Chapter Text
Alastor awoke with a gasp.
He found himself staring up not at midnight sky but an unfamiliar ceiling. Red. He was lying on the ground. Planks of wood. The air felt like it was boiling. Far hotter than the hottest summer day in the deep south. And the air stank of rotten eggs. He felt like he was suffocating. He also couldn’t see. Well, he could, but everything was all fuzzy. He groped around for his glasses, turning over onto his side. Every part of him hurt as he did so, like he’d been put under a meat tenderizer. However, as he looked down, he found himself lying in the middle of some sort of ritual circle - a pentagram.
Then he saw the book. Bound in black leather, it lay open to pages written in rusty red letters. Pushing himself up to a sit, Alastor pulled it over and saw blurry green symbols written all over the pages. He squinted close to it, trying to read the tiny script and found he couldn’t understand a word of it. It was all written with some kind of unholy runes. Even as he was looking at it, the green overlaying lettering began to fade.
“Alastor!” an unfamiliar voice called out from behind him. On reflex, he snapped the book closed, holding the heavy tome like a shield between him and the stranger. “Alastor,” the voice called again, closer now, “what was that noise-”
Alastor turned around but could only see a blurry, incredibly pale figure standing in an open doorway. Blond, long hair, red suit. (Pants? How forward.) Female. Very tall. She gasped, holding a hand to her face. “Holy shit,” she swore, incredulous.
“...Pardon me, do I know you?” he said, still holding the book protectively against him. He didn’t think the lady wished him harm, but one could never be too careful.
The woman stared at him. Then she turned around and called, “Daaaaaaaad?!”
In almost no time her father appeared. Another very pale fellow, dressed completely in white, appeared next to his much taller daughter. “Honey, what’s wro- Whoa!” he cried, comically jumping back upon looking at Alastor. Then, to Alastor’s immediate irritation, he began to bellow with laughter, pointing at him like a specimen in a zoo. “Holy fuck, you radio freak, what did you do to yourself?! Oh God, this is too funny!”
“Dad!” the taller woman chastised, not finding this amusing at all. Bless her heart.
Well. He supposed they did know him, Alastor concluded. And so far, didn’t seem bent on hurting him or hunting him down. Not like... A wince came to him as he thought of it, remembering running through the woods with the baying of dogs at his heels like some kind of nightmare. He shook it off, turning instead to his would-be acquaintances.
“You all appear to have me at a disadvantage,” he said, somewhat breathless as it was so hard to take in air here. The heat and the smells were getting to him, making him lightheaded and nauseous. He tried to stand, but found himself stumbling over his own clothes. Why were his pants so long? He fell down to his knees, the book slipping from his grasp as he had to catch himself on his hands. He wheezed, but it felt like his lungs were burning, like the air itself was poison.
“Alastor!” the woman cried out, bounding to him to press a comforting hand against his back. “Dad, he can’t breathe! Help him!”
Her father came to him with far more reluctance. He wasn’t laughing now, but tsked softly with irritation as he strode over. “Don’t know why I have to help him when he got himself into this mess,” he muttered, kneeling down in front of Alastor. Suddenly, the air felt much cooler and the smells dampened, making it so much easier to breathe. Gulping down huge gasps of air, Alastor recovered and looked up to the face of his savior.
Only to look into a face that wasn’t remotely human.
Wide gold and ruby eyes stared into his, set in a porcelain white doll face with tiny snake-like slits for a nose, openly grimacing with too sharp razor-teeth.
Alastor didn’t scream.
He did, however, fall back on his haunches and tried to skitter away from him like a crab. Only for him to be enveloped back into that toxic heat. The non-human thing reached out to grab his ankle, easily sliding him back across the floor. “Hold up, hold up. Stay in the bubble,” his savior chided, pulling him back into the comfortable air.
Alastor squinted upwards, but his vision was too blurry to see anything. Slowly, he pushed himself back up to a sitting position. Tried to take further stock of his surroundings, squinting as he did so. He had absolutely no idea where he was, but the motif was obviously red. And... was that a bayou? Was he in some ramshackle half-rotten shack in Louisiana? Somehow, that didn’t seem right. So instead, he turned to the two non-human things. “Where am I?” he demanded. “Who are you?”
“Hoo-boy,” the woman whistled. She and her father exchanged blurry looks.
“I could just dump him on Earth,” the man suggested.
“Dad, no! The hotel needs him!”
Then the man raised a black hand and what looked like claws. “Well, then maybe I should kill him,” he said with a sadistic glee that Alastor would almost find admirable if it weren’t directed at him.
“No! Who knows if he’ll turn out the same and he still probably wouldn’t remember us!”
“Oh fine~” the unworldly being pouted.
“Excuse me!” Alastor interrupted, more shrilly than he would have liked. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here! And I asked you a question!”
The pair exchanged another look. “Well~” the woman said, “My name is Charlie. We’re friends. And this is my dad-”
“We’re not friends,” the being said curtly, folding his arms over his chest.
...Yes, Alastor gathered that from the casual mention of murder.
“And you’re... well... you see...” the woman hedged, clearly reluctant to go on. Hemming and hawing long enough that her father decided to just rip off the bandaid.
He stood up, and suddenly six white and crimson wings sprouted from his back. He gave off a different kind of heat, almost cleansing, as he splayed his arms wide. “Well, sorry to tell you this buddy, but Welcome to Hell! And you definitely belong here,” he said with a little too much glee. “Let me introduce myself. I am Lucifer Morningstar. Y’know, that one. And I’m the Big Boss of this place. Your king and your keeper. And right now, the only thing that’s keeping you alive,” he added, delicately booping Alastor on the nose.
Alastor supposed that the display would have been far more impressive if he could actually see it. For now though, he had to contend with the enormity of the words that his savior, the literal Devil himself, had just uttered. “I... wait... did I die?!”
“Uh... yes and no?” the woman, Charlie, replied. “Thing is... you’ve been dead for nearly a century now. Living down here as Alastor, the Radio Demon Overlord. But... for some reason you’re human now. So you’re not... well, dead. For some reason.”
“Likely to do with this grimoire,” Lucifer said, stepping around Alastor to pick up the black leather bound book he had dropped on the ground.
“Hey, that’s mine!” Alastor protested, trying to grab at it, but the Devil held him at bay with a single hand to his brow as he flipped through the pages.
“Oh, you were definitely not supposed to have this,” Lucifer whistled as he idly flipped through the pages. “You are going to be in soooooo~ much trouble when you get back to normal. What the Hell were you trying to do anyway?” He looked up at Alastor. “...I don’t even know why I’m bothering asking.”
“I- well- what if I don’t want to go back to normal?” Alastor demanded, thinking this was a perfectly reasonable assumption. “What if I wanted to not be dead?”
The pair exchanged another look. And this time, they both burst out laughing. “Oh no. No, no,” Charlie said through fits of giggles. “You like yourself way too much. You’re crazy powerful and confident with countless souls in your thrall. There’s no way.”
“Yeah, you clearly just fucked up,” Lucifer agreed, laying another heavy blow to Alastor’s pride. He snapped the grimoire closed, confiscating it as he put it somewhere somehow on his person. “I’ll look at it more closely later. See if we can’t reverse whatever the heck you’ve done. For now though...” He leaned in again, grinning widely with his shark-like teeth. “I can’t wait to introduce you to everyone.”
~o~
Alastor should have known that the Devil would be a dick.
The safe bubble of air only centered around Lucifer in a ten foot radius, forcing Alastor to follow along with his whims lest he start choking on toxic fumes. Charlie did her best, but the Devil was a force of nature, pulling Alastor stumbling along in his too big clothes out of the bayou room and out into unfamiliar hallways. They took an elevator down while Charlie fretted, “Dad, c’mon, this is too mean!”
“Nonsense! It’s hilarious. We’ll all have a good laugh later!”
Which was clearly going to be at Alastor’s expense. He glared at the Devil, but couldn’t even see if the demon was affected. Likely not. The elevator opened up to an enormous room, red and gold with what looked like chandeliers and a red carpet. Several figures looked up as they entered the grand room. “Hey everyone! Look what we found!” Lucifer said cheerfully, pulling Alastor by the sleeve out in front of him.
“Wait...” a silver haired female called from across the room. “Oh no fucking way. Is that...?”
“Omigawd~!” Then an extremely tall multi-limbed white and pink demon appeared in front of them. Alastor had to crane his neck back to look at him. The demon leaned in, looking at him with gold and black eyes. “Look at you, Smiles! You’re so cyuuuuute~!”
“Wha- cute- What?!” Lucifer cried out, flabbergasted. “He’s not cute! What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you are so in denial,” the insanely tall demon said, batting a hand. “He’s fucking adorable.”
“Hold the fuck up,” a winged dark blob said, coming more into focus as he got closer. “How is he like this? He’s human. He’s alive. How is no one catching onto this?” He looked to Charlie and Lucifer. “Oh right, you two wouldn’t even think about that, would you?”
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.
“This is our ticket out of here!” the winged demon said. “We can go back to Earth. Reset the clock! Get out of this shit hole!”
“Now wait a minute,” Lucifer held up a hand, his deep voice going hard with unshakeable authority, “we can’t just go around raising masses of the dead. I’m pretty sure that’s the start of the apocalypse. Heaven’s just waiting in the wings for any excuse to start the final solution. I’m not going to be responsible for the Rapture under my watch.” That immediately silenced any arguments on the matter.
It was the first time that it really actually began to sink in for Alastor.
He was in Hell.
Actual fucking Hell.
Biblical Hell.
A small giggle escaped him, manic and hysterical. He had known on some level, that if there was a place for him in the afterlife, it would be this one. He just... hadn’t believed. And now look. Look where he was.
Oh. Maman would not approve.
Everyone was staring at him now. Oh, he was laughing like a madman, that’s why. That was when something small began crawling up his front, finding easy holds in his loose clothing. A wild eyed cyclops with razor sharp teeth appeared in his field of vision. “Hey there Bad Boy~! You’re smaller than before! But just as smiley~” a monstrous gremlin giggled.
“Oh, thank you,” he said faintly. Right before he blacked out.
~o~
When Alastor awoke again, it was in a supremely comfortable bed. Tucked cozily underneath cool satin sheets and a plush comforter. He was still fucking blind though, all the edges of the colors around him a little blurred. He raised a hand to rub against his face, then blinked. His sleeve was baby blue and had ducks on them.
“Morning.” Alastor turned his neck and found the white blob he recognized as the Devil, sitting in a chair beside his bed. He appeared to be thumbing through the black book. He set the book aside, instead turning to face him. “Have to admit, I didn’t expect you to be so fragile,” Lucifer admitted, instantly rankling Alastor’s ego. Only the Devil didn’t sound quite so smug and haughty as before. In fact he sounded on the verge of contrite when he said, “Sorry. It’s been... a while, since I’ve dealt with humans. Souls are... very resilient, y’know? And you’ve got one of the strongest I’ve ever seen.”
“That... almost sounded like a compliment,” Alastor said, raising an eyebrow.
“...Yeah, well,” Lucifer muttered awkwardly, “it just means it’s so weird you’re as easy to crack as a graham cracker.”
“...You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Because you’re such a delight,” Lucifer groused.
“Should I be flattered that I managed to get such personal attention from the ruler of Hell?”
The Devil went suddenly quiet at that. If Alastor didn’t know any better, he might guess that Lucifer was blushing. Except he wasn’t going pink at all. “You’re lucky you’re human or else I’d be throwing you out a window right now,” Lucifer grumbled, definitely flustered.
Alastor looked him up and down, unable to help but smile. Oh, he was definitely flattered. He nodded to the book, “Did you find anything in there to put me back to rights?”
“Oh, so now you want to go back to normal?”
“Well~ you did tell me I was all powerful, confident, charismatic, charming~” Alastor rattled on.
“We only said half those things! You’re making the rest up!” Lucifer protested.
“Oh, but I’m right, aren’t I?” Alastor smirked.
Lucifer gaped at him. “Even human you’re insufferable!” A little grumpily, he pulled the book over on top of the bed and flipped through it. “There’s a whole host of things in here you’d do that I wouldn’t put past you, quite frankly. I don’t even know where you got this book. Not even Paimon would have something like this. Still haven’t seen anything that would have an outcome like this though. But I still have a ways to get through it. And then guess how you could have possibly messed up the wording to make something like this happen. Because you’re not infallible. Contrary to what you might believe. You were monkeying with dark magic far beyond your ken.”
“How dramatic,” Alastor replied dryly. ...Though it did actually sound very bad. “And in the meantime, what’s to become of me?”
“Well... you definitely can’t leave the hotel. You’ll be eaten alive. And I don’t mean that figuratively.”
Hotel? They were in a hotel of all places? Alastor frowned. “From what it sounds like, I can’t even leave your side.” There was another look from Lucifer, inscrutable for how blurry it was. He could almost pretend he was looking at a human face. Almost. “I’m in your bubble. I can’t breathe otherwise.”
“Oh! Oh right. Huh.”
“One could almost say you’re my guardian angel,” Alastor added slyly. Watching, waiting. Lucifer didn’t go pink exactly. But he highly suspected that if he could, then he would be. Oh how Alastor wished he had his glasses right now.
“To be honest with you, that’s kind of below my paygrade,” Lucifer said with an awkward cough. “You’re thinking cherubs. I’m a seraphim of the highest order. Well, former.”
“Then I couldn’t be in safer hands,” Alastor reasoned. There was that quiet awkward tension once again. Where it was clear that he’d somehow tongue-tied the supposedly silver tongued Devil. Was he really silver tongued though? He seemed like an awkward little doofus to Alastor. How wrong was all the lore? His priests? His Maman?
Lucifer just harrumphed and pulled the book away from the bed and back onto his own lap. “Just leave me alone for a bit. Let me read,” he tsked, scooching back up more comfortably in his chair. Very much not looking in his direction.
Alastor smiled, trying to not look like he was squinting as he took in Lucifer’s expression, his posture. Then he wondered a single thing to himself:
Did his old self know that Lucifer Morningstar, the sovereign of all of Hell, had a crush on him?
~o~
After a while, Alastor did succumb to his “fragile human bodily functions” as Lucifer put it. Namely, his stomach growled and he needed to eat. Alastor was still dressed in ducky pajamas and slippers as Lucifer escorted him down to the kitchen. For as much as Lucifer was griping about being a guardian angel being below his paygrade, he really was doing a good job of it.
Lucifer hovered over him as they walked the halls. Which was a trick since the Devil was also more than a foot shorter than him. Lucifer would gently guide him away from any foreign and hazardous obstacles. Anytime someone got close, Lucifer would subtly block them off with a vicious smile. Or at least Alastor assumed. He did have to wonder if he wasn’t more cracked up simply because he couldn’t see what was around him. Ignorance was bliss and all that.
“Oh Alastor! How are you?” he heard Charlie in the kitchen before recognizing her particular colors and shape. “Holding up okay?”
“Ah yes, thank you for asking, dear. I’m quite fine.” As well as he could be in any case, locked in a Devil bubble. In Hell. Biblical Hell. Fuck.
“Ooookay, what can you even eat?” Lucifer muttered to himself as he looked through the fancy icebox. He pulled out a bunch of rather innocuous looking ingredients onto the counter. “Poison, toxic, parasitic, will eat your guts,” he rattled off. Some of the ingredients looked like they were starting to crawl off of the counter. He looked up to Alastor. “Freaking fragile human,” he said crossly. “I think we need to order Thai.”
“Oh! How fun! I’ll get a group order!” Charlie said cheerfully. Then dashed off out of the kitchen.
“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” Alastor asked, baffled.
“We’ve got… connections on the other side,” Lucifer said evasively. “More than a few folks make regular trips upstairs. Anyway, what kind of Thai food do you like?”
“…What’s Tie food?”
Lucifer stared at him. “Fried rice it is.”
Their food came in the form of several extremely thin white bags made out of something Alastor had never seen before. In squeaky white light boxes made of something else Alastor had never seen before. All handed over by a pink winged demon at the front door. Charlie brought it all to the kitchen where everyone gathered up.
Then Alastor was handed a pair of wooden sticks which absolutely baffled him. “Am I supposed to stab someone with this?” he demanded, holding the sticks like a weapon.
“…You know that chopsticks existed in 1933, right? You don’t have to pretend,” the winged one, Husk, said.
“How does that matter if I’ve never seen them before!” Alastor snapped. And chopsticks? What an absurd name. You couldn’t chop a damned thing with these things. A gray hand gently pulled the two sticks from his hand and handed him a white flimsy spoon made of yet another thing he’d never seen before. “What is this now?”
“A spoon,” Charlie’s very-good-friend said blandly.
“But what is it?” Alastor demanded through gritted teeth. Everyone stared at him like he was the crazy one.
“…Plastic,” Lucifer answered after a tense moment. “Came around in the 50s.”
“Thank you,” Alastor muttered. “Honestly, such a simple question.” He looked around the table. “And how else has the world changed in the time I’ve been dead? Surely it can’t have been that drastic.”
Nobody answered that either. However, several of them did slide these odd little black rectangles off the table and out of view. “Probably a good thing you’re not back up on Earth, cutie,” the incredibly tall white one said. “You’d hate it. It's totally unrecognizable now.”
The flimsy white spoon snapped in Alastor’s hand. The pure stress starting to get to him. The sharp edge nicked his thumb, sending up a small bead of blood. He hissed and grabbed one of the napkins, which weren’t even made from linen, but paper. Then he looked up. Every single demon at the table was leaning in hungrily. Like they’d just caught whiff of the sweetest, most delicious scent they’d ever smelt in their lives.
Except for Lucifer, who looked around the table and made a quick grab for Alastor’s hand. Without asking, he put the cut finger into his mouth and licked it up with a hot tongue, sending an unexpected flash of heat and embarrassment down Alastor’s spine. His finger was still slick with saliva when Lucifer let go, but otherwise it was completely healed. The others blinked, but seemed to recover themselves. Looking less like they wanted to eat him alive.
It was… a little terrifying.
Lucifer handed him a blessed metal spoon this time. Alastor ate his fried rice with no further complaint. Even if it did taste like a far inferior version of jambalaya.
~o~
After dinner, Alastor became a touch more invested in changing back to whatever self of his could handle this new world.
“Maybe if you told me more about the rituals and what they’re supposed to do, I could help rule them out,” he suggested, sitting on the edge of what he now realized was Lucifer’s bed.
“And how would you know what your demon self would do?” Lucifer asked, taking up position again with the black grimoire in his chair. “You’ve been dead twice as long as you’ve been alive. You’re basically a baby.”
“Excuse me, I resent that.” Alastor sniped back at him. “I know my own mind. I can at least provide clues.”
At this, the Devil raised an eyebrow. He put the book down on the mattress beside Alastor’s thighs. “Okay, here’s one example. Would you… do a fourth circle suppression of homeopathic goety?”
Alastor stared. “Those are made up words.”
“It’s not~” Lucifer teased, smiling with his too sharp teeth.
“No, you made that up.”
“Did not~”
“Liar.”
“Hey, I never lie!”
“I find that hard to believe, Mister Father of Lies.”
Apparently that was a step too far as the little doofus’s eyes changed color to crimson. “Hey,” he hissed, fingers gently but firmly grabbing onto Alastor’s chin as the inhuman face came into focus, crowned by crimson horns. “That’s all a bunch of bullshit. And you’d know that if you were yourself.”
Indignant irritation flared up in Alastor at being manhandled so gently. He could feel the claws on the cusp of breaking his skin, just enough to remind Alastor of how dangerous he was. And yet… he didn’t feel frightened. Not like with the others. It was vexing.
Alastor batted his hand away. “Oh get off me!” he snapped, rising up to his feet to come right up to the edge of the bubble. He could almost see it. A vague haze of shimmering blue. Without warning, he grabbed the back of Lucifer’s chair and began dragging him across the room.
“Um, what are you doing?” the Devil asked, letting himself be scooted along the floor.
“Bathroom,” Alastor replied, wanting just a touch of privacy. He pushed Lucifer up against the doorframe and then entered the bathroom on his lonesome. Good, it looked like he could move a little in here without choking to death. He curled up on top of the toilet for a moment, simply enjoying the sense of being alone.
Okay. Okay. He could do this. He could make himself get used to this place. His old self managed it just fine. He couldn’t just rely on Lucifer this whole time. He couldn’t look like a helpless babe to the Devil. It was humiliating!
Dragging his hands down his face, he leaned back up and stared at the ceiling. Then he turned his eyes around the room. As ever the red and gold decor was glaring, but... it was a private washroom. Which was a luxury compared to the boarding house he was used to. Maybe he’d feel better after he cleaned up.
Moments later, his screams sent Lucifer barging into the washroom. “What? What’s wrong?” he asked, panicked.
Alastor, fully naked, only just managed to grab a towel to preserve his modesty. “You- why- it burns!” he cried, his skin completely mottled with angry peeling red and white discolorations from where the water hit him. Getting worse by the second.
Lucifer gaped at him. “Oh. Oh shit. I forgot. The water is acidic.”
“It’s WHAT?!”
“Okay, hold on. I can heal you,” Lucifer said, pulling him out of the shower. Alastor hissed at every movement, feeling like his flesh was boiling. That was when the Devil started putting his tongue all over his acid burnt arm, creating long lines of healed flesh along his skin.
“Must you heal me that way?!” Alastor shrieked, mortified.
“Fastest way to heal you and get the acid off you at the same time,” Lucifer replied matter of factly between licking under his jaw and over his cheek. “Just hold still. Think of it like a cat grooming a cat.”
Alastor squirmed as he worked, feeling deeply uncomfortable and something else. Especially when Lucifer had to dip down to his nethers. “I hate this place,” he finally cracked. “I hate it. I HATE IT.”
~o~
Alastor spent the next two days in a depressive funk in Lucifer’s bed. Completely unwilling to make any effort in engaging in the world around him. Especially as it seemed specifically designed to kill and torture him. Lucifer hovered over him, for what other choice did he have, gently fussing and trying to feed him between trying to finish up the grimoire.
“Hey, so want to try pad thai? Or maybe pad se ew? Or maybe panang?” he spoke, in some effort to try to get Alastor to eat anything.
However, Alastor only gave him a baleful look and pulled the sheets over his head. “Why is Thai food the only option?” he demanded miserably, voice muffled from underneath the duvet.
“It’s the only reliable option,” Lucifer pressed. He was becoming more contrite by the day, barely resembling the Devil who’d laughed at his expense when this first happened to him. “Too many times people just cut corners and get food with ingredients from down here. And then you’d-”
“Die. I know.” Alastor curled up underneath the covers, feeling very very sorry for himself. He missed home. The streets, the smells, the charming people, the lines of pastel homes, the music, the food. He didn’t know which was worse. Being in Hell or knowing he wouldn’t recognize his home if he went there. “Just stop fussing over me and finish the damned book, why don’t you?” A small dissatisfied sigh escaped the king. The chair squeaked slightly as he flounced back into it, taking up the book once again.
A knock sounded at the door, drawing both of their attention. “Hey Dad! Alastor!” Charlie called out. “Alastor has a visitor!”
Alastor blinked, then threw off the covers. “I have a what?”
A few moments later, the pair of them warily made their way down to the hotel lobby. This time Alastor was dressed in a sharp red and black suit. One that fit him this time. Along with a red and black cane that seemed like a bit of an affectation, but Lucifer insisted he have it when he conjured it up. What greeted them in the middle of the lobby was a blurry short demon that looked to be wearing a flapper dress.
However, the voice that came out of her could never be mistaken. “Alastor~! Honey!” the demon cried, coming up to him with open arms. “So good to see you~!”
“Mimzy?” Alastor squinted, trying to see her clearly. “Mimzy!” It was like a balm on his soul to at least hear someone familiar. He had to dip much lower than expected to hug her. “You are... much shorter than I remember.”
“Hey! Watch it. I’m still hotter than any cat you’ve ever bagged,” Mimzy chided, hitting him hard enough on the arm to bruise.
Well, that was easy to say since he still hadn’t ‘bagged any cats’. ...Or had he? Inexplicably, his gaze flicked over to Lucifer, before Mimzy continued:
“Anyway, when the princess told me what happened to you I could hardly believe it! You look just the same as ever! Why, it’s almost like we’re ready to head out on the town to rip up the dance floor.”
“Charlie, you told people about Alastor?” Lucifer asked, pained.
“Only Mimzy!” Charlie insisted. “Alastor was feeling so glum that I thought he could use a friend.”
Alastor turned to look in her general direction. His smile twitched. How... outrageously naive of her. Nonetheless, he was somewhat grateful. “Well! I suppose since you’re here, we should catch up. Drink?”
“Alastor, you’ve barely eaten anything,” Lucifer fussed, tone disapproving.
“Oh fine, then go order those meat skewers and fried roll things if you must insist,” he said flippantly, taking Mimzy by the arm to where he approximated the bar was. “Don’t mind him, Mimzy. He’s just needlessly overprotective.”
“My~ It’s not everyone that has the King of Hell at their beck and call,” Mimzy said slyly, pulling them to the barstools. Lucifer trailed behind them out of necessity, but asked Husk to put in an order of food from above. Then stayed just within bubble range to give Alastor and Mimzy some modicum of privacy.
Husk put down two glasses of rye in front of them. Alastor... understandably eyed the glass warily before the winged demon said, “It’s fine.” How ironic that booze would be the one safe thing to consume in Hell.
Picking up the glass, Alastor took a small sip and let out a sigh of relief that it tasted perfectly normal. If a little too strong on an empty stomach. However, he could hold his liquor just fine. So he turned to Mimzy, “So, tell me. What have you been up to lately, Mimzy?”
“Oh well, after you so rudely kicked me out of the hotel last time, I decided to hit up the Golman Brothers. Y’know, the ones that you put in their place early on? Anyway, so I hit them up and...”
It was becoming clear after a few moments that Charlie had not let Mimzy onto all aspects of his condition. Namely that he couldn’t remember a damned thing from his time in Hell. It was probably for the best. He did adore Mimzy, but there was a reason why he wasn’t remotely surprised that she ended up here. She was as self-serving, conniving, and manipulative as the best of them. He didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. So he spent his time nursing his drink, whilst listening to Mimzy tell of her raucous and exciting escapades in Pentagram City. Gleaning as much information as he could while giving nothing away. When the food arrived, stacked up on the bar counter, Mimzy helped herself to most of it with an, “Ooh! Spring rolls! I love spring rolls!”
Alastor could practically feel Lucifer radiating with displeasure behind him as his friend hogged most of the food. So it was for his sake mostly that he ate a couple meat skewers and said, “Lucifer, old chum, why don’t you order me something else?”
“Like what?”
“Surprise me,” he said coyly. Which elicited an interesting silence that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. Again wishing he had his glasses. After a pause, Lucifer did just that, turning back to chat with the bartender.
“Ooh, you really have him wrapped around your pinkie,” Mimzy said in a conspiratorial whisper as she leaned into him when the Devil’s attention was elsewhere. “Is that your plan, Alastor? Ingratiate yourself to His Royal Majesty to gain power? Because I have to say... I think it’s working.”
His glass of rye paused partway up to his lips. Alastor set it down and turned to look at his would-be savior, king and keeper. Was that his plan? The ultimate endgame? That... didn’t seem like something he’d do. He always preferred to get his hands dirty. But... well... He could admit there were some unique benefits to this arrangement.
Realizing that Mimzy was waiting on an answer, he turned a sly, knowing smile at her. “Well, my dear, that’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
They chatted amiably some more about the good ol’ days. The alive days, which were a perfectly safe topic, until more couriered food arrived. Lucifer interjected himself between the two of them to hand carry Alastor’s dish over. It smelled... interesting. And looked an awful lot like minced up meat with a fried egg over rice. Alastor squinted at it, trying to discern what kind of mystery ingredients were in it. A lot of red with flecks of green. What was that, spinach?
Mimzy suddenly laughed. “Alastor! You look ridiculous! Where are your glasses?”
“Glasses?” Lucifer echoed stupidly.
“Yeah, I just noticed!” Mimzy said, because of course she only just noticed. “He’s blind as a bat without them!”
Lucifer gaped at him. “Why didn’t you say anything!”
Alastor gave him a bland look. “I didn’t feel the need.” Also, the Lucifer from two days ago would have likely just laughed at his expense and then given him coke bottle glasses. No thank you.
“Well, I do!” his guardian angel griped. “How am I supposed to know you’re not going to walk into a nest of carnivorous vines when I’m not paying attention!”
...There were what now here? Maybe it was better if he couldn’t see them. However, he wasn’t given all that much of a choice before Lucifer leaned into his face and pulled down his eyelids to examine them. Then with a small wave of his hand, a pair of delicate oval half-moon glasses appeared. Finer than any pair that Alastor had ever owned. Lucifer gently held them up and placed them on his nose. Finally putting the whole world into focus.
“Ah, better! Now you look like you!” Mimzy said brightly, and Alastor gave a small start of surprise upon seeing her. In his fuzzy vision, his mind had filled in the blanks with her human face, but he was seeing now the demonic features. The pallid skin, the sharp teeth, the demonic eyes. Still undeniably Mimzy, but also very much not.
Then he turned to look all around himself and almost regretted it. What had been just a bland red and gold canvas of a hotel suddenly felt all the more menacing. As if the walls were alive, pulsing with eldritch hunger. Everytime he turned his head, it felt like something horrifying and unknown was skittering right out of view. He looked to the bartender, who well, at least he expected the monstrous features. However, he saw for the first time the hateful, dark glower Husk sent him, like he’d like nothing more than to see his head impaled on a spike. Even Charlie turned out not at all what he expected. Not human female features at all, but a doll-like face with an animalistic button nose. Right up uncanny valley.
Finally, Alastor turned to Lucifer, whose inhuman face he only saw in focus when it was too close to his own. He blinked. Lucifer’s suit was like a little ringmaster. He didn’t see that before. It was... Huh. And his cane was apparently some silly little scepter with a red apple on it. And now that his face wasn’t right in front of his he could see the whole aesthetic. It was... charming. Including the cheeks that would never turn pink because Lucifer was actually blushing gold.
The Devil awkwardly coughed, looking askance. “Uh, you, um... You look less stupid in those than I expected,” he said in a backhanded compliment, unable to meet his eye. “A-anyway, eat your food!”
Alastor smiled at his funny little guardian angel. He picked up his spoon and took a bite of the spicy minced meat and rice. It was strange. But absolutely delicious. He ended up finishing all of it.