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One of the first things you learned in the devildom was how to spot a threat. Growls, hisses, clicks, rumbles, fluffed fur/feathers, thrashing tails, bared teeth, and pinned ears. All indicative of a very pissed off demon.
It became second nature to read all of these, paying close attention to exactly what a demon’s body language was and what they could be upset about. You saw Belphie whip his tail around when he was woken up suddenly. Saw Beel gnash his teeth when someone got to close to his food. Saw Lucifer snarl when one of his brothers were misbehaving. Even the dainty Asmo was not above hissing like a crocodile.
Over time, these behaviors became normal to you. Just another part of living with demons. It became so ingrained in you that you eventually started to copy these behaviors yourself.
It started one day when you were on your way to the library to study with Satan. A couple of unfamiliar demons had crowded you under a back stairwell, jeering and smiling haughtily. Typical school bullies.
One with green hair had grabbed you by your jacket and slammed you into the cold stone wall. Your head, fuzzy with pain and panic, went with your first defensive instinct, which happened to be to pull your lips back and rumble your voice with all of the might you had.
As soon as you did it you felt embarrassment flood your body. Your growl sounded like a playful puppy’s at best, and your little nubs of teeth were hardly in any threat. It got the guy to let go of you at least, even if it was from laughing at you so hard he couldn’t breathe.
Thankfully, Satan’s enraged roar was much more intimidating and had those thugs quickly scurrying off.
After that, an idea struck you. You started to not observe just for observation, but for imitation too, Diavolo had wanted cultural exchange right?
You didn’t have a tail or fur/feathers or the throat to make most of their sounds but you found that you could hiss just fine. If your throat was wet enough you could get a good growl or click out but it always made your throat itch after a while and was nowhere near as low pitched as the other’s natural vocals.
It took lots of practice, and online tutorials, but you were proud to say that your hiss was now on par with Belphie’s and even your growling was becoming more refined.
There’s was nothing you could do to make your teeth sharper without damaging them, but you found that it didn’t matter that much. Demons were still demons, and you were still the weak human whose only protection was the fact that several of the strongest demons liked you.
Even so, you could tell that it helped to be able to communicate more familiarly with the citizens of devildom. It was like you finally clicked with the people around you, finally realized what it was exactly that you had been missing. More demons would back off if you just hissed at them, knowing that you meant business, where before you would have to yell at them over and over again until they finally got the message to not steal your school work.
You found that it worked with the brothers too. Well, somewhat. You can’t tell if they are actually listening to you because they see you as one of them or if they’re just so endeared by you acting tough.
You didn’t have to use your demon voice on them a lot though, thankfully. They fought with each other all of the time, as brothers do. But oftentimes when you wanted something, you just had to ask. Still, there were some times where you had to express your boundaries. Like when Levi tried to keep you up all night playing video games when you had to get up early or Asmo getting too touchy.
And when they wheedled at your ‘No’ a quick, firm hiss or growl did the trick.
——
You practiced in your room a lot, the thought of anyone seeing or hearing you mortified you to the bone.
Mammon walked in on you once. You didn’t hear him come in and you were too busy trying to get your nose to wrinkle just right to hear his muffled snickers. The only sign he had been there was the squeak of his rubber soled sneakers as he bolted away…
And of course the notification you received a couple seconds later from the dorm group chat of a picture of you baring your teeth at your reflection with the caption ‘our wolf in sheeps clothing ya’ll’
That’s how your nickname changed from ‘lamby’ to ‘wolfie’. At least Asmo got you some prosthetic fangs for it though.
They were made out of a kind of black metal only found in the devildom. Little caps that went over your top canines(you had ones for your bottom canines too but you couldn’t close your mouth properly with those) that were surprisingly sturdy.
You remember Asmo cooing at you and pressing his cheek to yours like he usually did, glueing the fangs on and then you remember looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking warmly of how much you looked like your friends. Then Beel came and brought you to the kitchen to give them a performance test several different foods-of which they passed all levels.
They weren’t permanent, and fell off after a few days, but they were easily re-glued.
All of this, led to now. You standing in the line at the grocery store, everyone staring at you as you realized what you had just done in full, broad human public. A woman had cut in front of you, and you, being fresh from the devildom, still re-familiarizing yourself with your birth realm, had immediately given her your most ferocious, no-Beel-that’s-my-pot-pie snarl.
Your face heated up and you dropped it into both of your hands, hoping to hide, at least a little bit from, the world. You couldn’t find it in yourself to care about your place in line at the moment and the woman cautiously(you have gotten pretty good at imitating demon vocals if you do say so yourself) sidestepped you to stand in front. You’re grateful you had remembered to have those prosthetic fangs removed a while ago.