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Night has well and truly settled its inky quilts over Hell by the time Lucifer manages to collapse in the parlour. Outside the doors, the hotel is raucous, humming with life in the aftermath of whatever it was that happened whilst he was confined to that horrendous box. His body aches, shoulders stiff in their sockets after being suspended for... Hours? Days? He is fairly sure it wasn't weeks, can't possibly have been weeks, but then again, his grasp on time is not what any one would call steady; maybe he really was stuck in there for that long. A lot of his memories are a monotonous blur, one occasionally broken by that stupid TV yammering on, and on, and on about finishing what his wife-possibly-ex-wife started, or unnamed engineers fine tuning his atypical prison cell.
Sometimes, Alastor was there too, Lucifer is pretty sure. No-one else wears that much red, at least. He never said much unless the TV-head was there, but Lucifer recalls brief respites interspersing hours of prickling, hot pain where he would catch his breath, peer through blurry tears, and find those glowing rubies Alastor calls eyes silently watching him from his own trappings. Or, well, not silently; there was music playing, Lucifer remembers that more than anything else. Usually jazz or blues, oftentimes inspiring in the way that powerful voices reaching their full potential is, and always soothing. In retrospect, he wonders whether Alastor was trying to comfort him, and laughs softly to himself at how ridiculous that would be, until his strained abdominals protest and quieten him behind a grimace.
Rolling his head on the sofa back, Lucifer tunes in on Charlie's voice chattering away beyond the doors. They haven't spoken since she threw him out or, at least, not in a way that addresses the rift. There had been a check-in on his condition, his nonchalant dismissal along the lines of 'angelic constitution' - a teeny untruth for her sake - and a quick, careful hug before she careened off like the shooting star she is. And now? Now he is, for lack of a better term, wallowing in the empty parlour, in the dark, and reaching inside himself to discern whether his laboriously reconstituting powers have returned enough that he can portal to his room without being noticed.
As he trudges towards a conclusion, however, a sound like a wet sock unpeeling from a washer drum slinks through the air beside him and heralds a slimy, teeming mass coalescing on the couch. He smells Alastor's blood in the second before his body yawns out of the shapes, hears his crackling static humming into being, and turns his head to aggrandise the lanky frame now taking up most of the sofa. Eyes the shade of fresh blood peer back at him, mere slits in a face bruised by exhaustion, and although Alastor's constant grin is stuck in place as it always is, its sharp edges are fragile like a pane of glass seconds away from shattering.
"Bad night?" Lucifer offers, softly ironic.
"One could make such an assessment, yes," Alastor drawls back at him, "but I could say the same is true for you, your majesty,"
"Yeah, you're not wrong," at any other time, Lucifer wouldn't sink into the cushions then or tilt, lightly pressing his shoulder against Alastor's bony arm, but the ache running through every extremity yearns for comfort, any comfort, and beggars can't be choosers in these circumstances. Sighing, staring at the nearby coffee table through unfocused eyes, he adds, "I'd offer to heal the chunk that's been taken out of your arm, but my powers are still..." He waves a lacklustre hand, "kinda offline,"
"I am-," Alastor's voice is broken beyond its usual inconsistencies and arrives closer to Lucifer's ear than anticipated, bringing his gaze into his periphery where it can acknowledge two things: that Alastor's head is bowed towards him - as though sharing a secret - and that his tired eyes are pointing at the golden blotches scattered across Lucifer's clothes, "I was unable to assist because of my deal with Vox."
"You don't have to apologise," Lucifer murmurs, reading between the lines and wrung-out beyond the point of contemplating when he acquired an Alastor Translator, "not like you could've broken angelic steel, and you did kinda, sorta help." He closes his eyes, sighs and puts no thought into resting his cheek on Alastor's shoulder, "the music was nice,"
Alastor smells like a forest at dawn, he realises. Mellow and sweet, earthy and a little bit... Hopeful. The kind of hope which can be found in the first warm day of Spring once its sunlight has been able to chase away lingering frosts. As tired as he is, Lucifer has no qualms in admitting that, right now, when every inhale stings, he quite likes it.
"Mm," Alastor hums and he likes that too; it reverberates along their connected edges, not dissimilar to a cat purring. "Lucifer," this arrives without any filtering or buzzing radio feedback, unusual enough to peel open Lucifer's eyes and slide them up to Alastor's face.
"Yuh?" He manages, seeing something akin to gentility in that usually mocking grin and accepting its relaxing nature like a nightcap after a long day.
Instead of offering a verbal response, Alastor rolls towards him using their aligned sides as an axis, slides his injured arm across Lucifer's stomach - smearing scarlet amongst the existing gold in facsimile finery - and, in a move which would ordinarily set off multiple alarms in Lucifer's mind, hides his eyes in the crook of Lucifer's neck, ticking it with fluttering eyelashes. A breath, ragged and damp, flurries around his collar, and Lucifer reads its hidden message loud and clear. Without another word, he lifts a hand, flexes crimson sparks into being around heavy fingers, and slices through reality beneath them, creating a portal that deposits them both atop his bedsheets several storeys upstairs.
It isn't certain how much time passes after that, with Lucifer eventually nestling a cheek on Alastor's unexpectedly soft hair, Alastor's breathing evening out by his collar, and his arm languid and loose across Alastor's shoulders whilst a clawed hand settles, unmoving and covering most of his side, on his waist. The thing that surprises Lucifer the most, though his thoughts have no traction and tend to slip off his synapses rather than sparking correctly, is his presence in the world. Pain and exhaustion combining under his skin like this would often implode and take his consciousness with it, unwinding reality and time until he can float, effervescent and brilliant in a distant past where nothing existed except his own angelic light. But here, Alastor's static laps consistently on the shores of his mind, washing tension away piece by piece whilst also tethering him, and there is music too, lulling piano nocturnes from Chopin, Barber or Debussy.
It's... comforting, peaceful in a way he never could have imagined The Radio Demon being.
"Hey, bell-," Lucifer pauses, reconsiders the moniker, and starts again, "hey, Alastor?"
"Mm," Alastor buzzes against Lucifer's throat and, on his waist, his fingers flex.
"I think my powers have come back a bit," Lucifer trails his hand down, following Alastor's bicep with his fingertips as though playing along with the accompanying piano piece, "can I heal you?"
"Why," Alastor resurfaces, bringing eye contact between them, and Lucifer strongly believes he should definitely not mention the creases cut into Alastor's cheek if he wants to avoid regrowing any limbs, "what could you possibly want in return?"
"Who says I want anything?" Lucifer smirks, bemused, and turns his loose, almost caressing grip into a sturdy one when Alastor tries to flinch away, "don't-," he sighs, hard-done-by and too tired for this shit, "what about if I said it's to repay this?"
"Repay what," Alastor's eyes narrow and a single crack splitting the air flicks Lucifer's gaze up to watch inches add to his antlers, "I have done very little since arriving in the parlour."
Such a drama queen, Lucifer thinks and says, "look, I get it, Big Scary Radio Demon doesn't do nice things, so maybe it wasn't deliberate, or maybe it was y'know, for you and I'm an innocent bystander-,"
"Hardly innocent," Alastor interrupts.
"But hey, I've appreciated the company," Lucifer ignores him, "and the soundtrack has been a bonus," and decides flattery might help; this is the Pride Ring, after all, "which, obviously, you do have excellent taste,"
"Mm," the antlers recede and Alastor's grin softens a little instead of turning blade-like, "I see. Have I helped stave off your loneliness, my liege?"
Lucifer briefly wonders if Alastor's voice was intentionally close to a purr then, or if he knows full well what calling Lucifer an honorific whilst using that timbre will do to Lucifer's very stupid limbic system - who felt its depth all the way through his bones - and adds to a growing list of Things You Don't Bring Up to Alastor Whilst Cuddling Him.
"If I say yes," he counters, "will you let me heal that arm?"
"I suppose I can make that concession," Alastor's eyelids lower and if Lucifer were one to indulge piety he would swear to his absent father that Alastor is being flirtatious on purpose, "as you've been so very gracious."
What a prick, Lucifer thinks, but his smile curls with far more fondness than this internal insult implies.
"Alright well," he tells him, bringing a hand up to gently clasp Alastor's blood-soaked and torn sleeve, "I won't lie to you: this is going to hurt,"
"Mm," startlingly enough that goosebumps ripple across Lucifer's thankfully clothed skin, Alastor replaces his face in the slope of Lucifer's shoulder and murmurs, "good," far too close to his skipping pulse for comfort.
Making the most of this ostensibly unique situation, Lucifer presses his cheek to Alastor's hair, pretends his doesn't feel his too-soft ear flicking his temple, and closes his eyes. He draws in a deep breath, drinking both oxygen and the power source clustered within his core, and on the exhale lets pure starlight trickle past his shoulder, meander around muscles, and swirl along his veins until it spills forth beneath his fingertips, pooling phosphorescence on Alastor's tattered sleeve. Alastor shudders and he pointedly ignores it; pleads obliviousness to the hand clenching on his waist as well as the sharp inhale which brushes his throat. He knows it hurts and keeps his gratitude in his mouth, not wanting Alastor to pull away before his flesh has finished knitting back together. Seeing the wound through his magic, Lucifer ponders its shape; if he didn't think it was incredibly unlikely, he might assume Alastor was bitten by a great white, but those don't exist in Pride. Envy, maybe, where the ocean is vast, but not here.
"There you go," he says finally, removing his hand now that all which remains on Alastor's arm is old blood, "all done."
"Much obliged," Alastor replies dryly and stiffens, fingers idly tapping Lucifer's side in perfect time with Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1, "I suppose you are wanting to be alone now,"
"Yeah, well," Lucifer exhales an ironic laugh, "what can I say, I am super lonely, so," and focuses on Alastor's ear in his periphery, noticing it is tilted back a little, "if you're feeling generous, I'd be grateful if you stayed." He should probably offer something, being that Alastor's primary incentive in afterlife seems to be social transactions, "I'd ha-," still, he can't be totally forthcoming, that would be stupid, "be in your debt, or whatever,"
"Is that so," Alastor rumbles, pleased and only a little vindictive, "well, in that case, who am I to deny a king." He does lift his head then, but simply in aid of finding Lucifer's gaze rather than pulling away entirely, "do you have any requests?"
"Huh?" Lucifer replies flatly, distracted by the way low lighting has turned Alastor's eyes into that lovely, warm shade typical to smouldering embers.
"You praised our musical accompaniment," Alastor explains with more patience than Lucifer either deserves or expected, "and whilst my collection is expansive, surely one of God's earliest creations has a comprehensive understanding of classical pieces?"
"Oh," Lucifer exhales, not only acknowledging Alastor's question but also the feeling which washes over him in tandem. It is warm in the way a hot bath is, inviting and indulgent, sweet like honey or summer jasmine; dangerous and worrisome yet, perhaps because of this, exciting and intriguing. Alastor, resident theatrical cannibal, eldritch horror and demon of the airwaves, is being kind to him. And, boy, does Lucifer's long-dormant heart have something to say about that.
"I am not in the habit of asking twice," Alastor muses as though this is as unmitigated as Lucifer believes it is, "but you have caught me in a pleasant mood; do you have any requests?"
"Shostakovich," Lucifer blurts hurriedly before Alastor's potentially limited patience runs out, "anything of his, really, but I'm partial to The Gadfly Suite."
"Very well," Alastor settles on Lucifer's shoulder again, a long inhale flows through his lungs - pressing sturdy ribs against Lucifer's - and, on the exhale, the track currently playing from an unseen source fades, building into Opus 97a: VIII from The Gadfly.
Lucifer can't help but wonder, as he relaxes into an embrace which seems dreamlike and bears Alastor's relaxed breaths beneath his arm, whether Alastor chose the romance movement on purpose.