Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What most people would call routine, Alastor would prefer to call it ennui as he gets off the tram a couple of blocks close to his workplace. He doesn’t like the tram, people are too cramped and sweaty in the morning and evening rush, but he takes it anyway because his mom’s house is a good hour away from the city center.

Alastor, as his day usually goes, walks the cobblestone road past high-arched townhouses and wide, flat buildings shaped like squares. Sometimes those buildings were storefronts with papers taped to the window with job openings and even auditions. On his way home Alastor usually prefers to look through them consideringly, wondering for a moment if he should take one of them.

However, this early in the morning, Alastor is only concerned about making it to his job. There are still chickens running rampant around the streets, clucking and cawing at anyone unfortunate enough to pass by, and Alastor quickly walks past those too. Surprisingly, despite the hour, there are already street performers set up on a corner that he passes by frequently, happily playing away on brass instruments for a nickel. 

Alastor stops at the intersection right before his workplace and enters the coffeehouse there. It’s fairly new and Mimzy praises it as the “bee’s knees of coffee, darling”. He had eyed the prices through the window when he passed by before and deemed it affordable enough for him. The bell chimes overhead as he enters, and is glad to note that there are far less people than he expected. He takes a seat by the bar, the stools bright red and eye-catching. 

As far as coffeehouses go, this one is cozier than Alastor expects, despite its reputation of being a popular breakfast joint. The bar and most of the shop are made of rich wood with large windows, casting sunlight inside to keep the entire room lit. Behind the counter is a pale, blond man wiping a mug clean while listlessly staring into space in a completely white, pressed uniform with the sleeves folded to his forearms and an apron around his waist. Alastor clears his throat to attract his attention and the man quickly stows the mug away, throws the rag over his shoulder, and goes for the menus under the counter.

“Good morning,” the man says with a smile as he places the menu in front of him to peruse. “First time?”

Alastor doesn’t purse his lips but he doesn’t immediately take the menu. “In a coffeehouse? No.”

The blond man rolls his eyes and says, “Obviously not in a coffeehouse. I meant here. I don’t recognize you. I typically recognize most customers.”

“Do you now?” Alastor asks, feigning interest. He eyes the menu and it’s your typical assortment of coffees, teas, and pastries. “Well, you’d be right. I’d never come in through here. Although, I heard that the coffee here is spectacular! The cat’s meow, if you will. I’m not one for making opinions without trying them out for myself, though.”

“You’re in luck then. I’m the one who makes that spectacular coffee,” he—Lucifer, as the tag on his shirt reads—says with a proud grin. Alastor’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything as Lucifer continues, “Go on then. Pick one you’d like.”

“Just a brewed coffee.”

Lucifer hums, takes a fresh mug, and the bubbling pot of coffee behind him. He pours a glass for him and slides it over. “One brewed coffee,” he says with a smile.

Alastor raises an eyebrow. “Charming.”

“If you’d really wanted me to do more than pour you a cup, you’d have ordered something more complex. Like an espresso or a latte.”

“That’s because the quality of your coffee still remains to be seen.”

Lucifer doesn’t reply, simply smiling as he waits for Alastor to take a sip. When he does he almost drops the mug in his shock. It’s good. Really good. Mimzy wasn’t joking. The coffee has nothing added in—no sugar, no cream, completely black—and yet it feels luxurious on the tongue with a round, full-bodied flavor that doesn’t leave a nasty, astringent aftertaste when the beans are too burnt after roasting. If this is the simple drip coffee being made, Alastor wonders what the espresso is even like. 

Something must show on his face because Lucifer’s smile seems to be practically glowing. “So? How is it?”

He licks his lips then moves to take another sip as he says, “It’s decent.”

Suffice it to say, Alastor returns as a frequent regular. He leaves his mom’s house earlier than usual so he can spend a few extra minutes ordering and enjoying his morning coffee in the coffeehouse. He learned very quickly that the only time the coffee is ever that good is if Lucifer is working at that time, so if he doesn’t see him working, Alastor skips his morning coffee and drops by again later during lunch. 

“Should I be concerned?” Lucifer asks as he prepares his order—a double espresso this time. “You’re my most consistent customer.”

“Bull,” Alastor says, leaning on the counter with a beignet in front of him. The pastries are not as good as the coffee, but it does its job as a midday snack, especially when Alastor dunks the delicacy into his coffee to quell its sweetness. “I’m your coffee’s most consistent customer. You’re just the unfortunate hanger-on.”

“You’re always so quaint and amiable to me, you know that?” Lucifer says, words dripping with sarcasm. Alastor finds that while Lucifer usually moves between unerringly polite and kind, he can pull out a drier and more sarcastic version of him with enough needling. 

“I suppose it’s my Southern hospitality.” 

Lucifer snorts, filling up a cup with Alastor’s espresso and nudging it towards him. Alastor takes it and the smell is absolutely divine, steam curling under his nose temptingly. He takes a sip, the taste smoothens the harsh edges from his commute and his morning is immediately lightened. He sighs contentedly—delicious as always. 

A soft noise disrupts his musings and Alastor looks up to Lucifer watching him with an odd look in his eyes. He frowns. “What?”

Lucifer blinks, shakes his head, and says, “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He leaves to talk to other customers, easily side-stepping away from explaining what exactly he was thinking. Alastor stares after him, eyes narrowed as he takes another sip of his coffee. 

There are times when Alastor notices this behavior from time to time when Lucifer stares after him with an odd expression. It’s unnerving and immediately puts him on edge. Each time Alastor tries to call him out on it, Lucifer does the same thing and sidesteps around it. It makes one wonder what exactly he’s thinking, but it is not Alastor’s problem as long as he gets his morning coffee. 

It can get irritating though, especially when it’s particularly early that morning or if he had been drinking the night before. Alastor is one to enjoy attention, but this particular brand of attention always leaves him annoyed. He polishes his coffee off, pays his drink, and leaves without a second glance back. Lucifer is staring after him again with that same look. 

It’s a slow night in the jazz club when Alastor sees Lucifer again, this time roaming the streets of New Orleans well after dark and outside of his coffeehouse uniform. He is looking lost and a little confused as he stares through a few speakeasy windows, curiously. He is also alone. 

Alastor isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Alastor’s murder victims don’t typically bleed gold nor do they complain very loudly about being stabbed in the head with the knife still sticking out of them, but Lucifer seems to be the one exception. 

“Please try not to cut my hair,” he says, squirming in his binds. “It’s already at the perfect length as it is.” 

Alastor rolls his eyes, pulling the knife out of his head and intentionally cutting off a lock or two of hair right in front of his eyes, the hair falling as bangs across Lucifer’s forehead. He huffs, annoyed, but Alastor ignores him because the wound at the top of his head quickly begins to close. The tissue-like spun gold seems to stitch itself together without any prompting. When it finishes, the pale skin at the top of Lucifer’s head is unblemished and the only indication of any injury is the blood matting his golden locks. 

Curiously, Alastor sticks the knife in a different body part—Lucifer’s shoulder this time, who gasps in shocked pain—and the same bright gold blood seeps out and soaks into the white coffeehouse uniform. He takes the knife out again and the wound stitches itself back together. In less than a minute, the skin underneath is soft, smooth, and unsullied. 

“How interesting,” Alastor says to himself, twirling the knife. “Does it work everywhere?”

Lucifer edges away, grimacing. “Yes, it does, but kindly keep all pointed objects away from my person—or any person, really—because I am not a pin cushion.”

Alastor hums, shaking the blood from his knife. “That’s true. A proper pin cushion wouldn’t be this wet—” 

He sticks the knife into his back and Lucifer yelps, “What did I just say?!”

“—or this mouthy.”

Lucifer mouths around the word, face twisted in both offense and annoyance. “If you know that none of these stabs are working, why keep doing it?”

Alastor’s grin broadens and he shrugs, pulling the knife out again and watching in wonder as it stitches itself back. “Because it’s actually quite fun. Almost… stress-relieving.”

“Stress-relieving? Right, and you couldn’t have considered one of the coffeehouse’s tea options instead?”

“Why order tea when I can order your coffee?”

“That’s not the point! How about meditation?”

“That’s boring, obviously,” Alastor says, rolling his eyes “Have you considered writing a book? Worst ways to talk yourself out of an attempted murder.”

“Would have to be a threat to life first to be an attempted murder,” Lucifer says, smirking when Alastor’s tongue clicks in annoyance. “Have you considered writing a book about the worst ways to get away with murder? It could be your autobiography.” 

Without any more fanfare, Alastor quickly cuts a deep wound right through Lucifer’s throat, effectively rendering him mute for however long that will be. He smiles when Lucifer gapes back at him with wide, blue eyes. “Oops,” he says with faux sheepishness. “I think my hand slipped a little. Must be because I was so excited to get started on that autobiography.”

Lucifer huffs silently, kicking out, but Alastor steps back before he could land a hit, laughing. 

“Well, clearly, you’re not human,” Alastor says, eyeing the way Lucifer’s neck is already close to healing completely. “So what exactly are you then?”

“An angel,” Lucifer manages to croak. 

“An angel?” Alastor blinks in surprise. “Like from the Bible?”

“With the wings and the halo? Yes. That angel.” 

Alastor eyes the top of Lucifer’s head and his back, but neither of them sprouted the aforementioned halo and wings to prove his point. “Right, but aren’t angels usually up in Heaven?” 

“Yes, usually, but I’m your guardian angel,” Lucifer says, nodding and standing, the bounds around his hands and body falling away like water. Alastor watches in awe as it happens, shoulders stiffening in slight alarm, but Lucifer simply beams and offers his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” 

“Charmed,” Alastor says as he takes the offered hand, shakes it, then pointedly wipes his hand on the front of his suit, much to this angel’s consternation.

Chapter Text

Lucifer Morningstar—as he claims is his full name—is a complete goof. Right now, Alastor is sitting across from him in the coffeehouse Lucifer works in with steaming cups of coffee each between them. His uniform is stained with something bright gold, glowing softly in the light, with a rip down the middle where Alastor attempted to take a knife to his person. Except, there is no wound to show for his attempt. If anything, the biggest issue now is that Lucifer keeps complaining about how breezy his uniform is getting; and how he can’t miracle away the stain and tear because they’re in public. 

“I’m telling you. I have one uniform, Alastor. One! And you managed to rip the only one I had,” Lucifer says, a whine to his voice as he takes a wet napkin to his blood stains. “Angelic blood doesn’t wash off easily, I’ll have you know. It looks like a psychedelic mustard stain.”

Just an irritating and zany weirdo. Alastor lifts his cup of coffee to his mouth and takes a deep gulp. Somehow, he managed to target the one person he can’t kill because Lucifer is, apparently, his… guardian angel. He puts his cup back on the saucer. 

“So you’re my guardian angel? Like in the Bible?” Alastor asks again because hearing Lucifer continue to complain about his uniform is tedious. 

“That’s about half of it! I’m here to guard and guide you to goodness.”

Alastor raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Guide me to goodness?” 

“To bring your soul up to Heaven, yes.” 

“…If I didn’t just unsuccessfully attempt to murder you, I’d think you’re full of bull.”

Lucifer beams like an attempted murder is right in his job description. “So what do you say?” 

“To what exactly?” 

“To getting into Heaven, of course! Like, sure, the murdering is something we can workshop, but—”

“I’d rather not.” 

Lucifer immediately deflates and sputters, incredulously, “You’d rather not?! Not what? Go to Heaven?”

“I’m not going to go to Heaven anyway. Besides, it’s good to keep my options open—”

“Your options—?! Your options are Hell or Heaven; take your pick, pal! And Hell is terrible.”

Alastor could agree, but he’s not going to let Lucifer know that, so he just grins. “It might just be a matter of perspective.” 

“Perspective —! I’m literally an angel tasked with helping you get to Heaven, and you what? You’d say no?!”

“Yes.” 

“No!”

Alastor grins into his coffee, watching from behind the rim of his cup as Lucifer starts fuming silently. There may be something to gain from this. Watching an angel struggle so ardently that his cheeks are glowing gold to not cuss him out is just so amusing. 

Lucifer doesn’t find it so though because his mouth is tighter than it had been when they first sat down. “Your afterlife isn’t a laughing matter!” 

“Not really, but you kind of are.” 

“I’m not—!” Lucifer huffs, remembering himself, as he places two hands on his cheeks, rubbing away the bright flush. “I’m just trying to help you. It’s not like it will be much hard work! It’s just being a goo—decent person.” 

“You know, if my own guardian angel doesn’t believe I can be a good person, that doesn’t really set a good precedent.”

Lucifer’s face brightens again. “But I do! I’m just— oh. I see what you’re doing! It’s not going to work on me.”

“And what exactly is it I’m doing?” 

“You’re trying to piss me off so I’ll leave you alone!”

Alastor chuckles, caught red-handed, as he puts his empty cup on his saucer and stands to leave. “Oh, well. Looks like the jig is up, and so is my patience. ‘Ta! It was… a conversation.”

“Hey! We’re not finished yet!”

“Yes, we are.” Alastor doesn’t turn back around and waves a hand over his shoulder. He leaves the coffeehouse, a jingle of the doorbell precluding his exit. Alastor straightens his bowtie and heads to the nearest tram stop a block away. 

When Alastor left Lucifer earlier that morning, he did not expect that to be the last he’d hear of his so-called guardian angel. He had hoped otherwise, of course, but he was no fool to pin it too much. If it weren’t for the blissful, godly taste of his coffee—likely turning out that way because of magic (maybe, if angels did that)—Alastor would avoid the coffeehouse as much as he could. However, as it stands, Lucifer’s coffee is the best in the city, and so he can suffer through irritating meddling in his life choices. 

When Alastor enters, Lucifer is working again. His blue eyes flicker up to meet him, brightening in recognition and the smile blooming on his pale face looks a touch more genuine. He is taking orders from a long line of workers who work right along the block. 

Now that Alastor knows Lucifer is an angel, a lot more details seem to fall into place. For instance, Lucifer seems far too chipper for your average fellow in the early 1920s. The Great War is too fresh in people’s minds. While everyone’s modus operandi seems to staunchly pretend that the war—all its hardships, death, and economic turmoil—never happened, it is still obvious. At times, it seemed that Lucifer had missed the memo about it somewhere along the way.

There is no way Heaven or Hell would have missed the sudden onslaught of new souls for the three years that the war had lasted. Except it’s obvious, to Alastor at least, that there is a measure of disconnect between how an angel perceives something and how a human does. 

However, there are also other tells. Lucifer plays it off well—pretending to be who he says he is—but he forgets. Like now, as he handles a steaming pot of coffee, holding the burning glass with his bare hands before he thoughtlessly sets it aside to address another customer. Lucifer doesn’t even flinch as he makes a good-natured joke with one of the customers in line. Any normal person would have dropped that pot of coffee, or not handled it at all, but Lucifer (who can withstand multiple stab wounds to his person, with his only complaint being that “it stains my uniform, Alastor!”) just acts like nothing happens.

Lucifer also makes coffee at an incredibly fast pace, clearing through the early morning rush in a little over ten minutes. Alastor steps forward just as Lucifer waves another happy customer goodbye, before turning to him with that same gleeful expression. 

“Have you reconsidered entering Heaven?” 

“No. I want an espresso, actually. A double, if you could.”

Lucifer huffs, clearly displeased as his face falls, but moves to make the drink as requested. “I really don’t understand why you’re so against Heaven.” 

“Oh, you know. I’m stubborn, I’m contrarian, and, well, it is quite entertaining getting under your skin in this way.”

“Are you seriously willing to go to Hell just to annoy your guardian angel?”

“I would have chosen to go to Hell for less.”

Lucifer heaves a giant sigh, grabbing one of his cups and filling it to the brim with rich, dark liquid. “You’re the worst.”

Alastor grins, leaning on the counter. “Do you want a fun coffee fact?” 

“What?” Lucifer asks as he places the cup on the counter.

“Coffee used to be known as the devil’s drink.” Alastor picks up his cup. “How ironic, don’t you think?”

“Enjoy your coffee,” Lucifer says stiffly when Alastor turns to leave, but then adds, “I’m not going to let up, by the way. Just watch me!”

Alastor doesn’t doubt Lucifer, but he wonders how. How far will an angel even stoop to convince someone of something? Alastor didn’t know, but he was interested to find out. 

Murder is out of the question. It doesn’t seem to be the modus operandi of an angel, nor would it be productive to his end goal. As far as Alastor is concerned, as of this moment, he is very much headed for the pit. Lucifer must be aware because he seems to be firmly on the stance of redemption. 

Alastor doubts that Lucifer is going to do anything morally reprehensible. This immediately removes a lot of the more fun options, like torture (Alastor wondered how an angel would torture someone. Are they even capable of doing so?), bribery (this might work if Lucifer withheld his morning coffee, but Alastor knows that that angel would likely never do such a thing), and seduction (which would never have worked, even if Lucifer is objectively pretty). 

Other options would then include begging (hilarious, but Lucifer looks like the type to be too prideful to beg) or annoying him until he finally cracks. 

Alastor is almost smug about how right he is. Almost.

“Alastor! Alastor! Alastor!” Lucifer is knocking at the door of his workplace, ten minutes after closing, and Alastor’s eye twitches with annoyance. “I know you’re in there! It will be quick, I promise!” 

Alastor wants to ignore him. He wants to let him just stand outside his door until he tires himself out and leaves him alone, but who knows the depths of Lucifer’s stamina and stubbornness? Not to mention, he has to get home. He’d applaud Lucifer’s use of timing if he didn’t want to stab the man three more times in the throat. 

Alastor opens the door and stares down at his short, beaming intruder with a wide smile that feels too tight on his face. 

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, obviously, you can let me help you go to Heaven.” 

“And I’ve answered this twice before: no.” 

Alastor moves to close the door, but Lucifer stops it quickly with inhumane reflexes and rips the door open again with a Herculean strength that Lucifer doesn’t even bat an eye at.

“And I told you that I won’t be giving up any time soon!” Lucifer says, shaking his head. “Just listen to my sales pitch! Please? It won’t take that long! We can do it on your way home even.”

Lucifer started begging earlier than Alastor anticipated. Huh. Alastor looks down at his watch. He has to get home and help his mom with dinner tonight. He didn’t have time to dilly dally trying to convince this angel to back off again. He steps aside, opening the door wider to let Lucifer in. 

“Fine,” Lucifer gasps in surprised delight. “But no following me home. Like I’d let you come and meet my mother. I still have to close up.”

“I can help if you’d like! A little magic and—” 

Lucifer waves his hand and the tables Alastor was supposed to wipe clean are cleared in the blink of an eye. Another wave and there’s a table and chair set up wherein Lucifer takes a proper little seat, eyeing the tabletop with curiosity, before he looks up at him and gestures for Alastor to take a seat too. He does because it would be polite to do so, and Lucifer had saved him another fifteen minutes of work. 

Lucifer clears his throat and, if Alastor didn’t know any better, is practically glowing. “So going to Heaven: it’s great up there! And it won’t be too hard. There aren’t even that many rules!” 

“I thought lying isn’t something an angel is supposed to do?”

Lucifer’s cheeks glow gold. “Fine. It… depends on who you ask. There are rules, but most of it is pretty basic,” He raises his hand and ticks them off with his fingers. “Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t assault, don’t idolize something too much like drugs, sex, and gambling, and, of course, don’t murder. But, to keep it simple, just be a good person!” 

“How… ambiguous. And I thought you said not that many rules?”

Lucifer makes a face. “It’s just really about being morally good and repentant to wrongdoings you’ve done before.” 

“Sounds tedious.”

“You’re tedious.”

Alastor grins. “Mature.”

“Why are you so against this anyway? Don’t kill, don’t steal, be a good person—these aren’t exactly hard things to abide by!”

“Depends on who you ask.”

That visibly takes the wind out of Lucifer’s sails. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, what if you’re starving? Is it still morally reprehensible to not steal when your only other option is to die slowly and painfully? Watch your loved ones die slowly and painfully?”

“That’s why there’s employment—”

“What happens when the money from employment isn’t enough? When you find yourself disabled and can’t find work anymore? When no one can take you in?” At Lucifer’s silence, Alastor continues, “The times are terrible. Everyone is still recovering from the war, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but poverty and discrimination run rampant here.

“If you really want to help get someone to Heaven, you have to address the underlying cause.”

Lucifer’s eyebrows are tightly knit together, a furrow showing up between them, as he considers what Alastor just told him. It doesn’t surprise Alastor that an angel doesn’t fully understand how life works on Earth. It’s complicated and messy, full of uncertainty and dice rolls that the rigidity of the law can only partially control. 

“Say that you are right,” Lucifer begins, pursing his lips. “If every bad thing has some underlying reason that has to be addressed before someone can truly choose to be good, why did you attempt to kill me?”

Alastor almost laughs right then and there. He stands, moving around the table so he looms above Lucifer—who is about a foot or less shorter than he is, come to think of it—with the largest grin. 

“You have a really annoying face.”

Lucifer recoils. “What?!”

At that, Alastor does laugh as he leaves his workplace, heading down to the house he shares with his mom. Lucifer follows him out and when Alastor turns around, the other’s face is the most scandalized and offended he had ever seen it be. 

“That’s not even a valid reason to murder someone!”

“You’d be surprised!”

Humming jauntily on his way home, Alastor makes it to dinner with mom with time to spare. It was a surprisingly good night.

Alastor thinks he may have miscalculated the tenacity and determination of his guardian angel. After their little talk at his workplace, Lucifer thankfully seemed to calm down the badgering. Whenever Alastor picks up his coffee, a perfectly made cup every day, Lucifer still snipes at him. Bitter, after finding out why Alastor attempted to murder him. 

(“I hope my face doesn’t annoy you too much today.” 

“It’s annoying me the same amount it usually does, thank you.”

“I could spit in your coffee if I wanted to!”

“But you won’t~!”)

However, today is Sunday. That means Alastor didn’t have to go to work in the morning and so won’t need to stop by that quaint little coffeehouse down the road for his usual. He won’t have to see Lucifer and endure his inane nagging about morality, nor his ridiculously peppy and kind attitude. He can just spend his day at church with his mom. 

His mom, Dorothy, is the kind of no-nonsense woman who worked and struggled to get him where he is today. She never had his dad around to help—he fucked off before he was even born—and left him in her sole care. Alastor’s mom used to work multiple jobs to make ends meet—a housekeeper at night, a seamstress on the weekends, and a waitress at a local restaurant that had since closed down—so he never got to see much of her. 

Except for Sundays. Alastor always got to see her on Sundays, and she used to dress him up in his best shirt and shoes for church. Alastor, growing up, used to treasure these days between them the most. He’s not a believer—even if he has proof of the afterlife he trades barbs with every morning—but he is a regular attendee. 

“Oh, Alastor,” his mother says, a soft smile on her face, as she straightens his bowtie. “Such a handsome young man and yet look at you. Still here helping your old ma out. How did I raise such a sweet boy?”

“You’re not that old yet,” Alastor replies with a charm that has her playfully slapping his arm. Alastor’s mom had him very young. She’s still a sprightly thing in her mid-forties.

“Oh, you! We’re going to be late at this rate, and you know how much I love those hymns.” 

They don’t make it to the hymns. Alastor and his mom have to duck inside the church, which was far too full at this point, each of the pews having been squeezed full with families already paying rapt attention to the service. 

“Over here, Alastor! I found a place to sit next to this kind young fellow,” his mother says with a smile, tugging him along by the crook of his elbow. 

Unfortunately for Alastor, the kind fellow in question is blond and terribly pale, sticking out in their church like the sorest of thumbs. Lucifer is dressed in a bright pink vest and a dark bowtie around his neck, making it even more obvious how out of place he truly is. He turns to smile charmingly at his mom, tilting his head at her.

“Hello, I’m Lucifer. I see you’re Alastor’s mom. Nice to meet you!” Lucifer’s eyes flicker to his, baring his teeth.

Alastor had never wanted to murder another man more than right now.

His mother, completely oblivious, just beams. “Oh? You know my Alastor? Are you friends?” 

Alastor is quick to cut in, “No—”

“Yes! We’re well-acquainted,” Lucifer says with a sharp whisper. “I make his coffee every morning. Can’t get enough, can you believe it?” 

His mom giggles. “Oh, I can! My dear Alastor knows what he likes.” 

“Does he?” Lucifer says, looking up at him from under dark eyelashes, seeming to hold back laughter. “Well, as far as I can tell, that thing that he likes is a double espresso made by yours truly. I can make you one too if you’d like, free of charge!”

“Oh, really? How thoughtful!”

For the remainder of the sermon and half an hour afterward, Lucifer continues to whisper into Alastor’s mom’s ear. Sometimes it’s soft commentary about the morality espoused by the pastor and, when the sermon had already ended, they started to talk more about him. His mom must be feeling delighted about meeting Alastor’s “friend”. 

Alastor, not wanting to sit here for another minute in silent impotence without putting in his own two cents, leans down and says in a quiet voice that only Lucifer could hear, “Lucifer, please kindly stop being a vamp to my mother. Frankly, she’s a little too young for you, don’t you think?”

Lucifer had the decency to blush, glowing a pale gold through his pallor, which he quickly covered by pressing both hands to his cheeks. “That’s complete bunk. I’m just trying to be nice,”  he hisses, sending a look his mother’s way to make sure she hadn’t heard. “And I’m still quite young for my kind, thank you very much.”

“And how young is ‘quite young’?”

“...That’s unimportant. The important part is that I figured out how to get you to accept my help in getting you to Heaven.”

“And how exactly is that going to work?”

“Well, your little speech a couple of nights back got me thinking. I always assumed that Heaven is a prize in and of itself, so you were going to accept my offer, regardless of what I said.”

“Which was baloney.”

“Which was baloney,” Lucifer agrees with a sigh. “That’s why I thought of something else! Extra benefits to the whole getting into Heaven thing.”

“My dear guardian angel,” Alastor says lowly, smiling broadly as Lucifer’s eyes widen and his mouth slackens. “Is this bribery? Are you trying to bribe me? I didn’t peg you the type.”

“...It’s not bribery, per se,” Lucifer says slowly, rubbing his hands on his cheeks surreptitiously. “I just realized that it’s harder for most people to choose to be good because they don’t have many options. You’re right. Life can be cruel... I just wanted to help give you that choice.”

“Help give me that choice?” Alastor repeats, dubious. 

“Not that I’m going to just give you money! If I pay you to be good, it won’t be a genuine effort,” Lucifer says, shaking his head, and continuing under his breath, “Not to mention Michael would never let me live it down if I destroy the economy.”

“Destroy the what?”

“Nothing!”

“What does your help entail exactly?” 

“Well, your mom mentioned that you’ve been looking for a new place to live because you don’t want to worry her that much about food, and that you need somewhere closer to where you work and the like, so what I’m offering is… to share my apartment?” 

“You were talking to my mom because you wanted to know how to get to me?”

Lucifer shakes his head at the dangerous tone of Alastor’s voice. “No, not just because of that! I’ve always wanted to meet your mom, okay? She’s so sweet! I thought, you know, two birds, one stone?”

Alastor presses his hand to his nose bridge, debating. He does need a new place to live, Lucifer is right about that, but does he need it enough to share an apartment with him? Lucifer looks like he doesn’t even know how to sweep the floor, much less be a half-decent roommate. Not to mention that Lucifer is going to take every opportunity during their stay together to advocate for being a morally good person. 

“Come on! Please? If you accept, I can make you your coffee at home instead of at the shop, free of charge!” 

Lucifer got him. He got him good. Alastor’s smile tightens at the realization. “Alright, fine.”

“Fine? That’s it? You’re agreeing?” 

“Yes. Do you want me to change my mind?” 

Lucifer quickly shakes his head, bright blue eyes wide in excitement. “No! No, this is fine. This is nice, actually. You can move in at any time. I can help too.”

Alastor watches as Lucifer excuses himself from any further conversation with his mom and leaves, adding from over his shoulder that he’ll keep in touch. He sighs, surprised at himself for agreeing so easily and at his mom, who looks genuinely enamored. 

“Isn’t he nice,” His mom states with an amused smile, which turns into a laugh when Alastor rolls his eyes and groans. 

(“Here, ma. For you.”

“Oh? Is this coffee from that friend of yours? What’s his name again? Lucifer? Oh, how sweet. He remembered.”)

Chapter Text

Alastor quickly regrets his choice to move into Lucifer’s apartment the moment the man himself meets him downstairs with the widest grin, the sleeves of his shirt rolled right up to his elbows to expose iridescent pale skin. 

Lucifer looks down at Alastor’s meager belongings with a small confused frown. “Is that it?”

Alastor raises an eyebrow. “Yes.”

Lucifer blinks, even more confused, then remembers himself. “Well, alright. The apartment is just upstairs. It’s a bit of a flight up, so I can help with it.” 

“It’s just one bag—” 

Lucifer cuts him off by quickly picking it up with one hand. He lifts it, curiously shifting the weight from one hand to the next, before saying, “It’s very light!” 

It’s not at all light, Alastor would know. He dragged the wretched thing from his mother’s home to Lucifer’s downtown apartment. Most of his clothes and personal effects are in that bag. It is certainly not something you can just drag up a flight or two of stairs without assistance. Unless, of course, you are an angel poorly disguised as a human because Lucifer is holding the bag up—practically dwarfing him in size—with one hand while he’s taking the steps two at a time. 

The apartment building itself isn’t fancy. It is just as dilapidated as the surrounding buildings, but sits in an ideal intersection that allows Lucifer to just cross the street to get to work. From here, Alastor knows he can get to work in five minutes rather than the original hour, and this is what he constantly reminds himself of while he follows his new roommate up the steps. 

Lucifer eventually stops, turns to him, and hands the bag back. “Hold this for me, please,” he says as he rifles for his keys. 

Alastor wordlessly takes the bag, grimacing. “How did you get this up the steps one-handed?”

Lucifer grins. “Super strength.”

“Angels have that?” 

“Depends on the angel.”

“And what kind of angel are you?”

“A guardian angel.”

Alastor scoffs at the obvious sidestepping. “So do all guardian angels have super strength?”

“Well, all guardian angels need to be capable of protecting their assignment.”

Assignment? Alastor finds this both interesting and unsurprising. From what he knew of guardian angels and what Lucifer sometimes disclosed, being a guardian angel is essentially a job that Heaven assigns specific angels to undertake. To Lucifer, Alastor must just be a particularly murderous human in a long line of past assignments. 

“Ah ha!” Lucifer’s crow of triumph has Alastor quickly refocusing. “The lock on the door gets stuck a bit. You wouldn’t happen to know how to, uh, fix that?”

“Don’t you have magic?”

Lucifer sighs as he opens the door wide enough for them both to enter. “Doorknobs are tricky. I’m more of a creating person, not a fixing one.”

Alastor looks around at the decently sized apartment with three doors further in (two bedrooms and a bathroom?) and can immediately see what Lucifer means. A small corner of the apartment is entirely flooded with a variety of tools—hammers, screws, saws—and a veritable array of toys, fashioned in any manner of things like fruits, animals, and sometimes dolls. The closest one he can see is of a beautiful girl doll with blond hair flowing down her back. 

Alastor reaches for it, holding it up to see the delicate contours of the doll’s pretty face. “I can see that.”

“Hey! I’ll put my tools in my room so you won’t see it as much.”

“Right. Why the toys?”

“Huh? Oh! Uh, not that one,” Lucifer says as he awkwardly plucks the doll from Alastor’s hand with a sheepish grin. He turns his attention down to it, running a soft finger on its face with a soft, melancholic expression.

“Girl back home?” 

Lucifer glows that pretty golden color again as he shakes his head, laughing awkwardly. “Oh, no! No, no, no. That ship sailed a long time ago. Haven’t seen her in? Gosh, years?”

Alastor raises his eyebrows. “Isn’t it a rule to say the Lord’s name in vain?” 

“Pfft! The old man can stand to be humbled every now and then. Besides, it’s just a euphemism.”

Alastor files this information away quietly while Lucifer pockets the doll and turns to the rest of his belongings. He rolls his shoulders back and snaps his fingers. A bright light engulfs all of the toys and tools scattered across the floor and walls. When the light finally disappears after a moment, the apartment is cleared of its mess. It looks a lot nicer and bigger now. 

Lucifer turns to him with a grin from over his shoulder, ignoring the way Alastor’s eyes must be wide with surprise. “So what do you think of the place? It’s nice, huh?”

“It’ll do.”

Alastor has had just about enough of living with angels for the next century, thank you very much. It had never really occurred to him that a supernatural being would be this useless at home maintenance. He assumed that, being a guardian angel, Lucifer would have some more experience with living as a human. Or if not, there have to be homes up there in Heaven! 

As such, they bicker. Frequently.

(He stares at the mess of their kitchen with shock—there’s a scorch mark on the ceiling?!—then turns his scathing look at Lucifer. He’s carrying what was once a wooden spoon with both hands, and on the stove is a blackened piece of metal. He visibly shrinks at the intensity of Alastor’s glare with a small laugh.

“I wanted… to make us dinner by the time you got back from work?” Lucifer’s eyes widen at Alastor’s silence. “I mean, I can fix this! I swear!” 

“What were you even trying to make?” 

“Pancakes.”

“Pancakes did this?!”

“They make it at the cafe. I didn’t think it would be this hard!”

“For someone so good with coffee…”

“Coffee and pancakes are completely different menu items!”

“Then why did you think it was a good idea to make them?”

“They looked easy!”)

Very frequently.

(“What is this?!” Lucifer exclaims, eyes wide with horror, as he points frantically at the dark maroon stain on the carpet. “Is this blood on the carpet?”

“It’s not mine.”

“Alastor! That doesn’t make it any better?!”

“I’m not injured,” Alastor points out, grinning as he takes his gloves off. Some more blood falls onto the carpet, earning him Lucifer’s glare. “You didn’t not protect me, or whatever it is that guardian angels do. Besides, it was all casual.”

“Casual?! This isn’t something casual!? You committed murder!”  

“It wasn’t murder. Just a little… injury. A little nibble.”

“A nibble?”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Alastor! The police—”

Alastor waves a hand, shaking his head. “You don’t need to worry about them.”

“What?”)

Some might even say too frequently.

(“You stabbed me?!” 

Lucifer gestures down at the steadily gushing hole in his torso. Alastor took the kitchen knife, streaked in tomato and garlic residue, that he was using and struck him right through his third rib. 

“It’s not like it’s the first time.” 

“But why?!”

“Because maybe then you’d stop sounding like a Jehovah’s Witness while I’m cooking our dinner.”

“You could have just said, ‘Go away!’ like a normal person instead of using weapons!” 

“Didn’t work the first time, did it?” Alastor says just to watch the way Lucifer’s mouth slacken in offended disbelief. “Besides, it’s not like you can die from a knife stab. I would know.”)

However, it’s not all bad. Alastor has free godly coffee made and served to him every morning since he moved in (Lucifer even makes some for his mom, too, on Sundays). Also, Lucifer is an interesting and amusing, albeit messy, but at least he usually keeps it in his own bedroom, roommate. Alastor is surprised no one has clued in that he isn’t human. He’s quite bad at pretending that he is. 

(“Stop doing that,” Alastor says, eyeing the way Lucifer is handling the coffee pot while on shift. The coffeehouse at the moment is, thankfully, empty. “No typical human holds a fresh, boiling pot of coffee like it’s nothing.”

Lucifer peers down at it and says, “Really? Is it that hot?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you pour it on yourself to try it out?”)

Or hiding his powers in public.

(“Did you hear that our apartment building is infested with snakes?”

Lucifer coughs awkwardly, looking away. “Well.”

Alastor narrows his eyes at him. “What did you do?” 

Lucifer looks down at himself, then decides that it was better to just show Alastor what he meant. Instantaneously, Lucifer starts shifting, body shrinking and lengthening in a glimmer of gold and red, until a snake is left in his place. 

He climbs up Alastor’s torso and says, “Ta-da!”

Alastor stares at him before he carefully grabs Lucifer by his neck. Unwinding him from his body, he asserts in a calm voice, “No. Absolutely not.”

Lucifer is unceremoniously dropped and he protests, “Hey!”)

Alastor’s life is now very interesting after a few months with Lucifer, even easier despite the roommate that he has to cook for, or risk the entire building burning down with him in it. He tells all this to a friend in the nearby jazz club he frequents. He’s a few drinks into some whiskey, buzzed enough to start talking, but nothing more. 

“His coffee is to die for though, Mimzy,” Alastor says, leaning his head into his hand as the club starts to swirl a little. “Even if he can’t cook a single decent pancake.”

“Is your new roommate from the cute little coffeehouse down by that intersection? The one I told you about?” Mimzy asks, giggling, as she swirls her martini thoughtfully. Feathers in her blond hair and a flapper dress on, she leans close, conspiratorial. “He’s pretty, right? A little too pretty, if you ask me. Do you think he’s secretly rich?”

Alastor scoffs, shaking his head in laughter. “Absolutely not. Although, Lucifer is easy to manipulate.” 

“Of course he would be, to you. I’d love to meet him, Alastor. You’ve never brought him down here before!”

He frowns at his near empty glass of whiskey and states, bluntly, “I doubt he’d appreciate the atmosphere.”

Mimzy scoffs. “Oh, please. Some jazz, some dancing, my singing? He’ll have the time of his life! You think he’d like any of that?”

Dazedly, Alastor remembers all those times in the early mornings when Lucifer sings under his breath to make sure he doesn’t rouse Alastor. He knows that Lucifer knows how to play the violin too, the sounds of it reverberating out of the closed door of his bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. Alastor didn’t know if Lucifer knew of jazz, but he’s sure that his guardian angel would find the experience a curious one. 

Alastor blinks slowly and says, “I’m sure he does. He likes new human experiences.”

“Human experiences?” 

Oops. “Right. Well, I better get on back to my apartment before I’m bent enough to get arrested,” Alastor says as he struggles to move off his stool to stand. He has to hold onto the bar a little too firmly, but he eventually succeeds. He stretches languidly, unconcerned about other proprietors of the club, and sighs contentedly. “Wonderful night as always, darling.”

“Bye, Alastor!” Mimzy says, waving him off with her own drunken wave. “Bring your roommate next time.”

Alastor doesn’t reply and leaves the club without too much difficulty and makes his way home. By the time he manages to stumble back inside the apartment building, the last drink he downed starts to hit him fully and he has to focus to get his keys to cooperate. Or his hands. He drops his keys. Alastor heaves a sigh and bangs on the door in frustration. 

Alastor reaches down to pick up the keys just as the door opens. He dimly registers Lucifer’s voice as it floats into his consciousness. “Alastor? You’re back late.”

“Jazz club,” he replies, stepping into the apartment, kicking his shoes off at the door, and making a beeline for the couch. Alastor sinks into it with a sigh, his head is heavy with a need to sleep. “Don’t say anything about drinking right now, or I swear.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” Lucifer says, and despite Alastor’s haze, he can recognize the way it pitches in exasperation. “I’ll have you know that Heaven is bountiful with alcohol.”

“Yeah, Heaven,” Alastor says with the same intonation one would say ‘six am work shift’. “Why are you still awake, anyway?”

“You weren’t back yet. I was worried.”

“Right. The whole guardian angel thing.”

“It is my job,” Lucifer places a glass on the coffee table close to the couch. Alastor didn’t even realize that he got it. “Making sure you’re safe is part of the job description.”

“Even the water?” 

“Oh, that’s because we’re friends,” Lucifer says as he places a tentative hand on top of Alastor’s head, running a hand through his hair, and takes his glasses off with the other. On any normal day, he would have recoiled, but he just drunkenly presses closer. “Right?”

“We’re roommates.”

Lucifer’s hand pulls back just as Alastor’s eyes get heavy, the allure of sleep too heady to ignore. “Right. We’re roommates. Well, good night, Alastor.”

Chapter Text

Alastor wakes up on the couch at an ungodly five or six in the morning with the insatiable need to drink water, eat, and piss. He reaches for the water on the table blindly, knocking his glasses to the floor in his haste. He cusses silently under his breath and picks it up off the floor, unceremoniously shoving them on and then taking the glass of water. He finishes it quickly and slumps back into the couch cushions. Alastor still smells like the jazz club from last night and he’s sure there are markings on his face from the way the couch pressed against his side all night. 

The apartment is also strangely quiet. In the mornings, when Alastor first wakes up and Lucifer is already in the kitchen preparing his promised coffee, there is always some sort of movement or song that he does. Lucifer is, by no means, a quiet roommate. He’s dramatic and theatrical—full of uncontrolled changes in volume and giant hand gestures—and that makes for either an amusing or irritating experience. 

The silence is discomfiting. Despite his head pounding, Alastor moves to stand up. His stomach flips then settles as he shuffles from the living room to Lucifer’s room. Alastor narrows his eyes and presses an ear to the door. It’s quiet. He reaches for the door handle, in need to sate his curiosity more than anything, and turns it. 

As he suspects, the bedroom is empty, save for Lucifer’s mess of items and personal effects. Alastor checks the time again. It’s past six now. He isn’t worried. Lucifer is an adult and an angel, but it is certainly odd behavior. 

It’s when the sun is starting to peek back into the sky, rays of light streaming into the living room, that Alastor finds a soft light floating back inside, a star plucked straight out of the night sky. It shifts into a mess of feathers and eyes for a quick moment before changing again into a familiar pale blond figure. 

Lucifer, unaware of his audience, dusts his clothes off any imaginary dust and feathers. He removes his hat—a glowing, golden, spiked circle surrounding it—and dissipates it in a cloud of magic. 

Lucifer turns, spots Alastor staring, and startles. “You’re awake! You’re not usually up at this hour.”

“Thirsty,” Alastor says, trying to understand what exactly happened. “What were you doing?”

“Angelic duties,” Lucifer says with a shrug as he walks over to the attached kitchen and sets a kettle of water to boil. “The Morningstar in my name is quite literal. So is Lucifer, come to think of it. The morning star and light bearer.”

“So you moonlight as a star at night?” 

“In a way,” Lucifer says as he shifts quickly into a small bird to reach the higher shelves. The tin of coffee grounds falls and Lucifer shifts back just in time to catch it. “You really had to put everything on the top shelves, didn't you?”

“I’m the one who usually cooks. Crouching down so low hurts my back.”

Lucifer sputters, “You’re just egregiously tall!” 

“Or you’re just egregiously short. Which you are.” 

“You’re hilarious,” he grumbles sarcastically, opening their tin and scooping a few spoonfuls into a small metal strainer placed atop their coffee pot. “Making jabs at a man’s height. How original.”

Alastor moves to their cold box, taking out the greasiest thing they own (sausage?) with a wide grin. “It’s a cheap shot, but somehow always effective.”

“You’re the worst.”

“You always seem to say that, and yet still you try to take me up to Heaven. Most would have given up by now.”

“What can I say? I’m an idealist.”

“Hm, I would say naive.” 

Lucifer scoffs as he pours hot water onto the grounds slowly, the scent of coffee quickly permeating the apartment. “I’m still holding onto hope, Alastor,” he stops pouring, letting it soak through the grounds and drip down through the coffee. “There’s some goodness in there. I just know it!”

Alastor hums softly, cracking a few eggs next to the sausages in his fry-up. “That will be your downfall.”

The rest of breakfast is cooked without any more fanfare. A cup is placed at his elbow as usual and Alastor sets their breakfast, a plate of steaming food between them. Lucifer takes out some bread from the cupboard and they eat breakfast a good hour earlier than usual. 

“You have work today, right?” Lucifer asks while cutting his sausage into smaller, bite-sized pieces. 

“Are you going to try and catch me during a shift again?” 

“You’re just so cagey about it! Can you fault me for being curious?” 

Alastor narrows his eyes at Lucifer from over the rim of his cup of coffee. “Yes, because the only thing you should really concern yourself about is if I still have it so I can help pay our bills.”

Lucifer sighs, rolling his eyes, and says, “Fine.”

“Swell! I better not see you there then.” 

Alastor wonders if killing an angel is at all possible, even if he knows fully well that he has tried and failed to do just that. It was how he ended up living with the aforementioned angel, who is somehow a closer friend to his mother than to him. 

(“Your mom told me to tell you to not forget about bringing tomatoes to Sunday dinner,” Lucifer says as he passes Alastor by on his way to his room. “She wants to make your favorite.”

Alastor blinks. “Why are you talking to my mother?”

“I give her free coffee when she passes by and I tell her about you because you forget to call sometimes?”

“Right.”

“Speaking of, don’t forget to call!”)

Lucifer is seated by the window, kicking his feet a little because he’s a tad too short for the chair while he’s reading the restaurant’s menu. The menu is a very traditional array of burgers and chicken, and, as far as Alastor knows, is mostly deep fried. He stops in front of the table, his smile tight and his eyes murderous, but Lucifer immediately perks up at seeing him.

“Alastor! I didn’t know you worked here,” Lucifer says with a smile that basically told him that he did. Alastor remembers when this same angel cornered him in this same restaurant only a few weeks prior. “What’s good to eat?”

“The fried chicken is good. A burger is a classic. Personally, home-cooked food is just superb, you should do that instead!”

“But I came all the way here! I don’t want this trip to be a waste.”

Alastor’s smile is struggling to stay on. “You live a block away.” 

“And yet I never come here,” Lucifer says then pointedly opens the menu even larger, eyeing it slowly with a careful blue eye. “How about… I get the fried chicken?” 

“I’ll spit on it.” 

“Tsk. Tsk. Where are your manners, Al?”

“I will actually kill you this time.” 

Lucifer grins and hands the menu back to him. “Thank you very much, Alastor,” he says with the politest voice Alastor had ever heard from him. If he squints, he’s sure a glowing halo would be floating a few inches above Lucifer’s head. He has a sneaking suspicion that he’s not a good influence on Lucifer, for better or worse.

Alastor takes the menu with a long-suffering sigh and lets the cook know of Lucifer’s order. He attends to other tables while waiting for the kitchen to finish, watching his roommate from the corner of his eye. 

Somehow Lucifer is constantly moving when they’re at home, shifting in his seat and tapping his fingers on the table, and now is no different. Right now, Lucifer is staring out the window, foot tapping to the rhythm of an unknown tune playing in his head, watching as cars pass by. 

“Excuse me, young man! Excuse me,” an elderly lady tries to wave him over, snapping Alastor out of his thoughts. He reluctantly looks away from Lucifer and focuses on his customer—old, crabby, with a penchant for furs—and quickly pastes a wide smile on. “Ugh, finally! I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes!”

Splendid. It’s Susan. “Ah, yes. I apologize for being distracted. Is there anything you need?” 

“Yes, actually. If you hadn’t been wasting time lollygagging, I would have only been asking for an extra spoon! Now, I’m parched! Fetch me some water.” 

Alastor’s head is starting to hurt. “I’ll be right back with it then. Is there anything else you’d need?” 

Susan scowls at her food. “Yes, actually. This chicken is undercooked, see? There’s blood.” 

“Ah, I believe that’s merely the hot sauce used for—”

“Are you questioning my ability to distinguish between blood and sauce?!”

Alastor picks up the plate, a little too roughly with the way the ceramic makes an angry, pitchy sound as it’s dragged across the table. “Ah, of course not! I’ll do that right awa—”

“Service these days been going to the dogs, I tell ya.”

Alastor ignores her scathing remark and tries his best to smother the urge to murder someone right then and there. What a bitch. He passes by Lucifer’s table on the way to the kitchen and feels the heavy weight of his gaze on his shoulders with the most concerned and empathetic expression. This is why he never wanted Lucifer near this shithole. Every time Lucifer looks at him it grates on his nerves, and is not something he needs during work. 

Unsurprisingly, the cook is also pissed, but at least he passes over Lucifer’s meal. Alastor quickly fills up Susan’s glass of water and retreats to Lucifer’s table before she even thinks of opening her mouth again. 

“Here you go,” Alastor says, placing Lucifer’s meal in front of him. “Your chicken. Lucky you. I didn’t even spit in it.” 

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “How chivalrous.”

“Now, if there’s anything that you might need just let m—”

“Are you okay?” Lucifer asks, eyes flickering from him, to Susan, then back to him. “I rarely ever see you that… incensed.” 

“That’s just Susan. She comes every day and always pulls something like that.”

“She doesn’t seem very… nice?”

Alastor scoffs. “You can say it. She’s a giant bitch.” 

Lucifers raises an eyebrow at the cuss word but nods his acquiescence. “Yes, that. Does she not have anything better to do?”

“She’s an old and bitter curmudgeon.” 

“I wonder where her guardian angel is.”

“If I had to guess, it went the way that fox did around her neck.”

Lucifer chokes on a laugh but attempts to cover it up with an awkward cough. “That’s very rude, Alastor.”

“I’m just saying it as I see it.” 

Thankfully, the rest of Lucifer’s meal is uneventful. He finishes his chicken meal and pays. Alastor is surprised he hadn’t decided to meddle in his work problems or approach Susan despite her continued complaints regarding her browned, overcooked chicken. Lucifer just smiles and slips out the door to do whatever the hell it is angels do in their spare time.

Alastor arrives back at his apartment at his usual time, but Lucifer still isn’t back yet. The apartment is completely dark with no occupants. Normally, Lucifer spends his days off here, creating endlessly with either magic or tools. He shrugs, unconcerned. Clearly, considering the work visit, Lucifer had decided to change things. 

It’s only by the time dinner rolls around that Lucifer shows up again, a wide smile on his face. “Alastor! Alastor!” He slams a piece of paper onto the dining table, practically bouncing on the heels of his shoes. “Read this.” 

Alastor lifts the paper and realizes that Lucifer didn’t let that incident at work go as easily as he thought. “...Auditions?” he reads out, eyes wide behind his glasses. “In a few weeks?”

Lucifer nods, grabbing a plate and serving himself. “It’s auditions at the local radio station. They’re looking for some new talent.” 

“When have I ever had any interest in radio?” 

“Honestly, never. I was on the way home when I saw this, but you should try out!” 

“What makes you think I’ll be any good?”

“Well, as you know, you’re naturally very charismatic and—” Lucifer pauses, awkwardly looking away while his cheeks glow softly. “I think you have a nice voice. It’ll be perfect!”

“Right,” Alastor says, still unconvinced. “And this has nothing to do with what happened at my workplace earlier, is it?”

Lucifer’s blush seems to glow even brighter, turning his pale skin iridescent. “Well, yes. I mean, if I knew you liked your job anyway, I wouldn’t have suggested it! You hate your job.”

“This isn’t something to do with your duty as a guardian angel either, is it?” 

“Nope! Completely just because I think you can do a better job than serving that bitch Susan.”

That startles a laugh out of Alastor. “Are you allowed to swear?” 

Lucifer beams. “Well, I haven’t been smote yet, so I suppose I am.”

“Alright, fine. I’ll try it out.”

(About a week later, Alastor turns up at Lucifer’s workplace during Alastor’s day off, this time with a wide grin. “I’d like a double espresso and one of those beignets.”

“Good morning, Alastor,” Lucifer says with a confused frown, “Didn’t you already have breakfast this morning?”

“It’s for lunch.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow at the beignets set up on the counter. “Beignets aren’t typically served for lunch.”

“Just ring me up, dear. You’re absolutely exhausting to talk to! If I have to listen to you jabber any longer, I’ll have to cut your tongue out myself.”

“How morbid, and it’s also only nine in the morning, need I remind you,” Lucifer replies sarcastically, ringing up Alastor’s order. “Doesn’t beat your castration threat, though.”

Alastor’s smile widens. “You looked genuinely terrified after that one. It was enlightening.”

Lucifer scowls in disgust. “Stay away from my genitals, Alastor.”

“You say that like I want to be anywhere near them.”

“Then stop talking about them!”

“You brought it up!”

Behind Alastor’s shoulder, an older lady pointedly coughs. Lucifer’s eyes widen, cheeks dusting gold. “Sorry, miss! What would you like to order?” he says, hurriedly shooing Alastor away and turning his attention to his next customer. 

Alastor smirks, taking a seat to wait for his coffee and beignet. He doesn’t have any work today. Usually, he would have liked to spend the day with his mother on his days off. He barely gets to see her during the week as it is, but his free day happened to fall on a day she had work. More than that, his other hobbies (the jazz club, murder) all happen during the night, so his only option is his growing interest in the entertaining pastime that is bothering Lucifer.

A coffee and powdered sugar-dusted beignet are placed in front of him. Alastor looks up and Lucifer’s face is in a grimace. “That lady got me kicked out of the front because of ‘inappropriate language in the workplace’. I didn’t even say anything bad! It was the most work-friendly version of the word.”

“I think maybe next time don’t talk about your body parts.”

“You started it!” Lucifer squawks and Alastor does nothing but raise an eyebrow at him, smugly. “Oh, shut up. She’s just annoyed today because her husband cheated on her again, for the third time, with his secretary. You’d think after the first time she’d leave, but no.”

Alastor lifts his cup of coffee, musing. “I bet the husband is rich.”

“He picks her up from a car, so yes. He most definitely is.”

“How do you even know this? I work in service too, but no one tells me their life story.”

Lucifer smirks, gesturing to his face. “This thing is good for more than just a great tip.”

Alastor scoffs and takes a sip of his coffee.)

Chapter Text

“Okay,” Lucifer holds up the pamphlet in his hands one morning while sipping a glass of sweet tea (“Alastor, I am surrounded by coffee at work. Why on Earth would I want to drink that at home?”). “It says here that they’re looking for someone with a nice voice, a charming personality, and a transatlantic accent.”

“I don’t have a transatlantic accent, Lucifer,” Alastor says, leisurely sipping his coffee. 

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but I think we can work on that. Craft your radio show host persona, if you will. So that means the accent, the jokes, the charm, and the style.”

“Can you fake that?”

“You can fake anything! Eventually, it’ll just be part of who you are.”

“Sounds… promising.”

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” Lucifer asks Alastor’s mom excitedly on their way back from church. They’re taking the tram back to his mom’s place, away from the busy downtown area where they lived, and into the squeezed-together houses down the way. “The radio tower is also near our apartment! It’s perfect.” 

His mother hums thoughtfully, then inclines her head to look at Alastor. She smiles and says, “What do you think about this, Alastor?”

It’s exactly like his mother to hear his opinion first before taking someone else’s side. Alastor smiles more genuinely and answers, “It seems like good entertainment, no matter what happens.” 

She returns his smile, softly patting his hand a few times before taking his hand and squeezing it. “Then it sounds like a great idea, Lucifer. I’m glad you’re working so hard to care for my son.” 

Lucifer immediately turns bright gold, saved from being outed only by the sun itself, as he beams so brightly at such high praise. “Well, your son obviously can stand to be taken care of every now and then,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. 

“That I agree with. What have you done so far?”

“Well, so far, I’ve been thinking about working on his transatlantic accent because it’s one of the requirements—”

Alastor tunes them out, letting Lucifer do all the talking. Even if Lucifer is sure that Alastor will get the job, he doesn’t think he’ll mind too much if he doesn’t get it. The restaurant is a decent enough job with good pay that lets him cover his needs and send some of his earnings back to his mom, but he knows that it’s tedious. Susan isn’t even the worst customer the restaurant could have had when Lucifer came over to eat. 

After a while of speaking in only the transatlantic accent at home with Lucifer, Alastor knows his cadence has changed drastically. Even without realizing it, he would smoothly change back into those long r’s and dropped vowels. The restaurant customers keep commenting on it, giving amused little oohs and aahs that he bears silently with a smile. 

“Well, Alastor has always been a boy with impeccable manners, don’t you think? I think the people would appreciate someone so polite,” his mom’s voice cuts into his thoughts. 

Lucifer nods along to what she’s saying, his face serious, and says, “That’s what I thought so too, but we’re missing a little something. Some style, some charm, something.”

“Maybe you can buy a radio of your own? Listen to it and maybe you can gather something from there?” 

Lucifer gasps. “You’re right! What do you think, Al? We can get one on the way back.”

Alastor shrugs. “As long as you pay.”

Ever since his mom’s suggestion, they bought a radio—one of the cheaper models at thirty-five dollars, but it was still most of Lucifer’s savings—and often played it through all hours of the day. 

Many of the channels varied in genre. Sometimes the sound of a man’s monotone voice reads out the latest news, filling the empty space left behind by the lack of breakfast chatter. Alastor notes that even they have the accent—all dropped ‘r’s and long vowels—but without any charm to it. 

Other times, it’s a riveting drama read out with different actors narrating events that neither Lucifer nor Alastor sees. Sometimes they’re cheesy and too romantic, leaving Alastor disinterested and Lucifer a swooning mess who gushes over the saccharine longing. Some dramas are tragic, though. In those times, Alastor doesn’t opt to change the channel and Lucifer quiets into a more melancholic mood than usual. 

The best kind of radio channels though, are those that largely consist of music. As expected, Lucifer gets excited about those the most. He lives for the cheery and upbeat rhythm of swing and the smooth melodiousness of jazz. If Alastor is lucky, he may catch Lucifer whipping his violin out from his room and playing along to the music; synchronizing with the different notes and commenting excitedly on their nuance. Maybe Mimzy was right about bringing him around to the jazz club at some point. Alastor thinks it might be fun, even though he knows Mimzy suggested it entirely just to sleep with Lucifer.

Right now, on a Saturday morning when they’re both off work, they’re listening to the transatlantic accent of a man reading out today’s news. Lucifer is seated closer to the radio, face scrunched up in concentration. 

“These news radio hosts wouldn’t know ‘entertaining’ even if it hit them on the head with a book,” Lucifer mumbles, shaking his head. “Like I get that it’s the news, but they lack presentation?”

“A je nais se quois?” Alastor offers, cadence tinged with his attempt at a transatlantic accent, and Lucifer nods. “You realize that this man is reading out the obituary, yes?”

Lucifer’s face burns gold in embarrassment. “I’m aware, yes. But it’s so bland! Where’s the drama?"

“If you wanted drama, that one with the cheating husband is on.”

“You know what I mean!” 

Alastor shrugs, taking another drink of his coffee. “You want me to be a showman,” he says, licking the bitter and rounded taste of black coffee off his lips. “Entertain and empathize with the audience, correct?”

“That’s right. You already have the charm,” Lucifer says, grinning at him. “And the smile.”

“They won’t see me when I smile, though.”

“Who cares?” 

“You’re really invested in this.”

Lucifer puffs up his chest. “I want this to go perfectly. You’re going to get this job.”

“Sure, I am,” Alastor says with a roll of his eyes before he stands, rolling his shoulders. “Put on the jazz channel.”

“Why?” Lucifer frowns but does so anyway because he loves that channel.

“You want me to be a showman, right? This is good practice.”

“Practice for what?”

Alastor extends a hand, grinning broadly, and with a bravado he still doesn’t feel. “For getting into character, of course.” Lucifer blinks at the sudden change. He laughs and accepts his hand, Alastor pulling him to his feet. “Have you ever danced to jazz before?”

“No. I haven’t got a clue how.”

Alastor clicks his tongue in disapproval. Bringing Lucifer to a jazz club would have to wait then. “Well, that certainly won’t do! No classes on how to integrate to life down here up in Heaven?”

Lucifer shakes his head, looking sheepish. “Afraid not. Although, I do know how to do some folk dances and waltzing.”

“Well, it’s thankfully nothing that strict,” Alastor reaches over and increases the volume on the radio. The tune is something jaunty and light-hearted—perfect for the Charleston. “This dance is simple—barely any rules—and it’s all about just enjoying the music.”

“You step backward and forward while crossing your feet and throw your hands out as you step. Like this.” Alastor demonstrates, falling into step to the beat of the music. The familiarity of the dance moves allows him to follow the rhythm, despite never hearing this song before. 

Lucifer watches him, the middle of his eyebrows tight in thought, as he commits the dance to memory. “You know,” he says once Alastor stops dancing. “You’re really good at that. Maybe you do go to the jazz club too ofte—ow! I was just joking!”

Alastor, who had smacked the back of Lucifer’s head in retaliation, just smirks. “Do you want to learn the dance or not?”

“I do! Maybe then you’d let me go with you.”

“Were you not just judging me for going to the club “too often” just a moment ago?”

Lucifer huffs. “Yeah. Without me.”

Alastor snorts and leans back, folding his arms. “Alright then. Go on. Try it out while the song is still ongoing.” Lucifer bites his bottom lip, looking unsure, and Alastor rolls his eyes, leaning over and tapping him on the nose. “Despite having so much audacity and ego, it’s a wonder you’re still so awkward.”

“You’re a very judgmental person.”

“Ah, but when did that ever stop you before?” Alastor asks, leaning forward with a wide smirk. Lucifer’s cheeks glow gold, mouth twisting. “Fine. We can do it together. The Charleston can be danced in pairs too, after all.”

The song changes to something just as upbeat as the first one and Alastor pulls Lucifer into the dance, crossing his feet as he steps backward and forward to the beat of the music. Lucifer follows after him, mirroring his movements. It takes a moment for Lucifer to get comfortable with the music and footwork, but in time he’s laughing and is just as amused by the dance as Alastor expected him to be.

Their living room isn’t very big, but Alastor had danced in much smaller and tighter spaces. They caper around their furniture, weaving around some of Alastor’s books, the lights, and the couch with surprising ease as Alastor makes sure to nudge or turn Lucifer around before he could hit anything, too busy trying to keep up to pay attention to his surroundings. It leaves both of them breathless but smiling by the end of the song.

Lucifer laughs. “You dance this every night? This is great!”

“Not every night,” Alastor says, scoffing. “There are other dances, too.”

“I thought you were going to try and tell me that you don’t go to the club that often.”

“And we’d both know that I would be lying, so why bother?”

Lucifer grins. “So teach me the other dances then! It can’t be any worse than what we just did?”

“The foxtrot won’t be—it’s almost like the waltz—but the Texas Tommy might be harder than what we just did.”

“Are they both pair dances?”

Alastor nods and holds his hand out, raising his eyebrows expectantly and grinning. “Care for another spin?”

A new song plays on the radio. Lucifer smiles back, cheeks a bright gold, and he takes the offered hand.

“Not yet,” Lucifer says as he moves forward and adjusts the bowtie around Alastor’s neck so it’s tighter and flatter on his chest. When he’s satisfied, he beams, patting his chest softly with both hands to flatten the lapels of his suit. “There we go. Now it’s perfect.” 

Alastor looks at himself in the mirror. He doubts very many people go to such lengths for an audition, but Lucifer (and his mom) says that it really can’t hurt. He looks dapper in a form-fitting three-piece suit that Lucifer had modified into his size from his own closet. The color was magicked into a more neutral brown instead of his usual brighter colors. 

Lucifer stares at his reflection too and lets out a low whistle. “Look at you,” he says with a grin. “Girls will come lapping at your heels, I’ll bet.”

When Alastor grimaces at that thought, Lucifer laughs as if he were expecting that reaction. “One thing at a time, Lucifer,” he says, pushing his dark hair back and more out of his face.

“You’ll do great, gosh.”

“After weeks of speaking in an accent and listening to terrible radio, it would be a real waste.”

“It won’t be. You’ll do great! And whatever happens, go to that jazz club you like so much.”

Alastor chuckles. “Are you encouraging me to drink my sorrows away?” 

“No,” Lucifer rolls his eyes. “That would be irresponsible of me as your guardian angel. I’m encouraging you to drink and dance in celebration, obviously.”

“You should come when I go.” 

An odd look passes over Lucifer’s face that quickly turns into a hopeful smile. “Are you sure?”

“It would be so amusing to watch you dance along to jazz music, I’ll admit.” 

“Inviting me out just so you can laugh at me, how typical.”

“Half the things I let you do to me is because it’s entertaining.”

“Fine. I do like good music,” Lucifer says like it’s new information. Alastor just hums, smiling at his reflection.

Chapter Text

Somehow, Alastor gets the job that day. His first impulse is to tell his mom, but the phone’s at the apartment which is still a block away. He decides to tell Lucifer first due to sheer proximity. He is at work today, and so it is a bit of a walk to get to. Lucifer, who is busily attending to one of his customers when he comes in, chatting away at a sweet-looking girl who likely ordered a coffee just to talk to him, doesn’t immediately notice Alastor. He takes a seat at the back and waits for Lucifer to come to him. 

Lucifer approaches him, with pleasant surprise adorning his face, and asks, seemingly out of instinct, “What can I get you?” 

“A double espresso, please,” Alastor says, unable to hide the smug grin on his face. “And the time your shift ends.”

“This is starting to sound eerily similar to when you first tried to kill me.”

“Well, I do plan to take you out.” 

Lucifer raises an eyebrow and says, laughing a little, “From this world or on a date?”

Alastor rolls his eyes. “Jazz club, remember?”

“Oh?” Lucifer purses his lips, eyes him closer, and then gasps in excitement. “You got the job?” 

“Apparently, they were charmed by my dandyish demeanor and impeccable style.”

“I told you you’ll get it! Golly, you’re going to do great.”

“Aren’t I?” Alastor says, pride dripping from his countenance. He leans forward. “So? Will you be done by, say, five?” 

Lucifer laughs and says, “Of course! Though I think I’d want to change from my work uniform… I don’t want to turn up with coffee stains.”

“See you at the apartment then.”

“Yes, mama,” Alastor nods into the phone, grinning broadly from ear to ear. “I did get the job. Why, of course, they loved me!”

“Oh, Alastor,” his mom’s proud voice bolstering his own happiness. “I’m so glad to hear that! You’re moving on to bigger and brighter things now, my son. Don’t forget little old me when you’re suddenly famous!” 

“Yes, mama. How could I possibly forget?”

“And don’t forget to thank Lucifer! He worked so hard to help you, I’m sure he’d appreciate it. Does he know?” 

“He was the first person I told.” 

His mom laughs. “Of course, you did,” she says, a soft smile on her face. “I never thought you’d make a friend with a boy your age, yet here you are!”

“We’re just roommates.” And Lucifer isn’t exactly his age either. 

“Hm, well,” Alastor can hear her judgment through the staticky phone. “I want you two boys over here tonight for some dinner, okay?” 

“Uh, well. We’re going out tonight. To a club.”

“Then tomorrow night!” His mom quickly amends, then mutters softly, “Not his friend, he says.”

Alastor rolls his eyes. “Ma, I can hear you.”

“Oh, ignore me. I’m just rambling, you know? I’m old.” 

“You’re not old at all. You’re not even fifty.” 

“And the life expectancy right now is fifty—read the papers, dear—so I’m old!”

“Goodbye, ma. Lucifer should be coming home any time now.” 

“Alright, have fun dear!”

His mom hangs up and the dial tone quickly fills the silence. Alastor hums, hanging the receiver up. He checks the time and it’s past five. Lucifer should be home soon, which means a night out at his favorite jazz club. Mimzy is going to eat Lucifer right up, Alastor is sure of it. He laughs at the thought, hoping to see how his devious friend will try and get to Lucifer. 

Speak of the angel. Lucifer opens the door, closes it as he removes his shoes, and gives him a tired wave. “You know, maybe I should follow your lead and get another job myself,” he says with a groan. “I’m tired of the smell of coffee.”

“Oh, how terrible, how awful. Please stop dilly-dallying already and get ready. You do smell like coffee.” 

Lucifer glares at him from over his shoulder, but he does follow along and disappears into his own room. “And here I thought you liked coffee!”

“Not when it wafts from you.” 

Lucifer squawks, offended. “You make it sound like I smell bad!” Alastor purposefully doesn’t respond, just to hear the angry shout. “I know what you’re doing, Alastor!”

“It’s not my fault you smell like coffee and sweat. I thought you’re an angel. Aren’t you supposed to smell good?”

“Oh, shut up! You know I never smell bad! And why are you smelling me, anyway?”

Alastor grins. “I told you. It wafts.”

“If someone tries to shoot you, see if I help,” Lucifer says, completely lying and they both know it.

“My, aren’t you supposed to be my knight in a coffee-stained apron?”

“Only in the mornings.”

Alastor laughs as Lucifer finally steps out of his room. He changed from his work clothes to something dressier. His hair is pushed back, a bow tie secure around his neck, and a light pink vest cinching his waist. Over top are more neutral brown suspenders.

“My, don’t you look charming,” he comments, plucking one of the suspenders and snapping it back into place. 

“I don’t even know if you’re sarcastic or not, but I’m taking it,” Lucifer says with a broad smile. 

“My, my, my. Alastor! I didn’t think you’d ever bring him around this place,” Mimzy hollers from her spot at the bar upon seeing him and Lucifer enter, a sharp smile already on her face as she eyes Lucifer. “You must be the roommate. I’m Mimzy, sweetheart.” 

Lucifer smiles, a little stiff and awkward, but he manages. “Lucifer. Nice to meet you.”

Mimzy clicks her tongue. “Well, aren’t you a shy one?” 

“Um,” Lucifer hesitates, glancing at Alastor with barely concealed panic. 

“Don’t let the face fool you, Mimz,” Alastor replies instead, smiling and taking a seat at the bar. “He can be quite feisty himself.”

“Feisty?”

“Right, sorry. I mean, touchy.”

“Alastor!”

Mimzy laughs, delightfully clapping Alastor on the shoulder. “I see what you mean now,” she says to him before she downs her martini with gusto. “Alright, darlings. Momma’s going to start singing. I better see the two of you on the dance floor.”

Once Mimzy leaves, Lucifer slumps onto his barstool. “Your friend Mimzy sure is a character.”

“She’s fun,” Alastor corrects, waving the bartender over. “Which is why I like spending time with her. Two whiskeys, please. Two fingers.” The bartender places two glasses on the counter and fills it. When he’s done, Alastor hands the other glass over with a grin. “This one’s on me. Cheers.”

Lucifer raises his glass, clinks it to Alastor’s, and repeats, “Cheers.”

They both down their drinks just as Mimzy starts her number. Suddenly Lucifer coughs at the unexpected burn, but Alastor just laughs, puts his glass down, and gestures for a refill. “You’re so bad at this!” 

“At what? Drinking in excess?!” Lucifer asks, cheeks flushed a pale yellow. “I thought that was expected!”

“Oh, you angels,” Alastor says, sarcastically, scrunching his nose and squeezing his eyes shut as if he were talking to a particularly adorable puppy. Lucifer leans back with a scowl. “So uptight. Do you do anything at all to unwind?” 

“We sing, we dance.”

“No wonder you do that so often in the shower after work,” Alastor nods, polishing off his second glass. 

“You’re going through those drinks a little fast.”

“I’m preparing myself for when you inevitably ask me to the dance floor,” Alastor says then glances at Lucifer, continuing, “Well, won’t you?”

Lucifer’s flush brightens to gold, hands immediately covering his cheeks and rubbing it self-consciously. “I mean, I could ask someone else—”

Alastor frowns as he quickly shakes his head, surprisingly uncomfortable with that idea. “No. Absolutely not. This is your first time in a jazz club, yes?” Lucifer nods. “Then I’m not having some stranger take your first dance.”

Alastor downs his third drink of the night and hops off his bar stool. Some of the whiskey is already starting to hit, but he ignores it. Mimzy is still singing—an upbeat jazz song, perfect—and so he turns to Lucifer, offering his hand. “I’m surprised you’re still so upright,” Lucifer comments as he takes it. “What was that? Your third?” 

“Only my third,” Alastor corrects as he pulls them both to the dance floor. “The night is still young.” 

“I’m going to have to teleport us home, aren’t I?” 

“I hold my liquor well,” Alastor says, dismissively. He places his other hand in the space between Lucifer’s shoulder blades. The weight of the club patron’s stares falls on them. “Remember the Charleston?” 

“That the one you taught me in our tiny living room? Yes.” 

“You’ll be fine then.”

Lucifer smiles tightly and says, “People are really staring.”

“Ignore them. It’s just our living room, the jazz radio station, and us.” 

“You think Mimzy would like being called a jazz radio station?” 

“Oh, would she!” Alastor laughs. “She’d adore being on radio.”

“Good that she’s friends with you, then.” 

“If that’s what you call it.” 

The music picks up and Alastor leads them seamlessly into a Charleston, pulling them both into the shuffling, upbeat steps of the dance. Lucifer falls into step easily next to him, used to the sudden improv and familiarity after so many weeks of listening and dancing around to jazz on the radio. 

As he told Lucifer, it’s really not so different from the dancing in their living room, even surrounded by people everywhere and Mimzy’s voice in their ears. Lucifer’s delighted by the music, enamored by the steps of the dance, and held onto him in a desperate bid to not get left behind. Alastor pushes Lucifer out to a twirl just to see his surprised face when he pulls him back in.

“I didn’t know twirls were part of the choreography,” Lucifer says, grinning broadly. 

“Not traditionally. I’m just keeping you on your toes.”

“Oh yeah?” The song changes, a similarly upbeat piece that has more people joining in. “Let me lead this time.”

“Can you?” Alastor asks, but shifts the position of his hand anyway, letting Lucifer take charge this time. “Aren’t you too short?” 

“And I told you that making jabs at a man’s height is boring and unoriginal.”

“Your reactions are never boring though.”

Lucifer rolls his eyes and pulls them into step, a faster version of the basic foxtrot, as they spin circles around the other pairs dancing. Unlike the dance they had with Alastor in charge, Lucifer leads them into something a little more uncoordinated and a lot wilder as they weave in and out, uncaring about anybody else. 

It’s not as high-energy a dance as compared to those he dances with Mimzy, but it still leaves him breathless at the end of it. They stop at the bar with Lucifer accepting another drink from the barman—another whiskey, but with ice this time—and taking a gulp. 

“You really can dance, Alastor,” he says, laughing. “Even three drinks in.” 

Alastor shrugs, picking up his fourth glass and taking a long drink. “Had to learn fast because Mimzy is a devil on the dance floor.”

“So are you, it seems. That was fun!” 

“It was, wasn’t it?” 

Lucifer smiles at him, practically glowing gold in the dim lighting. Alastor can’t stop the way he smiles back, his angel’s excitement absolutely infectious. 

“You really need to hang back on these drinks, you’re glowing gold,” Alastor says, hiding his lingering smile behind his drink. “You’re terrible at hiding.”

Lucifer slaps his hands onto his face so quickly and suddenly that it just makes it all the more obvious to anyone looking closely that he’s not really human; so Alastor laughs at his expense. “Oh, shut up,” Lucifer says, glumly, then he quickly perks back up again as he drops his hands to reach into his pants pockets. “Actually, since you got the job and all, I have a present for you.”

Lucifer pulls out a sizable gift that should not have fit his pants pocket, especially considering how flat the fabric of his pants were across his legs. He passes the package to Alastor with an awkward smile as Lucifer waits for him to open it. It’s wrapped in some modest brown packaging paper and tied shut with some thread, which he unravels.

“Oh,” Alastor breathes out as the item inside is unveiled. It’s a microphone, just like the one in the studios at the radio tower, except it looks sleeker with an eye engraved at the top. 

“Do you like it?”

Alastor runs a reverent hand over the mic, thumbing at the eye engraved at the center of it, heart beating loudly in his ears. Lucifer is staring at him, face expectant, and he has to clear his throat, swallowing around an unexpected lump, before saying, “I love it.” 

Lucifer settles back down with a bright smile, finishing his drink. “Good. Don’t lose that. I made it myself so it’s one of a kind.”

“With magic?”

Lucifer nods.

“Alright. Although, this doesn't really disprove my point about how terrible you are at hiding.”

"Shut up! People can assume that I’m just a very good magician.”

“Oh, darlings! That was splendid. I’m gagged, positively speechless! You boys dance so well.” Mimzy joins them, her cheeks flushed from her time on stage, as she gestures for another drink of her own. “Makes me jealous.”

“Oh, really?” Lucifer asks, smiling, and then adds, “Your singing was also very nice.” 

Mimzy grins sharply, laughing coquettishly. “Oh, aren’t you such a charmer! Isn’t he, Al?” 

Alastor hums in agreement. “He’s polite to a fault.”

“Just like you then!” Mimzy says before grasping Lucifer’s arm and pulling him excitedly to the dance floor. Lucifer’s drink sloshes clumsily in his hand and he has to put it back down on the counter with a soft laugh. “Come on then, let’s dance!” 

And like the whirlwind she is, Mimzy leaves his angel staggering to catch up with her. She clutches his hand while Lucifer settles his hand between her shoulder blades like Alastor taught him. Their eyes meet across the crowded room and Alastor grins at the way he struggles to keep up with her rapid pace across the dance floor. 

Alastor finishes three more drinks by the time the two return, leaning on his hands with a soft, sleepy smile. Lucifer takes his seat again, visibly sweating, and yet flushed with joy. He looks for his drink and Alastor pushes it into his hands.

“I made sure no one else touched it,” Alastor says and his smile must look especially dopey because Lucifer looks at him strangely. “Did you have fun?”

“I did! You’re right about Mimzy. She’s really fun.” 

“Aren’t I just, darlin’?” Mimzy says with a little giggle. Unlike Lucifer, her face isn’t all sweaty and she isn’t panting as heavily. “Oh, Alastor. Look at you. You’re already kitten drunk, aintcha?” 

“Just a smidge,” Alastor says with a roll of his eyes, but it just makes his vision swim. He reaches for the side of his head, willing it to stop moving. “I can still dance for you, Mimz.”

“If you say so, doll!” 

Lucifer frowns though, placing a hand on Alastor’s forearm. “Are you sure? I can take us home whenever you want.” 

Alastor shakes his head, patting his angel’s hand comfortingly. “Not a problem, darling,” he says, smiling fondly at him, and Lucifer’s eyes widen in return, cheeks blushing bright gold. “I’ve danced with Mimzy here far drunker.”

Lucifer’s hand drops and he shoots confused, flustered looks over his shoulder. Alastor turns around and Mimzy is laughing behind her hand. “If, uh. If you’re sure,” Lucifer finally says, hiding behind his glass. “Just let me know when you want to go.”

Mimzy pulls him away before he can answer and Alastor easily steps into familiar hand placements and dance steps. The song playing is something slow so their steps follow that beat, keeping a sedate pace as they move across the floor. This provides Mimzy ample opportunity to interrogate him. 

“So, that is your roommate, huh?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him. At Alastor’s soft noise of affirmation, she continues, “Well, don’t you seem close.”

“We live together,” Alastor says, dismissively. “We just got used to each other.”

Mimzy laughs. “Really now?” She says, clearly not believing him. “Did you see his face when you called him ‘darling’? He looked like he saw a ghost!” 

“I call you darling all the time?”

“Oh, sweetie. You are so oblivious, and I so love that about you. Though he’s such a sweetheart, don’t you think?” 

“Of course. He is my angel.”

"Your angel, huh? Does he know that you call him that?”

Alastor frowns. “Does he have to?”

Mimzy cackles, body shaking with the force of it. “Oh, goodness. You need to bring him along with you more often! I haven’t had a laugh like this in a while!”

“If he agrees to it,” Alastor says, rolling his eyes, “Although, I hope you didn’t scare him too much.”

“Oh, please! Lucifer over there is a big boy. He took to dancing like a fish does to water, you know?”

“Of course I’d know, I taught him that.” 

“Oh, did you now? So you are close!”

Alastor rolls his eyes. “An inevitability to living together.”

“If you say so,” Mimzy says with a shrug, “Though your boy said you got a new gig at that radio tower nearby. You going to give lil ‘ol me a chance at the spotlight, Alastor?” 

“Hm, no promises.” 

“Oh, you!” she says, slapping his arm and grinning. The music ends and the dance floor starts to clear. “Well, I better get going. World’s a stage and all!”

The music ends and Alastor walks back to the bar while Mimzy returns to the stage to begin her set anew. Lucifer is exactly where he left him, but he’s talking animatedly with one of the earlier performers, a brunette girl with a feather in her hair and a dress cut short above her knees. She angles her body towards him, feet pointed Lucifer’s way and head ducked to hear him better. She is entirely engrossed in what Lucifer is saying.

Alastor rolls his eyes. It reminds him of the morning rush in the coffeehouse with eager girls taking one look at Lucifer and wanting to talk to him. It’s a charm that Alastor is pretty sure Lucifer knows of, but very rarely uses for his own ends, as far as Alastor knew anyway.

He reclaims his seat and gestures to the bartender for a drink refill before taking out his wallet and paying off their bill. Lucifer immediately takes notice of him because of how his eyes flicker his way for the briefest of moments. He cuts the conversation he’s having short, smiling apologetically at the girl and citing that his friend has been drinking too much and needs to get home. She pouts, but Lucifer must have just as much a talent for looking earnest as he does with anything theatrical because she accepts it easily enough and makes her way to take someone else home. 

“We going back home now then?” Lucifer asks, polishing up the last of his drink. “Had enough dancing?” 

Alastor downs the last of his, if he’s counting right, seventh drink. “I’ve danced for longer, much more bent, but I suppose it is getting late.”

“Right then,” Lucifer says and slides off the bar stool. “I’ll take us back.”

Alastor frowns and asks, his voice slurring, “On your wings?”

“No! We’d be spotted, then I’d be in deep trouble with my siblings.” 

“Your siblings, huh?” Alastor muses. “I didn’t know angels had siblings.”

Lucifer takes Alastor’s hand and they exit the club before he replies, “Sometimes they do. If two souls are siblings in life and they both go to Heaven, then those two angels would be siblings.”

“I didn’t think you had siblings. If human souls become angels in heaven, what were you like as a human?”

“I’ve never been human before.”

“Oh? Then what kind of angel are you?” 

Lucifer pulls them into an alley, away from prying eyes. “I told you,” He snaps his fingers just as gold mist coalesces into a cloud as tall as any doorway. It takes a moment before the mist refocuses and shows their apartment living room inside. “I’m a guardian angel.”

“Ah, but you said you’re not a human soul. So what are you? A principality? A virtue? A throne?” Alastor asks as he stumbles through the portal. 

Lucifer steps into it after him, and the portal dissipates when he does. “You’re being very stubborn about this.”

“And you’re being very cagey about it.”

“I’ll tell you all about me when you manage to get into Heaven.” 

“I thought you’d given up on that.” 

Lucifer smiles. “I’m not giving up just yet.”

Chapter Text

Despite getting a new job in radio as an announcer and being able to leave his old job, Alastor finds work hard and getting to the money even harder. Something they never tell you about radio is that most of the pay comes from sponsors and advertising, many of which choose which announcer to back depending on their ratings. Alastor, at the very bottom of the rung and being the new kid on the block, has god-awful ratings. 

Very few people tune in to his channel—his mom and Lucifer do so regularly, but they’re the only two people who do—and it is quickly becoming a problem. There’s a reason why he was stuck in his service job for so long. It’s decent, stable money. Now, Alastor isn’t sure how he’ll be able to pay rent this month or pay for his half of the groceries, much less send over money for his mom. 

Lucifer isn’t so concerned, or at least he doesn’t appear to be, as he inspects a handful of bananas. “Dorothy says that the best banana to buy is the sort that’s a little green so you can keep it longer in the cupboard.”

“You really follow everything my mom says.”

“She’s wise,” Lucifer says, picking up some bananas, weighing, and paying for it. “And, unlike you, she doesn’t get too impatient with me when I say or do something stupid.”

“Those were really greasy crepes, Lucifer. Putting butter before every crepe was too much.”

“I was just adapting what I learned from making pancakes!”

Alastor rolls his eyes, following after his angel as he takes a detour into the meat section with its repugnant smell of day-old carcasses and innumerable flitting flies. “You aren’t meant to grease the pan before every new pancake, either.”

Lucifer flushes. “Well, now I know that.”

“Well, attaboy! I’m so proud of you,” Alastor says, wrinkling his nose at the meat and eyeing the seafood—fresher at this time of the week—with some longing. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“And that is exactly why I don’t listen to you, I listen to your mother,” Lucifer says, smirking and looking at Alastor like he’s the one stupid. “What kind of meat do you want to buy?”

“None. I didn’t bring money.”

Lucifer’s smile drops. “Ratings still no good?”

Alastor shrugs. “It’s enjoyable work, but what use is it if I can’t pay for the rent or food for this month?”

“Don’t worry about rent or food, I got it.”

“You work in a coffeehouse.”

Lucifer shrugs. “I don’t have a lot of expenses, I think. Besides, I told you—” He gestures to his smug face, “—this is great for tips. Now, come. Don’t think I didn’t see you eyeing those shrimps near the back.”

Alastor follows after him, matching his pace half a step behind. He doesn’t pay attention as Lucifer chats up the shrimp seller, asking for prices per kilogram, nor does he say a word when Lucifer wonders about buying crab while they’re still here.

It’s only when Lucifer is talking to the crab seller about how his family has been that something finally clicks to Alastor. It is so obvious that he’s surprised he didn’t think of this sooner. It’s not exactly ethical, but there are ways to circumvent that easily enough. For decades, gossip rags have been popular amongst women, even men, of any age. Everyone wants to be in the know of something—drama separate from yourself is just good entertainment—and what better way to attract listeners than to create the need to hear his broadcasts to be in the know? Alastor eyes Lucifer who is eagerly inspecting each crab. 

“The good crabs are the ones that if you press right here,” Alastor says, pointing at the abdominal plate, “would have very little give. Means there’s a lot of meat inside.”

Lucifer follows the instructions, pressing a finger into the crab’s tummy, but it dips. “This crab is no good.”

“No good,” he echoes, leaning over to inspect the crabs himself. “How has work been?”

“Same as always.” Lucifer looks at him, immediately suspicious. “Why?”

“I’m just asking.”

“You never ask about my work day.”

“Indulge me.”

“Alright… Well, like I said,” Lucifer says, going back to choosing crabs. “Same as always. Far too much coffee, far too many angry customers in the morning, and—oh! Susan!”

Alastor frowns, looking around. “Susan?” 

“She came by the other day. Asked me to redo her coffee three times because it wasn’t perfect enough. I just gave her the same coffee in three different coffee cups. Never noticed.”

“Typical. She’s always been a wretch to staff.”

Lucifer snorts. “She’s a wretch to everybody.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! According to some of the ladies down at the shop, Susan acts this way because—”

“—her children can’t even be bothered to visit her once! Now, not to be crude, but we all know who I’m talking about now.”

Alastor grins, watching as his ratings begin to steadily increase. More and more people are tuning in, baited by the smell of someone’s dirty laundry being aired out like flies swarming in through the window Alastor kept open. In a way, it feels like sweet vengeance. It is exactly what Susan deserves.

At the moment, he’s still at the very bottom, but Alastor thinks it won’t be that way for very long. He enters Lucifer’s workplace, takes a seat near the back, and waits for his angel to approach him. It doesn’t take long, but he doesn’t look very happy either. Alastor smiles up at him.

“My usual, please.”

“I didn’t want you telling the whole world about Susan’s life.”

“First of all, I didn’t tell the whole world, only the whole of Louisiana,” Alastor says, rolling his eyes. “And Susan? I don’t remember mentioning any names whatsoever, Lucifer. You must be making connections where there aren’t any.”

Lucifer scoffs. “You’re awful. Truly awful.”

“Glad we’re on the same page, dear.”

“I’m not going to give you the coffeehouse gossip if you’re just going to tell the whole of Louisiana, you know?”

“You’re absolutely no fun, angel,” Alastor says, raising his eyebrows. “My ratings finally went up, by the way. You might not like it, but the people seem to.”

“It’s still wrong…”

“Think of it this way: you’re my guardian angel, right? Not Susan’s. There’s no reason for you to protect her over me.”

Lucifer frowns, immediately uncomfortable. “That’s really not how it works.”

“I won’t disclose names, I won’t speak on it too obviously, and it won’t be forever.”

“This isn’t very conducive to getting into Heaven.” Alastor huffs, immediately annoyed. Lucifer bites his lip, looking away. “But I mean, is it really working?”

“Yes, it’s working wonders! Think about it. In time you won’t have to cover both our expenses anymore—you must hate having to work here more than necessary.”

“But, Al—”

“Just think about it. If you’re still uncomfortable, maybe ma has gossip from the old ladies at church.”

Lucifer’s shoulders slump. “Double espresso and beignet?” 

“As always.”

Lucifer leaves to fix up his order and Alastor, as always, watches his angel. His hands are a blur whenever he makes coffee, even in the mornings at home, and he steps into this headspace of complete concentration. He wonders if making coffee is something Lucifer took up as a necessity here while on Earth, or if it is just something he’s always been capable of. Regardless, it’s nice to watch.

It takes a moment before his coffee and a beignet is placed in front of him. Alastor looks up at Lucifer, but his eyes are elsewhere. 

Alastor almost doesn’t catch it when Lucifer passes by. “Fine. I’ll help you.”

“What daring! What nerve! To stand there in the face of judgment to leave her home and see her dreams realized. I’ve got only one thing to say to that: attagirl!”

Alastor managed to make enough money to cover his half of the rent and the groceries in a month. In six, he managed to cover both halves of the rent and groceries with enough money to spare to send some to his mom. His ratings have been steadily increasing as more and more people have been tuning in, eager to hear about the latest gossip or, as he is quickly learning, to listen to his charming personality and jokes. It’s incredibly gratifying.

Lucifer isn’t very happy about it. He sometimes looks at Alastor with a disapproving frown, but he at least learned that nagging him incessantly won’t get him to stop doing something. If anything, it makes him want to continue doing it out of spite. Yet despite his obvious discomfort whenever Alastor talks about a hot piece of gossip on one of his broadcasts, Lucifer does as he promised and tells him tidbits he manages to overhear. 

(“Do you remember your old classmate? Herbert?” Lucifer asks, leaning close to Alastor’s ear. 

Alastor turns, raising an eyebrow. “How do you know the name of my classmate?” 

Lucifer waves his hand. “Unimportant. All you need to know is that his mom—nice old lady with a penchant for a very milky brew—mentioned that he’s in jail now.”

“Okay? Jail time. He was clearly an amateur.”

“Al.”

Alastor laughs. “I’m just kidding, gosh. Are all angels this uptight?”

“On principle, yes,” Lucifer says, rolling his eyes. “Do you want to hear the rest of it or not?”

“I do!” Alastor raises his cup of coffee—brewed this time because they were just at home—and pauses just at the rim. “You’re not doing a very good job at endearing me to Heaven, by the way.”

“You just like chaos and people not telling you what to do.”

Alastor shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee. Lucifer isn’t wrong. 

“Anyway, apparently your classmate murdered his wife and got caught. A stab straight through the shoulder then another right through her head.”

“Boring. It could have been more painful, more artistic. I can respect the efficiency, though.”

“Of course you would,” Lucifer says, spearing an andouille sausage with his fork. “The girl didn’t deserve that though.” 

“No, of course not. He deserves to rot wherever he manages to land himself in.”

Lucifer smiles, musing. “Jail or Hell?” 

“Both,” Alastor says, adjusting his glasses. “Anything else?”

Lucifer tilts his head, a smile spreading over his face. “Well, the pastor—the one Dorothy doesn’t like—is cheating on his wife.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Lucifer says, grinning. “With a younger man.”

Alastor laughs. "Oh. Now, that’s scandalous.”)

Alastor thinks Lucifer enjoys telling him about his day, even if he says he doesn’t like spreading gossip unnecessarily. He enjoys the stories just as much as anybody else. His mom, at least, finds it very funny that he’s getting more popular because of the insatiable human need for drama. 

“I always knew that pastor was a quack,” his mom says, shaking her head. “I bet your broadcast will finally get him kicked out of the Church. Good riddance, if you ask me.”

Alastor smiles wryly, adjusting the umbrella so it better covers his mom from the sun. “Ma, I don’t think vaguely hinting that it’s him is enough. He’s very well-respected.”

“He thinks he’s very well-respected. Trust me, sweetie. Give it a month.” His mom pats his arm softly, a grin on her face.

Alastor knows not to question her. If his mom says it, then it must be true. Perhaps his radio broadcasts have more influence on the people listening in than he realizes. His ratings have been growing exponentially since he started more than a year ago, and he’s no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel for sponsors. He’s been receiving offers that have been steadily getting more and more lucrative, and some local businesses have been buying out commercial space during his broadcast to market their business.

“Your friend, Lucifer, he’s a soft-hearted sort, isn’t he? He’s very kind.”

Alastor looks at his mom and notices that she’s looking at Lucifer, coat off and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and petting a dirty, frail-looking thing. There are smudges of gold on one sleeve meaning that the dog had successfully taken a bite out of him. Expectedly, the skin of his forearm is already completely healed.

“He’s very kind to everybody,” Alastor adds, then grins. “Even to his detriment. I think it’s in his nature.”

His mom laughs, but Alastor isn’t sure what exactly she’s laughing about. “Regardless, I quite like him. He’s kind to me and he’s very good to you.”

“I think you just like the fact I have a friend who’s not from a jazz club.”

“You have to admit, darling,” his mom says, smiling up at him. “Mimzy and her lot may be fun at night, but when the going gets tough, who can you depend on?”

Alastor blinks, frowning. “Well, you of course.”

“And when I’m not around?” His mom grips his arm tight when she notices the way his face begins to contort. “It will happen eventually, dear. I’m getting old.”

Alastor makes a soft sound, watching as Lucifer not-so-overtly magicks up a sausage undoubtedly from their cupboards and feeds it to the mangy stray. “Then I can depend on myself.”

“Stealing? For the less fortunate? Isn’t that swell! My, that’s a modern-day Robin Hood, if you ask me. Terrible to hear he got caught, don’t you think? Besides, you know what they say. Everyone likes an underdog story.”

Lucifer curls himself up on one end of the couch, the radio playing the jazz channel, as he busies himself with carving a doll out of a piece of wood. Interestingly enough, every wood scrap that falls away disappears in a glimmer of golden light. He’s humming softly under his breath, a melody at odds with the song on the radio. It looks like the doll is about ready for paint by the way the silhouette and contours of the doll are already well-defined. 

Alastor sits down next to him, knocking Lucifer’s legs away from his side of the couch. Lucifer straightens up from his position, adjusting his legs so they’re under him. “Who is that you’re making? Same girl doll like last time?”

Lucifer looks at him, a smile in his eyes. “You remember that?” 

“You acted very oddly. Hard to forget.”

“Right, well. It’s not her this time.” Lucifer places the doll down on the armrest closest to him. With a whispered breath, the doll glows gold for just a brief moment. The doll seemingly wakes up, shaking its little legs and arms loose, before standing up slowly. 

“Is that wooden toy alive?”

Lucifer laughs. “No! It’s much simpler than that. I’m the one controlling it, like a puppet.”

The wooden toy turns its head right then left, testing the way its arm moves and then its legs. Alastor had seen puppets before—it was a popular form of entertainment growing up—but he had never seen one move quite so realistically. If Lucifer had not told him that he was controlling it, Alastor would have assumed that Lucifer had breathed life right into this toy. It’s mesmerizing to watch. The toy moves up the couch, climbing and jumping around their living room. Upon closer inspection, Alastor realizes Lucifer had made a man.

“Who is this supposed to be anyway?” Alastor asks, catching the doll in mid-air. Just as with the girl, this doll is beautiful with intricate detailing on the suit and hands. The face isn’t painted on yet so it could be anybody. 

Lucifer turns bright gold and reaches for the doll, plucking it from his hands. The toy slackens as the magic keeping it upright and moving dissipates. “Um, well. You, supposedly.”

Alastor blinks in surprise, but still smirks. “Oh? Why, me?”

Impossibly, Lucifer’s cheeks burn brighter and he self-consciously rubs at them. “Oh, stop it. It could have been anyone. It could have even been Susan!”

“Right, it is,” Alastor says, ignoring the way Lucifer pointedly pockets the toy inside his coat. “You know, this reminds me of voodoo dolls.”

“What’s that?” 

“Complete baloney about the religion and not used here, but pretty popular I guess. Although ma and I don’t practice, growing up here means I was fairly exposed. You stick pins into the doll and ward off evil spirits, or make a doll out of someone’s likeness and do whatever you want with them.”

Lucifer pales, shaking his head. “That’s a step too far, I think.”

“Isn’t it? Wouldn’t it make your job easier though?”

“I’d never do that to you, or want to do it to you!” Lucifer says, shaking his head. “Even if you make unsavory life choices then drag me along with them.”

Alastor knew this already, but it is nice to have it confirmed. It’s relieving. He laughs, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, I was just joking. Stop pouting, darling.”

“Ah, a love story. The missus back home always loves a good one, and for good reason! I can’t believe the pluck it takes to run off into the sunset. Though I guess there’s a real difference between plucky and lucky because this story doesn’t end like you’d hope, folks.”

In three years, Alastor was already making triple the salary he would have made working an eight hour shift at the restaurant. He figures out very quickly how sponsors choose their clientele and how to best attract them, using what he can glean to his advantage and accrue the largest gain with his steadily growing following. It is still not a notable amount of money—especially not when only so few households have radio—but Alastor is leagues ahead of where he was when he still served people like Susan, day in and out. 

His mom is happy for him, predictably. She’s proud that her only son is making a name for himself, living in a comfort that she had always wanted to give him. Alastor had never had access to this much money before, but he always imagined himself attaining it eventually. 

Similarly, Lucifer is happy for him too. He smiles and looks at him softly when Alastor recounts his day to fill the silence during dinner (though, come to think of it, their dinners are rarely ever silent), especially now that he rarely needs gossip to attract new listeners. However, he won’t deny thinking about moving out. It’s already been a few years of living with Lucifer after all. They have made a comfortable routine between them (chores requiring skill is Alastor’s to do and chores neither of them want to do is Lucifer’s magic to do) and a surety at home he never thought he’d recapture outside of his mom’s house. However, with a better paying job, sharing an apartment with Lucifer to cut costs has become unnecessary. Alastor doesn’t need to have Lucifer in his life anymore, except for the occasional cup of coffee that is just as accessible from the coffeehouse a walk away from the radio station. 

He sighs, watching Lucifer tune his violin without a reference note to base off, just his own voice and the surety that whatever he sings is correct. He does this every now and then, plucking the strings and twisting the pegs, while Alastor is in the vicinity. Like most things Lucifer does, it’s nice to watch because you never know if he’ll fail spectacularly or if it’s a craft he mastered a long time ago. Tuning the violin, and playing it, seems to be a rare showcase of the latter.

“What are you thinking about?” Lucifer asks, not even looking up from tuning the next string. “You’ve been staring at me for the past ten minutes.” 

Alastor isn’t about to tell him he likes to watch Lucifer tune a violin without a piano. “I’m thinking about moving out.”

Twang.  

Alastor winces, the harsh sound startling him. When he looks up again, Lucifer is staring at him, violin forgotten on his lap, with bright eyes, full of an emotion that Alastor could only describe as sadness. He swallows, suddenly uncomfortable. Lucifer gets sad, especially when listening to a riveting radio drama, but Alastor himself was never the cause. Irritation and mild disappointment, yes. Sadness, never.

“Really?” Lucifer asks, picking at the strings on the neck of his violin. The mix of tuned and untuned plucking is cacophonous and Alastor can’t help but reach over and press a hand over Lucifer’s fingers to stop it.

“It makes sense to,” Alastor says, relaying his thought process. “I have enough money to move somewhere else now. I don’t need to keep living with you for convenience’s sake.”

“I, um—Right. That makes sense.” Lucifer looks away. “If that’s what you want, I’m not going to stop you.”

Alastor smiles wryly. “Do you want me to move out?”

“What?”

“Genuine question. Do you want me to move out?” 

His angel huffs, exasperated. “I don’t see how my opinion matters—”

Alastor tightens his hold around Lucifer’s hand. “Lucifer. Answer.”

"No, okay?” Lucifer snaps, turning to glare at him. He isn’t crying, but he definitely looks upset. “It isn’t even paying the rent that’s the issue or the cooking—I’m getting better now, admit it!” 

“Are you really?” 

“Ask your mom, I am!” Lucifer shakes his head. “But that’s not the point! Call it childish, but I don’t want you to leave.”

Alastor smirks. “Got attached now, did you?”

“A little bit,” Lucifer grumbles. “Oh, stop looking at me like that. I know this is just going to inflate your insatiable ego.”

“You’re right. I’m enjoying this a lot.” Alastor reaches over and squeezes one of Lucifer’s glowing cheeks. “And I won’t move out. If that’s what my angel wants.”

“Your what?”

Alastor laughs, letting him go before standing up. He stretches, back sore. “Though we should consider getting better furniture. The couch is sagging.”

“Right,” Lucifer says, voice tight. “Whatever you say, Al.”

Chapter Text

“And as you have probably already heard, a giant hurricane is on its way over to our shores! Ensure you are safe at home and away from the ports today in time to catch your husband in the throes of passion with his mistress!” Alastor ends the broadcast on that lighthearted note. 

Living in a city bordered by a lake and the Atlantic means that hurricanes and rainfall are an expected occurrence. It happens so often, in fact, that most of its citizens are prepared with raincoats or umbrellas at the ready. However, hurricanes are always an issue. 

Much of the economy and employment hinges on the exportation of goods like sugar and cotton, which get hindered by ports that get thrown by the wayside because of the strong winds and heavy rainfall. The last hurricane of this magnitude arrived some time during the Great War, and Alastor remembers that it was not something the city had easily bounced back from. Even now, almost a decade later, damages are still engraved in the wood of the port. 

He quickly packs his belongings, careful to ensure his microphone is strapped in its case, and makes his way out of the radio tower. Alastor can already hear the sound of wind as it slaps against the side of the building, showing just how fast its speed is. A forewarning of how hard the coming days will inevitably end up being. When he steps outside, the clouds are dark and heavy overhead, overcast with foreboding. Yet, the city seems unimaginably still and calm, despite the slight drizzle. 

Alastor doesn’t take another second to reminisce and heads back to his apartment building. He wonders if Lucifer knows of the storm. The only radio stations he ever plays nowadays are all jazz and romance dramas, if he could catch them, but never any of the news stations. He claims that all the news he could ever need, he can get by listening to Alastor’s broadcasts. In that case, Lucifer should be on his way back soon.

Alastor makes it to his apartment building in time just as it starts raining, the downpour heavy against the roof of the building. He climbs the steps and opens the door, expecting the dark living room when he opens it, and letting out a sigh anyway. Lucifer isn’t back yet. 

He kicks his shoes off next to the door and enters his bedroom to drop off his work belongings and change. When Alastor steps out of his room, he immediately goes for the radio, switching it on, and adjusting the dial until it stops on one about the area’s weather forecast. Right now, the storm signal is low, but, from experience, Alastor knows that it is only a matter of time before the storm worsens. 

He eyes the clock. Perhaps Lucifer is still at work. Usually, workers don’t stop working until the storm reaches a certain point of severity. Alastor decides to call his mom. 

“Hello dear?” His mom’s voice chimes over the receiver, if albeit muffled by the storm. “Are you well?” 

“I’m fine, mama,” Alastor says, leaning against the wall next to the phone. “I just wanted to check in. Will you be okay during the storm? I know you live close to the lake.” 

“Of course, dear,” she says and Alastor can feel her smile through the phone. “No need to worry about little ‘ol me. Just worry about yourself and Lucifer. Have you got enough food?” 

Alastor hums his ‘yes’. “Lucifer isn’t back yet though, ma.” 

“I’m sure that boy will be fine. Made of sterner stuff that one.” 

Stern is not exactly the kind of word Alastor would use to describe Lucifer. He is soft and kind, if a little too idealistic and determined. Lucifer does and speaks things without thinking, forgetting to consider the consequences to himself or those around him once he latches onto an idea.

“Maybe,” Alastor settles. “I imagine he’s still at work. Won’t be back ‘til after it ends or once the storm gets worse, whichever comes first.”

“Make him that gumbo! The one that I like. Should warm him right up if he gets caught in the rain.” 

“I think we still have ingredients for that somewhere.” 

“Good. Then leave me some for after the storm, alright?” 

Alastor snorts. “Yes, mama. See you then.” 

“I love you, darling.”

“I love you too.” 

The line ends there and Alastor puts the receiver back in its place. The clock stares back at him. He narrows his eyes, willing it to move faster, but it doesn’t do anything. Just ticks audibly as a second passes, time marching on. Alastor goes into the kitchen. 

Gumbo, unlike jambalaya, is a stew that uses largely the same ingredients, making it a warm, comforting, and hearty meal to eat. Alastor takes out the vegetables he’ll be needing, some of the shrimp and sausage they bought earlier that week, and some spices. 

Whenever he got sick, his mom would bring him a warm bowl of this, citing that the heat will let him sweat any fever that ails him right out. She would then tuck him in tightly under the sheets and sing him a lullaby that almost always immediately soothes him to sleep. Alastor never heard the song outside of these moments with his mom—not on the radio nor any of the clubs he’s been in—and when he asked her she would just smile, patting him softly on his cheek. 

Needless to say, Alastor just assumes that his mom made the song and has used it ever since. When he’s alone and too sick to move, like when he once got sick in the barracks back in ‘18, the melody sends the same comforting feeling through him. 

Alastor finishes cutting the vegetables and preparing the meats. He places a pot on the stove and turns it on. Making the roux as the base for the soup is a simple matter of mixing flour and oil into the pot, and mixing until it sufficiently darkens into a dark brown before adding anything else. 

Gumbo is one of the first dishes his mother taught him because it was so simple. After mixing the roux, the last step is to add the rest of the ingredients and wait. Alastor realizes that he has yet to cook this with Lucifer. He never found the need to do so. In his mind, this is something he eats when he’s sick or in need of something particularly hearty, but Lucifer is never sick and other Creole recipes are usually enough for them both. 

The roux is now a bubbling deep brown color. Alastor adds the meats and vegetables, stirring them in, before adding some of the beef stock he prepared earlier that week. He adjusts the heat. He eyes the clock again. The next step is to wait. 

The winds shake the window panes, while the rain angrily pounds at the roof like it is desperate to get in. Alastor realizes belatedly that the weather has worsened. The radio is saying that the storm has reached land, and for everyone to go and stay dry in their houses. 

It takes forty five more minutes for the gumbo to finish simmering. Alastor waits. 

It isn’t uncommon for Lucifer to come back last between the two of them. He works irregular hours throughout the day, while Alastor has maybe one or two radio segments he does before he is allowed to leave. Alastor takes those opportunities to enjoy the blissful silence of being home alone and does some reading. At times he practices some of the jokes he planned for his next broadcast, or in others he pours himself a glass of whiskey. Sometimes he takes off and goes to Mimzy’s club to dance and chat with his friend. 

Alastor should call her. He eyes the clock. The gumbo continues to simmer. Alastor waits. He pours himself a glass of whiskey. 

The storm continues to worsen, but Lucifer still isn’t back yet. He’s probably stranded in the coffeehouse and Alastor is waiting for no one after all. They live closer to the center of the city and so not far from the ports, but not near enough to be affected by the rising tide. The radio talks about it, the damage to the boats there, and the way the sea is starting to creep up to flood the dock. There are casualties already, people losing their lives as they get washed away at sea with no one to help them. 

Alastor eyes the clock. The gumbo should be ready. His whiskey is polished off as he stands. He shuts the fire at the stove. 

He grips his forehead, muttering to himself, “What an idiot.”

The rain is pelting the street outside, unforgivingly treacherous and loud. There is no one out and about on the streets—everyone else smart enough to take cover—so it is completely empty, even of cars. It isn’t flooding, thankfully, but the winds are strong enough that when Alastor opens an umbrella, it immediately flips over and drags him along with the wind. 

Bundled in a jacket with the collar up and the biggest coat he owns, Alastor makes his way to the ports through the worst storm of the year. If he manages to find Lucifer, Alastor may just try and kill him. Again.  

It doesn’t take long. The boats come to view, swaying across the ocean surface sporadically but still tethered to the docks with rope. The closer he gets to it, the more flooded the streets become, but there are also more people. There are plenty on the docks, in the knee high tide, helping some of the people trapped in the area onto higher ground. 

If he were still broadcasting, Alastor would be praising the human compassion and bravery that went into the rescue effort. However, right now when he is cold and soaked through, he does not care in the slightest. Alastor just wants to drag his angel back to the apartment so he can get warm and dry. 

It is only when the water level is starting to reach his ankles that Alastor gives up and just shouts, throwing away manners in the face of this much tepid water and cold. “Lucifer! Lucifer! You better be drowning and your wings better be waterlogged because I swear to God!”

No answer. Alastor staunchly refuses to get any closer. 

“Lucifer! Lucifer?! I will throw your toys into the ocean!”

Alastor waits, and for a second fears the worst. That somehow Lucifer must be dead. Maybe his wings really did get waterlogged and he is stuck underwater with no way out save the sweet release of death.

Alastor mulls on that for only a moment longer before he somehow hears despite the roar of the deluge, “Alastor? What are you doing here?”

When Alastor sees Lucifer, his shoulders slump and he heaves a gigantic and exhausted sigh, smiling—relief surprisingly potent. Lucifer is completely soaked through. His blond hair is dark and damp across his forehead, his clothes are dirty and brown with mud, and he is trembling from the cold. Alastor didn’t think angels could even get cold. However, the relief is fleeting because he immediately feels pissed.  

“What the actual, ever-loving fuck are you doing in the middle of a hurricane? Are you insane?!” Alastor hisses, relishing in the way Lucifer’s eyes widen at the cuss word. 

“I just wanted to help out,” Lucifer says sheepishly and of course he did. Alastor really kind of wants to push him into the ocean now, if he was really honest. “Sorry. Animals don’t have guardians like humans do…”

“So you are insane.”

“It was only supposed to be a quick thing! I guess I lost track of time…”

Alastor sighs heavily. “See if I ever come get you again.”

Lucifer bites his lip. “I didn’t expect you to come get me at all, if I’m being honest, so thank you.”

Alastor rolls his eyes. He wants to say this was atypical behavior, but he knows that this is the sort of seemingly kind thing Lucifer would do to the detriment of him and to those around him. Lucifer isn’t made of sterner stuff, like his mom said. He’s soft and a little stupid. It is what makes him so entertaining to begin with, and so easily manipulable. 

“Let’s just get back already. I’m soaked.” 

“Right.” A portal appears to Lucifer’s right and it seems to lead to right outside their apartment building. “After you.” 

Alastor steps in first, and the overhang above their building entrance stops much of the oncoming deluge. His shoulders slump. He’s tired and cold. His limbs are heavy with wet clothes and Alastor is shaking. The moment they get back, he makes a beeline for their bathroom and changes out of his sopping wet clothes. 

It’s warmer in their apartment and, without the constant pitter patter on his skin, it makes Alastor feel a little slower than usual. Clothes appear on top of the bathroom counter—Lucifer’s doing—and he puts them on after taking a shower to wash away the flood water from his body. 

Alastor steps out of the bathroom. He looks at the clock. He can hear Lucifer in the kitchen. He isn’t cold anymore. All Alastor wants to do right now is sleep. So he does. 

When Alastor wakes up the next morning, it’s hard to open his eyes. His limbs are even heavier now and they ache a little when he uses the restroom. He feels warm, and when he looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he’s pale and gaunt. His hands are inordinately cold and shaky. Alastor presses a hand to his head and, as if his suspicions were confirmed, decides that he’s sick. He falls back asleep, humming his mother’s song. 

Alastor wakes up sporadically from then on, falling into and out of sleep, with his brain conjuring up dream after dream. His fever is burning, but he doesn’t move. He’s thirsty, but he doesn’t get up. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t call for Lucifer. It’s still raining heavily outside. He falls back asleep again, humming. 

It’s sometime in midday that, when he wakes up, Alastor isn’t alone in his room anymore. Lucifer is sitting next to him on the bed, looking over his prone form with his shoulders taut with worry. He is pressing a cool, damp cloth over his head. Alastor looks around and notices the wash basin with more water at Lucifer’s feet, a glass on his bedside, and a covered-up bowl of food beside it. Alastor tries to push himself up on his elbows when a wave of nausea unexpectedly hits him, and Lucifer has to gently nudge him back down. 

“Hey, don’t move so suddenly,” he says while readjusting the cloth pressed against his head. “I don’t know what I'd do if you vomit. Drink this, you must be thirsty.” 

Lucifer pushes the glass of water closer to Alastor’s lips and he gratefully drinks it. It immediately makes him feel better, alleviating a lot of the dull pain in his head. The awareness after drinking his first glass of water since this morning is sudden and jarring. 

“What are you doing here?” Alastor asks, his voice hoarse and scratchy, then belatedly realizes that was a stupid question. 

Lucifer doesn’t comment at first, but then says, “Taking care of you, of course.”

“Guardian angel duties?” 

Lucifer shakes his head. 

“Guilt?”

“A little bit. The only reason you’re sick after all is because of me.”

Alastor hums in agreement, relaxing back into the pillows while Lucifer fixes the cloth on his forehead. 

“I also have some of that gumbo you made last night. I reheated it, so if you’re up for it…” At Alastor’s nod, Lucifer picks up the bowl he brought and a spoon.

“Have you ever nursed someone back to health before?” 

Lucifer pulls a face. “Not really. No one ever gets sick up there.”

“So you’ve never been sick before?”

“No, we’re biologically very different. Human illness doesn’t affect me.” Lucifer raises the spoon up for Alastor to lean forward and eat the mouthful. 

“But?” 

“But angels can get injured and die as well. It’s rare— very rare—but it happens.”

Alastor blinks dazedly at him. “So what can kill you?” 

Lucifer shrugs. “The highest angelic order available, maybe, so the seraphims, the archangels, God. I doubt it would ever come to that though. I’d fall first before they resort to death.”

“Fall?” 

“Into Hell. I’d have to screw up badly though.”

“How badly?”

“Introduce sin into the world bad.”

“Like in the garden of Eden.” 

Lucifer nods and doesn’t elaborate further as he holds up another spoonful for him to take. “Eat more of this so you can feel better,” he says, smiling a little bit when Alastor does eat it. “We can’t get a doctor or your mother here with this weather, so you’ll just have me.”

He watches Lucifer put the bowl away, remove the cloth on his forehead, dampen it again, and wipe the heat from his face. Alastor could never imagine anyone else in his life doing this for him, except his mom. Mimzy may be a good friend sometimes, but she wouldn’t bother herself with this, preferring to chase after a good time rather than nurse someone back to health. Same goes for the other people he frequents with at the jazz club or at work. 

Alastor always thought that he could only depend on his mom for things like these. His mom and Lucifer now, it seems.

“Just you,” he echoes, meaning something entirely different. 

Lucifer laughs at him a little as he pushes the bangs from his face so he can better access his forehead. Alastor doesn’t even recoil from the touch. He isn’t sure when he stopped. “You should sleep,” Lucifer says, eyes bright. “You’re completely out of it.”

That may be true. Lucifer finishes wiping and places the wash cloth back on his forehead as Alastor closes his eyes, humming his mother’s song softly to lull him to sleep. 

Then Lucifer sings it, taking the soft bars he hummed under his breath and attaching lyrics to it; singing the song as it was intended. Alastor opens his eyes, in surprise, but the song and the hand in his hair lulls him so thoroughly back to sleep. Maybe his mom isn’t the one that made the song after all, if Lucifer knows it too. He falls asleep thinking about it.

(“No. Absolutely not, Lucifer. You couldn’t even pay me to do this.”

Lucifer huffs, angrily shaking the wet washcloth. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to his elbows and his hair is mussed from the stressful few days Alastor had been sick. “It’s just a sponge bath, Alastor! You’ll feel better after, I promise.”

Alastor grimaces and says, “I promise you I won’t.”

“If it’s because you're shy, don’t bother. I’ve already seen everything there is to see.”

“How… comforting.” 

“Ugh, come on, Al! Please? Is it a texture problem? A cleanliness one? Do you just not want me to touch you?”

Alastor’s eyebrows rise and says, slowly, “No. I can do it myself, thank you.”

“You can’t lift your head without getting nauseous, and if I have to clean up your vomit to your standards, we’ll be here for the next three hours!”

"Fine! Since you’re so insistent.” 

“You can do your own crotch if you want to keep some dignity.”

“Wow,” Alastor says drily. “Truly. How gentlemanly.”)

Chapter Text

“You bought a car?” Lucifer asks, approaching Alastor’s new car—a sleek convertible worth a pretty penny—while eyeing it curiously. He runs a reverent hand over the metal frame, blue eyes focused in a way that Alastor knew only occurred to Lucifer around pieces of advanced human technology, and beams at Alastor. “This is gorgeous.”

Alastor preens. “Isn’t it just? Very stylish, don’t you think?” Lucifer rolls his eyes, smiling. Alastor takes the keys from the pocket inside his coat and opens the passenger side door, inclining his head for Lucifer to enter. “Come on and get in. Let’s take it out for a spin.”

Lucifer bites his lip, holding onto the door for support while sliding into the vehicle. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

“Got the license and everything.”

“And where exactly will we be going? To visit your mom?” 

“As much as I’d love to visit my mom,” Alastor starts before closing the door. He jogs to the other side of the car and opens the driver’s door. He slides in, shuts the door behind him, and finishes his thought, “We’ll go wherever you want to go first.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow, smiling. “My, that’s surprisingly nice of you.”

“You’re always so shocked whenever I do anything for you.” Alastor turns the ignition on. “As if I don’t cook our meals.”

“In my defense, if you walked past a man on fire while holding a glass of water, you’d drink the water.”

Alastor inclines his head. “What can I say? Laughing makes me thirsty.”

Lucifer shoves his shoulder lightly, but it doesn’t stop the way he has to smother his giggle with the palm of his hand. Alastor’s grin broadens, always delighted whenever his more sadistic sense of humor draws a laugh out of his angel. “I hate you. Truly.”

“For being funny? That’s my job, sweetheart.” He pulls out of the curb. “Now, any destinations in mind?” 

Lucifer tilts his head. “How about out of town? Louisiana has a woodland, right?” 

Alastor’s nose wrinkles. “I was thinking like a restaurant or the pier.”

“Aw, come on! Please? It will be fun.”

“It’s an hour’s drive.”

“I haven’t been out in nature in ages.”

“I brought you to the bayou that one time.”

Lucifer’s face flickers through a series of emotions ranging from bafflement to offense. “To kill me!”

“Semantics.”

His angel huffs, slumping into the supple leather of the car seat. “If you really don’t want to go to the woodlands, we don’t have to.”

“I know we don’t have to,” Alastor says, looking over at Lucifer’s face after he turns a corner. “But I suppose we might as well. You might tear up the furniture if you get bored for too long. Again.”

“That was one time! I was a dog!”

“And now you can be a dog in the woodlands, and I will stay in the car smoking a cigarette.”

Lucifer laughs. “You didn’t actually bring a cigarette, did you?” 

Alastor raises his eyebrow and shifts his hand off the wheel for a moment, taking out a pack from his pocket. “My, of course. I know you too well, my angel.” He returns the pack to his pocket and refocuses on the road. “So the woods, then?”

They make it to the woods. It was a longer drive than Alastor anticipated, but they left the roof down so the wind blew into their hair to keep them cool. Lucifer had also summoned their radio from the living room so they could listen to music during the drive. It’s nice, peaceful, and certainly not the sort of drive he imagined taking back in his twenties when he thought of acquiring a car of his own once he made it big, but he’s not complaining. The sun is up, the wind is cool, and Lucifer is practically vibrating next to him looking ready to jump out of the moving vehicle with each passing minute. 

He stops the car on the side of the road by the tree line. With no cars or people around, he turns to Lucifer and says, “Go at it.”

Lucifer gasps in excitement and, in a burst of bright red and gold smoke, shifts into a fluttering, plain white sparrow. At the very top of the little bird’s head is a tuft of cream-colored feathers—the same shade of blond as his hair. Lucifer flutters around Alastor’s head, trilling at him softly, before flying out into the sky, a gleaming speck of white that Alastor has to squint past the sun’s glare to follow. Eventually, he disappears into the tree line and leaves Alastor alone. Curiously, the forest rustles, wind singing in his ears—a melody made by nature itself. 

Alastor isn’t a very outdoorsy person. He grew up in one of the poorer New Orleans districts with one-floor square houses squeezed together like sardines. For a long time, he figured he’d live and die in the city he was born in, never venturing further than the Mississippi River. He had never imagined himself leaving, especially because his mom, who needs all the help she can get because it was what she deserves, was here. The farthest Alastor reached was France, but it certainly wasn’t for a vacation. 

He eyes the forest with a sigh, sliding out of his car. Alastor knows he said he’d stay inside to smoke, but curiosity bites at his heels and there is no one in the world that piques his interest quite like Lucifer. He closes the door behind him and steps into the woods, narrowing his eyes at the branches in the tree. Despite how excited Lucifer had been, Alastor knew that his angel wouldn’t stray too far away from him and that his current form wouldn’t be able to take him too far. Sparrows are small creatures with short wingspans that need to beat their wings hard to travel far. He strains his head toward the woods and notes the same persistent melody. Alastor decides to follow it. 

He finds Lucifer in a clearing, back toward him, fluttering over a lake. A gaggle of small animals are gathered around the clearing, watching and waiting. Everything in creation stops to stare, pulled in by Lucifer’s natural allure, and Alastor is no different. He watches curiously as his angel changes form back into that of a human’s, landing delicately on the still water. The surface ripples under his weight, but otherwise rests like any other flat surface. Alastor should stop being surprised about what Lucifer is capable of, yet here he is, watching in awe at such a simple display of standing on water. 

He clears his throat. “Lucifer?”

His angel turns, a surprised smile blossoming on his face. “Al! I thought you were going to stay in the car.”

Alastor shrugs. “I figured you’d be more entertaining.”

“Than sulking in the car? My, I can’t imagine why!”

Alastor rolls his eyes. “Is a change of scenery really the only reason why we came this far?” 

“Eager to get back to the jazz club already?” 

“Mimzy says she has a new set ready. She’s calling it the bee’s knees.” 

Lucifer laughs. “She calls anything she makes the bee’s knees!”

“Hey. Sometimes it’s the cat’s meow.” 

“Well, the woods don't really have alcohol or Mimzy, but I suppose we can make do with what we have.” 

“To do what, exactly?” 

Lucifer steps forward, the water rippling underneath his feet but not breaking the surface. He stops a few paces away from Alastor then holds his hand out. “To dance, of course.”

Alastor stares at his outstretched hand then down at the lake water lapping at the bank. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m not.” Lucifer tilts his head, smiling earnestly. “Don’t worry, Al. I’ve got you.”

“You’re asking for quite a lot of faith.”

“I know. Will you trust me?” 

Alastor licks his lips. On principle, he isn’t a very trusting person. There isn’t room for much trust in his life when people constantly hate him or never take the time to really understand him. There are very few people he would, or could, trust to put his life in their hands. There is his mom, of course, who has proven it countless times before as he grew up, and so he trusts her implicitly. Now, Lucifer is asking for the same trust he normally bestows to only his mother. He knows that his angel would take care of him if need be, but this blind faith, with something like his life, was one he had never expected to consider giving anyone else.

He expects Lucifer to ask again, but he’s waiting patiently on the surface of this lake, hand still outstretched. His eyes are bright and his smile is kind, intentions as clear as the lake’s surface—glitteringly blue under the afternoon sun. Alastor, against every fiber in his being, steps forward. The water holds his weight, keeping him as steady as the ground he had left. Alastor laughs, incredulously, and he looks down at his feet. His first mistake. He nearly slips right into the frigid waters as the surface begins to break under him, but a hand on his arm pulls him away, further out into the lake’s surface and from danger. 

When Alastor looks to his rescuer, it’s Lucifer, of course, looking sheepish. “Don’t take your eyes off me. Sorry. I forgot to say.” Alastor flicks Lucifer’s nose. “Ow!”

“Gee! Isn’t that important information you should have mentioned first?” 

“I already said I was sorry!” Lucifer rubs his nose, glumly. “At least you’ve managed to walk on water?”

“I suppose it is a novelty.”

“A novelty! This is an honest to Dad miracle—”

“Did you just say dad?”

“—and very few humans get to experience this!”

Alastor hums, smirking. “Does that make me special then?”

Lucifer laughs like the answer is obvious to him. “I don’t know, Al. What do you think?”

He thinks that he wants it to be true. That, angel or not, Alastor is special to Lucifer somehow. That he isn’t just another human soul from a pool of billions of others before him. He licks his lips. “That I am, of course.”

Lucifer beams at him. “Let’s dance then? I’ll lead.”

“To what music?” 

“Didn’t you hear it when you entered the forest?”

Alastor had heard it, could still hear it, even. The wind whistling through the branches of the trees, the rhythmic lapping of the lake as it beats against the shore, and the birds singing melodiously all around them in perfect unison. “You’re doing this, aren’t you?”

Lucifer’s smile turns mischievous. “Had to draw you in somehow.”

Alastor hums, amusedly. “You never cease to surprise.”

“Have to keep you on your toes somehow. What would I do if you bore of me?”

Alastor shakes his head. “Impossible.”

Lucifer, in lieu of a reply, offers his hand. Alastor takes it and places a hand on his angel’s shoulder. In kind, a hand winds itself to the small of his back. “A waltz, then? Seems appropriate.” 

“Whatever you’d like. You’re leading, I’ll follow.”

Lucifer bounces on his heels for a moment before moving into the familiar step-slide-step motion renowned for the waltz. Alastor follows, keeping his eyes level with Lucifer’s face, whose expression is soft and easy, the steps so familiar that they seamlessly dance across the surface of the lake. They’re practically floating on water with how they glide across it, unencumbered and completely alone save for the animals and the plants. The entire clearing is illuminated by the afternoon sun streaming in through the leaves, casting light in their own little world. It’s beautiful. Alastor doesn’t take his eyes off Lucifer for even a moment. 

Dancing on the surface of a lake, as wonderful as it may seem, is a surprising test of trust and grit. Alastor can’t spare a single glance at his feet, and every spin or maneuver that Lucifer guides him into that breaks their eye contact causes the ground to literally fall out from underneath him. The only thing keeping him steady through all this is the hold his angel has around him as he leads them from one step to the next. It’s a thrilling twist to the waltz wherein any step could spell his death in a cold and painful way. It’s beyond reckless, more than any murder or late night out on the club, and Alastor has no control in this situation whatsoever. He had surrendered it entirely the moment he stepped on the lake’s surface. 

All Alastor can do now is enjoy the dance, and trust that Lucifer catches him. Which he does, every single time.

Eventually, as all good things do, the dance ends. They slow to a stop as the birds leave, ending the song as they fly off. Lucifer’s face is flushed bright gold, his hair a little mussed out of his usual style, but his smile is wide. Despite the dance ending, his angel doesn’t let him go, keeping their hands intertwined. “That was fun, right?”

Alastor raises an eyebrow. “It was certainly reckless.”

“Ah, but when has that ever stopped you before?”

Fair enough. “Alright. Yes, I enjoyed it quite a bit.”

Lucifer beams. “I knew it! Not as fast-paced as the club though.”

“Doesn’t need to be.” He steps closer and winds a hand around to rest on Lucifer’s back. In kind, Lucifer curls his around Alastor’s shoulder. “Fast doesn’t always mean exciting, and slow isn’t always boring.”

Lucifer frowns. “Did you just call me slow?”

Alastor laughs, pulling them into step again. It’s a simple sway of their hips, with no music to guide their movements. “Your words, not mine.”

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “At least you’re having fun. Woods not so terrible now, huh?”

“I still prefer the city. Why were you so insistent on going to the woods? Do you really like it that much?”

“Not really, if I’m honest,” Lucifer says, looking away. There is something he isn’t saying, struggling to hold it back, but who is Alastor to press it. “But I figured going with you won’t make it so bad.”

“And did you figure you were right?”

His angel looks at him, blue eyes glittering. The lake doesn’t even hold a candle to it. “I was. I’d never danced with anyone on water before.” 

“A first for both of us then.”

Lucifer laughs. “I didn’t expect you to go on the water, honest. The look on your face when I told you to walk was priceless.”

Alastor huffs. “I didn’t expect it either, so we can at least agree on that front.”

“Then why did you?” 

“Because I wanted to trust you.” Alastor ducks his head, smiling wryly. “Even against any and all reasonable logic.”

“And how you do like your logic.”

“Mhm. It just makes sense.”

Lucifer snorts softly. “I must drive you mad then.”

“Everyday.”

His angel’s eyes flicker down for a split second, then back up. His cheeks are gleaming. “Al,” Lucifer breathes. “We really sh—”

There is barking in the distance, shattering their idyllic quiet and the illusion that they were alone. They pull away from each other in surprise, and Alastor, in his shock, looks away from Lucifer for a moment to eye the tree line. A mistake that he only realizes once his feet collapse right from under him as the magic keeping him and Lucifer tethered releases its hold on him. 

“Alastor!”

Frigid and dark waters slam into every single one of his senses. Alastor’s brain goes into shock from the cold and the sheer amount of water he swallowed. He kicks his feet in a panic. It’s almost too dark to see, and his lungs burn with a need to breathe. There’s another splash that immediately follows after him, and without needing to look he knows it’s Lucifer coming to his rescue. 

Something grabs the back of his shirt and he is quickly brought to the surface in record time. Alastor is pulled onto land and he is coughing and blinking rapidly, trying to reorient himself from the shock and cold. It takes a long moment to recover, but something comfortingly warm settles on his shoulders. It’s a blanket, and when he looks, Lucifer is fidgeting nervously with it. His hair is dark, dripping rivulets of water down his cheeks and onto his clothes, which were similarly soaked through. 

“I’m so sorry, Al! I should have caught you before you fell in,” Lucifer says, voice shaky. Alastor isn’t sure if it’s the cold or something else. 

He waves off his angel’s concerns, closing his eyes. “Those dogs caught us both off guard. It’s fine.”

“What were the dogs doing?” 

“If I were to guess, hunting. It should be the time of the year for that.” Alastor pushes his bangs out of his face, removes his glasses—steam fogging up the lenses—and pockets it. “Speaking of, we should get going. Sun’s almost down.”

Lucifer makes a soft, strained sound as he pushes his own hair out of his face. “I never should have brought us to that lake.”

Alastor raises an eyebrow. “I told you not to worry about it. Mistakes made, experiences had. Would you have traded today away just because of one mistake?”

His angel shakes his head slowly, eyes a million miles away. “…No. It was fun. I wish I could revisit it again.”

“Hopefully not anytime soon. I’m going to get sick again.”

“Sorry,” Lucifer mumbles then grimaces at the look Alastor shoots at him. “We can call your mom if you do.”

“No need. It will just be a cold, anyhow. We don’t have to worry her. Besides, you’ll be around, won’t you?”

“If you want me to be.”

Alastor smiles, not thinking more about it as he stands. “Swell! Magick us dry so we can head home then.”

Living with an angel has left Alastor with a very skewed perception of what is normal and what isn’t. Magic is just a part of his day-to-day life, just as radio, jazz, and alcohol are. Lucifer constantly uses it as often as he can when they are in the privacy of their home. He does it to clear the dishes after eating, to sweep up the house while his back is turned, and to reach the higher shelves (no matter how high a shelf Alastor puts them). Other than the very rare occasion, like a few weeks ago when they went to the forest, most of Lucifer’s magic is strictly for household chores.

Which is why when Alastor finds out that Lucifer has a stray cat trailing after him wherever he goes, it is strangely one of the more normal things his roommate could be doing. Alastor’s okay with it, really. He knows that most are drawn to him—he had seen it in that forest, in the coffeehouse during the morning rush, and in the jazz club when Alastor turned his back—and so isn’t surprised at all. However, very rarely does he have to interact with the animals or people trailing after Lucifer, but that is until Lucifer brings the cat home with him.

“So, um, Alastor,” Lucifer holds up the skinny black and white cat in his arms so Alastor can have a better look at him. The cat mainly looks like a tiny tuxedo cat with dark fur over its face and torso, with smatterings of white around its eyes, ears, tail, and front legs. However, the most notable feature is that one of the cat’s eyes is missing, completely scratched out and bleeding steadily, staining and matting the white fur around its face. “This is Keekee. Keekee, this is Alastor.”

Alastor smiles down at the cat, and Keekee hisses at him in return. She turns tail and burrows into Lucifer’s shirt; snuggling herself deeper against Lucifer’s chest, far away from Alastor. 

Lucifer grimaces, looking down into his shirt then back up at Alastor. “Uh, sorry. Usually, she’s more well-behaved than that.”

“Why did you bring a cat home with you?”

“She followed me home.”

“As do most things, but that doesn’t mean they can cross the threshold of this apartment.”

“Aw, come on. This one is so cute!”

“Really? Was it before or after it started hissing at me?”

“She’s probably just scared of you. And rightly so, might I add, considering you’re an actual serial killer.”

“I haven’t killed a man in how many days! Or would you like me to remind you of your oh-so-helpful ‘Days Since Last Murder’ board that you’ve been updating regularly.”

Lucifer blushes, turning a bright gold. “Even so,” he says while carefully patting Keekee through his shirt. “Animals are attuned to this sort of thing. Maybe they smell the bloodlust on you.” 

“And they must smell the naivety and free food on you.” 

“Okay, rude,” Lucifer says, then pauses before adding, “And touché.”

“I still haven’t said yes yet.”

“Oh, come on! Please? Did you not see her little face? She got hurt real bad, Al. She won’t survive in the wild now!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“I’ll be the one that feeds her! And cleans up after her, promise!”

Alastor raises an eyebrow at him. “We both know you’ll forget, eventually.”

“I’ve lived for thousands of years, I can be responsible! Come on, please?”

Lucifer’s eyes turn wide and bright into pleading baby blues, and he sticks his lower lip out into a pout. Damn. “Fine. But that’s your cat, and no more bringing home animals! At least cats can be clean,” Alastor says, shaking his head. “Dogs on the other hand…”

“Yes!” Lucifer cheers, quickly pulling Alastor into a brief hug, forgetting for a second that Keekee is in his shirt because the cat (and Alastor) starts to panic. “Whoops, sorry, darling.”

“Are you really?”

“Oh, right,” Lucifer says, laughing and pulling Keekee out of his shirt and into his arms. “Sorry about that too, Alastor.”

Keekee and Alastor unfortunately don’t get along. 

That was immediately clear when Lucifer first brought his demon cat home with him, but abundantly so now when Lucifer is away for work and Alastor is left alone with his cat. Usually, especially when Lucifer is in the vicinity, they can coexist in peace. More often than not, Keekee sticks to Lucifer’s room and only ventures outside whenever Lucifer is at home, situating herself as far away from Alastor as physically possible.

Alator is completely fine with this arrangement and Lucifer, as promised, did take up the sole care and responsibility over Keekee. The only times Lucifer asks Alastor to help out is when he isn’t home in time for her eating time. 

The problem primarily stems from just how much Lucifer adores the thing. He carries her around everywhere he goes, or has Keekee trailing after him when he isn’t. Even while talking to Alastor, his hands are occupied petting his new cat’s little head. Alastor won’t say he’s jealous because that sounds petty and insecure, but he’s certainly displeased.

Keekee is similarly displeased that he’s around too, always lashing her tail when he is in the same room. If Alastor ever approaches too closely, he’s immediately bitten or scratched. Needless to say, whenever Lucifer entrusts him with his cat, Alastor debates murdering Keekee. Sometimes he entertains the idea of “accidentally losing” the cat or having Keekee “run away”, but the thought of Lucifer always manages to stay his hand. 

He’s grown soft. It’s disgusting. Alastor stares at the cat staring right back at him, as if waiting for him to do something hasty. Can cats read minds? Can Lucifer? Clearly he can’t, because Alastor would be in hot water otherwise. However, it won’t surprise Alastor if Lucifer can also somehow understand animals and the little shitstain tattles. 

“I don’t like you,” Alastor declares to the cat because having a personal vendetta with your roommate’s beloved pet is certainly not well-adjusted adult behavior, no matter what anyone else thinks. “I want to stuff you in a garbage bag and throw you into the bayou.”

Keekee doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even blink and merely flicks her tail.

“Clearly, agreeing to let you stay here was a mistake made by a much weaker man.”

Again, no response. Alastor purses his lips.

“However, I have a proposition for you,” Alastor takes out a substantial piece of cooked chicken and waves it underneath her nose. 

Keekee immediately perks up. 

“Al,” Lucifer says once Alastor arrives, head turned away as he watches Keekee leave to enter Lucifer’s room. “Did you do something to Keekee?” 

Alastor simply sips his morning coffee to hide his very wide grin, nonchalantly flicking through the morning paper. “Now, why would I ever do such a thing? You know your cat and I don’t get along very well.”

“I don’t know. It just feels like something you’d do.”

“Do what exactly?”

Lucifer frowns. “I don’t know, but it’s fishy,” He presses his lips tightly together. “You won’t do anything to hurt her, would you?”

“Oh, me?”

“Right. Who am I kidding?”

“Well, I’ve done nothing bad of any sort,” Alastor says while rolling his eyes. “I’m hurt that you’d think so lowly of me, my angel.”

Lucifer’s cheeks dust gold at the nickname. “Fine, I’ll drop it,” he acquiesces, reaching into his pocket and taking out something small and compact. “But, well, remember when we went to the forest a few weeks ago, and I said I wanted to revisit that moment again?”

“Yes, and I said, in the middle of my illness, that we most definitely aren’t going back?” 

Lucifer laughs nervously. “Yes, that. Well, I thought up a solution! For anything in the future anyway. Take a look.”

Alastor eyes it once Lucifer hands it over. It’s a black box with a button on top, a light, and a single lens on the front of something that looks a lot like an accordion. It’s a folding camera, but, compared to the other models in the shop, it’s smaller and sleeker. “Oh?” Alastor asks, handing it back. “Aren’t cameras expensive? Where did you get the money?”

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “I didn’t buy it,” he grins and situates the camera in front of his face, pointing the lens right at Alastor. “I made it.” 

Flash.

The light is bright, startling Alastor enough that he’s blinking stars out of his eyes. 

“Oops. I’ll have to fix that,” Lucifer says with a sheepish smile. “That bright of a light would scare Keekee.”

“Keekee?”

“I made this to take pictures of her, of course!” Lucifer’s hand glows gold before sinking it into the camera’s body. He slowly pulls, drawing out a thin sheet of paper from within. He looks down at the paper and his smile softens. “And, well, you too!”

“Me?”

“Look!” Lucifer flips the picture in his hand—a very dazed-looking Alastor stares right back at him—and his angel is beaming. “It’s you.”

Chapter Text

Alastor taps the mic—the same one Lucifer gave him the day he got the job—and says into it, “Good morning folks! I hope you’ve had a very lovely morning because, my dear, the weather is absolutely divine. Goodness, that sun! Just the right day to go and take your kids out to play!”

Being a radio announcer comes easier to Alastor in time, especially as the years seem to elapse. After all that work with Lucifer to become the most captivating and upstanding character on radio, he becomes a more charming, witty, and outspoken version of himself every single time he steps into that recording booth. 

Alastor is always smiling into the microphone, as if he were in front of a live audience, while he reads out the news for that day. His segment now is very similar to those radio announcers who report the obituaries or changes in gas prices, but he adds in a little more pizzazz by telling jokes or sharing some juicy gossip (Lucifer told him one time that cracking jokes during obituaries is rude and could make him appear unlikable, so he just settles with a semi-cheerful ‘condolences’ or something more personal, if he could think it).

Nowadays, Alastor’s segment is something people in the city look forward to. He’s grown so much more popular in the years between now and when he first started that he bets his sponsors would beg him to stay if he decided to leave. 

His mom tells him that she tunes in during her own work shift, telling all her coworkers about how that’s her son. She says that they think he’s so charming and polite, and that he must be so handsome considering how nice his voice is to listen to. Lucifer tells him that his customers say the same thing because Lucifer tunes in to his segment whenever he’s live in the mornings.

Alastor thinks these last few years were the best yet. As his success continues along with the growing popularity of radio, his pay is now substantially higher with more money than he could conceivably handle himself. He even considered moving out of the apartment he shares with Lucifer a few more times since that first time he asked, but he never left. Despite constant opportunities arising to do so, he never does (although recently he considered buying a bigger place for the both of them and Lucifer’s spoiled cat).

Furthermore, while living with Lucifer is easy and comfortable, it’s also surprisingly exciting. Things just seem to keep happening to his angel. Alastor wonders if it’s because the universe is somehow stubbornly set against Lucifer, and he—and those around him—are left the task to put out his comically large fires.

Although, more often than not, most of those comically large fires are set by him.

(“Al, um, are you sure it’s a good idea for me to drive the car?” Lucifer asks from the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel with both hands. They’re well away from the city right now, the expanse around them a dusty road without anybody around. To Alastor, these are the perfect conditions. “Don’t I get lessons?”

“These are your lessons,” Alastor says, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “Now, go. Remember you have to pay attention to the road, okay? The brakes can get a little complicated too, so keep it slow.”

“Right, slow,” Lucifer repeats obediently, igniting the car’s engine. He then shifts the gear and the car rolls into motion. A crawling motion.

“Are you even stepping on the gas?”

“You said to keep it slow!”

“Not this slow!”

“Fine!” Lucifer steps on the gas and the car lurches forward, accelerating suddenly and sending them hurtling down the dust road. Alastor isn’t one to typically feel fear, but he grips the dashboard a little tighter. “Is this fast enough for you?”

“Let up on the gas before we crash!”

“There’s nothing to crash into!”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s a cliff!”

“A cliff?” Lucifer turns back to the road, eyes widening suddenly, and he yelps. “A cliff!”

“The brakes, Lucifer! Step on the brakes!”

Lucifer does, but the car is too slow and they somehow manage to upend themselves over the side of the canyon, falling at an unimaginable speed. Alastor’s eyes widen while he cusses loudly as the ground approaches at an alarming rate. Lucifer is quick to throw an arm in front of Alastor, eyes immediately glowing a bright blue.

Poof!

The car is back at the top of the cliff. Alastor looks to Lucifer and he stares right back. Both of them are pale and shaken. Lucifer manages to crack an awkward smile, but Alastor is too busy trying to catch up with what just happened to even acknowledge it. 

It takes several long moments before Alastor can gather his wits, but once he does he simply states, breathlessly, “You are never driving again.” 

Lucifer nods stiffly, patting Alastor lightly on the chest. “Right, yeah. Never again. Please take us home now.”)

Or sometimes, Alastor will admit, but only to himself, that he may have caused some too. 

(“Alastor! Did you leave the window open by accident again?!” Lucifer asks, popping his head into Alastor’s room, eyebrows furrowed and a scowl on his face. “I keep telling you that you need to close it or else Keekee is going to jump right out!”

“I didn’t leave a window open by accident,” Alastor says and he doesn’t even look up from his book as he’s curled up in bed. He didn’t accidentally leave a window open. Alastor, however, may have done it on purpose. “Are you sure you didn’t leave it open? I’m well aware of your nightly excursions, my angel.”

“I make sure to check every time I leave and come back! And I know you did it, Al. If not by accident, then on purpose!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Lucifer's face flushes angrily. “Alastor! You’re helping me get her back by driving!”

“You’re magic! You can just go yourself. It’s your cat!”

“You let her loose, so you have to help me find her! If something happens to that cat on your watch, I'll never forgive you.” 

Alastor stares at the serious set of Lucifer’s jaw and in the blue of his eyes. He sighs again and finally stands. “Fine. But cats always know their way home, Lucifer. She’ll be okay.”

Lucifer purses his lips. “I know you’re just saying that so I might somehow give up on this and you can go back to bed.”

“And? Is it working?”

“Not at all! Put some pants on.”

It’s raining when they finally find Keekee in an alleyway underneath a dumpster. Lucifer takes off running the moment Alastor stops the car, removing his jacket and throwing it over his head to block the rain so that he can see a little better. Alastor watches from the dry safety of their car, watching his angel go down on his hands and knees to pry his cat out from underneath a trash can. When he finally manages to get her out, Lucifer uses his coat to wrap Keekee up, cuddling her close to his chest to share his warmth. 

He quickly runs back around to his side of the car and slides into his seat up front. His hair’s dark with rain water, clothes dripping wet, and his shoulders were visibly shaking, but he’s smiling now, eyes bright and giddy. “Okay, now we can go,” he says and Keekee meows. “I could really use a bath now.”

Alastor grimaces, turning his face away. “Yes, you do. You crawled in garbage water.”

“For a good cause!” 

“Debatable,” Alastor says, shrugging his own coat off his shoulders and tossing it over Lucifer and Keekee. 

“Thank you. For the coat. And for driving me.”

“You did force me out of bed.” Alastor restarts the car’s ignition, taking several tries under the rain but it still starts nonetheless. “And the coat helps with the smell.”

Lucifer smirks, but doesn’t say anything to contradict him. Instead he sighs, burrowing deeper into Alastor’s warm and dry coat as they head back home. Keekee falls asleep in his arms on the way back.)

Lucifer’s antics keep him busy, and everything he does is immensely entertaining to watch. 

(Lucifer abruptly stops in front of a store front, eyes wide and mouth agape. Alastor peers into the glass window to see what had his angel’s attention, and it’s a small, bright yellow bird with little holes all around its body and a tube as its bill. According to the sign at the very bottom of the display, it’s a duck bath toy.

“Al,” his angel breathes, eyes round as he tightens his hand around Alastor’s arm. “It’s a duck.”

“I can see that.” 

“A rubber duck! For baths!” Lucifer presses his face closer to the glass, bouncing on his heels excitedly. 

Alastor frowns. “We don’t even have a bathtub in the apartment.”

“We can put him in the sink.”

“Isn’t it kinda ugly though?”

Lucifer’s stops and turns toward him, eyes wide, round, and vividly baby blue. “He’s not ugly! Look at him… You put water through the bill and it’s like a fountain!”

Alastor grimaces, trying his best to look away from Lucifer’s eyes. “I don’t know, angel. It might just mess up the apartment.”

Lucifer droops. “Oh,” his angel says, voice positively pathetic. “Okay.”

Damn. Damn damn damn. Alastor heaves a giant sigh and takes out his wallet from the inside of his coat. Sometimes he wonders what on God’s green Earth is he thinking. “How much is it?” Lucifer beams at him brightly, causing him to look away, and pulls Alastor inside the store by his arm.

They (Alastor) bought the unfortunate looking duck. Just as Lucifer said, the toy is a fountain. When Lucifer connected it to their sink using a hose, their bathroom got immediately rained on—the floors, walls, and Lucifer himself dripping wet. Alastor gapes at the mess and Lucifer quickly waves his hand, rags and mops standing to attention at his command. 

Lucifer grins sheepishly up at Alastor, bangs wet and dark over his eyes, as he holds up the duck. “What did I say? Brilliant, isn’t it?”

Alastor pinches the bridge of his nose. “And what did I say about it ending up a mess?”

“I’m cleaning it up!”

“Doesn’t stop that it happened anyway!”

Lucifer huffs, dropping his smile and the arm holding the duck. Alastor walks into the bathroom, careful to not step over any rags and mops still working to wipe away all the water. He pushes Lucifer’s hair out of his face so it’s back to his angel’s usual slicked back style. 

Lucifer turns to look at him with an unusual look in his eye, and Alastor hums thoughtfully. “It might work better with a bathtub?”

Lucifer bites his lip. “Maybe a curtain so it doesn’t spread all over the bathroom floor?”

Alastor smiles wryly. “Especially when you don’t turn the water pressure up to its full capacity.”

“It was an accident!”

“An accident for five whole minutes?”

Lucifer blushes. “I didn’t expect it to be that strong.”

Alastor chuckles and pushes clothes into Lucifer’s hands. “Good for you—I expected it.”

Lucifer puts the duck toy down on the sink and takes the clothes, smiling again. “Thanks, Al.”)

If he’s really honest, Alastor rarely ever gets bored with him in his life.

“Drip coffee, black—no sugar, no cream,” Lucifer recites, handing him a bright red mug without looking up from the pictures in his other hand. 

Alastor accepts the cup and takes a sip—the taste of it never gets old. “This isn’t the coffeehouse, my angel. We’re just at home,” he says with a wry smile. “Are those new pictures?”

Lucifer finally looks up, rolling his eyes. “I know we’re just at home, and yes. Want to take a look?”

“It better not be all Keekee’s photos again.”

“It’s not. That was one time! See?” Lucifer holds up a photograph right in front of him and Alastor takes it. “It’s me! Remember? You took that picture and everything.”

He does remember it. The picture shows them both in the frame with Lucifer actually looking at the camera, grinning broadly with that little duck bath toy cupped in the middle of his hands. Alastor took this photo weeks ago and it is one of the rare pictures he had taken wherein Lucifer was actually paying attention to the camera and had posed. He puts the picture back down on the pile and looks through the rest. As expected, there are a lot of Keekee pictures that Alastor ignores and pushes to the side, but there are also pictures of him, too. Just as many, if not more, than Keekee’s, and many of which were taken without him noticing. 

“What is this for?” Alastor asks, looking at one where he’s sleepily drinking coffee, hungover after drinking and dancing with Mimzy in her jazz club from dusk until well past midnight. The sun was already high in the sky at that point, casting a golden glow into their kitchen. 

“It’s a surprise!” Lucifer says, beaming. “Here. You’ll like these ones.”

Alastor takes them. “How do you even get these developed? Isn’t that necessary for these sorts of things?” 

“Yeah, a human camera, maybe, but I made my camera so it’s much better. Less fuss.”

“You’re so very humble. All the time.”

“I know. I take after you.”

“How charming.” 

Lucifer smirks, nudging him, and Alastor rolls his eyes. He looks down at the photos in his hands, immediately noticing why Lucifer thinks he’d like these the most. They were photos of his mom and her familiar smiling face stares up at him, bringing a smile to his own. Some of them have her in the kitchen in the middle of stirring a pot, unaware that someone was taking her picture at all, and some even have her laughing at the camera. 

The last photo of the bunch is one Alastor remembers taking. It was during one of the many Sundays where he and Lucifer went over to her house after church to cook together and have dinner. These also sometimes doubled as cooking lessons for Lucifer, who had been steadily improving everyday in terms of cooking proficiency. He’s now able to use a knife and cut an onion without immediately tearing up. Alastor remembers his mom smiling, aware of the camera, but Lucifer only notices at the last minute, looking both comfortable and completely off-guard, as the photo gets taken. 

It’s a very nice photo, and the only one in the bunch with both his mom and Lucifer in the frame. Alastor smiles, pocketing it for himself. He’s sure Lucifer won’t notice or mind it gone, and he hands back the stack of pictures. As expected, Lucifer just takes it without checking if it’s all there, putting them back into a neat pile. He then turns back toward his breakfast, completely oblivious.

Chapter Text

Alastor isn’t one for physical affection. He restrains from touching people as much as possible and only engages in affection with some choice friends and his mom. Even then, all he can afford to give is a brief hug, an occasional hand on a shoulder, and a hand or arm out to be a gentleman. For others, like strangers or mere acquaintances, Alastor would prefer if they never enter his personal space. Ever. Social custom dictates that he should act a certain way, so he endures and tolerates what he can. 

Lucifer is completely different. He is an incredibly touchy and physically affectionate person with nary any credence for people’s personal space, as far as Alastor can tell. He doesn’t shy away from pressing a hand on someone’s shoulder or pulling them into hugs. It is one of the first things Alastor had to set boundaries on, and much of the touching dialed back to the occasional nudge or hands ghosting awkwardly over him. Alastor grew more accustomed to the touches after teaching Lucifer how to dance the way they do in jazz clubs, too concerned with corralling an overexcited angel into cooperating. 

Then Alastor starts touching Lucifer more often. A hand on his elbow or shoulder to pull him back from the clouds and the small of his back to direct him where he wants to go. Sometimes he places a hand on the top of Lucifer’s head just to annoy him with how short he is. Lucifer reciprocates in kind. He takes Alastor’s hand, intertwines their arms together, pats his head, and rubs his hair. It happens rarely and ends quickly. It isn’t until Alastor is practically curled up in Lucifer’s lap years down the line, drunkenly dazed, that he realizes just how used to Lucifer’s touch he is.

On the other hand, Lucifer isn’t quite as used to their physical touching. Quite the contrary, he seems to get increasingly uncomfortable the more they do it, despite seeking it out himself. 

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Alastor asks aloud one jazz club night wherein Lucifer doesn’t join him. He has been joining him more since Alastor first invited him, but there are days that the man stays home while completely engrossed in one project or another.

“That Lucifer blushes whenever you touch him?” Mimzy asks, losing herself to her drink. “Not exactly, darling. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he obviously likes you. He wants you to make whoopee to him in bed.”

Alastor carefully doesn’t react, taking a long drink, before he finally responds, “Well, that’s most unfortunate.” 

Mimzy looks at him strangely. “You really don’t want to… haul his ashes?”

“Not really, no. Although, I like the arrangement as it is now.”

“Where he smiles and looks at you all besotted and you scare everyone that even tries to approach?” 

“He’s mine to keep.”

“Poor Lulu,” Mimzy sighs into her drink. “Will probably never get any again because his roommate is a possessive psycho.”

“You don’t even know if that’s what he’s looking for.”

“Oh, please. Lucifer wants it bad. When you’re not looking, he gives you these eyes—”

Alastor grimaces, downing the rest of his drink. “Right, thank you, Mimzy. This was, ah. Enlightening.”

“Are you leaving early? Ready to jump into bed with your boy?”

“Yes, and no. We don’t share a bed, Mimzy. Why would you think we do?”

Mimzy laughs, drinking the rest of her whiskey. “No particular reason.”

Alastor rolls his eyes and heads back. He doubts Lucifer is asleep just yet. If patterns persist, his angel is doing exactly what he was doing when he left him, which was creating in his room. Mimzy’s comments refuse to leave his brain, however. It isn’t that he thinks she’s lying, but it certainly leaves him perplexed. Lucifer is an angel. Wouldn’t that mean he is above this sort of thing? 

He arrives at the apartment and it’s just as he left it. Lucifer’s room is cracked open and the sound of hammering stops abruptly. “Al? Is that you? You’re back early.”

“Wasn’t feeling it.”

“Perfect!” Lucifer leaves his room, carrying what must be his newest creation. “I’m going to need your opinion on this.”

He continues talking about his latest invention—a duck with a tune up mechanism that enables it to do backflips—but Alastor is thinking again about what Mimzy said. Right now, he doesn’t get it. There is no indication from Lucifer of wanting anything more intimate from him than his usual. Even now it’s par for the course, him excitedly explaining about his future plans for the contraption in his hands (“I want it to fly without magic, Al! Maybe I should use electricity. Do you think that would work?”). That is, until an idea surfaces in Alastor’s mind. 

He had been a part of the jazz club scene since he first got back from France back in ‘18. Ever since then he has become familiar with the usual things he loves to partake in—dancing, music, and alcohol—but he was also given front row seats to how others flirt. Alastor never had a reason to seduce someone to bed, nor did he ever think he’d want to, but now he’s curious. 

So he recalls what he remembers seeing before. Most men would lean close, nodding along to whatever is being told to them, and angle their bodies toward their interest. Sometimes, if they’re seated, they’d place an arm on the back of the seat or on the bar counter. Alastor follows along to what he had observed, leaning down so his nose practically brushes the top of Lucifer’s head and noting the way he smells like coffee and something clean and fruity. He angles his body, hunching his shoulders forward so it appears that all his attention is focused entirely on his angel. He keeps his hands folded behind his back, unsure where to place it in a scenario outside of sitting or dancing. 

Unfortunately, Lucifer doesn’t notice the sudden shift in position nor their closeness, too engrossed in talking about his current interest. And so Alastor tries one last thing he noticed from those romance radio dramas that Lucifer likes to listen to so much.

“—and wind up is just so much easier to do compared to electricity, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice deep and husky and so unlike his usual voice that it has Lucifer looking up quickly, confused. “It would be a lot cheaper, too.”

In quick succession, Lucifer first notices their proximity—practically the same distance if they were dancing—and, with eyes growing progressively wider, how close their faces had ended up being. His face quickly floods with so much color he starts to glow. Most satisfying of all, Lucifer drops his new contraption in his surprise. When Alastor easily plucks it out of the air and hands it back, his angel’s mouth is slack. 

“Thanks,” he says or, rather, squeaks. Lucifer scrambles out of their close proximity with as much grace as he can muster—which is a lot, as Alastor would find—and hurries back to his room. “Right. I’ll, uh, go to bed now. Good night, Al!”

The door shuts behind him after his hasty retreat. Alastor straightens himself again, a self-satisfied grin on his face. 

Huh. Well, that was very entertaining.

Alastor does it again. Multiple times. He tries to space it out, doing it at odd intervals so Lucifer never gets too used to it. On one memorable occasion, while Lucifer was handing him his morning coffee in one hand and the rest of the pot in the other, Alastor had moved in close, plucked the coffee mug from his hand, and whispered, voice low, “Thanks, darling.” The pot of coffee crashed to the floor and Alastor had just enough presence of mind to jump away from the splash zone. He was laughing all the way back to his room after that one, unable to stop himself. 

However, in time, Lucifer starts getting used to it. Whenever Alastor tries to get him flustered with his usual tactics, Lucifer, still with bright cheeks, rolls his eyes and says, “I know you’re just doing this to get a reaction out of me, Al. It’s not going to work.”

“If it isn’t working then why are your cheeks so gold?” 

“Because I’m embarrassed for you!”

And so Alastor’s entertainment suffers a swift but inevitable death. 

That is until he finds out that touching Lucifer, no matter how small, elicits a very large reaction. A touch to the small of his back to move around him and he stiffens, a hand on his shoulder pulling him close to whisper while in a club and he squeaks, and worse is during dances where he practically trips over his own two feet (this, Alastor is least amused by). His next brilliant idea is to then combine his old tactic with this new finding.

Again, Alastor is in Mimzy’s jazz club. She isn’t singing nor at the bar, rather the two of them are dancing a faster, more upbeat variation of the foxtrot. 

She peers over his shoulder and says, “Oh, you brought Lucifer.”

“He wanted to come today.”

“I can see why,” Mimzy says with a purr. “It’s that sexy bartender’s shift today. The one I told you about with the eyes and the fingers.”

Alastor honestly does not remember any of that. He frowns. “Why does that matter?”

“Because you, sir, may go home tonight alone if Lucifer has his way.”

“You’re not actually serious. Lucifer wouldn’t.”

“Ah, but he is! Look, look!” Mimzy shuffles their feet during the dance and turns them both around so they can see what’s going on. 

As Mimzy said, Lucifer is at the bar, wine in hand, and talking to the bartender. Alastor can honestly say that he still doesn’t get what Mimzy is talking about—his eyes? his fingers??—but he can recognize that Lucifer is interested. He knows because he’s been cataloging those exact same reactions and mannerisms for the past few weeks. It is so obvious from the way he’s smiling so much, his body language facing entirely towards the other man, and his cheeks are glowing brighter than the bar light should allow them to be. Alastor’s eyes narrow behind his glasses and his hands tighten around Mimzy’s hands.

“Ow, Alastor. Please calm down. Fuck!”

Alastor lets her go abruptly, just as the song pulls itself to a natural close. “Apologies, darling,” he says with a plasticky smile. “I forgot myself.” 

“Whatever. You just owe me a drink now,” Mimzy says with a grimace. “And honestly. You really should let Lucifer have his fun. It’s not like you’re together. Besides, you said so yourself! If you’re not going to fuck him, might as well let someone else do it.”

Alastor’s lips tighten, smile turning cold. “I believe you have a song to get to, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Fine, whatever! It’s your problem,” Mimzy grouses as she leaves with a flick of her hand. 

He ignores her. The music starts up again. Alastor walks to the bar with a genial smile and eyes only for Lucifer. Thankfully, the blond doesn’t notice him as he approaches, allowing him to slip a hand around his angel’s waist and to lean close to the shell of his ear, lips brushing against it. Almost immediately, Lucifer stiffens and Alastor whispers, willing his voice to sound as husky as he remembers in those radio dramas, “Care for a dance?”

Lucifer’s turns so quickly their heads almost collide, eyes wide and pupils dilated under the warm bar light. "Alastor?”  

Alastor grins and he relishes in the way the bartender’s eyes drill into the side of his head, but Lucifer’s attention is still entirely his. Where it belongs. “So? What do you say?”

“I, um—” Lucifer’s eyes flicker away for the briefest of seconds and Alastor tightens his hold on his waist, making Lucifer refocus his attention on him. “I mean, okay. Let’s dance, Al.”

“Wonderful!” Alastor says, beaming, as he takes Lucifer’s hand. He looks up at the bartender from behind his fringe, pouring as much malice into his gaze. “Pleasure to meet you, by the way. Quite a pleasure.”

The man stares back, unnerved by the look in Alastor’s eye, and nods stiffly, minding his own business once again. Lucifer, noticing this, simply rolls his eyes and pulls him deeper into the dance floor. “I honestly have no idea what you’re playing at this time,” he grumbles, putting a hand on Alastor’s shoulder. They are swaying along to the music—something slow—as they follow the flow of the crowd. “You really couldn’t have minded your own business?”

Alastor blinks. “You are my business.”

Lucifer sighs. “You know what I mean. What do you want, Alastor?”

‘You’ didn’t seem quite right. Alastor still isn’t entirely interested in having sex with Lucifer, but he is interested in everything he says, in everything he does. In who Lucifer’s currently invested in.

“Your attention,” he finally replies. 

“You already have my attention. You always have my attention.”

“Not tonight.”

Lucifer huffs a laugh. “Well, I’m all yours now.”

“Not ‘just now’.”

“Oh, yeah? Would you prefer if I was all yours forever?”

Alastor watches Lucifer’s face, the way his eyes are closed as they sway and how he is smiling like he just told a particularly funny joke. Forever must be a funny thing to an angel, whose life far exceeds his own, but Alastor finds it an acceptable amount of time. 

“Yes, I would.”

“Then I’m yours,” Lucifer laughs and they hasten their steps, the music picking up as Mimzy takes to the stage. 

Alastor isn’t quite sure if Lucifer is aware of the seriousness of what he had just said, but he wasn’t concerned. If Lucifer is proof of anything, it’s that death is just one step to another life. However, there was no reason not to enjoy and savor the life they currently have, so why rush?

“Lucifer, dear,” Alastor says, waiting for the soft grunt in reply. “Do you remember when I tried to kill you?” 

His angel shifts so that he can see him better while curled against Alastor’s side. “How could I possibly forget?” Lucifer asks, looking up at him grumpily with dazed blue eyes under dark eyelashes. “I got stabbed fifteen times by an asshole. Fourteen of which were done because you were ‘just curious’.”

“I was just checking, of course! Can never be too sure.” 

“I was bleeding gold!”

“A technicality,” Alastor says with a breezy wave of his hand that he places on top of Lucifer’s rumpled up head of hair to soothe his angel’s ire a little. “Regardless, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What is it then?”

“You said something about redeeming myself to g—”

Lucifer gasps, sitting up so quickly that the blanket falls off his bruised shoulders and pools around his bare waist. “You’re willing to try redemption?!” At Alastor’s nod, Lucifer beams. “What changed your mind?”

“Oh, you know. This or that,” Alastor says, pausing a little to stare at his angel’s face before taking his glasses off and putting them on the bedside table. “Besides, does it matter too much? I want redemption now.”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Lucifer replies, lying back down. “This is perfect! Getting you to Heaven means we’ll stay together even after Earth. Wait! Oh, no. I haven’t thought of what exactly we’ll do to redeem you!”

“Over ten years of trying to convince me and it never even crossed your mind.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know if I’d make it this far.”

Alastor snorts and closes his eyes. “Then think about it tomorrow. It can wait until morning.”

Chapter Text

“The church choir?” Alastor asks incredulously after Lucifer shoves a brightly colored paper into his hands for him to read. His angel just nods excitedly and Alastor continues with even more disbelief, “You’re serious.”

“I’m serious,” Lucifer confirms, taking the flier back. “What do you think?”

“I think you’ve got a few screws looser than usual.”

“You’re one to talk!”

“You’re suggesting that singing in church somehow equates in some way to serial killing.”

“I’m not! I never said that!”

Alastor taps Lucifer’s nose. “You implied it.”

Lucifer scowls. “You know what I meant! You’re being purposefully obtuse.”

“You have to admit. It’s ridiculous.” 

“I think it’s fair! It’s a way to give back to the community, we don’t have to change our schedule too much, it’s the least objectionable thing on my list, and you can sing—it’s perfect! Oh, don’t give me that look. We sit next to each other in church, I can hear you sing.”

“That’s not it,” Alastor says, rolling his eyes. “But a… list?”

“Of course I have a list,” Lucifer slides out a piece of paper from his pocket, waving it right underneath Alastor’s nose and taking it back before he could grab it. “The rest are going to be surprises. Trust me! It will be fine.”

Alastor shakes his head slowly. “There better not be a single activity in there that will get my clothes dirty, Lucifer.”

“Already considered,” Lucifer says with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not an amateur when it comes to you, don’t worry. I learned my lesson when I accidentally spilled paint on your dress pants.”

“Those dress pants are expensive.”

“And I know magic, so,” Lucifer grins, leans over, and affectionately pats Alastor’s cheek. “All is well.”

(All is most definitely not well with Alastor’s first choir practice at church to everyone but Alastor, who is inordinately proud of the tangible fear that flashed on the choirmaster’s face.)

“You got us kicked out of church! How is that even possible?!” 

“You’d be surprised about how easy it is to get kicked out for a day or two,” Alastor replies while pulling off the choir outfit from over his everyday clothes. He opts out of his blazer and is left in only a button-down, whose sleeves he rolls up. “Although, how someone like that can work as a choirmaster is beyond me.”

“You threatened to skin him alive!”

“Well, I’m surprised no one else did it first!”

Lucifer groans, dropping his head into his hands. “How you manage to cross the threshold of a church never ceases to amaze.”

Alastor grins wide, pinching Lucifer’s cheek and drawing him out of his stupor. “I heard that,” he answers, releasing Lucifer’s face when his face starts to pinch. “What happened to redemption?”

Lucifer rubs his cheek, annoyed. “You being worthy of redemption and my bafflement that you don’t immediately burst into flames on holy ground are mutually exclusive statements.”

“You know that doesn’t sound quite right,” Alastor says, his grin not dropping. “But shame. I thought you’d given up. Especially considering you’re quite literally an angel that got kicked out of—What did you say? Holy?—holy ground.”

“That was your fault!”

Alastor shrugs, unapologetic. “What can I say? He had it coming.”

Lucifer sighs, looking up to the sky as if asking for patience from God. “How will we ever show our faces next Sunday?” 

“By showing up, of course! Now what’s next on your list?”

“Volunteering at an orphanage!” Lucifer announces as Alastor stops the car in front of a large building that is approximately double the size of their three story apartment complex. 

“I’m turning this car around.” 

Lucifer grabs Alastor’s hand before he could reach for the gearshift and whines. “Come on! I already promised them we’d show!”

Alastor raises his eyebrows in disbelief. “You shouldn’t have promised them anything.”

“It’s only for an afternoon and some dinner!” 

“You know I terrify kids!”

“I’ll be there! I can handle most of the kids.”

“I’m still turning this car around.” 

“Think of the children!” 

“I am! In case you’ve forgotten, I am a serial killer.”

“Like I can forget that. Regardless, it’s not like you were out hunting down children!”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” Lucifer says with a roll of his eyes. “Come on, Al! It’s only until dinner.”

Alastor stares at Lucifer for a beat longer, feeling his resolve crumble, until he finally sighs, pulls the keys out of his car, and opens the door. “Only until dinner,” he accedes, ignoring the way Lucifer smirks smugly.

“Yes, thank you!” Lucifer cheers, slamming the car door behind him and running up to match Alastor’s pace as they approach the large, overbearing double doors. “I promise. This will be much better than the choir.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

Lucifer lifts his hand and knocks on the door. It only takes a moment before an elderly woman in dark robes answers, smiling kindly at them both. There’s a gaggle of other similarly dressed older women behind her, all with their hands clasped in front of them and saintly smiles spread over their faces. 

“Are you the new volunteers for this afternoon?”

Lucifer smiles kindly and says, “We are. I’m Lucifer and this is Alastor.”

“I’m the head of this monastery, Sister Agnes, but most of the nuns simply refer to me as Mother Superior,” she opens the door wider and holds her hand out in a gesture to let them inside. “Please. Come in. I will introduce you to the children.”

Lucifer steps forward quickly. “Don’t mind if we do,” he says with an excited smile. Alastor isn’t nearly as enthusiastic, however, and merely follows his angel’s lead, hands folded behind his back as he walks stiffly behind him. “Is there anything important we need to know?”

Mother Superior hums as she leads away past rich wooden archways and aged cobblestone under a velvety rug. While the abbey is obviously old, it isn’t rundown. Alastor notes that it’s very lovingly well-kept by the nuns. “There are many children—over a hundred—currently residing within the abbey walls. We have other volunteers that either regularly help out or have contacted us beforehand about helping out, just like you two. There are some in the abbey now.”

“Over a hundred?” Alastor asks incredulously, and looking at Mother Superior then at his sheepish angel’s face dubiously. “We have to help with over a hundred children?”

“Well, ever since ‘29, there has been a sudden increase in orphans—”

Alastor can’t help but snicker, but Lucifer quickly steps on his foot, causing him to yelp. Mother Superior looks at them both with a stern, disapproving look. Lucifer clears his throat and answers for them both. “He’s a work in progress, Sister Agnes. We’re working on tact.”

At the word ‘tact’, Lucifer sends Alastor a look worse than Sister Agnes’, which he’s sure Lucifer learned after spending one day per week for years with his mother. Alastor nods stiffly before upping the charm on his smile and expressing his deepest regrets. “Yes, Sister Agnes. I am most apologetic about the unfortunate timing of my laughter.” 

“Right. Please keep the… unfortunateness… to yourself next time,” Mother Superior says, voice dry and unconvinced, and turns away to continue her tour around the abbey.

When she turns around, Lucifer spares no time to slap a hand over his mouth to smother the giggle before it comes out, gripping Alastor’s arm with his other to try and keep upright. Alastor rolls his eyes. What a hypocrite. Although, he supposes, Lucifer is most likely not laughing at the thought of orphans, unlike him. A man can dream, though.

Eventually they reach a double door made of thick wood and framed by a wonderful stone archway. It’s not enough to dull the sound of screaming and laughing on the other side as more than a hundred children are let loose to play for the afternoon. When Mother Superior opens the doors, however, it is worse than Alastor could have even imagined. There were children at every corner of the large room, running and tripping over each other, with toys strewn across the floor. Some of the kids were much older than others and had formed a small group by the corner, little faces already grim and despondent, but much of the space was occupied by little children, none of whom were past the age of eleven. 

Lucifer smiles encouragingly up at him, but Alastor returns that smile with a grimace of his own. “Only until dinner,” he whispers so that only Lucifer could hear him.

His angel nods. “Only until dinner.”

Dinner couldn’t come fast enough, Alastor thinks to himself as he leans on the wall closest to the small group of older children. Lucifer placed him there not too long ago, already sure that Alastor wouldn’t be able to handle anybody younger than perhaps twelve. His angel is now surrounded by a group of small children playing a game that Alastor learned growing up on the sidelines, but he never really had many friends to play the game with. 

If there is anything that this trip is teaching him, it’s that Alastor’s childhood was immensely different from this. Not because he isn’t an orphan, but because he never grew up in an environment like this, surrounded by children his age. He didn’t have siblings growing up, his mom was constantly working, and his only constant companion was his beloved pet cat who eventually ran away once he grew older. Alastor supposes it was just him never figuring out how to talk to other kids and always getting into fights, but he eventually learned to adapt to become the man he is today.

“Hey,” a girl, maybe twelve or so years old, approaches with a smile as she breaks away from the older kids’ group. “Are you one of today’s volunteers?”

“It would appear so,” Alastor says, smiling wide at her, and it must unnerve her enough that she begins to look unsure. “Why?”

“Well, your friend,” she glances behind herself at Lucifer. “Says that you’re actually famous. Obviously, we wanted to make sure he wasn’t pulling our leg, so are ya?”

“Certainly. Ever listen to the radio?”

“‘Course. Who doesn’t?” She stares at him for a long moment and, as if that little tidbit finally helped slot something into place, says, “You’re Alastor?”

“Indeed I am. Why? Have any questions for me?”

The little girl grins, grabbing his arm and pulling him to the group of older kids. Alastor immediately stiffens as he’s grabbed and placed into a spot near the center and made to sit on the floor. She tells them who he is and they’re immediately interested in him. 

“Is that your real voice?” A brunette little boy with glasses asks.

Another kid, looking particularly interested, raises her hand. “How do you become a radio host? Do you get rich from your job?”

“Isn’t it boring sitting in a box all day?” A more dour looking dark haired teenager butts in, raising an eyebrow in judgment.

“Are you and that pretty man close?” That same little girl from earlier asks with a wide knowing grin.

Alastor clears his throat and plasters on a practiced smile. “Yes, auditions, depends on how good you are, not to me, and yes. That pretty man and I are very close.”

The kids oohed, eyes sparkling with interest. Alastor ends up having to entertain their queries for the rest of the afternoon, surrounded by older children eager to learn about him and his job. 

Alastor tries to keep his irritation in check when they do something unseemly or talk too loudly, knowing that Lucifer was a few paces away. A few children were actually enjoyable to talk to (sweeter and more mature than the others, like that first little girl that had grabbed him), but others were obviously teenagers that didn’t really listen to their betters. Those were the ones Alastor didn’t particularly like. 

By the end, he doesn’t notice that the sun is beginning to set and the day is ending until Lucifer comes up behind him. “Hey,” he says before running a hand through his hair so that Alastor looks up. Lucifer is smiling, eyes flickering from his face to the kids surrounding him. “Having fun?”

“Is it dinner time already?”

“Soon. Sister Agnes asked me to go around and let the kids know.” While Lucifer says this, he’s looking at the children with an expectant look in his eyes. The kids start standing, immediately interested in the prospect of food.

Once the kids have all left, Alastor asks, “So, are we leaving now?”

“After we eat, then yes,” Lucifer confirms then offers his hand to help him up.

Alastor hums, taking his hand and standing up. He stretches a little. Ah, he isn’t as young as he used to be. A few hours on the hard floor and talking to children is something awful on his back. “Splendid.”

They moved to follow the last of the children out the door with Mother Superior who had been watching the volunteers entertain the children, when a nun enters with a few volunteers behind her.

“Mother Superior,” she catches her breath, eyes wide and fingers clasp tightly together. “We have a problem. It appears some rats came in this afternoon when one of the other volunteers left the door open, and most of the meat and vegetables had been ruined! We won’t have enough to feed the children, much less us and the volunteers!” 

Mother Superior’s old face wrinkles further as she turns an apologetic grimace at him and Lucifer. “It appears something unfortunate happened,” she says, shaking her head. “I know we promised you a meal, but it appears we won’t be able to accommodate you today.”

Alastor sighs, relieved at being able to leave early from such an inane outing, but Lucifer is frowning, displeased. “What about the children?” Lucifer asks, quickly looking at where the kids are gathered. “You said there won’t be enough to feed all of them.”

“We will have to portion the sizes for the children and the nuns won’t be able to eat for a while, but we’ll make do.”

Lucifer isn’t comforted by Mother Superior’s words. If anything, he just appears more determined than he was before. Lucifer smiles up at Alastor—a devious looking thing despite the undoubtedly noble intentions—that has him immediately understanding and sighing in defeat. His angel takes Alastor by the arm and says, “Wait, we can help you!”

“You need me to cook for hundreds of children!? Without any sort of preparation?”

Lucifer had the decency to look sheepish as he nods, but Alastor must look angry enough because he winces. “Don’t worry! I’ll help out!”

“With cooking?” Alastor asks, disbelievingly. 

“No!” Lucifer leans forward, pulling Alastor down so he can whisper, “Have you ever heard of the biblical story with the five loaves and two fish?”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m completely serious. It’s a big and flashy ask so I’ll be getting flack from upstairs after this, but when don’t I?”

Alastor shakes his head. “Of course you’re Heaven’s problem child. Why am I not surprised?”

An odd look flits across Lucifer’s face for a moment, but he quickly moves away and says, “Just work your magic, Al! I’ll handle the rest.”

So he follows his angel’s instructions and begins cooking. The ingredients left behind were barely enough to cover the usual serving size he makes at home for him and Lucifer, and he doubts that it would cover the hungry children kicking their feet outside waiting. However, despite his doubts, he trusts that Lucifer will pull something off. If he didn’t trust in that, Alastor wouldn’t be blindly following and cooking as much food as he could salvage from the leftover ingredients. 

Lucifer reenters just as Alastor finishes cooking, with a small group of nuns and helpers in the orphanage trailing after him. “Are you done? Is it time to serve the kids?”

One of the nuns moves to the stove, looking at the amount of food Alastor was able to make, and declares, her tone solemn, “This won’t be enough to serve five, much less all of them.” 

“How do you expect this to be enough? We can’t let those kids go hungry.”

“Just serve them how you normally would,” Lucifer says, taking bowls and trays and handing them to the other volunteers. “This is a monastery. Maybe God is watching.”

“Real subtle,” Alastor mumbles into his ear from over his shoulder. 

Lucifer rolls his eyes and places a bowl in his hands. “Oh, hush. Start plating, please.”

It surprises no one that the nuns and other volunteers were dubious, and it shows in the way they were unhappily grumbling. However, they follow the instructions because there’s nothing else any of them can do about it. They hit the estimated five servings from the amount of food Alastor made, but when they look at the pot, it was as if they never took any servings at all. Everyone gapes into the pot. One of the nuns, just to be sure, takes another bowl and fills it up with another serving, but the food remains at stubbornly the same level. 

“Lord Almighty,” she breathes. “We have been blessed! It’s a miracle!”

“It’s just like in the Bible,” another nun whispers. 

“How did this happen?”

Alastor glances at Lucifer, but he’s busy taking out filled bowls, the increasing sound of happy children filtering in every time the door swings open. He wonders while filling up another bowl what else his angel can really do. He’s lived with him for years now and has seen Lucifer use magic to get them out of doing the most menial housework, survive multiple stab wounds, and even make objects disappear and reappear with a snap of his fingers.

Alastor had never seen him do something so large-scale before, and it’s incredible. He wonders about other biblical stories he grew up learning—turning water into wine, healing the sick, or even raising the dead—and thinks about whether Lucifer is capable of something like that. He probably is considering the single pot of food that can feed hundreds of children. Maybe more if the nuns are already excitedly talking about giving the rest of the food away to the nearby neighborhoods still struggling ever since the stock market crash. 

They finally reach the end of the pot once all the children and other volunteers have been satiated, a few trucks have been loaded up with several trays of food to be given out after dinner, and a spare few stored away to be served for tomorrow’s breakfast. Every single face in that monastery is smiling, either because of their full bellies or because of the miracle that had just occurred. Either way, the energy in the whole place is eclectic as life is quickly brought back into what was once such a dreary place. 

Lucifer stops to stand next to him, there’s a smaller child in his arms—a blond girl around two years old—and says with a soft smile, “I told you. Much better than the choir.”

“I’ll admit. The nuns were a lot nicer than that choirmaster.” 

“That’s just your hate for men talking,” Lucifer says, laughing, and the little girl in his arms plants her hand onto the center of his face. In a show of dexterity, he expertly shifts her weight into one arm and takes her hand gently from his face with his other. 

“Is that why you decided to bring us to a monastery?”

“Guilty. Although, it’s also because I like kids.”

Alastor rolls his eyes. “Of course you do. You’re very good with them.”

Lucifer hums, letting the little girl grip his finger as she giggles. “They’re a lot easier when they’re this little.”

Alastor pulls a face. “I highly doubt that.”

“You’d say that. All that spit, the excrement, the crying,” Lucifer laughs. “Although, maybe you’d do better with an older kid. Like a mentor.”

“I’d do better with an adult. Today just proves it.”

Lucifer looks at him with an indecipherable look then back down at the little girl in his arms. “I suppose you would,” he says, a smile on his face. 

Unsure of what to say to that, Alastor simply sighs. “Let’s get on home already before you somehow start a cult following.” He glances to the nuns in the side, gushing to each other excitedly. “Again.”

Chapter Text

Lucifer’s next activity on their checklist is found in the cemetery. Alastor stops the car by the side of the road and comments, “I hope you realize that my murder victims are down in the bayou, not here.”

“I’m aware,” Lucifer says, giving him a meaningful look. “I still remember our brief tryst down by the bayou, Al. It’s not hard to forget!”

“I already said I was sorry!” 

“You never said it and I know you’re not sorry at all!”

Alastor opens the door of the car, ending their conversation. “What are we here for?”

“Someone died recently and I think you knew her very intimately.”

“…I think I need a bit more information.”

Lucifer laughs at the pinched expression on Alastor’s face. “Golly gee, not like that!”

“Then what is it?” 

They walk past a few more gravestones of varying levels of decay, before stopping at a heavily overgrown one with a relatively newer gravestone propped up on top. 

Alastor instantly recognizes the name on the stone and scowls. “Susan.”

Lucifer grins and pats him on the back. “Go and make amends.”

Alastor glances at his angel from the corner of his eye and steps forward. “You’re a bitch and I’m glad you’re dead.”

Lucifer chokes on a laugh behind him. 

“My only regret is that I didn’t get the job done myself.”

"Alastor!”

“Considering that proved to be an exercise in futility—”

“Glad we can agree on something.”

Lucifer sends him a very pointed look from the passenger seat of the car. “Honestly, why did I expect anything better? She was terrible.”

“I bet she’s in Hell right now.”

Lucifer smirks. “Look at that! Another reason to take this redemption thing seriously.”

Alastor laughs. “Was that why you had me bring us here in the first place?” 

“No, but I’m going to take any win I can get.”

“So was she really on your list?”

“Of course not! The cemetery was just on the way.”

“From what?” 

Lucifer reaches into the pocket inside his coat and takes out a folded piece of paper. He grimaces. “The hospital you were born in.”

“Okay… But what for?” 

“To find out more about your father.”

The hospital Lucifer directs them to is from an older part of town. It’s an old, square brick building that is moderately dilapidated, but there are still people going in and out of its doors so at least it was still being used. Alastor parks his car nearby and the both of them exit the vehicle. 

Lucifer presses his lips together and says, “I hate hospitals.”

“Why? Is it the death?” Alastor asks as they approach the entrance. 

“Partially. It makes me feel impotent.”

“So no stunts this time? Like with the orphanage?”

Lucifer groans. “I got into so much trouble for that! Gabriel was like, ‘What are you trying to do, Lu? Start mass panic because people think it’s the second coming of Christ?!’ Honestly, it wasn’t even that bad!”

Alastor blinks. “The… Archangel Gabriel?”

“Otherwise known as the glorified messenger boy of God,” Lucifer mumbles as they enter the hospital. “I just wanted to feed those kids!”

“Right. Well, it was that bad, Lucifer. I’m pretty sure you started a cult in your name.” 

“No, honey. In our name!” 

A pointed clearing of a throat disrupts them and they look up. The receptionist is giving them a bored, impatient look with her raised eyebrow and the unimpressed set of her jaw. “Visiting a patient?”

“No. We’re looking to request my friend’s medical records. He was born here.”

Her gaze slides from Lucifer to Alastor and she hands over a piece of paper. “Fill this up and go down to the records room at the bottom floor,” she says, placing a pen on top. “Stairwell at the end of the hall.”

“Right, thanks!” Lucifer says, beaming at her, but her desk job must be terrible enough that she just blinks and turns away. He slumps. “Tough crowd.”

Alastor quickly fills up the information on the sheet. “Not everyone can be charmed so easily by your face, apparently,” he says, not looking up. 

“Does that mean you’re charmed by my face?”

“By charmed you mean matches my murder profile, then sure.” Al hands back the filled form then turns back to Lucifer with a sharp grin. “I’m very charmed by your face, Lucifer. So charmed in fact, I wanted to kill you on the spot.”

Lucifer smiles back, smug. “Like you could.” 

“One can dream.”

“Sure you can, Al,” Lucifer pats him softly on the arm. “Now, let’s go! I want to be in and out of this building as soon as possible, thank you.”

“You really hate these hospitals.”

Lucifer pulls a face. “Sometimes hospitals are nice. It’s where human life usually begins. But it’s also where it ends, where it can suffer the most.”

“But you can heal. I’ve seen you do it. Easily.”

“Not in death, Al. I’m not a god, even if it seems like it. I shouldn’t decide who lives,” Lucifer says, face unreadable. “Or who dies.”

“Then who does?” 

“Since I’m an agent of Heaven, then God or His plan. Although, I’ve always been partial to people deciding for themselves what they want to do.” 

“So is that permission for me to go home?” 

Lucifer hits him lightly on the arm, laughing. “No! Don’t you dare, or I swear I’m telling Dorothy.”

“Below the belt. Calling my mother. That’s a bit childish.”

Lucifer sticks his tongue out in response. 

They enter the stairwell and take the four flights of stairs down to the basement. It’s musty and smells vaguely damp. Alastor grimaces, shoulders a little stiff as he moves away from both the moldy wall and the dirt-encrusted railing. 

Lucifer whistles. “I figured this place was old, but this is… a health concern.”

“The black mold on the wall is certainly concerning,” Alastor says as he unfolds a handkerchief from his pocket and presses it to his nose. “Remind me again why exactly we visited this place.”

“To find out more about your dad, of course.”

“I honestly couldn’t care less about him.”

“You might not care, but I do. It’s the one thing I don’t know about you.” 

“Well, mom doesn’t talk about him much at all, even when I ask. All I know is that he’s white.”

“Which is why we’re here.” 

“How does that relate to my redemption?” 

Lucifer presses his lips together. “Well, the murderous and violent behavior obviously didn’t come from your mom.”

“Yeah, it was a gift from God, actually.” 

“Ha! Very funny,” Lucifer says sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. “I just need his name anyway. Then I can steal Dad’s book of human souls for more information on the guy.”

“That exists? I thought it was St. Peter at the pearly gates with the book of names?”

“Yeah, but that’s a different book. Those are just the names that can enter Heaven.”

They exit the stairwell once they reach the bottom and Alastor tucks his handkerchief back into his coat’s inner pocket. The basement is damp but at least lit and less musty than the stairwell. The entire hallway is eerie with very little noise compared to the bustle of the upper floors and no people seem to be around. 

Lucifer stiffens next to him and Alastor can’t help but smirk. “Are you scared, Lu?” 

“Of an old hospital in the mortal realm? Obviously not!” Lucifer laughs awkwardly, snaking an arm around the crook of Alastor’s elbow. “I was just thrown by the… cleanliness.”

“That’s a tad elitist of you, don’t you think?”

“Says the one that brought out a handkerchief.”

“I could practically see the spores from the mold.”

Lucifer flushes. “Fine. It’s creepy,” he admits, pulling him along. “Now let’s shake a leg before I find a paralyzed man, feel bad, and recreate another biblical story, hm?”

“Don’t you like having your own cult? You could have been the Second Coming.” 

“Oh, please! That’s not for another century, at least.”

Alastor blinks in surprise, reeling from the information, but Lucifer makes a soft excited sound as he pulls him into a room with a sign by the side of the door indicating that it is called the ‘Records Room’. 

The Records Room is an apt name for a small room with rows upon rows of cabinets labeled alphabetically at the front. There is a desk between the door and the cabinets with a pasty-looking young man at a chair behind it, scribbling away at an index in front of him and a few files piled at his elbow. When they enter, he immediately looks up and stands to attention, hitting his knee on the way up. 

“OW—! Hello, erm. Can I get something for you?”

Lucifer looks at this young man with slight concern. “Uh, yes, you can,” he says, walking closer. Alastor follows after him, eyeing the cabinets. “I’m looking for a file for my friend? His birth certificate, in specific.”

“Right, hold on a moment,” he says, ducking under his table and opening the drawer by the desk. He rifles through the papers for a moment and takes out a single sheet of paper, which he hands to Alastor. “Fill this in—it’s for our records—and I’ll get your certificate. Name?”

He leaves soon after Alastor tells him his mother’s last name, leaving him to answer the form while Lucifer looks through the young man’s work. It’s a simple form to finish so he is already done by the time the young man returns, file in hand which he exchanges for the form. 

“Unfortunately, that’s our only on-hand file, so you won’t be able to take it home with you,” he says as he scribbles something onto the form with brightly colored ink from his pen. “I’ll be needing it back when you’re done.”

“Don’t worry,” Lucifer says, taking the file from Alastor’s hands. “We just need to check one little thing.” 

Lucifer opens the file for both of them to see and there, written in bold print, is the name of his father: Ernest Wood.

“Ernest Wood?” Lucifer says, rolling the name in his mouth, as he reaches for a cocktail shrimp with his fingers. He pops it into his mouth under Alastor’s disapproving scrutiny. 

“Please use your fork. You’re a menace to polite society.”

Lucifer rolls his eyes but follows Alastor’s words anyway, taking a napkin to wipe his hand and using a fork to eat another shrimp. He swallows his bite before continuing with a grin. “Alastor Wood doesn’t sound like a very nice combination of words, does it? Cheers, Dorothy.”

Alastor sighs, using a fork and knife to cut through the meat on his plate. The knife passes through the tendons like butter and melts easily in his mouth too. “So what does that book of yours say about Ernest Wood?”

Lucifer reaches into a pocket in the inner lining of his coat jacket, drawing a thick, leather-bound book with gold accents by the front and back and more along its spine. It looks ancient—yellowed scuffed pages near the front, showing its age—but the leather around it is still rich and supple, as if angels took great pains to revitalize this book’s appearance every other century. Lucifer places the book between them before replying, “This is the Book of Life. Every soul destined for Heaven is recorded here.”

Alastor blinks in surprise. “Are you sure you should be bringing that out here in a restaurant in the middle of New Orleans?”

"Please. To most, this book is entirely useless. Very few people can view it, much less edit it. Even I can’t add names to this.”

“You have a far too high regard for yourself.”

Lucifer laughs, opening the book and showing its blank pages. “Oh, Al. You’re going to make me blush.”

“Can you read it?” 

“Of course I can read it,” Lucifer says, tapping the pages with a seemingly random rhythm until the book starts to flip on its own, thousands of endless pages full of virtuous lives going by in a minute. It takes a moment before the tome shuts itself, going audibly silent in the wake of its display. “Well, that answers one question: Ernest Wood is an asshole.”

“I could have told you that and I’ve never even met him.”

“It’s good to be sure,” Lucifer says, reopening the book again. “One last person.”

“Who? Me?” 

Lucifer looks away, uncomfortable. “I already checked for you. You’re not in here. Normally I can’t do anything, but there’s a first time for everything!”

“Oh.” Alastor wants to say that the confirmation that he still won’t get into Heaven even after all the work he and Lucifer were doing made him feel repentant, but he’s not surprised by the revelation. It feels expected. He had already made his bed a long time ago, before he even met Lucifer, and resisting it is futile. “Then who are you checking for?”

“Your mom.”

Lucifer opens the book, taps the pages again, and the pages start flipping. However, unlike with Ernest Wood, the book eventually stops on a page. “Dorothy, a queen among women,” his angel says, eyes bright and mouth pulling into a smile. “I’m not even surprised.”

“You better not be in love with my mom.”

“Of course not, dear. You’re the only one for me.”

Alastor smiles, flicking Lucifer’s nose, who bats his hand away. “That’s more like it. Although, that’s disgustingly sappy.”

“Because I’m disgustingly sappy.”

“And I’m still working on that.”

Lucifer kicks him under the table and Alastor laughs despite the sudden pain. “You’re so full of it,” Lucifer says, looking back down at the book open on the table and reading through the contents.

“Is there more on there other than just the name?”

“Of course. Names, birthdates, parents’ names, and…” Lucifer trails off, growing increasingly pale. He closes the book quickly. “That’s it.”

Alastor’s eyes narrow. “You’re hiding something.”

Lucifer swallows and fiddles with the metal chain around his neck. “I am.”

“What is it then?”

“Does it matter so much? Your mom is going to be happy until the end of time, guaranteed.” Lucifer closes the book. “Trust me. She’ll be fine.”

Alastor watches as his angel tucks the book away back into his inside pocket, an audible ‘poof’ indicating that it vanished somewhere else. Lucifer is an incredibly powerful angel who seemingly cares about him and his mom. Alastor knows him, has lived with him for years, and can read him like the back of his hand. He knows that everything Lucifer does is for Alastor’s own good, and if there is anything in his power he can do to protect him, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. 

“Okay, my angel,” he says, looking at Lucifer's face, shuttered close and lips bitten through from anxiety. “I trust you.”

“If there is anything I could do to change things, I would. Without hesitation.”

“I know.”

Lucifer smiles, taking another shrimp. “Good.”

Chapter Text

The last thing on Lucifer’s checklist is the easiest one to do. There are no church choirs to sing at, no community service endeavors, or any of the sort. Alastor finds this tame in comparison, but Lucifer is completely serious as they stand in front of the familiar chipped, green-painted door of his childhood home. In Lucifer’s hands are three bags of groceries, bursting with fresh produce and raw meats straight from the market they purchased just that afternoon. In Alastor’s hands is their gift. 

“Is this really the last thing on your list?” Alastor says, frowning down at the paper outlining everything they’ve done these past few weeks—each of the accomplished ones scratched out with varying levels of aggressiveness—with the words ‘birthday at Alastor’s ma’ being the last one. “Seems weird for… redemption, isn’t it?”

Lucifer rolls his eyes, nudging him. “Trust in the process, yeah? Between the two of us, who is the angel here? Besides, it makes sense. If there’s a person in the world that you’d listen to, it’s your mom.”

Alastor can admit that Lucifer’s reasoning is right. He sighs and says, “Fine. Still not sure how it relates to redemption though.”

“Easy. Your mom is also the most moral and kindest woman I’ve ever seen, if—”

"Absolutely not,” Alastor hisses, pulling Lucifer’s hand back just as he reaches up to knock. “You are not telling her about those murders, Lucifer.”

“What do you take me for? An amateur?!”

“Yes.”

Lucifer pulls his hand away with a scowl. “Even so. I’m not going to give her any information that might arrest her for being an accomplice for your murders, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“That isn’t what I’m worried about.” 

“Then what— oh,” Lucifer says then smiles in a way that usually precludes something empathetic. “Alastor, her being disappointed in what you did is what we’re looking for. That’s why I put it at the end of the list. It’ll be the worst for you, but it’s the last card I haven’t played yet.”

“Maybe we should do that choir thing again. I don’t think we gave it the shot it deserves.” 

“The choirmaster says if you ever enter his immediate vicinity again, he is going to call the fuzz.”

Alastor’s tongue clicks. “If he wasn’t being such a—”

“Alastor, you threatened to kill his family and skin his dogs alive!”

“I obviously meant I’d skin his sons—”

“Alastor!”

“I wasn’t going to go through with it! I did agree to follow along to your insane idea about—” Lucifer pointedly knocks on the door of his childhood home, effectively cutting him off. Alastor glares at his angel and the man returns it vindictively.

It takes a moment, but his mom does open the door and Lucifer quickly switches from anger to charm, smiling wide as he greets her. “Hello Dorothy! Happy birthday!” 

His mom laughs, surprised, as she opens the door wider for them both to step in. “Oh! I didn’t expect either of you to come here. I’m so surprised!” 

“Sorry if we’re intruding, if you had other plans,” Lucifer says with a sheepish smile as they step inside.

“Not at all, not at all. I was just about to call you two and invite you over, actually.” 

“That’s good. I’ll just put this in the kitchen, shall I?” 

“Of course, dear,” his mom says with a kindly smile, but when Lucifer is well out of earshot she turns to Alastor sharply and says, voice thick with disapproval, “Letting him carry all those bags on his own, Alastor? Did I not raise you to be a gentleman?” 

Alastor winces. “He insisted,” he defends, then because his mom still looks about ready to snap at him again, shoves the gift he was holding into her hands. “For you. From us. Happy birthday, mom.”

His mom eyes the wrapped present, a smile on her lips. “Oh, you boys shouldn’t have,” she says, giving him a look that said she noticed the obvious sidestep. “Let me guess, you bought it and Lucifer picked it out?” 

“Why would you think that? I have both style and money,” Alastor says, shaking his head. “But yes, that is how it went.” 

“Lucifer really likes the coffeehouse job, hm?”

Not quite. Lucifer whines about the shop all the time, and Alastor had suggested once that he work somewhere else. “I think he doesn’t see the need to get a different one, even if he is more than qualified to work literally elsewhere.”

“I can imagine he would work well in those jazz clubs you oh-so-like to visit.”

“He likes to perform,” Alastor allows. “Although, I think he’d prefer to stay where he is now.”

“Shame. He’d be very popular.”

Alastor doesn’t doubt that he would be. Lucifer sings too well and has a too-pretty face that, if he really wanted, wouldn’t hurt his chances of making it big. However, it begs the question of what even is fame and money to an angel? Alastor doubts that the number of people knowing your name or having seen your face on the papers could ever factor into someone getting into Heaven, nor how powerful an angel they can become in the afterlife. That’s just how it works. To Lucifer, fame and money and every asinine thing humans strive for is probably laughable to him. 

Alastor wants that fame, though. He wants his name in everyone’s mouth and his face on the papers. Good thing, between the two of them, Alastor became the radio host.

“Come on! I’ve been dying to eat your crawfish boil again after Christmas,” Lucifer calls from the kitchen, the sound of cupboard doors opening and closing can be heard from the hallway. Lucifer pops his head out of the room, batting his eyelashes, and says “Please?” before ducking his head back again inside the kitchen.

His mom tucks the gift they got her in her apron and says, “I’ll open this later after dinner. Come, I’ll need your help. That Lucifer of yours isn’t very handy in the kitchen.” 

“He’s improved, but there is a reason why I don’t have very many late-night broadcasts,” Alastor says with a wry smile. 

“He’ll go skinny without you, I bet.”

Alastor shrugs. “I don’t know. He can make a decent pancake now.” His mom laughs as they enter the kitchen.

Cooking in the kitchen with his mother brings Alastor back to afternoons together on the rare day offs his mom could get from her jobs, with the white cat on their windowsill (that he always thought was their pet cat), watching them with wide blue eyes and tail flicking lazily. The cat was a stray, but he was one of the friendlier sorts—always letting him and his mom pet him and would gladly deal with their pests despite not living there—and his mom always told Alastor that this cat probably belonged to someone else, despite the lack of a collar, because of how clean the coat was.

Alastor started cooking with his mom young. She taught him how to use a knife properly for cooking once he was old enough to hold it. How to cut the tomatoes and dice the carrots so he could help while she stewed their meal for that day and the rest of the week if they could save it. These were the rare times Alastor had his mom’s full attention and he gets to talk about the silly things he gets up to at school.

As far as Alastor can remember, such days during his childhood, amidst the bullying for being mixed or for being weird, and the nights alone when his mom was still working to support them both, were his fondest memories. 

Now, it’s just him and his mother again. She moves a touch slower because of her age but no less sprightly, with dark hair graying at her temples and atop her head. Lucifer is with them now, too, a touch more helpful than a cat that slept most of the afternoon away, but only just. His mom deveins shrimp with a quick flick of the knife and takes the slimy guts out within ten seconds. It happens so fast that Lucifer, who was tasked with only peeling the shrimp, is struggling to keep up. 

“Ow!” Lucifer hisses, shaking his hand. 

“Pricked your finger again?” Alastor asks, pushing his halved red potatoes, cut-up cobs of corn, and sausage into the bubbling pot of seasonings, lemon, and beer. 

“It’s a design error, I’m sure of it.” 

“You can just say you’re bad at peeling shrimp. Because you are.”  

“I’m doing decently well! Better than the first time!” 

“The first time I had to peel your shrimp.” 

Lucifer flushes, dumping his shrimp skins into a bowl. “My point still stands,” he mumbles. “And! Did you not like that I told you your cooking was the best I ever had?” 

“Well, yes—”

“Until I had your mom’s cooking, of course.”

Alastor huffs while his mom laughs as she places the peeled, deveined shrimp next to the rest of the seafood he and Lucifer bought this morning. “Thank you, Lucifer. You flatter me,” his mom says with a fond smile. “Your shrimp peeling has gotten better.”

Lucifer preens, sending Alastor a smug look that has him rolling his eyes in return. “You hear her?  Your mom said I got better.”  

“Yes, I did. In no way did she say it was good, either. From very bad to bad is still considered ‘gotten better’.”

His mom hits him lightly on the arm after she washes her hands and wipes them down. “Oh, stop it. You’re going to make Lucifer cry again.”

“I don’t cry.”

“He can take it.”

“Boys, please. Alastor, you’re making your poor ma feel older than her years,” his mom says with a roll of her eyes. She nudges him out of the way from the stove and clicks her tongue. “Go on and get. I think we need more tomatoes from the store. I want to make that jambalaya you like so much.”

Alastor’s eyes flicker between her and Lucifer then back again. “Alright, anything else?” 

“No, and don’t you worry. Lucifer and I can handle ourselves, can’t we darling?” His mom turns with an expectant eyebrow raised to Lucifer who quickly straightens, nodding. “See?”

He huffs. “Fine,” Alastor says, pressing a kiss to his mom’s cheek then brushing the inside of Lucifer’s wrist lightly on his way out, lighting up at the way his angel smiles at him in return. “Don’t let Lucifer burn the boil!”

Lucifer’s smile drops quickly. “That was one time!”

The nearest store is a bit of a walk away. When he arrived, fifteen minutes had already elapsed. As always, there is already a crowd of people there, along with the strong smell of something sweet from the fruits. Most of the noise comes from shop vendors trying to sell their wares, setting up tents underneath to block out the sun, and buyers asking for selling prices and haggling for some. 

Alastor makes a beeline for the tomatoes, immediately picking out a kilogram of the ones that looked best. “How much are these?” he asks, reaching for his wallet.

“Seventy-five cents a kilogram,” the shop owner says, her eyes flicking down into the baggy that counted about twelve small tomatoes. “Hey, your voice sounds familiar. You on the television or something?”

Alastor’s smile tightens as he takes the money out. “Radio, actually.”

Recognition lights up in her eyes as she takes the money. “That’s why your face isn’t familiar! You’re that Alastor fellow, right? My family loves listening to your broadcasts.”

“Oh, do they? That’s great to hear!” 

“Listening to the news had never felt so charming,” she says, bagging up the tomatoes and handing them over. “I hear you’ve become real popular. Your broadcasts are the best in the state.”

“Oh, really?”

“Every single person in Louisiana probably knows your voice at this point, don’t you think?”

Alastor does know, if his paycheck at the end of every month says anything about it. His ratings also speak for themself. Regardless, he beams in pride and replies, “Thank you for letting me know! I am quite pleased that you enjoy my broadcasts!” 

He takes the tomatoes and starts the trek back to his mom’s house with a skip in his step. He’s popular, and it seems everywhere he turns he finds a new fan who appreciates his wit and charm. Lucifer is going to roll his eyes again and comment about how this job doesn’t help his massive ego.

Alastor grins to himself as he crosses the street and reaches his mom’s house in a lot less time than he expected. He opens the door, noting that he forgot to lock it on his way out, and closes it softly behind him. Lucifer and his mom’s voices can still be heard from the kitchen, the smell of seasonings wafting from the open door. 

“You’re a much better teacher than Al,” Lucifer says and Alastor can’t help but huff softly. “He gets too impatient or messes with me.”

“Oh, he has always been the impatient type, my Al,” his mom says and Alastor can hear the smile in her voice. “Although, I suppose I can understand why my son likes messing with you.”

“So it is hereditary!” 

His mom laughs. 

“You know,” Lucifer says after a beat. “I’ve never had a mom before. So it’s nice that I’ve met you, Dorothy.” 

“You can drop the Dorothy, if you’d like. Call me ‘mom’. Especially considering—”

“Considering what?” Lucifer says, his voice pitchy. Alastor can picture the way his angel’s cheeks quickly flood with yellow, and how he will immediately try and hide the unnatural color.

“Oh, I’m sorry dear. I just assumed. You can call me ‘mom’ regardless of whatever personal relationship you have with my son.”

“Right, um… Thank you, Dor— mom.”

Alastor has to quickly smother his snort before he gets caught, but his mom has no such qualms about releasing a giant laugh. 

“That’s it, dear. Baby steps. Perhaps in a couple of years down the line, it will be easier.”

There is a small pregnant pause before Lucifer finally says, “Yeah.” 

Alastor takes this as his cue to enter. He opens the front door again, much louder this time, and closes it noisily behind him. He walks into the kitchen and finds the crawfish boil sitting in a pot on the counter, cooling down, with Lucifer at the stove and his mom putting some diced garlic cloves in a bowl. 

“Hey ma. I got those tomatoes.”

“Thanks, dear,” his mom says without looking up. “Just put it on the counter.”

“Al! You’re finally here,” Lucifer says, stepping away from the stove and gesturing for him to take charge in his place. “I’ve been meaning to use the restroom.”

Alastor takes the wooden spoon and steps into Lucifer’s quickly vacated space. Before leaving though, his angel sends him one last pointed and meaningful look over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner. Alastor sighs. He was hoping that Lucifer had forgotten somehow—his memory spotty when it comes to the little things—but it appears this isn’t as little as he first thought. 

“Is there something you need to tell me, sweetie?” his mom asks with a smile and a raised eyebrow. “Or rather something Lucifer thinks you should tell me?”

Alastor scowls and his mom laughs, taking out the tomatoes and washing them in the sink. 

“The two of you aren’t as subtle as you would like to think.”

“That might just be Lucifer. He always manages to be the elephant in any room he walks in.”

“He’ll take offense to that if he heard you.”

Alastor grins. “I’m counting on it, actually.”

"Alastor,” his mom says, stern, as she nudges him with her elbow. “That’s not how you treat your special someone.”

“Special someone?” Alastor frowns. “That’s not Lucifer and I. He’s a man,” I think, “and it isn’t how you described, mama.”

His mom wipes her hands dry, then pats him softly on the shoulder. “Trust your ma, Alastor. She knows what she’s talking about.”

Alastor isn’t one to argue with his mom so he drops it in favor of the actual topic he needs to broach. “Well, um, Lucifer did tell me to tell you something, but it has nothing to do with him.”

“Oh? What is it dear?”

Alastor swallows, suddenly unsure of what to say. He loves his mom. She is likely one of the most important persons in his life. He tells her so much and is one of the few he’d actually listen to. He trusts her word implicitly. He isn’t sure what he’d do if she rejects him after finding out one of the major aspects of his life that he’s kept hidden for years. His mom looks at him, suddenly worried at his silence. 

“Oh, my darling boy,” she says and her voice is a balm on his nerves. “What is it you want to tell me?”

“I, um—”Alastor clears his throat, the charisma and confidence needed to do his job suddenly lost on him. He figures he should just rip out the bandage. “I kill people. Killed, past tense. I haven’t done it in years.”

His mom blinks in surprise, suddenly so still. Alastor knows that she’s thinking of what to say, to sparse through her own thoughts, and to absorb what he’d just told her. Alastor never had to question his place in his mom’s life before or if her love for him had any strings involved, but it happens now. He thinks it, the thought floating to the surface, unencumbered. For many, except for Lucifer who had known from the onset but he’s a bit of an oddity, this would have been the moment to leave. Alastor wouldn’t blame his mother if she did. 

“I… don’t know what to say, Alastor,” his mom says, pressing a hand to her mouth. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Telling me to get out of the house could be a start?” Alastor offers, wryly, and his mom gives him a stern look in turn. 

“I’m not kicking my son out on the street on my birthday, Alastor.”

“It would have been a reasonable reaction considering the circumstances.”

His mom places her hands on his cheeks, somehow cradling his face in her hands despite the height difference. “No, it wouldn't be. It saddens me that you’d think that. I’m not going to throw you away. Not over this.”

“Most would disagree.”

“Most are stupid.”

That startles a laugh out of Alastor. It sounds a little wet. “But ma.”

“No. You listen and you listen to me good, alright?” she says as she brings his face down closer to her own. Alastor obediently follows. “I don’t know why this happened, and I still don’t know how I feel about it, but you telling me is important. It is so important to me that you told me, darling.”

“My brave little boy, I love you so much. How long have you been hiding this from me?”

Alastor swallows. “A while.” Years. “I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“Nothing you do would make me hate you,” his mom says, her voice breaking but it’s firm. “You’re my son, Alastor. Never forget that.” 

“I know. I’m sorry, mama,” he whispers, closing his eyes. For what exactly, Alastor isn’t sure, but it felt necessary to say. “I’m so sorry.”

His mom hums softly. “Lucifer knows, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. From the start.”

“I’m glad he told you to tell me,” she says, smiling. “Although, I know you. You would never listen to anyone unless you were meaning to do it from the start. And don’t give me that face, young man. I raised you, don’t forget.”

“I know. Although, I’m not so young anymore, ma.”

“You are still my darling son,” his mom assures, kissing his forehead softly. “My darling and most wonderful son. No matter what you do, that won’t change, and I’m just so glad to see you so happy.”

Alastor blinks, smiling. “Am I?”

“Without a doubt,” his mom says, patting him softly on the cheek. “Now, I will need to freshen up. Lucifer should be just about done now.”

His mom leaves for the bathroom and Alastor slumps into the nearest kitchen table. It could have gone worse, so this response was a nice surprise. Lucifer appears at the kitchen door and Alastor doesn’t look up when he enters.

“Are you okay?” Lucifer asks, sliding a seat next to his and sitting down, knocking their legs together. His angel leans and lays his head on Alastor’s shoulder. 

Alastor rubs a hand through his eyes, pushing his glasses and bangs aside. He sighs and leans to lay his head on top of Lucifer’s. As always, he smells nice and clean. “It went about as well as you’d expect.” 

“At least she didn’t call the cops?” Lucifer says wryly and Alastor can imagine the grin on his face, awkward and sheepish. “Thank you for talking to her. I know you didn’t want to do it.”

“Well, it’s done now. Though I’m glad you had me do it.”

“Yeah?” 

Alastor closes his eyes and threads his hand through Lucifer’s own. After that talk, he feels impossibly lighter, a weight he hadn’t known was there finally lifted, and, for the first time, he can see what his mom was talking about. Alastor is happy, happier than he had ever been before. He smiles into his angel’s hair. 

“Mhm. Very glad. I’m very glad.”

Chapter Text

When Alastor arrives back at the apartment from work, it’s already dark. He nudges his shoes off and closes the door behind him. It’s the only pair by the door. He checks the clock and it’s already well past closing for the coffeehouse. He at least finds a note on the kitchen table with Lucifer’s familiar handwriting, held down by a pen, saying ‘Have Heaven business! Don’t wait up for me!’ written sloppily along its surface. Alastor frowns at the paper, but doesn’t think about it further. 

He’s had a strange day. Everywhere he went, people looked at him strangely or asked questions, such as, “Were you not here just a few minutes ago?” or even, “You weren’t wearing glasses earlier,” that seem nonsensical. Alastor never even had the chance to ask about it because store owners usually politely mask their confusion and sidestep it before he could question further. Honestly, he was hoping to ask Lucifer about it because he is more likely to have heard down the grapevine about what’s been going on. However, with him being gone for who knows how long, Alastor might have to ask Mimzy or a less reliable acquaintance.

Alastor changes out of his clothes and makes himself a very late and lazy dinner from whatever they still had—which is a fair amount so perhaps Lucifer popped into the market before leaving—and pours some feed into Keekee’s bowl on his way to bed (for when that devil spawn cat deigns to come out). He passes by Lucifer’s bedroom on his way and it’s dark and quiet. Alastor doesn’t like entering the room if he can help it. It is messy with projects everywhere (that Lucifer claims are in specific and important places that Alastor should not touch because he might “mess up his system”) and feathers scattered on every surface. He’s fine with it as long as Lucifer’s mess doesn’t encroach upon his or their shared space, but he closes the door because his angel has a habit of forgetting to close it all the way. 

In the morning, Alastor is still alone in the apartment. The sun is already up, but there is no familiar smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen. Lucifer must not have come in during the night. A little weirder than usual, Alastor can admit, but he doesn’t think much of it again as he changes and decides to skip breakfast. He’s on his way out when he hears a knock on the windowpane and a familiar pure white sparrow is fluttering right outside. Alastor huffs, opening the window and letting Lucifer into the apartment as he flies into his hands. 

“Did you sleep outside?” Alastor asks and the little bird trills softly before shifting rapidly into Lucifer’s human form with a cloud of smoke. Despite the change in weight, he somehow manages to keep his angel balanced in his arms. 

“A little bit,” Lucifer replies, leaning into Alastor’s shoulder and wrapping his arms around his chest. “I left my keys at work.”

“Magic?” 

“Was too tired.” 

“What were you doing all night?”

Lucifer falls silent as if wondering if he can explain or not. Alastor notices that he does that sometimes—very rarely, but it happens—when there is something more he knows that he can’t say just yet. 

“Your dad’s in town,” he finally says. “He came by the shop.”

Alastor blinks. Huh. Well, that explains one thing. “Is that why you were gone all night? Following this asshole?”

Lucifer hums. “I don’t trust him.”

“You and me both, but it’s not like I give a damn about what he does or where he is. I don’t care to see him.”

“Even so, he’ll come looking for you, Al. He’s… I don’t trust him.” I don’t trust he won’t hurt you is what Lucifer is saying. 

“If he does anything, it’s nothing either of us can’t handle,” Alastor says, walking to the kitchen and depositing him onto one of the chairs at the table.

Lucifer doesn’t reply.

Alastor gets to work surprisingly on time with an angel in tow. Lucifer is under the impression that his dad is a bigger threat than he actually is. He doesn’t do anything overtly different from an outsider looking in, but his angel refuses to leave his side and follows him to work. The receptionist—Molly?— at the front desk greets him with a smile as always that quickly shifts to confusion when she sees Lucifer. 

“Good morning, Alastor. A guest?” Molly eyes Lucifer when she says ‘guest’. In response, his angel just beams at her.

“Just for today, Molly. He’ll need a guest pass.” 

She nods, taking out the pass and a clipboard of papers that Lucifer will need to briefly fill out for security purposes. “Are you helping him get a job then?” 

Alastor snorts. “Unfortunately, not today. Although, hilarious you said that. My mom mentioned the exact same thing.”

“I’m perfectly fine at the coffeehouse, thank you,” Lucifer says without looking up from the form. 

“He means he’s perfectly fine with me buying anything he wants.”

“I don’t even ask! I just—”

“—stare forlornly at a store front then back at me with the saddest baby blues you ever did see.”

Molly laughs, quickly pressing a hand to her mouth to smother it, as Lucifer squawks and looks at Alastor with those same baby blues but with indignation. Lucifer passes back the paper and Molly hands over the pass he needs to access the upper levels of the radio tower.

“Bye Molly,” Lucifer says as they leave. “Was nice to meet you!”

“Bye! Lovely to have met your partner, Alastor.” 

They take the elevator up, and once the lift starts ascending Lucifer turns to Alastor and asks, “Partner?” 

“It’s a fair assumption, don’t you think?”

“Like… romantic partner?” Lucifer frowns. “We don’t go on dates.”

“I don’t like dates. It’s unnecessarily frivolous. We eat dinner together all the time.”

“Business partner?”

“In a sense?”

“Partner in crime?”

“You don’t do crime.”

“I like that you specified that I don’t do crime.”

Alastor grins in wry amusement. “I used to be a serial killer, honey.”

The elevator stops as they reach their floor and they both step out. This would be the first time Lucifer had entered the radio tower, as far as Alastor knew, and it shows in the way his eyes brighten in wonder at the offices full of people shuffling scripts and phoning sponsors. Down the end of the hall, with the blinking lights and delicate machinery that Alastor hasn’t the faintest idea how it fully works, is the network for transmitting his broadcasts. 

“Humans are brilliant,” Lucifer breathes, looking about ready to touch one of the buttons. 

“Ah, ah, ah,” Alastor grabs the scruff of Lucifer’s neck before he can step closer. “No touching anything.”

“You’re really no fun.” 

“I’m here for work, and aren’t you supposed to be too?” 

The studio they enter is one Alastor uses every day. It’s padded to keep the sound in with enough blinking dials and sensitive sound equipment that he has to give Lucifer a meaningful look before anything else. He then takes a seat before shuffling out some papers to read off for the finer details in his broadcast, and then his microphone, which he gingerly removes from its case and slots into place to connect it to the station’s sound system.

“You still use that?” Lucifer asks, sounding too proud and excited that Alastor won’t be surprised if his angel just starts preening. “I didn’t know you liked it so much.”

“It works better than any of the other microphones they have here. Someone is always asking where I get it and if I can get any more.”

Lucifer laughs. “Too bad, but it’s one of a kind.”

Alastor already figured this out. Even if he’s not the most religious person, you don’t just throw away a gift personally given to you by an angel. More than that, it’s a gift from Lucifer, specifically crafted by him for Alastor. So yes, Alastor takes special care of the microphone and doesn’t know exactly what he’d do if it ever gets stolen or somehow breaks, despite how meticulously he looks after it. As far as Alastor was concerned, only he and Lucifer were allowed to touch it.

Before he could reply to Lucifer, his producer enters the studio with a sheaf of extra papers detailing some other content he would need for the broadcast. Alastor’s producer is a man with a good head on his shoulders, but with too much of an eye for business. He’s a little on the old side and balding.

“Here, Alastor,” he hands over the papers and lists out what they’re for. “This is something you have to say during the initial segment. It’s a little advertisement for some toothpaste brand. Then some follow-up news that came in this morning. Some changes in gas prices and whatnot.” 

“No guests today?” Alastor asks as he reads through the papers. “A bit disappointing.”

“Well, it’s not like very many celebrities are coming into New Orleans, now are they? They’re all the way up in New York or California!”

“Not even someone local?”

“Local, huh?” his producer considers then turns his head to Lucifer who is busy picking at the hem of his shirt. “You! Want to become a star?”

Lucifer quickly snaps to attention, refocusing so fast he looks a little dazed. “Um. Pardon?”

“I’m asking if you want to be famous, kid.” 

“No?”

Alastor has to stifle his laughter before his producer catches him. “Who are you?” 

“Alastor’s roommate,” Lucifer says then adds awkwardly, “Don’t worry! I won’t disrupt the broadcast.”

“See that you don’t,” Alastor’s producer says, then produces a card from his suit pocket. “Let me know if you change your mind. Alastor, broadcast in ten minutes!” 

His producer leaves and that’s when Lucifer asks, “Was I… just scouted by your boss?”

“You’re pretty, you can sing, and he’s been looking to break into the film industry.” At Lucifer’s tight look, he asks, “Not a fan?”

“Of film? I like it, as you know,” Lucifer says and Alastor has to roll his eyes. “Of the film industry? Not particularly. It’s very… cruel.”

“The world is cruel, Lucifer. Why? Is Heaven not cruel?” 

“It… can be.”

Alastor looks up, curiously peering at Lucifer’s face, but he’s staring down at the hem of his shirt again. The thread is loose at his sleeve and hangs awkwardly down to his hand. He drops the conversation and refocuses on the papers he has to skim through for today. In no time at all, ten minutes pass, and the countdown signaling that he’s about to go live starts up. Alastor turns to Lucifer who looks at him with a smile and two thumbs-ups. 

He grins in return and, once he’s on the air, Alastor pitches his voice low and says, “Good morning, darling.” Lucifer immediately turns bright gold and Alastor’s grin widens. “And hello New Orleans. What a wonderful day we’re having!”

“You use that voice of yours too much,” Lucifer comments as they step outside of the elevator on their way out for Alastor’s lunch break. “Don’t you ever worry that it’ll stop working?”

“I sure hope not. How else will I work, Lucifer?”

“No, I meant when you pitch your voice really low and it gets all husky to get me all bothered.”

“Oh, that one. You know, I don’t think it will ever stop working.” Lucifer grimaces and Alastor knows he’s right. “You’ll end up hating me in the next thirty years or so, but that voice will still work.”

“Confident that we’ll still be the same thirty years from now? You’ll be in your late sixties.”

“Well, not exactly the same. I’ll make you push my wheelchair and cook for me instead, obviously.”

“Same old apartment?” 

“Maybe a house.”

Lucifer bites his bottom lip. “Hey, Al, I—“ he stops abruptly, hand immediately gripping Alastor’s arm and pulling him backwards. His shoulders stiffen and his eyes turn cold as he looks ahead.

The cause of Lucifer’s sudden change in demeanor is a tall man with dark brown hair covered with a top hat and a face so familiar that Alastor knows he’s seen that same one every time he looks in a mirror. The man smiles, polite but cold, and tilts his head as he says, “Am I correct to assume that you are, Alastor?”

“Yes, I am he.”

The man removes his top hat and greets, “Good. Lovely to meet you. I am your father.”

Lucifer doesn’t let his arm go. If anything, his grip tightens.

Alastor grew out of thoughts or wants about meeting his father as a child. His mom had always been enough for him, despite the erratic working schedule, and he never found the typical father-son bonding experiences he hears about from classmates at school to be particularly enjoyable. His dad was also white, and having grown up mixed race in a colored neighborhood made him resent his dad more than any urge to want him in his life. Perhaps if circumstances were different, he would have liked to have met and grown a relationship with him, but as far as Alastor is concerned, his dad is as good as a stranger to him. He would have preferred not seeing him for the rest of his life.

This was made abundantly clear as all three of them sat in a booth at Alastor’s old workplace—the restaurant with shitty Susan who died a couple years ago (good riddance)—with an assortment of fried food. His dad—Ernest—is the only one eating, while Alastor was only picking at his food and Lucifer hasn’t let his arm go once. He was like a particularly irate cat, slashing his tail back and forth behind him, with his claws deep into his arm. 

“I heard that you’re a radio broadcaster now? Fairly popular all across America, from what I can tell.”

Alastor nods. “I’ve been doing radio for years now.”

“It pays well?”

It does. It pays very well, in fact, but he doesn’t want to divulge just how much. Not when Ernest has a glint in his eye. “Fairly.”

“I assume so. You’re a bigshot now, aren’t you?”

“You can say that,” Alastor says before deciding to cut to the chase. “Why are you here exactly?”

“In New Orleans? On business, of course.”

“Not in the city, but here. Meeting with me. You’ve had almost four decades without any contact, what’s changed?”

“Can’t a man want to meet his son? You’re very popular around here, Alastor. Everyone mistook me for you so I had to look you up, and lo and behold. A son.”

“Lo and behold,” Alastor echoes. “Right. So you came looking for me after you realized your son became a popular, well-paid radio announcer, am I correct?”

Ernest smiles in such a familiar way that Lucifer shifts next to him. “You make me sound like a much bigger asshole than I am.”

Doubtful. He’s a bigger asshole than Alastor let on. “If you’re looking to piggyback on my success or have some of my money, you’ll be deeply disappointed.”

“That wasn’t even what I was looking for,” he says, like a liar. “I just wanted to see how you and your mother are doing. I imagine she’s still in the picture?”

Alastor doesn’t reply, simply bites another piece of his lunch. 

“How about a girl at home? I’d imagine you’re popular with the ladies.”

“I don’t have a girl at home.”

“Oh… Is it because the two of you live together then?” Ernest asks, eyeing their linked arms. “It’s a little… shameful, isn’t it? Being so… open.”

Lucifer kicks him and sends him a meaningful look before he could so much as think about murder. Alastor clicks his tongue and responds, “We live together. It’s really nothing to write home about.”

“I suppose people have their… fetishes. Although, I’m surprised,” Ernest says, looking at Lucifer. “You aren’t disgusted with this.”

“Why would I be disgusted with Alastor?” Lucifer says in a tone that doesn’t even attempt to hide his disgust for Ernest.

“Oh? Did he not tell you he’s colored? I know he doesn’t look it, but his mama’s colored, you know.”

Alastor’s mouth twists, and Lucifer only says, “I know.”

Ernest leers at Lucifer. “You work at that coffeehouse down the street, don’t you? I reckon you don’t get paid that much. Is that the arrangement then?”

“Arrangement?” 

“Well, since my son here is making boatloads of money…”

Lucifer laughs incredulously, the grip on Alastor’s arm getting tighter. Alastor keeps his face stoic despite the pain. “Are you seriously insinuating I live with Alastor for his money?”

“Live with, sleep with.”

Alastor has known Lucifer for a very long time (about a third of his life, in fact) and lived with him for all of it. In that time, he has seen a myriad of emotions cross his angel’s face, like happiness, sadness, and annoyance. However, this would be the first time cold stillness falls on Lucifer’s features and he looks about ready to commit a murder himself. Alastor is honestly thrilled with the thought of seeing Lucifer kill his shitty dad, but he doubts that is what he’d want for himself. Thankfully, his angel recognizes this because he doesn’t move from his seat despite the grip on Alastor’s arm tightening and the restaurant filling with an unnatural amount of static.

“Are you a God-fearing man, Ernest?” Lucifer asks, and at the received nod continues with a cold voice, lights flickering above their heads, “Well, that’s too bad. Because when you come knocking at Heaven’s pearly gates, I will personally kick you down the steps to Hell myself.”

The grip his angel has on his arm is beginning to reach unbearable levels of pain and Alastor has to pat the back of Lucifer’s hand to get his attention once he hears the faint snap. The lights abruptly stop flickering and the static in the air dissipates as Lucifer looks at him, eyes wide in horror as he realizes what exactly he’d done, and lets him go. 

“I’m so sorry, Al,” he mumbles, angelic magic reaching into his arm and healing it so quickly that Alastor thinks he had imagined the sound of breaking bones. “Are you okay?”

“I will be. Are you?”  

Lucifer presses his lips together, hands fluttering around Alastor like he’s suddenly too scared to touch him, and casts Ernest a look of utmost repulsion. “I will be. Let’s go back. Your lunch hour is ending.”

They move to leave and, as they are about to exit the restaurant, Alastor turns around and says, voice so low only Ernest hears him, “Pleasure to meet you by the way, but if I see your face again, I will string up your intestines into sausage links and have andouille for breakfast.”

Lucifer doesn’t bounce back as quickly from that conversation as Alastor originally expected he would. He isn’t sure if it was because of what Ernest said and implied or how tenuous his control got—breaking the bone underneath Alastor’s arm from the strength of his grip and scaring the customers of his old workplace. However, with the way his angel is keeping his distance, fingers picking at the necklace around his neck, it might be the latter. More than that, he is also silent for the rest of the day until Alastor clocks out of his shift. 

“I’m sorry again about the arm,” Lucifer apologizes, pulling a face as they walk back to their apartment. “I think I got too angry.”

Alastor hums in agreement. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that angry before, and you’ve met Susan.”

“Susan may be awful, but that was supposed to be your dad. Dads aren’t supposed to be like that.”

“Your dad any good then?”

Lucifer huffs a laugh. “Not at all, but he isn’t the ideal point of comparison, no matter how much he pretends to be.” Lightning strikes in the distance, and Alastor thinks it odd considering there was no forecast for rain in his broadcast this morning.

“Do you think that you’ll be a good dad then?” 

“Absolutely not,” Lucifer says, voice thick. “How about you? Would you want to have kids?”

“I’m not very fatherly. I never had a point of comparison.”

“Sure you did. Your mom is the perfect person to look up to. I look up to her all the time.”

Alastor's smile turns soft. “She would love to hear that,” he says, looking up at the sky. It’s a quiet night. “Do you want to eat dinner at her place tonight?”

Lucifer looks up at that same night sky, the stars reflecting in the blue of his eyes. “If she won’t mind,” he finally says after a pause. “I’d love to eat her cooking.”

At the tip of Alastor’s tongue is him asking Lucifer if he’s okay, but he instead opts for, “Alright then. I’ll get the car.”

In front of his mom’s street, Alastor immediately understands that something is wrong. Only the light inside the living room is on and nowhere else in the house. The door is ajar, left carelessly open by his mom (or whoever else it could be) and the glass on the windows is broken. He feels rage bubble up suddenly in his chest, clawing and gnashing its teeth at him with a familiar lust for blood, and he bursts open the door of his car. His ears are ringing, his focus sharpening to a single point—his mom’s front door.

Alastor hopes that this is just a break-in. A desperate person breaking into a nice, old woman’s home because of starvation. He hopes his mom is still at work, taking a later-than-usual shift, and that she was nowhere inside the home. 

There is blood on the doorknob. It’s fresh. (What an amateur mistake.)

The hallway is dark, but a trail of blood leading from the door to the living room draws Alastor’s attention anyway. He doesn’t dare breathe. He follows the blood even if he knows where exactly it leads. Compared to the hallway, the living room is bright. Too bright even. It makes the scene he enters too stark in his memory, the red too vibrant. Alastor tosses away all his carefully constructed rules of decorum and sinks to his knees, his pants soaking up the blood— so much blood—and his hands staining with gore. Such a familiar sight doesn’t send the usual thrill down his spine. 

“Ma,” he says and his voice is a shaky whisper. 

She doesn’t reply, but her eyes still focus on him. They’re brown and warm, smolders of life left of what should be a bonfire. Alive, but barely. There is still hope. 

Distantly, he hears Lucifer gasp behind him as he enters the living room and Alastor immediately understands what he can do, who can help him. Just a few hours ago, Lucifer healed a broken arm in a few seconds without lifting a finger or breaking a sweat. He can heal her. He has to.

“Alastor, I’m s—”

“Heal her,” Alastor cuts him off, and his voice cracks. “You can do it, can’t you? Heal her.”

Lucifer’s silence is damning. 

Her eyes dim, her breathing stutters. Desperation claws at him, ripping up his insides. Alastor can’t breathe, he can’t think. “Lucifer, heal her. Please.”

Lucifer is in front of him, eyes glowing with power, but full of so much sadness that Alastor already knows what he’ll say before he even says it, “I can’t.”

Alastor wants to rip those eyes out. 

His mom places a shaky hand on his and her eyes are a little clearer than before, like a burden was taken from her, but the light in her eyes is dimming. 

“My son,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, and the way she says it speaks volumes. 

Alastor breathes in shakily. Her hand slackens on top of his. The rattling of her breathing quiets and the erratic beating of his heart so deafening in such quiet stillness. 

“Al—”

“You could’ve healed her,” Alastor says, voice a deadly calm. He doesn’t look at Lucifer, just at the unnaturalness of his mom’s too-young face. “Why didn’t you heal her?”

“It was her time.”

He stills. “What do you mean?”

Lucifer shifts. “I mean, today is when she was meant to die. Guardian angels can’t interfere with that.”

“You knew?”

Silence. 

“Lucifer. You knew?”

“I— yes. I did.”

Something in Alastor finally gives and shatters. 

He can’t help himself. He laughs. Suddenly, the entire day made sense. The clinginess, the odd lapses into something somber, and…

“Ernest did it, didn’t he?”

Lucifer doesn’t reply and that is as good a confirmation as any. 

Alastor laughs again, running his hands through his hair and the blood— his mom’s blood— feels slimy and sticky when his fingers sink into his curls. But he doesn’t care. How could he care? His mom is dead. Dead from a murder that Alastor could have stopped.  

And Lucifer knew it would happen.

He stumbles to his feet and heads for the front door. His pants are wet. Alastor thinks they’ll stain. He decides he doesn’t care. He passes by pictures on the wall of the hallway—one that his mom always said was her favorite because it was one of the few they had of a younger him, smiling—and only sees his own reflection staring back at him. His hair is matted with blood. Under this lighting, his hair almost looks red. 

Alastor finds it hilarious. So hilarious in fact that he throws the picture frame clear across the living room, missing Lucifer’s head by a mere inch, and it smashes behind him in a shower of glass.

They stare at each other—one in wide-eyed shock, glassy with unshed tears, and the other in deranged contempt—and Alastor has so many things to say and do. He wants to scream and start yelling. He wants to run off and murder Ernest in cold blood. He wants Lucifer to stop looking at him in guilty pity. 

He wants his mom.

However, instead of all that, Alastor just asks, “Why?”

Why did you let her die? Why didn’t you tell me this would happen? Why did you just stand back? Why did she even deserve a fate like this?

“I’m… not allowed to interfere.”

“You’re not allowed?” Alastor repeats, in a tone so incredulous he actually starts laughing again. “You let my mom die because you’re not allowed?”

Lucifer doesn’t reply, too at a loss for words, and his eyes are so wide they practically engulf the rest of his face.

Alastor stalks forward, steps slow and deliberate. “My mom is the kindest person you will ever meet, and you know this. You told me yourself that you adore her, that you look up to her. More than that, she loved you. In fact, she loved the both of us—people who clearly didn’t deserve her in our lives.

“And you’re telling me that what Heaven planned for her is to be brutally and painfully murdered and you just stood there and let it happen?” 

He stops in front of his angel, crouches down, and pulls him closer by the front of his shirt. “Tell me, Lucifer,” Alastor whispers, “If letting an innocent life like my mother die is what it takes to be an angel, then how is it any different from being a murderer?”

He shoves Lucifer away and Alastor stands. It has become abundantly clear to Alastor where he stood with Lucifer. What was a human to an angel if not a mere footnote at the bottom of the page? He leaves, the familiarity of bloodlust cloying and tempting as always and he doesn’t even try to stop it, welcoming it back with open arms. 

Alastor is halfway to his car when he hears, “Al, please! Don’t do this. You’ll still be able to see your mom in Heaven, I promise!”

“And I’m just to trust your word now?”

“But she’s in Heaven now! I thought—”

“You thought what?” Alastor turns around, voice seething. “That because she’s in some supposed paradise up in the clouds, I should be happy? That I should be glad that I was robbed years of my life with her?!”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“No, that is exactly what you meant! You don’t understand because you’re an angel who has lived for so long, deciding everything for us lowly humans like we’re pieces in a game or toys to play around with!”

“So what? You’re just going to throw it all away? All that effort we put into redemption just to spite me?!” Lucifer asks in disbelief as Alastor returns to storming back to his car. “I already told you that you’ll be able to see her again! It isn’t the end of the world.”

Unfortunately for Lucifer, to Alastor, it is the end of the world. He slides into the driver’s seat of his car and looks at Lucifer properly. His eyes are ringed red, the collar of his shirt is stained with blood, and his hair is mussed out of his usually put-together style. He looks awful, but Alastor just lets the bitter taste of betrayal swallow any fond affection he feels whenever he looks at Lucifer and turns the car engine on. 

“Alastor, please. Don’t do this.”

His hands tighten around the steering wheel. His hands are still stained with his mom’s blood. Alastor remembers begging too. Heal her, Lucifer. Please.

He scoffs. Please. 

“My dear guardian angel,” Alastor says, sickly sweet and voice loud enough for the sound to be carried from his car. “I’ve already tried it your way, and I’ve got only one thing left to say to you.

“Go fuck yourself.”

Alastor drives off.

Ernest is easier to find than Alastor would care to admit, so easy to bait out with the promise of cash. What an unsightly animal following the scent of money like a bloodhound, but he squeals like a pig at any injury. He screams out truths and promises, and Alastor picks up the pieces of information he wanted to learn. Yes, he killed his mom. Yes, she begged him to spare her. No, he didn’t. 

Please, please, please. Ernest begs over and over. Please spare my life. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t cut off my balls. 

Honestly, Alastor is over the word. He hates it, loathes it, abhors it. With every please Ernest says, Alastor cuts off a body part. He does this until the pleases run out, the begging fading to whimpers and choked sobs. It takes most of the night, but eventually Alastor has a bowl of homemade andouille sausage for his breakfast the next morning. He spends it alone for the first time in a decade. 

It was delicious.

… It would have tasted better with some coffee.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean I have to be a guardian angel?! I’m an archangel too, Michael! Guardian angel duty is—it’s tedious!” 

Michael rolls his eyes, flipping through numerous tomes with a wave of his hand. “If it were enjoyable it wouldn’t be a punishment, now would it? Besides, you like humans, been begging to watch how they lived. Besides, the human lifespan goes by faster than a blink of an eye. You’ll be back in no time to bother the cherubs.”

Ugh. Michael is right. This feels more of a gift to him than a punishment, but he won’t be able to return to Heaven until the task is over. Lucifer huffs, but acquiesces. "Fine. How about my usual duties?” 

“You’re imaginative. You can figure it out.” 

At that obvious dismissal, Lucifer sighs and flies out of Michael’s office. There is never any use in arguing with his older brother. If he does, Michael might get petty and increase the number of human lifespans he has to suffer through before he’s allowed to return to Heaven, all just to make his punishment worse. Except you aren’t petty in Heaven. Rather, his brother’s exercising his right to discipline Lucifer further for both complaining and actively disobeying. 

Lucifer’s forehead wrinkles. Maybe going to Earth for his punishment won’t be so bad. He won’t have to follow Heaven’s rules as strictly and he can pretend to have the freedom and autonomy granted to humans. That’s something to enjoy at least, but living amongst humans will be… hard. He hasn’t been down to Earth—hadn’t been allowed to go down, really—since Eden, and Lucifer will have to carve a life for himself somehow down there. He could take the easy way out and spend his time as different animals or even in a non-corporeal form, but where was the fun in that? 

Lucifer finally has an opportunity to interact with humans for the first time in a long time! He’ll make it worth his while, even if he is down there as punishment. 

Lucifer leaves Heaven quickly. This is partly because Michael informed him of a timeline, but also because he’s just so excited to leave! The opportunity will likely never come up again if his siblings have their way, so Lucifer will take any chance he gets. He follows his assigned soul down to Earth just as it leaves the clutches of Heaven, fluttering around the tiny spark of beating life, glowing faintly and so purely, to the south of a country in the Americas. 

Once Lucifer is close to approaching humans, he shifts quickly into a small bird, barely the size of his hand, and follows after the spark into the bustling streets of humanity’s working class. He cruises by men with hats and women in dresses fastened tight at the throat. Lucifer watches in awe at the machines the humans were riding in—spluttering and sputtering like an angry kettle accompanying a carriage without horses—and he wonders briefly how it works and if he could make it himself. 

The spark stops at a hospital and enters a room on the third floor. Lucifer steps back, watching from the branches outside an open window. Immediately after the spark enters, the sound of a baby crying is heard and the mother inside lets out a soft sigh of relief. 

“Did you have a name for your baby in mind?” The wet nurse asks after she finishes bundling up the crying infant. 

Lucifer leans forward just in time to hear the mom’s soft, tired response as she answers, “Alastor. I want to name him Alastor.”

Being a guardian angel is usually a job taken by lower-level angels or virtuous souls who understand what it’s like to live amongst humans already. Most of the time, seraphs are left in Heaven to govern or do more important duties so that the living and the afterlife run smoothly. That is why tasks that require angelic intervention down on Earth are reserved for other angels (unless the task is terribly important). 

Being a guardian angel, in particular, is the most tedious assignment to do. It requires you to stay on Earth for prolonged periods of time, depending on how long your human charge lives, as well as guide and protect them to give them the best chance at Heaven. More often than not, the human they protect ends up in Hell one way or another in the end, making the assignment tedious at best, and traumatizing at worst. 

This was  Lucifer’s suggestion which he made right after Eden, after his idiotic blunder, which helped prevent him from falling from grace. Regardless, he was still punished severely, especially for his station. For millennia, Lucifer was not allowed to descend to Earth nor watch humans while they lived, but he was tasked with accounting for guardian angel task results, hammering home the repercussions of what he did thousands of years ago. 

So maybe Lucifer resents humans a little. He could never truly hate them—their potential for goodness is always something he can believe in—but his misguided faith and hope in them has left him wanting. However, that faith and hope still exist somewhere in him and he’s optimistic in protecting his charge. 

In essence, a guardian angel is tasked with doing a few key things to maintain their charge’s protection. First, they are not allowed to stray too far away from their human, always able to step in if the need arises. Safeguarding their charge’s soul is a guardian angel’s number one priority. Maintaining that goodness, keeping that human from harm, and ensuring that that soul reaches their intended date of death is of utmost importance. From Lucifer’s observations, it happens, rarely, but it still does, that a guardian angel is derelict in their duties and that soul never makes it to their intended death date. They die too early, young and tragic, and depending on the life they lived, their guardian angel can take their soul back up to Heaven with them. Most children find themselves in Heaven this way. 

Second, guardian angels cannot be discovered as guardian angels by their humans. An angel’s true form can kill humans on the spot, no matter their place in the hierarchy of power, and so discretion is an absolute must. Regardless, while guardian angels are written in human texts and have their existence speculated on, most of humanity doesn’t realize that angels have always been there, hovering over their shoulders to protect them. 

Lastly, don’t get too attached to your human charge. Guardian angels are guards with jobs to do, but there have been instances when the care and affection an angel has for their human backfires, causing their charge to die and end up in Hell. It’s a well-known tragedy amongst guardian angels and, while not officially a rule, is still upheld as one of the most important to follow. 

Lucifer fully intends to follow these rules, he tells himself as he watches his human charge; all rumpled dark hair growing out of his little head and wearing old, hand-me-down baby clothes from the neighbors. As most babies go, his charge is as ordinary as they come. He’s cute, chubby, and full of energy. However, like most babies, Lucifer’s charge tends to cry quite frequently, like now, with his little features contorted and bright red with splotchy tears.

Currently, Lucifer is a fully white cat with a tuft of discolored blond hair atop his little head. He’s sitting stiffly and distinctly uncomfortable, ears twitching. His charge isn’t his first time interacting with a baby and, from what he’s learned, it’s usually the same song and dance. All babies are squishy, defenseless, and needy ( like most humans, Lucifer supposes), but they usually just need food, water, and attention.

He glances at the door from the corner of his eye—completely shut tight with not even a light open in the hallway—and back down at this baby’s pinched, crying face. Lucifer had been pulled from wandering around the apartment, inspecting the complex with curious little sniffs, when his charge’s little whimpers took his attention, eventually turning into full-blown wails. 

“Hey, um,” Lucifer says and immediately grimaces at how his voice gets drowned out by the noise. “Alastor? That’s your name, right?” He is ignored again, the sound beginning to reverberate in the apartment. 

Where were his parents?! Shouldn’t parents be rushing to attend to their newborn? Lucifer’s seen neither hide nor hair of the father, and he knows that his charge’s mother left for work earlier that night for the first time since giving birth—busy as she was once again now that she can return to her work at the factory (a human means of production, Lucifer supposes)—so that left his babysitter. However, his charge’s babysitter wasn’t showing up, not even to turn the light on and check in?!

Lucifer paces, the sound of crying starting to reach uncomfortable decibel levels, especially for a cat. He tries to remember a time when he took care of babies prior. Whenever Lucifer played with cherubs at home, showing off his powers of creation to their stunned little faces seemed to amuse them. Human babies remind him of cherubs, except cherubs were far more developed, but perhaps something that worked with them would work with kids. 

With one soft wave of his paw, golden angelic magic starts to curl and twist teasingly in front of his charge’s nose. The soft glow it elicits and the rich, beautiful color of the magic catches this baby’s eye enough to startle him from his crying. Lucifer’s shoulders and tail slump, relieved. The magic contorts again, rapidly changing into a duck fluttering its little wings, then to stars floating right above his head.

His charge reaches out, making a grab for the magic, and is amused by the way it swirls around his hand. Lucifer laughs at the surprise and wonder on his face, sniffing softly until his cries are no more.

“You’re kind of cute,” Lucifer muses, tail raised and swaying behind him. “Humans sure have a weird way of procreating. Their kids come out barely able to talk, much less walk. I remember the first humans. They all just started with dust then came out fully formed. Now that’s a way to procreate.”

His charge giggles, almost like in agreement, reaching out towards Lucifer. The hand that lands on his face is kind of sticky if he’s honest, but the absolute joy on his charge’s little face makes it worth it. 

“Well, if they came out fully formed already, we wouldn’t have you! And look at you! You can’t even speak yet, but you’re so cute!”

His charge makes small monosyllabic noises, but doesn’t provide much else in the way of conversation, still entranced by the magic surrounding him. Lucifer had expected that, but he still smiles.

Sometimes, Lucifer forgets how fragile humans can be, especially human children. His charge is no exception,  currently bundled up in his bed surrounded by his meager toys. The window is ajar, letting in the cool night air to soothe his fever. Right now, Alastor is bright red—pink dots covering most of his arms and legs—with a flush over his entire face, save for the area around his mouth.

Earlier, a doctor came into his charge’s room and discussed with his mom about the illness that had befallen him. He called it “scarlet fever”, a fairly common, infectious disease that was the leading cause of death in children. Alastor’s mom, at the news, was beside herself. The doctor left a serum, a new remedy for scarlet fever made of horses’ blood, and informed her that he would come back to check on her son’s status tomorrow morning.

That was before dinner. Right now, it is midnight, so late in the evening even Alastor’s mom had already dozed off in her exhaustion. Lucifer, on the other hand, is a bright white songbird, perched on the room’s open window, watching over the both of them.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he whispers so as not to wake the both of them. He eyes the medicine that the doctor gave them and grimaces. “Horses’ blood? Sounds gross.”

Lucifer flutters inside, perching instead atop Alastor’s bed. Up close, his charge looks even worse. His dark hair is strung together in clumps as it clings to his forehead with a damp washcloth on top to keep his head cool throughout his fever, and the rash is angry on his skin. Whenever Alastor attempts to swallow while he sleeps, he shifts uncomfortably and painfully. 

It looks painful. Lucifer hates it. He trills softly, letting a little magic flow into his voice, watching as it soothes some of the bite from the sickness. Alastor settles better, his breathing beginning to even out, and Lucifer has a brilliant idea.

Throughout the rest of the night, he does something he hasn’t done in a long time. Lucifer sings for another human, letting his magic weave into his voice while the music wraps around his charge for the rest of the night. Finally able to sleep well for the rest of the night, the strong, fragrant smell of Alastor’s untouched gumbo on the bedside table wafts through the evening air. 

Lucifer never notices that Alastor’s mom wakes up in the middle of it.

Lucifer bounds forward the moment he notices the familiar figure of his charge exiting his school grounds. Right now he’s a dog with soft, white fur and floppy little ears on his head. He stops right at the gates, sitting down and waiting patiently for the boy to reach him. As always, Alastor is set apart from his peers, looking distant and sullen. There is something dark smeared on his face too, purpling his cheek and swelling over his cheekbone. That immediately has his hunches raised. What had happened during school? 

Alastor stops in front of him and Lucifer can now recognize that the strange smudge on his face is a bruise. He barks, tail wagging, when Alastor crouches down to greet him. Lucifer also smells traces of blood on him. That’s not good. He presses his snout to the side of his head and spots the cut that runs a steady stream at the back of his head, matting his hair. He whimpers. His assignment needs his mom.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alastor says, running one small hand through Lucifer’s white fur. Whenever he speaks to Lucifer, as a dog or a cat, he is a lot more intuitive. He knows that his human rarely, if ever, shows much emotion. “Just some kids at school.” 

Bullying. Lucifer growls softly, snuffling at the wound. It’s still bleeding sluggishly, meaning that Alastor didn’t bother to get it checked by anyone. He can’t have that. Lucifer stops the bleeding and closes the wound without his charge noticing before he backs away, wagging his tail excitedly. 

Thankfully, Alastor doesn’t notice and instead asks, “Are you following me home again?” Bark. “I suppose if you must.”

Alastor and his mom, despite being strapped for cash, manage to obtain a piano from their kindly older gentleman neighbor who had become too sickly to continue playing. Along with the instrument, he hands over books on beginner piano playing and music sheets with varying levels of difficulty. Lucifer likes the piano. It isn’t his favorite musical instrument, but it’s in his repertoire. He stretches over the lid and lies down, blinking sleepily down at Alastor from his perch. 

Alastor took to piano playing quickly. Lucifer can recognize talent and, considering that he has no teacher except for some loaned books, Alastor is exceptional. It will be a while until he reaches the pedals close to the floor, but his piano playing is already quite good as it is. Occasionally, Lucifer has to hint at something he needs to work on by nosing through his books and meowing (his tempo, for example, can be off at times), but Alastor is largely self-taught.

“Mama,” Alastor calls, pulling his mom onto the bench next to him, and she smiles indulgently at him. “Look what I can do! Look!”

Lucifer eyes Alastor’s mom’s guardian angel—a ram angel—over her shoulder from his perch (incorporeal, like most) and they nod at each other in acknowledgment. Despite being around each other constantly, they rarely, if ever, talk. It must be awkward having your boss moonlighting as your human charge’s pet cat, but needs must. 

Alastor quickly takes Lucifer’s attention again as he straightens the music sheet in front of him and starts playing. It’s a very simple song on the D major scale with a basic harmony on the right hand and a similarly easy left hand. Regardless, it sounds nice and Lucifer recognizes it as a hymn from the church. It takes a moment for Lucifer to realize that Alastor doesn’t memorize the music sheet, but is actually reading it as he plays.

Alastor’s mom must recognize the song too because she starts singing, her voice light and pretty. "As the raging storm winds blow, and the clouds are hanging low.”

Alastor smiles, continuing with her and singing in a lovely voice that surprises Lucifer. "When the waves are beating on me, and the night is chill; then his presence in the storm quiets all my soul’s alarm, and I know that He is with me still.”

The song eventually fades away and Alastor’s mom grins at her son, applauding him in their tiny living room. Alastor is beaming, cheeks pink in a proud flush, glad for making his mother so happy. “My son is absolutely talented, don’t you think?” 

“You really think so, ma?”

“Of course, my darling boy,” she says, kissing him lightly on the forehead. “You’re brilliant.”

Alastor giggles, squirming in her hold. “Is it lunchtime yet?”

“Not yet. Why? Want to join me in the kitchen?”

“Yes! Can we please make jambalaya today?”

Alastor’s mom stands from the bench, humming thoughtfully. “I’ll see if we have the ingredients for it first, okay?”

“Okay!” Alastor moves to follow her but pauses, looking up at Lucifer with wide brown eyes. Obligingly, Lucifer stands from his perch and stretches languidly. He hops off the lid and elegantly onto the piano bench, bypassing the keys entirely. Alastor smiles, gathering Lucifer up in his arms and heading for the kitchen. “You’ll like jambalaya. Can cats eat jambalaya?”

(They didn't have jambalaya that day. They had shrimp etouffee instead. Cats normally can’t eat onions or the spices involved in the dish, so Alastor didn’t let him eat much of it. He did, however, pass Lucifer shrimps under the table while his mom wasn’t looking.)

“Your son exhibits incredible violence, especially at such a young age,” a small, portly man with a pale comb-over says from behind a desk. “That young boy he punched—several times, might I add—is still in the hospital because of the bleeding.” 

Alastor’s mom is sitting there, a tight smile on her face, as she responds, “I believe my son was exhibiting self-defense after an inordinate amount of bullying.” 

That same portly man simply smiles at her condescendingly. “Dorothy, you and I both know that—”

Lucifer stops listening to the conversation when Alastor starts to shift in his seat, obviously uncomfortable despite his bland expression. He grew up to be a gangly thing with too long legs and too sharp features. He has yet to grow into all those sharp angles, and it shows. The glasses normally perched on his nose are cracked and broken in half on the seat next to his own, ignored entirely. 

Alastor is in the principal’s office for a fight between him and his bully. While Lucifer knows that his bully—another kid from the school nearby—had it coming and had instigated it, the gore is still wet on the street where it happened. It was bloodier than your usual fistfight, with both of them coming back with their own injuries, but Alastor…

Lucifer saw it happen, and he didn’t want to talk about it. 

Alastor’s mom exits the office, looking worse for wear. She looks scared. She turns to her son, cradling his face in her hands despite the blood still on his cheeks. “Alastor, darling.” 

“Yeah, mama?”

“Don’t you dare do that again, okay? Promise me.”

Alastor wordlessly nods. 

“They almost sentenced you. You’re lucky that kid didn’t die. By the grace of God, you got out of it alright, but you never know when you’ll be that lucky again. Understood?”

“Yes, mama.”

Lucifer flies out through a crack in the open window as a small fruit fly. Heaven is going to have it out for him when they hear about this miracle.

War is always ugly. Even as an angel, Lucifer knows that whenever it happens, humans die. There are no winners in war, only bodies and tragedy. Souls always enter en masse into the afterlife whenever this happens, and exorcisms down to Hell happen every quarter instead of the usual annual. 

However, this war—the humans are terming it the Great War—is a bloody, all-encompassing slaughter that has reached from across the ocean and into their quaint little city in America, dragging every man between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five into the war effort. 

Which, unfortunately, included his human Alastor. 

Lucifer flaps his wings over his human’s shoulders as the battle rages on around them with bullets flying and bombs going off every few seconds. Right now, he’s incorporeal to humans because Lucifer doubts any animals are around during such a bloodfest, and he sees fellow angels doing similarly with their humans. Some angels exchange glances—displeased with the death and suffering—but most are too preoccupied with their own humans.

It’s depressing having to watch angel after angel leave the battlefield—with or without a human soul—to signify the end of someone’s life. Another bomb goes off to Alastor’s left and shrapnel comes flying out at an alarming trajectory. Lucifer slows their path enough that it harmlessly bounces off Alastor and a few more humans near his vicinity. He sighs in relief.

While Lucifer isn’t enjoying the carnage, Alastor, on the other hand, is. 

His human took to the military training fairly easily, despite not having the frame for it. His proficiency with guns and hand-to-hand combat came easily to him, and it shows as he kills the enemy troops with terrifying efficiency. 

Alastor laughs as he cocks his gun, aims, and shoots. Lucifer bites his lip and stops another bullet from hitting him.

The war ends quickly after that, the world breathing out a sigh of relief, and Lucifer returns to keeping watch over Alastor as a variety of animals. At first, it’s quiet. Alastor takes a job at a local restaurant as a waiter. He smiles now, is able to make polite conversation, and adopts a charming persona to customers. It’s peaceful.

Until it isn’t. 

Alastor’s first kill is a caucasian man with sandy blond hair near the university bar crumpled over a crying, terrified similarly aged girl. The man is stabbed right through the heart by a dinner knife. 

Then it happens again. Another man is shot at point-blank range with a pistol in the middle of nowhere. 

Another has his neck snapped, quick and efficient, and thrown into the swamp.

And again. And again. And again.

Lucifer watches, in horror, at the growing number of bodies piling up behind Alastor. As his kill count approaches the dozens, it occurs to Lucifer then that he needs to do something drastic to stop this from continuing. At the rate Alastor is going, if he doesn’t stop soon, his spot in Hell is guaranteed. A guardian angel is meant to only watch from afar, but this wouldn’t be the first time Lucifer had edged the line between watching from afar and interfering.

He takes a human form and gets a job in a coffeehouse close to Alastor’s workplace. Lucifer learns to make the coffee just the way Alastor likes it, and gives it a little angelic boost to make it popular enough that Alastor comes by on his way to work. Lucifer was only supposed to talk to him as a human to try and deter him without divulging his identity. 

Lucifer swears he didn’t plan to be chosen as his next murder target.

Lucifer shimmies out of the covers and from underneath the warmth of Alastor’s arms. He looks at him with a soft smile on his face. He's grown so handsome over the years and Alastor continues to be so even as he ages. Lucifer desperately wants to return to being curled against his side. Except right now he can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking. It happens more often than he’d care to admit. Lucifer opens the door of Alastor’s room, pads softly across the hall toward his room, and slinks inside. The apartment is quiet, but it always is at this time of night—even Alastor is asleep after a fun time in the jazz club. 

He digs around his belongings, moving aside miscellaneous toys and other angelic documents that he keeps forgetting to attend to, until he finds it at the very bottom of his desk. It’s all beautiful, supple leather and intricate gold along the edge of the book. It’s one of the most important artifacts in his Dad’s study, and Lucifer took it when attending to one of his many heavenly duties. If any of his siblings finds out, he is in deep trouble, but this is important. 

He taps the Book’s cover—thrice, twice, once, twice—and pictures Alastor (his soul, the life he lived, the person he is) and the Book opens to accommodate him. It flips rapidly between pages—beautiful different kinds marking the passage of history for every soul that has ever and will ever exist—until it finally falls back onto Lucifer’s lap, quiet and impotent. The information Lucifer was hoping for dashed away. 

Lucifer, stubborn as a mule, tries again. And again the same outcome. Twice more he tries, and the Book continues to rebuff him. Lucifer swallows thickly and tucks the Book back where he hides it under his desk. Ever since he managed to grab a hold of the Book, he had been trying vainly each night to see if anything had changed. Alastor was changing, and Lucifer could see it every day! Heaven just needs to see it, too. 

He numbly stands and walks out of his room and back inside Alastor’s. Unsurprisingly, Alastor—still bleary-eyed and sleepy—is awake. “Where did you go?”

Lucifer licks his lips. “Bathroom.”

“You’re lying,” Alastor says bluntly, blinking some sleepiness out of his eyes. “For an angel, you do that often.”

“Yet somehow you trust me.”

“I do.”

Alastor doesn’t elaborate further and Lucifer takes that as his cue to join him back in bed. He pulls the sheets back around them both and arms wind around his waist, pulling him close. It’s so warm and comforting, easing the sharp edge of his nerves. Lucifer buries his face into Alastor’s neck. He still smells like whiskey and faint cologne. It’s lovely.

“You’re acting strange,” Alastor comments, voice husky with sleep, as he leans his head on top of Lucifer’s, mouth at the crown of his head. “Are you well, darling?”

No. He is most definitely not well. Even Alastor, glasses-less and disoriented from sleep, can see that. Lucifer doesn’t want to think about what to do until morning, when he can put this little tidbit of information in a box and stow it away at the back of his mind. Yet he doesn’t have the time to procrastinate—Alastor is too important.

“Al,” Lucifer whispers and Alastor hums in acknowledgment. “Even if the worst happens, we’ll be okay, right?”

He doesn’t immediately respond and Lucifer purses his lips. “Even if the worst happens,” Alastor says, slowly, as he tightens his hold around Lucifer. “You’ll still be my angel.”

Lucifer closes his eyes and his expression eases into a smile. “Okay.”

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” 

“Eventually.”

Alastor hums tiredly. “Okay.”

Chapter Text

Lucifer watches Alastor from the rooftop of the building across his workplace, while mindlessly gnawing at the metal of his necklace. At his side is a radio, blaring Alastor’s familiar voice as he recites his usual daytime jokes and the occasional news segment. It’s a good way to keep track of the days as they pass by, reminding Lucifer every day of the impending deadline.

“And that’s all folks! Have a wonderful and pleasant morning.” The broadcast ends and the channel changes to the sound of smooth jazz. In the past few days, Alastor had stopped signing off his broadcasts with a term of endearment. Lucifer tries not to think why that is. 

Lucifer hasn’t been home in days, not since Dorothy’s death, and he misses it desperately. He keeps watch from the outside, cataloging everything Alastor does from the moment he gets home (late) to the moment he leaves for work (early). Every day since those sausages were made (that he doesn’t want to think too deeply about), Lucifer notices that Alastor skips breakfast, opting to eat lunch as his first meal of the day. His only meal of the day, really, because he skips dinner too. Alastor hasn’t cooked in days, either. Sometimes he stops and stares at the kitchen as if contemplating making a meal and eating it, but he never does and he inevitably slinks back into his room to not sleep. 

Alastor is running himself ragged, that part was clear. He’s growing pale with shadows under his eyes and he barely talks now. The only time Lucifer gets to hear his voice is during his morning broadcasts, and even then it sounds off. Alastor needs someone, but Lucifer isn’t sure if that someone should be him. 

He’s scared to approach, cowardice and fear so ingrained in his psyche especially after Eden, that the thought of stepping through the threshold of that apartment leaves him anxious. Lucifer knows that Alastor wouldn’t hurt him (probably), nor could he, if he ever decided to show his face again. It’s in the way he pauses in front of his bedroom as he passes by and how, most importantly, he continues to feed Keekee. Lucifer wonders to what extent he does so because Alastor misses him, or because he’s made a habit of feeding Keekee when Lucifer isn’t there to do so. Regardless of the reason, Lucifer is touched. 

He decides to show up for Dorothy’s funeral tomorrow (the rites, service, and burial handled by her closest next of kin, which was Alastor). 

If Lucifer is honest, he still isn’t sure if he’ll be welcomed.

Human funerals are sad and somber events. Life on Earth is so fragile, and so honoring the dead has become a cultural norm for humans. Lucifer understood it logically, but barely anybody dies up in Heaven. It’s such a rare occurrence, in fact, that Lucifer isn’t entirely sure if he had ever attended a funeral before. Perhaps Dorothy’s would be his first funeral. 

Lucifer flies into the graveyard and shifts in mid-air so that his clothes are more appropriate for the event—a simple black suit—and he approaches the small cluster of people. Lucifer hadn’t been seen in days since Dorothy died. He quit his job that morning, much to the owner’s disappointment, and he supposedly disappeared. People probably thought he died, waiting for his name to be read out by Alastor himself during one of his broadcasts (“So tragic, don’t you think? Losing both of them in one day. Poor Alastor.”). 

When Lucifer steps forward, most of the attendees are surprised. People part for him as if anticipating where he wants to stand, where he should stand. Against Lucifer’s better judgment, he stands next to Alastor, placing himself in his presence for the first time in days. He half expects to be ignored, snubbed entirely and merely tolerated until the end of the ceremony when they all disperse. Instead, Alastor watches him, his stare burning the side of his head with great intensity. Lucifer looks up, their eyes meeting. Unlike that night, so expressive and full of emotion, Alastor’s eyes are completely blank, as if his emotions were wiped away like a rag on glass. And just like glass, Lucifer knows how easy it must be for it to break. He saw it after all.

If Lucifer were anybody else, he would have thought that Alastor was doing okay considering the circumstances. He stands the same way he always did—back straight and too rigid to be normal—with his shoulders hunched forward slightly to look properly grief-stricken. It was as if his near-manic mental breakdown a few days ago never even happened. However, Lucifer sees right through it after years of keeping watch over and living with him.

Without prompting, he wordlessly reaches for Alastor’s hand and threads their fingers together. Lucifer half-expected Alastor to pull his hand away or react violently, but he doesn’t. He simply looks away and tightens his hold. 

The casket is lowered into the ground and Alastor’s grip is tight in his, but Lucifer doesn’t let go.

“Are you doing okay?” Lucifer asks when they’re alone and everyone else in the funeral procession has left. Alastor doesn’t twitch or acknowledge that he even heard him. He continues to stare down at Dorothy’s gravestone with unseeing eyes. “I mean, at least it didn’t rain, right?”

“Why are you here, Lucifer?” 

“I cared for your mom.” Alastor scoffs. Lucifer grits his teeth. “And you need me.”

“I don’t need you. I don’t think you realize, but I never needed you.”

Lucifer presses his lips together. “You need someone.”

Alastor turns and starts walking away. “Not you.”

“Like who?” 

“Unlike you, I have friends. My life does not revolve around you.”

Lucifer huffs. “You’re just going to go murder more people again. I’m not an idiot.”

“And I told you to go fuck yourself. If you can’t understand that, you are an idiot.”

“Is that it, then? All that work trying to get you into Heaven, where you can see your mom again—you’re just going to give all that up?!” Lucifer asks, following him.

Alastor stiffens, back straightening. “What does it matter to you?”

Lucifer wants to say it matters to him because it’s Alastor’s life, his afterlife, he’s throwing away. He wants to say it matters because Alastor does. What he and Alastor had, to him, is everything. Unfortunately, Lucifer had never been good with his feelings or using his words.

“Al, I don’t want you to condemn yourself! I want you to have a better life.”

Alastor turns around, looking Lucifer in the eye. “We already had the best life.”

Lucifer can’t stop the way he flinches like he’d been slapped across the face. He should have never interfered like he did. Clearly, he hadn’t been wanted, and now Alastor and Dorothy are reaping the consequences of his decision. 

Alastor turns and continues on his way, and Lucifer doesn’t stop him.

Lucifer enters their apartment for the first time in days, despite their conversation and his own personal feelings. Keekee greets him at the door, rubbing up against his legs and purring softly. He smiles, crouching down to pick her up, and straightens himself to look around. Alastor isn’t back yet from wherever he scurried off to (Mimzy’s jazz club, most likely), and most of the living room looks largely untouched. Barely lived-in, really. He bites his lip and enters the kitchen. Again, it looked barely lived-in.

Lucifer puts Keekee down and walks to the cupboards. Their groceries are still largely untouched. Nothing new was added or removed from any of the meats and vegetables in there, as far as he can remember. Unencumbered, he thinks of what Alastor did with the rest of his… sausages. If he finished or just tossed them after that first meal.

Lucifer swallows thickly. He quickly takes what he needs and places them on the kitchen counter in an attempt to forget the way that that thought surfaces. He starts washing vegetables to cut and put into the pot.

Over the years, Alastor and Dorothy tried to teach him the basics of cooking the best they could, and a lot of the recipes they taught him were Creole dishes. Unbeknownst to Alastor, despite not having the skill and practice of having cooked any of the meals himself, Lucifer had spent years watching Dorothy make those same meals he so adored. Contrary to popular (Alastor’s) belief, Lucifer can be quite clever and he’s confident he can replicate those same dishes she made. It also helped that Dorothy teaches so well. 

“Thank you for coming over for my birthday,” Dorothy said once Alastor left to buy those tomatoes she had requested. “I assume it was you who suggested we cook together?” 

“It’s enjoyable!”

“Are you sure it isn’t because it makes Alastor happy?”

Lucifer’s cheeks heated. “It was an added bonus, I’ll admit.”

Dorothy laughed, turning back to the stove. “At least you’re honest. Come here and help me with stirring this pot. I can cut the vegetables.”

“If you’re sure,” Lucifer said even as he obediently stood to take her place in front of the stove. “Oh. The smell of this is godsent.”

“That we can agree,” Dorothy said, amused. “Although, speaking of godsent, I never expected to meet my son’s guardian angel.”

“Ah, yes. I figured you knew about it.”

“You weren’t exactly subtle. I caught you singing when Alastor was a child. It works wonders whenever I sing it to him when he’s sick.”

“I don’t think Alastor knows where exactly it came from, if I’m honest.”

Dorothy smiled. “I haven’t told him, but I suppose that was clear.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever tell him. It’s something he so heavily associates with you, after all.”

“You greatly underestimate his attachment to you,” she commented wryly, so alike to Alastor that Lucifer couldn’t help but laugh. “Also, don’t forget to stir, dear. You’ll burn the bottom.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! You’re a much better teacher than Al.”

Lucifer stops stirring, looking down at the bubbling stew. It smells correct and, when he grabs a spoon and takes a sip, it tastes delicious. It’s at least close to how Alastor cooks his, which is as good a gauge as any. 

He snaps his fingers and the mess in the kitchen cleans itself up, the peels and cut-off vegetable tops walk themselves over to the bin while rags wipe themselves on the countertop. In seconds, the entire kitchen is as spotless as when he first came in, save for the pot on the stove that he places a lid on top of. Lucifer beams in pride at himself, patting himself on the back for a job well done. He serves a bowl for Alastor, which he places on the table then he picks up Keekee from the floor and rests on the couch. 

To think Al did this for them almost every day for years. Lucifer sighs and closes his eyes, running his hands through Keekee’s fur and slumping into the cushions. He doesn’t wake up until the door slams clumsily open. Lucifer jolts awake, hands finding nothing, (Keekee must have left in the middle of the night to steal at his bed) and he looks up at Alastor who is staring at him with wide, dark eyes. 

Lucifer swallows audibly because the air is thick with awkward tension.  He opens his mouth to say something, but Alastor beats him to it and says dumbly, words slurring a little, “You’re here.”

“I’m here,” Lucifer confirms, then shifts awkwardly, “Are you hungry?”

Alastor blinks at him slowly then he looks at the dining table. “Did you buy that?”

“I cooked it.”

“You can do that?”

Lucifer huffs, frustrated. “You’re the worst.”

Alastor doesn’t laugh, just smiles wryly as he closes the door behind him. Lucifer stands and follows him, biting his lip softly. Alastor finds the bowl and his eyebrows raise as he recognizes the dish. 

“You made me gumbo.”

“You looked like you needed it. After today.”

Alastor shoots him an unreadable look for a long moment that has Lucifer worrying that Alastor is going to outright reject eating it entirely. However, his fears prove unfounded as Alastor takes a spoon and tries a bite. He eats it thoughtfully, chewing the meat carefully before swallowing it.

It’s an even longer moment before Alastor finally says, “It’s adequate.” 

Which, to Alastor, essentially means that it’s brilliant. Lucifer beams, taking that as the compliment it is. Alastor doesn’t notice his mini-celebration off to the side as he eats dinner for the first time in days.

The next morning Lucifer makes a cup of coffee like usual after his nightly duties as the morning star. The process of boiling water and pouring it over coffee grounds slowly is so thoroughly ingrained in his routine that he can do it in his sleep. It’s a shame he hates the smell of coffee now. It clings to his clothes and his skin. He pours a cup for Alastor, keeping it black just as he likes it, and finishes just as the man enters the kitchen. His eyes are wide with shock, like last night, red and puffy from a hangover. Lucifer puts the glass he made into his hands and Alastor automatically takes it. 

“You’re here,” he repeats again like he can’t believe it. 

“It’s going to take a lot more than that to chase me away, Al,” Lucifer says, looking up at him with a smile.

An unreadable expression passes through Alastor’s face, but he takes a sip of his coffee anyway. Lucifer counts it as a win.

Chapter Text

Lucifer doesn’t flee from the apartment again, but the atmosphere is different. He hates the quiet in the apartment. They don’t banter as much anymore, barely talking more than a few words at a time, and the warmth of home seems to have left. One of them opened the window and neither were closing it. He curls Keekee into himself, burying his face into the soft fur of her fluffy little head, and sighs. 

Alastor is undoubtedly still mad at him and his actions when his mom died, and Lucifer can’t even blame him. There is an undercurrent of tension whenever either of them is in the same room that makes any conversation that Lucifer attempts stilted and awkward. There are days when Alastor doesn’t even look at him or ignores him completely, despite his attempts to interact. It hurts, but he knows that Alastor is probably hurting even more. And so, Lucifer is left to bite at his nails, hug Keekee often, and watch powerlessly. 

Lucifer can’t even say that he’s not trying to be there for him. Alastor had stopped cooking entirely, and so Lucifer took it upon himself to make their meals instead. It’s not as well-made as when Al does it (sometimes he over-seasons it or somehow burns it), but he tries. It’s good practice, and a distraction from the quiet of the apartment. Often, Alastor also comes home drunk, which isn’t overly obvious to most, but Lucifer can tell by the soft inflection in his voice and eyes when Lucifer helps him to bed. The behavior never quite sticks again in sobriety.

However, the worst is the late nights. The very late ones wherein Alastor would not come back until early in the morning right before work. They would run into each other with Lucifer on his morning schedule making a coffee already and Alastor just arriving, smelling strongly of… blood. It makes him queasy, and Al never acknowledges him whenever he comes back. After their second argument, Lucifer drops the redemption talk for now, knowing that it isn’t what Alastor needs. However, as days tick by, Lucifer has to watch as time steadily runs out while he stares at the Book of Life, at the spot that would typically have had Alastor’s name if he qualified. 

“Oh, Keekee,” Lucifer mumbles into her soft fur, dropping the book into the air and sending it off back to Heaven. “I’m worried for Al.”

Keekee meows, snuffling the side of Lucifer’s face.

“I have no idea what else I can do. Not when he probably hates me.”

Keekee doesn’t reply and just blinks up at him with one wide yellow eye. Lucifer sighs, smiling somberly, then his eyes slide over to the calendar hung up behind his door. Today is empty, but every single date beforehand is crossed out. 

The deadline is soon, but there is still time. Lucifer still has time.

Weeks pass with little progress, and so Lucifer begins to follow Alastor whenever he leaves the apartment at night. Usually he sticks to being a cat, weaving in and out of buildings, as he shadows Alastor’s footsteps, but he changes into other animals too (a dog, a bird, a snake). More often than not, the excursions are typical behavior of what he knows of Al. He goes out drinking in clubs frequently, drinking his two fingers of whiskey neat with Mimzy and going out onto the dance floor, but Lucifer notices that it happens less so now compared to before.

However, very rarely, Alastor pulls men of any age or size into his car, baiting them with the promise of something or other (sometimes sex, although he never says that outright, or money, which he does say), and convincing them with his charm. More often than not he kills them in his car—brutal, sadistic, but terribly efficient—with a real, wide smile on his face. A smile Lucifer hadn’t seen in weeks, not since Dorothy died. Very rarely does Lucifer stick around to watch, but there were moments like this one wherein he does end up seeing it. 

Now, watching a man killing another in cold blood is never a pleasant experience, but watching the man you love do it while enjoying it so thoroughly is a completely different story. Lucifer watches from his perch in the bushes as a plain white swamp rabbit. The moon is high in the sky now and the bayou is quiet save for the sound of blood dripping onto a small puddle on the floor. 

Alastor moves to stand, wrist deep in gore with his face smeared with blood. The knife he used to kill his latest victim is dripping its own mess on the soil. Alastor takes a piece of cloth from the dead body, relatively untouched, and wipes the knife blade clean, flicking some of the excess blood away.

Lucifer keeps quiet the entire time, cognizant of the precariousness of his position. He knows that Alastor could never (and hopefully now, would never) hurt him, but it isn’t about the physical pain that would hurt. To Lucifer, Alastor is so far gone now. He doubts how he’ll manage to drag him back in time. 

He wonders if he ever will. Tonight had certainly shown something to Lucifer, but he still foolishly clings to some semblance of hope. He saw it in Alastor all those months ago. It must still exist. It must because it has to. Lucifer refuses to accept anything less, not unless he has truly run out of time.

Alastor straightens, face unreadable in the night’s shadow, clutching the knife in his bloodied, gloved hands. Lucifer wonders what Alastor will do next. Perhaps get rid of the body? He remembers how he did it before (thrown into the bayou with a rock strung up on one leg or buried deep in the forest). 

Instead, Alastor catches him off-guard, hand a blur, and Lucifer takes a split second to realize that the knife is heading his way. It strikes his shoulder and sends him stumbling back, caught off-guard. Gold oozes out of the wound and his body attempts to heal almost immediately, but the knife is still stuck in the tender flesh of his shoulder. 

“Well, well, well,” Alastor’s voice, soft and low, is heard over the sound of his footsteps as he approaches. “A plain white swamp rabbit bleeding gold. What a find!”

Lucifer struggles to get up, front paws reaching to grab at the knife and get it out, but Alastor leans forward and pushes the knife down deeper into his shoulder, causing another spurt of blood. Lucifer whimpers, squirming under the sudden pain, and he shifts to his human form in an attempt to dislodge the knife, but Alastor manages to keep it steady.

“My, aren’t you a bit too far away from home, my angel?” Alastor asks, voice too cheerful and bordering on creepy. Lucifer realizes dully that he talked like this to his most recent victim too. “You never really know when to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

“You are my business.”

Something flickers behind Alastor’s eyes. “You know what I mean.” Lucifer cringes as Alastor twists the knife further into his shoulder. “You should have stayed home.”

“So should you.”

Alastor scoffs. “You know,” he says, tilting his head and leaning forward. “I thought after watching me these past few weeks you’d have given up on your pointless endeavor to redeem me. Apparently, I was mistaken.”

Lucifer sighs. “Of course you noticed.”

“You’re a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them. It doesn’t help that I can recognize any form you take.”

“Even so,” Lucifer says, rolling his eyes. “It’s not a pointless endeavor, Al. To redeem you. I wouldn’t have spent more than ten years trying if I thought it was pointless.”

Alastor’s expression darkens and his hand tightens around the knife handle at his shoulder. The blade slams straight through his arm and into the dirt. Lucifer grunts. “Well, it was pointless, so think of those years as a waste. Maybe then we’d both be on the same page for once.”

Lucifer won’t pretend that that didn’t hurt as much as it did. It was a punch to the gut in the worst way and Alastor looked like he meant every word of it. It was worse than the knife in his shoulder, steadily bleeding and contributing to a small pool of golden blood on the floor. Why would he say that? How could he say something like that? 

He hardens his resolve, stubbornly refusing to let those words cause tears to prickle in his eyes. Lucifer doesn’t want to let Alastor see him cry over something so cruel. “I’m not giving up so easily on you, Alastor.”

Alastor stands, plucking the knife from Lucifer’s shoulder and, as expected, the wound seals up so quickly that he could almost forget about it. Alastor looks down at him, laughing. “Then you’ll be trying until the day I die, Lucifer.”

Alastor didn’t know how right he was with how impending the deadline was beginning to be. There were only mere days left. Lucifer stays lying there in a pool of his own blood until the sound of Alastor and the corpse he is going to get rid of leaves.

Only then does he let himself cry.

Lucifer begins his return to the apartment a couple of hours after dawn had elapsed. He spends most of his time staring listlessly up at the sky, at the stars slowly disappearing from the smog, and at the way the sun slowly filters in. It’s cold and damp on the ground, his blood has dried to a cake on the floor, and his tear tracks are uncomfortable after hours outside. Only when the sunlight cascades through the foliage, hitting him uncomfortably in the eye, does he decide to stand up and leave. He cleans himself and the blood up with a lazy flick of his wrist, and takes the long way through the forest. 

Lucifer walks slowly, ignoring the sounds of animals as he walks past. There are three rules in place for guardian angels: protect your human, don’t interfere with God’s plan, and… don’t get attached to your human. Going into this job, he understood all the rules and the necessity for each of them. Each of them was important for having a seamless life with your human.

Lucifer knew this, he practically designed the rulebook, and yet he still tampered. Against better judgment. Like usual. 

Just like last time he hurt not just himself, but someone he cared about too. 

Lucifer is a fool.  

Alastor never needed him, this he knew and was painfully aware of, but he usually forgot about it because at least he knew that Alastor had wanted him around. Or so he thought. What Alastor said still stings even hours later of turning those same words over in his head, looking for some kind of meaning to it. Except what Alastor said was quite clear. Their friendship, their life together, everything that Lucifer had thought mattered was all just a waste. To him.  

He breathes in shakily, pressing his hands to his face. Lucifer is determined to stop crying. He already spent most of the morning as a heap on the forest floor. He can get through this. One human’s opinion of him after a mere decade, barely a blip in the life he’s managed to live, should not be enough for him to care this much. For it to hurt this much. 

When he turns up at their familiar apartment building, trepidation stirs in him. Is Alastor home? He doesn’t know. Lucifer had been too tired to check and to properly keep an eye on him (rule number one comes to the forefront immediately and the feeling of failure is bitter on his tongue). At this moment, he isn’t sure if he can continue to look Alastor in the eye after what he said, at the clear implication in his statement. But he doesn’t have to look at him to help him, right? Lucifer bites his lip, climbing up the familiar steps despite the heaviness in his limbs. 

Alastor should be able to see his mom again. Lucifer wants to make it happen, but the only way is to get him to Heaven. He wants Alastor in Heaven, with mom and him. And so he walks up. 

The building is surprisingly busy—a birthday on the floor right below them is making a lot of noise with jazz music and laughter floats out into the main hall—and so when he finally reaches the door to his apartment, Lucifer doesn’t notice how quiet the floor is in comparison. The sound of jazz is faint as he slots his key into the door and opens it. It’s open anyway, so Alastor must be home. 

The scent of blood—metallic and pungent—is heavy in the air. It’s fresh and palpable. Lucifer’s first thought is heartstopping ( Alastor . What if it’s Alastor?!) but as he rushes into the living room, he’s met with something even worse. 

Alastor stares at him, eyes wide, and his hands are soaked in blood. There’s a knife in his hands. “Lucifer,” he says and it’s a croak. 

His keys slip from his hand in a clang he barely hears. There’s a rush in his ears as he stumbles forward, then drops to his knees. There’s blood on the ground, a pool of it, and it is soaking into his pants. 

There is blood—so much of it—and fur . 

Lucifer’s hands are shaking as he reaches out to Keekee’s prone form, multiple stab wounds right through the center of his little head, and picks him up and cradles him to his chest. Not a twitch or a heartbeat can be felt. 

God’s creatures are so fragile—humans, plants, animals alike—he is aware of that. Yet it never stops hurting when they reach the natural conclusion of their life on Earth. Their potential snapped up and souls shuffled away forever. He had cried when Dorothy had died, even if he knew he’d see her again. Her loss on Earth was so palpable, but her son was Lucifer’s first priority. 

But Lucifer had shed enough tears today. All he can manage to draw out from the hollowness of his chest is how tired he suddenly is. 

Tired and angry.  

Lucifer could barely look at Alastor, much less speak, but he somehow manages to choke out, “Why?”  

Alastor stays silent, but that just proves to make him angrier. 

“Why would you do this?”

Again, silence.

Lucifer can’t ignore the way his gut churns, remembering the past few weeks since the night that Dorothy died. The anger, the looks, the silence. Everything felt like what must have always been there, bubbling to the surface: anger, resentment, hatred.

They never mattered. He never mattered. Any hope he could delude himself into is smothered. The proof is bleeding and dead in his arms right now. 

Lucifer wishes he was never so stupid to think otherwise.

He laughs but it sounds like a sob. “I know you hate me, but there were easier ways to tell me to leave your life forever, you know? Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so stupid.”

“Lucifer.”

He swallows thickly, eyes flickering to look at Alastor for the first time since he entered the apartment. Lucifer hates the look in his eyes. He hates it because he knows that he would have thought that that look mattered. That it was something more than it clearly was. 

He’s so tired of deluding himself. 

“Come to think of it, you did tell me to leave you alone a couple times before,” he says, voice hollow as he stands. “I should have listened the first time.” He shouldn’t have interfered at all. 

Alastor looks at him with wide eyes, blood on his face and clothes, and Lucifer wants to think he looks desperately sad and regretful. He looks like he doesn’t actually want Lucifer to leave, that he really does care for him. Maybe Alastor even loves him. Lucifer’s eyes are dry from crying, his clothes are still rumpled and dirty from the forest, and all he wants is to go home. All he foolishly wants is for Alastor to hold him. 

He turns away, looking down at Keekee’s slack face, and makes up his mind. “I hope you’re happy now, Al. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

He leaves to bury Keekee in the very forest he came from. Alastor doesn’t call nor does he go after him. 

Lucifer wants to say he wasn’t hurt, but he was never good at lying to himself.

Lucifer’s bedroom empties out in moments when he returns. All his clothes, knick-knacks, and tools are sent away to his room up in Heaven with a soft poof. Everything he owns is quickly transported back up as fast and as quietly as possible. He can’t handle having to look at Alastor again right now. He doesn’t even know where he is. However, there are a few things he takes back slowly as he looks through the life he had managed to build for themselves himself.  

At the bottom drawer of his desk, he keeps the camera and a large collection of pictures he’d been taking ever since he made that camera for pictures of Keekee. A lot of it is Keekee, of course, but even more are pictures of Alastor in various stages of his day that he managed to catch. Cooking, sleeping, dancing—Lucifer had it all cataloged. 

Sometimes there are pictures of him that Alastor took without him noticing, only finding them out when he processed those pictures. He had always thought they were strangely flattering. Considering the kind of person Alastor is, he was surprised. He expected most of the photos to be a little more mean-spirited and silly (there are a fair few, and Lucifer remembers smiling when he first shuffled through pictures of him somehow burning water), but the majority of the photos had left him both touched and flustered. Those were moments when Lucifer didn’t even realize his picture was being taken, like fiddling away at something while squinting underneath a lamp light, sleeping, or mindlessly staring at the distance with Keekee in his arms.

The last picture decides it for him, and he takes each photo and places them all into a box. Clearing away those photos leaves only a book left at the very bottom of the drawer. Lucifer purses his lips and takes it out. Flipping it open lurches his stomach and his eyes begin to burn. 

He traces the first picture of them together—Lucifer struggling to do so with how precariously he’s balancing Keekee in one arm and the camera with the other—and breathes in shakily. Despite how his tears cloud his vision, distorting the image into mere splotches of color, he can remember it clearly in his mind’s eye. There are more pictures just like them. Sometimes it’s Alastor holding the camera, but their better shots are taken by someone else. There’s one dark and blurry photo from Mimzy that manages to catch a drunk Alastor about to be dragged home by Lucifer. There are some other solo shots of them—his favorite ones—from some particularly memorable moments like each year’s Mardi Gras, Lucifer’s “birthday”s, and even some photos during Alastor’s redemption program (although he doubts Alastor noticed). 

However, the best photos were taken by Dorothy at her home. Lucifer never noticed when she’d gotten a hold of his camera, but the moments she managed to capture look like picture-perfect idyllic domestic bliss. He eyes a picture of them dancing in Dorothy’s living room (the very same one she had died in). Lucifer wishes he didn’t look so happy. He wishes Alastor didn’t look at him like that in these photos. 

He puts the scrapbook away into the same box with the pictures, closes the lid with a soft click, and sends the box away to Heaven with a small tap at the top.

He stands and eyes the empty room with a hollow feeling in his chest. He moves to his bedroom door and takes down the calendar at the back. Later this week, a day is encircled with exclamation points scattered around it in bold lettering. Lucifer traces the ink, swallowing thickly. 

He burns the calendar in his hands, quick and instantaneous, leaving only smoke and embers in its wake. Lucifer drops his human disguise and slips into a non-corporeal form, spreads his wings wide, and takes off out the open window.

Chapter Text

Lucifer doesn’t return to the apartment. Alastor stares at the small spot on the carpet, still soaked through in blood but now drying maroon at the edges. He doubts Lucifer will ever come back, not with those parting words and not with that look in his eyes when he found Alastor earlier that night after he discovered what he had done (betrayed, disappointed, heartbroken, grief-stricken, angry). He rarely saw Lucifer angry—more so lately, but it was still a rare enough occurrence—but he was spitting mad this time, eyes glowing brightly. 

The next morning, there is a bitter smell of smoke permeating the air. It’s also quiet, too quiet. He walks past Lucifer’s bedroom. As usual, his door is left ajar because he always forgets to close it. Alastor takes a peek inside, expecting to see the usual mess of knick-knacks and tools, but it’s completely empty except for the furniture that must have been there from the start, and some ash by the door. Alastor doesn’t think about that too much. 

There’s a stain on the carpet (still there from last night). It’s completely maroon now, dry all the way through. Usually, Lucifer cleans them up because his magic is easier for stains, but it seems like Alastor is on his own for this one.

He doesn’t look into Lucifer’s bedroom again—or, Alastor supposes, is now the spare bedroom—as he passes by to get into the bathroom for cleaning supplies. There is some hydrogen peroxide in a small corner of their— his —bathroom that had gone unused ever since Lucifer took to cleaning up the stains for them. It’s not empty so Alastor takes it, some water, and a rag.

Unlike the bedroom, the living room is still full of things Lucifer used frequently. The radio is still sitting on the living room table closest to the electrical socket, unplugged and untouched. Lucifer has a spot on the couch that he prefers to curl up in closest to the radio, fiddling with knick-knacks or a new project, so he can easily turn the knob and change the station. Some of Keekee’s belongings are still there too, like her food and water bowls. Alastor will have to throw those away later.

He walks up to the spot on the carpet. Alastor pours the hydrogen peroxide onto the bloodstain, watching the way the chemical breaks down the stain in a bubbling froth on the carpet. He wipes the froth with one of the rags and the stain disappears like it was never there to begin with. He washes out the last of the peroxide with some soap and water. When he finishes, the only remnant of the night’s events is a wet spot on the carpet that will eventually disappear. 

A wet spot and a jarring silence. Alastor turns the radio on. He skips past the jazz and the romance drama channels into the tasteless comedy sketches. The laughter is painfully grating to the ears and not quite right. The radio announcer’s jokes fall flat at best and are downright offensive at worst. It’s a channel he and Lucifer never put on (although the first time they had come across it, Lucifer’s face had scrunched up in enough mild disgust that Alastor couldn’t help but laugh).

Alastor sighs, closes the radio, and picks up his keys. Jazz club it is.

His mom’s funeral was a dour endeavor in dark suits and dresses where members from his mom’s church gathered to pay their respects. Frequently, people had come up to him to send their condolences to her only son, and Alastor just nodded politely as was expected of him. He didn’t care for the ceremony or the people who came, but he still paid for it because she deserved to be remembered with as much dignity and respect as when she lived her life.

Alastor kept a rigid sentinel over her grave as his mom’s friends read out their piece on what she meant to them, how kind a friend she was, how loving a person she was. Alastor already knew all these things. He had witnessed it all firsthand throughout his life and her absence is palpable. 

He can’t even count the times he wished to call her or visit her in the past few days, picking up the phone to dial and then realizing no one would be answering on the other end. Alastor can’t stay inside for too long without remembering that not only was his mom gone, but his angel had also left him. Lucifer had yet to return and it had been days. Feeding Keekee in his absence had become just as much a routine as dialing his mom. 

Alastor wishes Lucifer had healed her. He wouldn’t be standing here on his own, surrounded by people he barely talked to in the sun, and sweating out of the stiffest suit he owned. It’s Sunday afternoon. They would have been at his mom’s preparing for their weekly dinner, as always, even if he knew his place in Lucifer’s life—just a job, an assignment—before he inevitably had to go back up to Heaven. 

Alastor wishes Lucifer was here with him, as childish as that may seem, instead of people he barely even liked or knew. Despite the pain and the disappointment, he yearns ardently for him to be here, if not for him then his mom.  

God answers his prayers for once, or perhaps it’s a stroke of luck because the crowd parts suddenly, making way for someone trying to reach the front of the crowd. Alastor looks to watch and, impossibly, it’s Lucifer, dressed up in a similarly stiff-looking black piece that proves to only make his pale face even paler. 

They stare at each other as Lucifer approaches, blue meeting brown, and Alastor immediately feels the sickening want for comfort trying to claw its way out of his throat. The loneliness of the past few days is heavy in his mind and painful—an ache in his stomach because he hasn’t eaten, he hasn’t been eating at all—and Alastor can’t deny how much he needs another person right now. 

Lucifer must get it, understand it without words somehow, because he took Alastor’s hand and threaded their fingers together. It’s an anchor that keeps him grounded while his mom’s body is lowered into the ground, never to be seen again. 

He tightens his hold around his angel’s hand, the grief hitting him so suddenly after days, but he doesn’t cry.

Alastor parks his car right outside a speakeasy across town. Mimzy doesn’t work here and he very rarely enters this area. It’s a good hour away from his usual spots and no one here would recognize him unless he decides to open his mouth to speak, that is. It’s unusually glitzy outside and crowded for this time of night, so he easily slips in without anyone making a fuss. He orders his usual two fingers of whiskey neat and takes a seat by the bar. Inside is your usual party scene of alcohol, smoking, and spirited dancing in the center of the room. 

He eyes someone across the room with dark hair just like his own and yet very light, pale skin. Alastor takes a long drink of his glass and averts his eyes. 

“My, aren’t you new,” a sweet voice whispers into his ear and Alastor looks up. It’s a woman with long blond hair and a wide, rimmed feathered hat. “What’s a handsome thing like you doing in such a place?”

Alastor smiles politely. “For a drink. Preferably somewhere new.” 

“Oh? Trying to be adventurous this evening?” Alastor hums, neither confirming nor denying. “Trying to run away from something?”

“And what exactly would I be running away from?” 

She smiles, taking a drink from a glass of burgundy red wine. “I don’t know, darling. You tell me.”

“Heard your mama died,” Mimzy says, swirling her drink and then casually knocking it back. “That’s awful, darling. Terrible.” 

Even more than a decade later, she’s barely changed. It’s a comfort for Alastor. “Thanks,” he replies drily. “Figured you wouldn’t have wanted to stand out in the sun for the funeral, though.”

She laughs. “Fuck yeah, I don’t. Was it as boring and stiff as you’re making it sound?” 

“No fun at all. Most of the people who showed up were churchgoers my mom was friends with.”

Mimzy takes another drink, smacking her lips. “Right, and how about your boy? Haven’t seen him around much?” 

Alastor swirls his drink. “He showed.”

“Not too happy about that then?” At the lack of a reply, Mimzy leans forward. “Had a lil fight? Want to tell your darling friend all about it?”

Alastor looks out into the crowd, at the dancing and sweaty bodies. Ever since ‘29, there’s been a distinct change in the energy and life in each club. The hopelessness of their lives hanging over their heads in a way that wasn’t present back a decade ago. Regardless, people come to forget their problems, even for one night of debauchery. It’s no wonder Mimzy and he, as of late, are here almost every night.

Alastor takes a long drink from his glass again, draining the whiskey in one gulp. “We reached an understanding, I think.”

“It’s over then?”

That he isn’t quite sure. Lucifer wants him to go to Heaven, to achieve redemption somehow and see his mom again. A part of him still wants to believe in his angel and the possibility. Another part of him cannot forget the crushing realization that no matter what, Alastor would always just be a box to be ticked off in his little checklist for Lucifer, whose entire worldview is governed by rules. He gestures for a refill on his drink. 

“I don’t know.”

Mimzy snorts. “Then it’s not an understanding, is it?”

“Running away implies there is something I’m afraid of,” Alastor says, taking a sip. He isn’t scared of Lucifer. He doubts he ever will be. “I’m not afraid.” 

The blonde—Alastor still hasn’t asked for her name—laughs. It’s light but high, easily heard above the music. “You don’t just run away when you’re scared,” she replies, placing a cigarette to her lips and taking a deep inhale. She exhales. “People do it all the time when they’re losing and want to make a hasty retreat, or are ashamed and don’t want to face the consequences.”

Losing didn’t seem like the appropriate word for it. To Alastor, he had already lost. The moment that knife embedded itself into Keekee’s little body, blood soaking his hands and carpet, the game had ended, and from the look on Lucifer’s face when he found his beloved cat, there were no winners. More than that, he already faced the consequences, dished out thoroughly in one cold dismissal. 

Alastor can’t even remember the reason why he did what he did. All he knows is that it wasn’t as satisfying as he thought it would be.

“Well, there’s nothing left to run away from.”

She smiles back, taking another inhale from her cigarette. “Might as well enjoy life then, huh?”

Alastor glances to the side. Same brown hair and pale skin, sitting alone near the far end. He tips his drink back for another sip. 

“Might as well.”

Coming back to the apartment to a familiar, fragrant smell had him pausing at the door and looking up, first at the steaming bowl on the dining table where the smell is undoubtedly coming from, and then to the couch where Lucifer was curled up at the far end next to the radio. They stare at each other, air so thick with awkward tension that they could be two strangers meeting for the first time.

Alastor tries to reach for the anger simmering low beneath his skin, the same one that he’s felt for Lucifer since that night in his mom’s living room, but it’s to no avail. Instead, he just says, “You’re here.” Because he is. 

After days of not being around the house, disappearing like smoke without a word or even an appearance at his workplace (which Alastor had found out he quit from not long after that day), here he is again. Alastor wants to say more. He doesn’t. 

Lucifer smiles awkwardly at him, the edge of his mouth tight. “I’m here. Are you hungry?”

“Did you buy that?”

“I cooked it.”

“You can do that?”

“You’re the worst.”

Alastor smiles at the frustration on his angel’s face, the familiarity of their banter easing the tension away like it was never there in the first place. Their first conversation, without any fighting, since his mother died. 

The thought subdues him somewhat and he closes the door behind him and approaches the dining table, eyeing the contents of the bowl. It’s gumbo. He swallows down the lump in his throat and covers it up with a raise of his eyebrow. 

“You made me gumbo.”

“You looked like you needed it. After today.”

Need. Lucifer told him earlier that Alastor needed someone, and Alastor told him that it wasn’t Lucifer he needed. Yet here he is making gumbo for him. Alastor should have expected this. If there is one thing Lucifer is, other than beyond entertaining, it’s very stubborn when he wants to be. He looks at Lucifer strangely, watching the way he worries his bottom lip in anxious anticipation. Alastor almost doesn’t take the offered food out of spite, but his hunger after days and the enticing smell urge him to take the spoon and have a taste.

The gumbo that Lucifer makes for him tastes so much like home something uncurls in his chest for just a moment and he has to pause, memories resurfacing of sick days and lullabies. Alastor had known that over the years Lucifer had learned how to cook (and cook well, at that, with the proof in his hands), but he always let Alastor do their meals because it’s something he enjoys, because it was something he shared with his mom. 

Alastor hasn’t touched the stove since his mom died. He barely ate and only had whatever they had in the local speakeasy. The cupboards were probably rotting with unused ingredients, but Lucifer probably made what he could with what they had. 

“It’s adequate,” he finally says, but he means it tastes just like his mom’s gumbo. He doesn’t say that this was exactly what he needed and that this gumbo is the best thing he’s had all week. Instead, Alastor takes another bite and ignores the way Lucifer is visibly preening next to him.

Alastor polishes up his glass of whiskey and takes another as he leaves the bar. It’s edging closer to midnight now and he weaves his way through throngs of people dancing on the floor, most of whom were in the midst of their twenties and enjoying it. Just like them, Alastor had spent his twenties in clubs to dance and drink, but he hadn’t been so interested in that in a long time. He’s almost forty after all. For a long time, his nightly activities had been about spending it in the kitchen cooking dinner or at work late before going home, very rarely joining Mimzy in the bar. 

However, now that isn’t an option. Alastor likes to think it is for the better. His early twenties were a vibrant time full of entertainment and excitement, especially fresh out of the war when his adrenaline was still high from his time on the frontlines.

Alastor sidles up next to the mousy-haired pale boy he had his eye on all evening. He is alone, looking quiet and subdued, and is eyeing the dance floor with want. Alastor grins and says, “My, first time then?” The boy startles, looking up at him with wide eyes, and Alastor takes the opportunity to shift his drink from one hand to the other so he can properly shake his hand. “Alastor, and you?”

The boy blinks up at him owlishly, eyeing him for a moment, before he reaches and takes his hand. “Joseph,” he says, voice timid. Typical. Alastor hopes that he’ll be a little livelier in time. 

His smile doesn’t abate as he withdraws his hand and places it behind his back, discreetly wiping it clean on the back of his jacket. “Pleasure to meet you, truly.” 

Joseph frowns, eyeing him again. How simple-minded. “You sound familiar. Are you on the radio?”

“That I am! You’ve probably heard of me from one of my broadcasts.”

Something must click because his eyebrows raise. “I know your broadcasts. My boss tunes into it every morning. Says an old employee used to do it every morning and it’s now just part of protocol.”

“And where do you work?”

“The coffeehouse. Downtown.”

Alastor’s eye twitches because of course. “Truly? Aren’t you a little far from home then? There are places like this all over.”

“I can ask the same of you.”

Touché. “Mind if I buy your next drink?”

Joseph’s face flushes a little, eyes flickering down to his drink, down Alastor’s body, then back to his face in quick succession. “Sure.”

“After you, then,” Alastor gestures to the bar counter, and smirks behind Joseph’s back.

It takes a fair few drinks for Joseph to loosen up properly, but Alastor continues to nurse the same whiskey drink as he allows the conversation to flow. It’s easy like this to prattle on without substance, then fall silent once his victim gets comfortable enough. It’s almost like doing radio—talking to himself until a cue tells him to stop. 

Unfortunately, Joseph proves to be a boring conversationalist who flinches back at the slightest of banters. It leaves him wanting, but he bides his time as always. It’s an hour past midnight when he can finally coax the boy outside of the bar, who has grown confidently handsy in the span of a few drinks. It is taking every fiber in Alastor’s body not to murder him in front of so many witnesses.

The night is cool and crisp. Alastor looks around as he exits, trying to glimpse a white figure—animal or otherwise—but finds nothing. He frowns and pulls Joseph into his car. 

At least there it’s easy to hide the mess.

Despite Lucifer returning to the apartment, Alastor can’t bring himself to stay inside for too long. All he can remember is the unrepentant look on Lucifer’s face as Alastor begged him to save his mother and he immediately gets angry, feeling on edge in his own home. He sometimes can’t bring himself to look at Lucifer’s face, even when he looks at him with the saddest, most apologetic eyes while cooking him more food. It’s hard, his anger and resentment warring with his want to stay in that apartment with Lucifer. It’s home. It has been home for years now.

Alastor eventually resorts to frequenting the jazz club more often and spending time with Mimzy, but that quickly bores him. Not that he doesn’t enjoy quality time with his friend, but Mimzy can get so dull and predictable after years of friendship. It is to no one’s surprise that he takes to killing again. Alastor thinks that this is what he should have been doing this entire time. He wonders why he ever even stopped in the first place. 

Alastor wipes the blood from his face, breathing heavily. He looks up at the skyline and notices the glowing, watchful eyes of his angel sitting on the balcony of one of the nearby townhouses as a familiar plain white cat, tail swaying behind him. He scoffs, looking away and refocusing on the unconscious body in his back seat. He wraps the tarp around the body and secures it tightly with knots along the side, ensuring that the mess won’t stain his car seat and the body is well-hidden.

For the past few weeks, Lucifer had been keeping an eye on him as various animals. More often than not it’s a cat, easily moving across the city but mostly unseen, but there are moments when Lucifer comes as a snake or a dog or a bird, fluttering after him like a pest that needs to be swatted away. Alastor recognizes each one, but is surprised when Lucifer doesn’t move to stop him or even talk to him. Instead, he watches and waits, the disapproval in just his eyes enough to make Alastor’s skin prickle uncomfortably. Sometimes Lucifer follows him when he gets rid of the body, other times he goes straight home once Alastor drives off. 

Both times Alastor comes home with a bowl on the dining table full of food. It tastes good, but the disappointment in the bowl—cold after hours past dinner time—is palpable. Alastor knows that Lucifer is just trying to take care of him when it seems he isn’t capable of it right now. He wants to believe it is this way for everything, even the vigils at night and the food every mealtime. Except he remembers that protecting him is Lucifer’s job. At some point, the lines blurred and Alastor forgot that. To his detriment.

Alastor closes the backseat and removes his gloves (he’d been wearing them often as of late) to keep his hands clean while he drives. He slides into the front seat, adjusts his mirrors, and notices that the cat is no longer a cat but a bird. 

It appears his angel will be coming along after all.

Alastor takes an unfamiliar route, closer to the part of New Orleans where he found Joseph. It’s high up north into the woodlands of Louisiana with hundreds of acres of trees that loom over dirt roads and are inhabited by a variety of different wildlife. Unlike the bayou, wherein he usually disposes of his bodies, the woodlands are much quieter. 

He stops his car close to the edge of the forest and turns to the back seat. A tarp is covering the body and preventing any of the gore and blood from staining his car. He slowly slides the corpse out by the tarp and places it inside a large bag. He takes a shovel out of the back as well and heads deep into the woods, dragging the bag with one hand and using the other with the shovel as a counterweight, digging itself deep into the ground with each step.

The noise in the woods is different from the ones in the bayou. The worst animal to fear in the bayou is the alligator, which is easy enough to avoid, but the woods have a plethora of predators like bears and bobcats. This leaves Alastor peaky, stiffening at the slightest noise and the sound of paws on the ground. 

Alastor buries the body deep into the woodlands, at the base of a cliff where the topsoil won’t eventually wash off. Digging is hard to do, but unlike the swamp where he can be assured bodies won’t be found underwater, this is the easiest way to get rid of the body in the area.

He is patting the ground flat when it happens. Alastor didn’t notice the sound of snuffling nor the sound of paws hitting the ground in a run, nor the sudden rustling of leaves. It isn’t until he hears the barking does he turns tails and runs, disappearing into the foliage. 

The dog starts barking, loud and grating in his ears. It’s dark and he smells like blood. It’s only a matter of time before that dog—a hunting dog, he’s certain—catches up to him. Alastor breathes heavily, taking stock of what he can do, but the woods are everywhere. He’s lost. This is new territory. 

In his panic, Alastor doesn’t hear the click of a gun’s safety unlocking. 

Bang.

But he feels the shot to the head anyway.

The knife sinks deep into Keekee’s skull and the cat immediately drops dead in the middle of the living room, twitching. Alastor sinks it in again until the twitching stops. He breathes until the fog fades, leaving only a stark awareness of where he is and what he has done. The door opens and he forces himself to look up, meeting the wide and shocked eyes of his angel. 

“Lucifer,” Alastor breathes.

Lucifer ignores him, eyes only for his cat, and when he approaches, Alastor immediately notices how rumpled he looks, how exhausted and weary. Has Lucifer eaten? Alastor swallows past the lump in his throat. 

When he finally speaks, Lucifer doesn’t look at him, his voice cracking, and he asks, “Why?”  

Alastor scrambles for an answer. He can’t find anything sufficient. There is no explanation in the world that can excuse this. He knows it, Lucifer knows it.

“Why would you do this?”

He stays silent again, just watching him, and knowing that whatever he says will just make things worse. It gets worse anyway when Lucifer reaches some kind of conclusion because he laughs, but it sounds wet and close to tears.

“I know you hate me, but there were easier ways to tell me to leave your life forever, you know? Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so stupid.”

His immediate reaction is to deny it, but that’s what Alastor wanted from the start, right? Before they became roommates, before Alastor became a radio announcer, before Lucifer became an integral part of his life. For the first time in years, Lucifer is giving him an out, to finally leave him alone, but Alastor can’t even open his mouth to accept it, affirm it. He’d be lying so blatantly. Yet every single action since his mom died had been in service to pushing Lucifer out of his life, making sure he’d never come back. The anger and spite, so familiar and easy to pull out of him, is suddenly slipping out of his fingers like silk. 

Now that it’s actually happening, that Lucifer looks ready to leave him for good now, does he waver. This isn’t as satisfying as it should be. In Alastor’s opinion, it isn’t satisfying at all. There is no thrill or excitement right now. His angel is leaving him and it makes him unhappy. 

Alastor stares at his angel, watching the way those blue eyes dull even further with what he must find there, and he tries, “Lucifer.”

Lucifer ignores him again, seeing his effort as nothing but a band-aid on a wound that had festered without treatment for months, and says hollowly, “Come to think of it, you did tell me to leave you alone a couple times before. I should have listened the first time.”

His angel holds the cat—the damnable cat that Alastor always hated, but wants to bring back from the dead himself—close to his chest and he stands up, turning away. 

“I hope you’re happy now, Al. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

He leaves, bringing his cat with him, without turning back around, not even to pick up his keys. Alastor stares after him. 

Lucifer is wrong, of course. What he wanted was what they had before. Alastor remembers telling him once that they had the best life, and he wishes his angel saw that too.

Dying is painful. It’s cold sweat on his brow and hot flashes of pain behind his eyelids. It’s bloody, staining his shirt and his fingers with a dark maroon that will never wash off. Alastor had not expected to meet his end in the middle of a forest, his only companions the stars, the grasshoppers, and the corpse he buried here too, laughing at the irony of his death. He breathes and it is painful, he tries to move but he can’t. The moon shines above him, illuminating the trees around him. He blinks, tears in his eyes, and wonders how he is still alive, still conscious. 

He blinks up at the moon. It blurs from his tears, the cracks in his glasses distorting its image. For a moment, he thinks he sees Lucifer’s face in front of him, glowing ethereally like the moon itself. Alastor must think that this is the light at the end of the tunnel. Hands find his cheeks and they are warm on his cool skin. The pain disappears, dulling so quickly he wonders if he imagined the pain at all.

“Oh, Alastor, I’m so sorry,” Lucifer says and his eyes are a bright blue, like the morning sky but shiny with tears. On top of his head floats a halo with seven notches, the thicker centerpiece adorned like a star. In Alastor’s delirium, he thinks it looks like a crown. “This is it. Your intended death date.”

Alastor laughs, sardonic even in death. “So of course you’re here.” 

“I’m always here.”

“You didn’t stop him. The hunter, I mean.”

Lucifer’s breath hitches. “No, I didn’t,” he says, voice hollow. 

Alastor closes his eyes. He’s tired. All he wants is to see his mom. “I’m really going to die, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” Lucifer swallows audibly. “Do you want to keep on living?”

Alastor opens his eyes, noticing the tight press of Lucifer’s lips and the wrinkle between his eyebrows. He’s serious. Alastor is tempted to say yes immediately, most would when given an unexpected second chance at life. Years ago, he wouldn’t hesitate. However, he instead asks, “Will you be there with me?”

His wings—six of them, his mind supplies dully—flap behind him. “You know I can’t.”

Alastor breathes in shakily. Then what was the point? “I’m going to Hell then?” 

Lucifer nods, his face visibly pained. “I don’t want you to go.”

“There is nothing left you can do.”

Tears roll down Lucifer’s face and Alastor thinks this might be the first time he’s seen his angel cry. He didn’t know they could do that. The tears glimmer under the moonlight. 

Impossibly, he wants to comfort him. He summons the strength to lift his arm and presses a hand to Lucifer’s face, pulling him down. He follows, surprised but no less obedient. Their lips connect clumsily, all teeth and awkward angles.

As far as kisses go, Alastor kind of thinks this sucks. Lucifer must think so too because he pulls away with a grimace. He gently takes Alastor’s face this time, tilting it into a more comfortable angle and this time when they kiss it is pained and filled with too many words unsaid but no less tender. 

It’s a goodbye. It’s an apology. It’s a thank you.

It’s everything.

The tears start to spill from his eyes and he thinks of the last time he cried. Probably when he was younger, a time he can’t remember. He didn’t even cry when his mom had died, too consumed with grief and betrayal that all he could think of was the next kill, the next bloodshed. However, now on the precipice of death, he can’t stop it. 

Lucifer sings, voice soft. It’s a familiar song. It reminds him of the days when he was sick, when his mom would give him a bowl of warm gumbo, when he finally gets lulled to sleep. It is such a familiar comfort that he smiles, taking in the last image of his angel that he will never get to see again. Alastor closes his eyes and his life slips out of him. He can feel the pull downwards. He sinks into it, the glowing warmth of his angel disappearing as the dark suffocates it.

Chapter Text

Hell is exactly as Lucifer described it to be: a sickening red, burning trash pile full of the worst humanity has to offer. Alastor breathes in the sulfur, ears twitching, as he steps over another body strewn carelessly across the street. He keeps his hands pressed tightly behind his back, microphone in hand—the same one Lucifer had given him decades ago—as his very presence causes sinner demons to scurry out of his path. 

Alastor looks to the sky—blood red—and stares at Heaven, a bright glowing white dot. It taunts him every day with how near it is, but also how far. Alastor supposes the punishment is befitting someone of his ilk—someone prideful enough to see themselves above God and the divine beings that stand behind him—and he can accept that. Alastor had long since lain in the bed he had made for himself, and has used it to his advantage.

It had been a long few decades in hell. When he first woke up, the only thing left behind from his time on Earth was his memories, what he had on his person when he died, and the microphone Lucifer gave him. He had no idea what to do now. Alastor had checked the microphone his angel had given him first because he was sure that he didn’t bring that with him to the forest (it was too important to carry around willy nilly) and had found it humming softly, turned on despite the lack of electricity. The eye at the center of it had moved, looked at him, and then immediately insulted him.

Alastor had recognized this as a gift from Lucifer—the last one he would ever receive, he’s sure—but for what purpose? He had no clue. Regardless, Alastor takes the microphone and the power it holds and ventures into Hell.

Taking down overlords, solidifying his reputation as the radio demon, and inducing fear into the masses becomes child’s play with this much power. Alastor is almost unsure if Lucifer fully realizes what exactly he has just given him. Almost.

The yearly exterminations of sinner demons in the Pride Ring is a massacre that frequently delights Alastor. It’s what they all deserved after all—punishment, torture, death. However, it seems he was blessed by his angel (a guarantee to survive, perhaps) which made it so the exterminations are not a problem in the least. An average exorcist’s weapons can’t break the microphone and Alastor can easily overpower the angels enough to flee to safety. 

So typical of Lucifer to protect him, even after death when he proved to be an irredeemable sinner that wasted his time and patience. 

Alastor stops behind a crowd of demons surrounding a television set behind a store’s glass window. On the screen is the tacky, mean-looking news anchor on the 666 News. On principle, Alastor doesn’t watch television as it is inferior to radio in just about every way, but this immediately catches his eye. Well, not the broadcast in particular, but the special guest that Katie Killjoy presents on screen. 

There is a girl with the same hair, pale skin, and reddish stain on both cheeks like a permanent blush. The nose is different, the height is too much, and the eyes are completely off—red instead of bright blue, but the kindness and idealistic optimism are the same. The girl sings of redemption, a hotel as a rehabilitation center for sinners in place of the yearly exterminations, and Alastor knows for sure. 

There is no way around it.

Charlie Morningstar—Queen Regent of Hell, and the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar.