Chapter Text
Despite his practice talking to an expansive audience, both in life and in afterlife, Alastor was not looking forward to this talk. He'd tried to avoid it. Oh how he'd tried. But Charlie had been given specific terms, and there was only so much he could do to expand said terms. It didn't help that she was pestering Lucifer, either, since he always complained to Alastor anyway. So eventually, there was a point where it was no longer an option to avoid the conversation, and Alastor materialized out of the shadows in Charlie's office. Fashionably late, of course, but somehow still managing to get there before Lucifer did. Charlie very visibly still had a hangover, despite the passing of a few days since Alastor had turned her away while she was drunk. He had removed the extra layer of protection provided by his jacket so that his arm and chest weren't stifled under so much fabric, although both were still tightly bandaged to keep the bleeding at bay.
It wasn't until Lucifer portalled in that Alastor bothered to take the seat across from Charlie. The king sat down stiffly next to him. His physical wounds had healed, but fatigue still weighed heavily on his bones as his power slowly replenished itself, and he was prone to dizzy spells and panic attacks. Charlie was among the last to realize that, but that fact surprised no one.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Charlie stared at them earnestly, Lucifer wouldn't meet her gaze, glaring tiredly at the surface of the desk between them, and Alastor stared directly at her expressionlessly - or at least, his approximation of being expressionless. Razzle peeked out from around the wardrobe, then seemed to sense the tension between them and retreated again. Alastor finally leaned forward slightly, just enough to plant his elbows on the edge of the desk.
"I'd like to hear what you have to say so we can get an idea of what we must discuss," he prompted Charlie icily. The princess swallowed anxiously, glancing at her father for support, but Lucifer had turned to look at the deer, lips twisting into a tired smile.
"I didn't mean to hurt you when I sent you away, and I'm sorry I spent more resources on dad when he was basically just drained of energy and wasn't really hurt." She shut up when Alastor's head tipped forward and he sighed heavily, a static-heavy huff of rueful laughter emerging from behind the smile plastered to his face. Lucifer's face had fallen, and his gaze had returned to the desk, although he reached out to pry the Radio Demon's claws apart where they were starting to tighten in the desk. "Okay. Your turn. You insisted that I be sober, and then avoided the topic - and me, for that matter - for days. Talk to me. Please?"
Alastor took a moment to breathe, the gazes of both Morningstars pinned on him as they waited, Charlie's with impatience and frustration, Lucifer's with concern.
"You aren't going to talk until we're done. You aren't going to interrupt. Until we're done, this isn't a debate. You're going to have wait for us to be done. Do you understand?" Lucifer started, buying the deer more time to gather his wits about himself. Charlie - taken aback by his uncharacteristically confrontational attitude toward her - nodded mutely. "Good. Alastor?"
"First of all, your father was injured. Vox stabbed him with cables made of angelic steel to siphon greater amounts of his power at once. That meant it was blood loss and power drain that we had to contend with, and you left us to figure it out. Second, you brushed right past me without realizing I had collapsed when you did so. I was already massively injured, and you just left your father to my care. We aren't invincible, Charlie. Instead of checking in to make sure wed make it back to the hotel alright, you left us vulnerable and walking the streets alone because neither of us could summon a portal. I singlehandedly carried your father across half the Pentagram, while suffering major blood loss myself, and was greeted with a locked gate. You weren't even with Husk and Angel Dust and Niffty, who actually came to help us inside. They knew, so maybe you should have asked them, but you didn't. Angel Dust argued with you about separating us. I was awake for parts of it. And you just kept ignoring them. Husk knew as soon as he saw us gathering what energy we had to protest our separation. There wasn't going to be problems if we were left to heal together, but you decided there would be, and that everyone else was wrong, and then you sent me across the Pentagram instead of across the hotel, with someone who had no medical experience and no backup to help hold me down when the seizing started. I spent days without proper bandaging, and my injuries got worse. And that's all because you made the decision alone. Lucifer saved my life, coming for me when he did, and you tried to punish us both for it. But that isn't the worst part."
Alastor took a minute to breathe, his gaze still locked on Charlie's porcelain face, which had practically drained of color entirely. Lucifer didn't interject, and - when Charlie glanced to him for help - he pointedly nodded to the Radio Demon.
"Right, and I noticed you only apologized for hurting me by sending me away. No mention of brushing past and sending me down and then not getting back up. No mention of the weeks that have passed since we fought Adam. Those weeks where I wasn't at full strength but you still demanded that I act as your first line of defense because I'm the only hard hitter that can actually hurt sinners and you didn't recognize the pain of having my soul eaten away. I'll admit, I could've complained earlier, but you can't really expect me to have expected you to listen when this is the trouble we had to go to just to get you to listen to what we're telling you this time? You haven't really apologized to your own father, who only ever got captured because Vox imitated your voice and he can't turn you down. You have been manipulating his need to make up for not being in your life, and it's not fair in the slightest." Alastor broke off, and Lucifer took his chance to add something that had been bothering him.
"Char-Char, the first time we got mad at you and you tried to apologize, you didn't bother to apologize for your own actions. You apologized that we took your own words and actions the wrong way. That isn't okay. In fact, it's really messed up, and I must say... I'm disappointed in you for stopping that low just to insist you weren't in the wrong."
Charlie's face twisted with insult, her mouth falling open as though she was going to argue her case, but she paused and glanced at Alastor. The deer leaned back in his seat, folding his arms and gesturing for her to take the stage.
"It's not my fault I thought the two of you would be fine! You always have been, no matter how bad you seem to be hurt! And look, you're fine now, too, aren't you?"
"Only because we disobeyed what you decreed! We wouldn't have been fine if we hadn't found each other, Charlie. And you're still not listening to what we're saying. You didn't even bother checking on us before you made your decision, and you never do. You only ever know we're injured after we've healed a bit because you never check. This time isn't an exception. It's the norm you've been existing around this whole time," Alastor snapped, his voice distorting with radio static as he shot to his feet, palms slamming down on the desk in front of Charlie so hard she flinched and Lucifer heard something crack so loudly he couldn't tell if it was bones or wood. The deer's voice dropped to a flat growl. "Good news for you, though. I recorded what we said. I'm sure Umbra can transcribe it for you, and you can read through it until it sinks through your skull and we can actually discuss this issue productively. Until then, don't expect conversation from me. I won't entertain you like a trained monkey again." With that, Alastor spun away, already striding toward the office door by the time Lucifer stood and followed in silence, his chin lifted defiantly. Charlie reached out for them, but the door slammed before she could think of anything to say.
And if a stack of papers materialized from shadow barely five minutes later, written in Alastor's steady handwriting, and Charlie actually set aside hotel paperwork to read it again and again, that was for her and Umbra alone to know.
And Alastor, by extension, but she didn't need to know that.