Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Alastor was not a stupid man, nor a humble one. He was clever, ruthless, patient— all of the things that it took to rise above the rest of the cattle. Nothing about him was ‘average’, and he prided himself on that throughout both life and afterlife. But when Lucifer’s tongue curled around his and charred claws scratched at the base of his antlers, Alastor was struck with personally abashing clarity: he was an animal, just like all the rest.

He kneaded the unfairly supple curve of Lucifer’s ass and keened into the kiss, meandering towards the bed on memory alone because all of his senses were just Lucifer. It mattered little whether he let his lids droop closed or left them open, either way his vision was full of golden eyes and flaxen hair. He needed more. Lucifer’s skin beneath his hands, his flesh between his teeth, his tongue leaving scorching trails on Alastor’s body. Alastor tugged at Lucifer’s sweater with overeager clumsiness, embarrassed that his lover not only had to hold himself up to remain in Alastor’s arms but that he also had to help free himself from the fluffy straightjacket that Alastor had somehow managed to twist around him. It was cruel that he had to break the kiss to do it, and even more so that he laughed as he tossed the offending garment aside.

But fuck, was it ever worth it.

Alastor dropped Lucifer onto the bed. There was a sharp squeaking sound, though Alastor wasn’t certain if it was the mattress, Lucifer himself, or some errant toy he’d landed on. Alastor remained standing for a long, breathless moment, enjoying what he’d unearthed. Lucifer’s skin glistened like white quartz, as though there was a galaxy suspended in his very flesh, until it met his charcoal dusted biceps and darkened steadily from there to the tips of his claws. His body, hand carved by the architect of Creation to be the definition of beauty, was a masterpiece. Alastor expected no less, but was appropriately awed anyway. Lucifer waved his hand to turn down the lights, no doubt an attempt at ‘setting the mood’. Alastor growled in protest and brought them back up to full brightness with a snap.

“I wanna see you.” Alastor’s voice was a surprise, even to himself. He’d consciously dropped the artifices of the Radio Demon some time during their conversation in an effort to demonstrate his earnestness, but the traces of his long-shed Delta accent that crept through now were quite unintentional. If Lucifer noticed he was polite enough not to comment, only nodding his assent as his hands fisted the sheets beneath him and glowing eyes watched every move Alastor made. He cleared his throat discreetly and continued his seduction, pressing a knee onto the mattress between Lucifer’s and marveling at how willingly the Devil’s legs splayed open in invitation.

Alastor took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders and willing himself to calm down. He was determined to make this last, to savor each and every second of this time. Their first time.

Lithe muscles, unblemished and smooth as marble, quivered under his hands as he dragged his palms over Lucifer’s skin. He didn’t have nipples, which surprised Alastor though he wasn’t quite sure why. There was a dusting of gold at the peaks of sculpted pectorals and Alastor experimentally scraped the claws of his thumbs over them, watching as Lucifer sucked in a breath through serpentine fangs. Perhaps not as sensitive, but still pleasant at least. Alastor took note. His groping exploration extended lower, fingertips tracing the dip of Lucifer’s abdomen to his waistband, a smooth line uninterrupted by anything so terrestrial as a navel or body hair, and then back up his sides as Lucifer giggled and squirmed. Ticklish, then. Another thrilling piece of information that Alastor fully intended to exploit some other evening.

There was something fascinatingly alien about his perfection, so nearly human but empirically not. Alastor felt like he should say something to mark the occasion but this was one of those rare moments where words failed him and all he could do was lower his mouth to that flawless flesh and deliver a bruising kiss over the rapid thrumming of Lucifer’s heart, hoping that the gesture conveyed his reverence.

“Ah! I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Lucifer said, his torso arching up against Alastor’s mouth. He hummed his agreement into Lucifer’s skin, though he had never actually considered the possibility that this wouldn’t happen. Not since he caught the scent of Lucifer’s arousal in the kitchen, anyway.

“Have you thought about it, you and I like this?” Alastor’s tone was curious and careful, intentionally lacking either judgment or hope. He resolved not to take it personally if Lu hadn’t fantasized as he had, mouthing his way to Lucifer’s sternum and beginning a languid descent from there.

“Yes.” Alastor watched Lucifer’s cock jump within the confines of his pajamas and grunted, pulling skin between his teeth and biting as softly as he could manage. Lucifer’s tone was amused when he spoke again. “Does that turn you on, big guy?”

“Unbearably,” Alastor confessed, both hands grasping Lucifer’s waist to haul him up higher on the bed and position them properly. He rested his chin on Lucifer’s abdomen and looked up at the angel beneath him, head nestled on a mound of soft, pink pillows. “Did you touch yourself?”

“Oh, um. No. I mean, I tried.” Lucifer’s face turned away, that delectable golden flush crawling down his neck to his chest. “I can’t really…”

“Cum?” Alastor was not vulgar, generally speaking, but he was hardly bashful and saw no need to employ his extensive vocabulary in bed where fewer words often had greater impact.

Lucifer shook his head, eyes still averted. The blush deepened. “Make myself cum.”

“All for me, then. How delightful.” Alastor grinned, wide and wolfish, and waited patiently for Lucifer to look back. “Does it excite you to know how often I’ve touched myself thinking about making you cum?” He watched slit, candy-apple red pupils swell in spite of the bright overhead lights and felt an intoxicating rush of power because he was the cause.

“H-how often?”

Alastor pretended to consider the question, his thumbs drawing circles on Lucifer’s fleshy hips. “More in the last few months than in the preceding century combined.” He kissed just below where a belly-button would have been. “Seemingly incessantly since we nearly kissed. You’re quite the distraction, I’ll have you know! I’ve been very unproductive.”

Lucifer’s hips jerked, grinding himself up against Alastor’s chest where it was sprawled on top of him. “Fuck, Al. When did you last—?”

“In the shower before I decided to come here, tonight,” Alastor said matter-of-factly, right before lunging upwards again and pressing one of Lucifer’s knees all the way against his chest. He was wonderfully limber; another pleasant discovery! “I imagined fucking you just like this.”

Lucifer moaned, reaching up with one hand to grasp at the headboard only to have his claws slip down the carved duck’s beak. Alastor followed the movement up and felt the headboard’s glare, narrowing his own eyes to match. “Though in my fantasy the bed in use was a little more… adult.”

“Oh.” Lucifer blinked twice and craned his neck, back bowing off of the bed as he looked upside down at the headboard as if seeing it for the first time. “Listen, believe it or not I know how it looks. Rubber ducks don’t exactly scream ‘sexy’.” Lucifer took the opportunity to reach beneath himself, removing a duckie and tossing it aside. It landed somewhere with the same irritating squeak that Alastor was growing accustomed to. “But I spent so much time in my —our— old bed, alone. Even before we split up. That bed felt like… like an anchor, for our marriage. For me. But without fail I always felt worse when I looked at it, trying to figure out just how badly I had fucked up that I had to crawl into that big, cold, empty bed by myself.”

When Lucifer looked back up at him there were tears clinging to his lashes but a smile pulled at his pink lips. “You were right, Al. I don’t like being alone.” He patted the headboard, shifting on the pillows now that the urgency between them had cooled somewhat. “This bed makes me smile. It’s okay if you’re not into it, or if it’s a mood-killer. I totally get it. We can go to your room or-or, if you’re having second thoughts that’s fine, but we should—”

Alastor devoured whatever idiotic words were coming next, his kiss fierce and territorial. Objectively, he knew that there were two sides to every story and no doubt the Queen had her own to tell. He just didn’t care to hear it and would have happily killed her anyway, just for making Lucifer cry.

“It is repugnant, garish, and downright tacky,” Alastor pressed his forehead against Lucifer’s, “but baby, I do so like it when you smile.”

Lucifer’s bright laughter marked the subject closed as far as Alastor was concerned. “Baby, huh?”

“You don’t like it?” He resumed his descent, picking up where he left off by nipping love bites over Lucifer’s taut belly.

“I like it.” Lucifer’s hips wiggled, not-so-subtly drawing attention to the tent in his pants. Alastor smirked and ignored him, focusing on sucking a temporary bruise over his hip. “Though it does sound an awful lot like Bambi…”

Alastor bit the apex of his hipbone, sharply. “All the more reason for you not to call me that.”

“Sweetheart?” Lucifer giggled as Alastor moved to the other hip, biting again. “Ah! Dearest?” Another playful nip. “Stud?”

Lucifer yelped when Alastor’s jaw clamped down, the sound quickly dissolving into more laughter. “Oooh, he likes that one.” Lucifer’s hands found his hair again, scratching through his curls up towards his ears. Alastor could feel them twitch in anticipation, his rebellious tail flicking to-and-fro under his shirt. “Does my big, scary buck like to be reminded of just how big and scary he is?”

Three pinpricks of gold beaded to the porcelain surface, drawn up by Alastor’s frontmost top fangs. Alastor breathed against his skin for a moment, wild eyes darting up to Lucifer. Lids at half-mast, Lucifer sucked his bottom lip between his own sharp teeth and pressed gently on Alastor’s head. An invitation.

With a lusty groan Alastor extended his tongue and dragged it over the already healed flesh, collecting those precious droplets as his eyes fluttered shut. Bliss. Champagne toasts and king cake and pralines. He tasted like home, a different flavor overwhelming his senses with every roll of his tongue.

Alastor hummed and pressed his cheek to Lucifer’s hip. Those dexterous fingers were still stroking his ears and if Alastor wasn’t still excruciatingly hard and ravenous, he could have fallen asleep just like this. “You, mon ange, are worth damnation.”

"Al, you did not need my help landing you here,” Lucifer laughed, thumbs caressing the base of Alastor’s ears. “You sorta did that with all the stabbing and eating people.”

“Kind of you to notice!” Alastor’s grin stretched wide, putting all of his teeth on display for one brief, intentionally horrifying moment. He let his mouth soften, turning his face to the side to breathe over Lucifer’s clothed erection and watch it bounce again with delight. 

“You-ah-you really are a monster, aren’t you?”

“Mmmm. But I’m your monster, now. And I would kill them all, if you asked.” Alastor mouthed at him through the fabric, tongue prodding until he could taste the precum that had soaked through. “Every angel, every Sinner, all of Creation if that was what you wanted.”

Lucifer sucked in a deep breath, his belly scooping inwards as he held it and then relaxing on the slow exhale. “I don’t.”

Alastor smiled against his cock. “I know.” He opened his mouth, letting his teeth tease at the shaft through the fabric, testing the limits of Lucifer’s trust. He didn’t so much as flinch, throwing his head back against the pillows with a gasp of pleasure instead.

He leaned up and sat back on his heels, red-tipped claws unfastening his shirt button by button while Lucifer watched, transfixed. Alastor knew that he had been a handsome man in life, and he had more than enough evidence in his afterlife to consider himself quite the dashing demon. Still, there was nothing quite as thrilling as being looked at like a tasty morsel by the Devil himself while the taste of forbidden fruit still lingered on his tongue.

Alastor was a performer, through and through. He pulled off his shirt slowly, shrugging his shoulders as the silk slipped over his skin and letting it dangle from his fingers before dropping it to the floor, foregoing his usual habit of folding and hanging his clothes for the sake of the show.

Lucifer sat up immediately and Alastor appreciated the effortless contraction of muscle underneath skin. His own hands grasped Lucifer’s thighs while he gave the King a moment for appraisal. He had quite a few scars, not least of which the ugly tear across the center of his chest. It was healed now at long last, but Alastor could still feel the sting. Lucifer’s touch had healed him, all those months ago in the aftermath of Vox’s doomed coup and his successful one, and it was Lucifer’s touch now that soothed the memory. It was feather-light, the very tips of his ink black fingers tracing around the jagged edges of the scar before moving on to the next and the next. When he was done mapping the scrapbook of injuries, he began to trace notches of muscle and dips of bone, all with the same maddeningly gentle touch.

Lucifer was trembling.

Alastor’s hands covered his, pinning Lucifer’s palms firmly against his chest where Lu would be able to feel the rapid thrum of the blood rushing through his veins and arteries, the pump-pump-pump of his heart. “I’m not fragile, Lu. Touch me.”

Lucifer’s lashes fluttered. Understanding. Unease. "Does it ruin the allure of sleeping with the Devil if I admit how nervous I am?"

“Not at all.” He left Lucifer’s hands there, letting him decide what he wanted to do with them. Alastor’s claws scraped along Lucifer’s sides, firmly enough to briefly sting, not tickle. Lucifer’s resulting whimper would have a permanent spot in his memory, he was sure of it. “My ego is getting quite the boost from making you tremble.”

His teasing went unanswered as Lucifer stared at his own quaking hands.

“Lu?”

He had been able to please Lilith, once. He had been good at this. He was good at this.

So why was he afraid?

Lucifer wasn’t afraid that he couldn’t satisfy Alastor, and he was pretty damn sure that Alastor was going to knock his socks off. That wasn’t the issue. He wasn’t afraid of hurting Al, either. He wasn’t even sure he could.

He had simply never really had sex with someone he wasn't in love with before. Eve had been something else, something he would barely classify as sex. On a good day he’d call it liberation, on a bad day he’d call it spiting Adam. Lucifer could scarcely even remember what she looked like, much less how she tasted on his tongue. Even with Lilith watching, Lucifer hadn’t so much as felt a twinge below the entire time. An act of rebellion, not passion.

But with Alastor? This was just for him. Selfishly, wantonly, Alastor might’ve been the first thing in millenia that Lucifer could say he was really, truly choosing for himself.

Sex and love. Love and sex. He didn’t know how to separate the two. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t need to. Not when Alastor looked at him like that, touched him like that. When he kissed him with such reverence and need, when he talked about a future and monogamy and said that he would kill the whole damn universe if Lucifer said so.

“Lucifer?”

Was that love?

He thought of all those silly, spiteful moments. Of the disdain and camaraderie going hand in hand, of late nights spent at the bar trading jabs after Husk packed it in and of waking up early to race Alastor to the coffee pot. Of Alastor’s shadow following him on the rare occasions he left the Hotel, probably just to make sure he didn’t blunder into another trap.

Breakfasts of pancakes and gore, each criticizing the other’s choices over the morning paper. Worrying after Alastor when he kept clutching his chest long after the shark bite on his arm had healed. Pestering him incessantly until he let Lucifer mend the damage Adam had done. Alastor’s barely contained rage every time Lilith was mentioned. Cocoa with too many marshmallows in his ‘Deer Season’ mug and shared eye-rolls over Emily’s well-meaning nonsense. A bottle of wine and searing eyes across the dinner table. The feared Radio Demon on his knees, his lips brushing so carefully over Lucifer’s, like he was something precious.

Was that love?

Was this love?

Alastor had asked if there was any room left in his heart for him, and Lucifer hadn’t even answered.

Well. Fuck.

“Lucifer? Where are you right now?” He’d been lightyears away, adrift in a galaxy of memories as he strung together the course of events that led him here. And here he was again, both palms still pressed against Alastor’s chest. He looked down between them to find that both of their arousals had flagged in the intermission, then up to see cautious concern in the eyes of a killer. Eyes that he should hate, not love. Alastor’s hand lifted to Lucifer’s face, relief relaxing the taut lines around his ever-smiling mouth. His thumb stroked over the curve of Lucifer’s cheek in a move that was fast becoming habitual. “There you are. Perhaps this was too fast. It’s alright if you don’t want this right now. Just tell me what it is that you do want, and I will give it to you.”

Acceptance. Care. Patience. Passion. Understanding.

In Alastor’s own way, he had already given Lucifer his heart.

Now it was Lucifer’s turn.

Lucifer’s fingers wrapped around Alastor’s wrist, his face turning to kiss his cool palm. “How about I show you, instead?”

Alastor exhaled an audible ‘oof’ as Lucifer bowled him over, pinning the demon on his back with Lucifer’s knees on either side of his hips. His kiss was coaxing but eager, brushes of lips and flicks of tongue rekindling the fire that had begun to smoulder. Lucifer bit at Alastor’s lip and took advantage of the surprised inhale to tease Alastor’s tongue with his before pulling back. When Alastor arched up to chase his mouth, Lucifer easily held him in place with one hand.

“I want this.” Lucifer made a point of meeting Alastor’s eyes, holding them unflinchingly. The time for tears and questions and uncertainty was over. He needed Alastor to know that he wasn’t out on this limb alone. “I’m here. I’m all in. I want you, bellhop.”

Alastor huffed to conceal a laugh, or perhaps a sob. “Host.”

“Bambi,” Lucifer purred the word into his mouth like it was the filthiest thing he’d ever said.

“You’re insufferable,” Alastor groaned, hips bucking with renewed interest.

Lucifer grinned, biting down on his lip again until he tasted Alastor’s blood and his moans in the same mouthful. “You love it.”

Alastor palmed his ass and bumped their foreheads together. “I do.”

Something in Lucifer unclenched, nervousness bleeding away into a jittery kind of excitement. His body and his mind seemed to remember just how fun this could be and his giggle skittered over the smooth skin of Alastor’s cheek. Lucifer’s mouth moved to his jaw with a sharp, possessive bite, and then farther down without lingering, simply too excited to stay in any one spot for long. He led with his tongue, letting the twin forks twist around a nipple and trace over each and every scar until Alastor was making the most satisfying little noises and visibly leaking through his pants.

Only then did he touch him properly. And boy, did he touch.

Lucifer had never been with a man before but it wasn’t so different, really. The coaxing and teasing up to this point was more or less the same, and when he peeled back the layer of silk and the thread of precum snapped between the fabric and the blood flushed head of Alastor’s cock, instinct provided the rest. He started with his tongue again —he was good with his tongue— lapping up the slick and messily swirling it around until the turgid, twitching flesh looked mouthwateringly glazed. He scratched through the thatch of dense fur and wrapped both hands around the base, stroking upwards steadily while his tongue swirled around the shaft like stripes on a barber pole. It was a lot like playing an instrument, with each squeeze and stroke drawing a new lovely shade of sound from Alastor’s wide open mouth.

He should have expected the Radio Demon to be vocal in bed, but something about hearing all of those noises coming straight from his lips with no filter, no background music, no static— it just felt so intimate. Then again, so did the heft of Alastor’s cock in his hands but whatever.

With a glance up at Alastor to make sure he was still paying attention, Lucifer closed his lips around the surprisingly hearty mouthful. It looked impressive enough on its own, but inside his mouth Alastor’s cock felt daunting in the best possible way. Challenging, like a game: how much of your deer boyfriend’s(?) dick can you swallow without choking?

Aaaand go!

The answer turned out to be ‘a lot’, though it took quite a few passes of his mouth up and down until he could get his lips to meet where his fingers still gripped the base. Saliva and precum dripped over his hand with every wet, slurping slide of his mouth and the prominent vein that branched up the underside of Alastor’s cock pulsed on his tongue. Alastor’s sounds shifted from moans and gasps to a kind of whine that came from somewhere deep in his chest but grew thinner and higher on the way out, punctuated every now and then by a French-adjacent curse. His eyes were squeezed shut tightly, as if he was afraid to look down and see the mess Lucifer was making of him.

Alastor’s body, beautifully scarred and chiseled in a way that screamed purposeful rather than vain, was drawn taut as the strings of Lucifer’s violin. One hand had already clawed itself through the bedding and was making a mess of the mattress underneath while the other kept flexing towards Lucifer’s head only to return to his side again and again. The tiny, involuntary thrusts of Alastor’s hips were easy enough to keep at bay with a press of Lucifer’s elbow but they sparked an idea.

Lucifer kept Alastor between his lips, descending as far as he could manage and teasing his flesh with his tongue while he released his grip on him. He wiped his hands on the ruined duvet before reaching out and taking hold of Alastor’s uncertain hand. Red eyes snapped open, wild and ravenous, searching Lucifer’s in a lusty, confused fugue. Lucifer’s movements were unhurried but not slow, drawing Alastor’s hand down to his own jaw. He relaxed beneath Alastor’s fingers, letting his mouth grow soft and pliant around the cock resting heavily on his tongue. Awareness dawned in Alastor’s eyes and his own jaw snapped shut, his throat bobbing with a swallow.

“Y’sure, mon ange?” Alastor’s voice was all gravel and Louisiana drawl. Lucifer felt his tail slip free and lash behind him, giddy at having peeled back yet another layer.

Unable to respond properly with his tongue so thoroughly depressed, Lucifer simply lifted Alastor’s hand from where it had begun massaging his jaw and throat. He moved it to the top of his head, curling his claws over Alastor’s until the demon gripped firmly. Lucifer smiled with his eyes and Alastor’s sclera flooded black, his other hand joining the first in Lucifer’s silky hair. He kept his gaze fixed on Alastor’s as the demon slowly guided his head upwards by the hair, pausing when Lucifer’s lips were just below the swell of his glans and giving him one last opportunity to change his mind. Lucifer’s hands, now free to do as they liked, found Alastor’s thighs, squeezing his assent.

Alastor drew Lucifer’s head back down while his hips snapped up from the mattress, mouth agape and black eyes round with awe as he plunged into the back of Lucifer’s throat. Another pause, another squeeze from Lucifer’s hands, and Alastor let himself go. He remained deep in Lucifer’s mouth, short, quick thrusts punching in and out of the tight ring of his throat as he chased his pleasure. Tears welled in the corners of Lucifer’s eyes but before they could fall to mingle with the drool seeping from his lips, Alastor was already gasping out a warning and a plea in tandem. “I can’t… souplé, mon amour, I can’t hold on.”

Lucifer gripped his thighs tightly, claws scraping red lines into dun flesh as Alastor emptied himself down his throat in a handful of shaky, jarring thrusts, so deep that Lucifer didn’t even get to taste him properly. With hands jittery from pleasure, Alastor smoothed back Lucifer’s hair and eased himself from between his lips, fingers gliding down over his throat in a silent question. “Lu…”

“I’m fine, Al,” Lucifer replied, his voice husky but no worse for wear. There were benefits to being nigh impervious, after all, though he doubted that this was quite what his Creator had in mind when he was molded from the Infinite. Lucifer wiped his face on Alastor’s discarded pants and slithered up his body, propping his chin on Alastor’s heaving chest with the very tips of his tongue resting on his lower lip. Alastor’s ears hung slightly outturned and completely relaxed. “How are you?”

Alastor laughed, deep and rich and unfiltered. His fingers carded through Lucifer’s hair and hauled him up the rest of the way for a breathy, open-mouthed kiss. “I am well and thoroughly wrecked.” One of Alastor’s hands moved along the curve of his spine to where his tail was lazily swishing over his rear. Al’s fingertips stroked the underside of it and Lucifer’s hips jolted forward, his forgotten arousal making itself known and demanding attention. “And I think I should return the favor.”

Alastor’s body was still twitching and singing with the afterglow of the single best orgasm of his life, or afterlife, like a tuning fork struck just right to produce a clear, beautiful tone. His limbs wanted to melt into the mattress and bask in the resonance of the moment but something feral clawed at his chest. He needed to see Lucifer just as undone, to strike the same chord and feel the vibrations in his lover’s bones.

He moved with purpose, easing Lucifer onto his back and blanketing him with his much larger body with one knee resting between Lucifer’s legs. With a slow roll from antler to hoof, Alastor ground his thigh against Lucifer’s confined cock. The angel whined, turning his face into the pillow only for Alastor to grip his jaw and yank it forwards again. “I am going to finish what I started. I’m going to make you cum just like this.”

Lucifer’s moan vibrated over Alastor’s lips. “Yes.”

“You’re going to make a mess.” Another roll of his body, his thigh pressing down as Lucifer’s hips rose instinctively to rut against him.

“Ah-yes…”

Alastor set a steady rhythm, following the cues of Lucifer’s body and keeping time with the needy pumping of his hips. “Then I’m going to open you up.”

“Ff— yes, please!” They were openly panting into each other’s mouths now, not so much a kiss as a swapping of condensed air.

Lucifer tried to quicken the pace but Alastor remained steadfast, dragging the pleasure out as he growled against Lucifer’s mouth. “I am going to stretch you wide until you can take every inch of me.”

“Yes. Fuck, please Alastor! Yes!”

Lucifer’s claws scraped at his back, desperate for more leverage and denied it by Alastor’s unyielding rhythm. “Then I’m going to claim what’s mine.”

“Mmmplease, yes… yes…” Lucifer’s eyes squeezed shut, his head thrown back. Alastor released his jaw to grip that horrible headboard and throw all of his weight into the next press of his thigh against Lucifer’s pulsing cock.

“I’m going to fucking ruin you,” Alastor snarled, half threat and half promise. “You’re mine, now. Say it.”

“I am. I’m yours.” Lucifer was practically sobbing, his thrusts desperate and uncoordinated. “Alastor, please…”

Alastor rewarded him by speeding up, his mouth moving to Lucifer’s ear. “Again.”

“Y-yours.” Lucifer’s whole body was shaking. He was right on the edge, teetering on the cusp of his first release in who-knows-how-long and babbling into Alastor’s sweat-slick shoulder. “I’m y— oh fuck, Al. I’m close!”

Faster. Rougher. Alastor gritted his teeth as he drove Lucifer towards the finish line. “Again,” he hissed.

“I’m yours! Yours! I-fuck!”

Lucifer’s body seized, a scream ripping its way from his chest as the pressure in the room swelled and Alastor’s ears popped along with several lightbulbs. Energy, strange and effervescent, rippled over Alastor’s skin as wetness bloomed on his thigh and Lucifer’s hips jerked through pulse after pulse of his release. Alastor’s aggression bled away as Lucifer’s body went lax beneath him. He gingerly lifted his thigh and moved to lay next to Lucifer, hands skimming up and down his torso as the air fizzled with the lingering burst of divine ecstasy.

“Sa té bô, Lu,” Alastor cooed, his hand settling over Lucifer’s racing heart. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“Yeah?” Lucifer opened one eye, peering up at Alastor. “You shoulda felt it from over here. Holy shit.”

They shared a laugh that became a kiss that became an embrace, Lucifer tucking into Alastor’s chest and dragging his lips over salty skin. Alastor’s hands flattened on Lucifer’s back, holding him close. “Do you wish to continue? There is no pressure if you’re spent. That was more than enough…”

“Nuh-uh, Mister.” Lucifer lifted his head and the smile on his face must have been what compelled Eve to bite the apple. Alastor could have been convinced to do just about anything by that wicked smile. “You haven’t even gotten my socks off, yet. We aren’t anywhere near done.”

“Allow me to remedy that, then.”

Alastor pushed him down once more, playful in his roughness. Unabashedly nude and already halfway to hard again, Alastor knelt between Lucifer’s legs and grabbed him by the ankle. Lucifer gave him a little kick, all part of the game and without any actual force behind it, squirming just enough to make Alastor’s job difficult. He wrestled off both socks eventually, placing a kiss on top of each of Lucifer’s darling, petite hooves before lowering his legs back to the mattress. Lucifer must’ve been far more eager to get out of his soiled trousers, since he lifted his hips readily and helped Alastor shimmy them off.

With a kiss to each knee, Alastor arranged Lucifer’s legs over his shoulders and lowered himself onto the bed until his face was in Lu’s lap. He didn’t hesitate to drag his tongue through what was left of Lucifer’s spend, collecting the golden ichor on his tongue and groaning at the juxtaposition of musk and sun-baked apples. Did all of Lucifer taste like dessert?

He moved his hands discreetly, summoning a slip of shadow to bring the bottle from his own nightstand across the hotel while he enthusiastically licked Lucifer clean. The tendril began to slither up Lucifer’s leg, flesh warm and gentle, an extension of Alastor’s will, if not his body. Lucifer’s belly tensed beneath his tongue and Alastor looked up. “It’s alright, it’s just my shadow. It will be more comfortable this way to start.”

Lucifer shook his head, propping himself up on his elbows. “No, not this time. I want you.”

Alastor tried to stifle the frankly ridiculous way his chest fluttered at the implication that there would be more evenings like this. That this, with or without the sex, was their life now. His brow furrowed to convey his seriousness, red claws gently raking along Lucifer’s thigh to the curve of his ass. They had both already drawn blood this evening, but what Lucifer was asking for wasn’t a love bite or scratch in the heat of the moment. Alastor had no compunction about causing pain, but he would prefer it to be consensual. “I can’t trim these, Lu. It will likely hurt.”

“I know.” That wicked smile returned and there was a gleam of something beautifully infernal in Lucifer’s eyes. His tail looped itself around Alastor’s wrist and after a moment’s hesitation, which was mostly for show, Alastor dismissed his shadow and picked up the bottle himself. Pleased to have gotten his way, Lucifer settled back onto the cushions with the air of a smug housecat, his thighs falling wide open on Alastor’s broad shoulders. “Do your worst, stud.”

Alastor could feel the pull of the stitches at the corners of his mouth before he dove in. He licked and teased, tempting Lucifer to relax beneath the swirling onslaught of his tongue. He was still loose-limbed and lax from his orgasm but it took several minutes for Alastor to even work the tip of his tongue past the concentric rings of muscle. When he added a lube-slicked finger alongside his undulating tongue, Lucifer tensed. His back bowed up from the mattress as his panting breaths became moans. Alastor hummed against his furled rim, waiting for Lucifer to ease up once more and rewarding compliance by pressing deeper. He was as careful with his claws as he could be; it seemed a waste to spill any of that precious blood somewhere his tongue couldn’t reach. Even so, Alastor fixated on every twitch and tense of Lucifer’s cherubic face with wonder, drinking in how beautifully he took everything Alastor gave him.

He was diligent, taking his time and using an obscene amount of lubrication before adding a second finger and finally a third, his mouth moving to gnaw playfully at the milky inside of Lucifer’s thigh. The temptation to bite down was great, but so was Alastor’s resolve. Not yet. The room was filled with the wet squelch of his fingers and Lucifer’s whimpers of need, his body rocking down against Alastor’s hand, claws and all. Still, three fingers was a bit of a squeeze. He would need a fourth if they were to do this properly. “Baby, you’re so tight,” he purred against Lucifer’s thigh. He didn’t like to think of other hands on Lucifer, much less inside him, but he had to ask… “Have you done this before?”

“Mmmhmm.” Lucifer’s hair stuck up every which way, mussed by the constant rocking against the pillow and dampened with sweat. “I mean, never with a man but Lil—”

“That,” Alastor drove all three fingers deep with a savage snarl, dragging them out again harshly in search of the spot he had been avoiding until now, “is the last time you mention her tonight.” He tapped his claws against the swollen bundle of nerves, watching Lucifer’s half-hard cock jerk pitifully on his belly. “Understand?”

“Yes!” Lucifer’s back bowed, both hands clutching at the pillow on either side of his head. “Ah, fuck yes. Only you, Al. Juste toi!”

Alastor groaned, rocking himself down against the duvet at the utter submission, verbal and physical. “Good. Clench for me, my sweet boy. For as long as you can.” It was ridiculous, calling a being as ancient as the stars themselves ‘boy’, but Lucifer preened under the praise all the same. Lucifer bore down on his fingers for a long, uncomfortable moment and when he released Alastor was able to wiggle in a fourth, scissoring his digits wide while periodically tapping on that little bundle to keep Lucifer squirming.

Finally satisfied, Alastor wiped his hand on the duvet —they would probably have to burn the thing at this rate— and rose to his knees. Lucifer was watching so Alastor made a show of slicking himself up, stroking with a twist of his wrist and a performative groan that had Lucifer tightening his legs around his shoulders.

“Hurry up, bellhop. I don’t have all night.” The whiplash from begging in French to taunting him in his brattiest King voice was dizzying, and Alastor loved every second of it. He grasped the back of both of Lucifer’s knees with one hand, driving them up towards his chest as he notched himself against his hole with the other.

“Apologies, Sire! I would hate to waste your valuable time,” Alastor replied, letting the radio filter slide over his voice. It was very effective at hiding the desperation in his tone as he steadily rocked forward, pressing a little more firmly each time until the head of his cock finally popped past that stubborn ring and was sucked in by the vacuum of Lucifer’s body.

“Fuck!” Alastor shouted, filter and dignity forgotten as molten pleasure squeezed him and drew him in. Lucifer was almost unbearably hot inside and Alastor’s hips moved jerkily, unable to decide if they wanted to plunge deeper or flee from the crushing tightness and scorching heat. “Lu, fuck… you’re so—my God!”

Sheathed fully after a wonderfully agonizing inch-by-inch crawl, Alastor paused to collect the shattered pieces of his sanity. The radio on the nightstand had flicked on, static buzzing like a long, drawn out moan. The sensation of being so enveloped by Lucifer had layers. The physical pleasure was indescribable, far surpassing even Alastor’s most vivid fantasies, but there was also the bone-deep satisfaction of finally. Like a long-held breath exhaled at long last, chest burning and head swimming, before sucking in a crisp lungful and feeling reborn. And that was to say nothing of the image Lucifer painted in front of him, of the aureate flush of his skin and the wet shine of his parted lips as he panted through the intrusion and accepted Alastor’s body into his own. Alastor etched the moment into his memory, chiding himself for having been so limited in his imaginings. Yes, Lucifer was as pliant and eager as he had dreamt, but it was the steel beneath the softness that made the moment truly transcendent. He was letting Alastor unmoor him.

“Please, Al.” Lucifer reached for him, past his own trembling knees to drag his claws down the side of Alastor’s face. “Fuck me.”

Alastor withdrew slowly, the loudspeaker screeching out the whine he tried to swallow. He spoke through his teeth and through the speaker, his voice filling the room as the remaining lights dimmed and flickered. “How could I refuse my King?”

The first few snaps of his hips were experimental. He had been rather good at this, once upon a time, but his body was so different now. The angles, the size of him relative to his partner, the way Lucifer wriggled in his grasp, the unparalleled pleasure threatening to make this all end far too quickly if he was overzealous— all of the elements had to be accounted for and adjusted to with each thrust. Alastor found his stride eventually and each slick plunge pushed a new glorious sound out of the squeezebox of Lucifer’s chest where his knees drove into his torso.

“Ah-ah-Alastor!” Lucifer’s forked tongue draped over his lower lip, bouncing with each thrust and panted breath. Intrusively, Alastor wondered if it would grow back if he were to bite it off. Not that he would. It would be such a shame to lose such a marvelous appendage, even temporarily. “More!”

Alastor’s mind clouded, his world narrowing to a pinprick of sensation and instinct. Push. Pull. Fuck. Claim. Take. Give. Worship. Devour.

He turned his face to Lucifer’s hand, intending to place a kiss on the palm that lingered on his cheek and finding the flesh of his slim wrist between his teeth instead. Ambrosia burst, juicy sweet and sickeningly thick, into his mouth. It coated his tongue and his palate, the heady apple-blossom scent of it filling his nose and snaking down his throat. Alastor’s eyes closed and his fangs grated, opening the wound farther to guzzle down more and more and more liquid starlight until he was drunk on it, like the syrupy Muscadine wine he’d pilfered from the neighbors in his youth. The radio sighed a familiar, comforting tune plucked across piano keys as those same flavors of home were amplified tenfold by the sulfuric burn of hellfire that settled in his chest, divinity and damnation in the same gluttonous mouthful.

“Mmmfuck, Al! Ease up a bit, big guy.”

His eyes snapped open, radio dial pupils spinning in black marbles as he came crashing back to reality. His jaw unlocked and his thrusts ceased with the jarring scratch of a needle over vinyl, Alastor’s head jerking back to survey the damage of his loss of control. Lucifer’s wrist had been savaged but the flesh was already knitting itself back together, the ichor that had pumped with the angel’s heartbeat straight into Alastor’s core looked so stark against the charred black of his cursed flesh.

Alastor swallowed once more, out of both trepidation and mouthwatering want. He was well and truly damned now, fated to crave Lucifer’s taste for the rest of his neverending days. The exigency of his yearning was only eclipsed by the harrowing fear that Lucifer would deny him for his transgression. It would have been polite to at least ask, surely. “Mon ange, forgive me. I’m sor—”

Lucifer’s fingers pressed against his blood-slick lips and Alastor closed them on instinct, shielding his flesh from Alastor’s teeth. “Shh.” Lucifer traced his lips, painting them in gold as the damage erased itself, leaving no trace but a luminous smear on charcoal skin. “Open.”

What could he do but obey? Alastor parted his lips, tongue flattening invitingly. He watched with dizzying affection as Lucifer smirked and pushed two gilded fingers into his mouth. They pressed on his tongue, pushing to the back of his throat where Alastor swallowed around them by reflex. Lucifer’s entire hand was in his mouth and Alastor was as docile as a lamb, trussed up and ready for the knife. He would not betray Lucifer’s trust again.

Those fingers withdrew and then pushed back in, only to the second knuckle this time. “Suck.” Alastor closed his lips around the digits and did just that, groaning whorishly in a voice not entirely his own. Lucifer’s claws slid over his tongue, back and forth, in and out, and Alastor’s body unconsciously picked up the same rhythm. Lucifer hummed, lids fluttering as his head tilted back. When the thrust of his fingers sped up, so did the pistoning of Alastor’s hips, until Lucifer was controlling both of their pleasure with a mere gesture.

It was perfect. He was perfect.

Alastor felt seen. Unmade and unchanged somehow all at once.

He felt loved.

Alastor was beautiful like this, equal parts vicious and docile. Like a wild animal turned pet by sheer devotion to its keeper; the threat of claws and fangs was ever present, but trust and mutual respect kept the beast at bay.

Lucifer didn’t fear those sharp edges. Next to the pain of his Fall or the weapon that had drained his Grace and used it to sunder the Heavens, Alastor’s bite was like the playful teething of a kitten that didn’t know what to do with all of its love. Lucifer dragged his thrusting digits over a razor fang within the confines of Alastor’s mouth just to hear another one of his pretty moans and feel the urgent constricting of his throat as he hollowed his cheeks and attempted to drain every drop he could before Lucifer’s skin hardened once more.

Inevitably, their shared need outpaced the pulsing of Lucifer’s fingers and he withdrew, clutching instead to Alastor’s shoulders as each feral snap of his hips drove Lucifer farther and farther up the bed. Alastor’s arms looped around him, one hand cushioning his head where it repeatedly battered the headboard and gathering Lucifer up against his chest as he chased their combined pleasure and panted sweet promises of forever into Lucifer’s hair. Lucifer’s hands drifted down his spine, searching. When his fingers reached Alastor’s sweat-dampened tail they threaded through the softness to find the quivering nub beneath. It was like Lucifer had flipped a switch, speeding everything up with a single touch. Alastor rutted into him mercilessly and words became cervine grunts of dominance.

The force of his thrusts, of the slam-slam-slam of the controversial headboard into the shelves behind, shook Lucifer’s books loose and sent a handful tumbling down on top of them. A particularly weighty tome dropped right onto Alastor’s head, cover tearing on his branching antlers before it fell away. They both paused to laugh at the absurdity of it all —of the shower of books, the goofy duck-themed bed, the sticky sheets and bloodied skin and the sheer improbability of them and this moment— before Alastor’s mouth crashed back into his and Lucifer was pulled into a rolling tumble.

When he righted himself he was astride Alastor, sinking that much farther down his length with a moan that mingled with Al’s. Alastor’s hands on his hips compelled him to move, lifting and dropping him with the surge and ebb of Alastor’s thrusts from below. Lucifer acclimated to the newness of it, reveling in the control one he began to move on his own. He watched Alastor’s face, chasing those motions that made him look downright stricken with pleasure. A large hand attempted to wrap around Lucifer’s neglected cock but he swatted it away. Too distracting. Too much. Lucifer had to concentrate. He needed to see Alastor break.

With a repeated swivel of his hips, Lucifer was granted his one wish. Alastor crumbled beneath him, that powerful body contracting and seizing as he pulsed and bellowed mindlessly for what felt like an eternity but was over too soon.

Alastor went boneless beneath him, claws dislodging themselves from the flesh of his hips and painting nonsense shapes in luminous gold over his thighs and belly as the radio played an unknown melody of yearning satisfied. As Lucifer caught his breath he realized that Alastor was composing the tune in the moment, the trail of his fingers over Lucifer’s skin commanding the instruments to say what words couldn’t.

“Al…”

“Hush.” Alastor’s eyes opened, hazy with languid delight but underlined by a knife-like smile. “I’m not done with you, yet.”

Lucifer whined as he was unceremoniously pulled off of Alastor’s cock, strong hands gripping his thighs and hauling him upwards as Alastor’s spend leaked from his well-used body. Apparently that was untenable, as Alastor quickly stoppered the tide with two fingers, pulling a hiss from between Lucifer’s teeth as Alastor maneuvered him to his liking. Knees on the shredded pillow on either side of Alastor’s wild curls, Lucifer looked down at the gilded head of his own aching cock bumping into his lover’s chin. He had never given that part of himself much thought, given that he could change his shape at will, but he tried to imagine what Alastor saw just then. It was pretty in its own way, porcelain white and gently curved, not overly long but slightly out of proportion with his body so that it looked bigger than it was. Would Alastor ever permit Lucifer to return the favor, to fuck him into oblivion and back again? Was he too slender to satisfy, or did it just seem so to him next to the wide expanse of Alastor’s mouth as it swallowed him whole?

Alastor groaned, lips tightening around the base of him as his cheeks hollowed to greedily slurp while keeping his teeth masterfully concealed. Lucifer’s hands flew forward, gripping the horns of the leering duck above them as his hips jerked. The fingers inside him swirled until they found his engorged prostate, tapping in time with the six/eight groove as he composed Lucifer’s undoing. Lu’s high-pitched moans joined the melody, thrusting along Alastor’s tongue with the snare. He whined, straining to make the moment last but just three bars in he burst without warning, shamelessly humping against Alastor’s face as he swallowed and hummed his approval.

Lucifer felt weightless, barely cognizant of the damp sheets against his back and the cool body pressed alongside his. He turned towards Alastor unconsciously, like a flower in a window arching towards the light, and slowly came back to himself with the press of thin lips on his. They were slick with Lucifer’s essence, the sheen of gold mingling with saliva and cum a reminder of passion even as the fire died down and became something softer and sweeter.

When Alastor began to pull away Lucifer’s eyes flew open, his tail lashing the sheets as he grabbed at Alastor’s arms. “Where are you going?” He couldn’t even be self-conscious about the bare need on display, not after everything they’d shared. If Alastor left now, Lucifer would surely break apart into too many pieces to ever fit together quite right again.

“Nowhere.” Alastor kissed his head with a sweetness that contrasted sharply with the blood still staining his teeth. “I am just going to clean us up. We have made rather a mess of ourselves, you know.”

“Oh.” The lights came up again, the remaining unbroken bulbs and filaments returning to their usual brightness. Lucifer lifted a hand, middle finger and thumb pressed together as he spoke, “I can fix that.”

Alastor’s fist closed around his hand. “Allow me. Please.” Another soft kiss to Lucifer’s temple, soothing the itch of his horns beneath his skin. Lucifer forced himself to relax and breathe, to trust. “You can make yourself useful and change the sheets though, if you like.” He watched as Alastor stood up, stretching his arms over his head as his spine made a very satisfying pop and his adorable little tail betrayed his happiness. He listened to the click-click of hooves on lilac tiles as he made his way to the bathroom. Lucifer chuckled to himself because of course Alastor knew where the bathroom was, despite only ever having been invited in twice. His shadow had probably mapped out every inch of Lucifer’s space by now. He clicked his fingers, repairing the damage done to his poor, maligned bed and sending the books back where they belonged. The crisp, fresh bedding felt nice on his overheated skin and Lucifer snuggled further into the pillows as he waited, anxiously chewing his bottom lip.

There was the rush of flushing water and the sound of the faucet before Alastor returned to his field of vision. His skin was free of any evidence of their coupling, or his appetites, and Lucifer let his eyes wander in a way he hadn’t before. He admired the white dappling on his flanks and wondered if he lost those markings in the winter, even though the climate in Pride was always infernally hot. He smiled at the way the darkening of Alastor’s limbs mirrored his own, though the Sinner’s skin was smooth and downy where his hands would forever have the texture of his first contact with hellfire. Alastor had attempted to tame his hair during his brief absence, black-tipped curls damp and hanging around his sharp jaw.

“You should wear your hair like this more. It’s nice. Softer.”

“Mmmm, just what I want to be. Softer,” Alastor teased, obviously pleased by the compliment nonetheless. With a hum joined by tinkling piano, Alastor began to wipe down Lucifer’s limbs, starting at his shoulders. Periodically one of his shadowy tendrils would pass him a fresh cloth, dissappearing the soiled one to who-the-fuck-knows-where, as he dutifully washed Lucifer clean. Something clicked for Lucifer as he watched Alastor lose himself in the act of providing, a missing piece of his understanding slotting into place. Alastor liked this part. Control and service, hand in hand. By allowing himself to be fussed over, Lucifer was submitting to Alastor and he drank in that implicit power with the same fervor as he had Lucifer’s supplication in bed.

When he was finished, Alastor nudged Lucifer over until he was in the center of the bed and Alastor could stretch his long limbs out next to him. “There we are. Better?”

“Mmmhmmm.” Lucifer curled into him without hesitation, cheek pillowed on Adam’s scar and arm tight around the narrow slip of Alastor’s waist. Lucifer’s tail, which refused to return to the void just yet, lazily latched itself onto Alastor’s thigh. Alastor, in turn, wrapped an arm around Lucifer’s back and carded through his hair, still humming to himself as the radio lulled them both into a hazy kind of stupor.

Time passed like cooled molasses, the sluggish flow of it utterly irrelevant when neither of them had anywhere else to be.

For two certified yappers, however, the silence could only stretch on so long. Lucifer was the first to break it, sucking in a breath and gathering his thoughts while Alastor ceased his humming, indulgent in his attentiveness.

"I wasn’t…” Lucifer picked over his words carefully, recalling Alastor’s vitriol when he had mentioned Lilith before. Alastor’s possessive streak made him feel desired in a way he knew he would crave, and abuse, but there was no need to mar the tranquility of this moment with jealousy. “I didn’t know that I wanted this anymore. With anyone.”

Alastor shifted, like he was laying on a troublesome pebble. “I’ve never wanted anyone like this.”

Lucifer felt guilty for dragging the mood down, countering Alastor’s solemn seriousness with an upbeat tone and a hand that traced the trail of fur from his navel to the base of his cock, flaccid and sated against his thigh. “To fuck? I find that hard to believe, given how darn good you are at it.”

He didn’t take the bait, only shifting again but not away from Lucifer. If anything, his grip tightened. “Rarely, as stated. But that’s not what I meant.” Alastor’s breath ruffled his hair. “It’s an uncomfortable thing, the way I feel about you.”

“How’s that, exactly?” Lucifer really couldn’t help himself. He was the living embodiment of Pride, after all.

Alastor breathed deeply and exhaled, long and steady and resigned. “Like I want to tear open your chest just so that I can climb inside and be completely, utterly surrounded by you.”

Lucifer blinked at the vivid, visceral image. “Well, um yeah... Don’t do that.” He chuckled, rubbing his cheek against Alastor’s chest before sitting up. “But how about this? C’mere.”

His dear deer was docile and subdued as he followed Lucifer’s directions, sliding higher on the bed and letting Lucifer pull him against his chest once the King was seated upright against the headboard. He unfurled his wings in one, great whoosh, sprinkling glittery remnants of his Grace over the sheets where they vanished, unable to sustain themselves in this infernal place. He curled all six wings, creating a dome of scarlet and white that enveloped them both. Alastor tucked his knees up towards his chest, pulling his hooves inside the bubble and sighing as he relaxed into Lucifer’s lap.

Lucifer was petting him, and like some tame, neutered thing and Alastor couldn’t get enough of it. He moved his head this way and that in Lucifer’s lap, angling the scritching claws just so at the base of his antlers and the spot between his ears. Here, nestled in the cocoon of Lucifer’s wings, Alastor felt a foreign kind of peace. If Lucifer would only deign to touch him like this every now and again he would be perfectly content, whether or not they partook in more carnal delights.

He did, of course, hope that they would, but he could be happy either way. Now that he was attuned to it, Alastor could smell Lucifer’s blood through his skin, especially from his place on his thigh so very close to the femoral triangle. Did angels have the same arterial structure as humans? Most Sinners were, more or less, the same when you stripped away the skin in his experience, as though the underlying framework of the human Design transcended even death. Alastor shifted into Lucifer’s touch, nuzzling into the crease of his groin and breathing deep.

“So, how did I taste?”

Alastor froze, ear flicking against Lucifer’s fingers. Had the angel somehow intruded on his thoughts, or was he just that obvious?

“You’ll have to be more specific.” He fell back on his trademark obfuscation, twisting around until he was on his back with his head resting on Lucifer’s thigh and his knees bent towards the ceiling. “I tasted quite a lot of you, you know!”

Lucifer laughed, splaying a hand on his chest while the other resumed petting his ears. “Don’t be nasty.”

“My dear, I think that proverbial ship has sailed.” Alastor enjoyed Lucifer’s blush and the waft of crisp, golden apple that accompanied it. It was impossible to pin down precisely what he would smell like at any given moment, as it seemed to be ever changing, but Alastor was confident that he could still scent Lucifer from a thousand yards easily and know that it was him. “What are you asking, mon ange?”

“I dunno.” Lucifer shrugged, his smile lazy and entirely too charming. “You’re a cannibal.”

“Yes. I am.” Alastor couldn’t help but grin. Lucifer’s begrudging acceptance of his predilections was a victory in itself, coming from the man who had called all Sinners ‘violent psychopaths’ not so long ago. On the day they met, in fact! Alastor himself fit that description quite nicely, and perhaps that was the heart of it. Lucifer could accept what he was because the bar for humanity was just that low in his eyes. That or Alastor’s charms overwrote Lucifer’s discomfort. He’d like to believe that it was the latter. “Since you brought it up, perhaps I should elaborate?”

“As long as you don’t start talking about recipes.”

“Perish the thought! I’ve seen you eat steak. You’d demand I overcook any choice cut put in front of you and smother it with ketchup like a toddler.”

Lucifer snorted but didn’t argue. “Okay, go ahead.”

Alastor tilted his head, looking up at Lucifer’s face upside-down while careful not to gore his belly with his antlers. “I don’t presume that I could make you understand my tastes, but I don’t get sexual gratification from it, to be quite clear. That is, as you say, not my bag.”

“Does anyone actually say that?” Lucifer laughed again and Alastor’s insides danced. That they could talk about this, laugh about this, was a genuine and pleasant surprise. “So you don’t get off on drinking blood?”

“Do you think I’m a vampire?”

“I think you’re avoiding answering my questions. You opened this door, Al.”

Alastor’s hand drifted to Lucifer’s leg, caressing behind his knee and absently finding the pulsepoint there. “No, I do not. Not any more than you do from eating sugar.”

“I dunno Bambi, have you had chocolate fondue?” Lucifer gave his best and most theatrical attempt at faking an orgasm and Alastor’s sides split with laughter. It couldn’t have been farther from the actual splendor of watching the angel in the throes of passion. “Blood isn’t sugar, Al,” he chided.

“Hmm. I put it in my coffee in the morning all the same.”

“That is so super mega gross and I am not kissing you in the morning until after you brush your teeth, for the record.” Lucifer mimed gagging, hamming it up as per usual, but Alastor made note of the stated boundary all the same. “You still haven’t answered my first question.”

Alastor’s eyes rolled and he turned his head to kiss Lucifer’s thigh. “You are better than chocolate fondue. Does that sate your curiosity?”

“Yes.” Lucifer fell silent, twirling one of Alastor’s curls around his finger. Alastor sighed and waited, his own fingers strumming on his abdomen. “Okay fine, no. If it isn’t sexual, then what was all that?”

“I’ve stopped asking myself why everything with you is different, Lu.” Alastor kissed his smooth thigh again before sitting up. They were still shrouded by his wings and somehow such an admission felt safe here. “It just is. Academically, I could argue that devouring you wouldn’t be cannibalism at all, since we aren’t remotely the same species. In fact, I partake in venison far more often than Sinner these days.” Alastor grinned viciously just to watch Lucifer shudder. “But there are always exceptions.”

Lucifer shook his head. “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Thank you, doctor, I had no idea!” Alastor sing-songed, laughing when Lucifer shoved him without any real force. Alastor crowded him back against the pillows and kissed him sweetly before snuggling against his chest. He rather liked being a kept man, as it turned out, when his keeper was Lucifer. He could easily spend hours and hours just like this without complaint.

After another long stretch of peace, Lucifer prodded him in the ribs with a finger. Alastor grunted and pushed himself up on one arm. “Yes?”

“Soooooo, like on a scale of one-to-ten?” Lucifer fluttered his eyelashes coquettishly. Alastor reached out and pinched the red apple of his cheek between his thumb and forefinger.

“Fishing for compliments, are we?”

Lucifer jerked his head from his grasp and laughed uncomfortably, his shoulders curving inwards to betray his self-consciousness. “Only constantly.”

Alastor resolved to praise him as often and eloquently as he could, in between teases and jabs of course. Why, he had to keep the little King on his toes! He waited until Lucifer looked at him again to speak. “I have tasted angelic blood and while it is divine, if you’ll forgive the pun, it did not prepare me for you. You taste sublime, my sweet. Like all of the good that I cannot be.” Alastor cupped the cheek he’d pinched, thumb caressing the corner of his mouth as Lucifer grinned dopily at the flattery, bizarre as it was. No one should be that happy about being delicious, but here they were. “Nothing has or will ever compare to you. You’ve quite thoroughly ruined me, and I will crave you until my second death.”

“Woah,” Lucifer gasped softly. He cleared his throat, his face burnished gold. “Good answer.”

They came together for another sweet, unhurried kiss, easing back on the pillows together. Lucifer’s wings relaxed slowly, spreading wide on the bed and then retracting so that Alastor could lay next to him properly. Alastor’s lips skated over his neck, tongue pressing firmly enough to count his heartbeats. “Am I to assume that means my little angel is not averse to me tasting him again?”

“No, I…” Lucifer arched into Alastor’s mouth and he pressed a kiss to pale skin, coaxing out the rest of his confession, “I liked it.”

“Yes, I did rather get that impression,” Alastor replied drily, trying not to think too hard about just how much Lucifer seemed to enjoy it lest he work himself up all over again. He was quite content like this and didn’t much feel like more vigorous activity just now.

Lucifer’s slap on his arm stung but Alastor didn’t budge. “Don’t be a dick.”

“Forgive me.” He pursed his lips against Lucifer’s throat in a placating kiss. “What did you like about it?”

“Giving you everything.” Lucifer swallowed and Alastor felt the contraction beneath his lips. He was barely whispering now, like they were trading their deepest, darkest secrets. Perhaps they were. “Every part of me.”

Alastor groaned and wrapped all four limbs around Lucifer, pulling him as close as flesh would allow. “And you wonder why I couldn’t stay away.”

It wasn’t lost on Alastor that it was he who was clinging to Lucifer while the angel gentled him with his clever little claws, and not the other way around. Not quite what he had expected, but it wouldn’t be the first time Alastor had underestimated the Devil and his complexities. Alastor had always known just where his soul belonged; in many ways this felt like an inevitability. Like falling for Lucifer was just the last stop on his road to damnation. Like these arms were always meant to be his home.

“You’re thinking real loud, Bambi,” Lucifer murmured sleepily. He had dimmed the lights sometime during Alastor’s dramatic musings and drawn the blankets up over both of them.

“Am I? Surely if you could actually read my mind, we would have found our way to each other’s beds much sooner,” Alastor teased, snuggling closer.

Lucifer’s laugh shook them both, tangled as they were. “Fair enough. Anything you’d like to share with the class?”

Alastor had spilled quite enough of his guts for one evening, thank you. Any further heartfelt declarations could at least wait until after coffee. What would breakfast be like tomorrow? How would Charlie take the news? It seemed that everyone else in this silly place had paired off in some fashion or were well on their way, so surely this couldn’t come as such a shock. If only Lucifer’s perfect skin didn’t heal so quickly… then they could give them a real shock, ha ha!

“Hmmm. I was just thinking about what a dreadful shame it is that I can’t leave any marks on you.”

“Trust me, Bambi,” Lucifer yawned around the nickname and Alastor found that maybe he didn’t hate it quite so much. It would take a great deal of torture to pry that truth from his lips, though. “You have.”

His chest was uncomfortably warm and he could hear the swish-swish of his tail making merry against the sheets. “As have you, my dear. As have you.”

Lucifer smiled against his forehead. “Good. Now go the fuck to sleep.”