Chapter Text
Lucifer watched with a distant, unblinking gaze as Hellfire consumed what remained of the First Man. He and Adam may not have been friends since Eden, but that did not erase the fact that they had been once. That Adam and Lilith both taught him what being human meant, the potential of their brilliant spirits if only they were allowed to achieve more. That the Heavenly hosts were wrong to keep them simple.
Despite all that had happened because of Lucifer's decision, he refused to regret gifting humanity with free will and all that came with it. It was merely what so many had decided to do with it that he resented. Still, in honor of those initial lessons, he would not let Adam be left to rot or be consumed by cannibals.
"Dad!"
The ashes from the pyre stirred and drifted through the air, the fallen angel watching as they spread. The Pentagram over the Ring brought his contemplation to the cages he was in. Both this small one that he willingly chose and the larger one the Heavens placed upon him to keep him contained, to keep his dangerous ideas from further infecting more of the others.
"Dad?"
It had been far too long since he allowed himself the freedom of his true state of being. This minuscule form felt so very confining, chafing after ten thousand years. Were it not for the damage that would be unleashed on those he still cared for, he would truly wish for nothing more than to let this body fall apart and spread himself across the Rings.
"Dad?!"
It took him a moment to recognize the sound, to realize it was something meant to gain his attention...
Charlie...
He willed the body to smile, to turn its head and look at the only other being aside from Lilith that made this shackled existence worthwhile. He compressed his words into speech that could be formed by the limited vocal cords and small mouth, "Hey, Charlie! Sorry, I was lost in thought. What's got you so upset?"
He focused on her voice, this lovely little daughter that contained an essence of himself. Let her words guide him back down to where he was needed to be, "It's Alastor, Dad! He was supposed to keep Adam busy, hold him off so we could beat the others and group up to take our stand together! Something must have happened! I can't find him anywhere a-and after Sir P-Pentious? Dazzle?! I just can't lose anyone else!"
Charlie's genuine distress was the final push he needed to settle back in and he pulled her close, letting this body's...no, his wings wrap around her, "Hey, don't worry, duckling. I'll find him and make sure he gets back to you, ok?"
She looked at him with so much hope, this precious being that was so like him and yet so very different in the best ways, "You will?! Really?! I know you didn't like him but-"
He shook his head, "There are very few things I wouldn't do for you, Char. I'll take care of this, I promise." It was the least he could do for all the time he had missed of her life and the growing likelihood that he would do it again.
Unaware of his guilty thoughts, his little daughter hugged him close, spilling words of gratitude at a speed it was hard for his still-sluggish mind to comprehend before she released him and ran off to tell the others. Waiting until she was out of sight, Lucifer shook out his wings and flexed his fingers. No matter how hard it was, he should not have allowed himself to detach, to drift like that. There was far too much he was needed for here right now. It would be a long time before Charlie would be ready to know, to truly comprehend what her father was.
Resolute, Lucifer closed his eyes, calling upon the powers granted to the title of King of Hell. The souls of the Pride Ring lit up like beacons in his mind's eye, each unique in their own small ways. Luckily for Charlie's sake, he already knew the shape of the one he sought, making it far easier to single out.
Ah, there it was. Flickering, fading, being eaten away by the last remaining shreds of Adam's holy energies. For a moment, Lucifer considered letting that desperate, grasping, greedy spirit be consumed, removing his stain from his daughter's life...
But no, Charlie said she couldn't lose anyone else...
So Lucifer would ensure she didn't.
***
Alastor fought the urge to groan as he woke up, groggy and disoriented. The fact that he was waking up in what felt like a bed, let alone at all, was a surprise. Whether it was a pleasant one or not remained to be seen.
He carefully breathed, taking inventory of his body. The pain he expected from the gash in his torso never came. The other, smaller cuts and bruises could not be felt either. So, he must have been healed. He doubted he had been out long enough for everything to heal naturally.
The demon then reached for his powers, brow furrowing when he found himself unable to grasp them. It was as though there was a clear wall between his will and the abilities he relied upon. That was...concerning. It would also explain the lack of radio frequencies around him...
Little else could be gathered without fully revealing he was conscious, so he finally opened his eyes to find an unfamiliar ceiling far above him, much higher than anything in the hotel. Shifting to get a hand under himself to sit up, he froze when someone spoke nearby.
"§†å¥ Ððwñ §ïññêr. Wê ñêêÐ †ð †ålk."
Alastor did not like the way that voice automatically made his gut clench and his ears flatten, that his body returned to a fully reclined state without hesitation. Looking over, he saw...what, at first, seemed to be Charlie's father. However, there was something very wrong with the form by the bed. Crouched atop the seat of a chair, Lucifer was far too still for what he had seen in previous meetings with the King of Hell. He was balanced on the balls of his feet, no fidgeting or shifting, not even from the wings on his back. Alastor had once had an idle thought that the tiny angelic figure looked doll-like but this emptiness made him wonder if that body really was just a puppet.
Over all else, it was the blankness of his eyes that made the deer demon's breath catch, triggering an instinct to make himself smaller, less of a threat. The soft yellow or even fiery red would have been far preferable to the vast darkness currently aimed at him, so empty that he felt like it was going to swallow him up if he looked at them for too long. Despite this, he could not make himself turn his gaze elsewhere. The Radio Demon was certain he had never felt such deep-seated terror as he did right then.
Finally, after a moment that felt like an eternity, there was a blink, a shift in the pressure in the room, and life came back into the King's body. Those terrible voids filled back up with a warm golden glow, the six wings resettling into a more natural position.
The change released him from his existential terror and Alastor tried his best to get his racing heart to stop trying to escape his chest, panting as though he had just been chased for miles. What was that?!
What was Lucifer?!
One thing he knew was that he had gotten himself stuck in a situation far, far worse than he had ever imagined possible. Then, the King of Hell spoke again, driving the icy dread even deeper into the Radio Demon's heart, "I can sense you made a deal with Charlie. I have no qualms about destroying every essence of your being, despite my daughter's care for you, but she has decreed that you are to remain. So, lê†'§ †ålk, little sinner."