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The searing pain is new.
Alastor’s eyes glaze across the page of the book he’s holding. It’s challenging to focus on the words with white hot needles intermittently shooting down his limbs. Logically, Alastor understands his angelic wound won’t heal on its own. Emotionally, he refuses to acknowledge that this is something he cannot fix himself. That he needs help. He grimaces in disgust. He’d always relied on himself. Had only ever been alone (save for his mama) when he was living on Earth. Her words echo in his head now “I learned early on that life can be a cruel mistress. Ain’t nobody gonna look after you but YOU, darlin’. Best you start practicin’ sooner rather than later. I ain’t gonna be around forever and you know how Mama worries ‘boutcha.” He’d lived his whole life by her words. Still does, even in Hell (especially in Hell). Which brings him back to the gaping, burning wound across his chest. He’d nearly passed out when Charlie hugged him in the parlor earlier. He doesn’t blame the girl. It’s in her nature to show affection physically, just like her father (as he’d observed after meeting Lucifer).
Lucifer. Even thinking his name makes his skin prickle and his blood begin to stir under his skin. The silly little man is so easy to rile up. A casual hand on Charlie’s shoulder, a compliment here, a glance to Lucifer there, and the King bursts into metaphorical hellfire. The fury Alastor elicits from him is intoxicating. Sure, he respects Lucifer’s power—the fallen angel could obliterate him if he really wanted to. But therein lies the problem: he wouldn’t want to. For as much as Lucifer touts his hatred for Alastor to anyone in the hotel who will listen, on the inside, the man is as hard as a marshmallow Peep. The way he wears every emotion on his sleeve, not even trying to hide them, sets Alastor’s teeth on edge. Lucifer’s an open book and Alastor reads him all too easily.
BANG! Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Lucifer is suddenly standing in his room, having just ripped the door—now lying in the hallway—from its hinges. Alastor watches his expression change, eyebrows at first pulled tight in rage now soften to a hesitant, awkward wrinkle. This right here, the ease at which Alastor can practically hear Lucifer’s thoughts, is what infuriates him. Lucifer—all-powerful being, King of Hell—is soft. It’s shameful how easily he lets his emotions out for everyone to see. He has no control over himself. And that’s it. That’s the nail in the coffin for Alastor.
“Please, come in.” Alastor drawls out in a monotone, flicking his wrist out in a swish towards the front door now lying on the ground.
“Yes, I will!” Lucifer blusters, full of confidence once more. It astounds Alastor that a simple condescending gesture is all it takes to illicit such a reaction. ‘How unbecoming.’ His eye twitches and he smiles deeper, irritation growing sharper in his features.
“And did you need something, sire?” Alastor contemptuously emphasizes the honorific, much to Lucifer’s visible displeasure. But what comes out of Lucifer’s mouth next digs deep into Alastor’s already wounded pride.
“As a matter of fact I do. I heard about you’re tussle with Adam before I arrived at the battle and—” Alastor abruptly jolts to his feet, the force of his movement causing his chair to fly backward and hit the floor with a SMACK! The radio static in the room crackles in hostility and dials flash in Alastor’s eyes for a brief moment before he reins them back in.
“LEAVE.” Alastor forces out in a snarl, cutting Lucifer off before he can voice such horrifying and shameful truths aloud. But the King of Hell does not relent.
“Listen, I know you’re hurt, I can feel the angelic energy radiating off of you.” Alastor is seeing stars and he's not sure if the cause is his sudden postural change or Lucifer verbalizing Alastor’s humiliation. Lucifer, unaware, continues, “If you just let me heal—”
“GET. OUT.” Alastor growls, punctuating each word with acid as the dials return to his eyes and his antlers begin to grow. The static in the air violently crescendos and he almost blacks out (from the suggestion or the force with which he just shouted, he’s not sure).
“Oh! You insufferable, infuriating, obstinate, DEER!” Lucifer shouts at him, throwing his hands up in the air. He rolls his eyes and sighs over-dramatically while he says the next bit, “Why are you so determined to DIE? Hmm? Because that’s what will happen if you don’t DO ANYTHING.” Lucifer continues to explain what exactly will happen without taking action, but Alastor doesn’t hear it over the sudden ringing in his ears. A feeling too close to panic threatens to bubble up, but Alastor pushes it down.
“You’ll never heal unless I remove it from you.” Lucifer finishes, looking desperately at him, eyes doleful and fiery at once. Alastor shifts his gaze to the fallen door once again and, petulant demon that he is around Lucifer, spits out unconvincingly, “I have been managing perfectly fine on my own.”
“Ha! Oh yes… splendid. Can’t even accept a hug from my daughter without flinching away in pain. Yes, you’ve got it under control.”
Alastor reluctantly remains silent. He can’t say anything in his defense because Lucifer is, unfortunately, right. Alastor does not have this under control. He has been prolonging the inevitable, trying to find a way around it, doing anything and everything except what he knows will actually work. Because in order to fix this he will have to cede control, to submit, to rely on someone else… and that’s not something he has been willing to do, isn’t sure it’s something he can do, of his own accord.
“Great, so we’re in agreement, then.” Lucifer huffs out after a few more moments of silence from Alastor. He steps closer, crowding the Radio Demon, invading his personal space like no other has been allowed since he first manifested in Hell. Alastor meets his gaze, but doesn’t speak; doesn’t trust he won’t (literally) bite Lucifer’s head off if he does. A silent conversation passes between them; Lucifer asking for permission to touch, and Alastor, begrudgingly, giving his consent.
Lucifer understands, refocuses his attention on Alastor’s chest, and slowly reaches towards it. A jolt of anxiety surges up in Alastor just before contact and on reflex, his hand shoots up to grip Lucifer’s raised arm hard enough to bruise. He doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the casual way Lucifer is about to touch him, to heal him. The process of accepting his own inadequacies is excruciating; his eyes bore holes into Lucifer’s as Lucifer presses on, moving their connected arms forward, fingers stretched wide. Alastor squeezes harder as he wretchedly accepts that this is the only way to survive and grins at the wince he pulls out of Lucifer. The glory is short-lived, however, the moment Lucifer’s hand presses flat against the worst part of his wound; Lucifer notices the slight flinch Alastor fails to contain and smirks, flashing him a grin of his own, one truly fit for The Devil himself.
The sensation of Lucifer’s holy light is different than Adam’s—a torrid blaze to Adam’s blistering wildfire. Maybe its potency was diminished when Lucifer fell, or maybe it has something to do with pureness of heart (or lack thereof in Adam’s case). Regardless, Lucifer manipulates his light with ease, pushing it through clothing and into Alastor’s wound. It’s calculated, but the way he adjusts his technique at Alastor’s initial hiss of pain, adjusting his pace, carefully wrapping his own energy around Adam’s residual to extract it, is almost tender. Alastor doesn’t know how to feel about that—such a gentle act—directed towards him from the man he’s been swapping insults with for the better part of a year. As the last bit of holy light leaves his body, relief floods in. He didn’t realize how much the holy light had been weighing him down; how much it had been affecting his ability to breathe without searing pain exploding inside.
A part of him is also reeling from the lost sensation of Lucifer’s energy. And how is Alastor supposed to decipher that? How is he supposed to go back to how it was before after knowing what it’s like to feel that? From all he’s gleaned about holy light in researching a way to heal his wound on his own, he never came across anything that said angelic energy could feel good. The books always talked of the horrors of leaving angelic wounds untreated, of the agonizingly slow spread of holy light throughout demon flesh like an infection, and demons burning to ash from the inside out. Nothing he read ever even hinted that it could feel like an ethereal caress to his very soul—a soft touch deep inside, gentle warmth blooming from the origin, heat spreading across his skin like sunshine on a summer day—like his Mama’s kind smile in their kitchen back on Earth. And oh, for a moment he would give anything to be there again.
In horror, he realizes he actually wants it, to feel that light—that feeling—again, craves it like Angel Dust once craved coke. A small niggling voice at the back of his mind asks if any angelic energy could have this effect on him…or if it’s just because it’s Lucifer. Alastor ignores it.
Then Lucifer meets his eyes again. The way he looks up at him, craning his neck to meet Alastor’s downward gaze, face so open and doe-like, wide eyes searching Alastor’s for…for what?—for once, Alastor can’t tell—he looks like he could break with the slightest breath. Alastor has the urge to reach up and touch that fragility; isn’t sure if he wants to crush Lucifer with his bare hands or cradle him protectively to his chest. Alastor’s heart skips a beat at the mental image of the latter. And what the fuck was that? Alastor doesn’t have feelings like this. He’s never had desires of the flesh or heart that plague lesser beings. And oh nooo noo no, Lucifer’s hand is still on his chest. What if he felt the skipped beat? Will he discern the reason why? Could he have seen the softness in Alastor for the fraction of a second it slipped to the surface? Throughout the panic, Alastor forgets to breathe.
But then Lucifer smirks, pushes his holy light back into Alastor, stitching skin back together, fully healing him, and steps away, holding back a self-satisfied grin. Alastor wants to strangle him. The ABSOLUTE AUDACITY, because this is NOT what they agreed. Lucifer was just supposed to remove the angelic energy; Alastor would have healed perfectly fine on his own. Vicious shame bubbles up and settles in the back of Alastor’s throat.
“You bastard—” Alastor tries to lash out, but is rudely interrupted.
“I know you would heal on your own,” Lucifer starts, “But with the way you were begging me to continue with your eyes,” he drops his chin so he can look at Alastor from under hooded eyelids, flashing him a smirk and finishes in a sultry tone, “I just couldn’t resist.”
And now Alastor is really seeing red. Radio static explodes in the air, so palpable you could almost taste it. His eye practically convulses with how hard it’s twitching and Alastor nearly cracks his teeth with the force at which he snaps them together, grinding them involuntarily. All the while, Lucifer continues grinning at him, gleeful. His radiance is dazzling. It’s a rare sight for the usually depressed King and entirely too endearing. Alastor’s brain trips over the thought— ‘It’s what now?’—conflicting feelings roiling up and swirling in a cacophony. He wants to ruin Lucifer and cherish him all at once; wants to cradle that rosy cheek in his palm, thumb the corner of that smile, rip it clean off his face and make him cry.
But before Alastor can act on anything, the grin leaves Lucifer’s face and he shrinks in on himself, wringing his hands together in a self-conscious tick.
“Aha-ha…well then I’m just going to…” Lucifer pauses for an extended, awkward second and then rips open a portal, fleeing through it and leaving Alastor to reconcile with the sudden emotions Lucifer had roused in him.
Alastor starts with the chair. He manifests his shadows—much easier now that his energy isn’t stifled by holy light—to return it upright at the table. Then he moves to the front entrance, standing in front of the threshold between the damp bayou of his living space and the curated hotel hallway. He shifts his gaze down to the door still lying on the ground, hinges bent at awkward angles and bits of splintered wood scattered about, and lets himself replay what the fuck just happened.
Lucifer. Again, just the thought of his name causes Alastor to grind his teeth together. The short King is perhaps the most infuriating being Alastor’s ever known, in life and death. Unlike himself, Lucifer lets his emotions run wild, allowing them to manifest outward and be broadcast to anyone and everyone. He has no shred of self-control, as evidenced by the manner in which he had just left. He had permitted his self-doubt to show and dictate his actions. If Alastor were in his position—because despite the assumption that he was immune to a self-deprecating inner voice, he was not; he was simply an expert at keeping it locked away—he would have pushed those feelings back to the depths from whence they came and made an exit with his dignity still intact. He would have found a way to appear like he had the upper hand, even if he very clearly did not. He would have at least ensured that his innermost uncertainties were kept far from the surface for others to observe. But Lucifer was painfully transparent, with surprisingly low self-confidence and self-respect for the supposed embodiment of Pride.
However, even with his overwhelming irritation for the fallen angel, Alastor can’t deny the other feelings that had cropped up without warning. He’s a walking contradiction. Alastor thinks back to Lucifer’s look of pure glee, his face glowing with amusement, eyes soft and crinkling at the edges. His heart skips another beat. 'Dammit.’
Alone, in the solitude of his room, Alastor releases a loud sigh of frustration.
_______________
Once the front door is securely back in place, Alastor, fully recollected, descends to the ground floor to join everyone for dinner. He calls forth his shadows and seeps into them, reappearing in the dining room doorway. Upon materializing, he hears Charlie call his name and looks over to see her waving, standing on the outskirts of a small gathering of hotel participants. Hands folded neatly behind him, he sends a genial nod in her general direction. Then he spots Lucifer behind the group and heads straight for him.
“Your Majesty.” Alastor purrs as he bends at the waist so his face is directly in front of Lucifer’s. His smile sharpens at the corners before he turns away, returning to stand at full height, looking bored as he brings a hand in front of him to inspect his nails. “Fancy seeing you here. Funny… with the speed at which you fled, I would have expected you to be cowering in your room, ruminating in solitude, as is your proclivity.”
Lucifer’s reaction is delightful as he lets out a forced laugh with fake cheerfulness. “You expect wrong! I merely gave you time to contemplate your inner strife at facing the reality of needing to be healed—”
Immediately Alastor’s delight is replaced with fury. In a moment of thoughtless rage, he surges forward to grab a fistful of Lucifer’s jacket, wrenching the fallen angel up a few inches so close their faces are an inch apart, Lucifer’s heels lifting off the ground. The air is thick with screeching radio static, but Lucifer doesn’t even flinch, entirely unaffected by Alastor’s drastic change in demeanor.
“Ah, so feeling much better I see!” Lucifer is jovial as he says it, smiling warmly at him. Alastor’s traitorous heart speeds up slightly at the sight and he lashes out in retaliation, overcompensating with insults.
“You arrogant, impudent devil,” and Lucifer interjects with an “Aha! Yes, that’s me” but Alastor continues, “The absolute audacity of you to completely sidestep our agreement. A total disregard for my boundaries—”
“That’s rich,” Lucifer interjects again, rolling his eyes. “Seeing as you’re not respecting mine right now,” he mumbles under his breath. And something inside Alastor snaps at the insolence.
“FUCK you,” Alastor spits out. But suddenly realizing his loss of composure, he forces himself back under control and releases Lucifer to stand up straight again, peevishly glaring down at him instead.
“You know if you weren’t so stupidly obstinate and had just asked for my help in the beginning, maybe you wouldn’t have almost died, asshole.” Lucifer crosses his arms defensively over his chest as he says it, matching Alastor’s petulance with his own tetchy frown. Alastor shifts irritably, not appreciating the announcement of his near-death experience to the crowd of people clearly listening to their conversation. 'Al! You almost died?! I didn’t know you were hurt that badly.’ he vaguely hears Charlie exclaim.
He chooses to ignore her and bites out a response to Lucifer, emphasizing the last part with a bitter tone, “I didn’t ask you to ‘save me’.” Because he hadn’t. Lucifer had done that of his own accord and without Alastor’s permission, going against the silent agreement they had made for Lucifer to assist only where it was absolutely necessary. It was a betrayal of trust and felt malicious in a way Alastor was unaccustomed to when dealing with Lucifer. But at Lucifer’s next words, the Radio Demon might have to rethink how well he has truly understood Lucifer’s intentions.
“And I did anyway! So you’re welcome!” Lucifer shouts as he throws his hands up in the air, exasperated.
“Alright, divorced dads!” Angel Dust chimes in from the group that is now openly staring at the pair. Lucifer and Alastor snap their heads to look his way. And then Angel says something truly unhinged. “Honestly, the constant bickering is getting kinda old. I mean come on, just shut up and kiss already. Zeesh!”
Simultaneously, a number of group members stifle their snickers, Lucifer erupts into a brilliant shade of gold, and Alastor, upon seeing that, visibly pales. Because ‘Oh shit. Oh no.’ THAT is what was missing from his analysis of Lucifer. The sudden realization causes a monumental eruption of horror—for Lucifer’s (now obvious) inclinations towards him and his own (terrifying, appalling) reciprocation. How could he have fallen so far?
Alastor feels faint and woozy like he might pass out from blood loss; where the blood is escaping to, he can’t say. Charlie keeps him upright with a hand on his shoulder, placing one on Lucifer’s as well, connecting them all together.
“Ooookaaaay,” she draws out, eyes wide and shifting from her dad to Alastor, “This has been… a lot.” She turns to Alastor and continues, “Alastor, I wish you would have told us you were hurt. It’s been months. We could have helped!” Alastor has the sense to allow himself to look the tiniest bit ashamed. Then Charlie turns toward Lucifer, “And Dad! Thank you for healing Alastor, but you really didn’t need to talk to him that way.” Lucifer’s mouth drops open, aghast.
“Wha— But, Charlie, I— HE—” Lucifer looks utterly affronted as he sputters, pointing at Alastor. His reaction makes Alastor smile, smug and satisfied.
“Dad!” Charlie shouts sternly at him and he shrinks back with a 'fine’ grumbling a ‘next time I’ll just let him die’ under his breath; which Charlie hears, whining out a frustrated 'Daaad’ in response. The interaction makes Alastor smile—a true smile he hasn’t experienced in quite some time—and he chuckles pleasantly, chest filling with a warm fondness he’s unfamiliar with, but willingly ignoring for the time being.
The chef announces dinner is ready and everyone begins to shuffle to their seats. Alastor turns toward Lucifer and gestures to the table with a sarcastic display of courtesy.
“After you, sir,” he drawls, bowing slightly and holding his arm out in front of him.
“Oh no, please. I insist.” The sharp smile Lucifer shoots him in return arouses an electric current that thrums through Alastor’s veins and crawls along his skin, making his hair stand on end. He grins wider.
As they move towards the single empty seat next to Charlie at the table—pushing each other ahead with feigned politeness, while still maintaining their own lead—Alastor can’t ignore the reality that he excitedly anticipates each new tussle with Lucifer. Apparently, his newfound fondness for the King of Hell is not a short-lived side effect of his holy light coursing through him (as he had first hoped upon identifying the new emotion); rather, ‘The Incident’ (as Alastor will now call their holy light healing session) was the impetus for his current affliction.
There will be time to analyze it later—how he enjoys pushing Lucifer, who is so quick to anger, close to the edge; the satisfaction that swells in Alastor when he riles him up with just the slightest nudge. It feels like an accomplishment every single time. Lucifer, who can match him blow for blow (verbally or physically). Lucifer, who he can needle to get an oh-so-delicious reaction. Alastor relishes in the misery of others, after all, but Lucifer’s brand of misery is something entirely special. No one else angers Lucifer like Alastor can; it feeds his ego.
Alastor, never one for willingly relinquishing control of himself (urges and emotions included), leans the opposite direction now, giving into baser modes of provocation by forcefully pushing his shoulder against Lucifers in a brute-force power struggle to claim the seat next to Charlie. He lets his amusement show on his face as Lucifer throws jibes over his shoulder at him. And for this moment, Alastor relents and allows himself to bask in the simple pleasure of riling Lucifer up in every way he knows how.