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The memory of the events which had taken place at Pride were slowly draining Lucifer. The man hadn't slept properly in two weeks. Each time he closed his eyes, he was accosted by horrible night terrors which had him tossing and turning and, inevitably, waking with a scream. While the fallen angel didn't technically need to sleep, this lack of rest still affected him and his already unstable daily peace. He no longer left his room, instead locking himself away and barring entry to all but his daughter and Alastor. The sinner had watched the King grow more and more exhausted, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it. However, instead of exciting him, as one might expect, this fact filled him with such rage, he could hardly contain it. He needed an outlet, fast, and he would indeed find one. But first, lunch.
Alastor had, at the very least, kept the King fed, though there wasn't much Lucifer was able to keep down. And so, he made something light. Today's offering was white rice in chicken broth. He walked up to the King's door, tray in hand, and knocked. “Lucifer,” he called out, “I have your lunch.” There was a rush of magic and the door opened on its own, allowing the man inside.
Lucifer did not greet him. After begging Alastor to stay, he had gone completely nonverbal. Not even Charlie could get him to talk.
Alastor used his shadow tendrils to remove the empty breakfast plate from the end table next to the bed and carefully sat the King's lunch down. Once his task was complete, he looked at Lucifer. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
The man shrugged, his eyes dull and expression blank.
Charlie had told him about this, about her father's struggle with depression and how he could go weeks, sometimes months in this state. The idea of it taking that long for the man to come back to himself worried Alastor. Lucifer was a being bursting with energy; always talking, always moving. Before the incident, he had found his behavior annoying, but the alternative genuinely disturbed him. He was a shell of his former self, and all thanks to those three loathsome-
A hand grasping his coat sleeve pulled him from his thoughts. He looked down to see Lucifer staring up at him with concern. The sight caused that unusual squirming in his gut that sometimes occurred in the King's presence. Seeing the man, despite his own troubles, show such care… Suddenly, the King's eternal punishment felt like a grave injustice. Lucifer didn't belong in Hell. Eyes locked with the angel, Alastor gently removed his hand before allowing the shadows roiling in his chest to cover his entire form and transport him outside of the hotel, moving southwest, towards the Carmine District. He knew exactly what he must do.
X
The three so-called men who had attempted to assault Lucifer were being held in isolated cells in a building near the angel's palace. The remainder of the Seven Deadly Sins had agreed, nearly unanimously, that they would remain there until the King was well enough to decide their punishment, personally. However, knowing the King, Alastor thought it unlikely that they'd ever face proper justice by Lucifer’s hands. Not the kind that the sinner knew they deserved.
The building was being guarded by a squadron of highly-trained hellhounds, led by Beelzebub's own partner, Vortex. Seeing no reason to involve innocent bystanders and risk alerting the Sin herself, Alastor stayed downwind and slipped into the shadows, through the building, to the cells. Before the guilty parties even noticed he was there, he gathered them in darkness and spirited them away.
X
Radios all across Hell ceased whatever broadcast they were playing with a wave of Alastor’s hand, his own frequency cutting through the rest. The usual jazzy self-intro played, letting every demon know exactly what was in store, and the sinner's smile stretched eagerly. He straightened his bow tie before leaning towards the microphone and starting the show.
“Greetings, denizens of Hell! Tonight I have a very special broadcast for you all! This one's going to be a bit different from what you're used to, as I have three victims tonight, none of which are Overlords! No, dear listeners! They are, in fact, three lowbrow sinners who had the audacity to threaten our dear King! And now…they are going to P̸͚̀̀͌A̶̖͐̏Ý̵̢̭͇̎!”
The Radio Demon turned his malicious grin towards the men, dials ticking in his eyes as he slowly pulled an angelic knife from the inner pocket of his coat. The three men proceeded to cry and beg for their lives, the largest of the three wetting himself. Alastor chuckled. This was going to be fun.
He took his time, dragging out his torture with achingly slow precision. Every move he made, every cut of his knife, every slash of his claws was designed to cause the most pain while keeping his victims alive. Their screams were like music to his ears, but the joy he typically felt from hearing such sounds was sullied by the imagined sounds of a certain blonde angel, crying out as these disgusting cretins forced themselves on him. They flashed through his mind, interspersed with actual memories. Lucifer smiling at him as they shared his food, Lucifer holding the paper bag Alastor handed him as though it was the most precious gift he'd ever received, Lucifer leaping into the air, wings spread and happier than he'd ever seen him. These thoughts only encouraged him to cut deeper. The more pain he caused, the better he felt. Still, he knew this broadcast couldn't last too long, lest the Sins show up and ruin his fun.
“Sadly, I need to cut…this broadcast short. Haha!” He spun the knife in the air, catching it with practiced ease. “On to the Grand Finale! You three have the honor of being the only hellish victims of mine whom I've decided to remove from existence permanently…”
Their pleas intensified as Alastor abandoned all poise and precision, and stabbed through the fox sinner's chest into his beating heart. One stab of the angelic steel stilled the organ forever, yet the deer continued, stabbing over and over again until he was drenched in the man's blood. The cat was next, shrill, inhuman shrieks tearing from his throat as he, too, was eradicated, the squelch of his flesh traveling over the airwaves. But it was the large one, this…brute, whom he had seen towering over Lucifer as he'd latched onto the elastic band of the small man's shorts, tugging on the sparse clothing with clear intent.
Alastor snarled.
Tendrils holding the other sinner down, he quickly removed the offending finger, then his hand, then his arm, before moving on to his crotch. With malicious glee, he cut open his trousers and sliced off each of the man's testicles, the sweet, agonized screams egging him on. He then slowly ran the blade up the underside of his shaft, cutting off the tip, then the remainder until the man was left with a gory, bleeding mess between his legs. Only once the offending organ had been removed did Alastor finally plunge the knife into the beast's chest, over and over again. When he was done, the corpse was nothing more than a mutilated mess of bloody, fleshy pulp staining his carpet.
Alastor stood. His revenge was complete.
“And that concludes tonight's broadcast!” he announced, obviously extremely satisfied. “Thank you, and goodnight!”
The door to Alastor's radio tower burst open, revealing Lucifer. The man looked at him briefly before staring down at the mess he'd made, eyes wide with shock and horror. “Alastor…what the fuck?”
It was the first time Lucifer had said his name. The sinner found himself feeling oddly pleased by both this new occurrence, as well as the fact that the man was finally talking again. “Good evening, Your Majesty!” he greeted, still riding the high of his recent kills. “You caught me at the end of a broadcast. I was just about to take out the trash.” He grinned sadistically down at what was left of his prey, cleaning his knife with a red stained handkerchief as he did so. The blade's sharp edge caught the light and the King's horror increased.
Tears filled the small man's eyes. “How could you?”
“How could I what? Erase the disgusting vermin who attacked you? I did you a favor.”
“I never asked for this!” Lucifer argued, voice shaking. “I would never-”
“Precisely,” Alastor stated, matter-of-factly. “I knew that, were their punishment left to you, proper justice would never be served. So I took matters into my own, far more capable hands.”
“You had no right! Using angelic steel…they…” He looked away, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Alastor's smile tightened into a sneer. “These disgusting beasts got exactly what they deserved.”
Lucifer clenched his fists, his long tail lashing. He glared at Alastor, hellfire spewing from his mouth as he shouted, “Who are you to decide if they live or die?!”
The sinner stared back at him, eyes deadly serious despite his ever-present smile. He leaned forward into the King's personal space, coming eye to eye with the far shorter man. “Someone who is willing to do what needs to be done.” Leaning back, he continued. “You and I both know that there are those who exist who cannot be redeemed, the majority of which reside in your kingdom. And these…people,” he said, reluctant to even call them that, “are capable of doing you real harm. Yet instead of proceeding with caution, you decided to run off on your own into a crowd of those very people, leaving me to clean up your mess.”
“I didn't ask you to save me!” the King shouted petulantly.
“Oh?” Alastor's eyes widened in mock amusement. “Would you rather I had left them to continue their unsavory activities? Tell me, what would have happened had I not stepped in?” He knew he was being needlessly cruel, but he was angry at Lucifer for dismissing how dangerous this limitation on his powers truly was.
Lucifer fell silent and his body began to tremble as the thoughts that had been plaguing him every moment since that day returned in full force. So many what ifs, none of them pleasant. He shook his head, tears once again filling his eyes.
Noticing the King's imminent spiral, Alastor used a tactic which had worked on the man countless times: Provocation. “Next time, perhaps wear an outfit that's not so easily removed.”
Lucifer flinched back as though struck. The shift in his mood was immediate and violent, his demonic form emerging. Wings, horns and hellfire were suddenly on full display, his glowing red eyes locked on Alastor. If looks could kill, he'd be double-dead in an instant. “What the fuck?! Did you seriously just victim blame me?!”
Alastor's brain stuttered to a halt. “Pardon?”
“Listen here, asshole! I could walk around naked and that still wouldn't give anyone the right to fucking rape me! I can't believe you would say something like that!” Lucifer fell silent, seething as he stared down at the bodies of the deceased sinners. His lip curled in disgust. “I don't know why I expected better of you,” he growled, genuine disappointment drenching every word. “Just look at whose image you're made in… Violent. Manipulative. Cruel.” He looked away. “I gave Eve the Fruit, but you chose to live in sin. You earned damnation, Alastor.” He turned his back on the sinner. “You belong here.” And with that, he left.
Alastor stood there, stunned, his brain struggling to process what had just happened. Clinging to the tried and true habit of routine, he began checking over his broadcasting equipment, only to notice…he was still on the air.
The entirety of Hell had heard their conversation.
“...Fuck.”
X
Alastor spent the rest of that night trying to figure out exactly where he had gone wrong. His comment didn't seem unreasonable to him. Surely dressing less provocatively would garner less attention and, by extension, less harassment? It made sense. But then he thought back to his friends from the club, back in his human life; performers who were often touched without their consent by various patrons. Did their manner of dress excuse the patrons’ poor behavior? Certainly not.
And he, himself, had experienced similar harassment while dressed in far more modest attire; men grabbing at him through layers of clothing, ignoring every signal, every boundary. These same men later found his knife buried in their chests. None of these instances of harassment were okay and none of the victims had been at fault, regardless of how they'd dressed.
His ears flattened as he realized his rather serious mistake. ‘I must apologize at once.’ For some reason, he didn't like the idea of Lucifer genuinely hating him, and letting the matter sit and fester would likely make the situation worse. He quickly traveled via shadow to the King's door.
X
No Alastors Allowed
The sign was back. Larger than before and now directly on the door, as opposed to being off to one side. Alastor's already pinned ears pressed flatter. He attempted knocking and calling out as he had countless times over the past two weeks, but received no response. He then tried to grab the door handle and was met with magical resistance. With a heavy sigh, he gave up and resolved to try again later.
X
He continued cooking meals for the man, leaving them outside of his door. Lucifer didn't eat them, refusing to eat in general now, but the sinner kept trying because, honestly, he didn't know what else to do. He didn't even understand why he felt so determined to fix things between himself and the miniscule monarch. He had never understood overly emotional people, and often avoided them, but for whatever reason, something inside of him felt the need to make things right, whatever that meant.
X
After four days of being unable to reach Lucifer, Alastor decided it was time for drastic measures. He opened his closet and gathered an old coat and his sewing kit. The sinner sat in his favorite high-backed armchair. A small work table was sat in front of it. He removed his fabric scissors and cut a piece of cloth from the coat. Then, using white tailors chalk, he meticulously drew the desired pattern before cutting it out precisely on the line. Sewing took longer, but he accomplished his task with patience. He only hoped the King would find value in his hard work. This hope pushed him forward as he continued well into the night.
X
The next day, he received word from Charlie that her father was summoning him. He wasted no time and quickly made his way to the King's private suite. Once inside, Alastor stood before Lucifer, who was sitting on his bed, wearing pajamas and that silly oversized sweater of his. In his hands was the gift Alastor had made for him. It was a small handmade duck plush, red with light red stripes. Its bill and feet were made from the cuff of the coat he'd used for its body, and its eyes were two of the buttons. The Princess had delivered it, at his request, along with a note expressing his remorse and desire to talk. However, it seemed that the man was, once again, having difficulty speaking. Seeing this, Alastor made the first move. “Is it to your liking?”
Lucifer's claws dug into the fabric. He nodded.
“I'm glad,” he replied, surprised that he meant it. Not wanting to dwell on that, he cut to the chase. “What I said, about your attire that day…I…apologize. I spoke without thinking. I did not mean to imply that such an outfit constituted consent on your part. What they did…their actions were entirely on them. You are not at fault.”
Lucifer took a deep breath before saying, “I…appreciate your apology.”
“I hope you'll accept it,” Alastor pressed gently.
The King stared at him like a puzzle he was trying to work out. Eventually, he sighed. “I accept. And…I'm sorry, too. For saying you belong here. True or not, it was said in anger, and I didn't really mean it.” He smiled shyly. “You're not all bad,” he admitted.
“Perhaps not,” Alastor considered. “Though I most certainly belong here.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes, smiling and shaking his head good naturedly.
“Luckily for me…” The sinner's grin widened, eyes sparkling with renewed mischief. “There's nowhere else I'd rather be.”
A look of surprise overtook the angel's features, a light dusting of gold covering his cheeks.
Lucifer's reaction to his words caused warm pleasure to curl in Alastor's chest. He couldn't wait to do it again.
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