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The edges of the photo are frayed and parts of it have faded. That is how old the piece of paper is. Of course to Lucifer, being an immortal being, old is a difficult concept. To him, what is old humans would consider ancient. This photo, in fact, he would have considered new if he hadn’t known who it belonged to.
He is sitting cross-legged on the grassy field of Alastor’s bayou, in the shade of a mangrove tree. The sun is battering down on him today. Although this is, of course, a pocket dimension, and Luce could change the weather without a blink of an eye, he finds he likes the unforgiving nature of it. That, and he thinks it is rude to alter a place when its owner isn’t there. So he doesn’t change a thing.
He turns the photo over between his nimble fingers. As he does so, he is once again struck by the fact there is no ring there. In fact, there isn’t even an indent any longer, just the blackness of his skin. He’s stopped wearing Lilith’s ring three months ago, and sometimes he can still feel the ghostly weight of it.
It’s better without, but he’s still worn it for what seems like a hundred lifetimes.
On the back of the photo, someone has scratched something with a pen. The ink is fading, too, but if Lucifer angles the photo just right he can read the indents in the glossy paper.
Maman, 1924
The photo itself is of a woman. Lucifer finds it hard to determine her age, but that is because he is ageless. Of course he has spent time on earth, but that was more of a fleeting thing. He doesn’t think he has ever seen the lifespan of a single human pass him by.
In his reverie, he doesn’t hear the door creak open. It’s a strange concept to him anyway, a door in the middle of nature, but again - pocket dimension. And on top of that, this is Hell. There are weirder things afoot.
“Lucifer?”
The voice does stir him, and the photo flutters from his fingertips. He tries to push it away, like a child caught with candy he shouldn’t have. It’s ridiculous. It’s not like he went looking for the photo. He just found it while rummaging through the vinyls Alastor keeps in his little cottage between the trees. He didn’t know it was there.
“Alastor,” he scrambles up, always feeling like that hardly does anything for the height between them. He’s still so much shorter , and today it irks him where other days it makes him feel safe, somehow. He holds the photo behind his back, his mind playing a tug-of-war with himself, asking him why .
He knows the answer. He knows that, even now, he’s afraid to make a mistake. Like one mistake kan snap the fragile bond between him and the man he’s come to love, desire, but above all need . And he knows it isn’t a good thing to base one’s happiness and self worth on another, but he supposes he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.
He is, after all, the devil, his mind supplies. How fitting that he is damned either way.
“What are you holding?” Alastor is a clever man. He was so in life and death has done nothing to ease the burden of a great mind - for Lucifer is convinced that many people suffer rather than benefit from their intelligence. He’s seen great minds wither away here in hell.
“Oh, just something I… found.”
He can’t not show it and so he holds it out. Like he is presenting a gift to the other man while he took it from his house, for Hell’s sake. The woman is still smiling - but of course she is, it is a photo. Alastor takes it from his fingers like it is made of glass. He has never quite seen the Radio Demon look this way, and he suddenly feels like he is standing on thin ice instead of the grassy meadows of the bayou.
“Where did you find this?” Alastor asks, at the same moment that Lucifer says “who is she?” Their words criss-cross another, leaving silence in it’s wake.
“My mo-,” Alastor begins.
Lucifer starts, again, at the same moment.
“Between your vinyls.”
Alastor frowns, looking back at the paper. Lucifer waits, now. More patiently than he just did, in his hurry to explain himself. He hadn’t wanted Alastor to think he had simply started grabbling in boxes and drawers. If he is perfectly honest, all he’d wanted was find a song for them to dance to. He had thought Alastor might appreciate a little swing after his visit to Rosie that afternoon.
And instead he found a mystery.
Sinners came to hell carrying only three mortal belongings. Those three things always held significant meaning to the deceased. Sometimes, it was a childhood stuffed animal. Sometimes it was a blanket. Once, someone had arrived with a whole car. Lucifer had never quite shown too much on an interest in these possessions, but knowing that Alastor must have taken this from earth to Hell and, as an extension of that, knowing how important it must be to him, fans awake something needy inside Lucifer’s head. Curiosity be damned.
“I thought I’d lost it,” Alastor lets a clawed thumb slide over the photo. The tip of it makes a small scratch on the surface and he stops at once, frozen. Then he smiles, but it’s an empty one, and Lucifer would be lying if he said it was a comfortable smile of any kind.
“Figures,” Alastor says.
“Figures what?” Lucifer tries.
“That even in death I cannot keep her safe.”
He walks straight past Lucifer, then, towards the house. Lucifer isn’t sure whether he should follow, but he has spoken to Alastor about this. About being apart and being together. He has begged the man to tell him if he is unwelcome in his little pocket dimension. Alastor promised to let him known. Hence, him walking away is not the same as him sending Lucifer away at all.
So Lucifer follows. He catches the door just before it falls shut, and watches how Alastor puts the photo on the table next to his favourite chair. Then, he grabs a bottle of whiskey. Two glasses. He fills them both.
When Lucifer tentatively joins him at the kitchen counter, Alastor nudges one glass in his direction. Then he drowns his own, before refilling it.
“Is she your mother?” Lucifer asks, once Alastor has downed the second glass and eyes the bottle, clearly considering a third. It is quiet in the house, no music playing. Only now Lucifer realises how rare that is.
“She was,” Alastor nods, eventually. “Or I suppose she is . She doesn’t stop being my mother because she’s passed.”
“Is she… here?”
“Haven’t found her if she is.”
Lucifer wonders, his eyes darting to the photo that lays on the table. The woman’s smile is so warm and kind that he can’t even imagine her being here. However, over the years he has learned that it is remarkably easy to land in Hell… and remarkably difficult to end up in Heaven. The system is rigged, and there is very little he can do about it.
Except…
“Why did you never ask me?” Lucifer sips from the whiskey to be polite. He doesn’t like the way it burns in the pit of his stomach and is wholly aware of how funny that is, considering he is the king of the hottest place in existence.
“Why would I?” Alastor frowns.
That hurts. Lucifer tries to not let it show on his face. He would think that, being the king of Hell indeed, he might actually be able to help in this instance. That Alastor doesn’t even think him good enough for that stings in a peculiar way that Lucifer hates.
“Well, I can find out for you.”
Alastor hesitates, Lucifer sees it.
“Don’t,” he says, then, turning away from Lucifer again. Luce wants to reach out and touch him, but he is already out of his reach and sits down in his arm chair. This leaves the devil standing awkwardly in the center of the kitchen, half-glass of whiskey still in his hands. He moves his fingertips over the pebbled glass, enjoying the structure.
“Why not?”
“Because I couldn’t live with the idea of her being here, much less that she’d have to see me and what I have become.”
The words dare Lucifer to study Alastor as he is now. He knows what the man looked like when he was human. Tanned skin, dark brown curls. Eyes that could lure in both man and woman. Now, he sees the bob ending in red, the ears that Alastor hates but he loves. The antlers, peeking out. The smile, the everlasting smile.
Lucifer sinks down on the arm of the chair. He is careful not to touch the other. They save touching for the good days. Now he simply wants Alastor to feel his presence. He might not have a mother himself, but he understands the concept of loving someone like family. And, as such, he understands the concept of not wanting them disappointed. Especially if you’re disappointed with yourself.
“I get that,” he says.
“You do?” Alastor sounds confused. He had expected Lucifer to press, apparently, and part of the devil wonders if that means that he should have. If Alastor had needed him to. But in the end, he is glad he didn’t. It's a matter of respecting each others boundaries. He wants to, even if he hates the distance it creates between them sometimes.
“Yes. There are days I didn’t want Charlie to know me, let alone see me.” Lucifer picks up the photo. “Even now.”
The woman smiles back at him.
“But perhaps,” he says, “if we can’t look for her, we can talk about her? I would like to get to know her through you. She sounds like someone I would have liked.”
“Will you tell me about your mother, then?” Alastor raises a daring eyebrow, and Lucifer realises that he doesn’t know . He supposes that is logical. Alastor is - was, Lucifer reminds himself - human.
“I don’t have one,” Lucifer smiled. “I don’t even really have a father. Yes, I suppose we could say God is my father, but if he was, he was a rather absent one. I was born from stardust and the void. No woman birthed me. Or nursed me, or held me.”
Alastor takes the photo from Lucifer’s grasp, gazing at it.
“And something about you,” Lucifer says softly, his fingertips touching the back of Alastor’s hand. The man doesn’t flinch away. “Something tells me I have missed out immensely by not experiencing a love like that.”
He hopes the words arrive as they are meant: honest. He doesn’t mean to overshadow Alastor’s grief - because grief this is - but he also cannot possibly relate to it. The only thing that leaves him, then, is trying to learn about it, so he can at least allow Alastor to share the feelings that are quite clearly threatening to spill to the surface.
The other clears his throat.
“Okay,” he says. Just that, okay. He gestures at the hearth, the flames spilling out. At the same moment, the vinyl on the record player stars turning. ‘ Into each life, some rain must fall’ drifts through the now cozy room. Lucifer knows the song. He’s heard Alastor listen to it before. He pulls up his leg, sitting on the armchair, and doesn’t move while Alastor tells his tale. Not when he feels the hand on his knee tighten. Not when the man’s head drops to the side, his cheek resting against Lucifer’s chest. And not when he feels his shirt heat up with wet stains. All he does is bringing a hand to the back of Alastor’s head, allowing him to talk.