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Alastor is going to die.
The realization isn't sudden. It's a gradual thing, a rising tide of panic that crawls so slowly up his spine that he has ample time to appreciate each stage of it before it's reached the point of choking him.
He's on his back - worst position, too vulnerable, too visible, too much time to marinate in it - screaming pain running up his arms from where the twin knives grind against his wrists, driven deep into the wooden floor beneath him. If he had just a little more time, a little more freedom to build up the momentum needed, the knives pinning him down would be trivial things. But he has no time and he has no freedom, the boot heel grinding into his shoulder as the grinning face poised above shifts just enough to be seen around the silver spear raised in their hands.
He doesn't even know them. It's a despicable little thought, to be killed by nobody, someone without a name or any tangible worth. They've gained enough of something to have their own little gang - the twenty strong group ringed around them in the massive room with gleeful expressions - but they aren't even a blip on the radar for someone at his level, and it's such a wretched, disgusting idea that someone that doesn't even matter is going to get to cut down the Radio Demon. That his ultimate demise is going to be at the hands of nothing.
But that thought only exists at the very edges of his consciousness, pressed out and out and out by the overwhelming, screaming, screeching understanding that he is going to die.
If he hadn't been distracted. If they hadn't gotten that first lucky shot. If he still had his staff in all its vicious, hungry power.
If he wasn't bound, as always, with all of those nauseating, choking rules.
The silver of the spear has an awful shine to it, the unique vibrant aura of an angelic weapon glinting in the dim candlelight of the room. His eyes are caught on it even as his brain is screaming to look around, to find something - anything - that might help him, might change the tides of this moment. His face feels stretched in a way he's never felt before, like it's trying to split along his wide eyes and the grit of his smile, and he's not even sure if air is making it into his lungs anymore, stinging against white scleras and pink gums.
He's going to die.
On the floor. Beneath a cultist's boot. Pinned like an animal sacrifice and fear etched vile and bright into every line of his face.
He is going to die.
And it's when that realization has become his new reality that Lucifer appears.
Alastor doesn't see him at first. His eyes are still stuck on the spear, anchored to it by some primal horror, and he isn't really aware of the devil until the bolt of gold embeds itself in his killer's neck with a sucking wet sound. Blood wells up from the wound, looking strangely sluggish in comparison to the sudden trauma, and it takes several beats for the body above him to seem to realize its demise. The weight of the boot shifts slowly, uncertainly, before it slips from its place, trying to catch the body's weight before the strength goes out of it completely. Knees buckle and the corpse falls, a foot twisting out from beneath it to crush up limply against Alastor's hip.
The clatter of the spear is harsh in his ears, his eyes still trying to track the shine of silver, before finally, finally, his vision has expanded enough to notice the white figure in the middle of the room.
Lucifer isn't looking at him. He's looking around the room, slow, methodical, and Alastor finds his eyes darting out to follow his, follow the line of cultists impaled along the walls.
The golden lance springs from the same place on each of their necks, bright and shining around the dull blood dripping from the bodies. It looks almost like some kind of macabre art installation, a precise ring of limp corpses held up by the shining heavenly gold of the Devil's weaponry, looking for all the world like each of them had been put there with purpose.
Time is stretched and raw and he has no way of knowing how long it is before Lucifer looks at him. Moments, he thinks. Eons. The devil's eyes shift down to him, and the strained fibers of his muscles tense again, strung taut between aching, grinding joints. The animal fear is rising like gorge in his throat again, something primal lighting under the flat, unfamiliar cut of Lucifer's expression, and it takes him a moment to process the meaning of the shapes the devil's mouth makes.
"Were there more?"
His voice has been trimmed into something new, something recognizable yet unfamiliar, and some part of Alastor wants to shred through it, untangle the individual strands until it makes sense.
"No," he answers, his voice so perfectly, cleanly his, and the relief in that is indescribable. Lucifer is still watching him, considering him for a moment, and then the room for a moment more, before he raises his hand, long black fingers outstretched.
The golden blades unstick themselves from their victims with a synchronized wet snick, flying through the air in unity to snap into Lucifer's raised hand. Blood flecks cooly down his white sleeve, and Alastor stares at it, the contrast holding his eyes captive the same way the spear had, even as he feels the knives tug free from his spread wrists.
He sits up slowly, and Lucifer's attention snaps back to him for one brief moment, taking in the image of the Radio Demon's stiff posture, bleeding wrists, living heartbeat jumping in his throat.
And then the devil is gone, and Alastor finds the tethers of his sanity once more.
They are not friends. Alastor's not sure how they could ever be. The neurotic, pompous, useless little imp, too selfish and simple to ever be of any real value. He flits around the hotel like a widow's ghost, haunting the rooms with his awkward ineptitude and choking misery, giving new definitions to the unpleasantries of Hell. His very existence scrapes at the Radio Demon, and Alastor can find no possible reason to ever tolerate his presence for its own merits.
He does it occasionally for Charlie. Most of the time her presence alone isn't enough to keep them civil - the devil is a limp little parasite of a creature, latched onto his daughter in some last desperate attempt to salvage what little of his life still matters, and Alastor finds his existence intolerable in all but the rarest of occasions. Their usual interactions are full of teeth, bitter and noxious, and there's very little encouragement needed for the Radio Demon to remind Lucifer just how much he hates him. How little he matters. How better everyone's lives would be without him.
But there are times, uncommon as they are, when the sharp teeth and vicious tongue seem like too much effort even for Alastor. When Charlie's pained expressions and desperate interventions aren't worth the small flecks of satisfaction he gains from tearing the devil down and the pair find some level of civility, often in the form of simply ignoring the other's presence.
He thinks Lucifer may have joked with him once.
Still. They are not friends. They have never been friends, and it is a certainty then that Lucifer Morningstar saved his life for something beyond altruism or general affinity.
He waits for the hammer to fall. He expects it to be that first day, after he's finished pulling needle and thread through his bleeding wrists, and the Radio Demon once again takes his place within the hotel. He turns down a hall, hands clasped determinedly around his forearms behind him, ignoring the way each step forces his arms to flex in a way that screams against his stitches, and finds himself mere feet from the devil, walking the other way.
He expects to see him grin. See him gloat. The simplest explanation for the devil's actions, after all, is a power move - an inelegant reminder that for all his squawking and flailing and ineptitude, Lucifer is the King of Hell, the all powerful of this realm, and there is nothing Alastor can do to hold a candle to him.
He's already braced, an easy retort on his tongue, prepared to cut away as much of this new advantage from the devil as he can.
It is . . . confusing, then, when Lucifer gives him only a brief glance as he walks by, the tiniest flicker of recognition reflected in his eyes.
He nods to him. As if this is normal. As if they always pass each other this way.
And Alastor is too confused - too suspicious - to know whether that is true.
They are not friends. Friends seek each other out, desire each other's company, and he and the devil have no interest in either. Each second spent in the same room as the petty little king scrapes against his skin, and he returns it in kind, scratching against every soft bit he can find, clawing away at the scraps of what once might have been Lucifer's patience, until they are like open wounds forced into contact, angry and bloody and raw.
They do not seek each other out. At times, they are in the same room, by necessity or happenstance or chance. The hotel is large, but the people are small, and their forced proximity is not the same as the actions of those guests free to choose their company. If Alastor was given that same choice, he would choose to never see these insipid people ever again.
Perhaps he would visit Charlie. But that would not require Lucifer, and he would not choose for him to be there.
So they are not friends.
He thinks for some time that perhaps it was for Charlie. When days go by, an entire week, and then another, without the devil taking the opportunity to gloat. He thinks perhaps he had it wrong. That perhaps it wasn't a power move after all. That Lucifer's actions had been driven by a pitiful attempt to act as some sort of father figure to her at last, protect her from the grief of losing someone.
He might not tell her, then. He might not say anything to clue her in that she had almost lost her steadfast hotelier, open her up to the fear and dread that a reminder of Alastor's mortality might hold.
It doesn't quite fit. It doesn't explain why Lucifer doesn't gloat in private, in those rare moments where they come upon each other without an audience. There would be no damage there that Alastor can think of, nothing that should give the devil pause. And yet, still, he doesn't gloat.
Alastor can find no explanation for this. But it fits better than anything else, so he settles for it for now.
Lucifer does not have any friends. It's a fact that Alastor was sure of quite early on, and it has only been strengthened as he sees him more. He speaks of friends - "old friends" as he says - but Alastor has seen him with one such "friend", and it is clear that that's not what he is. A parasite perhaps. A seedy little insect who tolerates Lucifer's bumbling, terrible attempts at small talk strictly to keep a favorable place beside him.
It is, of course, entirely predictable that Alastor finds his "friends" just as detestable as he finds the devil himself.
He thinks, perhaps, that Lucifer knows what they are. He speaks to them, laughs with them, but his conversation is shallow, disconnected. There is no effort to the exact words he chooses, empty pleasantries and plasticky veneers of familiarity, a personality of drywall and wallpaper, and Alastor finds himself thankful that he does not fall into the label of "friend".
His fights with the devil are, if nothing else, at least still entertaining.
It has been two months since Lucifer saved his life, and Alastor has moved on from the Charlie theory. He cannot make it fit, cannot see it in the shape of the way Lucifer grins when he gets a good shot in, cannot find it in the way his eyes light up when they fight.
He should use it against him. He should. It is obvious the devil finds glee in riling him, in securing a petty victory against the Radio Demon in some way or another. It should be a delightful tool in the devil's arsenal, and Alastor does not understand why he never bothers.
He tries to goad him once. Standing in one of the massive sitting rooms overlooking the city through the gaudy bay window, he cocks his head to the side, grinning sharply as he leans over the diminutive monarch.
"And what use could I ever have for you?" he asks him.
It is as perfect an opening as he could give him, practically obscene in its flagrant opportunity. And he does not understand as those yellow eyes narrow, vivid and liquid.
"Admit it," Lucifer grins, his face far too bright. "It was boring before I got here."
It was not. But Alastor opts for a new direction rather than correcting him.
They are not friends. Alastor knows this. Friends are good to each other. Kind. Friends do not enjoy cutting each other down, or playing games meant to hurt. They help each other. They amuse each other. They treat each other as something important enough to keep.
"Friends" does not fit. It doesn't fit the thrill of their fights or the flash of their teeth.
It doesn't fit the shape of Lucifer's mouth when he uses his name.
They are not friends. Alastor believes this.
But he is no longer sure he knows the word.
Alastor considers if perhaps Lucifer had done it to remind all of Hell of his power. If he had done it simply because it was too blatant for him to let happen under his nose without correction.
He knows that doesn't fit either. But he lets it exist in his mind for a bit anyway.
Lucifer enjoys the fighting. It becomes clearer every day, when Alastor steps back to watch. He no longer needs an excuse to get started, occasionally even beating Alastor to a cutting remark, and there is an eagerness to his retorts, an energy that lights up inside him when they get started.
Somewhere along the way, it became a game. One that Lucifer enjoyed playing, win or lose. There's a certain expression he wears when they play, bright and eager and alive, something that redraws the lines of his face, that moves all his words as if they were made with different teeth.
It is a familiar expression. So much so that looking at his face without it feels strange and untethered, and Alastor is unsettled by the fact that he does not know when it appeared. Only that it is the "right" face for Lucifer to wear, and even his dreams give it to him without fail.
He wonders if he ever haunts the twisted halls of Lucifer's dreams.
He wonders what face he wears when he does.
There is another explanation for why he was saved. One that is wrong, because it must be wrong. Because there is no reason for it to be true, no logic in that line of thought, nothing Alastor gave him so early on to lead him down that path.
But Lucifer, it seems, led himself down that path, and it is wrong, but it is the only right answer for any of this.
Alastor lets it fester in his chest, unsure of where to put it.
Lucifer is excited. He is talking too fast, cutting off words in his eagerness to spout more, and Alastor watches the way his hands move, fingers dancing over air and his clothes and each other.
He is talking about nothing. Nothing important. Nothing that matters. Alastor by all rights should be bored.
But he watches Lucifer's hands and his fingers and the crinkle around his eyes. And he isn't bored at all.
He wonders if Lucifer even knows. If he's aware of his behavior, his patterns, the shape of his eyes and his mouth and his tattered, bleeding heart when he says "Alastor" like something that matters.
It seems ridiculous that he couldn't know. But Lucifer Morningstar is a ridiculous little creature, and Alastor considers if it is better to tell him, or to let him come to the realization all on his own.
It is funny, at least, to think that Lucifer might have confessed before he even knew. That he might have confessed with golden spears and flat eyes and were there more? before he ever thought the words himself.
It is funny. But it fits him. And Alastor can feel the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he follows the devil down the hall without bothering to ask where they're going.
"I never thanked you, by the way."
"For what?" Lucifer asks. He is distracted, patting over his jacket, then down over his pants, looking for something he's lost.
Alastor watches him for a moment, amused and content, before he cocks his head, tracking the silent language of Lucifer's manageri of expressions.
"For saving me."
The words seem to take a moment to catch up to him, his hands slowing, and then coming to a stop, resting over his sternum and side.
"Oh," he says, quiet and light.
It seems to take him several moments to find more than that, his throat bobbing as he swallows, and then clears it softly.
"Well," he says, glancing down, and then away, before he turns his attention back to his lost item, now as an escape from Alastor's steady gaze. "It wasn't- really . . . it was- where is that-"
He is patting himself down with more fervor now, and Alastor can feel the shape of his own eyes and his own mouth and his own fond amusement as he reaches forward to pluck the pen from behind Lucifer's ear.
He holds it out between them, just within Lucifer's sight, and watches as little red pinpricks dart to it, latching on unerringly, only to realize it has forced him to look up at Alastor as well.
Alastor holds him there for a moment, forcing him still, forcing him to find the shape of his eyes and his mouth and everything else.
"Thank you," he says, simply and un-simply together, watching as it passes over Lucifer like dawn over the treetops, illuminating something bright and warm and living.
He does not have to hear him to know what he is going to say.
He has long since memorized what his name looks like on Lucifer Morningstar's mouth.