Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Nothing good happens after midnight.

Or so they said. “They” being anyone who’d ever wanted something nebulous to blame their dumb decisions on. Sometimes the subsequent humiliation of a bad idea leaned more Catholic Guilt than kinky, and when you were dripping in shame nothing soaked it up quite as well as a phrase old and ubiquitous enough to be taken at face value.

Nope, couldn’t possibly be responsible for the questionable stuff that happened once both of those clockhands pointed straight up to God as he shook his head in disappointment. He was a pervert for watching, anyway.

Some versions of the idiom allowed until 2:00 or 3:00 AM before imminent lunacy. The Witching Hour Window was an excellent scapegoat for moderately poor life choices. Ate an entire tray of special brownies that didn’t belong to you in anticipation of a mandatory socializing event? Sent your ex an “I miss you” text with a semi-pornographic selfie — ~tasteful~ nip slip included — after a quart of wine? Gave a lady an apple from a “forbidden” tree, whatever the fuck that means? Blame it on theoretical witches!

Others erred on the side of caution, kicking in at a respectable 10:00 PM. Maybe the midnight cutoff still applied, and 10:00 PM was intentionally misleading — a buffer for all the fools who liked to press their luck.

But for Lucifer Morningstar it wasn’t the when that mattered so much as the who. And the who of it all was always a terrible idea, regardless of the time.

It was kind of hard to avoid the who when you lived together. What was a hotel without a hotelier? Not that Lucifer ever saw Alastor do anything hotel-adjacent. He mostly stalked and skulked about with his shadow, like creepy twins from a horror movie. Didn’t even wear a nametag. Totally unprofessional.

And, of course, there were the broadcasts.

That the Radio Demon had a radio show was not surprising. Maybe a little surprising that he showed up to do the job at all, given his predilection to avoid his daytime one, but Lucifer supposed the answer could be found in the name itself; Alastor wasn’t the Hotel Demon. Radio was obviously a passion of his.

Lucifer understood that much, at least. He, too, was rather passionate about radio as of late.

It wasn’t every night. Not sporadic, exactly. Just unpredictable, like the host himself. Sometimes Alastor only haunted the airwaves for a single hour before a week of radio silence drove the Devil insane. Other times Lucifer was treated to that velvety voice four nights in a row, as was the current case. Alastor had been crooning through the speaker of the cathedral radio on Lucifer’s bedside table since Thursday, and it was now Holy Sunday.

The day of rest for everything except Lucifer’s sore wrist.

The broadcasts always started at midnight, and Lucifer always switched on his radio just in case. Holding his breath as he listened for the voice of a man he didn’t even like when he could have been doing anything else.

He told himself there wasn’t much else to do.

If Alastor’s voice was there it didn’t remain alone for long, joined by the stifled moans and lightheaded panting of someone who knew better than to indulge in this. Waistband pushed down in a feverish haze, biting into the flesh of his trembling thighs as they fought the fabric to make room for a person who wasn’t between them. He’d round out whatever hundred-year-old jazz Alastor had selected with the wet slide of his hand, the creak of the mattress, and the painfully aroused ramblings of a fallen angel with far too much time on his hands.

Hand. Singular. One was busy.

And really, really, who hadn’t had a wank to their enemy’s radio show? It wasn’t so ridiculous. Not when there were legs for days on the other side of that speaker, and a voice like Original Sin in Lucifer’s ear, and just the right amount of ‘you shouldn’t be doing this’ to make his cock hard from the very first click of the dial turning.

Midnight was not just the hour, but the direction, and the late night radio broadcast always left Lucifer pointing due North.

Sometimes Alastor sang along to the songs he played. Those were the nights Lucifer set records: fastest rise to the top, quickest fall over the edge, biggest mess.

“Come on over to my house, baby

Nobody home but me”

Lucifer might not be ‘only human’ or ‘only a man,’ but he was only the Devil — and how was the Father of Temptation supposed to resist Alastor? Might as well ask him to shut off the radio once they got started; it just wasn’t happening.

“I’ve got a lot of kisses I can spare

Come on and get ‘em ‘cause I don’t care”

So maybe it was true that nothing good ever happened after midnight.

With a desperate cry Lucifer arched off the bed, scalding wetness pulsing over his hand as his hips chased the rhythm of Alastor’s voice.

Well… perhaps one good thing happened.

He wiped his sticky fingers on the blanket, hoping the shame clung to the bedsheets instead of his thoughts like it usually did. They lived there after every radio show, those Alastor-shaped thoughts, ruminating in a loop like the world’s most perverse merry-go-round.

“Until next time, you filthy sinners.”

The broadcast flickered off, and so began the ritualistic rationalization that maybe this little habit wasn’t so bad.

Lucifer was old; the oldest in Hell by far. Old people needed hobbies to keep their minds sharp and joints flexible. Lucifer’s old man hobby just so happened to be listening to the radio — a prevalent, distinguished hobby — with the occasional (obligatory) addition of cranking one out to the Radio Demon’s show.

Look, at least he closed the curtains.

… Most nights.

***

Nothing good happens in the weeks following Sinsmas.

The January Doldrums, Lucifer called it. The post-holiday stretch that was so mind-numbingly boring, so achingly lonely, that every bad decision taking up residence in his head seemed twice as tempting, if only to break the monotony.

There was literally nothing else to do, if Lucifer ignored all the other things he could be doing instead.

As a habitual insomniac his choices were limited. He didn’t want to bother anyone else during the odd hours he kept. What was he supposed to say? “I usually spend my nights jerking off to the radio, but I thought I’d pop by for a chat and give my hand a break” didn’t feel like the best conversation starter. Certainly not for Charlie, who was probably the only person who would open the door for him in that perilous stretch between midnight and sunrise.

Trips to other parts of the hotel didn’t prove to be much of a distraction from his preferred nightly activity when Alastor’s voice haunted each and every corner. Not through radio —

— Although there had been the time he’d heard a muffled sound coming from the linen closet during one of his late-night walks through the hallways… Opening random doors was always a risk at the Hazbin Hotel, something he’d learned after discovering two guests doing something questionable with binder clips in the office supply closet behind reception. But Lucifer never claimed to be prudent.

He’d found a radio that night, in a place where radios were most certainly not meant to be, sitting innocently atop a pile of folded towels. It was switched on to Alastor’s broadcast — the one Lucifer had been trying to avoid for the past twenty-eight minutes, not that he was counting — because of course it was. Hell was not so kind as to spare him any reminder of his unfortunate fascination with melodious cannibals.

The likeliest explanation was that he’d stumbled upon one of Niffty’s hideouts. She was more of an air ducts-and-cleaning-supply-closets kind of girl, but she was the perfect size to settle on the starched bedsheets beside the reminder of his embarrassing obsession, staring back at him with a glowing faceplate. She probably listened to Alastor’s show, too, and if she did the same thing Lucifer did while listening then the extra lengths for privacy made sense.

He truly did not wish to know.

It had to be Niffty, because otherwise that meant he was being stalked by radios, and surely not. Lucifer was eccentric, and distractible, maybe a liiitle bit paranoid; the thousands of eyes dotting everything from billboards to buttons would do that to you. But he was not so far gone as to believe radios were following him on his midnight excursions.

A creak to his right had drawn his attention to the black vase holding a carnivorous plant beside the elevator, and hadn’t that vase been gold? The plant’s tongue lolled out and poked curiously at the rim of its makeshift pot, further stoking Lucifer’s confusion, but the vase remained unchanged. Not that inanimate objects were in the habit of reacting to anything at all.

When Lucifer turned back to the linen closet the towels were undisturbed and the radio gone.

Angel Dust had been the one to find him in his fluffy robe and ducky slippers, tearing the linen closet apart muttering about radios. And, after gently asking him if he was sundowning, held his elbow and offered to escort him back to his tower. As if Lucifer were an escaped patient from an old-age care home! He’d shaken off Angel Dust’s hand and summoned a portal back to his bedroom in a huff; at least he’d known a radio was waiting for him there.

If he’d thrown himself onto his bed and angrily switched on the broadcast upon arrival, well, that wasn’t admitting defeat, it was supporting the arts. And the subsequent hard-on that he took care of with enthusiastic expedience wasn’t evidence of his fixation, it was just morning wood six hours early.

A natural bodily response for a timeless being. Lucifer didn’t expect anyone else to get it; it was an angel thing.

Far more unsettling than disappearing radios, however, was the unignorable truth that Alastor’s voice permeated the hotel like a mind-altering miasma whether or not he was physically present. It clung to every lampshade, doorknob, and carpet fiber. Static cocooned his natural timbre as it nestled in the stained depths of coffee mugs and twisted around the tiniest demitasse spoons in the cutlery drawer.

And just as the hotel wasn’t safe from Alastor’s voice, nor was its architect. Memories of broadcasts and bickering, of meals and meetings, wove into the muscle beneath Lucifer’s skin, tangled with his veins and knotted between the gaps of his wings.

How unfair it was, for Alastor to be an inescapable presence in the hotel Lucifer had created.

Hell had funny ways of punishing him.

The breakfast following Alastor’s most recent broadcast, for example.

Lucifer had discovered, in the weeks since his listening habits went from ‘what makes the Radio Demon so special?’ to ‘don’t disturb me during my program,’ that he’d developed a rather unfortunate Pavlovian response. In even the most mundane of scenarios, Alastor’s voice simply did it for him. The swoop low in his stomach and the fuzziness in his brain were things he could disregard with little effort. But the way each syllable made his pants uncomfortably tight in a way they shouldn’t be when he’d taken care of that mere hours ago wasn’t nearly as easy to ignore. So when Alastor, in a kitchen full of people, had asked Lucifer to pass him the cream just right, well…

His poor trouser seams were really put to the test that morning.

No one, no one, should be saying the word “cream” like that outside of one of Angel Dust’s films. The guy didn’t even take cream in his coffee! Just asked for it then proceeded to run his finger around the rim of the cup, eyes on Lucifer.

The week prior had been no better, when they’d shared an elevator back up to the top floor that connected their respective towers after a staff meeting. Standing directly behind Lucifer, too close, far too close, Alastor had hummed a song through the ever-present drone of his filter. Lucifer recognized it as one from the previous night’s radio show. Specifically the part that had left his thighs trembling, cock twitching, and pillow soaked where he’d clutched it to his pelvis.

In that moment no amount of space between them would do. The elevator could have been the size of Pentagram City with one of them on either side and still the gap wouldn’t have been enough to quell the buzz that ran down to his hooves, vibrating alongside Alastor’s vocal cords. Ruinous, that sound; a hum like honeysuckle that left sparks in the tips of his fingers and a prickle behind his ears. His wings ached to release so he could shake out his restless feathers. It dripped a molten heat low in his guts, filling him up until he felt swollen with the song. Each note that lived in the inches between them had his hips urging forward to chase Alastor’s voice, a shameful mirror of the tenting of his pants.

He made a vow to stick to portals — elevators clearly weren’t safe. Midnight excursions were out, as were breakfasts. Any meal, really; each had their menu options that Alastor could shape his lips around in a way that was utterly obscene. Stuffed eggplant, kumquat, Boston cream pie, dry rubs and wet rubs for meat… Lucifer wouldn’t even get into the time Alastor offered to make dessert and presented an Italian confection he shamelessly introduced as ‘Nipples of Venus.’

The Radio Demon seemed content with his living arrangements at the hotel as of late, and his broadcasts obviously weren’t stopping anytime soon, which didn’t leave Lucifer with very many options. Going back to the palace was not appealing, nor was an extended vacation in another Ring of Hell. He had reconnected with Asmodeus since emerging from his self-imposed isolation, but Lust didn’t seem like the smartest destination when one was trying to avoid temptation.

So Lucifer did what he was best at: denying there was any problem to begin with, and pretending he didn’t notice when he slipped up.

Which was often.

Pretty much, almost certainly, most definitely every night there was a radio show. But when no one else was around to see, it was like it didn’t even count, right?

For the duration of the January Doldrums, Lucifer spent his days looking busy around the hotel while not doing much of anything at all — entirely for Charlie’s benefit — in rooms that had as few traces of Alastor as possible. Near group therapy sessions and anywhere there was a television seemed to be good for this.

He kept to his tower most nights, engaging in totally normal and entirely coincidental radio-assisted masturbation. It was a way to pass the time, he supposed, and what else was there to do? No distractions, no events, no holidays. He missed Sinsmas already. There was nothing else exciting for ages. Valentine’s Day didn’t count; not for Lucifer.

The Devil sighed, resigning himself to his immutable schedule: drift around the hotel like a ghost, unsuccessfully try to sleep, touch himself to the dulcet tones of their resident cannibal.

January was awfully dangerous.

***

Nothing good happens fast.

And so Lucifer just… took it slow.

Everything. His baths. His breakfasts. The turn of the radio dial and the stroke of his hand.

Since avoiding the broadcasts hadn’t worked, he simply leaned into them. When the effects of Alastor’s voice were evidently fated to drive him insane, why not indulge? Being the Devil was hard; evading being the Devil harder still. Lucifer deserved some fun. If he was doomed to a uniquely exquisite torment at the whims and whispers of the Radio Demon, he might as well draw out the late-night delights twice as long.

Gone were the days of rushing through a fumbled wank as if Alastor, an army of angels, and Jesus Christ himself would walk through the door and catch him. Lucifer took his time, savoring the rise and fall of his hand in an effort to match each velvety inflection.

And, miraculously, it worked. Not a Heavenly miracle, obviously, but when was the last time he’d gotten one of those? There were only so many to go around, and they probably weren’t doling them out to aid in the auditory-fueled orgasms of Post-Fall Lucifer. Nope, that was all him, baby!

The daytime hours didn’t plague him nearly as much when the nighttime hours were put to good use. No use crying over spilled milk, and when it came to Alastor’s radio show, Lucifer spilled a lot.

It seemed the lengthier the session the longer he remained sated. It found it easier now to endure the pleasant thrum of Alastor’s static during mealtimes and meetings without shoving his hand down his pants.

Marginally. Usually. Y’know, to a point. He wasn’t immune.

Edging was something he’d gotten very good at as a result — see? He was learning new skills! Not that he hadn’t dabbled in the art before, but something about the cadence of Alastor’s voice took him to Olympic levels. If Alastor took his time with his words, so could Lucifer as he stroked himself to completion. Matching his rhythm with someone else to last the duration of the broadcast was… Well. It helped, to say the least.

The pace of his nightly activities wasn’t the only thing he switched up.

As a former angel, and therefore an essentially genderless creature, Lucifer had the benefit of being able to choose how he presented. He had his favored form, the one he utilized most days. Masculine-ish? Lucifer wasn’t quite sure; he didn’t have a very good grasp on these things. But he did like something to grasp, hence the cock. Again, most days.

But not today.

Don’t buy sugar

You just have to touch my cup

You’re my sugar

It’s sweet when you stir it up

Alastor was playing his naughty jazz again. The first time he’d heard something of the sort on one of Alastor’s broadcasts had Lucifer finishing embarrassingly fast. By this point the raunchy lyrics and double entendres wrapped in the warmth of warbling brass were a weekly staple, and only seemed to be increasing in frequency. Lucifer wondered if the man had played songs like this on his radio show while alive, or if such suggestive broadcasting was a Hellish development.

New or old, they certainly acted as a ~helping hand~ during his midnight sessions. And now that he was used to the fever-dream that was Alastor lending his voice alongside the bawdiest musicians of the Jazz Age, he could last long enough to pamper himself.

Two of Lucifer’s fingers dipped into the warmth between his legs to gather the wetness there, dragging it up as he rubbed the underside of his clit.

When I’m taking sips

From your tasty lips

The honey fairly drips

You’re confection, goodness knows

Honeysuckle rose

Sometimes he just liked to switch things up. Other times he felt like one set of bits matched the vibe of a broadcast better. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly about certain nights that made one side of the cock-to-cunt scale weigh heavier than the other like the scales of justice — there was no point in asking Lucifer to explain his bizarre internal metrics, he had no idea either. Neither choice was bad, though. Just different. Different techniques, different sensitivities, different — but equally filthy — sounds to accompany the Radio Demon’s suggestive commentary.

“Like poetry, some of these lyrics, don’t you think?” Alastor said as the song drew to an end. “Almost Shakespearean. The Bard himself was known for filthy puns in his writing.”

Lucifer’s fingers parted to frame his clit snugly between them, hips following the sweet friction that came from rubbing either side. He let his head tilt sideways, cheek pressed into the pillow that smelled of bubble bath and no one else but Lucifer, as his eyes fell to the cathedral radio atop his bedside table.

That thing was troublesome.

He pretended, for weeks, to forget where it had come from. Maybe it had just appeared one day; stranger things were known to happen in Hell. Like scream rain — what the fuck was that all about?

It didn’t matter that the intricate wooden carvings looked an awful lot like antlers, or that the faceplate arched up in a permanent smile.

When he dared to be honest with himself, Lucifer could admit that it had been the single most unexpected Sinsmas gift he had ever gotten, and that was including the time Ozzie sent him the apple ballgag. It had a little handwritten tag and everything.

For Lucifer.

— Thoughtfully, Alastor.

Thoughtfully? Thoughtfully?

Suspicious, inconvenient, unignorable. Shocking. The very first indication, perhaps ever, that Alastor could be generous towards him. Or anyone, for that matter.

Lucifer, of course, hadn’t had anything to give him in return. He hadn’t been anticipating a gift exchange with the guy who, just the week prior, had replaced his hair curlers with literal lady-fingers. But Alastor assured him he wasn’t interested in ‘empty reciprocity,’ as he’d called it.

“This isn’t out of the goodness of my heart, nor is it altruism,” he had said. “It is education. A matter of taste. I simply wanted to replace that abomination you call a radio.”

Alastor deserved the abrupt fall through the portal Lucifer had summoned directly beneath him for that comment. His old radio wasn’t an abomination. It was darling! A one-of-a-kind Lucifer creation designed to look like a duck, with bulbous eyes and a lavender beret sat askew on its head. The speakers were, admittedly, a little tinny, and the volume knob had stopped working, leaving Embarrassingly Loud as the only option for your listening pleasure.

And yes, maybe Alastor’s gifted radio did have a clearer signal, and functioning dials, and a beautiful attention to detail.

It had taken an entire week post-Sinsmas for Lucifer’s brain to catch up and wonder just how Alastor knew what the old duck radio in his bedroom looked like. After a very panicked hour spent envisioning an eighty-foot-tall Eldritch Alastor peering through his windows in his absence, he’d remembered the one time the man did visit in Lucifer’s company. He’d followed Lucifer in shortly after he’d moved into the hotel, insulting everything from the floors to the doors, and had been promptly and permanently ejected. The No Alastors Allowed sign had gone up the very next day, long since forgotten once Alastor actually listened to it.

An awful thing, if the Radio Demon were to ignore that sign and show up uninvited, Lucifer thought with a shuddered gasp as he used his outer fingers to part his lips, the middle clawtip making tight circles around his clit.

Everything pertaining to the new radio and its benefactor had been stuffed into a box and tucked on the highest shelf of the back of Lucifer’s mind, hidden away with all the other things that were too dangerous to dwell on.

Alastor wasn’t a friend. He didn’t give Lucifer a radio because he liked him, but to insult his taste. Save for his voice, there wasn’t anything special about Alastor, and so any presents from him were perfectly ordinary. Entirely forgettable.

Lucifer pressed his fingers back inside himself while grinding the heel of his palm down on the sensitive bud that ached for his full attention, a pathetic moan slipping out as he stared at the radio.

Not on his mind at all.

“Still can’t sleep, sinners?” Alastor’s voice came through the speakers in a low croon.

Lucifer whined in frustration, fingers slipping out of his too-wet-too-empty-terrible-judgment pussy in a fumbled effort to pump them faster.

“I never can, asshole, and it’s all your fault.”

Alastor tsked, the sound muffled like his lips were pressed tight against the microphone.

“Such needy sinners, requiring a lullaby. I thought we were in Pride, not Greed. Do you consider me your personal jukebox?”

If he knew he’d become Lucifer’s one-stop pornography shop, he’d probably prefer ‘jukebox’ as his designated occupation.

“One more song, then,” Alastor said softly.

There was the faint click of a needle settling into the groove of a vinyl record, and the demon’s voice was replaced with a teasing rhythm.

Says, I’m not jokin’ an’ I’m gonna tell you no lie

I want to eat your custard pie

You gotta give me some of it

You gotta give me some of it

You gotta give me some of it

‘Fore you give it all away

More and more Lucifer was growing to fear that he wouldn’t survive one of these broadcasts. Did Alastor even know what some of these songs were insinuating? Did he know what it meant to eat someone’s pie?

Safer not to know. If yes, Lucifer would never be able to look him in the eyes again; if no, Lucifer might not be able to resist offering to teach him.

He curled his fingers forward towards his navel, rubbing at the sensitive spot inside. The mattress creaked as his hips jumped forward to chase the sparks in his belly.

I’m not breakin’ but you understood

Everything I do, I try to do it good

“I don’t typically care for sweets,” Alastor said, “but I can see the appeal, in an objective sort of way. Perhaps there’s one sweet thing that might change my mind. Do you sinners have any suggestions? I’m open to trying.”

Goat hooves were incapable of curling, but that didn’t stop Lucifer from trying. The sharp edges, however, were in danger of putting holes in his sheets. He drew his legs up tight, doing his best to minimize property damage as he spread them wider apart and bucked against his hand. He couldn’t tell if his thighs were slick with sweat, or if Alastor’s stupid fucking pie song had made him so wet he’d soaked himself to his knees.

Now, your custard pie is good an’ nice

When you cut it, please save me a slice

“I’m so hungry,” Alastor lamented, and Lucifer could hear the man’s claws drumming against the metal of the microphone’s base; each tap resonated in the lowest part of Lucifer’s spine, canting his hips forward in a mirrored rhythm. “I wonder if that’s another one of Hell’s cruel punishments; always hungry and never satisfied. Did the Devil do this to me?”

This was Hell’s cruelest punishment, Lucifer thought, abandoning all attempts at saving his linens as he shredded the pillow beside him. Don’t mention me, don’t mention me, please, I won’t last —

“Are you listening, Mr. Morningstar?”

Lucifer shot up and tore his hand away from what it had been doing, staring wildly around the room. Downy filling from the destroyed pillow was kicked up in his rush and rained down on him like wingfeathers.

Says, I don’t care if you live right cross that street

You cut that pie please save me a piece

His heart pressed insistently against the inner curve of his ribs as he looked to the window. He’d left the curtains open this time. It wasn’t like anyone could see anything; the lights were off and the apple tower was dark. The radio tower, however, was not. It never was. Lucifer kept his eyes on the neon glow, holding his breath for Alastor to say anything else.

The Radio Demon remained silent, but the song urged him on.

You gotta give me some of it

You gotta give me some of it

With one last glance towards the radio tower, Lucifer laid back down. He was so close. His cunt ached, soaked and swollen with all the blood that would have better served his brain. His legs were fuzzy with pins and needles. Slow wouldn’t do it tonight, not anymore. Not after ‘taking sips from your tasty lips’ and ‘I want to eat your custard pie’ and ‘Mr. Morningstar.’

Quick, then. Like he used to.

It wasn’t hard to fall back into a rhythm, not when Alastor started humming along to the music the moment Lucifer slid his hand back between his legs. His fingers were still coated in the evidence of his arousal, easing the way. He dragged them through the slick wetness again anyway, up and down the scalding heat. He felt overstimulated. Too hot, too wet. And, worst of all, it had grown impossible not to imagine it was Alastor touching him, with that static-laden voice humming in his ear.

He should be thinking about anything else — the soft bedding beneath him, or how blessed he was to have such a talented hand. But the bedding was damp with his sweat and cum, and his hand was too small and not tipped with red, and he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t think of anything else.

You gotta give me some of it

‘Fore you give it all away

So quick to fall over the edge, when he let himself peek inside that box in his mind.

Lucifer’s thighs trembled. His hooves dug into the mattress as wave after wave of pleasure pulsed low in his belly. His head fell back, leaving the column of his throat exposed, overheated skin stretched taut where it clung to the ridge of his Adam’s apple; he’d always hated that name. The stupid thing vibrated like a plucked catgut string with each curse and sob that tore from his throat.

It was a tempestuous orgasm, as if his body was furious at him for being tangled in his thoughts instead of Alastor’s limbs. His clit was overstimulated, the lips of his pussy sore from all the blood rushing downwards, hole fluttering with nothing to clench around; no wonder his body was mad. He was aching and empty except for the jazz winding down in his ear and the sound of Alastor laughing softly into the microphone.

“They sure knew how to have fun back in the day, didn’t they? Those were some awfully creative lyrics. Although,” Alastor tittered, “I think I’m most impressed by those talented fingers.”

And there it was again. The fear of being perceived at the worst possible moment.

Lucifer let his head roll to the side, panting as he faced the radio that always smiled. A prickle of confusion followed the sweaty hairline of his nape, where goosebumps had begun to rise along the cooling skin.

No more of this, please. I can’t come again, not tonight, not with the terribly inconvenient delusion that you’re talking to me through the radio.

He had always been a dreamer, and fantasies — even the most shameful ones, and especially the most unbelievable ones — were comforting in a way reality was very often not.

“How you jazz instrumentalists keep such a pace without your fingers falling off, I’ll never know,” Alastor continued, and Lucifer let the tension release from his body in a long exhale. “I know for a fact that some of you are down here with me. You should drop by the Hazbin Hotel sometime; I’m in desperate need of good company.” He paused as another quiet laugh escaped. “Better yet, I know of a few depraved souls here who would deeply appreciate your risqué body of work.”

The radio is not stalking you, it is not talking to you, and it is not transmitting innuendos directly to your brain, Lucifer firmly told himself. Don’t you dare listen to that voice in your head. It told you to give someone an apple and literal Hell was created. Imagine what it might make you do with Alastor involved.

“I think that’s quite enough for tonight’s broadcast. I’ve entertained you long enough. Until next time, you filthy sinners.”

The sudden absence of static felt louder than its presence had. The shadows clinging to the undusted corners deepened, the room darkening even more as the On-Air sign dimmed across the chasm between his and Alastor’s towers. While the studio’s indoor lights remained on, Lucifer could see no shadows in contrast against the warm glow. No shapes nor silhouettes in the windows tonight.

It didn’t seem fair that even the tower could find sleep when it continued to elude him.

In a mess of downy feathers and damp sheets Lucifer reached his hand towards the cathedral radio, silent but still illuminated, and switched off the dial with shaky fingers.

The motion must have shaken something loose inside him because the very dangerous box tucked away in his mind fell off the shelf, spilling open no matter how hard he fought to close it back up, and there were those Alastor-shaped thoughts again. Not only were they impossible to pick up, but Lucifer could have sworn they were multiplying.

Fuck.