Chapter Text
The things Alastor did for the Hazbin Hotel.
And Charlotte Morningstar.
And, against all common sense, her father. A loss of higher cognitive function via proximity was the only explanation as to how Alastor found himself sitting beside an appallingly mawkish Lucifer in the back row of the hotel’s theater, witnessing the worst musical performance he’d ever had the misfortune to attend. Not for lack of exposure, either — in 1925 he’d caught an act by the Cherry Sisters during a trip to Baton Rouge after an impromptu kill left the streets of New Orleans a little too hot for his taste. Alastor had found the audience’s decision to pelt the troupe with rotten fruit inordinately barbaric, but there was no denying the ladies were dreadful.
This production was undeniably worse.
The Princess of Hell’s newest pet project was a choir called the Hazbin Half Notes. Calling them a choir was… generous. Thrice-weekly meetings over the past four months were evidently not enough for their public debut. Perhaps another year or two at that rate would’ve readied them enough to host a charity performance for those suffering from hearing loss.
Not a single vocal range in the bunch seemed correctly assigned. Alastor was particularly offended by the candle-headed sinner who appeared convinced she was a contralto. Her flame spluttered outwards with each botched note, threatening the unfortunately-placed paper doll sinner beside her; Marian Anderson, she was not. Although when twelve of the sixteen members were tone deaf, an imbalanced vocal distribution seemed rather insignificant.
It made sense why Charlie would want to start a choral group in theory — she herself was a gifted singer, blessed with the mellifluous tones of both her parents. In practice, the talents of the choirmaster did not extend to the pupils. But if it redirected a handful of guests from sneaking naughty jazz cigarettes in the laundry room or touching themselves to Angel Dust’s extensive film credits, Charlie should consider her project a veritable success.
One could argue that at least the theater Lucifer had included in the hotel’s renovations was finally seeing use. Alastor, however, was of the belief that it was tragic bordering on inhumane to put the room through such mistreatment. It would probably prefer eternal disuse if given the choice.
An elegant auditorium for a building full of junkies, deadbeats, and the clinically insane was a bizarre allocation of Lucifer’s magical abilities at best, and a waste of them at worst, but suggesting as much would earn him no favors with Daddy Dearest. Certainly not when he looked so delighted by Charlie’s enthusiastic conducting.
Look at him.
Leaning forward in his chair like an excitable child, mood brightened through the mere presence of his daughter, undampened by the din of “music.”
Mostly.
A near-imperceptible shift from grin to grimace as the candle-headed sinner stepped forward for a solo left a smug warmth radiating through Alastor’s chest. His own smile was much the same as Lucifer’s, his ears flicking in agitation as the not-contralto butchered her verse.
There was some fun to be had in suffering, so long as he wasn’t suffering alone. And what better companion than his darling Devil?
Lucifer had asked Alastor to join him for the day earlier that morning with a coy little tug on Alastor’s bow tie and a promise of ‘entertainment.’ Alastor never would have agreed to it if he’d known this was how Lucifer wanted to spend their time together. Really, he should have walked out after the first song — and that would have been generous.
It was, he supposed, the least he could do. He hadn’t given Lucifer much attention in the past week. Sexually or otherwise, it had been difficult to get into the mood required to entertain the Devil since the radio show-gone-wrong; Vox had always been an expert at ruining a perfectly good evening. He’d managed to suck Lucifer off the other night, after days of being absent both around the hotel and from the King’s bed. It wasn’t his finest performance, but it had been enough to satisfy Lucifer, and enough to let Alastor believe staying the night in the cocoon of Lucifer’s wings was earned.
He’d slipped out at daybreak, flicking his ears against the quiet thought that perhaps Lucifer would begin to consider him a poor return on investment.
When the eager thing had asked to spend the day together Alastor figured it was the bare minimum necessary to keep Lucifer happy, pacified, and — most importantly — interested. Halfhearted blowjobs born of desperation could only get him so far.
He’d rather thought Lucifer had something else in mind for their shared activity. Not that Alastor felt one way or the other about it today, but sex would have been vastly preferable to where they found themselves now.
The evening was still young, however, and Alastor was nothing if not persuasive. Perhaps Hell’s most libidinous angel could be lured away from this auditory punishment with the promise of Alastor’s full attention.
The chair’s wooden arm thunked under the tap of his claws as he mulled it over.
Alastor was tired as of late; too many long nights spent abrading the soles of his boots as he stalked the streets of Pentagram City. He didn’t particularly feel like expending the effort to fuck Lucifer himself. He supposed it wouldn’t be too much work to wring the little minx dry with two of his fingers buried three knuckles deep before letting his shadow take over for round two. The novelty of Alastor readying Lucifer with his own hand might be enough to tempt Original Sin. Though the necessity of Lucifer blunting Alastor’s claws, even temporarily, gave him pause.
He could let Lucifer take the active role, as suggested during that very same ill-fated broadcast; Alastor certainly wouldn’t mind lying back and letting someone else do all the work for a change. But…
Alastor shifted his hand to the seat’s cushion, scratching a hole through the fabric until a clump of stuffing fell out.
He could. He wanted to, sometimes. And Lucifer had proven himself a reliable option.
So had Vox, once.
He kicked the stuffing beneath the seat in front of him, his boot scuffing the floor. Lucifer didn’t hear it; didn’t take any notice of Alastor’s antics at all, entirely fixated on his daughter’s subpar production. Alastor’s smile tugged against his stitches.
There were no friends in Hell. Not really. He had found it time and time again to be an indisputable sentiment, one that rang twice as true for those you let warm your bed.
He was agitated. Restless. So terribly bored. And there was Lucifer, swinging his legs with nary a cock in sight. How nice it must feel, Alastor thought, to be so simple-minded.
The contralto’s breathy low notes were verging on pornographic now, and Alastor weighed the pros and cons of leaping onstage to eat her. Surely Lucifer would understand at least a little? The bigger obstacle was Charlie; if she was unhappy with Alastor’s cannibalism for the greater good, Lucifer would undoubtedly take his little girl’s side. A night spent groveling was not what Alastor wanted after being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in a neat little tone-deaf package.
It would be one way to get those golden eyes back on him, however, even if the idea was somewhat unpolished. The least Lucifer could do after dragging him to this ridiculous thing was direct some attention his way. The concert was worth neither of their regard.
They wouldn’t be missed if they snuck out. The theater was crowded enough, and Alastor would have been suspicious of that fact if not for what his shadow had witnessed Lucifer doing two days ago. The way Alastor had laughed, watching through the shadow’s eyes, as Lucifer made his way from guest to guest in the lobby, covertly slipping them vouchers to LuLu World in exchange for attending the choir’s performance. Utterly charming, how manipulative he could be for Charlie. He wondered if Lucifer would do something like that for him.
The audience tensed in unison against a swell of off-key vibrato as the rest of the chorus joined back in.
Alastor’s ears pulled back flat against his head, the short furs around each base standing straight up. He could feel the dissonant notes reverberating inside his skull. The sensation was rather like how he imagined an aneurysm might feel.
Hell would fall not to exorcist angels, but to a handful of dope fiends who’d only learned a cappella wasn’t a type of pasta just four months ago.
“Would you do me a favor and shoot me in the head?” Alastor murmured in Lucifer’s direction. “I think I’m ready to give it another try.”
A responding squeeze to his thigh startled him. What was clearly meant to be a comforting gesture only left him aching, worse still when it happened a second time. Alastor’s gaze fell to the delicate hand on his thigh; flicked back up to a forked tongue pinned between pursed lips, bottom eyelids tugging up as Lucifer failed to fully suppress his amusement. And those eyes he’d demanded for himself, on him at last.
It was quieter. A welcome pianissimo when Alastor could have sworn there’d been fortississimo. The music, if it could be classified as such, wasn’t quite so loud when Lucifer was looking at him.
But it wasn’t enough.
He waited until Lucifer had removed his hand and directed his attention back to the stage before placing his own hand on Lucifer’s thigh — higher, much higher — and giving it a decidedly less innocent squeeze.
It wasn’t his fault his hands were so big, and Lucifer’s legs so short, and the warmth between them so tempting. Nor was it his fault that a birdlike squawk slipped out of Lucifer, drawing notice from not only the closest row ahead of them that actually had occupants, but also the entirety of the choir and Charlie herself.
One lone soprano, oblivious in their drug-fueled haze, carried on singing a broken tune. They were even gyrating slightly as they kept — somewhat — to the beat; an odd choice when singing a holiday hymn about Christ’s birth. That was to be expected, he supposed, when dabbling with crackheads.
Oh dear, now that was not a pleasant look from Princess Charlotte. So ungrateful! Alastor had done them all a public service by halting the performance, even if their reprieve was brief.
Really, how could Alastor have predicted such an embarrassingly loud reaction? It only happened every single time he touched Lucifer with cheeky intent. Woefully tragic, how the Devil couldn’t control himself.
Alastor’s grin grew, his hand trapped between legs that had hastily crossed shut to hide the evidence of a little inappropriate concert-fondling. Whoopsie daisy. Whatever could one do except enjoy the heat of Lucifer’s balls through his trousers where they pressed up against the pinky side of his hand?
Charlie slowly turned back around, tapping her baton on the music stand, and Alastor felt Lucifer’s legs relax just slightly as the performance resumed.
The perfect opportunity to give that thigh another squeeze. God, how sinful Lucifer’s legs were; and this was coming from someone who had little regard for carnal desires.
Lucifer proved himself, once again, to be… well, not quite Alastor’s exception — he didn’t expect anything would change his peculiarities when it came to sex — but certainly an anomaly.
“Cut it out,” Lucifer hissed, his actions betraying his words as he couldn’t help an aborted rut against Alastor’s hand.
“You started it,” Alastor said innocently.
“I did not start anything.”
Naughty liar. He’d started everything in the staff parlor six months ago, when he saw the shadow as an extension of Alastor himself and accepted it so easily. Alastor would meet his silver-tongued serpent lie-for-lie.
“Did you not grope my leg?” Alastor asked, giving Lucifer’s own leg another suggestive squeeze as he raised his voice from hushed tones to an exaggerated stage whisper. “Lucifer, we’re in public!”
A sharp rap of plastic against metal drew his gaze and there was That Look from Charlie again, significantly more irritated than the first time. The music stand swayed from where she’d cracked her baton against it. How much she looked like her father did when he was losing a game of cards to Alastor’s unmatched penchant for cheating. A little bit adorable, the way her eyebrows pulled together just like Lucifer’s, but her ire wouldn’t earn him any points with her father.
Alastor threw his arm around Lucifer’s shoulders and pulled him in close, lifting a very insincere thumbs up at his employer.
Yeah, I’m fucking your dad. What are you going to do about it?
Such a simple gesture, hardly sincere, and yet it caused her brow to smooth out and her eyes to soften.
How desperately she’d encouraged some sort of friendship between them after Lucifer permanently moved into the hotel. Or, at the very least, a truce from the incredibly public, retrospectively homoerotic lobby fights. No doubt she saw her father’s loneliness and wished for him to have a playmate.
Well, lucky girl, you got what you wanted.
If only she knew how they chose to spend their playtime. There was always a caveat when rubbing a genie’s lamp, and in their case it was an alcohol-fueled affair that left Lucifer begging for the Radio Demon and his shadow, because one Alastor simply wasn’t enough.
The poor, greedy thing must have been so deprived in his marriage; however had he survived for centuries without a shadow tentacle or two readily available? Just in case he was feeling empty and needed a seat tailor-made to his perverse specifications.
Sorry, Charlie dear. Mommy and Daddy aren’t ever getting back together. Your father’s too reliant on his emotional support shadow to fuck him senseless on any given day that ends in ‘y.’
Charlie’s softened expression lifted into a small smile when Alastor pretended to zip up his mouth, lock it, and throw away the key, repeating the gesture on a bewildered Lucifer’s lips.
The Morningstars were as easy to play as a fiddle.
Seemingly placated that they were getting along in the shadowy back row that was perfect for a little covert fondling, Charlie turned around and resumed the concert once more.
Alastor kept his arm around Lucifer’s shoulder. The warmth of his neck, flushed gold at the nape, was nice enough. Lucifer’s desperate reactions to his teasing were even nicer; he’d finally found some entertainment at this godforsaken concert.
The sappy little King had yet to shake Alastor off. Perhaps he was pretending that they were a normal couple on a date — proud parents supporting their daughter’s efforts to rehabilitate serial killers and perverts.
If Lucifer wanted to live out the delusional fantasy that they were dating then the least he could have done was taken Alastor somewhere nicer. He had suggested a trip to the theater months ago; a very nice theater with a fancy private box and the best performers in Hell, Lucifer had promised him.
A crackhead concert hardly counted.
Alastor’s shadow materialized on the floor in front of him, leaning its arms and head upon his lap. It could, on occasion, get a little needy, and in that respect he supposed it had prepared him well for what an extended dalliance with Lucifer entailed. The shadow rubbed its cheek against Alastor’s thigh, gazing up at Lucifer sweetly and chirping out quiet warbles. Even the mostly-voiceless creature could carry a tune better than Charlie’s choir.
He ran his free hand through his shadow’s hair, watching Lucifer out of the corner of his eye as he did so. The Devil, for some reason or another that was surely perverse, liked when he doted on his shadow; a little public display of affection could only tip the scales further in his favor.
The chair creaked as Alastor pressed in closer to Lucifer, whispering in his ear.
“Let’s sneak out of here.”
Lucifer twisted his head towards him so fast they nearly ended up with their mouths colliding.
Nice try, Mr. Morningstar.
“We can’t,” Lucifer said, leaning his head as far back as he could while Alastor’s grip around his shoulders held him trapped in place.
Alastor didn’t miss the way Lucifer’s eyes kept dropping down to his lips.
“Of course we can,” Alastor insisted. “It would be as simple as letting my shadow take us, or one of your portals beneath our seats. We won’t be missed.”
No one was watching them all the way back there. If they had been, Lucifer wouldn’t have tolerated Alastor’s arm around him, and Alastor wouldn’t have put it there in the first place.
“I…” Lucifer trailed off, glancing between Alastor and the stage.
“You,” Alastor agreed, “and me. What do you think, sweetheart?”
Oh, those cogs turning… Golden cogs behind golden eyes in a golden blond head full of manic thoughts of Alastor—
“No.”
No?
Lucifer snapped his face forward — towards the performance, not Alastor. As if a concert could make him forget exactly who sat next to him.
What an exquisite brat, making him work so hard tonight. Alastor was almost proud.
Leaning in close to Lucifer, Alastor used the tip of his nose to part a path through the silky hair covering one ear, tracing his tongue behind the shell of it before whispering sweet temptations to the Devil himself.
“Am I that boring?” Alastor asked him.
The sound that escaped between Lucifer’s trembling lips wasn’t quite discernible as a ‘no,’ although it was clearly meant to be. He kept his eyes on the stage, brows drawn together, trembling beneath Alastor’s breath against his ear.
“Wouldn’t you rather watch my shadow suck me off than this dreary concert?”
Splintering wood was such a pretty sound. A real shame, though, to see that poor, elegant armrest suffering under the King’s grip.
Lucifer had made it clear multiple times that public sex, especially anywhere in the vicinity of Charlie, was a no-go. But surely Alastor could get sucked to high Heaven in the back row while Lucifer enjoyed the show? It wouldn’t be Alastor’s fault if the entertainment he provided was more interesting than what was happening on the stage.
His shadow cooed out a doting warble, creeping both hands up Alastor’s thighs. But it wasn’t looking at him; in an award-worthy display of faux innocence, fiddling with Alastor’s trouser pockets, it was looking straight at Lucifer.
Alastor, more often than not, wasn’t fond of mouths around his cock. Not as a young thing fumbling around for the first time, even if it might have been a pleasant enough experience beneath the canopy of Spanish moss, the gnarled roots that carpeted the oak grove digging into his back before he switched positions. Not after death, either, despite the number of times he’d had cocks in his mouth. Someone could bite it off if they wanted; he’d considered doing just that a handful of times, after all. Too vulnerable, and too sensitive.
If the mood did strike — and it hardly ever did — it depended entirely on if he could even get hard in the first place. Any fleeting interest was a moot point when his cock was broken.
But he could tolerate it sometimes, and his shadow was so gentle with him. It knew what he liked, what he didn’t, what he needed, what he couldn’t do. He didn’t have to tell it to stop because it already knew the very second he wanted to. There was no guilt for rejecting it, because it was him.
Lucifer, meanwhile, had made it perfectly apparent several times now that he was very interested in watching the shadow and Alastor misbehave. He’d been positively burning with curiosity, asking all sorts of questions, wanting to know what Alastor had done with the thing. If he’d kissed it — of course not; not before that movie night when Lucifer had encouraged it to do so. If it had sucked Alastor off before, asked by Lucifer so early in their arrangement, the very first time the creature had its lips around his cock — a handful of times over the years, only to satiate Alastor’s own curiosity. Its hand was far more expedient, and less intimate.
Of course, Alastor couldn’t blame him. Who wouldn’t want to watch?
Lips bitten raw and face very nearly glowing, Lucifer didn’t verbally answer Alastor’s suggestion to watch his shadow go down on him. He shook his head once, barely a shake at all. Poor thing, trying to be so strong in the face of temptation.
Not to worry. Alastor could make it worse for him.
“No?” Alastor said, nipping Lucifer’s ear. “You’d rather have me all to yourself, greedy little Devil? You can, if you’d like…” He trailed his lips down to Lucifer’s neck, just above the thrumming pulsepoint. “Which again brings us right back to the very reasonable suggestion of getting the hell out of here.”
“Al,” Lucifer groaned softly. “Someone will see.”
“Not if you take us to your tower. You can keep me trapped in your bed for hours, and I’ll let you touch me however you please,” Alastor whispered against his throat.
Maybe he would even honor that promise, should Lucifer choose to leave with him. It didn’t have to be a lie, not entirely. A worthy concession in exchange for all that attention on him and him alone. Alastor could see the resilience cracking apart on that pretty face like dropped porcelain.
“You can stick it anywhere you want,” Alastor purred.
How flattering it was, to feel Lucifer tense beneath the weight of his arm, muscles flexing as if he’d suddenly grab Alastor and throw him down onto the theater floor—
Oh dear, his feral angel had gone and broken the armrest right off the seat! Whoopsie daisy! Someone would have to replace that. Alastor hid a laugh in his hand, watching Lucifer awkwardly place the jagged piece of chair on the floor near his feet. Surely no one would notice that; excellent job, darling.
Victory was within Alastor’s reach, snagged between his jaws as he primed to bite down. He nearly had him.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Alastor begged, lifting his free hand to turn Lucifer’s face back towards his. “I’m in the mood.”
“No, you’re not,” Lucifer hissed, and what a giveaway that he didn’t quite believe his own words when Alastor could see his face recalibrating in real-time. Lucifer wet his lips with his tongue, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Are you?”
So easy, this debauched thing that hung on his every word. Quicker to heat up than pavement during a Hellfire heatwave. Pathetic, pitiful, passionate to the point of detriment… all the things Alastor enjoyed indulging in. His very own sweet tooth, salivating over palpable desperation. Lucifer Morningstar was afflicted by the mere existence of Alastor.
It went both ways, perhaps. Just a little bit. With Lucifer, sometimes, it felt like Alastor had wings of his own; ones that fluttered, almost painfully, when those golden eyes dared to look away for even a second.
But they were on him now.
“Why don’t we go find out?” Alastor asked.
For the longest moment yet that night, Lucifer looked like he was considering it. Debating. An entire war within his head as the world’s worst concert carried on around them.
“After the show,” Lucifer finally said, giving Alastor an apologetic look.
Apologetic. Lucifer was sorry. His sorry, darling Devil who didn’t choose him.
Such impressive resolve. It made Alastor want to shatter it all the more. It made Alastor livid.
“Don’t I look nice today?” Alastor asked him.
“Of course you do!” Lucifer spluttered, his cheeks squeezed tighter between crimson clawtips.
“Don’t you want me?” Alastor continued to press, grasping for anything that kept Lucifer safely trapped between his jaws.
Those golden eyes on him softened, and Alastor hated it.
“I always want you.”
Prove it, you cruel liar.
“Then leave with me,” Alastor said.
He wanted someone to choose him, the way no one had ever done before. From the moment of his conception, he’d never been chosen; not by his parents, nor an anguished young priest swinging from the rafters of a rundown church in Florida, nor the man in the tuxedo standing at the end of an aisle lined with gardenias that made Alastor sick. Vox hadn’t chosen him either. He’d chained him, tightening his collar each time he tried to take a breath.
Alastor wanted to be chosen by someone he chose back. Just once.
“I have to be here for Charlie,” Lucifer said, tying a stone to Alastor’s heart and letting it go. “I want to be here for her. She worked so hard on this.”
Couldn’t he see that Alastor had worked so hard, to even suggest Lucifer do anything he wished to him?
“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to,” Lucifer added.
Alastor said nothing to that, finally sliding his arm away from Lucifer’s shoulders. He flinched when a hand grabbed his, giving it a quick squeeze.
“I’m all yours after this,” Lucifer promised him. “You can have me for the rest of the night.”
But it wasn’t about having Lucifer for the rest of the night. It was about being interesting and important enough to disrupt his plans, enough to make him say “I need you right now.”
After Vox called into the radio show that night… or maybe it wasn’t anything Vox said at all, but how Alastor reacted to him… Lucifer had been so good in the moment. ‘You have me, Alastor. I’m not going anywhere,’ the Devil had said, holding him so gently.
Perhaps, after having time to think about it, Lucifer was reconsidering.
Alastor’s shadow chirped softly. The thing was still leaning in his lap, staring up at him with eyes that were shifting from orchid pink to a pale, foggy blue; too gray to be cornflower. He brushed his fingertips through the fur of one ear from base to tip before sending it away.
Charlie won out in the end, an outcome that should have been obvious from the start, and Alastor couldn’t even be mad at her. Lucifer had moved into the hotel to be with his daughter. Playing house with the Radio Demon came later.
This was not a relationship. Alastor was not required to attend Charlie’s recital like a stepfather, nor should he be expected to. They had started this arrangement for entertainment, and Alastor was not having fun.
He could have left the concert. There was nothing keeping him tied there.
And yet he stayed, the warmth of Lucifer’s arm pressed against his a reminder of just how stupid a smart man could be.
The performance went on for another forty agonizing minutes, during which the choir butchered eight more songs and an encore nobody asked for. Lucifer clapped like a moron at the end; one would think he’d witnessed Rosa Ponselle’s second coming.
Alastor, patting the tips of his fingers against the opposite palm with all the enthusiasm of a tranquilized circus seal, was in desperate need of a drink.
“Let’s go up and see Charlie,” Lucifer said, slipping his hand into Alastor’s and giving it a tug as the crowd began to filter out. He paused when Alastor didn’t move, dropping his hand quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t — I just meant… I want to congratulate her. And if you wanted to congratulate her, we could go up together…” Lucifer blinked up at him with wide, disarming eyes. “I’d like you to.”
So when Alastor tested boundaries, he got told to knock it off and was summarily rejected. But when Lucifer did it, Alastor was supposed to just give in? Melt in the heat of him, collapse under the weight of him, be torn apart by the sharp edges he disguised to look soft and inviting?
Opportunistic, manipulative brat. Alastor felt dizzy, staring back at those eyes. Like apples in honey, luring him into something sticky sweet and ready to drown him.
“Let’s go, then.”
Where else was he supposed to go? Wait for Lucifer in his bedroom like a kicked mutt?
Lucifer’s face lit up in a smile, and Alastor’s own teeth ached. The need to bite Lucifer, the need to kill Vox, the need to gnaw at the chains that kept him leashed. He was agitated and restless. He could have been doing something else, something productive. Stalking the streets of the Pentagram, looking for opportunities. Anything to take his mind off of little blond idiots.
Instead he was relenting to Lucifer’s whims, when Lucifer hadn’t done the same for him.
He knew he was on edge, taking everything to the extreme lengths of literal — if Lucifer didn’t want to leave the concert with him, clearly he didn’t want him at all. Overthinking, perhaps a result of oversharing. He’d given too much of himself to a little white snake curled up with him on a chaise lounge in his radio tower two weeks ago. Gotten too close to pressing his mouth against another just one week ago. Hadn’t left a concert when he could have, and should have, not one hour ago.
All of it was little more than ammunition against him. Alastor knew better, or he had until the Devil poisoned him. The regret of it followed him on his walks along the city. He was reading too deeply into things, much the same as Lucifer always did, and he supposed it should have been no surprise that he’d decided to make that Lucifer’s problem as well.
He didn’t just need a drink. He needed to get wasted.
Charlie, despite her rather tactile disposition, was usually on her best behavior when it came to Alastor’s aversion to touch. But it appeared the emotions of the evening had gotten the best of her when she saw her father and her hotelier approaching. The air was knocked out of him as she threw her arms around them both at the same time, dragging all three of them together for a very damp hug. Alastor was appalled by the tears that sank into his suit jacket, only slightly mitigated by the warm press of Lucifer against his side. He restrained himself — barely — from giving the man’s ass a cheeky squeeze, just to make him mad.
“Congratulations Apple Pie!” Lucifer positively shouted, Alastor’s ears pulling back from the volume. “I’m so proud of you!”
Waiting to be released, Alastor echoed the statement politely — albeit with less of the enthusiasm of someone on stimulants, as one might mistake Lucifer to be.
The freedom from Charlie’s death grip of a hug six excruciating seconds later was divine, right until it wasn’t. The space between them meant he now had to contend with Charlie’s eyes taking in himself and Lucifer: standing side-by-side, after arriving side-by-side, after sitting through an hours-long concert side-by-side. It was an incredibly foreign feeling, being scrutinized like a couple when they were anything but. Not that Charlie seemed to suspect anything more than the barest scraps of a tepid friendship, but that was bad enough when it made her smile grow twice as wide.
Vaggie, visible now that Charlie’s hug wasn’t obscuring the rest of the room, was eyeing them with far less warmth. Truly ironic how a single disapproving look from her made him feel like confirmed bachelor Uncle Alastor visiting his Catholic family for Christmas, bringing along his ‘roommate and business partner’ Lucifer, with whom he shared a one-bedroom apartment. Wasn’t she a lesbian?
“I am so, so happy that you guys came to see the show!” Charlie squealed while bouncing on her heels.
Her hands twitched by her sides as if she was fighting the urge to grab them both again. Alastor shuffled back a few inches, just in case.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweetie,” Lucifer assured her, allowing himself to be dragged back in for that anticipated second hug.
Alastor, thankfully, was left out of this one. He remembered their discussion on the rooftop many months ago, when Lucifer had admitted that he’d had to re-learn how to tolerate Charlie’s overzealous hugs after their long separation; he seemed to have little trouble now.
“It was certainly the most memorable part of my evening,” Alastor added.
“Care to tell us your favorite part of the concert, Alastor?” Vaggie asked, her voice remaining perfectly polite for Charlie’s benefit even as her singular functioning eye tried to drill a hole through his head.
Lucifer, quite possibly sensing impending disaster, pulled away from his hug with Charlie and jumped in before Alastor could say “the curtain closing.”
“Mine had to be the way you handled that baton with such elegance,” he said, summoning a conductor’s baton of his own and giving it a quick twirl before vanishing it in a puff of sparkles. “Commanding the stage like a true Morningstar! Oooh, or the song you joined in on! You have the voice of an angel, honey, if you’ll forgive the comparison.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Charlie said, smiling down at him. “But it was really the choir who put in all the work. Maybe you could tell us your favorite song that they sang without me?”
“Oh,” Lucifer said, deflating slightly. He glanced around, as if hoping the answer were written somewhere on the walls of the auditorium. “That’d probably have to be, uh— well, I forget the name of it, but it was definitely in the first half of the show. Or the first three-quarters. The one with the words, about the… meadowlark?”
“The meadowlark?” Charlie’s face scrunched up in confusion.
“Or maybe it was a mockingbird… or a turkey! There was a lot of warbling— A bird for sure, I think. Bird-like. Bird-adjacent. I don’t remember the words, exactly, but the melody kind of went like ‘daa-da woo,’” Lucifer sang under his breath, looking very normal as he swirled his hips and aggressively snapped his fingers, only putting them down when one snap nearly sparked a flame. “‘Da dooo ba-wooo,’ y’know, kinda — kinda jazzy — Alastor!” His eyes were as pleading as his voice when he turned to Alastor for rescue. “You know the one I’m talking about!”
“I certainly do not,” Alastor said.
If looks could kill; it was the closest to coming in his pants Alastor had gotten all night.
Fortunately for Lucifer, his daughter was slightly more adept at salvaging a conversation than he was.
“Anything you think we could add to improve the next performance?” Charlie asked them both, wide eyes shining as brightly as the chandelier Alastor wished would fall down and crush them all.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lucifer hedged, patting her hands. “Maybe… an intermission? Y’know, bathroom breaks, a little fresh air. What do you think, Al?”
“Intermission, yes. A lengthy one,” Alastor hummed in agreement. “A cocktail hour beforehand and drink service throughout would be a start.”
Lucifer gave him that ugly little goldfish face, apparently astonished he’d said that out loud.
“The show is long. Am I not allowed to get thirsty?” Alastor asked, brushing off his suit jacket.
“That’s actually a great idea, Alastor, thank you,” Charlie said, tongue sticking out of her mouth in a look of intense focus as she jotted something down on a notepad she whipped out of her suit pocket.
Those scatterbrained Morningstars; Alastor had seen Lucifer with a notepad of his own every so often, scribbling down who knows what.
Charlie looked up at them and smiled. “Your suggestions are appreciated and duly noted. Anything else?”
“Absolutely not,” Lucifer said quickly, grabbing Alastor’s arm.
“Vaggie and I are taking the choir downtown for a little celebration dinner. Do you want to come along, Dad?” Charlie asked. “And Alastor! You’re invited too, of course, if you’d like!”
If this evening went on any longer the choir would be Alastor’s dinner. And if Lucifer relegated him to second place again…
But, true to his word, Lucifer gently turned her down.
“Thanks for the offer, sweetie, but tonight the focus should be on your success and your group, not your old man. Alastor and I can kick it here! We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.”
“Meaning we get to look forward to coming home to a pile of rubble and one of you standing over the other’s corpse,” Vaggie said.
“There won’t be any corpses, my dear, how silly!” Alastor said, smiling widely. “Why would I leave a perfectly good meal lying around? Waste not, want not!”
As Alastor waited for steam to start coming out of Vaggie’s ears, he thought about how hilarious it would be if she punched him in front of Charlie and Lucifer.
“I trust them,” Charlie said confidently. “With the hotel, and with each other. You two have been getting along, right?”
“Like a hotel on fire,” Alastor assured her with a wink.
His comment predictably earned him another one of Vaggie’s glares, but Charlie seemed appeased.
“Thanks again for coming,” she sniffled. “It really means a lot to me.”
They watched her bounce towards the exit, Vaggie on her arm and the Hazbin Half Notes bringing up the rear. Alastor tensed when he felt Lucifer’s gaze finally shift away from his daughter and onto himself.
“Look, I know the concert was… long,” Lucifer said, repeating Alastor’s more polite descriptor. He glanced around the theater for witnesses — Charlie was already out the door with her choir in tow, and the majority of guests had fled the second the concert ended — before putting his hands on Alastor’s waist, chin resting on Alastor’s sternum as he looked up at him with a flirty expression. “But I’m really happy you came with me. So thank you.”
Smile twisting into an approximation of a pout, Alastor held out as long as he could before giving Lucifer a stiff nod.
“Alright, pretty boy, let’s get you that drink,” Lucifer said. “Is whatever’s in my tower fine, or do you want to stop at your room to pick up something specific?”
“Let’s go to the lobby bar,” Alastor said. “I have a headache. We can let Husker do all the work making our drinks.”
Alastor didn’t trust himself to drink alone with Lucifer right now — not when the odds of putting Lucifer’s head through a window or his cock up Alastor’s ass were about fifty-fifty. There would be plenty of time for that later. He needed a few preliminary drinks to clear his cluttered head of Lucifer’s earlier rejection and Vox’s continued existence; that was best done somewhere public.
“Oh, okay,” Lucifer said, blinking away his surprise.
He trailed after Alastor to the lobby bar, and Alastor could feel those eyes on him the entire time, two golden beacons cutting through the sea of red that permanently watched them from the furniture.
It wasn’t a particularly chatty Happy Hour at first. Lucifer tied a cherry stem inside his mouth, presenting it on his tongue with a flourish, as Alastor thought about ways to burn down the Hazbin Hotel that couldn’t be traced back to him. Much as he’d love to take credit under normal circumstances, he found himself wanting to stay in the good graces of the idiot who thought he’d be impressed by tongueplay.
Even when said idiot had left him feeling terribly unwanted.
Unfortunately for the most miserable bartender in all of Pentagram City, no one accumulated empty drink glasses faster than Alastor and Lucifer. It didn’t take long for them both to be fifty percent liquor and rising — which, of course, exponentially increased the rate of Lucifer’s babbling. Poor Husker was stuck between a Radio Demon trying to scorch holes in the bartop with nothing but his gaze, and a Devil who wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
All the while, as evening slipped into night, it felt like the infinite time they both had was being wasted.
Alastor ran his finger along the rim of his drink, trying to physically recall the satisfaction that came with the crunch of glass and snap of electrical wire. It had been far too long. He was itching for droplets of coolant sprayed across his face, gushing forth through an artery crudely severed from the inner workings of a machine that wasn’t nearly as complex as it thought it was. Not intricate, nor clever, nor memorable — save for the times Alastor had torn it apart. No bother that the spilled liquid left inflamed red marks, marring his skin for weeks. All the better, in fact; it made the sensation that much easier to remember later.
But it was getting harder the more time had passed. That wouldn’t do.
“—And the ocean isn’t really all that different from the stars! I think?”
There wasn’t a single useful thought in that pretty blond head after half a dozen sweet cherry margaritas. Alastor could smell the amaretto on his breath from one barstool apart. Sickening, his habits.
Lucifer had been yapping for twenty minutes straight, the topics ranging from how proud he was of Charlie to nostalgic reminiscing on his days as a circus performer to — currently — the feasibility of a boat that could traverse the cosmos. He was the perfect drinking companion when Alastor couldn’t stand the silence but preferred not to fill it himself. All he had to do was periodically interject a few hums and nod when appropriate.
Truly fascinating how the inane drunken ramblings of a scatterbrained Devil didn’t worsen the headache he’d accrued from Charlie’s tin-ear choir; Alastor couldn’t decide if he found that more ironic or unsettling.
He clinked his claws against the glass, and the glass against the wooden bartop, not meeting the golden eyes that kept trying to catch his. When he had to feign engagement with whichever ridiculous new topic was spilling through red-stained lips, he instead focused on the thrum of a pulse fluttering beneath the soft white skin of a neck he rarely thought of snapping anymore.
Alastor resisted the urge to mold himself to it, knowing exactly how it felt beneath his lips now. Incomparable to the press of teeth as they punctured the flesh just enough for sweet gold to bubble up, or the tip of his tongue exploring those momentary wounds. The ambrosial nature of Lucifer’s blood was far more corrosive than coolant; a nectar of the gods that destroyed rather than sustained, decaying Alastor from the inside out.
Lucifer had given him so many gifts as of late. The effortless consideration towards Alastor when touch was unbearable, even after he’d been promised so much more. The careful way he’d steered Alastor to composure when Vox had plucked away at each of his stitches during that radio call.
Kissing him wouldn’t have been the reciprocal gift Lucifer might consider it. Alastor could never give him the intimacy he craved. A kiss would have been a burden in the end, achieving little else than getting Lucifer’s hopes up just high enough to break them beyond repair when they crashed back down.
He supposed Vox had done him one service, interrupting when he did.
Nothing good could come from letting Lucifer Morningstar believe a kiss meant anything more than “I can tolerate the feeling of you pressed against me,” and perhaps “I enjoy the distraction that your touch provides when every other one makes my skin crawl.”
It was not a grand declaration, and certainly not a commitment. It was simply something that felt good — might have felt good, if they’d tried — one that Alastor could easily go without. He did not have the capacity for the type of affection the King of Hell so transparently pretended he didn’t want.
He would not kiss Lucifer.
He would not lose his only source of entertainment.
He would not punish him so cruelly; not when he had been unfailingly patient with everything that made Alastor incapable of reciprocation.
“We could go to another one sometime, you know.”
“Hmm?” Alastor hummed. His mind took a moment to catch up to Lucifer’s words, cleaving through the fog of cask strength rye and the peculiar mood he couldn’t shake; was Lucifer still talking about celestial boating? “Another what? You’ll have to elaborate.”
“Another event. Just us, away from the hotel.” Lucifer swirled his glass around so vigorously that an ice cube flew right out and clattered across the bartop. “If you wanted.”
Alastor gave him a measured stare. Lucifer looked about as drunk as a Devil could get from mortal libations and so sweet on Alastor, sweeter than his drink, eyes shiny and cheeks gold as he made his suggestion. A stomach-churning display of affection, easily offered and freely given. One might think Lucifer had crafted that look specifically to drive the Radio Demon insane.
He still would not kiss the Devil.
“Yes, because this outing was such a resounding success,” Alastor said.
Lucifer’s brow furrowed as he sucked at his drink.
“It doesn’t have to be a concert,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cherries, dismay tempering some of that sweetness.
“Where do you plan to take me, sweetheart? The first ventriloquy act performed by a mute demon?” Alastor said, draining his glass before sharply gesturing at Husker for another one. “Or shall we just take turns slamming our heads in the limo door to achieve the same end result?”
All attempts to collect himself were actively derailed by the abrupt turn their conversation had taken, setting Alastor off all over again. So much for Alastor’s meticulous method of fantasizing about killing Vox and throwing drinks back until he was lit up like a Christmas tree. What had happened to their fun, simple arrangement? No terrible concerts, no obligations or expectations, no suggestions of more, just a little bit more, always more. Nothing but drinking and shadows; a reprieve from the eternal boredom of the Hazbin Hotel that Alastor could actually understand.
And reciprocate.
“Why are you being so cranky today?” Lucifer asked him.
Husker immediately and very awkwardly excused himself, muttering something about needing to get more olives despite there being a full jar behind the counter.
How quickly Lucifer sounded like one half of an unhappily married couple in those awful television programs Vox clung to out of nostalgia for something he never even had. All playfulness and hope had melted with the ice cube on the bar. But the frustratingly constant undercurrent of genuine care remained beneath Lucifer’s vexation, as if he were merely fussing over Alastor being cranky from hunger rather than a self-inflicted implosion. As if he might whip out a ladyfinger from his pocket to make it all better.
It only frustrated Alastor more. Lucifer had so thoroughly unraveled him that he couldn’t even pick a fight right anymore.
“Oh, I wonder why. Perhaps it has something to do with the performance you dragged me to without warning.”
“I asked if you wanted to hang out today and you said yes,” Lucifer spluttered.
Alastor did say yes, and it was monumental precisely because he never said yes to frivolous outings. Not unless it was Rosie asking. Or, apparently, Lucifer. He considered shaking the man in the futile hope that some of his thoughts would connect.
“I didn’t know that was what we’d be doing,” Alastor lied. “I thought it would be something fun, or at least not painful.”
“Look!” Lucifer waved his arms to indicate everything around them. “The performance is over and we’re still hanging out, so what’s the problem? I always had every intention of hanging out with you after the concert, but I had to go to that first. I couldn’t miss it.”
“Well, if I had known that—”
“You did know that,” Lucifer interrupted, catching him in his lie. “You knew, because your shadow was watching me offer the guests tickets to LuLu World if they came.”
Alastor startled, ears pulling back. He was always careful with his shadow; Lucifer couldn’t have possibly seen it. Not that day, nor any of the others.
“I’m not an idiot, Alastor, no matter how much you love to push that button. You knew the performance was today. Charlie hasn’t stopped talking about it, there were posters everywhere. You would have known I was going to support my daughter even if your shadow hadn’t caught me.”
Something was very obviously wrong. This was not the Hell he knew, where the Devil was unobservant and the Radio Demon always came out on top. This Lucifer Morningstar stared straight through him. Alastor’s face burned. His ears refused to straighten back up, and each swallow of his throat clicked around words he could not find.
“I’ve barely seen you all week, but you send your shadow to follow me.” He grasped Alastor’s forearm and leaned in close, looking as genuinely concerned as he was annoyed. “What’s going on with you?”
They both knew what was going on, and Lucifer only looked like an idiot for not admitting it out loud in a failed attempt to spare Alastor’s pride.
The radio show. Vox. The almost-kiss. The ring on his finger and the pillow that smelled like Alastor in his bed.
“I’ve been busy,” Alastor said. “I can’t devote every second to this circus of a hotel, and I certainly can’t devote every second to you.”
If Lucifer called out the irony of that statement, after the stunt Alastor had pulled during the concert — the boundary-pushing, the frantic want for Lucifer to devote every second of his time to Alastor despite this evening being carved out for Charlie — Alastor might actually burn the whole place down.
“I’m confused, are you horny or mad at me?” Lucifer very nearly begged, his own face flushed hot and golden as the gears in his head grinded through the effort of figuring out what the fuck was going on. “Because during the concert you implied you wanted us to sneak off so I could rail you.”
The simmering ache deep in Alastor’s belly roiled, hot and attention-seeking. He watched Lucifer struggle to get his bearings and a thrill ran through him; it meant he wasn’t suffering alone.
Alastor knew he was acting out, and no amount of liquor or lies would save him, but he couldn’t help it. Vox had gotten in his head and poisoned him. So had Lucifer, now, in a way that was quite possibly worse. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore, and Lucifer made him so, so stupid.
“You know me quite well by now, Lucifer,” he said. “Don’t you think I would’ve said anything to get us out of that concert, including the exact thing an eager little King was most desperate to hear?”
“I refuse to believe you would do that, after what you said during—”
Lucifer bit down on his lips to stop the words from coming, but Alastor knew what they would have been. He had said, during last week’s broadcast after the Devil in his lap had marked his forehead with a searing kiss, that he wanted Lucifer to be the active partner, easing his way inside Alastor for a change. And Alastor would have let him, if the mood had remained. Almost certainly, if Vox hadn’t called in and ruined things.
“Believe what you want to believe,” Alastor doubled down with a shrug. “I say convincing things all the time.”
The expression Lucifer had been wearing, the ‘help-me-understand’ puppydog face, split in all the wrong places, cracking like porcelain. There were too many drinks in his system, even for an angel, to recognize that Alastor was acting out for attention, not cruelty. Open your eyes, use your brain, and see that…
Please.
“That’s not a very nice thing to do,” Lucifer said softly.
And Alastor knew that. Especially when Lucifer was so careful with him and his peculiarities. He would never push too far, and would feel awful if he’d felt like he’d done so mistakenly, even if it was Alastor who tricked him.
But there was a deep, irreparable disconnect in Alastor between the things he knew and the things he did. What he really thought, and what he said instead. Before Lucifer, this defect had rarely bothered him.
A lot of things felt different with Lucifer.
“It’s entirely your fault if you were misled to the assumption that I was nice. Whenever did I give you that impression?”
“Just last week, actually,” Lucifer snapped. “And the week before that, and the week before that. During the radio shows we spent together. And that morning after the night I spent as a snake.”
This time it was Alastor’s expression that cracked, though his smile remained stitched up high at the corners, digging painfully into his skin. It wasn’t as if he could forget the sight once he’d seen it, watching through his shadow as it lay flat against the opposite wall.
Barely sunrise, Lucifer pressed against him — no longer a snake and concerned he’d overstepped. He hadn’t, but turning him to face away gave Alastor the comforting cushion of space he needed between Lucifer’s back and his front. Their fingers intertwined where they rested on Lucifer’s abdomen, the most intimacy Alastor could manage. All of it was permanently stamped behind his eyes.
That trembling thing on the chaise lounge, after a night where he showed Alastor such patience. When Alastor wanted, so desperately how he wanted. To touch, and be touched. To reciprocate in a way Lucifer had more than earned. But he couldn’t; so he gave what he could, and couldn’t take what he wanted.
He’d traced his nose along soft skin so he could breathe Lucifer in, an aching attempt to share the Morningstar’s ability to feel the best and worst of everything. To cry in the respite of that moment frozen in time, before the sun had fully risen. Pretending it was Alastor — not a shadowy tendril — rocking with Lucifer, inside Lucifer, when Alastor himself had failed.
Alastor hadn’t felt as if he were ‘nice’ that morning. He’d felt inadequate.
He’d also felt seen, without drowning beneath the weight of it.
Husker returned, olives conspicuously absent from his hands, just in time for them to order another drink each. He deliberately avoided Alastor’s gaze and instead watched Lucifer, both wary and weary, as the King glared at Alastor — very possibly restraining himself, with a great deal of effort, from lighting Alastor on fire with his eyes. Alastor had no idea if the Devil could do that, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious.
The grizzled cat looked like he regretted returning at all. He wasn’t special. Alastor often regretted coming to the Hazbin Hotel in the first place.
Silence blanketed the bar following Husker’s return, dampening even the clink of ice against glass each time they lifted their drinks. It allowed Alastor the chance to shake off some of the dysregulation that too much introspection always caused him. Until Lucifer, in a move that was bizarre even for him, started listing things.
“Alabaster. Albatross. Antlers.”
“What are you doing?” Alastor asked, fully aware he would regret voluntarily reinserting himself into the drunken antics of Lucifer Morningstar.
“You don’t deserve to be Alastor tonight, so I’m giving you a nickname for each letter of the alphabet.” He plucked off another cherry stem, lobbing this one at Alastor’s face rather than tying it with his tongue. It would seem his goal had shifted from temptation to provocation. “Abaddon.”
How biblical.
The wise choice would have been to ignore his theatrics. When Lucifer was in a mood — especially one exacerbated by consuming twice his weight in sugar and tequila — it was best to let him get it out of his system; it wouldn’t take long for someone so short in both stature and attention span.
Alastor, of course, did not do that.
“It would seem we’re in for a long night, then. Four names and you’re still stuck on ‘A.’ Tell me, is that due to a lack of creativity or a lack of sobriety?”
“It’s not my fault there are so many fitting names for you that start with ‘A,’” Lucifer said, reaching over to jab his finger into Alastor’s sternum. “Asshole.”
Being an unwilling audience to an awkward situation made even the most uncomplicated of jobs, like opening a container of cherries, a Herculean task. Such was the case with the ever-unlucky Husker. As if summoned by Lucifer’s preoccupation with the letter ‘A,’ an army of cherries spilled across the counter, their reluctant bartender chasing after them with a wide sweep of both arms. His quick glance to Alastor was positively dripping in discomfort.
Aww, was the poor kitty-cat not enjoying his night?
Join the club.
Husker’s eyes flicked between the two of them as he rescued as many cherries as he could before turning around to prepare the next glass. It hardly took a psychic to predict Lucifer would ask for another.
“Not liking any of those?” Lucifer, either oblivious or indifferent to the state of the rag Husker used to clean the bartop, skewered a stray cherry with one claw as it rolled past him and popped it in his mouth. “How about Bellhop? Or Bambi?”
Alastor’s ear flicked, and he considered — not for the first time — simply chopping it off. Would that he could. Still, he did not rise to the bait.
“Brat?” Lucifer suggested with an innocent swipe to the cherry juice dripping down his lips.
“I’d argue that one goes both ways.”
“C is obvious,” Lucifer said, ignoring him. “Cun—”
“Dewdropper,” Alastor interrupted.
That clownish face scrunched up inelegantly; why was he sleeping with this man again?
“I don’t even know what that means!”
“Add Dumbass to the list,” Alastor said. “A dewdropper, Darling, is a lazy, jobless man who sleeps all day and drinks all night. Sound familiar?” Alastor drummed his fingers against the bartop. “Perhaps you’ll recognize Dipsomaniac?”
Now that one Lucifer appeared to know, evident in the way he magicked away the collection of empty glasses beside his elbow.
“You’re one to talk.”
Alastor felt that one like a kick to the teeth, because he knew it wasn’t ever far off given his lineage. So did Lucifer, he was fairly certain, from the context clues Alastor had left him. He tapped his own empty glass in defiance, signaling a refill to the increasingly discomfited Husker.
“Divorcé, then,” Alastor said.
Some of the rye splashed over his fingers as Husker flinched mid-pour. Alastor calmly wiped them on the cat’s fur, admiring the rapid shift of expressions across Lucifer’s face. A touch of golden flush did wonders to make the vein in his forehead truly pop.
It wasn’t unreasonable to poke the bear for a little clarification. Not when Lucifer continued to burrow his way between Alastor’s bones and beneath his bedsheets while wearing someone else’s ring.
Alastor wore no mementos of Vox.
“Dick,” Lucifer said. “Egomaniac.”
“That makes two of us yet again, sweetheart,” Alastor hummed. “Fool seems almost too easy… How about Failure?”
His dearest didn’t have a response for that one.
“Too mean? I suppose I can go with the tried and true Fossil.” Alastor waited for a rebuttal, and still nothing; Lucifer’s brain was often the first thing to go when he’d been drinking. “You’re slowing down, Grandpa,” he teased. “Better pick up the pace.”
“Hannibal,” Lucifer said, yanking the newest sticky concoction from Husker’s hand and downing half of it in one go.
“A handsome and intelligent cannibal, hmm… Is that supposed to be an insult?”
Cogs were very visibly turning in that overheating brain as Lucifer changed tack. The bone-weary “oh my god” from Husker did nothing to stop Lucifer from climbing on top of the bar, sitting back on his ass with legs crossed and all six wings popping out. A bowl of peanuts crashed to the floor, followed swiftly by Husker as he dodged Lucifer’s plumage.
“Honey,” Lucifer teased with a sarcastic wink. He blew a kiss in Alastor’s direction as well, the help of a little devilish magic turning the gesture corporeal. It floated over in a haze of red sparkles and Alastor could feel where it landed on his cheek.
Warm and impossible to ignore, like Lucifer himself.
Husker dragged himself up with both claws hooked into the counter, looking very much like he wished the floor had swallowed him up while he’d been down there. Perhaps there was still hope that the entire drink shelf would fall down and crush him to death. It would only be temporary, given he was already dead, but the time it took for his body to reconstitute might be a nice reprieve.
“Idiot. Imbecile. Ignoramus,” Alastor fired off as he scrubbed his sleeve against the mark on his cheek.
“Jerk.”
“Very original.”
“Kitten,” Lucifer purred, trying to fluster him again with a gentle nudge of his boot to Alastor’s chest. Unfortunately for him the faux flirtations gave Alastor a rather cruel idea.
He grabbed Lucifer’s boot by the ankle, keeping the dainty foot trapped there.
“Lulu,” he simpered.
Mmm, maybe Lucifer would punch him in the face. He sure looked like he was considering it. What a lovely way to salvage the night, Alastor thought with a dreamy sigh, clutching the boot tighter against his chest.
Lilith’s nickname for Lucifer was no secret. They both knew it. Husker knew it. All of Hell knew it! The lovesick fool had named a fucking amusement park after it. Her influence persisted in her absence, digging its roots into every crevice of his unstable foundation.
The strength with which Lucifer pulled his foot away nearly knocked Alastor off his seat. Alastor felt special, earning his King’s proper ire. The Devil looked so pretty when he was embarrassed.
“Mr. Useless,” Lucifer said, sliding off the bar and settling onto the stool beside Alastor’s so he could properly get in his face.
“That doesn’t work for M, Moron,” Alastor countered, pressing their noses together.
“Well I say it does, Nosferatu,” Lucifer insisted. “Suck any good blood lately?”
They both ignored the sound of glass crashing to the floor behind the bar. If Husker were anyone else, Alastor might almost feel sorry for him.
“Nosferatu wasn’t his name, you Nitwit. Perhaps it’s past your bedtime, Old Coot,” Alastor said.
“Priss.”
“Prick.”
“Quo—” Lucifer tried, lips twisting into odd shapes as he searched for anything starting with ‘Q’ that might stick. “Qua— Quoi— ?”
“How about Queen?” Alastor supplied.
Lucifer reared back with that infamous goldfish face of his, eyes popping and mouth gaping like an ill-fated carnival prize; had he thought Alastor was suggesting the title for himself? Oh, his Quixotic little Lulu… time and time again allowing himself the shallowest puddles of romantic idealism only to drown in them.
“For you, of course,” Alastor continued. “As an angel you’re technically genderless, are you not? Why not take that one for a spin? I don’t see any other queens around here.”
Twisting the knife after ‘Lulu,’ perhaps, but that concert had been intolerable, and Lucifer’s rejection of Alastor’s suggestion to sneak away hadn’t improved the evening. Nor had the escalating, borderline-diagnosable hysteria shared between them since they’d sat down at the bar.
It wasn’t like he needed a queen anyway. He had Alastor to keep him entertained.
“Rudolph,” Lucifer snapped, tugging at Alastor’s bow tie. “I could get you a light-up nose and a pretty jingle bell collar—”
Lucifer’s face brightened, glancing between Alastor and the liquor shelf behind the bar.
“Oh no, wait wait wait! I’ve got a better one for ‘R’ and ‘S,’ ~and~ it doubles as a special drink just for you.” Lucifer booped Alastor’s nose before turning to Husker. “Do me a favor and make my friend Al here a Redheaded Slut!”
How quickly the Devil realized his mistake. It took little more than the sound of splintering glass between Alastor’s fingers, rye seeping through the fissures onto the dirty bartop, to get Lucifer cracking alongside it.
The hotel itself felt like it was holding its breath. Maybe it was; Lucifer had built it, after all.
If it had been quite literally anyone else who’d said that, Alastor would have set them loose in his bayou and suggested they start running. But Lucifer wasn’t just anyone, and not because he was the King of Hell, or the Devil, or even Alastor’s paramour.
It was because Lucifer Morningstar, despite his terrible case of Foot-in-Mouth Disease alongside a comorbid diagnosis of Porn Brain, seemed to be the only person in the entire world who understood Alastor’s relationship with sex. No matter how agitated Alastor was with the direction the evening had gone, and how much whiskey he’d burned through, he was lucid enough to know that Lucifer did not mean those words as a true commentary on Alastor’s behavior in the bedroom.
That knowledge did nothing to temper the desperate need to make Lucifer suffer for it anyway.
Their hostage bartender looked nervously at Alastor.
“Go ahead, Husker,” Alastor encouraged him. “Make the drink our King suggested.”
Husker looked like he’d rather do literally anything else.
“I don’t know that one, Boss.”
“You have an electronic phone, do you not?” Alastor rested his chin in his hands, leaning towards the man. “Look it up.”
A tense silence blanketed the bar as Husker searched for the recipe and got to work. It seemed like their reserve of cranberry juice was perpetually low; the resident alcoholics typically requested just a splash of it to top off their highball glasses of vodka, but there were enough of them living in the hotel that the beverage saw plenty of use. The other ingredients were less popular. Husker had to stretch onto his toes to lift the rarely-touched bottles of peach schnapps and Jägermeister from the top shelf. Alastor very nearly laughed at the absolute irony of a deer head emblazoned on the latter’s label, the buck’s antlers framing a Christian cross. How beautifully thematic.
All the while, in Alastor’s peripheral vision, he could see Lucifer casting nervous, sidelong glances his way while shredding a napkin.
“Alastor, I didn’t—” he began, napkin smoking at the edges after his magic sent accidental sparks through his fingertips. “I’m sor—”
One violently sweet look from Alastor had him clamming up, as if Alastor had personally stitched his lips shut.
Watching Husker pour the liquids into a rocks glass over ice, Alastor felt an unignorable burning beneath his collar, like Lucifer’s choice phrase was branding itself into his skin.
They had been habitually awful to one another. That much was nothing new, even if it had gradually diminished in the months since striking up their arrangement. When they did fall back on old ways, it was more often than not instigated and perpetuated by Alastor — not that Lucifer couldn’t give as good as he got. But despite that, Alastor hadn’t made any insinuations about Lucifer’s promiscuity during their little alphabet game. Even if, to his knowledge, there was no promiscuity to comment on; Lucifer was very much a faithful Devil.
Alastor stuck one finger beneath his tight collar, tugging against the prickling heat that refused to dissipate.
Regardless of what he and Lucifer got up to, Alastor was far from a slut. It wasn’t as if he was out there servicing half the Entertainment District, as Vox had loved to accuse him of whenever he was later than he said he’d be. God forbid a cannibal stop for dinner on occasion.
It was an old favorite of his father’s, as well. “A slut like your mother.”
His mother had only ever been with his father. Alastor had never been with anyone at all.
That hadn’t stopped his father from brandishing the word against them like a switch, nor the creative measures the man took to correct what he believed to be Alastor’s abnormal trajectory.
His claws sank into the bartop as he remembered the weight of his father’s hand shoving him across the threshold of a ramshackle building. Stumbling until his hands and knees connected with wood softened from rot, weighed down further by the muggy heat of August, Alastor had remained on the floor, dizzy from inhaling a miasma of jasmine perfume, tobacco smoke, and unwashed linens.
“Don’t come back,” his father had said to him. “Don’t come back until—”
“Boss?”
Crimson liquid caught the light as Husker nudged the completed drink towards him, startling Alastor out of his recollections.
“What?” Alastor asked, ignoring Lucifer’s hand-wringing off to his side.
“Did you want any garnish?” Husker repeated warily.
With one finger, Alastor spun Husker’s phone where it rested on the bartop to face him and looked at the recipe. A decorative red fruit, most commonly strawberry or cherry.
“Do you have strawberries?”
“No.” Husker sent an awkward glance Lucifer’s way. “We have cherries.”
“Are you quite positive about that?” Alastor asked, following Husker’s gaze to the pile of discarded cherry stems in front of Lucifer. Lucifer hastily brushed them away before finding something utterly fascinating about the ceiling.
Husker lifted a dented container and Alastor wrinkled his nose.
“The ones that I witnessed you spill all over just moments ago? I’ll pass.”
Circling his hand around the chilled drink, Alastor turned to Lucifer, drumming his claws against the glass to draw the man’s attention back.
“Would you like some?” he offered, perfectly benevolent.
Mouth wisely pressed into a tight line, Lucifer shook his head.
“Your loss.”
Alastor slammed the drink back in one go. As crude in taste as it was in name, a concoction of about a dozen too many flavors, all herbal notes washed away by a sickenly sweet mask of juice and schnapps. It was the most disgusting thing he’d ever put in his mouth, and he’d been intimate with Vox.
He could have vanished the empty glass, or shoved it towards Husker, or even smashed it against the wall. Instead he pressed it into Lucifer’s hand, making sure to stroke his fingers along Lucifer’s as he withdrew.
“Would you like to finish our little game, my dear?” he asked.
His sweet, stupid goldfish opened and closed his mouth in repetition, obviously lost.
“The alphabet game we were having so much fun with,” Alastor said. “We’d gotten up to ‘T,’ if my memory serves me.”
Lucifer looked like he was trying to avoid stepping on another landmine. Casting around for anything that might help, he turned towards the wise old bartender for advice. Unfortunately for poor Lulu, Husker had ducked down behind the counter, having conveniently decided that now was the perfect time to hunt for any spilled cherries he’d missed on the floor.
“No?” Alastor lamented, stretching his stitches for a faux-pout. “Alright then, I suppose it’s up to me to close us out.”
The hum of his static dimmed to near-silence as he leaned in close to Lucifer’s ear, his warm breath frigid in comparison to the burning skin that trembled against his lips. Alastor could smell the familiar scent of Lucifer beneath a hazy swirl of cherries and amaretto and tequila. He bit the lobe, licking away a droplet of golden blood, before whispering sweet nothings into his beloved’s ear.
“Troublesome, Unmannered, Vexatious, Witless, X-tremely Yappy Zero.”
Alastor didn’t even know if he wanted Lucifer to remain docile or argue back. If he was called a slut again he would probably slit Lucifer’s throat and drink every last drop that spilled from it. If he was called the Devil’s biggest regret he might let Lucifer bend him over the bar in the middle of the fucking lobby, because that meant he’d carved out a place of honor in Lucifer’s life; a permanent place he didn’t have to share with anyone else.
If he was called pathetic he would be inclined to agree.
Unable to sit at that bar for one more second, he gracelessly pushed himself up from his barstool. The immediate effect was almost biblical as the weight of however many strictly-medicinal whiskeys he’d consumed over the last hour crashed into him like the flood of Genesis. They should have thought ahead and built an ark to return them to the apple tower. Legs slowly adjusting to holding all seven feet of him upright, he gave Lucifer a pointed stare.
“I want to go to bed,” he declared.
Wide golden eyes flicked nervously to Husker.
“Okay… Bed, yes! An excellent idea!” Lucifer said, hopping off his own barstool; not quite as unsteady on his feet as Alastor, but certainly not unaffected. “So you just go to your bed, and I’ll go to mine, all the way at the other end of the hotel.”
Lucifer Morningstar was not beating the rumors of cognitive decline anytime soon. Little fool, too blind to see that Husker already knew about them. As did Angel Dust, and Niffty; they’d known for quite some time. Not that Alastor was having kittens over it, but Lucifer surely would.
Their only saving grace was that Charlie was as unobservant as her father. Lord help them the day it finally clicked for her. Or, Alastor shuddered to think, Vaggie.
“Does that sound good to you?” Lucifer asked, enunciating each syllable as if Alastor were a moron who could not recognize the implicit suggestion of a rendezvous — when it was Alastor himself who had made it obvious in the first place.
“Absolutely thrilling,” Alastor said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Again Lucifer glanced awkwardly at Husker, his subsequent manic laughter not at all suspicious. “Maybe!”
“I’ll be counting the minutes.”
Alastor was the first to go, melting into the shadows and rematerializing in Lucifer’s bedroom. He did not bother to turn on any lights. The faint illumination from outside the windows was enough. The cityscape, the suspended Pentagram, the glow of his own radio tower…
His eyes fell to the bed; to the side that Alastor had grown accustomed to sleeping on, even if he couldn’t realistically call it his side. You did not get your own side of the bed in an arrangement that was strictly transactional entertainment, no matter how delusional they’d gotten the longer this had gone on. Delusions only stretched so far when one of you wore someone else’s ring.
Perhaps Alastor was a slut. In all of his dalliances, he’d always been the other man to some third and more prominent presence. He had shared his first partner with God, and his second with the man’s wife. At one point Vincent had seemed like a departure from that pattern, starting out with all of his attention on Alastor, and that had almost been worse. In the end Alastor once again had to make room for someone else when the magnitude of Vincent’s ego had given birth to Vox the Overlord, Vox the Deity, Vox: Alastor’s keeper.
And of course, with Lucifer, that ring. There was no such thing as a private moment when the ghost of Lilith haunted every interaction.
Sides of the King’s bed were irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the fact that Alastor was allowed to occupy it at all. He sat at the foot of it, directly at the middlepoint, and waited for Lucifer to show up.