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Alastor could only avoid her for so long before Charlie finally managed to hunt him down. After slipping out from Lucifer’s grasp and escaping their bedroom, he’d been lurking in the shadows of the hotel, watching the other residents and ruminating. A deep growling hum rumbled in the pit of his stomach as he watched two sinners whose names escaped him curled up on the sofa in the parlour together. They were resting with their heads bent, tucked snuggly against the other.
Romance, coupledom, relationships—they all looked so simple when other people did them. So open and affectionate, so foward with their expressions of their inner feelings.
It all made Alastor want to tear his own hair out.
He was interrupted in his dark musings by the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat. Alastor turned the incorporeal senses that passed for eyes up to see Charlie leaning against the wall and staring down at the patch of darkness he’d nestled into with an unimpressed look on her face.
“You know it’s rude to spy on people,” she said. “And illegal in some places.”
Alastor shirked his failed attempt at skulking and grew from the shadows, his body becoming a body once more as he rematerialized at Charlie’s side. He made a show of inspecting the head of his cane, scratching at a small scuff mark along the point.
“You know, one of the things I’ve always liked the most about Hell is its penchant for playing rather loosely with the term law.” He flashed Charlie a grin, tucking his cane behind his back. “Don’t tell your Uncle Satan.”
Charlie pursed her lips but didn’t bite back, allowing the two of them to stand in silence for a blessed moment. When she opened her mouth again, Alastor was already internally sighing, bracing himself for what he knew was to come.
“Sooo…” Charlie began, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. “About earlier. Are you still—yanno?”
“Why don’t we talk about this somewhere a little more private?” Alastor said instead of directly answering, his mouth pressing into a thin-lipped smile. “Away from any prying ears?”
Charlie followed him when he set off for the stairs at a brisk pace, speaking mostly to his back as they ascended to the upper floor. “You mean, someone like…my dad?”
Alastor gritted his teeth together as they turned a corner. He opened his mouth to bite back a reply, but his shadow reacted first, tugging at the cuff of his pants and pointing down the hall. Alastor’s ear flicked in the same direction a moment later, and his keen eyes caught Lucifer rounding the corner, his boots thumping along the carpet.
Instantly, Alastor collapsed into a shadow, pooling in the darkness at Charlie’s feet. Lucifer could typically sense him even when he was in this form, but he hoped Charlie’s presence and power scent would be enough to mask his own. She whirled around at his sudden disappearance, lifting her feet up as though he were a bug she was afraid to step on.
“Alastor?” she hissed. “What’re you-?”
“Charlie?” Lucifer’s voice cut through the air and Charlie immediately snapped to attention, dropping her foot back to the ground. Alastor could sense her mounting nerves as Lucifer approached them, his sour expression thawing some as he smiled at his daughter. “You haven’t seen Alastor anywhere, have you?”
“Who? Me?” Charlie stammered before letting out a laugh that sounded just a touch forced. “Nope! Haven’t seen him! I thought he was with you?”
Lucifer huffed out a sigh, the pout returning to his face once more. “He was supposed to be but he slipped off somewhere. I think something’s up with him.” His gaze sharpened as he squinted at Charlie, taking a step towards her. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
As a shadow, Alastor didn’t need to breath, but he still felt the sensation of his non-existent lungs seizing up. Charlie, however, thankfully had the tact to not go blurting out his embarrassing secrets and shook her head, her blonde ponytail swaying as she did.
“Nope. He hasn’t said anything to me.”
Lucifer still seemed dubious, stepping back from Charlie slowly but keeping his eyes trained on her. “Okay, well. You just let me know if you see him, okay? Tell him I’m looking for him.”
Charlie threw a salute at her father, her stiff posture enough to draw a soft laugh out of him. “You got it, Dad!”
Lucifer continued on his way, and Charlie hers, Alastor sticking to her shadow as she moved down the hall. She opened the heavy oak door that led into the library and shut it behind her, turning the lock for good measure. Alastor instantly parted from her shadow and reformed into his regular body, taking up residence at the plush armchair before the unlit fireplace. He propped his elbows up on his knees, fingers threaded together as he peered into the soot-stained mass of logs beneath the stone mantel. Charlie joined him a moment later, standing across from him.
“Okay, so you’re avoiding my dad now?” she said, eying him with a raised eyebrow. “Kind of different to that sweet tone you had in your letters this morning.”
Alastor sighed through his nose, leaning back against the chair. He tipped his head back to stare up through the skylight high above. Beams of faint light filtered through the glass, casting a red dappled glow over the rows of ancient tomes stuffing the shelves. Alastor knew from several late nights spent in this room with Lucifer, that some of them were from the royal palace itself, archaic texts of demonkind within his fingertips, but he had no desire to be thinking about other Hellkind at that moment, only their king.
“I have a confession to make,” Alastor began, picturing Charlie as his priest, he the lowly sinner about to confess to his daily misdeeds. “I am planning to ask your father to marry me.”
Charlie screamed. Alastor absent-mindedly cast a sound proofing spell over the room.
She was on him in an instant, grabbing his shoulders and hauling him to his feet fast enough to give him whiplash. He’d never been more thankful for his neck’s lack of integral bone structure.
“ALASTOR!” Charlie screeched, hugging him again and jumping on the spot, causing his shoes to lift off the ground and tap against the carpet as they bounced. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!”
Alastor slipped into his shadow form to melt from her grip and save his ribcage, reforming a few feet away and straightening up his bowtie. It wouldn’t do for Charlie to think they were now the types to casually embrace each other. He still had to preserve some semblance of his fearsome image, and that was just a touch dampened by having a cheery young lady crushing his bones.
“I see,” he said, focusing on some non-existent lint on his sleeve to keep from looking Charlie in the eye. “So then, you’re not…upset? I had figured such a subject might be sensitive to you, given the fact that your father’s first marriage fell apart.”
And he certainly had no intentions for being a replacement for Lilith, neither to Charlie nor Lucifer.
Charlie scoffed, waving his words aside with a flap of her hand. “Oh, please. Of course not! When my mom left, I really thought my dad would never find someone again, until you came along.” He flicked his gaze up to her eyes, which proved to be a mistake as the warm, glowing smile stretched across her face had him wanting to dart back into the shadows to lurk forever. Taking a step towards him, she said, “I can’t think of anyone I’d want to welcome into my family more.”
Alastor took an opportune side-step, narrowly evading Charlie’s attempt to hug him again. He busied himself with inspecting his cane, as though he would find the answers to all his problems there, the most pressing one being: how was he to move forward now? He had intentions but no plans, which had never been a great recipe for success in his experience.
“Well, thank you ever so much for your blessing,” Alastor said snidely. It was getting far too schmaltzy in here. Best to temper the mood with a sprinkle of antagonism.
“No problem,” Charlie said brightly, and Alastor narrowed his eyes. He could never quite tell when Charlie was being wilfully ignorant or just plain ignorant. “But tell me everything! How’re you going to ask him?”
“I’m not sure!” Alastor replied truthfully, turning a strained smile on Charlie. “You see, I hadn’t really entertained the idea until this morning!”
This wasn’t entirely true. Ever since the events some months ago during the pass of Belphegor’s Comet, Alastor had been doing quite a bit of entertaining certain thoughts. That sole day of being snowed in inside the hotel while Vaggie and a powerless Lucifer stumbled about in the blizzard, fighting their way home, had been the single most anxiety-inducing day of Alastor’s life. A whole twelve hours spent fretting and dreading the worst, playing out all the ridiculous scenarios Lucifer could’ve gotten himself hurt—wandering into an open hole in the ice, getting eaten by a helldragon, slipping on a banana peel and impaling himself on Vaggie’s spear. It had been truly maddening.
It had also made Alastor realise he was rather invested in Lucifer’s continued existence. He had grown rather fond of the little devil after all this time and was keen to keep him around by his side. Thus, the letters to express this sentiment had been born. But ever since that morning, when Charlie had asked him if his intentions were ones of the matrimonial variety, he couldn’t dispel the thought from his head.
And so: a proposal.
It seemed the right course. The only snag now was actually asking Lucifer the question.
“Alastor,” Charlie chided, hands going to her hips. “You need to have a plan of attack—er. Attract. You’ll remember this moment for the rest of your life! It’s gotta be one you’ll both be happy to look back on.”
Alastor’s forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows drew together. He’d borne witness to a few proposals during his mortal life on Earth and had heard of demons getting married—Rosie had been on her second Hellish husband by the time he’d met her—but he’d never gone about performing one himself. Where to even start?
“Hm. Did you have any ideas?” Alastor asked.
Charlie’s entire demeanour changed. Her face lit up, her canary yellow eyes practically sparkling as she clasped her hands together.
“Do I ever!” she exclaimed. “Just you wait, Alastor. We’re going to make the most romantic night for you and my dad ever!”
Alastor let out a weak laugh. He had to squint against the brightness radiating off of Charlie. “Oh, yes. Of course…”
Charlie lowered her hands slightly to cast a hopeful look at him, gnawing at her lower lip. “Does this mean I can call you Dad?”
“Absolutely not.”