Chapter Text
Alastor felt as if he had been acid into his blood, as if his bones were being destroyed and his skin stretched beyond limits. The pain was intense enough that if he had not experienced it in bursts during the seven years he was a prisoner, he would probably have fainted.
Unconsciousness would be a mercy at this point.
But Alastor was fighting with everything he had against her. This was his body and he would not give it up so easily.
Around him, the darkness that had been granted to him by his jailer spread across the remains of the hotel. Bleeding red formed sigils on the cracking ground as Roo made her way out of her prison. Alastor screamed voicelessly, trying to keep the counterspell on the radio waves flowing around him. Roo might have helped him, given him some of her power when, in the beginning, Alastor had made a mistake hunting one of the Overlords, but for almost a century those powers had been his and Alastor had made them work in harmony with those who truly belonged to him and him alone.
Both forces came and went, forming a tension in the dome of darkness that when broken could devastate the rest of the unsuspecting hell.
In the midst of the chaos a white figure stood out and Roo laughed with Alastor's mouth. Sharp and disdainful, funny and euphoric.
They will kill you to stop me , the voice in his head purred, eyes looking between him and Lucifer. Give me control, little deer. Once I'm out I can get another body. You will rule at my side once the angels lie at my feet.
Alastor scoffed and kept the pace steady on his frequency, keeping Roo at bay. If she could get another host she would have done so. She probably would have had an easier time with someone less stubborn than Alastor, someone who would more easily believe her sweet lies and wouldn't have been working on a desperate plan that depended more on faith than his own abilities to work.
Do you think they will rescue you? Roo mocked, directing tentacles of darkness towards Lucifer, who was so close he realized that it wasn't just Lucifer. In the arms of the archangel was his wife, and almost hidden by the six wings the much smaller figure of Vaggie flew.
No, Alastor didn't believe they were coming to rescue him. At least not originally. Killing him was much easier and Alastor didn't think he had gained enough goodwill in the last year for them to want to try to bring him back alive. Especially with the way Lucifer had accused him when he realized he was working together with Roo.
But, Alastor had to believe that these people who loved Charlie so much were not willing to cause her the emotional distress that killing him would bring.
You bet your life on something so banal
Roo was genuinely amused, her laughter scraping intangible into the air around her.
Alastor felt self-loathing. She wasn't wrong. But at this point, that was the straw he was clinging to.
I thought you were smarter
Roo seemed genuinely compassionate.
You can never trust in mercy. Especially not in the mercy of a Morningstar
And her thoughts had the echo of a betrayal as old as the origin of the first sinner.
A wave, light and tenacious, joined the symphony, creating a disruption.
It was the voice of the queen.
Roo screamed in Alastor's voice, a sound of anger and pain (of betrayal and hatred).
Lucifer threw Lilith and Vaggie caught her, both heading towards the top of the dome while avoiding the dark tendrils that came after her. Lucifer for his part came down, eyes all flaming wrath as his heavenly and demonic powers sang their own melody around him.
It was impressive.
The best lies and the most delicious poisons are Roo roared and scoffed at that thought as well.
Lucifer was fighting his way towards Alastor. The red chain manifested at the throat of the deformed creature that was Roo and Alastor. The surprise made Alastor lose the rhythm he was maintaining. The ground shook and cracks spread across the seal.
The archangel pulled the chain hard, forcing them to bend down. Roo fought against Alastor too, despite himself, moved by the animal panic caused by the sensation of his soul being treated so roughly.
Lilith broke through with her melody, picking up Alastor's lost notes and doing a better job than him of restraining and pushing Roo. The archangel continued to pull on the chain and golden threads extended from his hands searching for cracks in the links, pulling and separating Roo from Alastor and Alastor from Roo.
Relief mixed with pain.
Lucifer didn't mean to kill him.
Whether it was because of Charlie or because of the attachment they had developed over the past few months. Lucifer didn't mean to kill him .
Roo pulled in two directions, distracted and harassed. Inside their shared mind, in the corner where Alastor had maintained his sense of self, the Radio Demon began to crow with delight, pushing the limits of his mental prison.
The image of Charlie flashed through his mind. Her eyes wide and trusting, the confusion and hope when Alastor cashed in on his deal several days ago when he realized why Roo had taken him for seven years. A simple request that wouldn't hurt anyone, quite the opposite.
A favor, an ace up the sleeve, that was based on trust in others to help him.
Alastor allowed himself to disassociate himself from the external world, from earthly sensations, and turned inward, to the night forests and flickering fireflies that formed his safe place. Static vibrated around him, ripples formed currents before his eyes, Alastor joined his hands and began to sing with renewed vigor.
He was getting his body back.
They were going to banish Roo back to her hole.
And then…
Faces passed before his eyes, strengthening his resolve. Silly and hopeful. From the naive Charlotte to the jaded Husker. And Alastor was the stupidest of all because he had attached himself to the desperate who climbed the mountain of supposed redemption as if they were Sisyphus with his stone.
The world spun. Red like an apple. Green as the swamp.
Something deep inside Alastor hurt.
And it broke.
Alastor opened his eyes, breathing heavily. Everything inside hurt. Maybe also outside. His vision focused with difficulty and he closed one eye. He needed to get a new monocle.
The silver spear was against his neck, scraping and causing a trickle of blood that he began to feel distantly. With effort he raised his head, the spear pressed harder. Lucifer and Lilith stood before him with the loyal Vaggie looking at him warily and resentfully.
“That won't be necessary, dear,” he assured her, his voice necessarily cheerful. “I've already returned. I must say that it is not an experience that I would recommend,” he mocked, trying to reduce the tension. It didn't work. “I see the king and queen, but where is our sweet princess?”
That turned out to be the wrong question. Lilith's cold face seemed to turn into stone. Vaggie pushed the spear further, her face contorted with ugly emotion. And Lucifer…Lucifer reminded him of a knife, sharp and deadly, too still to pretend to be human, danger spilling out around him.
Faster than Alastor could see Lucifer was lifting him off the ground. He didn't even manage to draw out a pained exhale of surprise before hot lips and a demanding tongue crashed into his cold mouth.
The contact was, in some incongruous way, just what Alastor needed. Lucifer was warm and present, pushing the sensation through Alastor's numb body with a fervor that tasted like life and Alastor couldn't help but reciprocate.
He was alive .
He was free.
Against all odds he had achieved it .
His hands clung to the king, blotting out everything around him and sinking into the sensations, feeling like every brush of Lucifer's soft lips was a warm breath bringing him back to life. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, but most of all, he wanted to let himself get lost in the relief of the arms around him.
A liquid that seemed to burn sweet as apple syrup slid across his tongue, delicious at first contact and then painful.
Alastor pushed Lucifer away. Lucifer gripped him tighter, pulling his hair and forcing his mouth open.
A pain far worse than anything Roo had done to him began to destroy him from within.
Threads of power twisted together, creating a web of thicket that kept parts of Alastor away, while insidious serpents sought out seams and severed them, destroying deals old and new that Alastor had carefully and skillfully negotiated.
No, no, no.
The distant memory of him and Lucifer in the kitchen came flooding back.
‘My blood is poisonous. If a demon drank it, they would be destroyed,' Lucifer explained, rejecting Alastor's unseemly request to taste the golden liquid that flowed from the accidental cut the king made.
'That doesn't happen with exorcist blood,' Alastor pointed out, thinking that Lucifer was simply making excuses.
'Yes, well, I think I'm more than just an exorcist,' Lucifer mocked good-naturedly before turning serious. 'I wouldn't do that to you, Alastor. It's not pretty. And I don't like doing it'
Alastor had just hummed, letting the matter pass.
Alastor desperately called out his shadows and his tentacles, but his dark power was mostly gone along with Roo. She was gone, but Alastor could almost hear her laughing.
I told you, poor silly fawn.
Alastor bit Lucifer blindly, which only caused him to drink more blood, his claws scraping the flesh and Lucifer simply moved his lips impossibly closer, his tongue skillfully avoiding being cut by Alastor's teeth.
His head was spinning, his eyes were burning, and something inside him hurt in a different way than the other pains that burned him to ashes.
Alastor pleaded desperately to the part of him that was and was not, to the part of him that Roo had locked away when she began to take possession of his body. Alastor's chest hurt and, in an explosion that felt like being split open, inky hands pushed Lucifer away from him.
Lilith screamed and ran to Lucifer's side. Vaggie tried to impale Alastor and he rolled away from her spear, more instinct than conscious thought.
“Enough.” Lucifer stood up with the help of his wife. His chin was a mess of gold and red. The damned one had also bitten Alastor.
Vaggie withdrew. Alastor spat bloody saliva onto the floor and wiped his mouth in disgust, his radio dial eyes glaring hatefully at Lucifer.
“My daughter's grace saved you today, Alastor,” Lucifer told him in an imperious tone that demanded attention and froze Alastor in place, shaking with anger and helplessness (shivering with a feeling of betrayal he had not experienced in almost forty years). “But it's the last time. You will not approach her again if you do not want to lose more than you have lost today.”
Alastor spat in the direction of the feet of the kings of hell. “I assure you, Your Majesty, that I have no interest left in the Morningstar’s or their hopeless projects.” he spat venomously.
Something passed over Lucifer's face, but before Alastor could discern what it was Lilith stood protectively in front of her husband, as if it were Alastor's fluids that were toxic.
“Keep it up, Radio Demon, and you'll live to see another day,” her melodious voice left the threat in the air. With one last look at the fallen demon Lucifer grabbed his wife by the waist and took flight.
Vaggie looked at Alastor.
Nobody said anything.
Vaggie clenched her jaw so hard that her teeth gnashed audibly, she seemed to want to say something, or perhaps spit at him like Alastor had done to her father-in-law, but in the end, the little angel flew like the good lapdog she was, back to the masters who would point her at their enemies. That's how she had been under Adam, and without realizing it, it was the same now that she was under Lucifer's wing.
Mold may try to make its way in, but ultimately it is a pest that should be eliminated rather than coexisted with. He thought self-deprecatingly, standing up on unsteady legs. His body felt cold, as if the humid heat of hell couldn't touch him.
His bet had given him enough to escape with his life and nothing more.
He needed to find a safe place, lick his wounds and find out what Roo had taken from him…and what Lucifer had.