Just One Night (To Meet You Underneath the Moonlight)

by reasontobe

Summary:

Lucifer is forced to grant the hotel staff access to the mortal realm for one night.

Alastor, newly reverted to his human form and loosed upon a human city, does not stick to the plan.

Lucifer awoke to the sound of his name in his ears.

He groaned, rolling to the side and blinking hard to dispel the lingering illusion of sunlit towers. How was it that after all these millenia, he still dreamt of Heaven? He didn’t miss it. Or, at the very least, he had no wish to return now that his daughter had given even the barest hint that she wanted him around. How could he still recall the particular hue of its light, the warm brush of its wind on his face?

Moreso, why did he still dread waking from these dreams to the inevitable smudge of hellish colors?

The room was dark, red-hued light creeping from the wide windows over his bed. It was still very early in the night, but the world around him was calm. Quiet. Had he imagined someone invoking his name?

“Lucifer!”

“DAD!”

The shouts barrelled through several floors at once, snapping Lucifer upright. Charlie and her girlfriend—whose name he’d forgotten again—they were down in the lobby. They needed him!

Lucifer scrambled from the sheets. He had a moment of panic in which he considered whether appearing in duck-printed pyjamas would provide the level of authority the situation commanded before the quiet hum of radio static began bouncing up through the hotel and his lips instinctively drew into a snarl.

A half-second later, the shadows in the corner to his left opened their eyes.

“Rise and shine, your Highness.” Alastor crooned.

“Absolutely not,” Lucifer seethed. “Get out.”

Alastor clicked his tongue. “Such poor manners. I should really stop expecting more from you.”

Lucifer clothed himself with a snap and turned on his heel. In the midst of hunting for his hat, he threw open his door with a wayward hand and pointed resolutely at the sign. “You aren’t allowed in this room. Leave.”

“Ah, but I’ve been sent by dear Charlie to retrieve you,” Alastor sighed. “Wouldn’t want to disobey orders for something as simple as your comfort now, would we?”

Lucifer swallowed the retort that nearly leapt out. “Is she okay?”

“Consider who we’re speaking of! Is she ever?”

Lucifer grit his teeth. “Is she okay?”

“Nothing to get your pompous attire in a twist over,” Alastor hummed after a pause. “Just a small situation with one of your daughter's little friends.”

“Situation?”

The shadows shifted and a clawed hand peeled from the mass, stretching across the wall to pluck Lucifer’s hat from the dresser it rested atop.

“Looking for this?”

“Give me that.”

The hat danced out of reach. Lucifer felt the telltale burn of his eyes flashing red.

“Give me that, now.” he snarled, stalking forward. “Charlie needs me.”

“Does she?” The hat began to drift towards Alastor’s own head, still half-hidden by shadow.

“Don’t you dare.”

“If I recall, it was only thanks to her wish to speak to Heaven that she remembered you existed, hm? Perhaps your ability to… oh, pull a few strings is the extent of your worth to her.”

Before the hat had settled over Alastor’s head, Lucifer’s wings burst from his back and he shot up to snatch it from the air. The shadows dispersed, and Alastor grinned up at him, static buzzing as his eyes flicked from wing to wing.

“You’ll find that height games don’t really work on angels, Bambi.” Lucifer dropped slightly to hover directly in front of Alastor, a satisfied grin splitting his own face. He couldn’t resist to pat the top of that soft head once, relishing the immediate flinch, the ears flattening to his skull. “You should do your research.”

In a whirl of fire, Lucifer vanished.

He emerged into chaos.

It seemed the entirety of the hotel staff was present in the lobby. Smashed bottles littered the floor near the bar, and the scary little maid-demon was scuttling about in a frenzy. Charlie was on the couch, head in her hands, her girlfriend—Vaggi, Lucifer finally recalled—at her side.

“He’s gone!” Charlie wailed.

Lucifer knelt before her. “Honey, what’s—who’s gone?”

“He’s just-” Charlie heaved a breath, pointing to the ceiling. “Out there somewhere, and we—I failed him-”.

“Slow down, honey,” Lucifer’s heart wrenched as she dissolved into sobs. “Who’s gone?”

She merely sobbed harder.

Alastor, who had materialized behind the couch, rolled his eyes in disapproval. “All of this fanfare has come about because of Angel Dust,” he supplied.

Lucifer paused, snorted. “The drug?”

Charlie’s wild eyes flew to him. “Dad—what?!”

Another bottle smashed from the direction of the bar.

“Our guest,” snapped Vaggi. “The uh, spindly one?”

Lucifer’s gaze darted to Alastor.

“The other spindly one?”

“Oh!” Lucifer laughed, still entirely in the dark. “Right! That guy. So uh… he left? Is that it?”

“He already left a while ago to work for Valentino,” Vaggi said. “But we just found out… well…”

There was an earsplitting bang, and Lucifer barely had a moment to throw his wings around his daughter before it registered that a bomb had just gone off in the kitchen.

“CHERRI!” Vaggi screeched, jumping from the couch as the maid looked from the state of the bar to the blown-out kitchen door and burst into tears.

The next hour that passed was enough to leave Lucifer with a pounding headache—or perhaps the bombs had done the lion’s share of that. Both the bartender and the vandal named Cherri were in a right state, and it seemed their collective first instinct was to smash up the property.

It was nothing Lucifer couldn’t fix. His concern was his daughter.

From what he’d managed to gather so far, Angel had left the hotel to work for one of the nastier Vees several months ago, and it had been an additional month since Charlie had been able to get ahold of him. She had merely assumed he’d been ignoring her until tonight, when Valentino himself had paid them a visit. He’d demanded that they return Angel to him—and upon their confusion, informed them that Angel had disappeared from Hell entirely.

He’d gone to the human realm.

“What?” Lucifer chuckled at that, some of his tension dissipating. “No, no, no. Nope. That’s not possible.”

“He said there was a book,” Charlie sniffed. “The Grimoire. Some business in Imp City has been using it to pass between realms. I don’t know how Angel got involved, but he used it to get to Earth. And there’s-” a tear leaked from behind her hands, “There’s no way for him to get back.”

“The Grimoire?” Lucifer frowned. “That’s… no, that’s not—that’s a Goetian tool. They use it for-” he waved his hand. “Research. Astronomy. It can’t be used by a business.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Cherri’s heavy accent startled him as she smacked the top of the bar. “Angie’s gone. He’s been missing for a month.”

Lucifer’s brow creased deeply. If it was true, the situation was far worse than that of a missing guest. A sinner, loose on Earth… it was a breach of every law, every command of nature. Had this happened before? How much had transpired since he’d loosened his watch on the dealings of Hell?

“Right,” he said slowly. He rocked back on his heels. “This Valentino guy… you think he was telling the truth?”

Unintentionally, he met the crimson stare of the Radio Demon. Of those in the room, he currently seemed the least unstable. At his look, Alastor flicked an ear and shrugged primly. So much for that.

“I don’t know,” said Charlie. “But can you… can you look for him? Find him, somehow?”

Lucifer sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure, honey. He may have changed forms. Y’know, disguised himself. I can hop over there before morning to check it out, but you’d need to…”

Lucifer trailed off, anxiety pooling in his stomach. Heaven could never find out about this. Yet to involve his daughter—and other sinners—in the cleanup could make things much worse.

What would he have done back then? Back when decisions were simple, when he had yet to make all of the wrong ones that had damned him to this life?

He’d have done something smarter than this, he was sure. Though, he supposed it was not fair to adhere to his long past self. He hadn’t had Charlie then. He hadn’t known a carnal urge to prove himself to her that diminished all else into distant noise.

“You’d need to help me,” he said finally. “You guys know this kid much better than I do. Earth is-” he laughed nervously. “Earth is not a small place. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Manhattan,” came a deep grumble from the bar. “New York.”

“Exactly my point,” Lucifer threw up a hand. “What even—what even is that?”

“A city,” Alastor warbled, head tilting. “Really, your Highness, do you educate yourself so poorly on the realm your own people hail from?”

“Did anyone ask the bellhop?”

Alastor’s smile sharpened. “Host. And I’d think you would place a little more value on my input, considering I’m included in this little excursion. I’ve much to offer by way of human experience, after all.”

Lucifer paused. Studied the unsettling glee in Alastor’s grin. “On second thought,” he said. “For anyone who’s coming, you’ll have to make a deal with me.”

Static flared in annoyance, and Lucifer smirked.

“I will allow you to visit the human realm with me for one night,” He drew himself up, eyeing each sinner in the room. “In return, you will harm no one. You will not bring any objects or weapons from this realm. You will, uh… you’ll do your best to blend in with any humans you see. No removing disguises around them. And… you will immediately return to the portal once the target has been retrieved. Or, if he hasn’t been found,” he amended, “You’ll return at dawn. Before all the humans wake up.”

Everyone nodded save for the bartender, who was hardly looking, and the maid, who had fixated on the mess.

“No stealing,” he added, his eyes narrowing, returning to Alastor. “No extensive communication with humans. No destruction. No emotional harm. No-”

“You’ve made yourself clear,” Alastor growled.

One by one, the terms were repeated and hands were shaken. Though he certainly trusted Charlie, she’d solemnly extended her hand along with the others and he’d made the deal with her anyway.

It was a bit dizzying, making so many deals. By the time he reached Alastor his arm was aching from the shock, but he made extra care to tighten his grip on the demon’s slender hand.

Alastor had a surprisingly warm palm for the amount of chilling energy that coursed through it. When they shook, the jolt to Lucifer’s senses was worse than he’d ever felt it. Green shapes jumped before his eyes, and he swallowed thickly as he let go.

He made a show of wiping the hand against his trousers, chin raised to meet Alastor’s stare.

“Everyone take some time to prepare,” he said finally. “We leave in one hour.”

‘Prepare’, as it turned out, sounded a much better endeavor in his mind than it was in execution. His brain was so hopelessly scattered that by the time he’d committed to return to the lobby, Lucifer had only found time to pace, write two letters, and throw most of his belongings against the walls.

This was a disaster. Though it was the most pressingly important task, finding Charlie’s friend was just the beginning of the work he’d have to do to unravel this mess. He needed to seek out Vox or Valentino or whichever of that trio of idiots had visited the hotel to assess the truth to these claims. He needed to track down the source of the incident, this business. He needed to meet with the Sins. He needed to kick down the door of whomever within the Ars Goetia had so recklessly abused their ownership of the Grimoire and possibly singe a few hundred feathers in his rage.

These things were dangerous. Who knew what kind of destruction the wrong demon could bring to their overworld? If Hell proved to be a threat, he was sure the powers of Heaven were not above reinstating the exterminations. His daughter’s work would have all been for nothing.

He couldn't allow that to happen. To keep the angels from getting involved, everything would have to be done in secret. Under the table. In other words, he’d have to do it all himself.

Muttering to himself, Lucifer retrieved an Earth-model from the recesses of one of his overflowing closets and hurried back to the lobby.

A few people jumped at his arrival. There was a nervous energy in the room, and Charlie had her girlfriend’s hand in a vice grip. They all appeared to be ready, apart from the bartender who was in the same slumped position he’d been left in.

“Okay,” Lucifer announced before the group, dropping the Earth-model onto the coffee table. It took up quite a lot of space, and the surface flickered with grey and white weather patterns. The maid stared at it, transfixed. “Where are we going?”

“Dunno. Somewhere up here,” Cherri flicked the right side of a landmass in the Northern hemisphere.

“Erm,” Lucifer squinted. “Okay.”

“Ah ah!” Alastor crouched before the table. “Precision is important, my dear.”

After a moment of thought, Alastor laid a single, long finger against the model. The tip of his claw ended at a much more defined region, and Lucifer huffed in relief.

As he mentally marked the region down, his attention was momentarily snagged by a twitch in Alastor’s finger. His eyes followed the movement.

All of Alastor’s fingers were twitching, actually. When they stood, Lucifer glanced at the demon’s face. His smile seemed a bit strained.

“I think it will be best if we split up,” Charlie said as Lucifer began to draw the portal. “Cover more ground, you know. Dad, do you think we’ll be able to… I don’t know, sense where Angel is?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, distracted. “Just, uh… just think of it like someone covered the entire plane of Earth in a whole bunch of salt and pepper. The pepper parts are the sins. Tiny ones, usually. Lust, envy, yaknow. As nonhumans, you’ll be able to feel them if you’re in the general area.”

With a flourish of his wrist, Lucifer finished the portal, turning sharply to face everyone.

“But sometimes you’ll get a piece of pepper so big it’s more of an ink blot,” he poked the air in distaste. “That will tell you where the real sinners are. Especially when they’ve already been kicking it down here with us.”

“Great,” Charlie smiled. “Thank you, Dad.”

“Disguises!” Lucifer clapped, and Alastor twitched again from the corner of his eye. “For the sinners, I’ll be able to briefly revert you back to your last human form before your death.”

“So I’ll have all my tattoos?” Cherri grinned.

“So I’ll be wasted?” Husk groaned.

“My, and what a difference that will make!” said Alastor before vanishing to avoid a flying bottle.

“You guys-” Lucifer eyed Charlie and Vaggie, clicking his tongue. “You’ll just get a human form that kinda looks like you. Same for myself, of course. The spell will take effect as soon as we’re through.”

Some type of insect was quietly chirping from beyond the open portal. Lucifer fought back a grimace, turning to face it.

He was not looking forward to this.

The truth was, he preferred to avoid thinking about Earth at all. He’d adored it, once. Now it was nothing but a reminder of his failure. A world where the dull spark of potential fizzled out, where the routine deeds of Hell happened to people who were truly innocent. Those who had never sinned. His own misguided dreams had done that.

After he’d finished his spellwork, on Charlie’s count, her friends stepped through the portal. Following behind them, Lucifer felt between the threads of arcane that surrounded him, gripped them with his mind, and severed them all at once as he hopped through. The portal closed.

His boots met the springy texture of grass. They’d emerged into some sort of green area. An empty path wound ahead of them, bracketed by metal trash cans. Further ahead, behind the tops of trees, the lights of buildings rose to a black sky.

Wow.

“Niffty!” Charlie shouted. Lucifer glanced in the direction she was calling just in time to see a short, dark-haired girl racing away between the trees, squealing something about trash.

“Is she…” Lucifer chewed on his lip. “Will she be fine?”

“Probably?” Charlie offered.

This was a magnificent mistake.

There was a sudden pull behind Lucifer’s left shoulder, as if a person-sized vacuum had materialized and dematerialized, taking a pocket of air with it. When he turned, a residual plume of shadow fell to the ground and wisped away.

“Hey!” Lucifer felt a burst of flame fight to escape his throat, followed swiftly by panic. Alastor had vanished.

Without thinking, Lucifer was absorbed into his own column of flame. He expanded, feeling into the space around him. Bodies and words and thoughts, saints and sinners, salt and pepper—and a black hole.

Lunging for it, he reappeared a block away. Nearby cars honked in protest. The black hole lurked ahead, potent, buzzing, and he vanished again.

It was the largest blot he’d ever encountered. It dwarfed all other sins into mere whispers. This was the Radio Demon’s proportion of sin? This was the monster his daughter had befriended?

Again and again, Lucifer jumped through space. He saw flashes of the world as he moved—parking lots, balconies, grey and brown building facades and sheets of mirror-like glass.  Alastor was moving just a step ahead of him, relentlessly evading him. Why had he ever thought this was a good idea?

Finally—finally, Alastor appeared to have stopped. Lucifer landed nearly on top of his energy signature, heavily panting, and furiously blinked to dispel a bout of vertigo. Once he felt better, he searched for the sign of the building in front of him. A jazz club. Of course.

Lucifer was going to kill a man who’d already died. He stalked forward, passing a trio of smoking humans, and descended a set of velvet stairs.

It occurred to him as he entered a room flush with well-dressed young men and women that he didn’t have a clue what Alastor looked like. He hadn’t caught a single glimpse of his human form. Had any of them, or had Alastor vanished before they’d seen him at all?

It was impossible to read sin levels in here. The entire room was a smear of black, human sins overtaken by the demon that lurked somewhere amongst them. Lucifer drew back against the wall adjacent to the door and allowed his gaze to drift around the room.

Many of the humans were chatting, drinking in pairs or small groups. Alastor would be alone. He was also likely to be tall, probably creepy looking, wearing a monocle and dressed like a grandfather. Perhaps this would be easy.

A stage sat at the far wall upon which three men and two women played a series of shining brass instruments. It was just on the verge of being too loud to hear conversation, but the music was pleasantly smooth. They were talented. A small knot of people danced at the front, drinks in hand.

Lucifer scanned the bar. There were a few lone men, several of them middle-aged. One was grey-haired, bearded, and wrinkled. How old had Alastor been when he’d died? His gaze travelled to the dancers, mostly laughing women in slim skirts, then continued.

Against the wall to the left, a bespectacled man stood with no drink, his eyes trained on the musicians. He seemed below middle age, pale, with a slight hunched frame and dark, straight hair. He wore some kind of woolen jacket. It was difficult to tell the style of the clothing beneath it.

But he was smiling.

Lucifer marched right across the room. He pulled up in front of the man, arms crossed.

The man noticed him, raised a brow. “Can I help you?”

He frankly sounded nothing like Alastor—but then, he wouldn’t have his radio filter on, would he?

He was still smiling. Lucifer narrowed his eyes. “Come here to find someone?” he hissed. “Or for the music?”

A shallow laugh escaped the man. “Why, do you got a date for me?”

He had a slight accent that Lucifer couldn’t place. He paused, scrutinized the man again. Eye color was no help at all, though he supposed green was a suitable color for Alastor. He glanced at the man’s hands. Long fingers.

“Nice try,” he said. “Real sneaky. Thought I’d be too scared to follow you in here with all these people? Was that it?”

The man blinked, cleared his throat. “You were following me?”

“We don’t have time for this!” Lucifer snarled, gripping the man’s arm and beginning to pull him towards the door. Before he’d managed three steps, a different man stepped into his path.

This one was younger. Thirties, for sure. He was dressed in a simple vest and shirt, the collar unbuttoned. Dark hair curled over brown skin, framing a delicate pair of glasses.

His eyes twinkled with amusement. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” He must be a staff member.

“Nope,” Lucifer said, attempting to pull Alastor past the man. “We were just- leaving-”

“Um,” Alastor said from behind him. “Sure.”

The man in the vest stepped back into their path.

Lucifer felt his cheeks prick with heat. The man’s lips were curling into a smile. He was beautiful. If Lucifer were human… well, this was far off the topic.

He attempted to sidestep the man again, and was again blocked. He narrowed his eyes.

“What, are people not allowed to leave this place?”

“Are you sure this fellow wants to go home with you?” the man tilted his head in a particular way, and Lucifer froze. “I mean… well, really, you are half his height.”

“You,” Lucifer snarled, his entire face flooding with heat. He released the man behind him, eyes raking over the one he faced. It felt impossible. This was a man who looked kind. Approachable. Someone he would probably follow into a dark alley without a second thought if the occasion arose. Yet the whole room would drown in just a spoonful of his sins.

It seemed a rather good lesson in his own judgement of appearances, when he thought about it.

“Apologies, sir,” Alastor said to the man behind him. “One too many, I’m afraid.“ He plucked up Lucifer’s wrist and led them away, closer to the music.

“Why are you here?” Lucifer hissed. “And I am not half his height.”

In truth, Lucifer was actually somewhat impressed with his human height. He still hadn’t a clue what he looked like, but his chin was level with Alastor’s collar.

“Not enjoying yourself?” Alastor hummed, watching the musicians. He released Lucifer’s wrist. A song concluded, and the room filled with applause. “Well, I suppose we can’t all have taste.”

“I have taste,” Lucifer said. “I—you had very simple instructions! You're supposed to be searching!”

“Perhaps I was searching, and your incessant hounding of my trail halted my efforts.”

Lucifer scoffed as a new song commenced. “I don’t think so.”

“You can remove the ‘so’ from that statement.”

He waved a hand aggressively at their surroundings. “Look at this place. You can't tell me you landed here by accident.”

Alastor stared at him for a moment. His gaze traveled down, then back up. “Charlie planned for us to… what was it… split up?" he said finally. "I don’t see how you’re following directions any better than I am.”

“Oh come on, you bolted the second we got here. You think I’d just ignore that?”

“We have a deal, your Highness.” Alastor rolled his eyes. The title sounded even more mocking outside of Hell, alone, enclosed in fragile bodies in a dark room filled with people who had no idea what they were. “Thanks to you, I’m no greater a threat than anyone here.”

“Hah, well you’d think that would help, but I know how people like you are with deals.”

“Clever?”

“Slimy.”

“A less eloquent word for clever.”

“You wouldn’t know clever if it punched you with a cannonball.”

“From a cannon you’d stumbled your way into being trapped within, I presume?”

Lucifer ground his teeth. “Shut up.”

“Have you considered,” Alastor said, flicking his gaze back to him. “In that small mind of yours, that I might not have wanted to reveal my human form to the entirety of the hotel?”

He had considered that, especially after the fidgeting in the lobby, but Lucifer still frowned. “Why?”

Alastor’s mouth curved into a grin as he looked back to the music, his teeth white and only a few of them pointy. “The questions never cease.”

At that moment, one of the dancing women must have caught his gaze, because she approached them to offer Alastor her hand in a dance.

He accepted.

Just like that, Lucifer was left standing alone. He laughed in disbelief.

The music had picked up a little, a steady bass beat threading itself beneath the melody. Most of the dance moves were basic—step movements, rising shoulders, the occasional spin—but Alastor clearly had experience. He didn’t touch the woman at all aside from her hands occasionally, but they moved in unison and Lucifer was starting to think on what was considered ‘extensive communication with humans’.

A nice lady who appeared to be friends with Alastor’s dance partner approached him, offered him a dance, and he said “What? No.” before he realized his rudeness and ran after her to apologize.

“You ain’t gonna try?” she asked when he explained that he’d simply embarrass himself. “It’s not the damn samba. You only gotta learn, like, three moves. Look, I’ll teach ya.”

So he did try. Very briefly, and he was pretty sure he looked the spitting image of a divorced father at the back of a wedding by the snacks, but the lady seemed to be having a good time.

“Do you like it here?” he asked over the music.

“Well I’m here, ain’t I?” she said.

“Not in here! I mean, uh, that’s great,” he said. “But I meant here as in this city! What was it again? New Park?”

He caught Alastor’s eye over her shoulder. The demon had a different dance partner now, but was as smooth as ever. Some of the others had begun to watch him. Lucifer shot him a bemused look and watched his responding smile for a second before he was blocked from view.

“New York,” she said slowly. She had the same accent as the fellow he’d mistaken for Alastor. New Yoak.

“What? Oh, hah! Yeah, I knew that. Was just testing you!”

She looked confused. “Sure I like it. Lord knows where else I’d be.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes at the title. “Want to know a secret?” he said. “He really doesn’t do much of that. Lording, I mean. You build the bakery but you don’t eat the cakes, you know what I’m saying?”

“Huh?”

“Actually, don’t worry about it. Forget I said that.”

A short while later the woman bade him goodbye to return to her group, and Lucifer had the lingering feeling that she’d thought him very strange. He hadn’t come here to dance, though. He hadn’t come here to do anything that he was currently doing, but it couldn’t hurt to allow Alastor what seemed to be the most peaceful moment he’d had in who knows how long. Perhaps it would cure some of that foul temperament.

The music was truly very nice. He settled against a half-wall, one boot tapping along, and watched Alastor turn his partner once, twice, then easily alter their stepping pattern. Their eyes met again, and that sly smile returned.

He couldn’t believe that this was the same creature as the one who’d stolen his hat this morning and argued with him over sugar in tea and the merits of cannibalism. He also couldn’t believe this was the same creature as the one who’d faced down the first man of the human race and that monolithic lord of media. Neither of those ordeals made any sense in this room, like fragments of stories he’d made up for Charlie’s bedtime to lull her to sleep. This version of Alastor didn’t belong in those dreadful tales. He belonged here, consumed by a crowd of glittering jewelry and smoke-scented hair. He made it look so easy.

But it wasn’t just him. It hit Lucifer quite suddenly why he’d been quietly entranced by this place since his first step through the door. It made humanity look easy.

He thought about this for a second. He inhaled deeply, letting the music dig soft fingers beneath his ribs, and looked around him. Everyone was happy. In that moment, he could almost recall the reverent love he’d once held for humans. They had never been his, but he'd wanted so much for them. He’d fought for them. He’d fallen from grace for them.

This modern version of humanity was indeed very different from the seedling they had started out as, their actions snuffed short by Heaven, their choices narrowed to purely cardinal directions. The potential he’d once ached for—he felt as if he could finally see it in this room. He could smell it in the air, feel it in the grooves of his palms, hear it in the footfalls. Was it too much to hope that some part of this, maybe the smallest piece of this joy, had been planted by him?

Pride filled his chest as suddenly as a caldera igniting. A minute later, Alastor politely left his partner and returned, his brow lifting at Lucifer’s expression.

“Well, this has been quite fun, but it’s time I move on,” he announced.

“Got it out of your system?” Lucifer folded his arms.

“There was no ‘it’ considering I had no intention of coming here at all. If I recall correctly, which I do, you chased me and I was forced to find a populated place to hide.”

“Whatever tickles your tail,” Lucifer shrugged, and Alastor ground his teeth, beginning to stalk for the exit.

“Wait,” Lucifer caught up to him. “You’re not smiling!”

“How astute of you to notice.” As he said it, Alastor’s face shifted, features stilling, his mouth curving in practiced habit.

“Wait, is your mouth stuck like that? Y’know, normally?”

“I wouldn’t use the word stuck,” Alastor clacked up the stairs. “But it is a permanent fixture of my appearance, yes.”

“On purpose?”

Alastor turned as they reached the sidewalk, his smile widening. “My dear King, you know me well enough by now to know I do nothing by accident,” he said, and vanished into smoke.

He was moving closer to their starting point. Lucifer hopped along behind him, that menace of a blot shaking him back to reality. Alastor was more than a pretty fellow who liked jazz music. He’d done despicable things. Many despicable things.

“Will you quit following me?” Alastor snapped as Lucifer finally cropped up beside him, and despite the lack of radio filter it was so reminiscent of his demon form that Lucifer laughed.

“Where are we?” he trailed into a snicker, looking around at length. They were in a great room of marble which he assumed was something of an entrance hall. Everywhere he looked were stairs and pillars and marble, marble, marble. The carved ceiling above their heads would have taken him several seconds to reach by wing.

“Don’t you have an invaluable friend of Charlie’s to find?” Alastor said.

“I believe we’ve established, bellhop, that you can’t be trusted to stay on mission!” He drew out each syllable, popping the ‘p’ so that it echoed thrice over. “I’m not about to let a sinner run rampant through Earth to fulfill his own unsupervised errands.” In a quieter voice, he added, “And to be honest, I don’t know what that guy looks like.”

Alastor stepped closer, running his tongue over his teeth. “Since you’ve decided to become a thorn in my side,” he said finally, “I must warn you that this business is personal.”

“No problemo.” Lucifer began to turn, but Alastor gripped his shoulder, spinning him back. He lowered his chin to regard Lucifer, those dark eyes pinpricked with a single gleam from the slant of moonlight.

“It would be best for you to refrain from looking too closely, your Highness,” he said. “Lest you find things that are not quite so… palatable.”

“Ookay,” Lucifer nodded warily. “Is this some kind of… temple?” he guessed. “Palace?”

“Palace?” Alastor scoffed. “I can assure you, you will not find any of those here. This country has done away with those archaic games of royalty.”

“Really? Who’s in charge then?”

“Moronic old men, mostly. I doubt that has changed.”

“Moronic—what? How is that any better than royalty?”

“When they land in your realm,” Alastor rolled his eyes. “You can ask them yourself.”

Despite himself, Lucifer chuckled. This was new—the ability to exchange words at all without either of them baring teeth or leaving the room within seconds. It was probably Alastor’s human form that was doing this to him, whispering novelty, prodding at his long-dead craving for company. Maybe it was boredom. Maybe he’d simply never spent enough time around the demon to think much of anything at all.

Alastor had begun to climb the winding staircase. Lucifer followed, his steps echoing, a shiver snaking beneath his jacket. He looked down. He was wearing a fairly similar getup to his usual suit, though his head was missing a hat. He ran a hand through his hair—same length, just about—then along his face—a bit of scratch along his jaw. He decided that he must be stunningly handsome.

Once they’d reached the second floor, Lucifer followed Alastor into a room that somehow managed to possess even more marble and an even higher ceiling than the previous one. Upon the starkly moonlit floor sat rows of desks, and the room was bordered by dozens of adjoined bookcases.

“Is this what passes for a library these days?” Alastor grimaced at the computer screens that occupied many of the desks and strode for the books.

“A library?” Lucifer grinned. “I guess we’re really not out for world domination, eh?”

“Again,” Alastor grumbled, parsing the shelves. “We made a deal. I’m utterly useless. Where is the card catalog?”

“The what now?”

“Don’t tell me they’ve done away with a perfectly functional system.”

Lucifer shrugged, and Alastor marched off, muttering to himself.

A while later, Lucifer was sprawled on the cold tiles of the reading room floor while Alastor tore his hair out over a pile of twenty open books.

“How do you think the others are doing?” Lucifer asked, staring into the ceiling’s intricate artwork. “I hope Charlie’s okay. She’s never been to the mortal world though, so she’s probably over the moon right now. If she’s not crying or panicking, but that’s probably a bad bet. I’d go check on her, but-” he rapped his knuckles on the floor. “Probably can’t find her, and definitely can’t leave you alone! Y’know, I think they had this ceiling pattern in Heaven, but it was-”

“That’s it.” Alastor shut the book in front of him with a loud snap. He stood, heading for the dormant glow of the computers.

Lucifer jumped up to follow, but paused at the sound of receding footfalls. He quietly circled the desk, his eyes falling on the titles of Alastor’s books. New Orleans, Lives and History. The Hidden World of New Orleans. On Air: A History of Radio Broadcasting. French Quarter Mysteries.

An open page in that last book read 'The Bayou Butcher - Famed Serial Killer of 20th Century New Orleans’.

He skimmed to the bottom. ‘The Butcher’s victims were most commonly found to be wealthy aged or middle-aged men, all of whom would meet their end under cloak of darkness in the Louisiana swamps, their screams silenced by the stifle of mud.’

A shudder went down his spine. Alastor must be looking for his killer. He supposed it was a rather prudent thing to do when granted access to a world you’d previously died in. To meet your end this way, though, to a man labeled the Butcher…

“Fuck this thing.” Alastor was muttering before a computer screen when Lucifer found him. “Fuck you, Vincent, with your stupid-”

“Charlie could do this stuff when she was five, y’know.” Lucifer flopped into a chair opposite him.

“Hm, really? I’d wondered how she became so prone to losing touch with reality.”

“Hey,” Lucifer shot him a glare. “Watch it.”

“Now now, no need for drawing swords,” Alastor clicked his tongue. “It’s an endearing quality, really.” He slammed a thumb on one of the computer’s keys, and the entire table shook. “Oh, for the love of-”

Lucifer kicked the sole of his shoe beneath the table. “Easy, ears. What are you trying to do, anyway?”

Alastor sighed, his head resting on his left hand as he clicked and scrolled. “I want to know of my legacy. What became of my identity after I departed from this world.”

“Legacy?” Lucifer sat up. A crippling horror dawned on him. He shot to his feet, yanking the screen to face him. Headlines flashed before his eyes.

‘Famed New Orleans Killer, Never Caught'

'Bayou Butcher’s Final Kill‘

A silence stretched between them. Alastor did not appear the slightest bit unnerved or ashamed. He simply tapped a long finger against his cheekbone, that half-smile remaining.

“It seems they never connected the dots,” he said.

The black stain of his sins, the unholy power he’d carried into Hell…

“I always-” Lucifer collapsed into his seat, fingers over his mouth, his eyes askance. His mind filled with images. The same hands that had ripped the limbs from living bodies gently spinning humans to music. Those hands on his daughters shoulders.

“You always?”

“I always fall into the same trap,” he said finally. His voice sounded oddly hollow to his own ears. “The same one that got me when I was first sentenced to Hell. I—I forget, you know? I forget where I am. I forget the type of people that surround me.” He laughed quietly. “When I arrived in Hell, I tried to make friends.”

Alastor snorted, and Lucifer’s temper flared.

“I did, okay? And what’s so wrong with that? Where I came from, you could just do that and they wouldn't turn out to be some kind of depraved freak! When I tried to rebuild even the littlest piece of that-” He dug his nails into his own jaw, feeling the sting of each crescent. “I was fucking hurt. Again, and again, and again, and again. No matter how much Hell showed its colors to me, I kept trying, and it just... it all blew up on me. Just about every year, for a while, it seemed that someone new would have the realization that no form of torture would be enough to kill me!”

His voice echoed in great swoops above their heads. He should probably stop talking at this point, but it had become strangely hard to rationalize shutting his mouth and thinking things over. The words flowed like water from a dam, unbidden, unleashed. Spiteful.

“You're just—you're all the same, aren't you? That's what Lilith couldn't see,” he laughed sharply. “If she hadn't gone and tired of me, she might be here instead, telling you it's not so bad. Free will was made for that, right? So you can just go fuck up whatever innocent person you want? Chop 'em up in the woods? Did you even-”

Alastor clicked something on the screen and slid it back around to face Lucifer.

Bayou Butcher’s Final Kill. A black-and-white photo of a pudgy, unkind looking man loaded along with the article.

“This man,” Alastor said calmly, “Spent his last living moments hauling me from a gin club and beating me senseless in an alleyway.”

The flame guttered. Lucifer stared at the photo.

“He did this because he’d bumped into me by accident while leaving the bar. Most of them did. Always the aggressive who damned their balance with drink.”

Alastor looked away, deep in thought. Moonlight skittered over the frozen curve of his mouth, the slant of his nose, and for the first time that night he seemed much older than he appeared.

“You may not notice these things now, but I come from a time that was quite… different. My city had its charms, yes, but they likely would have barred me from entry to the establishment we just visited.” He sighed, his knuckles curling. “I hated them. Some of these men hunted down those with the features that I happen to possess for their own pointless enjoyment. Hunted like animals. They killed hundreds.”

“Because of their-”

“Yes.”

“So the ones you killed-”

“Yes,” Alastor growled. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it a fair bit more than one should! I certainly didn't take an eye for an eye, so they say, so don't delude yourself of anything close to heroism. You were quite right in calling me—what was it?—a depraved freak, my dear,” he stood, shutting off the computer. “I have never pretended to be anything otherwise. If you wish for the apologies of sinners, you can talk to our guests,” he smiled. “Not the host.”

What remained of their time in the library was spent in an unusual quantity of silence. Alastor perused the halls for a long while, phasing through locked doors in swirls of shadow and thoroughly digging through each drawer and filing cabinet he came across, though he refused to disclose what he was in search of.

Lucifer, ever the phantom over his shoulder, quietly followed. It was more for show than anything else. He hardly processed the twists and turns of the building, occupied as he was with the maze of his own thoughts.

“Useless,” Alastor finally said after they’d circled back to the same corridor for the third time. “Astoundingly useless. I was under the impression this city contained even a fragment of knowledge of its own country’s history.”

“What more is there to know?” Lucifer asked. “You read the articles. You were never caught.”

When Alastor spoke again, his voice had taken on a strange, out-of-place quality. “It’s not the record of my own death I require.”

Lucifer drew closer, squinting. In the gloom of the unlit hall, Alastor was little more than the dark impression of a figure before him.

“Someone, uh, from your family then?” he asked.

The shadows shifted, deepened. “Yes.”

“Ah.”

Lucifer imagined, for a moment, what it might feel like to be in Alastor’s place. If he’d been the one ripped from his realm so early in life and deposited back, alone, so many years later. Unaware of what had become of Charlie. Unaware of the fate of his name, his possessions, his imprint upon the world.

With each second that passed, the hall pulsed further into bottomless shadow. Alastor’s quiet breathing grew ragged.

“Hey.” Lucifer took a step forward. Before he could take another, he heard the clack of Alastor’s shoes moving out of the room, then descending a staircase.

Lucifer trailed him out of the building. They emerged onto an expansive plaza, the lights of the city erected like twinkling mountains around them.

Alastor did not stop walking. Lucifer, with his shorter stride, could only manage to catch up once he’d left the library’s view entirely and started off down an adjoining street.

“Hey,” Lucifer panted as he fell into step beside him. A few cars ambled past, their windshields shrouded. “What are we, uh, looking for now?”

“A distraction.” Alastor said calmly. As the words left his lips, his gaze seemed to catch on something nestled between the buildings to his left. Lucifer followed the look.

A large, well-lit sign read Subway. Below the sign appeared to be the open entrance to a downward-sloping tunnel. The air that wafted from it was cool and somewhat stale-smelling.

Alastor disappeared into its mouth.

“Fuck,” Lucifer murmured as he hurried after him.

A few minutes later they found themselves on a concrete platform between two larger and much scarier tunnels. Alastor walked restlessly back and forth, peering down at a set of tracks on either side.

“It’s some sort of underground train,” he mused.

“Huh.” Lucifer rapped a knuckle against a tiled pillar in the center of the platform. “You think they’ll let us ride it?”

“Perhaps.” Alastor wrinkled his nose, examining the ground. “Filthy. Where is dear Niffty when one needs her?”

Lucifer had to agree. He lingered by a long bench, refusing to sit down lest he get grime on his coattails, and watched Alastor pace for a while. They were alone on the platform. In the distance, a series of clattering echoes pricked at the back of his neck.

He couldn’t stop thinking. About the horrors Alastor had faced. About the plunging dark of that hallway.

Alastor rolled up his sleeves, baring the deeply tanned skin of his forearms, and crouched to examine a flyer that had fallen to the floor.

“Hey, Al,” Lucifer said quietly.

“Yes?”

“When we get back, I… I can make other portals.”

“Why would you do that?” Alastor said absently.

“I mean,” Lucifer exhaled. “I can make them whenever I want. I have the power to travel pretty much anywhere between the three realms. I don’t use it, because, well, it kind of sucks. Humans, angels… who needs them, right? But I am the King of Hell. There wouldn’t really be anything stopping me.”

“I fail to see the point of this information.”

“I can take you back to your city.”

Alastor drew in a breath. The clattering sound grew a shade louder.

“Not for very long, but-”

“You’re permitted to do that?”

Lucifer scoffed. “No.”

Their little room began to lightly rumble. He walked until he stood directly above Alastor, who lifted his chin to look up at him.

The sight of him looking up rather than down, the dark intrigue in his eyes—Lucifer almost forgot to breathe.

“I’m not even permitted to do this,” Lucifer smiled. “Any of this. Letting sinners loose on Earth. If Heaven ever found out—hoo boy!”

With a loud screech, the subway train barrelled into view and ground to a halt. Alastor slowly stood, their bodies inches apart.

“If you did… take me, I’d be in your debt.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Believe me, there’s nothing I could possibly need from you.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed, and Lucifer gently flicked the rim of his glasses before skipping to the open doors behind him. “Let’s go, Bambi!”

There were four other people in their subway car, two of which Lucifer was pretty sure were asleep. The doors shut with a wooshing sound, and a female voice in the ceiling began to say a long string of words he couldn’t possibly comprehend. Directions, maybe? He stood hesitantly in the middle of the car, still unwilling to sit down. Alastor, standing as well, glanced through the windows a pace ahead of him.

With a jolt, the car began moving.

Lucifer stumbled, grabbed a metal pole to stabilize himself. The car picked up speed quickly, a dull roar beating against its sides as it grew faster, faster, faster. Faster than any train he knew. His heart jumped into his throat as the car hit a snag in the tracks and jolted sharply to the left.

He whipped his head around to look at the seated passengers. They seemed to have hardly blinked. Ahead of him, Alastor was in a similar state of panic, his eyes wide and hands white-knuckled on his own handholds. It felt like they were hurtling into the core of the earth! How were the humans around them so calm?

At the next jolt, Lucifer stumbled closer to Alastor and made a failed attempt to clutch at his vest. Alastor moved his right hand from the pole it was gripping and grabbed Lucifer’s hand in his own, battling his own center of balance.

“This is awful.” Lucifer groaned.

“Why are these things-” Alastor’s eyes flicked to the blur of tunnel walls rocketing past the small windows. “-not in Hell?”

Lucifer burst out laughing, and the man sprawled across the three seats next to them heaved a phlegm-filled cough and told them to be quiet.

One stop later, Lucifer decided that looking through the windows made it worse.

Two stops after that, he decided that closing his eyes also made it worse. He warily blinked up at Alastor to find the demon's eyes already on his own.

Their hands were still joined, pressed to the hard slope of Alastor's ribcage. Lucifer could feel it rising and falling, faster than normal, and could see the tightness of Alastor's mouth as he swallowed. Perhaps he'd come to the same conclusion—looking anywhere else did not help.

 

One hour remained until dawn, and Lucifer had absolutely no idea if Angel Dust had been found or not.

They’d survived the subway. It had gotten better towards the end, at least, though Lucifer had still developed a newfound respect for the sheer nerve of humans. They’d left the train at its final stop and emerged in a new section of the city, one that bordered an enormous stretch of water. Impressively long bridges crawled along its surface, connecting with another glittering city across the way.

They were simply walking now. There was a chance Alastor was headed somewhere important, but Lucifer gleaned little insight into why he’d abandoned his beloved shadow travel.

“We should keep an eye out,” Lucifer said firmly, blinking away the residual of the salt-and-pepper view. “Just in case… y’know, in case they haven’t found him yet.”

“Morning,” said a man as he passed them by, and Lucifer jumped out of his skin.

“Good morning!” he hollered down the dark road after him. “Did you see that guy? He talked to me!”

Alastor snickered. He had excellent walking posture, hands held loosely at the small of his back. “How very monumental.”

Lucifer wondered what the humans must think of his own appearance—if he looked like a man in costume with his white suit and dress shoes, if he appeared too at odds with the graceful creature beside him. The people he’d seen so far outside of the club had been an endless display of drab, colorless coats.

“Are any of those jazz things still open?” Lucifer waved enthusiastically at the next approaching pedestrian.

“I highly doubt it.”

“We’ll have to find one in your city, then.”

“Oh, we will.” Alastor’s smile inched wider. “I knew you’d loved it.”

“Loved is a strong word.”

“Is that denial?”

“Well. Can’t dance like you do,” The lights blinked on in a storefront to his left, and his head swiveled to inspect it. “But the music was alright.”

“It’s not quite so difficult. Perhaps someday I’ll teach you.”

Lucifer’s heart did a strange thing. He snorted. “Someone tried doing that. Couldn’t get the hang of it. Also, I’m pretty sure I freaked her out.”

“I noticed.” Alastor said. “Yet you made a dashing pair while it lasted.”

What did that mean?

“I wasn’t interested,” Lucifer said slowly. “If that’s what you think. Nevermind that I’m the devil, and she’s a human, and apparently religious, which means she probably curses my name every night-”

“Oh, I knew that,” murmured Alastor.

“Knew what?”

“That you weren’t interested.”

“How?”

Alastor regarded him for a moment. “I had a feeling she wasn’t enough for you.”

Lucifer inhaled, his knuckles skimming the trunk of a fenced-in tree.

“And were your own partners?” he asked softly. “Enough for you?”

“No,” Alastor hummed. “Not nearly.”

In lieu of a distraction Lucifer looked up, craning to glimpse the tops of buildings in the lingering darkness. “I can’t believe they built all of this,” he said eventually. “To think they started with nothing but hands and feet and the thoughts in their heads.”

Alastor followed his look. “In my time,” he said scornfully, “This city was all they cared to discuss in the papers. Banking, Harlem, that one damned building that was tallest in the world. Then the banks fell to ruin and it became a cesspool. It was rather entertaining!”

“Eugh.” Lucifer said. He was silent for a long while, watching a cloud change from black to a shade of dark grey. Dawn was approaching.

Alastor halted suddenly, placing a hand on his arm. When Lucifer looked up, he directed his gaze to the water where a few small shapes were bobbing.

One of them quacked.

“Oh-Oh!” Lucifer cried in delight. “Ducks!”

As if they’d sensed their maker, the pair propelled themselves closer to shore. Lucifer hopped onto the railing, leaning as far over the water as he dared, just barely conscious of Alastor’s grip tightening on his arm.

“Hello!” he called down in glee. “Aren’t you two just adorable?”

“Comment pourrait-elle se lasser de toi,” Alastor murmured.

“Huh?”

Alastor just shook his head.

After a while of watching the ducks, a bicycle rang its bell in greeting as it wheeled past them, and they both glanced to the street behind them. More people were out than they’d seen the entire night, coats fluttering in the offshore wind and briefcases swinging at sides.

“It’s nearly morning,” Alastor said. His eyes lifted to the gradually purpling sky.

Then, in a flash of smoke, he was gone again.

“What the-” Heaving a sigh in frustration, Lucifer scanned the street for any obvious onlookers before he followed suit.

He tracked Alastor past their portal location, the unnatural blot of sin much easier on his nerves now that he knew (what he hoped was) the whole story. He finally alighted on the flat roof of an extraordinarily tall building. A short wall bordered each edge, not leaving much of anything between the ground and open air.

A gust of biting wind barrelled into him.

“Whoa!” Lucifer caught his balance and squinted, spotting Alastor’s silhouette atop the wall facing the eastern horizon. He hurried over, braced against the wind, and clambered onto the wall to the demon’s right.

The view stole his breath away.

Millions of lights dotted the world below, many of them belonging to headlights that shifted and wormed their way through a patchwork of streets. Surrounding it all, reflecting it all, was the dark ribbon of water they’d just leant over. In the distance, a breath of pink had begun to cloud the horizon line.

Alastor cut him a glance. “You’ll blow off the edge.”

“Nuh uh,” Lucifer said before nearly blowing off the edge. Alastor caught the back of his jacket with a burst of sharp laughter and pulled him back on.

“Alright, that’s it,” Lucifer said. He snapped his fingers, and the wind died down.

Alastor looked a little bewildered at that, and Lucifer grinned. He so enjoyed those moments when others discovered the extent of his power—of course, excluding the moments where they subsequently hooked him up to a massive laser cannon and exploded it out of him.

“Is this the tallest building?” Lucifer looked down. Heights were much easier for him to manage than whatever that subway thing had been. He’d been born for the sky, after all, not the ground, and evidently not beneath it either.

“No…” Alastor sighed, his hand finally falling from Lucifer’s back. “The tallest was too occupied.”

“Which one is that?”

Alastor turned, pointed to a building that was indeed very tall and narrowed at the top.

Lucifer watched the birds that circled it, then watched the cars snail along below, then watched a distant figure enter a revolving doorway.

A life. So small.

“Why would Angel go back?” Lucifer asked suddenly.

“Hm?”

“When Charlie finds him. Why would he go back to Hell with us? It’s just so much…”

“Worse there?” Alastor said. “Congratulations, your Highness, you’ve discovered the purpose of Hell.”

Lucifer aimed a shove at him, but Alastor grabbed both of his wrists and pinned them behind his back. Consequently, Lucifer lost most of the air from his lungs.

“I’d imagine he’ll return for the same reasons you’ll return, my dear.”

“What’s that?” Lucifer breathed, and Alastor let a few seconds crawl by before he drew back.

“Friendship. Family. Love.” he said the words like they threatened to sour his stomach.

Lucifer studied his reaction carefully. “You don’t have that?”

Alastor blinked, returning his gaze to the horizon, and said nothing. A few minutes later it was a brilliant soup of pink and orange, and the sky had lightened to blue.

“Well,” Lucifer sighed, pushed himself to his feet. “That’s dawn. Lead the way.”

“I still cannot comprehend why you insist on trailing me like a dog, Lucifer,” Alastor mused.

“I cannot comprehend why you insist on eating the carcasses of deer.”

His thin smile spread. “Oh, now I’m hungry.”

“I hate you.”

“I adore you.”

Lucifer froze mid-step. He swiveled to face Alastor. The demon stood very still, his head tilted in that clever little manner of his.

“You what?" Lucifer said.

He hadn’t misheard him.

Alastor took a careful step forward, and for a moment the knowledge of who they were slid dangerously from Lucifer’s mind. He forgot, for a moment, that behind the shell of human skin that covered them both lay the horns and antlers of demons, the claws and teeth of monsters. He was suddenly staring at a stranger—the lithe, handsome man who’d stopped him at the club—and his mind filled with a piercing silence.

Alastor lifted a hand between them and curled a slender finger around a strand of blonde hair. The wind began to pick back up as his hand drifted lower, and a shiver traveled through Lucifer’s body. Alastor swiped a thumb over his cheekbone. Dragged the pad of it over the curve of his lips.

Then that infuriating smile vanished, and he was once again staring into a plume of escaping shadow.

His boots slammed into dewy grass less than a minute later. He reeled, shaken by the fast-paced succession of jumps he’d made to follow Alastor back to the portal. “Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! You don’t get to-”

Before he’d completed a full spin, a pair of hands were pushing him, shoving him up against a wall, one leaping up to flatten over his mouth.

“Shhhhh!” Lucifer could have sworn he heard the crackle of a radio in the sound.

“Mmph mmph!” he said as Alastor glared down at him.

They were against some kind of ivy-covered stone building. Trees surrounded them, the same they’d seen upon first exiting the portal.

“They’re all here,” Alastor hissed, angling Lucifer so he could see around the edge of the wall. “They’ll hear you.”

Sure enough, the hotel staff were all perched on a nearby stretch of lawn, most of them talking animatedly. Between them, his head in the bartender’s lap, laid a new figure—a slender guy with recognizably long legs.

Oh—that one was Angel Dust.

Alastor maneuvered his body back to face him and uncovered his mouth.

"Fuck you.” he said loudly.

“Shhh!” Alastor looked about to strangle him.

“What are you-” Lucifer lowered to an indignant whisper. “You still won’t let them see you?”

Alastor nodded, a muscle furrowing in his jaw.

Lucifer broke from his hold and brought his hands to Alastor’s face, tracing it, cupping it.

"But you’re-” he whispered. “You're beautiful. You’re so beautiful. It was the first thing I noticed.”

“I know that,” Alastor purred, carding a hand through Lucifer’s hair, yet his eyes sparked at the compliment anyway. Then a crease wrinkled his brow. “It’s a weakness. To appear as I did before I held any power at all. To look so… insubstantial.”

“But it’s just Charlie, you know she’d-”

Alastor shook his head, pressed Lucifer’s palm to his mouth. “I assure you, there is not a chance in any realm I will allow someone to see this. Consider yourself lucky that you did, mon ange.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means imbecile.”

Lucifer huffed a laugh, his hands drifting to trace the backs of Alastor's human ears, the nape of his neck. A vulnerable position, but he made no move to stop him.

“Hey,” he said, serious. “Don’t disappear like that, like you did up there. Stop doing that. After what I told you, I can’t… I can’t do that.”

A dent appeared in Alastor’s smile. “It’s an odd feeling, being human again,” he said slowly. “I feel closer to my past life in this form. It's ridiculous, really. I’m still me. But I feel that there’s a possibility it could be… well, somewhat difficult to go back after tonight.”

Lucifer dropped his head back against the stone. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “If you need to avoid me for a day or two… a week… a month…” 

Alastor ducked down, pressed a gentle kiss to his neck. “Even forever,” Lucifer breathed. “I’m the King of Hell. I’ll be okay. Just, I dunno, tell me what’s going on first.”

"It wasn’t just that,” Alastor murmured into his skin. “I almost broke our deal. I was required to be back by dawn, as you so stringently put it.”

“Ah.” He held still while Alastor traced his jaw with kisses, heartbeat rabbiting away, one hand scratching through that curly hair.

"They’re waiting on us,” he mumbled. He drew Alastor up by his collar, both of them breathing heavily.

Alastor leaned in and kissed him, and his mind was wiped blissfully clear of any remaining logic. He threw his legs around the demon’s waist, allowed himself to be dragged further up the scratchy face of the stone wall. A small sound escaped his mouth as Alastor closed a fist into the back of his hair. It was warm. It was hungry. It was indescribable.

“My dear,” Alastor parted from him to breathe after a long minute. “I sincerely doubt the notion that anyone could be in a hurry to return to Hell.”

Much, much later than he’d planned, Lucifer finally emerged into the park clearing, his collar askew and his hair a knotted mess. If there was one thing that would come of this, it was that he would decidedly not miss having human hair.

“Dad!” Charlie cried, already jumping to her feet.

“Charlie!”

She ran to him, and he swung her into a hug. It was a little funny to see her like this—though she definitely looked human, it was almost a little too similar to her Hellborn form. Surely anyone who’d passed her on the street that night had done a double-take at the pallor of her skin, the volume of her hair, but it couldn’t have been enough to raise any real questions.

The maid, the bartender, and the one with all the bombs looked about exactly how he’d expected them to look. Vaggi, despite also receiving the hair-volume treatment, certainly looked close enough to human to fit in with the rest.

"I was so worried!” Charlie said. “What took so long?”

“Ah, nothing. King stuff, you know how it is. Angel!” he spun on his heel to greet the freckled man.

“Hiya, short King,” Angel accepted the bone-crushing squeeze he was given. “Look, I’m sorry ‘bout all this shit I got you guys into. Valentino, he was messin’ with my head. Thought if I didn’t take this way out, I’d never get another.”

“Hey, well, no harm done. I think. So how’d ya do it?” he beamed at Charlie. “Knew a place? Salt-and-pepper trick?”

Charlie glanced uncomfortably to her girlfriend. “Well…”

Vaggi sighed. “Husk flew.”

“Wh—huh?” Lucifer frowned. “Who’s Husk?”

Everyone groaned in unison, and Charlie wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s just go home, Dad. Is Alastor coming?”

“How should I know? Hah!” he waved a hand in dismissal, drawing the portal with the other.

Looking slightly uneasy at that, Charlie led her friends through. Once he’d stepped through as well, Lucifer held the spell for just a second longer-

A plume of shadow deposited a familiar red-suited figure on the threshold just before the portal closed.

“Alastor!” Charlie jumped forward to hug him.

“Hello, my dear!” Alastor’s voice sent an unexpected jolt through Lucifer. The radio filter was back. “I see you’ve won your little game of hide and seek?”

“Even better,” Charlie grinned. “Angel’s agreed to stay with us! If Valentino comes for him, he’ll have to get through all of us first.”

“How touching,” Alastor’s smile was much sharper than Lucifer had grown used to this past night. Their eyes met briefly over Charlie’s shoulder. Before the look could linger for too long, Lucifer cleared his throat, straightened his hat, and headed after the others.

The rest of the day passed in a monochrome blur of headaches and paperwork as Lucifer began to dig for the roots of the situation with the Grimoire. His concentration, frayed on the best of days, gradually constricted into knots the longer he spent rushing from task to task, writing letters, making calls, repairing bombed rooms, even managing more than his regular responsibilities with the hotel in the hopes of letting Charlie get some rest.

In some ways he enjoyed having things to do. It gave him a break from his own thoughts, which he’d spent far too much time with over the years, and usually allowed him to feel that he’d done something right by the end of the day. Today, however, there was one snag in that prospect. Alastor had been nowhere to be found since the morning.

Too many times, he’d given in to the urge to search for him. He’d checked the radio tower, each room in the lobby, peered into the darkness of every crooked hall. He'd stumbled across rooms he didn't even know existed—a science lab in the basement, a greenhouse on the roof, a ballroom of far too impressive a size to have been so hidden. All empty.

Eventually he’d stood outside of Alastor’s door for an embarrassing length of time, weighing the merits of knocking. He’d ended up deciding against it—or rather, a guest had creaked up the stairs behind him and he’d bolted like a hare.

Finally, as the evening began to draw to a close, he was called downstairs by Charlie to find the rest of the hotel staff and guests seated around the long mahogany table in the dining room.

Alastor was there, serving them all equal portions of something from a large pot that smelled of seafood and spices.

“Wow!” Lucifer cleared his throat. “Isn’t this lovely!”

“Étouffée.” Alastor announced.

“What now?”

“The dish,” Alastor rolled his eyes, dropping a ladle of a reddish, saucy looking food into Niffty’s bowl. He’d foregone his red jacket, dressed simply in the collared shirt that usually lay beneath. “A recipe from home.”

“Never heard of it,” Lucifer hopped into his seat at the head of the table. His bowl had already been filled.

Conversation began to pick up around him as he surveyed the room. It had been a while since they’d all had dinner together. Truthfully, he usually just forgot to eat for weeks on end until someone brought back takeout or a particularly bad night sent him to the kitchen in search of snacks.

It wasn’t until after they’d collectively toasted Angel’s safe return and begun to eat that he noticed Alastor’s eyes on him.

Lucifer paused with his spoon at his lips. Slowly, his eyes drifted to the figure at the opposite end of the table.

Those ears. He’d forgotten about the ears. He imagined for a moment what it would be like to touch them, to run his thumbs over them—then remembered that Alastor had not yet greenlit anything whatsoever beyond existing in the same building as each other. In fact, he had glaringly kept his distance for the entire day. And then he’d made dinner. What that meant was anyone’s guess.

Alastor rested his chin on a hand, his gaze unbreaking. Lucifer was unable to wrap his head around that analytic look. At the very least, it didn’t appear threatening. Alastor’s appearance was a good deal less threatening anyway, his sleeves rolled up, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned just a tad at the top. Perhaps the clothing was helping him adjust in some small way to parting from his human form.

Brown or crimson, those eyes would be the death of him. Lucifer didn’t back down though. Without looking away, he tipped the spoon into his mouth and swallowed.

Spices, red sauce, shellfish. It was rather good, albeit similar to a few of Alastor’s meals that he’d tried before. He’d never realized the meaning behind any of it until now—the individual ties to a past life that had lurked beneath each of them. New Orleans, he remembered. A magical land of gin bars and jazz.

The staring contest had gone on for too long.

“Would be better without the tomato,” he commented loudly.

Some of the others startled, glancing between either head of the table. Alastor tapped his claws against the tabletop. “It’s an essential ingredient.”

“So are the eggs in omelets. Never stopped me from taking ‘em out!” Lucifer put another spoonful into his mouth. “Beats that last stuff you made,” he said after he’d swallowed. “What was that, Jamborini?”

“Jambalaya,” Alastor growled.

“That’s the word,” Lucifer snapped his fingers. “Hoo boy. Not fun. Had to dunk my head in a bucket of milk after that one!”

Alastor’s smile ticked up an inch. “I seem to recall no one else failing to handle a pinch of spice.”

“Mm, I don’t know. A pinch? Is that right, Charlie?”

Charlie, involved in some conversation regarding Niffty and trash and Central Park, did not hear him. Most of the table had habitually tuned them out by now.

“I'll take that as a yes,” Alastor hummed.

“Nope.” Lucifer stabbed his spoon into the bowl. “Not a chance.”

“Are you always this aggressive with your meals?”

“You have no room to talk there,” Lucifer grimaced.

“And you have sauce on your nose.”

Lucifer swabbed his face angrily with a napkin and decided to leave it there.

That resolve lasted all of one bite.

“Maybe just a single, teensy less tomato. What did you use, like thirty?”

“One less tomato. Such articulate feedback,” Alastor dragged an errant claw along the table. “The last time I checked, however, it was not my responsibility to cater to those at the table who are uncultured.”

It was so akin to the way they’d been before that Lucifer began to wonder if he’d been knocked out by a car during his first round of teleportation and the previous night had all been one long dream. He shifted in his chair, and the spark of his next response fizzled out on his tongue. This couldn’t be right. Had he done something? Missed something?

He was quiet for the rest of the meal. In some attempt to prove to Alastor that he did actually like his cooking, he cleaned his plate. Then he cleared the dishes with a snap and dutifully allowed Charlie to rope him into whatever game or activity she’d come up with for the hotel guests for the night.

It was nice. Convivial. The scantily-dressed spider was back. Everything was as it should be.

Yet Alastor still kept his distance.

At some point, the guests and staff began to peel from the group. The small fish-looking guy was the first to leave. Then Angel. Then Cherri. Then Charlie and her girlfriend.

At some point, Lucifer looked around and realized the prim, observational presence of the host in one corner or another was missing. Alastor had gone to bed as well.

He swallowed. Pursed his lips.

He tried to fight it. He really did. But he couldn't stop the fist that crept between his ribs, encircled his heart, and squeezed.

It didn’t matter. A day, he’d said. A week. A year. Alastor had told him things would be difficult. He’d all but shouted back that he was expecting it. That he didn’t care.

But the thought of his bed upstairs—that big, starkly empty place—kept him rooted to his spot on the couch long after the rest had gone.

That had been the worst part of the divorce. Crawling into an empty bed each night. Rolling to either side and feeling nothing but an untouched swath of sheets. The habitual goodnight that always climbed its way to the back of his teeth and then receded. Even now, there were some nights he stared into the space where a body had once been and felt several degrees colder than normal.

It was no big deal. He’d just curl up on the couch for a while. He wasn’t alone down here, at least. The bartender was closing up for the night, and the maid was… well, she was somewhere.

Lucifer shrugged off his jacket, draped it over the back of the sofa. A fire was still flickering in the hearth, and he quietly conjured a wool blanket to cover himself with as he made himself comfortable.

The couch wasn’t bad. He wasn’t too cold.

Everything was fine.

 

When he awoke, it was to near-total darkness. His neck felt a little tight where it had been pressed against the plush arm of the sofa, and he groaned as he maneuvered himself onto his back. He cracked his eyes open, then slowly narrowed them as the opposite end of the couch came into focus.

A dark figure was seated next to him.

Lucifer sat up slowly, his heart thundering in his ears.

“Al?” he whispered.

The outline of an ear twitched in response, and he loosed a shaky breath. He glanced about the lobby, noting that the bartender had left some time ago. Through the windows, the gleaming trails of dozens of raindrops shone against a pitch black sky.

He returned his gaze to the shadowed form that lurked ahead, unmoving. Such dramatics.

“I can’t see you,” he whispered before he remembered the fire. At the snap of his fingers, a new one flared in the hearth.

Alastor was seated, still in his collared shirt, his posture abandoned in favor of slouching back into the sofa cushions. One hand was occupied with tapping patterns into its arm. He looked like he’d been there for a while.

"What time is it?” Lucifer yawned.

“Quite late, your Highness.”

“Well I know that.”

The title echoed in his ears. Your Highness. Alastor had gone back to addressing him with formalities. He could kick himself for how much he irrationally hated that. He was pretty sure that on his long list of mistakes, allowing a serial killer and notorious overlord of Hell to lay claim to his emotions so thoroughly—and in a single night, at that—would place near the top of the list.

He was a fool.

But it had happened. He was sure it hadn’t been a dream, or even some kind of sick prank, though he wouldn't usually put such behaviors past the average citizen of his own realm. He’d felt the truth in it. All he had to do was close his eyes and he was back in that moment, caged against that stone wall. Wanted.

Even if nothing else was, that had been real.

It would do him no good to relive that now, though. To remember the feel of Alastor’s mouth as he sat in the firelight before him, reclined, shirt unbuttoned—it was all Lucifer could do to keep himself on his own side of the couch. To fulfil his own promise of no expectations.

He was grateful for the crackle of fire and the patter of rain on the windows. They filled the silence. He straightened a little, drawing the blanket to his shoulders.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

For just a second, Alastor’s gaze flicked in his direction, then returned to the fire. “I believe I’m the one who should be asking that question,” he said. “Considering you’re currently in the hotel lobby rather than in your own bed.”

“It’s nothing.” Lucifer grumbled. “Been pretty busy. I just sat down for a second.”

“Mhm. And the blanket would be a happy coincidence?”

A huff of laughter escaped Lucifer. He had no response to that.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Alastor fingered the edge of the blanket. It was printed with small depictions of yellow ducks and marsh grass. “What is it with the ducks?”

“Uh… well,” he debated giving a phony answer, but he was simply too tired to put in the effort. “They were mine. One of my creations, I mean. Nothing that I made for the mortals really worked for me anymore after the fall, y’know. Most of my creations were destroyed by Heaven, or ehm… just went wrong. Not sure how to explain that. But, well, the ducks didn’t.” he smiled. “And Charlie used to love the little rubber guys. It was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed doing for those years away from her. I think I figured if I ever saw her again, she’d be happy to see them. Of course,” he let out a strangled laugh. “she’s, uh, not ten anymore!”

“Hm,” Alastor murmured, his profile impassive as he surveyed the ducks. “Indeed.”

“What is it with the…” Lucifer gestured to Alastor’s form. “The deer thing?”

“Nothing of interest.”

“I’m interested.”

"It’s an unpleasant story. I’d rather not speak of it.”

He snorted. “So the whole time I’ve been teasing you about it, I’ve been triggering some sort of deer-related trauma?”

“No,” Alastor looked faintly amused. “You have not.”

A gust of wind whistled past the hotel walls, rattling the shutters, and the entire building let out a low groan. Lucifer shivered involuntarily at the sound.

“Don’t tell me you’re cold,” Alastor said. He gestured to the fire, the blanket. “In spite of all of this.”

“I think I’ve been cold since that rooftop,” Lucifer said without thinking, and Alastor’s hand stilled against the sofa’s arm.

He’d broached the subject of last night. There was no going back now.

“Listen, Al,” he murmured after a strained pause. “I understand if you don’t want to talk. I get it. But uh… well, ‘tell me what’s going on' usually implies at least a little bit of that.”

Alastor tilted his head, his gaze still averted. “Where have you gathered the conclusion that I don’t wish to talk?”

“You’ve been gone,” Lucifer shrugged. He felt very small wrapped up in his blanket, knees to his chest and his heart thudding away beneath it.

Alastor toyed with the edge of the blanket again. “Was the same not true for you?”

“I-” he paused. He had been in his room for much of the day. “I don’t know. There was a lot of work to do. I looked for you!”

“Did you?”

It seemed a genuine question rather than a scathing remark, so Lucifer nodded.

“I almost, uh, busted down your door. Possibly more than once.”

“I see.” Alastor sunk further into the couch. Lucifer watched his jaw tighten, watched the tendons shift in his neck.

“I thought perhaps,” Alastor spoke so quietly that the radio filter seemed to have vanished altogether. “My concerns about navigating between this form and that of my human self had translated in some way to you. That you might have been… reconsidering.”

Lucifer swallowed. He sat up a little straighter.

“Reconsidering?”

“A very long time has passed between the version of me that you saw last night,” Alastor ran his tongue over his teeth in thought. “And now.”

Lucifer stared. “You look like him,” he said after a moment. “I mean, you look like you. I don’t know how I didn’t immediately recognize you in that bar. I think…” he shoved his hands beneath his own legs to keep from reaching across the space between them. “I think I was caught up on everything else. The suit, the smile, whatever.”

Alastor's chest rose and fell with a single breath. The drumming of rain faded to a distant sound. 

“But you have the same eyes,” he said quietly. “Not the color, obviously, but… there’s just something about them.”

“Anything else?” Alastor whispered after a pause.

“Well, you have the same nose.” Lucifer’s gaze drifted lower. “Mouth.” He studied the dip of each shadow against ashen skin, the smooth curve of his jaw. “Face shape.”

His gaze continued downwards, traveling over that exposed stretch of collarbone. This was torture. He wanted to touch. “Shoulders,” he added thickly. “Arms. Hands. It’s all… it’s all the same, Al.”

“Interesting,” Alastor murmured. “Though my concerns are not quite so shallow as looks. I can’t always be… gentle, as I’m sure you’d prefer in a companion. I believe that much has been made obvious.”

Lucifer fisted the blanket beneath him. “Do you think I care?” he said vehemently. “Do you think I don’t like that about you?”

Alastor’s throat bobbed. His eyes closed.

“I know you need time,” Lucifer said. “And you’ll have it. I’ll wait as long as you need-”

“I don’t need time.”

Lucifer paused mid-sentence. “What?”

For the first time that night, those glimmering eyes met his own.

“I don’t,” Alastor crooked a finger at him. Come here. “Need time.”

A flush swept through Lucifer so deeply that he was sure he’d turned the color of a molten star. He shoved the blanket aside and nearly fell forward, crawled into Alastor’s lap, threw one leg over his hips.

Hands gripped his waist, claws sinking into the fabric, and he kissed Alastor like he’d been starved.

It was nearly exactly as he’d remembered it, aside from—yes, the teeth were a fair bit sharper. His lip became caught between them, and he was certain if Alastor bit hard enough, he’d rip it clean off. He didn't, though. He simply released him and licked over the pinprick wounds as Lucifer buried both hands into his hair and groaned.

The ears! Lucifer shifted, angling his head into the kiss and snaking his hands around them. At his touch, they instantly laid flat and Alastor sucked in a sharp breath, claws tightening against his waist.

Lucifer caressed them again, and the radio that had sat atop the mantle behind him jumped to life with a crackle of static.

He laughed into Alastor’s mouth and craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “Really?”

“You’re insufferable.” Alastor kissed the skin beneath his ear, making a searing trail to the base of his throat.

Lucifer squeezed his ears and the radio whined again before dissolving into white noise. “Please tell me you haven’t just switched on every radio in the hotel.”

In lieu of a response, Alastor kissed back up to his jaw, then gripped his chin and returned his mouth to his.

Lucifer sank into his lap, allowed the kiss to drag on until he ran out of breath. “You taste like smoke,” he breathed upon parting.

Alastor snaked a hand into the gap between shirt and skin and slid a warm palm over his back. “And what would you have me taste like, your Highness?”

Lucifer kissed him again, and again. “Smoke,” he mumbled, and Alastor snickered.

In the next second, the shadows around them engulfed them entirely and there was a moment of panic in which Lucifer thought Alastor had vanished again. Then he fell back onto a soft surface and realized with a start that he’d vanished too. This time Alastor had taken him with him.

They were in Alastor’s room. It was much warmer here—a twin fire was already burning in the seating area across the room, emitting a small amount of light—and it all smelled of wood and spice and smoke and rivers. Lucifer barely spared a glance to the room before his mouth was claimed once again and he was pressed into the velvet bedspread and it all faded into a blur of things he didn’t care one bit about.

They were at the same time gentle and vicious. Alastor’s hands were everywhere—in his hair, on his throat, pulling his vest over his head and sliding beneath his undershirt. Lucifer wrapped his legs around Alastor’s waist, fisting his own hands into the fabric of his shirt and pulling them flush together.

They both groaned, and Alastor bit down on his lip again.

“Easy, Bambi,” he managed. “Not food.”

Alastor released his lip, ears flattening in annoyance. “Are you really still calling me that?”

“What’s wrong? You don’t think it’s…” a laugh escaped him. “En-deer-ing?”

Alastor growled. He pulled back, eyes searching Lucifer’s face—then dipped two thumbs into the apples of his cheeks. “Oh, I missed these.”

Lucifer allowed another kiss, then rose to his elbows. “Wait,” he took a second to catch his breath. “Does that mean you thought about… before-”

“That I had interest in you before our little escapade?”

Lucifer nodded.

“Mon diable,” Alastor sighed. “Je dessinais des pentagrammes pour toi.”

“And that means…?”

“How is it, again, that you communicate with your own citizens?”

“Translation spells,” Lucifer thumbed a drop of golden blood from the demon’s lip. “Too much work.”

Alastor leaned in again, kissed him for long enough that he forgot he’d asked a question. Then, just as his fingers found the buttons on Alastor’s shirt and began to work them open, tail thrashing against the bed beside them, an answer was murmured into his mouth.

“It was not a new development, no.”

He’d never cared for the scent—or taste—of smoke before. Now, he felt that he could sew it beneath the seams of his skin, bury the depths of its roots into his unholy soul for another millenia and still not be satiated.

It had always been like this with him. Too much.

Alastor allowed him to get three buttons down before he pulled back, heavy-lidded, and ran a claw from Lucifer’s throat to his chest, splitting his shirt buttons open in a single swipe.

“Hey,” Lucifer panted. He rolled them over, shoving Alastor onto the bed beneath him. “You’re lucky that wasn’t my favorite shirt.”

“Oh, I had no fear of that,” Alastor’s smile deepened. “This one was entirely free of waterfowl.”

Lucifer dropped his mouth to Alastor’s neck. He licked. He bit. He left bruises. He allowed the flame that seared his throat to heat his lips until Alastor threw his head against the pillows and expelled a guttural breath. He dragged the loosened shirt out of the way and moved to his collarbone, his chest, vaguely aware that multiple radios in the room were spitting static and skipping wildly through an onslaught of stations.

Too much, he thought again as they rolled over and over, the velvet bedspread tangling around them. A decorative pillow slid from its position onto Alastor's face before it was brutally shredded by a clawed hand and flung across the room in an explosion of feathers.

For the first time since those early years with Lilith, it wasn’t an unpleasant thought. He’d never again expected for his own carnal hunger to find itself mirrored in another. Matched. It was completely exhilarating.

Eventually, his lips met something—a disruption in the skin on Alastor’s chest—and he lifted his head to look. It was an enormous scar, jagged and stark against the otherwise smooth plane of skin.

Lucifer brought a thumb to it, tracing its length.

“What did that?”

Alastor sighed, his hand in Lucifer’s hair. “An angelic weapon. Adam’s, if you must know.”

“Really?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Lucifer frowned. Adam’s attack on the hotel had been a decent length of time ago, but the weak, puckered mess of the scar seemed new. It must have just recently healed from an open wound. It looked bad.

“Have you really just been… walking around with this since the battle with Heaven?”

Alastor’s hands moved to his hips, thumbs tracing the subtle lines of his bones. “I don’t see why this matters.”

Lucifer exhaled, his fingers still skimming over the scar. “I could have healed it,” he said. “Easily.”

“Hm,” was all Alastor offered in response.

Lucifer rose to his knees, pushed himself up Alastor’s body until they were face to face.

“I'll get back down there in a second," he breathed, their noses brushing, "but why didn't you ask me to?”

Alastor blinked. The radio—big surprise—had landed on a station of velvety jazz, and Lucifer felt his own shoulders subconsciously relaxing at the sound. How was it that this music had ever infuriated him?

“Why is it that you,” Alastor said, reaching up to brush aside a strand of his hair, “Did not seek help after that ridiculous cannon nearly took you apart?”

Lucifer’s brow creased. Trying to remember the days following his capture by Vox was like wading into a thick fog. He remembered pain. A lot of it. And then he remembered waking up one morning to find that he could reasonably walk again and hauling himself downstairs with the sole focus of redeeming his idiocy as soon as possible.

“That was, uh,” he said. He wasn’t sure which words he intended to say next. Not so bad, maybe, but that would be a pretty big lie.

“It seems that we were in the same boat, my darling.” Alastor smiled softly. It was the most content Lucifer had ever seen him. He couldn’t help but to wind both arms around his neck and press his lips to one cheek, then the other. Then his forehead. His nose. Both eyelids.

“We were in that boat,” he said. “Not anymore, though. Right?”

Alastor rose until they sat upright, Lucifer still straddled on his lap, and released a long-suffering sigh. His head tilted forward, his forehead meeting the slope of Lucifer’s shoulder. A song concluded in a gentle trail of piano notes.

Lucifer closed his eyes, inhaled the scent of him. “Right?”

“Consider me… yours now.” Alastor said softly. It was an admission he seemed to have dredged up from a place that had never seen the light before. “And I will not grant anyone the opportunity to lay so much as a finger on you again.” His arms snaked tighter, pulling them so close together that Lucifer lost the points where either of them began and ended. “So yes, I suppose things will be different moving forward. I won’t pretend that it comes easily, to… to place any amount of trust in the notion that… oh, fuck this, I’m really no good at-”

He was cut off by a searing, open-mouthed kiss, words transitioning into a flare of static, and it was the last coherent thing either of them managed to say that night.

 

It took the rest of the hotel all of a week to notice that something had occurred, which was rather impressive given that they’d been moderately inseparable for the same amount of time.

A small part of Lucifer had worried, even with the claims they’d made that first night, that things wouldn’t be as smooth as he’d hoped. He’d prepared himself for anything. Reminded himself that there was still no guarantee for any part of it to last.

It became clear after a while, though, that the silent, unknowable entity Alastor had become on their first day back was long gone. Something had shifted in that time, and though he couldn’t explain it, Lucifer had the private feeling that it might stay that way.

For one thing, not a single night passed in which both of their rooms were occupied at the same time. They fell asleep tightly entangled each night and awoke several hours before either of them bothered getting out of bed. They talked for long hours, ensconced in quiet rooms over drinks or games of chess or cards. They ducked into empty hallways when others weren’t looking; they craved each other's presence like addicts that had cracked the safes of a cartel. Often, the mere sight of Alastor’s existence in a room was enough to send a nervous energy skittering to the tips of Lucifer’s appendages, usually followed by a lapse of memory in whatever he’d been talking about and a collision with the nearest piece of furniture.

Despite this development—and it becoming much harder than usual to get any substantial work done—the whole Grimoire ordeal managed to succeed in reducing him to an irritable wreck by the end of the week.

“That,” he snarled one night as he stalked through the hotel’s front doors, letting in a gust of cold air, “Was the last straw. I’m done! I quit!”

Aside from the maid hunting roaches in the corner, only Alastor sat in the lobby, a glass of amber liquid discarded on the table beside him. Lucifer could hear voices from an adjoining room, but he found that he didn’t much care. He crossed the room, tail thrashing, and flung himself horizontally onto Alastor’s lap, his head falling against the sofa’s arm.

“The last time I checked, I don’t think a King is granted the luxury of retirement,” Alastor hummed, shifting to accommodate him. “Even one at your geriatric age.”

“Fuck you.” Lucifer closed his eyes as Alastor slid a hand into his hair. “These imps,” he huffed. “They’re covering their tracks. Every time I get closer to this business they’re running, I’m sent off on another wild goose chase! If I could just smite these guys-”

“Perhaps I should accompany you next time?”

“Oh no,” Lucifer laughed derisively. “You’d have lost your temper even sooner. Two hours of watching the Goetian prince flounce around his mansion blabbing about stars and asking me to sign his daughter’s trinkets before I got anything relevant out of him, and then it was all ‘What’s an imp? I don’t think I’ve seen one before!’”

There was a sudden noise from a nearby doorway, and Alastor’s hand stilled in his hair.

“Dad?” Charlie sounded as if she’d walked in on him growing a second pair of horns. A succession of whispers erupted behind her, and Lucifer screwed his eyes further shut. He didn’t want to know how many people had just walked in on him sprawled across Alastor’s lap.

“Uh, hey honey… er-”

“Your father’s returned from a rare and heroic attempt at actually governing his people,” Alastor interjected, his hand slowly continuing to card through Lucifer’s hair. “Was there something you needed?”

“Oh,” Charlie said stiltedly. “Uh… nope! We were just… heading to bed soon.”

“Mm, yes, I expect we’ll be retiring soon too.”

“We?” Charlie squeaked. From behind her, Lucifer heard the bartender grumble something about losing a bet, and he finally cracked his eyes open. Charlie and a few others were backlit by the door to the room Alastor had forced them to move their television to. “Actually, nevermind,” Charlie said, a slow smile crossing her face. “It’s really good to see you guys getting along!”

They were doing much more than getting along, but Lucifer would sooner eat a twelve-course meal from that town full of cannibals than clear that up for her. “Goodnight, honey,” he said instead, returning her smile, and made a few failed attempts to slow his heartbeat as the group ascended to their rooms.

Once they’d left, Alastor began to snicker.

“Ugh,” Lucifer groaned, hauling himself up. Alastor caught his wrist, drew him back for a kiss. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep now,” he muttered as the taste of whiskey coated his tongue.

“Oh, I’m not remotely tired,” Alastor hummed.

An idea swam into Lucifer’s head that set his skin buzzing. “Wanna go somewhere?”

“That depends.”

“On what?

“On where somewhere is.”

“You’ll have to tell me,” Lucifer grinned. “So I can, y'know… make the portal.”

The gears clicked in Alastor’s brain, and he shot straight upright. “Oh, please.”

Lucifer hopped from the couch and began to race upstairs as the radio’s volume dial cranked itself up behind him. New Orleans, he’d said. A magical land of gin bars and jazz. Doors and windows flew past, his shoes an endless clatter against velvet carpets as he climbed higher, and higher, and despite the absence of onlookers his smile remained firmly on his face.

It was a small difference, but it shed the weight of the world above him in a way even his wings could not. For the first time since the long-ago day that he’d given up on deluding himself with the imitations of emotions that were never truly there, he was happy.

He was happy.

Notes:

thanks for reading! the bulk of this was written in one 24-hour stretch since my brain would not shut up about it, so apologies if any of these scenes seem like they were hallucinated onto the page 😅

for canon purposes: this takes place in the post-S2 Hazbin timeline, but the pre-Mastermind Helluva Boss timeline!