Chapter Text
"No need to be so testy, bellhop. All I'm saying is that you're a little heavy-handed with the cayenne." Lucifer examined his dark claws as he reclined at the kitchen table, glossy boots propped up on the tabletop next to his hat. His nonchalant facade was broken when Alastor's ears flattened back against his ridiculous hair and he couldn’t help but giggle. It felt good to laugh. There hadn’t been much laughter in the Hotel since the whole ‘TV Head Guy Coup’ bit, but Alastor could always drag a spiteful chuckle or two out of the King.
To be incredibly clear: Lucifer hated the Radio Demon.
But Lucifer loved to hate him. He loved the way his broad, bony shoulders hiked and his ever-smiling jaw clenched every time the King was in the room. He loved those little spats and he loved that if Lucifer didn’t instigate one himself, Alastor would always find a suitably petty excuse to start shit because Alastor secretly loved it, too. Lucifer pretended not to notice the way the shadows slinked unnaturally at his heels and those red-on-red eyes followed him, waiting for the perfect moment to strike for maximum emotional damage.
Masochistic? Maybe. One could certainly make an argument that Lucifer enjoyed pain, given how often he inflicted it on himself with his foolish decisions and even more foolish words.
But these moments with Alastor, fangs bared and ash on his tongue? They were what pulled him out of bed most days. That and Charlie, of course! But it had become crystal clear over the last few months that she didn’t really need him. Lilith had returned, immediately forgiven for her absence by the daughter that idolized her and effectively sidelining Lucifer once again with her magnificent presence.
At least he’d gotten the Hotel in the ‘divorce’. She could keep the Palace. He’d rather be here, anyway, with his ducks and his daughter and his nemesis. Here, where he never had to be alone and where he was still welcome somehow, even after everything he’d fucked up.
TV Head Guy was right about one thing: Hell didn’t need a King. It needed hope, and he was fresh out of that. But not Charlie. Never Charlie.
Maybe when she was done teaching Heaven some manners he’d set her loose on Satan and the other Sins. Y’know, just to watch the fireworks while she made them all write complimentary haikus about each other and do trust falls or something.
Golly, she really is the best of us, Lil.
Lucifer rubbed the spot where his ring had been for millenia absently. His charred skin still felt smoother there. Lilith was back in Charlie’s life now and that was… good? The rest he’d rather not think about, even if he couldn’t really avoid thinking about it like all the time. He’d still rather not.
What does a creature of love and light do with their love when it isn’t wanted anymore? Where was it all supposed to go?
"You are the literal King of hellfire and brimstone and you can't handle a little heat, Sire? Tut tut,” Alastor sing-songed from his spot at the stove.
Lucifer’s smile had drooped as he woolgathered but it sharpened instantly at the latest provocation. He didn’t even register that his thoughts of Lilith left his mind as quickly as they’d invaded it with just a little prodding from his favorite most reviled Sinner.
"I didn't say I couldn't handle it," Lucifer drawled lazily. "I said that it was heavy-handed. Overwhelms the other flavors. Maybe if youuuuu had a more refined palate..."
The hiss and crackle that pierced the air made Lucifer mentally high-five himself. Teasing the cannibal about, well, cannibalism got him nowhere. He’d tried that already. It was his standing excuse for keeping watch while Alastor cooked, lest any of his ‘special’ ingredients end up in the communal dish, and which Al had annoyingly taken in stride. But calling him tasteless? Ha! Gotcha, bitch.
"Genuinely amusing coming from someone who consumes enough table sugar daily to make an elephant diabetic." Alastor ground out the words, sounding anything but amused actually, and pointedly refused to turn away from his cookpot.
"Well, it's not rotting corpses but I get by." Lucifer grinned at Alastor's curled spine and twitching ears, baring his gleaming white fangs to the Sinner’s back. Okay, so he had to get at least one cannibal dig in, lest Alastor think he’d forgotten. Alastor was as fucked up as they came, a soul truly meant for Hell. Sometimes Lucifer was weirdly jealous of that, sometimes he loathed him for it, but he certainly never let himself forget. Sadistic. Heartless. Power-hungry. Conniving. Unrepentant. Prideful. Everything bad about humanity that came from Lucifer’s gift of free will was right there in front of him, wrapped in red and seething behind a pot of jambalaya over a comment about some spices.
"Dad?" Charlie pushed open the kitchen door and Lucifer sat up immediately, swinging his boots back to the floor and relaxing his savage grin into a pleasant smile.
"Right here, Char-Char," he said sweetly, ignoring the grating whine of Alastor's high-pitched feedback.
"Oh." Her attention was fixed on the demon by the stove, though she kept talking to him. “And you’re in here with Alastor… again.” Charlie's eyes narrowed slightly as she looked around the kitchen, likely for evidence of an altercation.
They had largely confined their combat to the verbal variety since Alastor returned to the hotel. Lucifer supposed there was less fun in physical tussles for Alastor now that he knew the King couldn’t properly fight back. That seemed like the sort of twisted take on honor that Al would adhere to.
So there was no blood to be seen, golden or otherwise. No broken cookware or furniture. Nothing unusual at all, unless you counted the absolutely ridiculous quilted apron that Al was wearing, the one that Lucifer hadn’t had the chance to razz him about, yet, darn it! He’d been building up to that one.
"Why hello, my dear! Your biological father here was just keeping me company while I cook. It is my turn, you recall, and I know what a stickler for a sticker-covered schedule you are!" Alastor's head twisted discomfitingly, spinning almost entirely around to face Charlie while he continued stirring the bubbling dish with one hand and booped the end of her nose with the other. His trademark smile took on its own saccharine quality and Lucifer stifled a gag at how easily the bastard wrapped Charlie around his blood-stained little finger.
"Oh!" Charlie's expression brightened and her shoulders dropped a few inches. "It's so good to see the two of you getting along better these days. I told you the sharing circles would help!"
"You sure did, pumpkin," Lucifer cooed. “Soooo glad we did that.” Did. Past tense, because he would almost rather fall from Grace a second time than endure another intensely uncomfortable session with Charlie and Alastor. Alastor always redirected the conversation back to Lilith, prodding him about where things went wrong as though Lucifer needed help remembering his wife of ten fucking millenia. His ex-wife, now. It wasn’t like there had ever been paper uniting them, but it still felt so strange not to have some sort of tangible proof of the end of it all. The stroke of a pen to finally say ‘okay, I quit’, instead of just avoiding him like a leper since she’d returned to Hell conspicuously not wearing her ring. Maybe then he could think about something else. Anything really. Except for Alastor, who already invaded far too many of his thoughts for comfort. He could definitely stand to think of him less.
It would be tough getting the image of that apron out of his head, though. He wasn’t sure he’d seen Alastor this casual in the kitchen before. Ugly apron aside, the Sinner had actually rolled up his sleeves and loosened his tie. Scandalous! The steam from the pot had made his crimson hair curl slightly and Lucifer wondered why he bothered straightening it in the first place. It was a good look.
Shit, what were they talking about? Sharing circles!
“Aren’t you glad we did that, Bambi?” Lucifer’s half-lidded smile as he purred the nickname could have tempted a nun, but all he got in return was a static-laced snarl.
"Quite so.” Alastor rapped the wooden spoon on the side of the cast iron pot twice, the sound ringing through the kitchen in a distinctly ominous way that had to be magical. The theatrical little mortal never could resist drawing attention. Lucifer’s attention, anyway. “Lucifer, pal, why don't you make yourself useful and set the table, hmmmmm?" He dragged out the hum, turning around and bending at the waist to crowd Lucifer’s space with those crimson eyes and a twisted smirk. From this close Lucifer couldn’t help but notice how long and plush his eyelashes were, fluttering in a profane mockery of innocence.
Okay, yeah. Al could give as good as he got and damn him twice, that’s what made this game so fun!
Who would crack first and reveal this facade of civility for what it was? Not him, no sir! Lucifer put on his most gentle voice, smooth and a touch deeper than usual. "Sure thing, buddy. Anything for you.” He put a hand on Alastor’s shoulder, giving him a friendly pat. He didn’t miss how the demon’s pupils flared to radio dials briefly, though he wasn’t sure if it was his words or his touch that crossed one of Alastor’s many invisible and ever-shifting boundaries. Lucifer cringed internally, withdrawing his hand as quickly as he could without making it obvious, but the look that Alastor gave him wasn’t annoyed, exactly. It wasn’t offended or angry or vengeful. It was…
Hungry?
Mentally shaking away that unhelpful observation, Lucifer snapped his fingers and the table was set. Charlie smiled but there was a sadness around her eyes, undoubtedly because of the one Sinner who was pointedly not coming to dinner.
He couldn’t remember his name before, but he knew it now. Angel Dust.
Another tragedy he could do nothing about. Free will strikes again!
Lucifer knew that he should say something. That a good father would have helped Charlie deal with the snake guy’s death after the battle, even if it turned out to be a shockingly good thing in the end. But even after ten thousand years of watching souls come and go, the angel in him understood true and permanent death about as well as he had back in the Garden. So, not at all.
A good father would have been there for her when Lilith left, but he had barely been able to function when faced with the looming prospect of an eternity alone. True, she had left his bed and their home years and years ago, taking Charlie with her, but when he could no longer feel her presence in Hell something in him… broke. Something that he couldn’t fix.
A good father —fuck, a good King— would have prepared her to lead.
But what did he know about leadership? When Charlie was staring down the cameras or challenging the status quo in Heaven, what advice had he given her? Run. Hide. Shut yourself away with a mountain of toys and sweets and anything else that you can squeeze an ounce of fucking dopamine from while you ride out the rest of forever in a miserable cocoon of loneliness and self-loathing, just like Daddy! Live for the little bursts of feeling you get when you piss off an insane cannibal Overlord because you put too much sugar (which was apparently any) in the deer’s dear chicory coffee. On purpose, just to watch him fume.
A failed angel, a failed parent, a failed husband, and a failed King, reduced to ragebaiting the help for a thrill.
Lucifer needed to get up. He needed to do something with all of the nervous, chaotic energy that spiraled through him. Wine! They couldn’t have dinner without wine, right? He conjured two bottles, or more accurately he summoned them from the palace wine cellar. Lilith wouldn’t miss them and it was his besides. It had been him and Bee’s project, back when he still went outside. Sourcing rare bottles from Earth and the other Rings, and Lilith had thought it frivolous. As if everything had to serve a purpose. But that was Lil. If it wasn’t of use to her, it may as well not exist.
Maybe he should have the whole lot moved to the Hotel, in fact. His collection would find far more appreciation here. Examining the labels he hummed, torn. The Pinot Noir would be lovely, but… “Hey, Al you liked the Chenin Blanc, right? The Brézé one?”
Maybe he was too distracted for his usual jabs. Maybe he was just too tired. Too depressed. Too something! The surprise that Lucifer felt was mirrored on Alastor’s face because what the fuck was that?! Why did he care what wine Alastor liked? How did he even remember? Unless it was just to keep him from complaining. Surely that was it. A mental note of how to placate the picky, prickly, pissy little mortal. Ugh, but he’d been insulting the man’s taste and now his whole method of attack was ruined because he’d asked for his stupid opinion! He’d have to find something all new to pester him about. Fuck.
Was the apron still on the table? Because from his new vantage point looking up at Alastor towering over him, the stupid thing was even more ridiculous.
At least Lucifer could take solace in just how off-balance the question had left Alastor. That he could work with. Better than the apron, anyway, lest Alastor drag out his tired rant about Lucifer’s pink bathrobe. He held out the bottle over his bent arm, presenting the label to Alastor with a mock bow and playing off his words as more teasing. Alastor made a noise somewhere between a throat clearing and a turntable being murdered, then he spoke. “Yes, that’s fine. And look, no duck, apple, or serpent on the label! Will wonders never cease?”
“Well, what can I say? I am pretty wonderful.” Lucifer said too brightly, glossing over the unwelcome thought that the bare branches of the tree on the label reminded him of Alastor’s demonic antlers. He stood up and waved away the bottle to fill his, Alastor, and Charlie’s glasses. Vaggi preferred red, so he gave her the Pinot, assuming that the cranky barman —bar cat?— would be bringing his own bottle of something stronger than wine. He’d been hitting it pretty hard since Angel left. The little scary maid and fish guy both got lemonade, the latter because he didn’t drink alcohol and the former because she shouldn’t. She got waaaay too handsy with a few thimblefuls in her.
Dinner was perfectly uneventful. Totally, completely normal. Boring, even. Apart from the tiny fact that Alastor’s eyes never left him all throughout. That red glare cut through Lucifer from over the rim of Al’s wineglass, watching every forkful of jambalaya that disappeared between his lips.
The jambalaya was good, because of course it was, and Lucifer might’ve even deigned to compliment the chef if he wasn’t too busy trying to puzzle out what that look meant. This was Alastor, so obviously nothing good. It was like the Sinner was deep in thought, studying a specimen under glass. Which would make Lucifer the specimen and that did not sit well with him one bit. When he was nearly done with his meal Lucifer dared to meet those eyes head-on and what he saw there made him deeply uncomfortable in a way he hadn’t felt for centuries.
Arousal was a funny thing, especially for a creature with no biological imperative to reproduce or form intimate bonds. Back in his day Angels just weren’t made like that, so he hadn’t ever really considered sex until Lilith. Oh boy, Lilith… that had been quite the awakening. He thought all of Creation was beautiful back then. Every star, every leaf… yes, even Adam, but the way he felt about Lilith was nothing short of devastating.
It had shocked and terrified and delighted him, all in equal measure, and he felt a twinge of that terror now as his belly did that flippy, clenchy thing in time with his metronome heartbeat and the steady filling of his cock. It hadn’t done that in a long fucking time.
Lucifer’s first thought was absolute and utter despair. Because of course his libido would remember it existed now and because of fucking Alastor.
Nope! Wrong word choice. Not a verb. Not that. Definitely not that!
This was a disaster. He needed air. Space. To crawl under the covers and let humiliation gnaw at him until he was nothing but a pile of golden bones. And somehow, someone would still look at that skeleton and know that he had his first erection in forever because of this fucking guy!
“I think I’m gonna pack it in, kiddo,” Lucifer announced abruptly, standing up and nearly knocking over his wine in his rush to leave the table. With a quick snap of his fingers to clean up the mess, he darted off. He did pause to kiss Charlie’s confused, adorable little head first, though, naturally. He wasn’t going to make his old mistakes with Charlie. No sir, he’d make all new ones like imagining that her insane serial killer co-worker was giving him sexy looks from across the table because he’d gone without intimacy for so fucking long that he must be looking anywhere for it, and making it up when he couldn’t find it because there was no way in all of Hell that Alastor was flirting!
Deep breath. Act normal. You can be normal. Breathe.
“Um, okay. Goodnight, dad.”
“Night-night, duckling. Daddy is taking this party upstairs!”
Lucifer missed the groans from Vaggi and Husk at his word choice, but definitely didn’t miss the way Alastor’s frequency supplied a dry laugh track at his retreating back. He didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around and he was proud of himself for that.
Lord above, what had gotten into him? He wouldn’t put it past Alastor to fuck with him in some unforeseen bullshit way, but this was not his style. He was a lot of horrible things, but Al wasn’t one to mess with someone this intimately. Lucifer couldn’t explain why, he simply knew that Alastor would find it… distasteful.
Lucifer groaned into the silence of his room, throwing his hat and jacket haphazardly. Squeaks announced where they landed, somewhere in one of the piles of ducks. That didn’t really narrow it down, but he didn’t much care. He pressed the heel of his hand to the front of his trousers and whined through his teeth.
That ruled out aphrodisiacs and the like, and really how else would Alastor cause this? And why? Which meant that this was just a good old fashioned erection that had a very specific cause and that cause was Alastor.
Fabulous. Wonderful. What a time to be alive!
Fuck.
Was he even attracted to Alastor? He found many people beautiful, and Alastor was regrettably no exception, but arousal? He’d only ever felt that with Lilith. For Lilith. Until he hadn’t. Until the stress and the weariness of the centuries and the constant fighting had killed the spark she ignited in him and he could no longer satisfy her. Until she no longer wanted him.
The knock on his bedroom door made Lucifer reflexively transform. As a serpent he coiled himself tightly on the area rug, glaring at the door as if daring it to make that sound again.
He got his shit together by the third knock, springing to his feet —his regular, hooved feet— and straightening his tie. At least the utter, abject terror of answering the door had frightened away his hard-on.
With a wide, sweet smile, Lucifer opened the door, fully expecting to see Charlie or maybe Vaggi on Charlie’s behalf and ready to jump to whatever they needed of him. His smile froze, fracturing around the edges as his eyes swept up to a much larger grin.
“Your Majesty! May I come in? I know it’s against the rules…” Alastor tapped the sign next to the door with a single claw, “but I’d so hate to leave our conversation from the kitchen unfinished.”
“Wh-what conversation, uh, exactly was that? You know I can barely listen to a word you say.” He fell back on an old standard, hitting the Radio Demon right where he hoped it hurt: his voice. Of course it never really worked because even before his little… revelation, Lucifer could barely keep a straight face while claiming that Alastor’s voice wasn’t aurally pleasing.
Don’t think about Alastor being pleasing, aurally, orally, or otherwise!
“About my taste, or lack thereof!” Alastor was doing that fake-cheerful thing he did when he was either nervous or trying to be maximum annoying. Lucifer had no idea which one this was. “I thought that rather than going back and forth and dragging this particularly dull argument out, I could simply provide proof that I have an excellent palate and we could move on to the next argument!” Alastor produced a shadowy tentacle that was holding a bottle of amber liquor so beautifully viscous that it seemed to glow in the low light.
“Bourbon?” Lucifer furrowed his brow. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Rye.” Alastor pushed past him, arm briefly brushing Lucifer’s shoulder as he went. “My, this room is even more of an assault on the eyes than usual.” He had one of his tentacles pick up a rubber duck and hand it to him, squeezing it too hard between his thumb and forefinger. It didn’t squeak so much as scream.
“Oh, screw you, Al! You can see yourself out any time.” Lucifer folded his arms across his chest, definitely not pouting.
“Indeed I can!” Alastor said cryptically, turning on his heel and summoning two crystal-cut glasses to hover in the air in front of him. “Shall we sit?”
Lucifer huffed like a bratty child but gestured to the staircase to the right of the bed. Alastor’s head snapped towards the bedframe as he walked, as though he was having a staring contest with Lucifer’s headboard. He kicked another duckie as he went, the accompanying squeak unnaturally loud in the tense shared silence.
On the second floor of his apple-shaped tower was a sitting area and his work station. Two plush, red chairs flanked an ever-burning hearth. Alastor made a little noise, like clicking his tongue on the back of those massive fangs of his as he surveyed the gilded grate. Serpents and apples, of course, but there were no ducks or circus animals so Lucifer didn’t really get what the scornful look was all about. Then again, half of his brain was still in his pants so maybe he was missing an obvious joke, here…
“You know, something has piqued my curiosity, Majesty. Given that you so obviously disdain us mere mortals and all of our pesky little human failings, why surround yourself with reminders of the day that you set all of this in motion?” Alastor’s tone was airy, as though he was genuinely asking and not teeing up some joke about Lucifer’s character flaws or design choices. When Lucifer didn’t answer right away, he plodded along. Nervous it was, then. Filling the air rather than succumbing to silence. “Is it part of your punishment, I wonder? In addition to being utterly useless in a fight—”
Lucifer growled in the back of his throat, tasting brimstone. “You really wanna go there, when Adam performed open heart surgery on you with a guitar?”
“It was an axe.” Alastor’s hand flinched towards his chest but he stopped himself halfway.
“Another word for guitar.”
Alastor held up a single finger. “But this was, in fact, an actual axe.”
Lucifer smirked. Got him. “That also happened to be a guitar.”
“It was an axe!”
“It was a sharp guitar.”
“You are insufferable!” Alastor put both hands on the mantle, gripping it hard enough to dig claw-shaped grooves in the marble.
Play time, it seemed, was over. Lucifer considered pressing on; it really wouldn’t take much to get Alastor to fuck off if he was already at the ‘dig my claws into the nearest surface’ stage of irritation. But, with a great dollop of disappointment in himself, Lucifer realized that he didn’t actually want Alastor to go.
“...I don’t regret what I did. I regret that no one, not humanity, not Heaven, lived up to my expectations. My… hopes, I guess.” Lucifer cleared his throat, stepping around one of the chairs and dropping onto the cushion with his legs swinging. “Aaaaaanyway, it’s part of the brand, y’know? Like how if you ever wore green, Hell might literally freeze over.”
Alastor’s shoulders shook and Lucifer held his breath, waiting for the onslaught to come. But there was no rage, only a begrudging chuckle that came from somewhere deep in Alastor’s chest. So unlike the maniacal laugh he employed to terrify the piss out of the other residents.
He composed himself and gestured to the empty chair, the one usually reserved for Charlie… even if she seldom used it. “May I?”
Lucifer nodded briefly, watching as Alastor perched on the edge of the cushion and crossed his long legs at the knee. He poured two fingers of rye in each glass before plucking Lucifer’s out of the air and handing it to him. Lucifer was careful not to touch his fingers as it was passed between them, but the temptation was certainly there.
Fuck.
“So then, no second thoughts?” Alastor finally leaned back in his seat, his own glass clutched delicately in his claws as he brought it to his lips. They were thin, Lucifer observed, stretched as they were over his smile all the time. He wondered what Alastor’s lips would look like relaxed. Would they be softer? Did he smile in his sleep? Did he smile while he was being kissed? “Was Milton right? Is it better to reign than serve, even for an angel?”
"Jury’s out.” Lucifer sipped his drink, mumbling his approval quietly. It was spicier than bourbon and not at all unpleasant, though he missed the caramel sweetness of his usual nighttime whiskey. Alastor simply watched him, his free hand resting casually on his knee. He didn’t jump on the opportunity to call their argument settled or rub Lucifer’s acquiescence in his face. Alastor simply waited. This was really happening. They were having an actual conversation and neither seemed in a rush to ruin it! Lucifer’s traitorous heart and dick were both entirely too optimistic about that fact and they seemed to communicate with his mouth far faster than his brain did. “I didn't do all of this on purpose. I didn't… you know, They called it the 'Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil' and said it was off limits. That’s it. Not 'trust Us, you don't need it, We’ll take care of you' —which would be bad enough— but 'absolutely not because We said so'? Come on! As loyalty tests go, that was a particularly shitty one. And it never occurred to me that it was a test! Why would They be testing Adam and Eve?! Me?”
Alastor hummed softly, taking another sip.
“I know, okay. It’s naive and stupid and my fault.” Lucifer could hear Lilith’s voice even though his own lips formed the words.
“While I would love to kick you while you’re down, even I must admit that your angelic naivete is… understandable, given the circumstances. Endearing even, in a sad, orphaned, bedraggled puppy sort of way, of course.” A sparkle of mirth lit up crimson eyes and Lucifer couldn’t help but laugh.
“And you’re above kicking puppies?”
Alastor pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Majesty, you wound me! And here I was trying to go easy on you.”
“Thanks,” he said drily, willing his pulse to chill the fuck out. Alastor’s long ears twitched and Lucifer felt a pang of fear. Just how well could he hear?
Alastor propped his elbow on the arm of the chair and dropped his chin into his hand, facing Lucifer fully now. “If you had known of the consequences, would you have still done it?”
What a question. One that no one, in all of his time in Hell, had ever dared to ask.
"I mean… we thought we were doing the right thing," Lucifer said, looking up at the portrait of his family. At Lilith's beaming smile. They had been happy again when Charlie was born, if only for a little while. It hadn't fixed anything, but it reminded him of what they had at the beginning. It kept that spark burning just a bit longer. He wasn't sure if it was better or worse that they had their second chance and blew it, but he wouldn't trade it for anything because now he had Charlie. "Lil said that if she was Eve, she would want to know. I mean, wouldn't you want to know?"
Alastor’s smile tightened just a tad and one ear twitched violently. "Obviously.” He took another sip, rolling the liquor over his tongue behind his teeth. Lucifer watched helplessly as his throat bobbed. Of course he was having his first interesting conversation in who the fuck knows how long and he could barely focus because he was also stupidly, astoundingly horny about it. “But it wasn't a loyalty test.”
Lucifer swallowed his wandering thoughts with a too-large mouthful of whiskey. “Sorry?” he wheezed as the rye burned its way down. This could really use a sugar cube and some orange bitters but he wasn’t willing to risk whatever tenuous peace they had going on here by suggesting it.
“It was an obedience test. And I've never been one for obedience, myself." Alastor’s smile stretched again, lazily. It was a great cosmic joke, making such a predator look like prey in death. “I much prefer being the one holding the leash.”
Nope. Do not follow that thought down the rabbit hole.
“So that’s a yes?”
Lucifer blinked twice. Had he missed something again? He couldn’t seriously be asking about leashes and… “Huh?”
“That you would still have done it.”
“Oh!” He’d pondered the same question periodically throughout the years, usually in his lowest moments. The answer was always the same, in spite of it all. “Yeah. I would.” Lucifer’s eyes drifted up to the portrait again. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he remembered Lilith in the garden, so full of hope and fire, not a trace of resentment in those beautiful eyes. Righteous and angry and resplendent. Had he put that fire out with his particularly cloying brand of affection? Or was it all inevitable, just feelings eroded by time?
"You still love her," decidedly not a question, and one that didn't even feel like an overstep given the conversation, even though Alastor sounded positively repulsed by the idea. Maybe Charlie’s sharing circles really had helped because Lucifer didn’t take offense at his tone.
"I still miss her," Lucifer replied. “I still love my brothers and sisters, but I don't miss them. I miss my wife, but that doesn't mean that I—" Lucifer sighed. Busted. "My ex-wife. Some part of me will always love her, but I knew it was over long before I admitted it. We weren’t, we haven’t been—” Complete and total horror overtook Lucifer’s features as he realized what he’d almost confessed. His own inadequacies, the loss of passion, the loss of respect. Fuel for the fire; ammunition that Alastor could use against him for years if he so chose! “Fuck, why am I talking to you about this?”
“Because I asked,” Alastor replied simply, still grinning like the bastard he was.
Lucifer was flailing and he knew it, but once a panic set in it was difficult to stop. He gestured wildly with his arms, nearly spilling the little that was still in his glass. “And why are you almost being tolerable? Is this some Overlord trick shit because it ain’t gonna work on me, bellhop!”
“My dear, if I wanted to trick or trap you I need only make a phone call!” Alastor’s tone was too cheerful again. Nervous or being a prick? Lucifer would have bet his wings on the latter. “Apparently you’ll just wander into any old warehouse,” Alastor said in an eerie facsimile of Charlie’s voice. It was nowhere near as convincing as TV Head Guy’s but Lucifer knew that argument would go nowhere so he chose a different tactic.
“Says the guy who was tied to a chair.”
“By choice,” Alastor replied coolly.
“Kinky.” The word slipped from Lucifer’s lips too quickly but he didn’t regret it, not when Alastor’s ears twitched and his cheeks heated visibly. The icky, negative part of his brain suggested that it was because there was something between Alastor and TV Head Guy but Lucifer quickly slapped that thought down. Let him have his fantasies, dammit! They were rare enough.
“Oh, do shut up.” Alastor turned forward again, his profile to Lucifer. He really was cute like this, flush-faced and curly-haired. It looked real in a way that Lucifer could easily become addicted to. A new button to press, a new reaction to coax out of his favorite distraction.
The forked tip of Lucifer’s tongue chased the taste of rye on his own lips. Make me. “No.”
Alastor huffed in a very un-Alastor kind of way. “Very well, then shall we discuss when you swooped in to ‘save the day’ at Vox’s rally, you little diva?”
“I didn’t— I was trying to help Charlie!”
“By humiliating yourself in front of all of Hell.” Alastor sipped his drink, his movements intentionally slowed. “Excellent strategy as always, Sire.”
Lucifer sank back into the cushions, seething and irritatingly enjoying every moment of it. “I knew you couldn’t be civil forever. Fifteen minutes, though. That’s gotta be a record.”
“This isn’t rudeness, it’s fact.” Alastor’s head spun back towards him with a gross, snapping sound like a wet twig. Was that broken bone pressing against Alastor’s skin? Lucifer was fascinated in spite of himself. “When you revealed your weakness, you jeopardized everything we’re doing here. And you painted a rather large target on your back, I must say. Did you stop to think about what would happen to you once every Overlord in Hell knew that you could do nothing to fight back?”
Okay, not nervous or being a prick but maybe a secret third thing?
“Gee, Al, I didn’t know you cared,” Lucifer snarked. He expected a rebuttal. A furious refusal of anything so pedestrian as concern from the demon who seemed to thrive on being contrary and cruel. Instead Alastor simply pulled from his glass and watched the flickering flames.
They sat in silence for a good, long while and Lucifer was squirming in his skin the entire time. The notion, the very idea that Al had been worried about him was like a bruise that he couldn’t stop pressing on. He needed it to hurt. He needed the demon to say, in plain terms, that he did not care one bit. He needed things to go back to normal because right now he was adrift in a sea of possibilities and there was nothing more frightening.
Finally, he broke. “Why are you here, Alastor?”
“Why, to help Charlie fulfill her misguided dreams, of course!” His words lacked the vicious punch Lucifer was so accustomed to.
He poked the bruise again, harder.
“No, why are you here? Right now. In my room. Being… being like this?”
“Hmmm.” Alastor took one final sip from his drink and set it aside. He tilted his head, surveying Lucifer like he was considering making him his next meal, gleaming, golden fangs on full display. Lucifer was drowning in that sea and in the look in his eyes. Sharp. Hungry. Eager. “I’m, shall we say, testing a theory?” With both hands on the arms of the chair, he pushed himself to his feet. His casual humming crackled from some unseen speaker among the duck-themed detritus. Lucifer was sure he’d gotten rid of everything capable of receiving a radio signal in his tower when Alastor had taken to waking him up at the crack of dawn with Cab fucking Calloway during his recovery, but apparently he’d snuck one back in. The sound grew more distorted as he moved closer, as though Lucifer himself were interfering with his frequency.
That or he was having trouble concentrating, Lucifer’s mind unhelpfully supplied. He hated the little spark of excitement that thought ignited in his gut.
Alastor planted his hands on the arms of Lucifer’s chair and the King shrank back against the cushions instinctively even as his heart rabbit-kicked the inside of his chest at the thrill of it all. Al, annoyingly tall as he was, had to bend clean at the waist to stoop low enough to get in Lucifer’s face. That didn’t seem to bother him one bit and Lucifer? Lucifer loved it, the way he loomed and surrounded him until all that Lucifer could see and smell and taste on the air was him. Alastor’s close-lipped smile parted, rye and spice laced breath bursting across Lucifer’s face. A fraction closer and those cool, thin lips brushed against his. Not quite a kiss, but the tangible anticipation of one.
Lucifer’s brain flat-lined. This was as close to death as he would ever experience, heart-stopping fear and confusion and elation all crammed into one shattering instant. His eyes drifted closed of their own accord and he leaned into the caress, gripped by a desperation that felt foreign to him. It had been so fucking long.
“Mmm. I thought so,” Alastor whispered into the half-kiss. He straightened up abruptly, expression as inscrutable as ever. “Thank you for the drink and chin-wag, Sire. It was… illuminating. Do have a pleasant evening!”
Alastor dissolved into shadow, leaving behind the echo of a twelve-bar blues progression in C crackling in the air.
Gut-wrenching humiliation. That was the only way to describe how Lucifer felt the morning after. Alastor had baited him and he, pathetic creature that he was, had chomped right on the hook. Too much loneliness. Too much time. Too little touch. He was far from human but it seemed that even he had appetites that could be awakened when the right buttons were pressed by the right person. That would have been quite enough to send him on a months-long spiral, but he couldn’t succumb to his depressive tendencies because the damned Radio Demon wouldn’t allow it.
Lucifer couldn’t even think about leaving his tower the morning after his Great Embarrassment, but even in seclusion he still couldn’t escape Alastor. Bits of music, bursts of laughter, sometimes just humming, they plagued him all morning and by mid-afternoon he was ready to tear the tower down to find the source of the noise. An organized search unfortunately required tidying up, and so he sifted through piles of laundry and toys and unopened gifts, sending everything to its proper home and hoping that the next heap would contain his prize. He searched with every intention of hurling the thing right over the balcony and watching it shatter. The thought delighted him. In his imaginings Alastor would scream through the speaker all the way down to the pavestones and Lucifer would finally have the last laugh.
Then he found it. The wood-cased cathedral style radio, predictably old-fashioned and very Alastor, stopped him in his tracks. All thoughts of smashing the thing vanished. There in this intrusive little object was something uniquely, specifically for him. The silhouette of a duck, cute and plump and benign, had been carved into the face of the wooden casing to allow the speaker grate to show through. It was flanked by the more traditional arched design favored in the early twentieth century but this was no antique. Alastor made this. For him.
Now, hi-fi this was not. The sound was grating, scratchy like the rasp of sandpaper inside a hollow drum, but Lucifer had wished stars into existence and shaped creation with his own two hands. He could damn well fix a shitty loudspeaker.
And he did. The sound came in as clear as a bell and it was tantamount to giving a vampire permission to enter his home. Alastor was everywhere. In his workshop, in his sleepless nights. The days rolled by and the radio was Lucifer’s constant companion as he licked his wounded pride and brushed off Charlie’s concerns with a smile and a joke. The sound of him filled Lucifer’s tower, day and night, whether it was his voice or his taste in music. Between long bouts of Sidney Bechet and Duke Ellington there was Alastor’s broadcast, a droll rehash of the day’s news and gossip interspersed with Alastor’s own brand of biting humor with a fair few double-entendres about his culinary proclivities sprinkled in.
And, damn him to Hell all over again, Lucifer laughed. Alastor’s wit was what had made arguing with him so much fun and, as Lucifer was slowly coming to understand and accept, what made him so damned attractive. And it wasn’t only Alastor’s unfairly pleasant voice that haunted him. The demon was in Lucifer’s head, memories and exaggerated imaginings filling his thoughts in the spaces between hyperfixations. The firm brush of lips —controlled, intentional, torturous— and that smug chuckle. The hungry look in his eyes and the way his ears sometimes betrayed his annoyance or amusement even when he tried to act unbothered. The deft way his hands handled a chef’s knife, delicately mincing herbs and viciously breaking down a carcass with the same confident efficiency. The long, lean arc of his body beneath that stupid, red suit. Would he be thin or toned? Would he be smooth or have body hair, or perhaps fur? Was he cut or uncut? Big or small or average? Did he prefer a particular role in bed? Lucifer didn’t particularly care one way or another about any of it; he just needed to know. He wanted Alastor’s body, to know it and feel it and taste it. But, as Lucifer was just beginning to understand, such desire wasn’t because of his body.
This discovery was a bittersweet thing. There was a quiet relief in knowing that he still could feel desire, the answer to a question Lucifer hadn’t even known to ask. But that desire was attached to a person, a very specific person. Lucifer, desperate to rid himself of the demon in his mind, turned to every other possible source of stimulation. Pornography, erotica— nothing incited the same reaction as letting his mind wander to thoughts of an almost-there kiss. Not even his own hand could satisfy and all attempts to give himself some relief were a further lesson in humiliation, a reminder of his own foolishness that left him aching and wanting and feeling more useless than ever.
And meanwhile Alastor was just… out there living his afterlife. He went on with his broadcasts, tended to his obligations and errands, all as though he had no idea he was driving a celestial being absolutely in-fucking-sane! He even took his turn making meals without Lucifer to ogle him chaperone. Charlie had brought him a bowl of Alastor’s gumbo one evening and he briefly considered dumping it down the drain out of spite before succumbing to the nutty aroma and devouring the whole thing with no spoon like an animal. He really hoped that it was crab meat he was licking off of the bottom of the bowl and not some poor crab-like Sinner that looked at Alastor wrong…
Full of gumbo and somewhere between sleepy and ready to claw off his own skin for want of a body pressed against his, Lucifer flopped back on his bed with a groan. He would have to leave his tower at some point. He would have to face him again. Lucifer’s head rolled to the side and with a flick of his wrist he turned on the radio. Alastor would just be ending his evening broadcast and hopefully some music would help him relax.
“—all for tonight, folks. Thank you for tuning in.”
Lucifer stared at the duck radio, grappling for the hundredth time with what it meant. Was it an apology? A peace offering? Or just insurance to keep Lucifer from smashing the thing to bits? Why was this all so confusing?!
“Now, some music for wherever this night takes you. And to my favorite listener… Mwen espère ou ka tande sa.”
Lucifer breathlessly translated, if only to hear the words come from his own lips and know that they were real. “I hope you can hear this.”
Rich alto sax flooded Lucifer’s senses and he closed his eyes as the first lyrics took shape.
I hear music when I look at you
A beautiful theme of every dream I ever knew
Alastor dissolved into his shadow and emerged in his bedroom. The radio switched on automatically, his song of choice for the evening filling the room with sweet, sad words that felt so right they terrified him.
Down deep in my heart I hear it play
I feel it start, then melt away
That was exactly what he had done, and it had seemed like such a good idea at the time, too. Leaving Lucifer wanting, aching, making him beg for it. Alastor had gone to bed that night with a grin on his face that had nothing at all to do with his demonic punishment. Surely Lucifer would be all aflutter at breakfast the next day, now that Alastor’s suspicions about their mutual attraction had been confirmed. Why, sweeping the little monarch off of his feet should be easy as pie!
Only that wasn’t at all how it had panned out.
Lucifer hadn’t left his room in ten excruciating days. Ten days of his own personal Hell within Hell!
Down deep in my heart, I hear it say
Is this the day?
Alastor growled at the radio as he stripped off his suit, neatly hanging each garment where it belonged while the song played on, undeterred. He could only hope that Lucifer was listening. That he might understand. A big ask, perhaps, given that Alastor barely understood himself.
Why can't I let it go
Why can't I let you know
Why, indeed? It had been a simple enough plan. Play nice, call a truce, test the waters, confirm his suspicions, then make the Devil scream his name. Really, where between steps four and five had it all gone wrong?
The music is sweet
The words are true
The song is you
He stepped into the shower and cranked the dial as hot as it would go, groaning under the scalding spray. Alastor was not familiar with, well, any of this. He wasn’t accustomed to wanting, but God did he want Lucifer.
In retrospect, the attraction had been almost immediate. It was only Alastor’s unfamiliarity with the core concept that prevented him from seeing it at the time. Oh, he’d had lovers before during his living years, usually because he wanted something they could provide but seldom because he wanted them. Rich men, powerful men… men who, more often than not, ended up fattening the gators when he was done with them. His deal had secured his status in Hell without having to resort to any such… unpleasantness.
Alastor wasn’t opposed to sex. Or even romance, though the notion usually made his eyes roll involuntarily and his breakfast squirm uncomfortably in his belly, like when Charlie went on and on monologuing about her own angelic paramour. Still, he enjoyed love songs. Sad ones, happy ones, songs full of yearning and longing that he couldn’t understand but was still fascinated by. He wouldn’t have minded having any of these things for himself, but he felt no desire to pursue them. So very few were even deserving of his time, let alone his affections. There were those, like Vox, who mistook congeniality for consent, and Alastor had grown accustomed to shirking off such advances. He wasn’t immune to the occasional need for physical release, especially in this more animalistic body he’d been saddled with, but he was more than capable of tending to those needs himself. There was simply never any need, or want, to get anyone else involved.
But then there was Lucifer.
With his infuriatingly infantile outlook and his tacky pink robe and hair trigger temper, Alastor had wanted so much to hate him. Even after the battle with Adam, when Alastor had seen the footage of the fight and privately acknowledged his body’s interest in fucking the astonishingly powerful little creature, he had still wanted to hate him. And he had almost succeeded. When he finally stormed out after one comment too many —a coaster, honestly?— Alastor had every intention of leaving for good.
And Lucifer, the well-meaning idiot that he was, had blundered right back into his orbit. There he was, tricked, trapped, and threatened with torture, and Lucifer was still brimming with sass. Watching Lucifer tear down Vox’s ego with a few well-placed words had made something click, teeth lining up so that gears could move smoothly, initiating a chain reaction that lit a furnace Alastor hadn’t known he possessed. Alastor wanted him. He wanted to have him, hold him, possess him, care for him. That stupid, powerful, beautiful, sensitive little angel was going to be his, moronic duck slippers and terrible taste in coffee included. Not even the return of Hell’s matriarch could get in his way. He didn’t know why or where this fierce need came from, only that his instincts had seldom betrayed him before and he wasn’t going to start second guessing them, now. Not when just being in Lucifer’s presence sent his pulse racing. Not when he was finally free.
No more chains, no more deals, no more constraints. He could further his own agenda, hatch his own schemes, chase his own desires.
Just then he had only one desire.
The notion of corrupting the Devil himself, of rending pleasure and pain from his body, filling him, consuming him, the very idea of it left Alastor aching and breathless. He propped himself up against the tiles with one hand and wrapped the other around his cock, succumbing to the fantasy. He wanted to hear Lucifer beg for it. To watch as he reached for him with desperation in his eyes. To see him squirm and writhe and plead until Alastor finally granted him relief.
Alastor’s fist quickened, his breath coming in rapid little bursts as he delved into the thoughts and fantasies he usually kept tightly under wraps. In his mind, he was watching Lucifer’s body stretch to accommodate him. It would be difficult, no doubt, but he would be patient, savoring each moment when he finally had his prize. He would make Lucifer cum with his tongue, his fingers, his cock, whatever he desired until those golden eyes glazed with lust. The most powerful being in Hell would be fucked out and pliant in his hands, that little body wracked with the force of his thrusts. Alastor could almost feel those dark claws biting into his back as Lucifer cried out beneath him. Alastor’s teeth itched and saliva dripped from his chin as he imagined sinking his fangs into pale, perfect flesh as the flavor of paradise burst across his tongue.
Alastor spilled over his fist with a grunt and the whine of a warbling frequency before the smooth, sultry melody of whatever song he’d queued up next leveled out once more. He pressed his back to the cool shower tiles and took a centering breath, eyes drifting closed as he lingered in his imaginings, following through to what the aftermath of such an event might be. Lucifer would be a cuddler, wouldn’t he? Alastor would be disappointed if he wasn’t. He wanted the little King to cling to him, to pull him close with those hands that had shaped the very stars themselves. He wanted Lucifer to need him.
Indulging in such thoughts would get him no closer to making them a reality, however, and so Alastor moved back into the scorching spray to rinse off the evidence of his own need before stepping out. His physical desires might’ve been slaked, for the moment, but that ache remained. Was this the yearning that inspired all those songs he loved? It felt a lot like indigestion, honestly; a burning somewhere behind his sternum that crawled up his throat and made his mouth go dry when he thought about going another day without at least seeing Lucifer’s face. Without knowing.
“Wouldn’t you want to know?”
Perhaps the comparison wasn’t quite right, but Alastor’s theatrical streak lent itself to hyperbole and the notion of Lucifer as his own personal temptation, a shining apple ripe and ready to sink his teeth into and experience all the good and evil that he had been ignorant to until now… it was just too good to pass up.
Alastor glanced at the clock. It wasn’t so terribly late, and Lucifer barely slept. With a spring in his step and his hair still hanging wet around his face, Alastor summoned a pair of pajamas and concocted a plan.
Not a half hour later he was standing outside Lucifer’s door with a tray in his hands, glaring maliciously at the golden sign that still proclaimed that he wasn’t welcome.
He amended his plan, in part, adding the need to rip that sign clean off of the wall. In the morning, of course.