Chapter Text
It’s not really a deal.
Not the kind that leaves the room in a wash of acid green, with the Radio Demon’s visage split close to bursting, and eclectic symbols of every kind painted across the walls and ceiling.
Not technically, anyway.
No, as Alastor had put it, this is more of a favor between friends. Not that Lucifer considers the haughty, power-hungry maniac a friend. More like a…mutual acquaintance. This is an agreement between acquaintances. Or reluctant partners working together merely due to circumstance.
An agreement that satisfies both their needs, and Lucifer hadn’t even had to shake on it
Lucifer isn’t a fool. He knows the Radio Demon’s intentions for being at the hotel are several orders of magnitude less than noble. A creature of his caliber would never help his daughter out of the goodness of his heart, or out of sheer boredom, as the demon may have professed to her in the beginning.
He can practically see the green exuding off Alastor; green oozing like a sickness, seeping out from his very aura in waves. A power such as Lucifer’s doesn’t come with an inability to read people, which he’s had plenty of time to practice in the myriad since his proverbial fall from grace.
But as ancient as Lucifer is, it doesn’t make him immune to loneliness. Or that innate sense of animal magnetism that every new creature experiences at the very moment they come of age. It’s a tale as old as time itself.
That first crackle of a spark occurred when he’d first stepped foot through the hotel doors. Muffled by the pure joy of seeing his precious daughter for the first time in months, the feeling became practically overbearing as Alastor continued pushing, and pestering, and asserting his authority over Charlie’s project; taking every opportunity to pull him off that pedestal he’d so carefully constructed for himself within his daughter’s life over the course of years.
Then, when the hotel was rebuilt, it became less about Charlie, and more about being in Lucifer’s business all the fucking time. When Lucifer sluggishly bumbles into the lobby in the morning, there he is, cane newly polished and crimson suit freshly pressed, ready to greet any new Sinners who happen through their doors that day. When he’s about to offer to make his daughter and her girlfriend pancakes for supper, like doting fathers sometimes do, Alastor’s already slaving away in the kitchen, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and wrists deep in a hearty jambalaya or gumbo. “Just like mama used to make”, as if that extra jab doesn’t smart Lucifer in particular.
The Radio Demon has gone out of his way to make himself a constant, overbearing, almost ubiquitous presence in Lucifer’s life, whether the king of Hell wants him to be or not.
The problem is, he hadn’t exactly said he hated it. Quite the opposite, in fact. If the Radio Demon’s instincts had been picking up what he’s been putting down, he should sense that Lucifer actually enjoys the others’ antics quite a bit…
Wait a minute. Back up.
Like he’d said, Lucifer is not immune to loneliness. This night has been no exception. Years of that empty, oppressive absence of his wife and daughter had taken him low. The toll loneliness has played on his heart has been without equal or measure. Even if the Radio Demon’s constant, domineering presence had been annoying at first, lately it’s become just another aspect of their routine. Expected. Peculiar, but familiar all the same.
Maybe he has too much free time on his hands. Maybe he should do better about letting his guard down.
Or maybe, his biggest mistake was allowing that stupid fucking bar to be installed right in the lobby of the hotel. Alcohol is a vice even for the most principled of demons. For a ruler down on his luck, who’s extremely out of practice doing any kind of actual ruling on the part of his subjects, it’s a Pandora’s box just waiting to be broken open.
It’s way past the witching hour when the demon comes to him, so late that not even the bartender is awake to serve him a drink. The king is so impatient, so hyperactive and wracked with insomnia, he finds himself drinking the Beelzejuice straight from the bottle. Such a thing would hospitalize any demon of lesser status; for him, it helps to work up quite a satisfying buzz.
Alastor’s sudden appearance is mundane and unceremonious, by this point. The man never enters a room without some sort of bluster or fanfare, whether by filtering in through the shadows like a fog settles over a cold evening, or like smoke blowing in from the noxious fumes of a house fire. Perhaps both. Two things can be true at once.
To Lucifer, it’s just more of his posturing than an actual show.
“My my, what a pleasure, your majesty. What is one such as yourself doing up at this hour?”
Alastor manifests into Husker’s usual spot, standing behind the counter of the bar, leaning forward hard into the wood surface. Lucifer suspects he’d rather be on the bar itself, kicking his hooves gleefully back and forth behind him. The Radio Demon will never not take an opportunity to ruffle the king’s feathers in the most agonizing way possible. He almost lets it get to him, for the thrill, but chooses against it. He’s had a long day.
“What do you want, Al?” Lucifer barks, not feeling sober or strong enough to match wits with the likes of the Radio Demon this particular evening.
“Is that any way to address your dear hotelier?” Alastor asks slyly, the words escaping his mouth like a rumor at one of his socialite overlord functions. “I thought we were friends, you and I. I’ve only come to see why our illustrious benefactor is having one over the eight, as it were?”
“Fuck off. I don’t have a mind to deal with you today.”
“Oh, but I think you should, your highness.”
Alastor fizzles out of existence in front of Lucifer, and then pops back into reality in shadow on the barstool next to him. His shadows blink and dance about the room like some kind of twisted puppet show of light and dark. Any attempts to intimidate Lucifer with such displays are all for naught. It’s going to take a lot more than this meager spectacle to get a rise out of him.
Lucifer takes another heavy swig of his drought, head swimming despite his bravado from earlier.
“And why is that?”
“I can be a very good listener.”
“Somehow I find that hard to believe.”
Alastor’s smile doesn’t crack, but the static and buzzing in the background intensifies into a hum. That smile may be a brick wall of a defense, but the Radio Demon has other tells that Lucifer can read like a book. He’s not as impenetrable as he’d like him to believe.
“Your daughter seems to have no qualms about confiding in me.”
“Yeah? Well, I suppose she didn’t take it to heart when I told her not to trust other demons so easily. Don’t think I don’t know about your little deal.”
“Oh, that little thing?” Alastor leans against the side of the counter, holding his cheek in his open palm, like the fact that Charlie shaking this infernal demon’s hand is nothing but a trifle. “It was nothing, really. Her soul is perfectly safe and sound. As if I would ever take advantage of our dear, sweet Charlie like that.”
“I don’t need to know the terms and conditions to know that you’re up to no fucking good.”
“Yet his highness seems to have no qualms about keeping me around. Around dear Charlie.”
Turning to face the taller demon, Lucifer feels the seal around his legendary composure start to break. Alastor isn’t the only one in the room capable of summoning smoke. The Beelzejuice glass starts to dissolve in his hand, turning white-hot and then melting through the top of the counter in front of him. Flames pucker around his teeth and the top of his forehead, and the sclera of his eyes change to red for just a hot minute. That stupid fucking grin persists on Alastor’s face, as cheeky and uncanny as the very moment he’d first laid eyes on him.
What is this Sinner’s fucking deal? Lucifer’s better than this.
Composing himself, Lucifer fixes the glass, and then the counter, tossing the magically reconfigured bottle into the garbage bin behind the bar. It hits the inside of the metal container with a resounding rattle. At least his aim is still on point.
Alastor “hmmms” bemusedly under his breath, as if losing interest in the entire situation. The background hum of his radio clicks and cracks a few times, as if it’s changing channels. For once, the bastard sits in silence for several glorious seconds, as if actually contemplating the magnitude of what he wants to say next.
His next words take Lucifer completely aback.
“Despite what you may think, I actually do care about our darling Charlotte very much. When at the behest of Hell’s very own princess of virtue, how can one not start to believe in her potential, no matter how bizarre her requests? But you’re somewhat right… I’d be a fool not to play my better hand when I can.”
“I knew it!” Lucifer growls, turning on his barstool to face him. “You keep your filthy claws away from–”
“Heavens no! Do not fret, my good man!” Alastor holds up his hands defensively between himself and the smaller man, who finds he has inadvertently begun to lean toward the Radio Demon in a threatening posture
…As threatening as one of his stature can possibly be. He growls low in the back of his throat, in any case.
To his utter disgust (and delight), Alastor mirrors the stance, leaning in and dipping his head down to Lucifer’s level. The tip of his pointy nose practically grazes the skin of the little king’s face. Alastor’s eyelids are fluttery and low-lidded, grazing the tops of his cheeks every time he blinks, doe-like. He’s paying particular attention to Lucifer’s mouth. Lucifer gulps, staring at the sharp, razor-like teeth poised directly in his line of sight. Alastor speaks, barely above a whisper, voice muffled behind the crackling of a speaker.
“I vowed no harm would come to anyone under her good name. That very much includes the princess herself. I would be rather distraught to see her felled.”
Lucifer matches him, beat for beat. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“She has nothing that I want.”
That frankness actually takes Lucifer by surprise. He doesn’t let his unguarded expression linger.
“What do you want?”
Alastor giggles. He giggles. “Come now. What does anyone down here want?”
“That’s not an answer.”
With a menacing grin and turned-down eyes, Alastor admits, “That’s the only answer you’re going to get, your highness.”
Alastor uses his staff to poke Lucifer’s face where his nose should be, and the king swats it away like a bothersome fly. Alastor chuckles low through his microphone, the sound resembling a series of scratches or clicks from a radio dial.
“What about you, sire?” Alastor asks nonchalantly, a cup of tea and a steaming kettle suddenly spawning on the counter in front of them. If Lucifer has to give him credit for one thing, the Radio Demon has never been much of a drinker, other than his otherworldly obsession with tea. Alastor takes a sip from his tiny teacup, looking at Lucifer snidely. “What delicious deliberations have our highness so wholly engrossed at this hour?”
Alastor summons another teacup onto the counter, probably from whichever pocket dimension he hides everything else. Lucifer sighs, looking over at him in annoyance. He drinks the tea anyway, downing the entire cup in one swig. It tastes something like jasmine.
“It’s nothing that concerns you.”
“If I may be so bold–”
Lucifer interrupts. “When haven’t you been–?!”
Alastor grimaces, his teeth clicking together audibly, and continues. “–everything under this roof concerns me. I am the host of the hotel!”
“I’m not one of your guests! I am literally funding this place!”
Alastor’s grin widens, almost uncharacteristically so. Pained, as if being stretched beyond its natural margins uncomfortably.
As if he’d rather not be reminded of who’s really in charge around here. He straightens himself and fiddles with his lapel.
“Be that as it may,” Alastor acquiesces, taking another exaggerated sip of his tea. “Sulking away out here in the lobby won’t do you any good. And it’s not good for the collective morale.”
Lucifer makes a psshh noise under his breath. “As if you want any of these Sinners to actually succeed.”
“Hmmm. Well, it’s certainly less fun if they don’t try.”
“Fuck you!”
“That can be arranged.”
Lucifer’s head snaps around to meet the deer in horror, like the trigger of the gun that had set in motion the Radio Demon’s sojourn to Hell in the first place. Alastor is innocently unperturbed, wiping tea from his mouth coquettishly with the corner of his handkerchief, then placing the teacup back down on the counter delicately. He turns suddenly toward the other man, a delightful crimson sheen already brightening behind the dials forming in his eyes, placing the diminutive king squarely in his visual line of fire.
Which one of them is the weapon again?
“W-what?” Lucifer yelps, already backpedaling as the Radio Demon starts to lean in closer. The smell of ash, earth, and petrichor invade his overwhelmed nostrils. He almost falls backwards out of his chair with how quickly the taller man moves toward him. Alastor stands up from his stool, getting much, much too close to Lucifer’s liking. One hand snakes around to the small of the fallen angel’s back, preventing him from falling again.
“I don’t normally do this,” Alastor says, as if that should be obvious. As if his reputation precedes him, which it very much doesn’t, with this particular denizen of Hell. Lucifer really has been gone too long. “And when I do, I much prefer to pay reverence to those of fairer means.”
He leans in closer, if that’s even possible, pulling in Lucifer by the collar of his shirt, and brushing the side of his cheek delicately with one claw. As if he touches him any harder, he’ll break the skin there, like a knife threatening to put a nick in precious porcelain. Neither of them wants that.
Yet.
“But how much fairer does it get than the Lucifer Morningstar? Tempter? Anointed? The Light Bearer himself?”
“Al,” Lucifer starts, swallowing heavily, pupils beginning to narrow into vertical slits, like a snake. “What in all the Seven Rings do you think you are–?”
“You miss your wife, don’t you?” Alastor interrupts, as if that’s not the most obvious question he could possibly ask. “That charming demon belle? Your illustrious partner in crime, single-handedly inspiring her people with that dulcet voice of hers? Tell me, Lucifer, where has she gone?”
His pupils return to their normal shape, and then soften.
“I…”
Lucifer doesn’t even need to give an answer for Alastor to continue his questioning. He knows the other man doesn’t know. The Radio demon moves in even closer still, until their bodies barely touch, front to front, while continuously stroking the side of Lucifer’s face. Claws graze the blonde hair around his delicate neckline. Lucifer cannot find it in himself to stop him.
“How long has she been gone?”
“What does that have to do with—”
“It has everything to do with what’s going on here.”
“Seven years.”
“And you’re still waiting up for her?”
“Shut! Up!”
Without warning, Lucifer grabs the front of Alastor’s finely pressed jacket, practically lifting the taller man off the ground with the amount of strength behind his grip. Twin horns pierce through his forehead so quickly that it almost looks painful. His sclera turns red again, and fire threatens to burn the Radio Demon where he stands as it emanates furiously from Lucifer’s mouth.
Alastor’s expression never changes, and that tell-tale smile never leaves his face. But behind it, there is a hint of tenderness there. Or pity. Or some chimerical combination of the two that Lucifer cannot even begin to fathom. He pities him. As much as an abhorrent creature like Alastor possibly can.
Alastor puts his hands over Lucifer's where they hold him in place, gripping both of them tightly, very nearly drawing golden blood from under his claws. Lucifer winces, and Alastor’s smile practically spans from one furred ear to the other.
“It just won’t do, having our dear sovereign wallowing in his suffering for so long. I am amenable to your predicament. Perhaps I can help.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The growl hasn’t completely overtaken Lucifer’s voice, but it’s a close thing. He grips the demon’s jacket tighter, until the fabric starts to strain. He’s so tired of this fucker’s word games! “Stop it with your cryptic bullshit! Say what you mean!”
“Put me down, and I’ll enlighten you.”
Lucifer does, returning the Radio Demon the last few inches back to solid ground. He innocently begins checking his jacket and dress shirt for punctures from Lucifer’s claws. There are some, but nothing a few minutes at his sewing machine can’t remedy. Turning back to Lucifer, in the blink of an eye, Alastor snaps back in front of him. The movement is so sudden, Lucifer finds he’s backed up against the bar, leaning awkwardly into the counter, with no other path of escape except by going through.
“As I was saying,” Alastor begins, looming over the smallish king like a shadow. He lifts the other man’s delicate chin to look up at him, the sharp edge of his claw locking their gazes in place. Alastor’s expression is dark, and bordering on a type of hungry Lucifer hasn’t experienced in an incredibly long time. “I am amenable to your suffering, my king. Do you need some help in the act of forgetting?”
“Fuh–How dare you, mother fu–!”
Before Lucifer can finish reprimanding him, the Radio Demon captures Lucifer’s lips in a harsh, scorching kiss. Alastor’s presence is overbearing, putting pressure onto the shorter man’s spine until it arches almost painfully back against the counter. The harsh edge of the wood surface on his back causes Lucifer to whimper slightly. Even so, he doesn’t disconnect from that questing mouth, that’s currently keeping his forked tongue well occupied in his head.
The feeling is forgotten, thankfully, when the Radio Demon grasps him around the waist, lifting him from the floor as easily as an adult would pick up a child. Alastor places him more comfortably on the barstool beside him. Using the extra leverage of a clawed hand on the back of his neck, Alastor moves his lord’s head down to the counter, guiding him into an almost reclined position, with his other hand stroking through his disheveled hair.
Without thinking, and almost on impulse, Lucifer’s arms wrap tightly around Alastors’ neck. With a primal urge to draw him closer, he can’t figure out what to do with his legs, so those get wrapped around Alastor’s midsection, as a concession.
With a moan, Alastor’s tongue retreats from his mouth, this time to sooth some little claw marks he’d accidentally left on Lucifer’s neck. Now free to breathe properly, Lucifer gasps in short, rapid bursts, filling his deprived lungs with air. A groan escapes his throat that’s so deep, so long, and so emasculating, that he very nearly smacks Alastor in the side of the face, with his own hand that’d been moving closer to cover his mouth.
“None of that,” Alastor says sternly, pulling Lucifer’s hand away from his flushing face. To keep him from covering himself again, he smacks that hand back down onto the barstool beneath them, using his own to hold it there with force. “This arrangement means I get to hear every little sound you make. That’s one of the most important conditions, in fact.” Then, with a wicked, toothy grin, that seems to extend to the very end of the universe itself, “I won’t even ask if you’d like to make a deal.”
The Radio Demon looks at Lucifer. Really looks at him, through him, and into him. Like he’s prey, or a plaything meant solely for his enjoyment. Unfortunately, the king of Hell cannot deny what his body is communicating. He wants to repudiate this feeling, this pleasure that spikes when this man is pressed against him. Against his will, this deep, dark ache had begun to be soothed, dooming him even more at that first press of lips and fangs to his.
This realization is a horror; a nightmare, and an abomination against nature. He’s a monster, and the worst kind of traitor. He must be out of his Heaven-forsaken mind if he’s even humoring the possibility of taking this demon up on his offer.
And yet…
His wedding band is gone. It has been for a long time now. Ever since Charlie had allowed him back into her life, he had seen no use in propping up that facade anymore. She had never asked him about it, and he hadn’t felt inclined to tell her.
Lilith is gone. He has no idea when, or if, she will ever return. She’d left behind an empty, broken, desperate man, one haphazardly seeking any sense of connection, wherever he could realistically find it.
He’d found it in Charlie. He’d found it in the hotel. And strangely, grotesquely, even though they were often at odds with each other, he’d found it in Alastor, of all people.
Hellfire, how far the mighty have fallen.
“I’ll ask you again, for the third time,” Lucifer says, the claws of one hand burying deep into the wood of the barstool beneath him, the others of the opposite hand wrapping solidly into the Radio Demon’s hair. He pulls for good measure, and Alastor grimaces. “I need to know, Al. Before this goes any further. What. Do. You. Want?”
Alastor chuckles, much more softly than the little king might have expected, and claws at the hand in his hair. Bringing their faces closer together, Alastor boops him again, with his finger this time, right where Lucifer’s nose should be. Lucifer growls, and Alastor grins.
“I want to know what it’s like to bring this kind of power to heel,” Alastor admits. He looks Lucifer up and down to drive the point home, letting him know exactly to which kind of power he’s referring. “In return, I shall offer my company. And my help with your…predicament.”
“Predicament?” Lucifer asks, not missing a beat when Alastor offers him another placating smile.
“Your loneliness,” Alastor explains, bluntly. “And whatever other needs your heart desires.”
Lucifer, mortified once again, can’t help but look away at Alastor’s candidness. As long as he’s lived, and as good as he normally is at reading people, there is something so unknowable about this particular Sinner. Something so sinister, and impossible to truly piece together. No matter how hard he tries, or how closely he looks, those knowing eyes seem endless in their ability to obscure the truth.
The truth of his intentions, which Lucifer wonders if he’ll ever be able to comprehend. Or if he should even try.
As if to exemplify the point, Alastor leans back in again, kissing Lucifer squarely on the lips, almost chaste in its lack of ambition.
“Think of it as a favor between friends. And if it makes you feel any less culpable, my dear,” Alastor says, holding his arms up and away from Lucifer’s body in mock capitulation, “I don’t even have to use my hands.”