Work Text:
Time was a very curious thing.
In life, it was the driving force that kept the world turning, in a metaphorical sense. It dictated the changing of the seasons, when you woke, when you went to bed, and when you went from living to dead. Yes, mortality was a rather brutish side effect of time. So cruel, in fact, that it drove many men and women to madness over the years, geniuses and fools alike chasing down some remedy for an inevitable end that spared no second thought to their begging when their time came.
Alastor had never minded the passage of time. It came and it went as it pleased, as did he, and he saw no point in lamenting the natural occurrence of a force impossible to overthrow. Nor had he ever spared much thought to when his time would run out, scarce as it had become - a fact that miffed him only a little bit in hindsight.
If anyone were to ask him, Alastor would offer that the only thing crueler than time was life. Ah life, that lovely bringer of breath. How sweetly it delves the unsuspecting babes into its endless toils and devastation. All that pain and suffering, and what was it all for? To be split open by the wrong end of a kitchen knife? To be pierced through the head by a bullet in the dark?
Death was undoubtedly much kinder than them both.
Time and life worked differently in Hell. In essence, both were fundamentally useless.There was no urgency to accomplish something great before you expired because there was no expiration date, and no race against the clock because that clock simply didn’t exist. An eternity of suffering was still an eternity, when all was said and done.
If any time was kept at all, it was only for the sake of routine and order, and while Alastor couldn’t always appreciate the irksome need to mind the time of day, he could see its use in keeping his calendar booked and on-track. He was nothing if not busy these days and running a hotel was not for the faint of heart - nor was it for the unpunctual.
Charlie was lucky to have him, and though she expressed as much quite often, it was never expressed enough, in Alastor’s opinion. Especially when he was left alone to fend off the graceless hoards of sinners yapping mindlessly at him on the other side of the reception counter.
“I lost my room key again!”
“So, like, are we supposed to bring our own bags up to our rooms, or do you guys have a guy for that or something?”
“What’s the wifi password?”
“The sink in my room is leaking.”
“Oh wait, my room key was in my pocket.”
“Is the pool heated?”
“Could I get some more towels in room 308?”
“What time is dinner again?”
“There’s a spider in my room, can you send someone to take care of that?”
“This place smells.”
“Nevermind, that wasn’t my room key. Hey, could I get a new room key? I lost mine.”
The overlapping voices of the damned grated against Alastor’s ears in a cacophony reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard, and had it not been for the hotel’s murder-free guarantee, the demon was sure that more than a few of the sinners before him would be digesting quite nicely in his stomach by now.
If it wasn’t for the ceaseless ringing of the bell at the front desk, Alastor wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place, with his self-control hanging by a single, measly thread. But after the tenth chime, and with no end in sight, the hotelier had seen no other choice but to melt into his shadows and slink his way over to deal with the perpetrator.
He should have known that no good deed went unpunished.
What started off as one sinner standing empty-eyed at the front desk asking for directions to the bathroom had quickly spiraled into a gaggle of blundering dimwits yelling over one another without a single regard for the poor deer’s already taught nerves. To make matters worse, the swarm kept growing, seeming to spawn out of nowhere as their volume and disorder took a turn for the chaotic.
It used to be that nothing but a feral, bared-toothed smile was needed to send sinners running, but even as Alastor’s grin turned from dangerous to desperate, it was clear that the masses before him were either too clueless or too self-absorbed to realize who they were dealing with.
Alastor felt his gums ache from how tightly he was clenching his jaw closed. It was the only thing he could do to stop himself from taking a bite out of that pathetic looking wretch that kept thrusting her cellular device in his face asking for the hotel’s wifi. His left eye twitched, too, and it was the only warning he gave before the flood of shadows that had been slowly inching between his victim’s feet suddenly shot upwards, solidifying into tendrils as they wrapped around every mouth in the crowd, effectively silencing each one.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he seethed through gritted teeth, “Let me remind you that this is a hotel and not some circus, despite what our unfortunate interior decor might suggest. Surely you are capable of even a smidge of order, hm?”
Wide and terrified eyes stared back at him. Satisfied, Alastor lifted a single finger in a waiting gesture as he picked up the landline phone on the desk and dialed in the number he was looking for. When the first few rings went by with no answer, Alastor growled, his static thickening in agitation. He was just about to hang up and throw the guarantee out the window when a breathless voice finally picked up on the other end.
“Charlie here!” The princess sounded frazzled and Alastor could hear the sound of her shoes hitting rhythmically on the pavement. He wasted no time on pleasantries.
“I thought we both agreed when I signed onto this endeavor that I wouldn’t have to concern myself with matters of customer service?” Some of his victims were starting to wriggle against their restraints, which Alastor stilled with a single, lethal look. On the other end of the call, Charlie seemed to quicken her pace, her breath coming through the speaking in agitated huffs.
“I’m so sorry, Al. Angel was supposed to be watching the front desk while Vaggie and I were in our meeting with Heaven.”
“Well it would appear he’s in need of a reminder that he shouldn’t be leaving his post during business hours.”
“I know, I know,” Charlie agreed. “I’ll talk to him. Thank you so much for dealing with it Al, we’re just a block away and can take care of the guests when we get back, if you want.” Her voice sounded tired and Alastor could only imagine the drained slump of her shoulders as she spoke. He pulled back some of the venom from his words as he responded.
“Consider the matter handled,” he muttered before hanging up the phone. Then, and before he released the sinners in his tendrils’ holds, he addressed his captive audience. “Show me you can behave as civilized folk and I’ll allow you to keep your tongues. Now, line up single file, please, and I’ll get to your questions.”
Truthfully, Alastor couldn’t blame Charlie for being such a mess. The hotel had received an uptake in residents over the last month, and with Charlie and Vaggie having commenced their bi-weekly meetings with Heaven’s ambassadors, it meant that a lot of the pressure fell on her to deliver good reports. That also meant that there was a lot more work for the rest of the hotel’s staff to keep up with.
Between breaking up bar fights and cleaning up after inconsiderate and tipsy guests, Husker could hardly be seen without his feathers ruffled and a nastier scowl on his face than usual. Not to mention the fact that their inventory was being drained at a much faster rate, which meant a lot more back and forth between the stock room and the bar, as well as a lot more glasses that needed cleaning and shining. Even with the little minions that Alastor had supplied, the work was never ending.
Angel Dust helped when he could, but with a full-time job shackled to him, he could hardly be counted on to prioritize work at the hotel. Often, he would be gone for days at a time only to trudge through the front doors with makeup smeared all over his face and just enough energy to drag himself to his rooms. He was at Valentino’s beck and call, and the moth seemed to be in a rather foul mood as of late.
Angel’s prolonged periods of absence meant that Cherri Bomb, who had made her presence at the hotel a permanent one, was responsible for wrangling her friend’s squealing menace of a pet. Alastor’s helpful suggestion of tranquilizing the pesky little thing hadn’t been met with any enthusiasm, so now Cherri spent all her time keeping Fat Nuggets as far away from Alastor as she could.
Even he was feeling the strain of the recent changes. Outside of his normal responsibilities, Alastor found himself needing to take on a lot of the more customer-facing tasks, such as manning the abandoned front desk.
It seemed the only one unbothered by it all was Niffty. The little housekeeper was a blur these days, wheeling her cleaning cart around at breakneck speeds as she went about her rounds. When she wasn’t cleaning, she could be heard rustling and bumping about in the walls, her manic giggles low and unsettling in the dead of night. Alastor had lent her some of his puppet minions as well, but he stopped doing that when it became apparent that they weren’t coming back from their shifts. He chose not to speculate on why that was.
Yes, all of the hustle and bustle provided just the right ingredients for a perfect storm, the stress of which was felt by everyone, including their one and only King of Hell.
Lucifer was, frankly, a mess. In the six weeks since the angel had told Alastor of his success with gaining a personal audience with the Seraphim, Lucifer had been acting awfully strange - stranger than normal, that was to say. Around that same time, the princess and her partner had commenced with their Heavenly meetings, and true to their plan, Lucifer and Alastor had spent the evenings upon their return pouring over the reports.
By Alastor’s standards, everything was progressing at a normal, sound, and utterly drab pace. Nothing out of the ordinary had turned up even despite them all waiting to hear Heaven’s final verdict on whether or not they would be able to speak with the redeemed Sir Pentious. And eventually they had. Not two weeks ago Charlie had come home practically leaping off of the walls, giddy with the news that Heaven had agreed to a broadcast and Alastor assumed that that was the end of that.
Except it hadn’t, because although the outcome was favorable and fueled Lucifer’s cautious optimism regarding Heaven’s intentions, the angel’s mood had improved, but not recovered. At a certain point, Alastor had grown accustomed to the smell of apprehension in the room when they went to bed, but it was nothing that couldn’t be wafted away by a good night’s sleep. Lately, though, the king reeked of it and Alastor wanted nothing more than to scrub the little monarch clean of whatever plagued him.
If only he knew what that could be.
Tentatively, Alastor had approached him once, only once, and when Lucifer said he was fine, Alastor thought better of pursuing the matter. Lucifer would share what he could when he felt comfortable to do so. Still, days passed and Alastor couldn’t help but to feel unsettled with the prospect of not knowing.
For all his sleuthing, the only thing Alastor could pinpoint was that things had been off with Lucifer since that evening in the art studio. He was beginning to think that the wretched place was cursed, given their track record with it. And while he was not one to nag - they were both entitled to privacy, after all - Alastor couldn’t ignore the little niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that told him the king was scheming.
The accusation didn’t come without reason, either. Several times already he had rounded the corner to the bar only to see Lucifer locked in hushed conversation with Husker, the latter of which would catch Alastor’s eye and break away from the huddle to clean glasses like he hadn’t just been conspiring with the King of Hell. On one occasion, Alastor had discovered Lucifer in the basement with Niffty, their muffled, excited chatter reaching his ears as he walked past the basement door. They had stopped speaking as soon as he came down the stairs and Niffty had done a very convincing job of distracting Alastor by showing him her new technique for folding the fitted sheets. In one moment of weakness where Alastor had pushed his pride to the side long enough to go and seek Lucifer out, he traced the king all the way to the locked and soundproofed door of Charlie’s office.
Paranoia would be a new ailment for Alastor, but not unwarranted given just how crazy the angel had made every other aspect of his life. Either way, tonight was the scheduled broadcast between Heaven and Hell and Alastor was finally going to have Lucifer right where he wanted him - and he intended to get some answers.
The art of broadcasting was exactly that: an art. When Alastor was alive, broadcasting had been much trickier as his relationship with the radio waves was limited to what the technology of the time could allow. Now, though, the radio waves were as innate to the Radio Demon as burning was to a fire. His broadcasting tower was his castle and every radio and speaker in Pride was his loyal subject.
He had toned down the theatrics lately, per Charlie’s request that they keep the hotel a more welcoming environment, but Alastor still managed to sneak in a tortured soul or two in the wee hours of the night if only to remind the citizens of Hell that his absence didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t searching and ready for his next victim.
Oh, what joy it brought him to indulge in the things he loved. How alive it made him feel!
He set to work, flicking on lights and flipping switches on his broadcasting console as he waited, if a little impatiently, for Lucifer to arrive. Had the broadcast been intended for all of Hell, Alastor could have fulfilled the request in no time, but since they were attempting to connect with the frequencies of Heaven, he needed someone more attuned to their channel in order to establish the connection.
As both Lucifer and Vaggie had so helpfully pointed out, angelic frequencies were unique to angelic beings, much like their grace was, and Heaven’s own frequency vibrated at a level that was hard for mortals to recognize on their own. This was partially why exposing an angel’s true form or true voice often devastated the mortal souls they were exposed to.
Mankind simply wasn’t built to comprehend them. A pity; Alastor rather would have enjoyed witnessing Lucifer in all his unbridled glory.
“Sorry I’m late, my meeting in Lust ran over.”
Speak of the Devil.
“Nonsense, Your Majesty. We still have an hour until we’re scheduled to go live.” See, Alastor could play nice, too.
Lucifer had the grace to look sheepish as he cast his gaze about the blinking lights and buttons of the console. Really, he was looking anywhere but at Alastor, not that the sinner particularly cared.
“I’m afraid even that might not be enough time to accomplish what we’re trying to do here.”
Alastor’s hand paused where it hovered just above a dial, his static spiking in interest at the king’s words. “How so?” He turned to look at Lucifer with a look equal parts quizzical and testing. The angel scratched the back of his head as he dropped himself into one of the two chairs set up by all the equipment.
“Well, my first idea involves me forming a mergence with Sera again, and from there we would both act as microphones, allowing Pentious to speak through her, and by extension through me, before finally broadcasting that through your equipment.”
Alastor tilted his head, his eyes narrowed into slits. “So your idea of carrying out perhaps the single greatest breakthrough that both Heaven and Hell have ever known involves playing the universe’s largest, most complex game of telephone?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” Lucifer said dumbly.
“And establishing this mergence requires a great deal of time?”
“Typically, yeah. I don’t know, I’ve never attempted to merge more than once within such a short amount of time, so there’s no telling just how long it would take me to find Sera.”
“Alright. So let’s hear this other idea.”
“What?” Alasroe rolled his eyes at the angel, his impatience growing alongside his frustration.
“You said that the mergence was your first idea. Clearly that’s not going to work out very well, so I’m assuming that means you were able to come up with at least one more idea, correct?”
“I mean, yeah, but it’s not a great one,” Lucifer mumbled. Alastor found it interesting that the king’s face seemed to flush a slightly golden shade as he looked away from him again.
“Well let’s hear it then. I sincerely doubt it would be your worst idea to date,” Alastor prompted none too gently. Lucifer blushed harder.
“You’re probably not going to like it,” he warned quickly before taking a bracing breath. “It involves, sort of, forming a mergence with you.”
Lucifer flinched like he was preparing for a blow that never landed. The room had gone silent and when he cautiously opened an eye, Alastor looked a little green and stunned. If the angel had been worried before, he was about to enter full-blown hysterics if the sinner didn’t say something.
But Alastor wasn’t broken. He was simply… Well truthfully, he didn’t quite know the words to describe what he was feeling. A mergence, at least based on how Lucifer had described it to him, was presumably the most effective way to communicate with one another, but it was also a rather intimate affair. Could they even be sure that it would work between an angel and a demon?
He asked as much, surprised at the dryness of his mouth as he spoke, but grateful that his creaking voice was sheltered by the thick roll of his filter.
“I’m not sure,” Lucifer answered honestly. “I’ve only attempted it once,” With Lilith, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. “We had to cut the trial short due to a change in mind.”
It was a decision made out of desperation. Two thousand years in the pit of darkness and Lucifer felt just as lost and alone as he had been the day he’d fallen. Lilith had run out of ways to try and comfort him and he couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know what he had, the things he lost, or the things he carried. He thought that if he merged with her, if she could see, if she could feel what he was feeling, then maybe she would understand just how deep his grief really ran and maybe she would understand why he needed to get back up there.
They had tried to do it, they really had, but there came a point in their attempt when her anger and his sadness just couldn’t cope with the other. Lilith, though she loved Lucifer, couldn’t bear the idea of participating in something so divine, so alien. Lucifer had severed the connection the moment she showed the first signs of resistance and neither one of them had brought up the idea since then.
It was a lot to ask of someone who wasn’t familiar with how the mergence worked. It was vulnerability at its most raw and it was precisely because of that that Lucifer had even hesitated to bring up the idea to Alastor at all.
They would quite literally be baring their souls to one another, and the idea seemed too daunting, too terrible. If they followed through with the mergence, would Alastor even like what he saw?
“How would it work?” Alastor’s voice was tight, his face still that pale green color, but the sound of it was a beacon in Lucifer’s dark night regardless.
“It would take a lot of concentration,” Lucifer explained, wanting to spell it out for the man as plainly as he could. “But basically all that would be required of you would be to, just, let me in. Once we’ve established the mergence, I would be able to supply you with the frequency signature you’d need and from there you can use your control of the radio waves to connect it directly to your broadcast. We can sever the mergence the moment you lock in on the signal,” he finished with a promise, trying not to sound too hopeful.
Alastor seemed to consider the plan as Lucifer watched him carefully with bated breath. A nearly feral part of Lucifer’s brain was telling him to make up an excuse about why attempting a mergence was a stupid idea and that having him and Sera merge would be so much easier. There was another part of him, an equally large part of himself, that was wholly braced for the rejection that was sure to come, his insecurities needing no invitation as they joined the party. But then there was also a little, tiny part of the angel that took in the thoughtful scrunch of Alastor’s nose, the shallow crease in his brow, the stubborn curve of his mouth, and hoped beyond reason that he would finally get his miracle.
“Will it be… quick?” Lucifer had to dig his nails into the seat of the chair at how small his flower’s voice sounded. Alastor’s gaze was fixed blankly on a flashing yellow light, the reflection bouncing off of his monocle as he swallowed.
“And painless,” Lucifer soothed. “So long as neither one of us fights it. But you can say no at any point and I’ll sever the connection before you can ever feel a thing,” he was quick to add. There was no reason why either of them needed to torture themselves needlessly.
Instead of answering him immediately, Alastor reached out a finger and shut off the yellow light with a slight click. His hand was shaking, Lucifer noticed, and suddenly it was like he was trying to breathe around a stone lodged in his throat. His heart was racing and he thought that maybe, if he listened closely, he could hear Alastor’s running right alongside his.
“Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Alright. Yes, let’s go with your second idea.”
“Are you sure?” Lucifer knew he should have felt relieved, but his palms were starting to turn slick where they pressed against the seat of his chair and he didn’t need a mirror to know that his face had gone pale - thank the father for the low light in the room.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Alastor snapped, his mouth twisted into a scowl as he leveled the king with an icy glare. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
Lucifer believed him. He shifted, ignoring the anxious flutter in his midsection as he moved closer to the demon at his side. Alastor watched him carefully, scrutinizing every micromovement and hating the way that every nerve ending in his body seemed to be on high alert. For the briefest moment, his ears flattened over the back of his head before he was forcing them back into their stiff attention.
He gritted his teeth until his gums ached.
“It’s okay if you do,” Lucifer supplied, his voice low and gentle like he was speaking to a spooked animal. It made Alastor’s ears burn. “It’s a lot to ask of you, I know. I wouldn’t be mad.”
He didn’t answer the angel; he didn’t know what to say to that. “So how do we go about this?” He asked instead.
Sitting up straighter, Lucifer took a deep breath - the shakiness of his inhale the only indicator that he was just as nervous as Alastor was.
“Place your hands in your lap with your palms facing upwards. Yeah, just like that. Now close your eyes and try to relax.”
Alastor did his best to follow Lucifer’s instructions. Gradually, his breaths came slower and the pounding in his ears subsided, curbing the tension gnawing away at his gut. If his hands stopped trembling, it was only when Lucifer placed his own over them - injured and torn, but cold and kind nonetheless - and suddenly all Alastor could feel was him.
He released the invisible weight he’d been shouldering, and in an instant he felt weightless.
“If it helps, you can visualize the mergence like opening a door to a house and inviting me in.” Lucifer’s voice was soothing and warm with a mild cadence to it that made it sound almost like he was reciting poetry. The sound of it settled deeply into Alastor’s bones, erasing any traces of lingering doubt.
“You’re doing so well, flower,” the devil praised. “I’m going to try and merge with you now, okay? I’m going to knock on your door, and you just have to let me in, alright?”
Truthfully, the metaphor was helpful if only because it gave Alastor something to visualize and root the sensations he was feeling to. He jumped, his static spiking in alarm as he felt something press against the edges of his consciousness, and while his instinct was to send the cavalry over to defend the walls he never even knew existed in the first place, he also felt that the intruder was no threat to him.
Just let me in, he repeated Lucifer’s words to himself.
This was Lucifer - Alastor’s Lucifer. The same Lucifer who held suns as carefully as he held Alastor. The Lucifer who moved like windsong and laughed like the Fourth of July. He was safety and promise and the most gentle devastation all in one, and he was everything that Alastor had never realized he’d been hungry for. Alastor had opened the door to him countless times before, so what harm was there in opening one more?
Just let him in.
It happened just as Lucifer said it would. The moment Alastor opened that door to his mind whose existence the sinner had previously missed, all he could see was light. It flooded him slowly in the same way that the waves of a lake would lap at a person’s bare ankles, and with it came a sensation Alastor would liken to a spring breeze - a caress of something neither too hot nor too cold and feather-light. Perhaps most surprising of all, was that Alastor seemed to recognize the light, even as its levels rose above his waist, inching closer and closer towards his overwhelming.
Alastor did not fear his drowning. He welcomed it. He resisted the urge to hold his breath as the light swirled passed his mouth, and when he finally closed his eyes, it was with all his willingness that he succumbed to the mercy of that warm embrace.
Opening them again was among the most difficult things Alastor had ever done, but when he did manage to pry them open, he was blinded by a dazzling brightness. Slowly, the world dimmed into focus, though the awestruck feeling never left his chest.
Alastor was standing in a wide room, the floors made of a white polished marble that was so pure it seemed to emit its own glow. A series of corinthian pillars held up the domed structure he found himself at the center of. Above him, the ceiling was made of glass and the bluest sky he had ever seen hung just on the other side of it. His veins buzzed pleasantly as he glanced around, spotting two long stretches of hallway on opposite sides of the room. Symbols were etched into the walls by either entrance in golden letters, and while he could infer that they were most likely letters and words, the meaning of them was lost to him.
Unsure of which direction to take, Alastor followed the subtle pull that tugged him to the left, and as he passed the writing on the wall, he reached out a hand to feel the etched words, except it wasn’t his hand that he saw.
In a way, he supposed that it was his hand, but not the one he had grown accustomed to in the last century or so. The hand that landed against the cold marble was tanned and human, his fingertips rounded and his nails blunt. Alarmed, he reached upwards only to close his hands around the empty space where his ears would normally be. A long, confused second later Alastor was running his fingers down the familiar and short length of his dark curls before cupping his ears at the side of his head.
He was… human again.
There wasn’t a mirror in sight, but he didn’t need one to know that it was true. Whatever place this was, it had reverted him back to his default settings, he supposed. Alastor didn’t dwell on his puzzlement much longer, as an insistent tugging sensation in his gut led him further down the hallway.
There were doors on either side, and when Alastor tried to open them, he was surprised to find that some swung open easily, while others were locked firmly. There were even some doors that had no handle at all, and he didn’t even try to open those. Somehow, and despite never having been in this strange place before, Alastor understood that he must have been in Lucifer’s end of the mergence.
Whatever Lucifer was, Alastor could feel his essence all around him, and as curious as he was to poke around the layout, memorize each room and map where each hallway led, he had enough self control to stay on task.
Now, if he could just figure out where to find the frequency.
As though responding to his unspoken question, a high-pitched ringing sound filled the hall and the sourceless light in the building dimmed as the air around him vibrated. Clamping his palms over his ears, Alastor winced as the noise grew and crescendoed with a burst of warm energy. The ringing faded out shortly after, leaving just as quickly as it had arrived, and in its place it left behind a rod-like thing. It glowed white hot, but when he put his hand to it, Alastor found that it didn’t burn him, rather it was surprisingly cool to the touch. It extended down the long hallway and he could only assume that this was Lucifer’s way of giving him directions.
Who was he to refuse?
He followed without question, one hand holding tightly to his guide while the other dragged his fingertips across the smooth, white walls. His footsteps echoed as he went about navigating the hallways, twisting and turning as the light instructed him to. Each one looked the same as the last - long and narrow and lined with doors. Alastor could have just as easily thought that he was walking in circles, had it not been for the signs on the doors.
As far as he could tell, no sign was the same. Some of them were older and faded, written in that same ancient language he couldn’t decipher, while others looked more familiar. Curiously enough, more than one of the doors said the word ‘Charlie’ on them, and briefly he wondered, if he were to continue walking down the endless aisles, if he would find one with his name on it, too.
Time warped around him in a pleasant blur. Alastor wasn’t sure how long he had been walking for - it could have just as easily been ten minutes or ten hours - but he wasn’t fatigued and continued to patiently follow the light where it led.
Eventually, amidst the twists and turns, he picked up on a new noise. This one was a sort of buzzing that reminded Alastor of the cicada song that filled the silence of hot summer nights past. It started out subtle and grew steadily as he approached. The rod in his hand seemed to hum under his palm, as though in recognition, and the sensation only intensified as he neared the door.
The glow of the rod came to a stop right in front of a door that looked no different than any of the countless others he had passed, but when he looked at the sign, he saw a series of indecipherable figures accompanied by a single word he could read.
Sera.
This must be the signal Lucifer was talking about. He had found it. Now, just how was he supposed to connect to it?
Thinking for a moment, Alastor looked at the light that had brought him all the way here and then back at the door before staring down at his empty hand. Much like he would in his demon form, Alastor tried to conjure up a single, flickering green flame. It flared to life in his palm, the tongues licking away at his skin without causing any harm. Focusing that energy, Alastor reached out cautiously until his blazing hand was pressed flatly against the door.
Green light flooded the space, quickly swallowing the slight white glow from the rod, and the buzzing sound coming from behind the door intensified as it was confronted with Alastor’s own static.
Closing his eyes, Alastor could feel the way the foreign energy brushed against his being like sandpaper. It was hostile, more so than Lucifer’s had been, but nothing that he couldn’t wrangle into submission.
Steadying himself, he reached out with his own power again. It was as though Alastor could visualize the frequency he was looking for, and with a careful hand, he grasped it firmly in his left. Calling his fire back into his right hand, he held the two opposing frequencies before bringing his hands together, grunting through their resistance as he melded them into one.
There was a final, visceral static hiss, a flash of neon brilliance, and then silence as the frequencies relented and finally harmonized.
The relief was immediate, like sticking a burn under cold water. Alastor stumbled back from the door, seeing doubles through his hazy vision as he fell backwards, only to be caught by familiar arms.
Well done, flower. You’ve done it.
The voice echoed in his mind like a hundred people were speaking all at once, and though it spoke with an ancient timbre, Alastor found it to be the most comforting sound he had ever heard and he leaned into its beckoning comfort.
The weariness was quickly leached from his bones, replaced with warmth and vigor, gratitude, and a curious wash of, well, through Alastor’s daze it almost seemed like adoration. He heard that sweet voice again, though the words sounded far away and his head felt full. Vaguely, he wondered how he would get back, the light that had brought him here was fading, fading, and he reached out a tired hand in a feeble attempt to latch onto it, but his fingertips slipped right through its warmth like trying to catch the tail end of a wisp of smoke.
Alastor?
“Alastor!”
The lightbulb in the corner of the room burst with a fury of green sparks as Alastor crash landed back into reality with a strangled gasp. He looked around wildly, incredibly disoriented as he took inventory of his surroundings.
Lights, knobs, switches, dials, and buttons, all well worn from use. The room smelled of cigarette smoke and organic matter and a film of static rolled over his skin in comforting waves that reminded him of where and when and who he was.
Alastor was back in his broadcasting tower, realizing now that Lucifer must have released the mergence once he had managed to connect the signal. Even as that sank in, he couldn’t help but feel a ringing emptiness in his body, like something precious and filling had suddenly vacated him. It made his chest ache in a way he didn’t appreciate.
Lucifer’s cold hands were on the side of Alastor’s neck, anchoring him to the here and now as he held the sinner’s head steady, and Alastor was grateful for the interaction. The angel’s face was just inches from his own and tight with worry. His frown was prominent as his yellow eyes searched the demon from head to toe for any signs of injury. Lucifer’s uneasiness ebbed slightly only when Alastor reached up to cup the delicate point of the angel’s chin in his unsteady hand, and when he brought his face up to meet his eyes, something heavy and warm seemed to melt over them both as relief and disbelief finally took precedent, small and hesitant smiles adorning their faces.
Father, Lucifer wanted to kiss that man all over his stupidly beautiful face.
“H-Hello? Is anybody there?”
The unmistakable drag of Sir Pentious’ voice crackled over the speakers and snapped both Alastor and Lucifer from their reverie. It took him a while to kick into high gear, but with a few flipped switches and a crack of his neck, Alastor was dragging his microphone over to rest before him, sparing Lucifer one last and long dazzling look before he was off to the races.
“Testing, testing. One, two, three. Is this thing on?” The sound of canned laughter accompanied the chipper delivery and to Lucifer, it was like seeing a caterpillar metamorphosis in real time as Alastor the Radio Star came to life.
“Alastor, is that really you? Can you guys hear me?”
“Loud and clear my fine and slippery pal!”
“Oh, what wonderful news,” Pentious crowed, the joy in his voice shining even through the crackle of the speakers. “We were doubtful that this connection would even work.”
“Your lack of faith in my abilities is quite frankly insulting, good sir. Are we certain that you belong up there with all the other winners? Oh, I’m only joking, ha-ha! But if there is anyone we should be thanking for tonight’s very special broadcast, it’s our very own King of Hell, Lucifer Morningstar!”
Another round of applause erupted from the speakers and Lucifer suddenly felt sheepish seeing that the twinkle in Alastor’s eye was aimed in his direction.
“Would you like to say a few words, Your Majesty?” Alastor didn’t give the angel a chance to refuse as he slid the microphone his way, his eyes bright and expectant. Lucifer clutched at the base, his mouth dry as he pictured his audiences listening from both the staff parlor as well as whoever was gathered around Pentious upstairs.
“Oh, um, hi,” he mumbled, shooting Alastor a panicked look when a screech of feedback made them both wince. “Sorry, my bad. Um, hello Sir Pentious it’s - it’s good to hear your voice.”
“The honor is all mine, Sire. Were it not for you, I never would have had the opportunity to speak to my dear friends again. Are they - can they hear me, too?”
He was nervous, that much was clear, and Lucifer couldn’t help the fond smile that gripped him as he relaxed into the seat and laced his fingers together around the microphone.
“Yeah, they’re all on the line and listening in downstairs. You’ll have the chance to talk to them in a bit, I’m sure there’s a lot of catching up to do. We just wanted to make sure the connection was strong first,” Lucifer explained, eyeing the blinking red light that he knew would connect the broadcast to the microphone they had supplied Charlie with before starting. “We’ll let you guys get to it, but before we go - Sera, if you’re listening, thank you.”
He wasn’t sure why his eyes were already wet less than ten minutes into the conversation, but Lucifer had always had a soft spot for reunions, and in a way, Pentious coming back to them was the second miracle that he had witnessed that evening.
“Toodle-oo, chum! Do your old pal, Alastor, a favor and raise a little hell while you’re up there on my behalf, won’t you? Ha-ha! Charlie dear, the floor is all yours.”
With a click, the connection was transferred over to the second line and Alastor slid down the switch for the volume right as Charlie’s hiccuping monologue was starting to come through the speakers.
Lucifer leaned back in his chair, exhausted but with a heart so incredibly full that he was sure it would burst right out of his chest. He didn’t argue with the lopsided grin that pulled at the corners of his mouth and as soon as Alastor had switched off his mic, the angel was reaching across the space between them to plant their lips together.
Every ounce of that mounting pressure inside of him was poured into their kiss and Lucifer hoped it was eloquent enough to portray every single thought and feeling he had for the man. Alastor returned the favor, caught off guard by the affection, but eager to participate. He pulled away after a final insistent push, his hands curling around the angel’s shoulders as he reluctantly separated himself.
“I was going to ask how you were doing, but I see your answer beat me to it,” the man said, mildly breathless. His lips were slick with remnants of their kiss and when he swiped his tongue over them, all he could taste was Lucifer.
“I’m so happy,” the angel confessed. His voice was hushed, disbelief and a subdued glimmer painted his expression and it was as though Lucifer was afraid to speak the truth out loud. It was as though Lucifer was afraid that in saying those words, the universe would do what it did best and take it all away from him again.
The sight of it made something ache inside of Alastor’s chest and all he felt was a need to gather the king up in his arms and shield him from those fiery darts that sought to extinguish his shining radiance. He reached out to straighten the king’s bowtie instead, tugging on the crests until they were even and straight, and gathered his thoughts as he bought some time.
“You should be happy, Lucifer,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was a complete success - not that I ever doubted it could be done with our combined expertise.” He paused, pursing his lips as he straightened Lucifer’s collar next, fingertips fixed on the sharp creases of the king’s shirt. “I’m happy, too.”
Lucifer didn’t respond right away. Instead, he regarded the man in front of him like he was seeing him for the first time, which in a way, he supposed he kind of was.
The experience of their mergence was life-altering in a way that he wasn’t sure if Alastor knew how to recognize or appreciate. But Lucifer did. The whole event was entirely different than any mergence he had ever had with any angel. Merging with a mortal soul was… euphoric. And for it to have been with Alastor of all people made the entire experience that much sweeter.
To truly see him and feel him, and then to be seen and felt by him in return was like discovering light for the very first time and knowing that no darkness could ever compare.
Reaching up, Lucifer caught the sinner’s wrist and ran his thumb over the thin and delicate skin there.
“Thank you, Alastor,” he said finally, his words quiet and sincere. “Thank you for trusting me, even if I didn’t deserve it.”
Alastor tilted his head questioningly and Lucifer knew that the man wasn’t going to make this easy on him. Alastor wasn’t blind and he certainly wasn’t stupid. Lucifer knew he had been off the last handful of weeks, but he had a good reason for being so, even if he couldn’t share that reason until tonight.
If anything, Alastor’s long-suffering patience confirmed that Lucifer had been right not to tell him anything at all.
Father, some things were just worth the wait, weren’t they?
“I know you’ve noticed that I’ve been… off these last few weeks,” he started slowly, “and I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was ignoring you, or upset with you in any way. I’m not,” he clarified, finally meeting Alastor’s narrowed red eyes. “I’ve been talking to the Sins again, trying to get my affairs in order - and boy is there a lot that needs to be taken care of, but I guess I can’t blame anyone but myself for that. And this by no means is meant to excuse my behavior, but I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you, flower.”
He trailed off with a terse chuckle, dropping his gaze as he rubbed the back of his neck. Alastor’s warm hand on his cheek brought him back, and when Lucifer looked up at him, there was nothing but curiosity and patience swimming in his eyes.
“What is it that has you so preoccupied, Lucifer?” The sinner’s words were like velvet against the devil’s aches, his heart seeming to give a sigh at just how gently it was being handled. Looking about the room once more, Lucifer saw that the ‘On Air’ sign was still on, and he could hear that there was still some muted conversation going on over the broadcast.
“Do you need to be here to turn everything off once they’re done?”
“Not at all,” Alastor mumbled, unbothered that the king had dodged his question for the time being.
“Can we go and speak in my room, then? Would that be okay?”
It was back, Alastor recognized. That same apprehension that had filled every room that Lucifer walked into for the last six weeks. It set the demon a little bit on edge, to be frank, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that this was the outcome he had been hoping for. Conversation, privacy, and maybe, finally, some answers.
“Of course, dearest.”
Turning his attention to his broadcasting console one more time, Alastor programmed the equipment to shut off as soon as the call ended. He scribbled a quick note telling Charlie that she shouldn’t expect to hear from him for the remainder of the night and to simply hang up once everyone in the parlor was done talking. Folding the paper into a little square, he called upon one of his little puppets and pinned the message to its middle, instructing it to deliver the note to the princess downstairs.
Watching as the little beast toddled through the doorway, Alastor then turned his attention back towards the king, who was staring after the puppet with mild amusement.
“Shall we be off then?” He held out his hand for the angel to take, and to his relief, Lucifer did.
Their walk to the front room was silent, and Alastor couldn’t help the quick, stolen glances he threw the king’s way. Lucifer was thoroughly stuck in his head, his tension palpable, and he squeezed the sinner’s hand every few seconds as though reassuring himself that the man was still there. Well, Alastor was of the opinion that such circumstances simply wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“How were you able to do that?” He asked, holding the door to his room open for the angel as he looked up at the question. “How were you able to find me so quickly? In the mergence.”
Lucifer blinked up at him, as though uncomprehending, and the slightly lost look made Alastor’s stomach lurch.
“I thought you said that it was difficult to establish a connection like that,” he clarified. Something seemed to finally click in Lucifer’s mind as the angel smiled at him like Alastor had just said something really amusing.
“Mortals are less complex than angels,” Lucifer explained, tugging Alastor back to his side as the sinner closed the door behind himself. “It helps that your signal is such a distinct one.”
That last detail caught Alastor off guard, his ears swiveling forward in interest.
“Distinct how?”
Lucifer cast him a suspicious look. “Are you fishing for compliments, flower?”
Alastor scoffed, only mildly offended that the king would reach that conclusion. “I was merely curious, Your Majesty. I’ve been called many things in my life, but ‘distinct’ has seldom been one of them.”
“Oh. Well, as you may or may not now, everyone has a unique signature. Every soul has a frequency. It’s how angels identify one another and it’s how we’re able to merge with each other. Human souls have frequencies, too, though they’re much harder to detect. Have you ever noticed that before?”
“No,” Alastor admitted. The revelation left him a little stunned, but he couldn’t say that the information surprised him. He supposed it made sense, this idea that every life would have a unique marker to tell it apart from all the others.
Alastor knew all about frequencies and had always been sensitive to the shifts in the airwaves around him. He had always been able to feel a certain energy radiating from the king, something that set him apart from all the other sinners and hellborn, but he had always assumed that was because Lucifer was so powerful. It turned out that what he had been feeling all along was Lucifer’s frequency, which was so apparent because he was an angel.
He wondered, then, if it was possible for him to feel the frequencies of other sinners, too.
“You should try it sometime,” Lucifer encouraged, giving the impression yet again that he could read Alastor’s mind. “With your natural ability to feel them, it shouldn’t take much practice for you to nail it. As for why I say your signature is so distinct, I always accredited that to the fact that your power centers around frequencies themselves. I picked up on it the moment we met, and with so much time spent together, it’s only become easier for me to trace. In fact, if I had to, I could pick you out in a crowd from the other side of the universe.”
He said it so casually, so naturally, as though Alastor was something that had always come easily to him - he said it like it would never not be true.
Alastor was certain his face was pink.
Lucifer’s easy smile dropped as they reached his door, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Alastor had been rendered speechless, he would have probably said something to reassure the angel. With a hand on the doorknob, Lucifer paused mid-breath like he wasn’t sure what to say. His brows furrowed, troubled, and Alastor could feel a twinge of anxiety shimmy up his spine, too, at the expression on his face.
“Right, well, before we head inside, I just wanted to say that, well, I hope you like it, Alastor.”
The poor sinner barely had time to register the questions being thrown around his head at what the angel had said when the door swung open and he was hit with the unexpected smell of cheap cigars and brandy.
His nose wrinkled automatically, experience telling him that it would take a few minutes to become accustomed to the smell of cheap liquor and smoke. He blinked through the strange haze that hung in the air, Lucifer’s room having clearly suffered from some sort of fiasco, and his immediate thought was that perhaps the cat had managed to sneak one of Cherri’s smoke bombs into the king’s quarters.
But he quickly found that he was wrong.
The king’s room was dimmer than usual, the strange, colorful lights he had strung across the walls had been swapped for something moodier, green fixtures hanging down over the…bar? Yes, Alastor supposed it was a bar. There was no bed pushed against the wall, and in its usual place sat a dark, curved counter made of wood with a polished surface. It was flanked by a mirrored backsplash, the likes of which reflected the array of bottles set out on the shelves that lined it on either side.
A small chandelier hung in the middle of the room. It was designed in the art deco style and the long crystals refracted softly in the low light of the room. All of the existing furniture had been removed: rugs, couches, and rubber ducks included. Left behind was a wooden floor that looked well worn and scratched, and oh, so familiar.
The fireplace was still intact, a fire already going and lending its warmth to the atmosphere in the room, and on top of the mantle sat Alastor’s radio, music pouring from the speakers, as well as a fresh bouquet of hissing carnations.
What in the unholy hell?
“Is - Is this a speakeasy?”
The question tumbled from his mouth even as his ambient static came to an abrupt halt, paused by the sheer force of his confusion.
“I, uh, yeah. Yeah it is.” Lucifer stood in the doorway, wringing his hands as Alastor slowly ventured further into the room. “Do you like it?”
Alastor scoffed, though there was nothing hostile about the sound. Even the wallpaper was different, the patterns stylized in a similar motif to the art deco chandelier, the trim around the baseboards simpler than the design the king’s room usually sported.
There was smoke in his eyes - from where it was coming from, exactly, Alastor couldn’t tell - and it pricked at the edges of his vision, heat and wetness pushing into his field of vision from all sides.
“How?” He whispered. He ran his fingertips over the scratched and dinged wood of the bar, catching sight of the ringed water stains on the counter. Every bit as true to how it was in life, down to each little detail.
“How did you make the bayou in your room?” Lucifer responded. “Although I can’t take all the credit. I had some help,” he shrugged, leaning against the doorframe once he was sure that Alastor wouldn’t freak out over the surprise he had spent weeks preparing.
“Oh.”
Alastor supposed that made sense, too. The secrecy, the hushed conversations with Husk and Niffty. It wouldn’t surprise the sinner to find out that Charlie had been in on the whole thing, too. It was touching. Affection pooled in his body, spilling from that tight little warm spot in his chest like water running over the sides of a too-full bathtub. He felt dizzy with it, and all the crazier for wanting to laugh until he was in stitches.
He settled for hiding his face in his hands, feeling all of a sudden very bold and stupid and reckless.
“Alastor? What is it, what’s wrong? Is it too much? Did I get something wrong?” Lucifer was pushing himself away from the door and racing to the sinner’s side in the blink of an eye. Out of every reaction he had planned for, this one had certainly not been in the cards. “Flower?” He cooed, hands hovering in the air uselessly as he worried about how to fix the situation.
The demon’s shoulders shook slightly and Lucifer felt his stomach drop. Behind his hands, Alastor mumbled something that Lucifer couldn’t quite make out.
“Can you repeat that, flower? I didn’t quite catch it.” The angel settled for brushing a hand down one of the sinner’s arms.
“I said it’s wonderful,” Alastor said, pulling his hands away from his face to reveal shiny eyes and a smile so tender and sincere that Lucifer almost had to take a step back.
Father, he felt like he was going to throw up as relief washed over him.
“I’m so glad you think so,” Lucifer laughed, taking the sinner’s hands into his own as he pulled him in close.
Wrapping his arms around Alastor’s waist, Lucifer pressed a kiss to his chest before lifting himself onto the tips of his feet to kiss the sinner’s impossibly soft cheek. In turn, Alastor wound his arms around the angel’s shoulders, holding him close enough so that some of that affection could make itself known. He kissed Lucifer’s forehead, leading them into a slight sway as the music in the room shifted.
“Why have you done this,” he wondered into Lucifer’s hair, just as baffled as head been when he walked through the door. “You certainly went through a lot of trouble to get it right.”
Beneath him, Alastor felt Lucifer shrug. “You’ve been missing home a lot lately,” the angel said simply, like a little bout of nostalgia was reason enough to conjure up an entire pocket dimension in his room. The ridiculousness of it all made Alastor snort in amusement.
“Everyone misses home,” he countered, sliding a hand down the slim expanse of the angel’s back as he did so. “A little sadness hardly warrants all of this effort,” he mused. He wanted to see Lucifer’s face, see if he could decipher what was going on through his strange, beautiful mind, but Alastor was selfish and unwilling to part from their closeness so easily.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Alastor. You’re worth all of this and more,” Lucifer chastised lightly. “I might not be able to do anything about my own homesickness, but if I can help you with yours - if I can bring you a little piece of something familiar, just enough of it to make that hurt go away, if only for a little while - then of course I’m going to find a way to do it.”
And Alastor just couldn’t help himself anymore as picked up the angel’s startled face and rushed forward to kiss him senseless.
It was messy and uncoordinated, every bit as clumsy as it would have been if they had somehow actually met under some dark corner in a New Orleans speakeasy when he was alive. It was spit-slick lips and knocking teeth, pressing and pushing and pulling as they breathed the other one in, and for a moment Alastor believed that they had merged again - the hollowness within him finding satisfaction in the precious sounds spilling from the devil’s honeyed lips.
Hands in hair and claws raking down the ridges of a ribcage, the hot press of a mouth like fire found the delicate curve of an eager neck, kisses bruised against a racing pulse and all the while that flood within Alastor kept spilling and spilling. Much like before, he was unafraid of getting swept away in the current. How could he, when every single drop of that holy water drained back into Lucifer’s ocean?
Every gasp and huff of air was swallowed, every desperate sound welcomed into the angel’s mouth, and every strangled noise was soothed with Lucifer’s healing touch.
There had to be a word for this, right? A meaning to prescribe to the feeling of being torn to pieces and reassembled all at once? There had to be a way to describe the craving that Alastor had to never again be parted from this Tempter’s snare.
It was madness.
It was clarity.
It was blessed torture.
“You’re crying, flower,” Lucifer whispered against his lips, bringing a thumb up to wipe at the tears that couldn’t help but trace their ways down the curves of Alastor’s cheeks. The sinner whined, paying them no mind as he ducked his head to recapture Lucifer’s attention.
“It’s okay, flower. I’m right here. It’s okay.”
Lucifer held the back of the man’s head, holding them both steady even as the frantic lips on his neck stuttered and trembled, losing their intensity and fervor in favor of choking on the weight of what their master was feeling.
Things fell apart; that was the way of the universe. But for every thread that unraveled, every crack that splintered, and eerie seam that burst, Lucifer made sure to pocket the fragments, ready and willing to put them all back in their rightful place when the time for reassembling came around.
The smell of smoke still hung in the air when Lucifer guided them down to the floor. The fire burning in the fireplace still crackled with life and the radio played its song like a dutiful sentinel in the night. And when Alastor finally came back to him, Lucifer was still holding him - fingers lost in the soft threads of the sinner’s hair as he ran them back and forth, back and forth, from crown to nape.
Silence lingered between them, heavy and comforting, for as long as they needed it to. When Alastor shifted to raise a hand to Lucifer’s chest, only then did the angel speak.
“Is it too soon to show you the rest?”
“The rest of what,” came Alastor’s hoarse reply. His voice was timid, though his ears perked forward in curiosity, nearly catching Lucifer in the eye.
“The rest of your surprise, of course. You didn’t think this was it, did you?” Lucifer teased.
Carefully, they got to their feet. Standing tall and formidable in the middle of the room, Alastor looked like a dream and Lucifer couldn’t help but get a little misty-eyed at the sight of him.
“You gotta close your eyes,” he instructed softly. “Don’t worry, I got you.”
Once the sinner’s eyes were closed, Lucifer placed himself behind him and covered his eyes with his hands for good measure. Aside from the annoyed blat of static that sprang from him, Alastor didn’t complain.
Lucifer walked him to the door that led out to the terrace, and upon feeling the air on his skin, Alastor couldn’t help but pose a question.
“You’re not planning on throwing me off of the balcony, are you? As far as romance goes, you were doing pretty well up until now. It would be a shame to end the night as another stain on the grounds of Pride.”
“Believe me, I’ve thought about it. Something tells me you might appreciate this just a little bit more.”
Pulling his hands away, Lucifer stepped to Alastor’s side to catch his reaction as he opened his eyes.
Immediately, Alastor was struck by how dark it was. He had been expecting the maroon of Hell’s dusky ceiling to greet him, but the sky he saw was a crisp, midnight blue. Sprinkled among the backdrop were pinpricks of twinkling light that he recognized, with a start, to be stars. Brightest of all was the silvery glow of the full moon that filled the western sky.
Anticipation bubbled in Lucifer’s gut as he watched Alastor’s mouth fall open in silent wonder, his eyes fixed on the sky. SLowly, carefully, his ears fell and as the sinner stepped further out into the balcony, he braced himself on the twisted wrought iron of the banister.
“You even got the smell right,” Alastor murmured, amazed as he turned to pierce the devil with a look that went straight through his heart. “The Mississippi, the streets, the earth.”
He shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of it all.
Lucifer had recreated a perfect night in New Orleans.
Looking below them, Alastor caught the crooked Rue Bourbon sign on the corner of the street. There were cracked sidewalks and cobblestoned streets wet with condensation as music played from some unseen source further down the way. Across from them, over the tops of the other buildings, he could see the points of the St. Louis Cathedral and a stone’s throw away from Jackson Square was the river, shimmering like satin in the moonglow.
Closing his eyes, Alastor turned towards the light of the moon like he often would to feel the warmth of the sun on his face when he was alive. The air was humid and cool against his skin, and if he closed his eyes a little tighter, he could almost hear the boisterous chatter of conversations in the other room, the swelling tempo of the bands playing up and down the street, and the click-clacking of stranger’s shoes as they walked through the city.
He could almost imagine that he had stepped outside after a couple of songs, sweat making a mess of his hair, and in dire need of fresh air. Perhaps he would have had a smoke or two while he was at it, bumming one off of one of the cats nearby, and cleaning the steam that fogged his glasses with the hem of his shirt while he waited for his second wind.
“I would have asked you to dance, you know,” Alastor said, opening his eyes and blinking in the starlight before casting his eyes back towards Lucifer. The angel shone like a fiery beacon in the night, the expression on his face both somber and sweet. He continued.
“I would have singled you out the moment I walked into the room. You’d be dancing with some broad who had no idea how to keep up with you, but she’d give a valiant effort nonetheless. Of course, you’d be too kind to send her packing and wait until she tired herself out to excuse yourself. I would be sitting at the bar, watching you slip through the crowd like you were a Moses reincarnate. Then you’d call the bartender over and order something pretentious and awful, like absinthe or a cognac, and I would roll my eyes and scoff because of course someone like you would order something like that.”
He was leaning across from Lucifer now, the small of his back pressed against the balcony’s railing.
“You would take one look at me and call me an asshole before storming off in a huff, letting the crowd swallow you whole. But every once in a while,” Alastor murmured, pushing himself upright, “you would glance over at the bar and there I would be. I would catch your eye and for the briefest moment, the world would cease its turning.”
They were face to face and Lucifer didn’t think he would ever be able to breathe ever again as Alastor looked at him with something shining and wild.
“I wouldn’t say another word to you. At least, not until the latest hours of the night. When sleeves were rolled up past our elbows and sweat coated us both like a second skin. Your hair would still shine under the lights and at that point in the night, your laughter would flow as easily as the drinks and you would still be as glorious as you had always been.
“Then and only then - when the music turned from jovial to aching and both of our cheeks were painted red with the evidence of our merriment - would I approach you.”
“And then what?” Lucifer whispered, his throat tight as Alastor reached for him.
“Then I would take you by the hand, just like this,” he said, lifting Lucifer’s knuckles to his lips. “And I would ask you to dance. You’d recall that I made quite the impression already, but you’d fall victim to my charm all the same. I’d lead us outside to some empty alleyway away from everyone else’s jealous eyes and I’d admire every ounce of you as I spun you around, just like this.”
Alastor did just as he promised, lifting the angel’s arm over their heads as he led him in a slow spin, his warm hand finding Lucifer’s waist as soon as he was facing him again. Leaning down, he pressed his forehead to the angel’s, closing his eyes as the music shifted and a new song drifted their way.
I never cared much for moonlit skies
I never wink back at fireflies
But now that the stars are in your eyes
I'm beginning to see the light
Lucifer’s hand landed on Alastor’s shoulder, the other still gripped firmly in the sinner’s grasp. The moon was their personal spotlight, and although it wasn’t cold, goosebumps prickled up his arms and the feathers down his spine shivered.
I never went in for afterglow
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
But now when you turn the lamp down low
I'm beginning to see the light
“And then what,” he prompted again. Alastor hummed, swaying in time to the beat of the song.
“I would wonder what a gem like you was doing with a guy like me.”
“You think so lowly of me?” It was said as a jest, but Alastor didn’t laugh.
“Not at all. If anything, I think too highly of you.”
I never made love by lantern-shine
I never saw rainbows in my wine
But now that your lips are burning mine
I'm beginning to see the light
“Would you want to kiss me?”
Now that the stars are in your eyes
I'm beginning to see the light
“Oh, starlight - I’m only human, aren’t I?”
Their lips met in a burning kiss, but there was nothing frantic about this one. It was slow and soft, earnest as their mouths moved against one another’s in a rhythm that was completely their own.
If there was any lingering doubt between them, then the sweetness of the night melted it all away. Confessions passed from one mouth to another, pressed against tongues like the most sacred of secret notes. Sighs fell like oaths from their lips and there was a trace of forever in the way they held each other close.
The truth of the moment was spelled out as clearly as the stars shining in the sky above them, words unsaid but they rattled them to the core regardless.
Whatever else Alastor wanted to say that night was given freely to Lucifer’s wanting embrace.
Whatever else Lucifer wanted to say would have to wait for another day, another time, another place.