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The morning sky was bright red, and light shone in through the bedroom window.
Lucifer sat up in bed and stretched. His shoulders were stiff and sore, and as he rolled them, he could feel the same ache continue downwards and spreading out into his wings. He rarely let the wings show nowadays; they were always there, even if no one but him could see or feel them. One by one, each wing became visible as he stretched them. There were audible cracks, and feathers fell onto the bed as he shook them out.
A staticky voice broke the morning silence: “Your wings look awful, darling.”
Lucifer stopped stretching and turned towards Alastor. “Why thank you, dear. How sweet of you to notice.”
“Just making an observation,” Alastor smiled. “You should take better care of them.”
Alastor could be very quiet when he wanted to, and Lucifer suspected the Radio Demon had been awake for a while already, and simply lain there silently watching him. That could be either sweet or creepy, and in Alastor’s case, it was somehow both.
“Since when did you become an expert on wings?” Lucifer asked.
“I do not claim to have any such expertise, but I do have eyes. We have two other winged residents here at the hotel, and neither Husker nor Vaggie let their wings become like ... that.” Alastor looked from the feathers pointing every which way, the broken pinfeathers peeking out and the steadily gathering mess on the bed.
Lucifer huffed. “Easy for them, they only have one pair of wings.”
“Overwhelmed?”
“... yes,” Lucifer admitted. “The last years, it’s been difficult to-” get any routines and stick to them when he had to drag himself out of bed in the morning and barely have enough energy to put his clothes on, and in the evening he’d stay up later and later because he was somehow too tired to go to bed and when he got there he couldn’t sleep he just lay there, there was no space in his head to care about his damned wings, no space to take care of himself at all when it was all so dark “- get it done.”
Alastor nodded slowly, as if he had somehow heard all the words Lucifer hadn’t said out loud. Then he sat up and cracked his knuckles as if he was getting ready to play the piano.
Lucifer stared at him. “What? Are you offering to help?” Perhaps the rude comments had actually been some odd round-about way of suggesting it. Of course, Alastor could never come straight out and say things, what would be the fun in that? “Do you know anything about wing care? At all?”
Alastor shrugged. “How hard can it be?”
Lucifer frowned, but it was a tempting offer; six wings could be a lot to fix up, it was nice to get some help with them. Besides, it was Saturday, and as far as he knew, there wasn’t anything planned for today. They had time. Lucifer got out of bed, opened his drawer and began rummaging around. He’d used magic when he moved his stuff into the hotel; just snapping his fingers and making everything fall into place. Even if he hadn’t used any wing oil during his stay so far, there ought to be a bottle of it somewhere. He found what he was looking for in the bottom of a drawer filled with socks.
Lucifer got back onto the bed, and handed the bottle to Alastor. “So, this is to prevent feathers from drying out. If they get too dry and brittle, they’ll break more easily.”
Alastor looked from the bottle to Lucifer’s wings. “... I see.”
Lucifer sat down with his back to him, trying to find a comfortable position. He shook out his wings, covering the bed in even more lose feathers. “So, what you do, is put the oil in your hands, and- AH!”
“Oh, don’t be a baby.”
“Don’t pull out my feathers, then!”
“It was broken.” Alastor said, reaching over Lucifer’s shoulder to twirl the feather in question under his nose. “See?”
“Alright, but be a bit more careful.”
Alastor made a noise that sounded like agreement, but there was no apology.
Lucifer heard the sound of a cork pulled out of a bottle, and soon, he could feel Alastor’s hands touching the feathers on his top right wing. He was about to start explaining again, but as Alastor pulled his fingers through the feathers, much more careful this time, it suddenly seemed pointless. The Radio Demon seemed to figure out how to do it on his own; dragging his fingers along the shafts, smoothing out the barbs and coating the feathers in oil. Alastor hummed as he worked through the first wing, and the radio on top of the drawer turned on to join in. A slow, calming melody filled the room.
“What is this?” Alastor asked, actually stopping to wait for an answer this time, instead of just tearing things out.
Lucifer craned his neck to see Alastor’s fingers around the thin casing on a new feather. “That protects the feathers when they grow out. If its loose enough you can pull it off. It will fall apart eventually.”
Alastor rolled the casing between his fingers, making the thin shell crack open. Then he pulled it off and let it drop down among the feathers.
Lucifer wasn’t sure how long it took before Alastor deemed the top right wing presentable and moved on to the top left. He closed his eyes. It felt ... good. It was years since anyone had helped him with this, years since anyone had even touched his wings. It had always been a private thing, intimate. The songs on the radio seemed to blend into each other. The soft touches, the calm music, it was all so comforting, so relaxing, he could almost- “Ah!”
Another feather being plucked out jerked him back to consciousness.
“Are you falling asleep?” Alastor asked.
“N- no, not at all.”
“You are. Lay down properly then; I’d prefer it if you didn’t topple over and ruin all my hard work.”
Lucifer moved further in on the bed, found a pillow and lay down on his stomach. The wings flopped down on both sides of him, covering much of the bed. He closed his eyes again, and as Alastor got back to work on the wings, he began to drift off.
...
Gentle hands smoothed out the feathers. There wasn’t much need, really; there were no flaws in Heaven. Nothing got messed up, nothing hurt. They all had wings here, they were friends, family, they were together. Safe. Happy. At peace. Time didn’t mean anything. Someone dragged their fingers through his wings, pulling broken feathers out.
No, that wasn’t right. Feathers didn’t break up here, they didn’t fall out, they were falling, he fell down, down, down, sinking into the pillows. He was dreaming, he was in Hell, and his wings were a mess down here. Dry and brittle and uncomfortable. But he wasn’t alone. Someone was combing through his lower wings, trying to be gentle. Nothing down here could be gentle the way Heaven had been; it was all too rough and sharp, but they were trying. Lilith was trying. Her hands stroked his wings; she was the only one who got to touch them now. This was just between the two of them, together in the privacy of their bed.
Lucifer tried to get up, rise from the bed, turn so he could see her, kiss her, wrap his wings around her. She pushed him down before he could move much, told him to stay still. Her voice sounded off, strange, staticky somehow. He let himself sink back down into the pillows and be dragged back into sleep.
...
“All done.”
It wasn’t Lilith’s voice. Lucifer blinked, and the room came into focus. This wasn’t the palace, this was ... the hotel. He turned to look at the demon sitting beside him.
“What?” Alastor said.
“... Nothing. What time is it?”
“It’ll be eleven o’clock soon.”
“Eleven? That’s more than an hour-”
“Yes.” Alastor got out of bed and started opening drawers. “It took quite some time to fix the sorry state those wings were in.”
Lucifer sat up and shook out his wings. They looked good; nothing broken, every feather smoothed into their right place. The bed on the other hand looked awful; there were enough feathers there to make a whole other wing. He snapped his fingers and made the mess disappear. “It’s not usually this bad.”
“Really?” Alastor began to put his shirt on. “I guess I’ll have to take your word on that.”
“It’s true! It’s just been so long since last time I did it properly, and then it gets like this. It should be done every day, then it’s just a little bit of upkeep, not a massive job like this.”
“We’ll start doing that, then.”
“Huh?”
Alastor just continued like he hadn’t heard him. “It would be better to do it in the evening, seeing as you can’t keep awake through the process.” He started buttoning up his vest.
“You – you don’t need to do all this; I can deal with it myself.”
Alastor turned to look at him. “Clearly you can’t. And since you need assistance, I guess it falls to me.” He sighed theatrically, as if this was a heavy task he was only begrudgingly accepting.
Lucifer smiled, taking Alastor’s hand. “Thank you, that’s very kind.” When he kissed his knuckles, there was still a faint trace of oil on them.
“Don’t mention it, darling.” Alastor smirked. “Really, don’t mention it. Some of us has a reputation to uphold.”