Chapter Text
Alastor hadn’t expected to be part of the portrait. The royal family had several of them, some, like this one, done as a royal image, the King and Queen and Princess, some more like photo’s, snapshots of a happy family, like one with Lucifer and Lilith holding a toddler aged Charlie at the beach, or one with them on a park bench. They covered the walls in the palace, and had started covering the walls at the manor too, along with artwork drawn by Charlie and some artistically done photographs that Lilith had taken.
She was quite good, and he’d made sure to tell her so, to a pleased smile.
Something Alastor had noticed about how people treated Lilith, something which added to his notion that most people were morons, was that while flattery was abundant, both out of real awe and out of shmoozing brownnosers attempting to suck up to the second most powerful being in Hell, most of the compliments were focused on Lilih’s looks.
And yes, she was beautiful. Alastor knew that, he wasn’t blind. He had an appreciation for beauty, and Lilith was the epitome of it, having been formed by divine intent rather than mortal hands. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, her bone structure exquisite, her hair long and fine and silky and bright gold, her eyes a gorgeous purple colour rarely seen in natural born humans. She was tall and svelte and curvy, and yet that was apparently all people saw when they looked at her.
They didn’t compliment her power, her voice or her songs, her ambition or iron will or political astuteness. They didn’t compliment her skills, her singing and dancing and mastery of fashion or public speaking. They didn’t even compliment how much she obviously loved her daughter!
No, they called her beautiful as if it was all she was, and it made Alastor shake his head at their folly.
He made sure that when he complimented her it was for things that were real, like when she’d put an annoying Goetia in his place at the last ball, or her excellent voice at her latest concert – or her newfound skill in photographs.
Currently, he was putting the finishing touches on Charlie for the portrait sitting. He tucked a loose bit of hair behind her ear, straightened her bow tie, and basically fussed over her as his mother had fussed over him when they were getting their picture taken that one time.
Charlie was wearing a delicate lace shirt with a black bow tie and a black choker with a teardrop shaped ruby hanging in the middle of it. Her usual black dress had a petticoat under it to make the skirt flow a bit more, the silver buttons were little snakes wrapped around apples, and at her hem was red embroidered deer and goats and snakes and lilies. She was wearing high-heeled shoes, and wobbled slightly as Alastor accompanied her to the sitting room where the painting would happen.
“How does mom wear these all the time?”
“To be fair, your mother has human shaped feet, not hooves,” Alastor replied, feeling oddly nostalgic as he looked at the wallpaper.
The portrait was being painted in the building that would come to be known as the Hazbin Hotel, after all.
“I just hope I get to sit down, I don’t want to stand with these things during the whole time – you’re lucky you’ve never had to have a portrait done Nini it’s so boring –”
Alastor cracked his neck so he could look down at her (though not by much anymore) fully without changing his forward stride. “Nini?”
Charlie blushed bright red and stumbled in her new heels. Alastor reached out lightning quick and grabbed her arm to steady her.
“Nanny! I meant Nanny – it’s just something Helsa told me – it’s nothing! Let’s get going, ahahahaaaaaaa….”
Alastor raised an eyebrow, but allowed himself to be pulled by a flustered Charlie down to the room they’d be sitting in. Lucifer was in full ringmaster getup, Lilith was wearing purple silk that fell around her frame flawlessly and her horns were out, and she was even wearing her crown, which was a rare sight.
And fortunately for Charlie, there was even a seat for her, right between her parents!
Probably so it wasn’t so obvious she was now taller than her father.
Alastor expected to deposit Charlie in her place and then go stand somewhere else, perhaps behind the painter, an Ars Goetia who bowed deeply to Charlie and ignored him completely, but instead Alastor was ushered to a place behind the chair. The painter seemed about to protest, but Lilith turned a cold glare to him and Lucifer smiled at him, and the Ars Goetia somehow managed to go pale, despite being covered in feathers, and said nothing as he got to painting.
Charlie was right. It was boring. Alastor kept himself very still and tuned into the radiowaves, Lilith was clearly thinking deeply about something in her head, and Charlie was fidgeting slightly. Only Lucifer seemed able to just stand there and smile and not move without any issues.
Angels.
Perhaps it was because Alastor was always wary of things that were too good to be true. Perhaps it was his prey instincts that had him extra watchful. Perhaps it was simply the hypervigilance which had saved his life multiple times before.
Regardless, it was him who spotted the symbols first. They were unfamiliar, sooty black that was slowly turning gold as the manifested on the floor – under Charlie. Around Charlie.
They were starting to glow, and as if in slow motion Alastor saw that more and more were coming into being, writhing and whirling and shining, and a pentagram was forming underneath her feet. Lilith and Lucifer were reacting now, turning, eyes widening, and they were reaching out – but they’d be too slow.
Alastor lunged forward and wrapped himself, body and soul and shadow, around Charlie as the pentagram fully manifested, and the summoning circle twisted them away.
*
Lucifer was frozen, one hand reaching out, eyes upon eyes opening up on his body and leaking into the surroundings as he frantically searched for two of the three most important people in the universe. They had been right there, and now they weren’t. They were gone!
Lilith screamed the painter to run. Probably to protect him from Lucifer as he changed, looking through all the layers of reality that humans couldn’t see, but he didn’t have the state of mind to care about some random Ars Goetia when Charlie and Alastor were missing, were gone, had been taken right in front of him what the hell kind of father, king, protector, was he if they could just be whisked away right in front of him!
For the first time in thousands of years, Lucifer slipped free of the bounds of his body. Even if he made more of himself, he needed more eyes. He needed more senses. He needed to look, to search, to find them!
In a wave of light and heat and power that was carefully wrapped around Lilith, protecting the one remaining precious loved person, Lucifer expanded throughout hell, searching.
He looked through Pentagram City, peering through walls and doors and layers of reality and paying little to no mind to the screams of sinners as they burnt, only enough to make sure certain souls precious to the ones missing weren’t hurt, guided by Lilith. Nothing.
He spread out to the rest of the First Circle. Nothing.
The other circles of Pride. Not there.
Alastor was a sinner, he was forbidden from the other rings of hell, but it had been Charlie who was being pulled away and Alastor – beloved, reckless, self-sacrificial – had simply followed her.
He checked the other rings, ignoring the Sins as Satan growled and Mammon cried out in indignation and Leviathan in shock and Bee and Ozzie broadcasted ‘what are you doing what’s happening?’ and even Belphegor gave him her full attention.
Paimon attempted to contact him, curious and concerned, and he ignored him. They weren’t important right now.
Not here. Nowhere here. Nowhere in Hell.
Where then?
Lilith was thinking, cocooned in light and seeing only enough that it wouldn’t burn her mind out, his brave brilliant cunning love, and her mind was putting together their absence from their power base and protection and the golden colour of the pentagram and coming up with –
She didn’t even have to finish the thought before Lucifer was rocketing up through the boundaries that separated Hell from Heaven.
He didn’t bother with the massive golden gates – they were built to keep out the darkness and corruption that they had faced at the beginning and that he had accidentally let into Earth with the apple, not him. He ignored the startled cries and attempted attacks and panic radiating from his siblings, and instead spread further to search and search and search, not caring if the winners got a bit singed –
Careful, Lucifer, that one is Alastor’s mother!
– not caring if most of the winners got a bit singed, they should know to stay out of a desperate seraphim’s way anyway.
Regardless, he was looking and looking and he couldn’t find them, not a single trace!
There was chaos around them of course, and Lucifer could sense Lilith’s sadistic delight in the beings she hated running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Some Exorcists were trying to attack him, and, no. Not when he had Lilith with him, and she might be hurt.
He not so gently removed them to another layer of existence and let them deal with the curious beings that had never seen their like before. One of his siblings could bring them back later, and Raphael could probably heal any mental damage.
Seraphiel was fully transformed and protecting a small bundle of brightness behind her – oh. A new Seraphim.
A Joybringer.
Like he had been once.
He was willing to bet he knew exactly how old she was too. The exact moment the joy, already a flickering flame after millenia of sinners and their depredations trampling all over his hopes and dreams and only barely raised when they’d been blessed with their little miracle, their little Charlie, had gone out of him.
The First Extermination. The year Charlie had been born.
The year the streets ran red with sinner blood and Lucifer had seen and closed his eyes and turned away and seen Lilith, holding Charlie, sobbing quietly and gone to comfort her – and she’d turned away from him and his comfort.
Of course she had. He’d been the one to hurt her.
He turned from them as well, feeling the dismay as he couldn’t find Alastor and Charlie anywhere. If they were in neither Heaven nor Hell, they must be on Earth, and he needed to be summoned to get there. And he wouldn’t be able to fully look because to do so would cause such massive damage on their fragile, living bodies he could accidentally destroy the whole place and no matter how he felt right now, there was no part of him that was capable of destroying Earth or hurting living humans, who were so very fragile. When it was created they had been commanded to protect it after all, and Lucifer was still an Angel, and not capable of disobeying that order that was burned into his bones.
Lucifer despaired. Lucifer raged. Lucifer blazed. Lucifer searched.
And then –
Coldness. Water. The equal and opposite of Lucifer’s heat and fire, as they always had been since they’d been created. Twins. The very first.
The two who, together, were able to make a small mimicry of their creator’s abilities.
Lucifer, who could create form.
Michael, who could give that form life.
The last time he’d seen him had been before Sera had contacted him about the exterminations, when Charlie was still a new-newborn and he’d been desperate to keep her safe. He’d made two soft stuffed animals, goats and dragons, like him, to protect her – and then he’d gone to the embassy, Lilith a protective presence at his side holding Charlie, still a bit squashed looking. He’d called, and asked for help, and Michael had come.
Michael had been the third being to ever hold Charlie, and together they’d made Razzle and Dazzle, to protect her.
And now Charlie was gone, and Lucifer was reeling, panicked, desperate and angry and afraid, terrified as he hadn’t been since he’d been falling and breaking and dying and needing to protect the small, fragile human falling with him – and he’d succeeded, hadn’t he? He’d managed at least that. Lilith had survived.
And Alastor and Charlie were still alive. They were not here, but they were alive, and Charlie was strong and Alastor was smart and they would stay alive until he could get to them.
Michael wasn’t attacking.
He was wrapped around him, separating him from Heaven and protecting those he was hurting in his desperation, but he wasn’t broadcasting that grim, weary determination that he had when Lucifer had been sentenced and Michael had carried it out, or the fiery protectiveness Lucifer remembered from the very beginning, when they had fought their creator’s equal and opposite.
Instead, there was concern.
And for the first time in millenia, Lucifer who had once been Samael heard a message broadcast on the private channel that had once been open as two twins spoke constantly, sending across the thoughts and emotions and images that had been the angel’s language before they had had bodies, and voice boxes and mouths and lips and teeth and tongues to speak with.
Samael, what is wrong?
Everything was wrong!
He broadcast back, showing him what had happened. Everything had been fine, he’d been having a fun moment with his family, he was enjoying himself, he was loved and loving and happy (there was a flicker of something from Michael, shame or regret or guilt or loss or longing, that Lucifer dismissed. He didn’t have time for him right now, Alastor and Charlie were gone and he needed to find them.) and then they had vanished and he couldn’t find them!
If you calm, I will contact Gabriel and Uriel and we will help you search.
Lucifer…paused. That…that could work. He could see all the bandwidths and layers of reality that all seraphim could, but it wasn’t his speciality like it was for Uriel, and Gabriel had a mastery of communication, while Alastor was connected to radio waves – and hadn’t he just thought it? Alastor was smart. He’d be trying to find a way back to them, to Hell, to him, and he’d be broadcasting his location if he could.
Lucifer sent an agreement, and pulled himself back and away and down and in, settling into the form he had chosen when he had fallen in love with a spirited, independent human and wanted to meet her as an equal, and pulled his senses in until he was down to only a few more then human’s five, kneeling next to Lilith on Heaven’s pavement.
It was too bright, too white, after so long with Hell’s dim red lighting. Pastels everywhere.
Alastor would hate it.
Lucifer stifled a laugh or a sob or both, and turned to make sure Lilith was alright, that she hadn’t been hurt by his desperation. She smiled at him, kneeling by his side, unharmed, and he let out a sigh of relief as he started to calm and look around him.
There was Seraphiel, Sera, and the small seraphim behind her with the white hair and white and blue dress must be the joybringer, and – oh, there was Adam. Yuck.
And before him – Michael.
Michael, who looked almost the same as him, same hair and same skin and same red circles on his cheeks, but who was taller, with longer hair, and dark blue feathers where Lucifer had red and Samael had once had light blue.
Michael, who had summoned the others, and was currently looking at him, silent.
Sera spoke. “Michael! Thank the Creator – it’s an attack, he’s broken into Heaven, you need to –”
“Quiet.”
Sera reeled back, shock flashing across her face as Adam gaped and various winners watched in confusion and panic and interest.
Michael turned to her, and spoke. He didn’t raise his voice, but it rang out nonetheless. “Our brother and his wife had their husband and daughter stolen. Samael was looking for them. When he couldn’t find them in Hell, they came here. I have already called the others to help. Once they are found, I trust they will go back to their domain, yes?”
That last bit was directed at Lucifer and Lilith, and Lucifer nodded as Lilith snorted and straightened up. “Of course we will! You don't think we would want to be here do you?” She looked around at Heaven in superb disdain, and Lucifer could imagine her and Alastor sneering at it in unison, sitting to the side with their wine and gossiping judgmentally even as Charlie made friends and pet the unicorns and explored.
She’d probably tell Alastor all about it when they got him back, and they’d have that gossip session and everything would be fine.
Lilith got up and stood protectively in between Michael and Lucifer, glaring the Sword of God down. She had never forgiven him for his trial and everything that had happened, Lucifer knew. She had never forgiven him for hurting him, just as Lucifer had never forgiven Adam for hurting her. And now she stood, totally outclassed and knowing it but between him and the person she saw as a threat anyway, and he loved her so much.
(Michael had called Alastor their husband, reading off Lucifer’s feelings for him, but he had never told him how he felt, how they both felt, how much they would love to marry him or at least take him on a date. They would have time. He was fine. They were both fine. They would have time.)
Gabriel and Uriel arrived in flashes of light as they teleported instead of flying. Gabriel was as androgynous as ever, pale green hair and eyes and wings, and Uriel appeared as a dark-skinned man with a cloud of white curls and white eyes against a yellow background and yellow wings. Michael must have told them what was happening because they didn’t question the presence of the King and Queen of Hell in Heaven, only getting to work, with Gabriel setting up a Seeing Orb right there in the middle of the street and Uriel opening up eyes upon eyes as he started to search, images flickering on the Orb almost too fast to see.
The winners were getting closer now, curiosity overtaking their fear and alarm.
One of them was stepping forward, despite the arms of others reaching out to hold her back. She was a woman who appeared in her early thirties, with dark skin with white doe spots on the cheeks, soft green eyes, and hair a mass of red curls with white tips that had two deer ears rising up from the top of her head, also red with white tips. She was wearing an Edwardian dress in white lace with a pink sash.
She also looked oddly familiar.
“Excuse me, mr…er, devil?” she asked, hesitant but brave, in a rich southern accent.
Lucifer got up the energy to smile gently at her. “Just Lucifer is fine.”
She nodded slowly, then firmed herself and asked a question. “Mr. Lucifer…when you were – err, all firey and such, you almost burned me, but you didn’t and you said something – you said, ‘that’s Alastor’s mother’.”
Oh. Oh no wonder she looked familiar.
Whelp, this was possibly the worst introduction to Alastor’s beloved maman he could have possibly given, yup.
The woman – Amelie Deveraux was giving him a very familiar look. It was the ‘You are going to explain yourself mister,’ look, and it was a look he’d seen on her son’s face, though this one seemed a bit more patient. More ‘I will wait here until you tell me because you are going to tell me’ and less ‘you will tell me or I will start making you tell me.’
Lilith, as per usual, came to his rescue.
She came forward and reached out and took both of Amelie’s hand in her own eyes shining. “It’s an honour to meet you, Mrs Deveraux. Your son has told us so much about you, and if your cooking is anything like his I must insist on taking some home with me.”
Amelie smiled back, a bit overwhelmed, as she looked between them. “Then – it is my Alastor. And – the angel – the…archangel Michael?” she seemed a bit awed as she looked over at his brother, and Lucifer remembered that he was in the human’s holy book as well, “said your husband was missing? Then, Alastor is your husband?”
She seemed confused as to how that could work.
Lilith smiled comfortingly at her. “Not yet, but we’re working on it. I understand it may be a bit confusing or alarming to you, considering some of the lies humans have been told about what is and is not a sin, but as you’ve probably learned here in heaven, who you love is not one of them. Men can love men, women can love women, and three people can all love each other.”
Amelie waved that off. “Oh, yes, dear, I know that – never believed any of that nonsense even when I was alive, I lived in the french quarter don’t you know, and there’s a lovely couple of gentlemen right next to me here in heaven who are wonderful neighbours, but that wasn’t what I meant. It’s just – for him to know you, and you him – he’s in hell? My son is in Hell? But why? He’s a good boy, and I’ve been listening to some of the stories people have about him when they come up here when they knew him, and – what could have possibly gotten him into hell? Fighting in that awful war? He was only a boy when he signed up! Breaking prohibition? Why?” She sounded anguished, heartbroken, and Lucifer suddenly realised – with information and news from earth form new arrivals, Amelie had probably heard about how her son had died over two decades ago, and yet he had never come here. She had known for the last two decades that her son was suffering and she had no idea why.
Lilith hesitated. Lucifer spoke up.
“Mrs Deveraux, what do you remember of how you died?”
She shivered, eyes haunted, one hand coming up to her neck. “Richard came home. He was drunk, as usual, and he was angry, and – he wanted to have sex and I didn’t want to and – he got angry.
And he hurt me. Very badly. He was…he was hurting me when – Alastor came home. He shot him, to get him away from me and took me to the hospital – I think…in a car? We don’t have a car, is that it? Stealing? Or from shooting Richard? But – he just wanted to get him away from me! That can’t be it, right?!” She looked at them desperately, and other winners were starting to crowd around them too, murmuring among themselves, several bringing up family members and loved ones who had not joined them in heaven.
Perhaps it was this that made Sera hurry over, Adam trailing behind her and varying between shooting looks at Lilith, that odd mixture of resentment and desire and anxiety that he always seemed to have around her, and odd looks at Lucifer. The little joybringer had moved over to flutter around Gabriel and Uriel and Michael, and Lucifer waited for them to bark that they were working and send her away, but instead they seemed to almost enjoy it. Lucifer looked away, trying not to think about it or his mood would plummet even more.
Adam was talking to Lilith. “What, you made radio guy your husband too? Your standards slipping sweetheart?” Lilith glared at him, then suddenly smiled. “How do you know Alastor is the name of the person who’s on the radio during broadcasts?” Adam frowned and started sipping his soda petulantly. “Heard his voice – apparently there’s this thing called true crime and he’s pretty big there. Connected to someone called the Butcher or something, I don’t know, I don’t pay attention, I just recognised his voice and found out his name from that. He’s your nanny too, isn’t he? Sera recognised the name. You’re protecting him!” he accused, then grinned nastily, “but you know, you’re only gonna need a nanny until your kid is all grown up, and after that – well, I think any applications you might make to get him another position might be refused, you know?”
Lucifer saw red. Lilith got there first, laying a quick punch to Adam’s face that cracked his mask and sent him falling to the side, then turning and marching over to Lucifer, hair whipping around her and eyes inverted.
As satisfying as that was, they really shouldn’t start a war right now, so Lucifer took her hand in his and leaned against her side as she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself.
“We knew he couldn’t be the Nanny forever,” he said, trying to calm both of them, “and we have plans for this. Just means we have a deadline for convincing him to marry us.” Lucifer had already made two crowns, one of silver and white gold and diamonds in the shape of Alastor’s beloved roses, and one dramatic and black with horns and thorns and rubies. He’d thrown out several plans of various rings as well, though he liked the newest one, gold with little antlers holding a small diamond, restrained and beautiful. Lilith nodded, a small smile coming to her face at the thought of him really being their husband, and Lucifer looked back at where Sera was.
The High Seraphim was holding out her hands, trying to calm the winners down. “Everyone, please, calm. I understand that this has been a distressing time for you, and that several of you have expressed concerns about loved ones who have not come to heaven, but I assure you everything is under control –”
“Sera, there are kids in hell,” interrupted Lucifer flatly, sick of the bullshit. “Yulia is five and her only crime was eating what Katerina gave her. She didn’t even know it was human flesh, or that that was a bad thing to eat.”
“Wait,” said one of the winners, a man with blond hair and cat ears and tail and small wings, barging forward with an expression of panic on his face. “You said Yulia and Katerina – from Ukraine? From Rubizhne – they died? They are in Hell? No, not Katerina, not my little girl, I thought they survived because they weren’t here – no!”
The crowd was growing, people were talking, Sera was looking increasingly strained – and then Gabriel spoke, voice cutting through the noise.
“Lucifer?” he asked, sounding confused, “Is your Alastor somehow connected to radiowaves? He’s…broadcasting. Through the television?”
Lucifer blinked. “But Alastor hates television?”
“What, radio guy?” Adam snorted. “Yeah, probably because he’s too ug – urk.”
Lucifer ignored the sound of Adam choking on his straw as he and Lilith crowded forward, eyes fixed on the Orb, and the image it showed. Alastor, tall and red and smile sharp, and Charlie, a perfect mixture of him and her mother, and they were there and alive and Lucifer would find them, he would go to them, and he would burn anyone who tried to stop him.