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There was only so much coffee could do.
And short of lacing it with cocaine, Alastor wasn’t sure having another cup was going to help him.
Between spending his days managing the hotel for Charlie, and his nights managing her father – Alastor had started to become rather exhausted. Run down. Asleep on his feet and ready to drop, his energy reserves utterly spent.
Not that he’d let anyone know about that, of course. Even if he had been staring at the same report for the last ten minutes, not taking in a single word or number on the page.
His eyes slid to the clock, wondering just how much more time there was left in the day.
One in the afternoon. Another five hours until dinner, which he was fairly certain he’d agreed to prepare, though when he tried to pull up the roster in his mind’s eye it was somewhat out of focus, like the picture his brain had taken of it had gotten corrupted in development.
It wasn’t as if he could just excuse himself early to have a nap. They were understaffed as it was, and whether he believed in what the hotel was trying to accomplish or not – he had agreed to do a job, and he was damn well going to do it.
Even if, when he blinked, his eyelids fell out of time with one another and took longer to open than they should have, the darkness beckoning him, spinning his mind around like a fairground ride.
Lucifer had looked at the bags under his eyes the previous night and tried to have the both of them go straight to sleep. But that wouldn’t do – tired as he was, Alastor liked indulging in that intimacy with the king, in his own particular way. The feeling of all that power writhing against him, focused on him – why would he pass up that opportunity?
So what might have been an early night turned into something of a late one, and the cycle started anew when the bell in the lobby rang at five that morning, a guest needing urgent attention to their rooms – a swirling vortex had opened in one corner of it, spewing junk from the living realm straight into the hotel.
Alastor looked at the clock again. Two minutes past.
He turned over the report he was trying to make his way through, wondering whether the other side might perhaps have slightly fewer numbers and therefore be an easier place to start.
It did not, and was not.
“Alastor?” Lucifer’s voice came softly from the bottom of the stairs, the king hesitating with one hand on the banister. Alastor hummed a confirmation, playing a round of canned applause.
“Correct! And for ten more points, you can even tell me my title!” Alastor shot back, more static coating his voice than usual, his filters trying to add a false sort of buoyancy to his words that he seemed incapable of delivering. He turned the report back over as Lucifer trotted across the lobby, trying to blink some of the grit from his eyes.
“You look tired,” Lucifer murmured, putting a hand on Alastor’s shoulder. When the demon didn’t jerk away, he let his arm snake down Alastor’s chest, leaning over the back of him to look at the report in his hand.
Alastor adjusted his monocle, trying to focus as Lucifer burrowed against his neck.
“Hmm. Rude thing for you to say,” Alastor pointed out mildly, static giving a few warning pops in the air as his ever-present smile tightened. “Is there something I can help you with? I’m rather busy.”
Lucifer mumbled something against his neck, his breath dampening Alastor’s skin and making the fine hairs stand on end. It was terribly distracting, not least of all because it reminded him of the warmth he’d sacrificed that morning in order to fix the problems with that junk portal.
Truly, he’d never thought sleeping with another person would be so addictive – their limbs tangled together in a complete mess, one of Lucifer’s legs thrown over Alastor’s narrow hips in his determination to encase the demon with his own body as he slept. Half suffocating him, pinning him to the mattress, slow breaths puffing into the back of his neck.
Alastor flicked an ear. Those sorts of thoughts were not going to help him on his quest to stay awake and get everything done for the day.
“You should take a break,” Lucifer coaxed, the smooth, persuasive roll of his voice helping to explain exactly how he’d first tempted Eve to sin. Alastor shivered, trying to shake off the temptation.
Even if he hadn’t been so weary, shaking off temptation when it came from the embodiment of it himself wasn’t an easy feat. Particularly when said embodiment was draping himself over Alastor’s back, as if he thought he might like to model for the next Dali painting.
He’d been staring at the same report for too long. He really wasn’t getting anything done, right this second – perhaps a break wasn’t the worst idea Lucifer had ever had.
“Perhaps I could stop for lunch,” Alastor agreed with only the barest hint of reluctance, feeling Lucifer’s lips spread into a grin against his neck.
Before he could even get to his feet, Lucifer summoned a swirling red portal in front of his chair and pushed him bodily forward, quite an undignified blat of static mixed with the bleat of a fawn escaping him in his shock.
He tumbled through, end over end, and landed softly on his rear, surprised at the gentleness of his landing. He looked around as Lucifer jumped down beside him, sinking to his knees in the pile of what looked to be an entire catalogue's worth of bedding.
“Either you’re opening a soft furnishings company, or you’ve finally decided that you – or, perhaps, I – need to be institutionalised,” Alastor said drily, taking in the plethora of cushions, blankets, bean chairs, enormous plush rubber ducks – and all in a room Alastor had never seen before, windowless and door-less, the only apparent entry the portal Lucifer had snapped into existence. The portal which was even now shrinking to nothing.
“What is this?” Alastor asked bluntly, not too concerned about whether Lucifer planned to seriously kidnap him, to hold him against his will.
That wasn’t how he operated.
Lucifer gave him a sheepish grin, clambering over a pile of cushions to reach Alastor, pushing him down onto what seemed to be a huge, round bed. The kind Pentious had once used, and might even have been the very same, considering the snake-demon no longer had any need for it.
“You look tired, Alastor,” Lucifer repeated his earlier insulting words in a murmur, ducking forward to press soft lips against his own.
Lips that had no right to be so sweet, considering the rude things he’d been saying. Alastor accepted them nonetheless – he always did, his ears lowering as he sank into the plush bedding, Lucifer clambering atop him like an extremely small weighted blanket.
“Just take a short break. I know you got up early this morning. I missed you,” Lucifer said quietly, reaching up to smooth a hand down one of Alastor’s lowered ears, the sinner’s eyes going half-lidded at the sensation of that gentle tug over soft fur.
He couldn’t say the idea was unappealing. Particularly when the light in the room dimmed, Lucifer’s eyes the brightest thing he could see. Yellow eyes blinking at him hopefully, clawed hands curling into his lapels, twitching as if they were just desperate to peel his coat off, to gain access to the expanse of scarred skin that made up the demon’s torso.
Alastor blinked, lids surprisingly heavy. Let his head sag back against the marshmallow-like softness of the pillows that surrounded the pair of them in this madman’s paradise. When others created a pillow fort, they merely gathered whatever was available and stacked it up against the bed or couch.
Lucifer took the word ‘fort’ rather literally, it seemed.
Why he was entertaining Lucifer's suggestion was beyond him. Perhaps his devilish powers of persuasion had finally found a new use, and that was in convincing stubborn Radio Demons to indulge in a little self-care. A foreign concept to him, when all was said and done – but if it would make Lucifer happy...
“A short break,” he agreed, not protesting when Lucifer grinned, waving his hand. Replacing both of their clothing with comfortable sleep-wear – and considering Lucifer usually chose to sleep exactly how he’d been made, it sent an extraordinary clear message about his intentions.
Alastor tipped his head forward, burying his nose in silken, golden locks. Inhaling the faint apple and soap scent surrounding the king as Lucifer settled against his chest, arms curling tightly around his middle.
The room darkened even further, and soft, meandering piano notes started drifting through the silence, mingling with the sound of Alastor’s ambient static buzz as he wrapped his own arms around Lucifer’s back, the heat of the other man sinking into his skin. Seizing his determination to stay awake and dragging it firmly into the realm of sleep, tumbling down until his breathing slowed, and he lost the battle against himself.
A short break.
Just that.
~fin~