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As it turned out, Lucifer wasn’t such a rare guest at the bar counter — or to its companions: the clinking shot glasses and the lingering scent of alcohol left behind by previous patrons. No matter how hard anyone tried, that smell had soaked deep into the wood, along with the echo of thoughtless confessions and the rotting problems spilled out alongside vomit. It seemed that the few new guests of the hotel signed up mostly for the “all-inclusive” alcohol and the chance to vent directly to the bartender.
There should’ve been a therapist’s office set up here long ago, complete with a proper nameplate and a sprawling red armchair.
Husk definitely wouldn’t appreciate the extra duties and would flip everyone off. And yet, he wouldn’t go anywhere. He’d still stand in his rightful place, just as quietly as ever.
But unlike all the previous visitors, Lucifer wasn’t in a rush to pour out his thoughts and worries in a gushing stream. Despite his sharp tongue, he was surprisingly courteous in how he rationed out information, knowing exactly which lines he was willing to cross at that moment.
Of course, Alastor was curious. Maybe more than he ought to be. Like a hunter, trying to map out the patterns and habits of his future prey. The King of Hell — a legendary figure, etched into the mythos of both the human world and this one — but the demon wasn’t all that interested in the porcelain image of a lacquered doll, or in the collective aura woven by the minds of two worlds.
The core beneath the layers is always sweeter. But getting to it without teeth or claws is so damn hard.
And the irony was — Lucifer didn’t even drink. In a place meant solely for that, he avoided alcohol with the cold indifference of a cat to a mouse that’s already dead. He kept pouring endless apple juice, downing dozens of glasses without so much as a blink. If there truly was a bottomless barrel of drink, then the king either had a black hole in his stomach — or in his bladder.
Alastor refuses to call the frequency of their meetings at the bar “meetings.” Just coincidences. They’re simply the only ones not asleep in the hotel’s night corridors, sharing a handful of waking hours. The Radio Demon doesn’t need sleep at all, really — slumber is a relic for the weak and the careless. His nightly patrols always included the hotel’s main guest hall — and that, supposedly, was the only reason for their intersecting paths and glances.
As for the King, it’s either nightmares or hazy, gnawing thoughts that keep him up — it’s not hard to guess.
But whatever drives him to crawl out of his tower each time and glue himself to the bar counter is pure nonsense. Irritating nonsense that makes Alastor adjust his usual patterns — change his patrol time, take longer detours, practice deliberate avoidance. Yet no matter what, at the end of the path, there’s Lucifer again — on that ridiculous spinning stool, in that ridiculous nightgown, with that sharp scent of apples and lingering regrets.
Sometimes, the Radio Demon simply turns on his heel and vanishes back into the depths of the corridors.
Sometimes, he lurks like a shadow, unmoving, hanging at the edge of vision — a fleeting blur on the periphery.
But more often, he shortens the distance.
Never announcing his presence, Alastor approaches with a stalking gait, stopping just a few paces behind — close enough to lunge, to sink his teeth into the thickest arteries of the neck. Sometimes he’s noticed. Sometimes ignored.
Sometimes startled gasps break the silence, followed by coughing fits and juice spilled down the front, because Lucifer’s awareness of his surroundings is as predictable as a roll of loaded dice.
Match the right combination, and there it is — the faint smile, the wide sweep of a hand, and Lucifer’s ever-alert, unsleeping eyes inviting Alastor to stop prowling in the overgrowth of shadows and finally step into the light. To join him at the bar and idle away the lingering hours — side by side.
Given how often they wore each other’s nerves and patience down to sparking embers, constantly testing the boundaries of personal space and propriety, it was strange that Lucifer never once dropped that foolish little gesture. Whether it was mere etiquette, goodwill, or his own curiosity mixed in perfect measure with boredom steeped over centuries — who could say. A mirror, perhaps, to whatever made the Radio Demon accept it, every time, with that same politely mocking restraint.
The Hazbin Hotel still made for an excellent stage — a fine setting for a top-class performance — but after the bloody spectacle of its first act, the intermission dragged on longer than intended. While the curtains hid the rearranging of the scenery, a new source of amusement, of distraction, had to be found.
“Well, with how often you drop by this bar, Your Highness,” Alastor began their usual meaningless banter as he stepped up beside him, “surely you’ve grown to appreciate the decor and color palette.
Have you finally developed a sense of taste?”
Even after the original building had been destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up, Alastor had personally — and with great satisfaction — hacked apart the pristine, gaudy new bar counter and stitched back the old one. Identical to the original, down to every scuff and dent, lovingly restored and installed by Charlie herself on the very first day of their acquaintance.
Of course, she had been delighted by the nostalgic return of something simpler, eager to help — the King’s daughter, glowing with joy. The rest of the hotel’s residents hadn’t dared object.
Lucifer, for his part, had no choice but to quietly accept it all over again.
“No, the architecture here still makes me nauseous,” Lucifer joins in, not even blinking at the other's sudden appearance, seamlessly slipping into what had become their version of polite small talk. “It sticks out like vomit-stained spittle on a fine red carpet. Fitting, I suppose, for a place forever crawling with drunks.”
“Better that than red-and-white monotony,” Alastor grins. “I must admit, the current design of the hotel pleases my eyes far more than the last one ever did.
In that, we might even thank that bastard Adam — for expediting the planned demolition.”
“How clever. Then why don’t you get lost in all four directions? Might make it easier to breathe in here.”
They argue the way others talk about the weather — familiar rhythm, familiar rules, a duet they both know by heart.
“But you know, in some ways, I agree with you,” Lucifer muses, casting a casual glance around the room born of another era. “The interior turned out too varied and yet too uniform for a place meant to be lived in. After a few months, it started to blur in my vision.”
“You lived in the old hotel building before?” Alastor arches a brow.
“Oh yes. It was our reception hall for guests from other circles of Hell. All those self-important, infernally-bred, expensive bastards — and the rare few worth calling friends. But that was long ago,” his voice dims, eyes falling back to the glass in his hand. “A very long time ago.”
“And then you abandoned it all, shut yourself away on the edge of the pentagram in your little castle, and handed this place over to Charlie’s ambitious and unjustified dreams,” Alastor lists, tone amused.
“And then I gave it to Charlie,” Lucifer agrees without defensiveness. “And as you can see, it turned out to be one of my best decisions — at least, as a father.”
“Which apparently isn’t a title you wore with much brilliance in everyday life.”
“Touche, you grinning freak.”
Lucifer’s smile is thin, but the laugh that escapes him is surprisingly genuine. Taking a slow sip from his glass, he turns toward Alastor.
“Now quit rattling the air with your empty snark and flailing. Turn on the damn radio already. Your taste in music, at least, isn’t all pomp and bluster — unlike everything else.”
For Alastor, it was easy enough to keep up the game of banter and tossing verbal darts back and forth, but this time he merely clicked his claws in a familiar gesture. The flow of voices and music willingly spilled into the empty glass of the long night.
Praise from Lucifer was worth nothing to the Radio Demon, yet he could appreciate the other’s rare interest in proper forms of creativity and their expression. That small moment of interaction, a brief unity so different from their usual routine of hostility. Almost the only one left. Scattered puzzle pieces collected over recent days to form a strange picture where they could exist side by side without bared teeth and hidden knives. Without even having to exercise patience.
It all felt almost natural. Normal.
A few verses passed, one voice replacing another, before suddenly a glass materialized in the air with a delicate clink against the surface of the bar counter. Right next to Alastor’s hand. And just as instantly, it filled from the bottom with that familiar yellow dread — gleaming in the dim light of lamps, polished to a golden copper sheen.
Holding an expressive silence for a moment, ignoring any reaction, Alastor finally glanced sideways as if the glass were a cockroach caught underfoot. First inspecting the glass, then the poorly concealed anticipation in Lucifer’s gaze. Eyes bulging like a frog peering from a swamp. Without blinking or changing expression.
“To what do I owe such generosity, your Highness? Decided to get rid of me in the most useless and thoughtless way?”
“Oh, shut up, I’m just trying to get you to join in a drink instead of standing there like a statue,” Lucifer snorts playfully, then for extra effect, downs his own glass in one gulp. Seconds later, with a pinch of magic, the empty bottom fills up again.
“How sweet,” Alastor snaps dryly, forcing a smile. “I might even take it as an honor. But I must refuse — apple juice is neither my brand nor my taste. And I’m not the one here trying to drown my loneliness in memories of past mistakes.”
“Rude, and here I was hoping you were only here for my company and my beautiful voice.”
“Only if I hear it breaking, filled with tears and screams of pleading,” the last words are drowned out by radio static and a particularly low-pitched screech. The interference fades in the next instant.
But Lucifer’s reaction comes with a catch. The way he averts his gaze and chuckles, perfectly mimicking a girl’s embarrassment.
“Wow. Wow. You’re getting better and better with these double entendres. Or are you only refusing me because you wanted to ask me out first? You’re getting bolder every day, but if you want to hit on the King of Hell, you’ll have to try harder,” Lucifer squints, drawing the outline of the demon sitting next to him in the air with his finger. Alastor, from horns to heels. “At least start with your manners.”
It takes so little to knock all the arrogance off Alastor and make him recoil. He grumbles, sounding like a radio that’s lost its station, and diminishes his presence. It’s the same with him as with Angel — but the spider spits out all those strange phrases and hints himself, while Lucifer somehow twists everything exactly the opposite — turning it back against the Radio Demon.
Lucifer did it on purpose, just to annoy him, no other reason. Yet Alastor himself — as much as he hated to admit it — was completely blind in this area. He couldn’t see the warning signs or the traps right under his nose, wandering confused between transparent walls.
Romance, flirting, all the stages of hints, double meanings, and extra layers on top — nonsense that drilled at his temples and stuck dust in his eyes. It irritated him so much that he wanted either to tear it apart on the spot or just crawl away into his dark burrow as far as possible.
“You think far too highly of yourself,” Alastor growls through clenched teeth, barely changing his expression, though his eyes hold a true hellish storm. “Your Highness.”
“No longer,” Lucifer chuckles triumphantly and leans casually closer to his interlocutor, poking a finger into Alastor’s chest. “But you barely scrape a C.”
Alastor’s teeth grind together. One of his ears twitches nervously.
Lucifer’s glass holds exactly plain juice — undiluted, not fermented. But the way he behaved around Alastor — more relaxed, less aggressive, almost permissive — more than once hinted at alcohol. If not in the glass, then certainly somewhere in the King of Hell’s bloodstream.
But sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Even if such tactics aren’t exactly Alastor’s style, one has to adapt.
With a deep breath, the Radio Demon mutes the flickering static and buzzing interference like a swarm of insects. Darkness obediently recedes beneath his cloak’s hem. Clearing his throat hoarsely, as if nothing happened, the radio tunes back into the right frequency and continues humming a female vocal line, accompanied by brass instruments and playful piano.
Since the microphone was shattered by the angelic counterattack, controlling his own power and magic has become harder. If only that were the only reason.
“My apologies for my outburst, Your Highness,” Alastor straightens up on cue, smoothing away the extra wrinkles between his eyes. The roughness vanishes from both voice and magic, and each following phrase comes out like a rehearsed script. “It’s just that your sudden insight caught me off guard. I have truly long wished to offer you a drink or two, and I have spent considerable time pondering how to surprise the discerning and clearly sophisticated tastes of the King of Hell himself.”
The next moment, in one of Alastor’s hands appear two delicate glasses, and in the other — a pomegranate bottle without any label or identifying mark. Lucifer, resting on his arm, watches for several long seconds, searching for some catch — either in the glassware or in the ever-present, slyer-than-usual smile of the Radio Demon. Reading that always-grinning mask is difficult, but sensing a sudden shift in the game — a second intuition.
Glancing at his own glass of apple juice, Lucifer finally nods approvingly.
“Alright, a change won’t hurt. I’m even curious what you spent all your time searching for. In centuries of life, I’ve sampled so many brands, vintages, and varieties, it’s impossible to count.”
“So you’re not above drinking alcohol after all? I thought your tongue never touched anything but apple juice.”
“Apple cider’s no worse,” his gaze drifts away for a few seconds again into the past. “And the rest… only on special occasions.”
“Is today a special occasion?” Alastor asks dryly.
“You’re trying to please me by offering a drink. How could I refuse?”
Alastor swallows his biting words along with a growl, as if it were a stone.
With the elegance of a true bartender—or a genuine medieval butler—Alastor leans forward slightly and slowly pours the contents of the bottle into the glasses. The deep reddish-brown liquid stretches and splashes at the bottom like molasses, leaving lipstick-like streaks behind.
Only when the Radio Demon’s hand touches the glass does Lucifer mirror the movement and reach for his own. Doubt and mistrust swirl like clouds in every sidelong glance, but these dissipate into rays of confidence the moment Alastor touches the rim with his lips and takes the first sip. Slow, deliberate—spreading the liquid across his tongue and lips, swallowing just as slowly. With a toothy grin, Alastor watches the king expectantly, resting his head on his hand and swirling the drink at the bottom of his glass.
Lucifer—the white rabbit under the vulture’s sharpened talons—will be lifted into the air and dropped onto jagged rocks.
But this game on the edge of danger and the unknown only fans the flames of growing boldness and brazen response. If you’re afraid to make a move, you’ll never dance the duet. Grab tighter, catch the gaze, and lead, controlling the direction and the step.
Stretching out his swan-like neck, Lucifer slowly tastes the liquid, small sips, delicately spreading the flavor across his mouth.
“I usually offer this vintage only to my most trusted partners and overlords,” Alastor muses thoughtfully, openly watching the other’s reaction. “It’s not easy to get the blood of a still-living, agonizing stag in Hell, and then to properly age it under just the right conditions and methods.”
At those cherished words, even Lucifer freezes, eyes wide as the very stag caught in headlights. The realization crashes through, leaving no chance for escape. He doesn’t recoil in disgust or push the glass away. A long pause follows—several seconds filled with a whirlwind of unspoken thoughts behind frozen eyes and a jaw clenched tight. The decision is made in the next moment, with a squint and a smile shooting like lightning from the corners of his cheeks.
Though still the King and progenitor of Hell since its foundation, Lucifer—despite his scorched red wings and demonic grin—remains angelically pure in many ways. Not just in the whiteness of his clothes and skin. Over months spent under the same roof, through shared meetings, therapy sessions, and long dinners at a wide table, Alastor had noticed many things. Including the complete absence of meat in the king’s diet. While demons eagerly devoured fresh, even raw flesh, ignoring anything else, Lucifer continued to adhere to a leaner diet.
Whether this was mere habit or a continuing rebellious denial of his current nature—one of the first seraphim of Earth, buried deep underground, was not so far removed from the rotting and despised human souls.
Now Alastor wants to play on the element of surprise and draw some conclusions from his observations. Rattling someone’s nerves is a pleasant bonus.
Lucifer, though struggling to conceal it, swallows everything.
“Ah, so that’s why the taste is so strange… Though I must give credit—the blood isn’t immediately obvious. And it tastes more refined. Even pleasant.” Twisting his mouth unevenly, Lucifer smacks his lips as if trying to savor the aftertaste or spit out dirt. Finally, he runs the tip of his forked tongue across his lips, gathering drops, before reaching for another, less sharp sip. He keeps drinking with effort and a forced smile—no disgust or fear, only nervousness.
“It seems this is your first time drinking something like this,” Alastor remarks, finishing his glass.
“Well, I won’t hide it—I usually avoid consuming blood in its pure form, or really in any form at all…” Lucifer wipes droplets from his chin. The fact that he managed to finish more than half already exceeds the Radio Demon’s expectations. “I’m not judging, it’s just clearly not my kink… The blood of sinners tastes like rancid old oil.”
“The blood of earthly creatures tastes good, invigorates, and can boost your strength better than any earthly doping. That’s what makes it valuable.”
“Yeah, I think I’m starting to feel it…” Lucifer muses, squinting as he swirls the remaining crimson liquid at the bottom. “You didn’t use…”
“Human blood? No, of course not,” Alastor waves off the idea, though he squints dreamily. “Even for me, that’s over the top—too strong and unpredictable.”
Blood—real, pulsating with power—is no worse than potent drugs. No, it’s better. It not only spins your head but tears down your limits. No wonder gatherings where fresh human blood was served ended in real carnage—creatures of all kinds, drunk on impunity and a rush of power.
Stag’s blood wine is an acceptable alternative. No ensuing destruction or urges to tear and rend, but even that small portion has a visible effect on someone who’s long avoided even a sip.
And it’s not just a drunken haze in the eyes or a glowing flush in the dark.
When Lucifer takes the next sip, his claws grow sharper, piercing through the fabric of his gloves. His pupils narrow into thin serpentine slits, and the whites of his eyes glow with an eerie light. Something wilder, more demonic, and real breaks through the shell—shedding the plumage of a neat angelic image so awkwardly assembled.
“Wow. Looks like it’s starting to work,” Lucifer exclaims with growing excitement. Boldness spills over, but he continues tasting the blood in small sips. “A potent thing.”
Alastor chuckles and, with a practiced showmanship, downs his glass in one gulp, unfazed by its effects. It’s familiar — straight from life — but now it barely stirs his mind or tingles his tongue. Liquid yet meaningless nostalgia for the past.
Not much different from apple juice for Lucifer himself.
“Show-off,” the King of Hell clicks his tongue.
“I just have more experience and endurance, Your Highness,” Alastor says without exaggeration. He’s still far from drinking blood by the glass and reaching the highest circles of Hell.
Lucifer doesn’t answer. Not immediately. The idea spins brightly behind his clear gaze and intense focus. But it’s still hard to predict whether Alastor will get a ruthless slap or a cloud of confetti in the face next.
“You didn’t disappoint me in your choice of drink, Alastor. And the last few meetings of ours in this bar have been surprisingly… pleasantly tolerable. You surprise me more each time. I feel obliged to reciprocate.”
It lasts only a few seconds. The flicker of light above the ceiling, the ripple of the air — but something changes in the atmosphere. The space between them. Lucifer seems to draw closer without leaving his chair. Leaning forward, resting his elbows on the bar, sharpening his smile with narrowed, slit-like eyes. Maybe it’s his emerging demonic traits, maybe the aura of massive wings, unseen but already casting a shadow.
Lucifer’s serpentine tail scrapes along the floor, curling its tip near the Radio Demon’s feet. Alastor barely restrains himself from crushing the worm under his heel.
“Oh, Your Highness, it’s all gratuitous. Merely a gesture of goodwill and our shared goals within these hotel walls,” Alastor’s voice doesn’t waver, his expression holds the usual grin, but playing this game grows unexpectedly harder. An invisible grip presses down on his shoulders. The King’s aura expands.
“You’re bluffing, Bambi, and very poorly at that. Don’t pretend to be a delicate flower—I think I can offer you something very valuable. Something only I can provide.”
“You’re getting straight to the point,” Alastor remains motionless, sitting upright with perfect posture and layered hands on his knees, shadows gnawing their teeth and sharpening claws in anticipation. Opportunity, chance, even if so unexpected — they smell more appetizing than ever. “But know this—I don’t agree to deals without profit. Even with the King of Hell himself.”
“A deal?” Lucifer raises an eyebrow in full disbelief, as if the question is the dumbest nonsense. “Alastor, who’s talking about a deal? And, in my opinion, you’d get fat and choke on just two deals with royalty.”
The long-frozen heart of the Radio Demon skips a beat. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Lucifer knows. How does he know? Charlie couldn’t say, Vegi was her silent shadow, and everyone else was blind.
This information is dangerous and contradictory. It should have been a powerful trump card in a more serious and grander game than a prolonged conversation at the bar and an unnecessary contest of courtesy.
And even if Lucifer doesn’t show it, skillfully wearing the mask of a simpleton on his face, he feels the foreign reaction and confusion. But he doesn’t stop. He keeps winding his own barrel organ.
“I meant something more personal,” the king’s voice lowers but strikes like a thunderclap in the silence. “Intimate.”
The same glass, previously filled with apple juice, appears in Lucifer’s hands. Without breaking the eye contact between himself and Alastor—stretched to its limit like a silver thread—Lucifer smiles—not brazenly, not friendly, but with a ticklish, poisonous flirtation. He sharpens his smile into a snarl before bringing his own wrist to his mouth. Without hesitation, he bites into the flesh with the ease of fresh, ripe fruit, letting droplets of golden juice splash forth.
Blood flows in a pulsating stream like honey, dripping into the carefully held glass. The harvest is slow, guarding every drop and giving the viewer full access to the unfolding spectacle.
Alastor cannot look away. Cannot blink. Cannot think of anything else. His entire being focuses on the slowly dripping angelic blood. It fills not only the glass’s bottom. It seeps into the mind of the demon rearing up, binding thoughts with viscous silt. The scent pierces his skull like a perfectly aimed bullet. Through receptors and straight into the brain. Saliva pools under the tongue—a reflex. A parched throat—a driving necessity to shorten the remaining distance.
Alastor has good experience taming his impulses, giving them the right shape and timing. Every desire must have its scheduled deadline. Don’t rush, calculate, hold everything inside, locked behind a smile and tightly clenched fingers behind your back. Sooner or later it will pay off. Sooner or later the beast will be allowed to break free from the chain, bare its teeth, and quench the thirst for blood.
Things get a little more complicated when the one exposing their flesh and blood is primordial sin itself. Having entered the gardens of Eden and carrying not only the fruit of freedom but the worms of sin. The first temptation.
The space around them fills with a dull static; the radio sitting on the shelf trembles, and the light flickers several times, tearing apart the shadow of the writhing, sprawling silhouette. Alastor needs a few seconds to collect himself, tighten the slack knots, and straighten his back. The horns on his head still branch out with dried thornbush, and his smile is sharper than a scythe’s blade.
When the blood nearly touches the very rim of the glass, Lucifer pulls it away. The wound on his wrist instantly seals with invisible stitches, leaving no trace or blemish on the surface — once again a perfect, impenetrable vessel.
“Well, what do you say?” Lucifer asks casually.
The tips of Alastor’s fingers tremble awkwardly, like a broken marionette’s, his claws scratching through the inner skin of his palms. The red berries swell with warm juice from fresh wounds, immediately dropping to the floor. The horned shadow crawls in a tremor at his feet, baring its maw in a silent howl.
“How could I refuse such an honor,” Alastor whispers without unclenching his teeth.
So simple. So complicated. Rash. Whether it’s a calculated move, an open trap, madness, or mediocrity — for the first time, Alastor cannot see or discern the true intentions. All previous control — of the entire scene, of the most banal desire to loosen another’s tongue and vigilance or even play on someone’s nerves — is ripped away and cast into uncontrolled free fall, without brakes or purpose.
Angel’s blood, the price — undoubtedly. The blood of one of the first cherubim to set foot on Earth — a relic. Alastor was prepared to claim it as the final prize, a worthy reward in a deadly, unattainable battle, should the chain of circumstances and mistakes lead there.
Now it is offered openly. In a golden cup filled to the brim, behind which hides a smile propped up by a hand and an expectant gaze.
Just as the serpent offered the apple to Eve.
Alastor is not so different from the temptation of the very first man. After all, they are all children, walking in the age-old footsteps of their ancestors’ mistakes.
Brushing drops of his own blood from his fingers onto the floor, Alastor reaches for the extended glass. His trembling claw tips rattle against the thin glass neck, stirring ripples on the perfect golden surface. Lucifer smirks slightly. Condescendingly good-natured. The radio demon, however, hates himself for every slip-up, every careless step — he could hate himself, judging by his uncontrollably growing horns, gathering saliva, eyes darkened with blackness, and the locust-like flickering interference — but all his attention is elsewhere.
Not a drop must spill. Not prematurely. Not past his own throat and the hollow drilling in his stomach.
“Hey, hey, not so fast,” Lucifer stops the demon just as he is about to take the first sip. A disgruntled glance towards him is accompanied by the screech of a wounded stag torn apart by static.
The king of hell barely pays it any mind — hastily pulling to himself a now forgotten bottle of wine and tipping it neck-down over his own glass. Only after counting the last drops does he toss aside the useless bottle and with the enthusiasm of a child reaches toward Alastor again, ready to hold out his glass.
“Now, let’s do this properly,” Lucifer hums encouragingly, and it seems if you refuse, the king of hell will already be climbing onto the table.
A gesture so ordinary and without obligation — or subtly veiled and dangerous. No words are spoken. No terms discussed, but it still feels like a deal. Alastor narrows his eyes condescendingly before breaking the buzzing tension between them with the bell-like clink of two glasses.
When Lucifer immediately presses his lips to the rim of his glass, seeming intent on downing it all in one gulp, waiting for a speed contest, Alastor slowly lifts his glass to his lips. He breathes deeply. Takes a careful, tentative sip as if it were his first kiss. One that will be followed immediately by a second. A third. Each time more confident, daring, and messy. One might get lost in it without realizing.
It makes you want to choke.
Gold stains the teeth, soaks the tongue, and slides down the trembling throat. Both cold and hot. Both sharp and caramel-sweet. You might not be able to tell at first, or maybe the blood itself changes every moment. But it’s surreal, distortedly familiar.
And then Alastor remembers. Something from a distant past life. Not just there, up above and beyond the clouds, no — much further, even before foreign blood between fingers, untamed hunger, and madness tightening around the human mind.
In a small house on the edge of town. When magnolias bloom outside the window, sunlight throws playful reflections through the glass, and the wind sweeps branches and leaves like dust into the slightly open door.
A glass in hand. Too large for a child’s grasp. Filled with a drink tingling the tongue with bubbles, berry-flavored and candy-pink in color. And a kind smile opposite.
A feeling — a fleeting haze. Flashing like a glint and then lost again in a kaleidoscope. Alastor doesn’t try to catch it, lets it pass through him, chasing the next intoxicating and melting sip that dissolves consciousness. Hardly pleasure. A narcotic thrill — tightening the insides. A blissful drop of purest water for a traveler fleeing the desert’s jaws, tormented by thirst.
When the last sip is taken, it’s as if Alastor is thrown back onto dry land by the scruff of his neck. Disheveled, lost in space and time. Was it a few seconds? The whole night passed? Only a ringing in his ears and a sense of bewilderment remain.
The radio demon runs his tongue over gums and teeth, gathering the last traces of aftertaste and his own thoughts buzzing like a swarm. Not only in his head. For some time now, the radio has been howling with static and screeching, spitting out, along with the sound, a filth like an oily mass spreading across ceiling and floor. An unpleasant sight and consequence of poor control over his powers.
A complete mess. Absolutely unacceptable.
Gritting his teeth, Alastor forcibly gathers all the scattered pieces back. Restores the voice of a sweet girl on the airwaves, wipes away the spreading darkness and tentacles, sets down the glass, and tries to smooth every last crease on his suit.
All under the watchful gaze of Lucifer, content as a cat.
“Well? How is it?” he asks casually, without a hint of cunning fire in his smoldering red eyes. Lucifer’s own glass has long been empty, and his demonic form provoked by the mixture of alcohol and blood is in full display. Only his wings remain a translucent halo, neatly folded behind his back in a shapeless weight and light’s interference, as if hidden by fog.
Lucifer leans even closer to Alastor. Given the chance, he’d sprawl flat across the entire bar counter.
Alastor needs all his strength to make his voice work like a human’s, breaking through a stream of bestial growls. His throat aches, his tongue already drying.
“Never thought the ruler of hell would offer something so vulgar to a filthy sinner. After all, the blood of a fallen seraph as an offering — an exceptional gift, and you’re certainly not offering it to just anyone you meet.”
“Well, what can I say, I know how to surprise with unconventional solutions,” Lucifer boasts like a man who’s won a bet and all the arguments in the world, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The bravado falls in an instant with another attempt to get closer. “But it was worth it — you should’ve seen your face. Don’t hide it, I know you liked it and simply couldn’t look away.”
Listening to the king of hell brag about the taste of his own blood is strange. But Lucifer is strange in every way. Like this whole situation, which lost control and flew off the rails into an abyss. Alastor is still breathing through clenched teeth, barely holding back tremors and a shaking heart. The echo of “those” sensations lingers in his fingertips.
The radio demon tried drugs once, and still in his life before, memories of those teenage, hasty, barely thought-through decisions are vague. Later, Alastor used powerful substances only for his victims or toys, having learned to derive pleasure and similar effects by entirely different methods: blood, fresh flesh, and the feeling of control became some of them.
Now it’s as if he swallowed a lethal dose of both.
“That was truly… an astonishing explosion of sensations,” Alastor says measuredly, carefully counting each description and comparison. He’s unsure if dry words can even begin to describe the brief madness that lasted seconds. He doesn’t want to give the king any extra reason to rejoice, but denying the twisted pleasure received is difficult. “Perhaps I wouldn’t refuse to get a few more drops.”
“You’re getting cheeky, fawn,” Lucifer snaps his teeth boldly. “Don’t expect me to be so generous with you just because of sweet talk. Your heart and tongue are still foul and rotten.”
Fingers keeping time with his words, the king methodically points first to Alastor’s chest, then to his lips. His eyes, narrowed in a sharp squint, move mockingly as if truly seeing through the red jacket and the tight gray skin beneath.
“Though I’d like to see you ask.”
The last phrase should have provoked an irritated growl, but it only made Alastor more determined to raise his horns and charge headlong. Maybe it wasn’t only the king of hell drunk on wine—perhaps the one who drank his blood felt the alcohol within it. Boldness was not encouraged now. Foolishness was in favor.
“And what if I tried to take another sip by force, Your Majesty?” Alastor keeps his tone controlled, knowing his words might be either casual curiosity or a full-fledged threat. His tongue traces his gums, claws casually scraping the bar surface down to dust. “Your neck looks thin enough, and open enough, for my teeth.”
“Hey, hey, not so fast!” Lucifer snorts into his fist, half out of indignation, half out of laughter. There isn’t a hint of anger there, but something else sparkles, like champagne. “We’ve only just shared a single glass, and you’re already rushing several steps ahead.”
Sprawling across the table with his chest, Lucifer turns partly sideways and almost bumps into a stranger’s shoulder. He freezes. His eyes open wide, glowing like red lenses. As if only now realizing how close he is to Alastor. Previously separated by the full length of the bar, they cautiously kept to different sides. But now, barely a step apart, Lucifer’s gesturing falls within the Radio-Demon’s personal space, and Alastor can easily read the drunken flush smeared across the stranger’s cheeks like careless powder.
He can also smell the stranger’s breath—thick, thick, veiled with alcohol and that same familiar, sticky caramel-apple sweetness. Infused with it either since the days of Eden or from all those long, countless nights of binge drinking and endless stores of freshly magic-pressed apples.
That scent is not unpleasant. It’s already familiar, tightly bound in association with the loser king and the very first sip from a golden glass. The concrete memories of tasting someone else’s blood are already slipping away amorphously, like sand through fingers, leaving only the aftertaste and the emotions experienced. And Alastor feels that the yellow blood was exactly the same—like this scent, like this breath—intoxicating, warm-warm, beating in rhythm with the heart, and sweet on the very tip of the tongue.
How easily grip is lost. How quickly one wants to try it again.
Alastor shifts forward. At first cautiously. Then suddenly. Drawn by the stranger’s breath and scent, like a fish hooked under the gills.
Just a little more. Close. Part your lips, bare your teeth, and be ready to bite again and never let go. The ethereal feeling of golden warmth is already on his lips and deep in his thoughts. It will never leave. Burned forever, a throbbing seal. A tight collar with a leash pressed just above the windpipe.
“Alastor, you…”
A hand presses against Alastor’s chest, right over the damp scab covering the wound from angelic weaponry— even the slightest touch feels like the jagged tip of a knife piercing through. There’s no better way to bring someone back to reality. To strip away all arrogance and wipe the haze.
To force attention onto something other than scent, desire, and tightly pressed foreign lips. Onto Lucifer himself. Narrowed pupils, a furrowed brow, the corners of his lips pulled tight like a taut string.
For a moment—perhaps only a moment—Alastor thinks Lucifer might yield. Not backward. Forward. With a weightless exhale and a sudden flush of color. But the impulse vanishes behind a blink and a lowered gaze. So easy to mistake for drunken illusion and a playful dance of shadows.
Alastor is driven by a bestial, primal hunger, leftover from the first slaughter and the taste of human flesh on his tongue. In Lucifer sparkles a hunger of a different sort. But the embers are easy to snuff out.
“Don’t play too hard,” Lucifer warns, stretching his lips into a smile, the kind made of shards from a broken mirror. “You’ll need to treat me to more than one bottle of wine before I agree to anything like that.”
Lucifer doesn’t try to pull away or escape, but watches with a sharp, searching gaze. So much insight and worry—but even those cannot hide his own nervousness. For the situation? For Alastor himself? Nonsense.
Alastor feels as if doused from head to toe with a bucket of filth. Disgust—sudden, not even deliberate. Growling, he slaps the king of hell’s hand away as if it were an angelic spear pressed to his heart—and not far from the truth, both illuminated by divine light.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Alastor grumbles, stepping back and fiercely trying to crush the urge to return. Closer to the source of the golden ambrosia. The Radio Demon understands the hint hidden behind Lucifer’s offer, but at the same time, he doesn’t at all. The duality of desire and hunger irritates and confounds. Flight was never a privilege for the weak—only the clever.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” Lucifer agrees, averting his gaze and sliding aside. Running his claws through tousled hair, with a flourish like a magician, he erases his own horns and other demonic features. Voilà—the familiar puppet image of a long-time loser behind the bar, desperately hiding his cracks and scuffs. “We’ve stayed here too long. Drinking’s really not my forte.”
“I could thank you for the company, the good evening, and express hope it happens again—but no. You’ll hear nothing but regrets from me about this meeting.” His tone is sharper than intended, but Alastor doesn’t intend to apologize. He’s already risen from the bar stool, adjusted his suit broadly, and taken an impatient step aside. “But still, thanks for the treat, Your Majesty. I’m afraid I won’t forget your taste anytime soon.”
“I’ll pray you don’t sneak into my bedroom chasing a refill and try to eat me alive,” Lucifer jokes. Remaining glued to his bar stool, he watches the demon like a scolded dog. Between his demonic horns, a flicker of fire still burns; intangible wings tremble, shedding equally intangible feathers onto the floor. Only now does Alastor notice the cozy duck slippers on the stranger’s feet.
“Well then, I advise you to bolt your locks tight,” the threat cuts off with a wide, toothy grin instead of a farewell.
Alastor pivots on his heel and strides deep into the hotel, seeking to vanish into its shadows and corridors like a protective, familiar forest thicket. The feeling of a foreign gaze—like a hot barrel pressed to the back of his head—remains, but Alastor still refuses to look back.
Let it be that way. Let it stay behind, within this night, this meeting, this bar, and these two shared glasses.
The scent of apples clings to Alastor with thin, clawed fingers. His stomach tightens in spasm, and the hunger grows like a newborn tumor with a previously unknown force.