprised at how quickly Beel nodded in agreement. He didn’t huff or protest like Mammon tended to. True, he didn’t look happy about it, but neither did he look miserable.

“…Ugh. This sucks…” Mammon still had to show his displeasure. But he didn’t try to stop them as Lucifer motioned for Melody and Beel to get going.