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It was never a topic that they talked about, for… several reasons. One of which being the deal itself preventing most discussion. But also Alastor’s private nature and general refusal to open up about anything that may be perceived as even the vaguest resemblance of a weakness. Or his loathing of even slightly leaning on others.
They were… working on that last one. Slowly.
Look, they both had a lot of shit to work through and that was before the Might of Lilith and Vox mess was considered.
Still, in the two weeks since it all went down, life had returned to some semblance of normal, and Lucifer was cradling the proof of their growing… trust? Relationship? Closeness?
All of the above, he supposed.
Regardless, he was holding the proof in his hands, turning the staff over in his hands one more time before handing it back to Alastor with a nod. No trace of any sort of power other than Alastor’s own remained.
And oh, wasn’t Alastor’s power something to behold…
The darker part of Lucifer, usually kept quieted in the back of his mind and oh-so easily ignored in the light of the hotel, wondered what it would look like to truly see Alastor unleashed. Without his staff broken, without an injury holding him back… Just Alastor and his power.
It’d be a sight.
Regardless, that wasn’t what slipped past his lips as something close to gratitude flashed in red eyes as the Radio Demon twirled his staff.
“So, you ever going to confirm for me who it was?” Honestly, Lucifer expected a refusal. But it was worth asking, just one time, before they put his deal well and truly behind them.
Though, of course, Lucifer had his thoughts. Theories.
It wasn’t exactly easy to create power from nothing, even harder to channel it into a vessel not meant to hold it. The fact that Alastor’s power now, unbidden and unrestricted, could probably rival that of some angels… That even before he’d been able to hold his own against Adam, however briefly, and survive the angelic wound he’d received in that fight…
Well, undoubtedly, even without his deal, Alastor would have been extremely powerful. His deal had only amplified that, potentially exponentially.
Alastor was unique in a way that Lucifer found fascinating and infuriating in turn.
Luckily for the both of them, it fell into fascinating more often than not.
Though the next time Alastor’s brilliant plan turned out to be using himself as a hostage, Lucifer was going to find a way to smite a Sinner, Heaven-dealt punishment be damned. He was the Morningstar, the literally-God-damned Devil. He’d find a way.
Alastor’s static crackled quietly through the air in an approximation of a sigh. “I suppose I finally owe you an answer before we worry about the newer problems,” he conceded, and Lucifer didn’t bother hiding his surprise. Alastor’s ears flicked back as he glanced away. “Her name is Rosie. She’s another Overlord.”
Rosie…
Rosie, Rosie, Rosie…
Lucifer wracked his brain. Where had he heard that name before…?
It hit him suddenly, not unlike a lightning strike. A memory almost lost to years of numbness and rarer and rarer conversations that were more often than not one-sided anyway.
Oh.
Oooooh.
“Motherfucker!”
“Lu?” Alastor prompted at the outburst, one eyebrow twitching up.
Lucifer blinked hard, dragging himself out of the memory and revelation and back to the present. Because while Rosie’s ability to grant power suddenly made a lot more sense, it created more questions than answers.
More concerns than answers.
But that was a problem to be dealt with later, just like every other revelation about her he’d had since he came to the Hotel.
Since he and Alastor started talking. Really, properly talking and not the half-a-note snippets or constant arguing that had marked their relationship previously.
“Sorry, just remembering that was who helped Charlie with Adam and, you know, makes things more complicated.”
Alastor let out a disbelieving hmmm, but let it go nonetheless. “Yes, well, my business with dear Rosie is done. Strictly, much as I loathe the term, friendly chats nowadays. Nothing for you to worry about. Not that she has anything she could offer to even begin tempting me into another deal.”
“Yes, because I’m definitely worried that Mister Wordplay the Bellhop would get himself in over his head with a mere Overlord.”
“Well, at least you’re aware of who you’re dealing with. Even if I am still not a bellhop.”
The smile they shared, at least, was real, amusement in both their gazes.
Here was the thing about being married to someone for thousands of years.
The marriage didn’t tend to end in a day. Or a hundred.
No, it was a far slower death when one had a literal eternity to live. By his estimate, his and Lilith’s deterioration had taken somewhere between one and two centuries. Yeah, a hundred plus years of a slow decline.
And… a good bit of time after she’d left for Lucifer to truly accept she was gone.
Honestly, it probably would have taken longer if not for Alastor but that was besides the point for now.
The point was that Lucifer had a millenia to know the workings of his ex-wife’s mind, and she had never been shy in unleashing her feelings onto him, whether they were about him or she was venting and ranting about some resident of Hell or another.
Granted, the last years of their marriage it was… usually her lashing out at him… and reminding him of his shortcomings as a father and, particularly, a king and husband…
And okay, yeah, a lot of what she said still stung-
But! The point was before everything in their marriage figuratively went to Hell, Lilith acted as a far more active ruler than he did.
Including more than one string and more than one underling.
Those usually came and went too fast for Lucifer to bother with, more a flavor of the year thing than significant game pieces, but every once and a while Lilith would find a pawn or companion she actually enjoyed keeping around.
How she decided which were pawns and which she considered something closer to a friend had always been beyond him, even during their good years.
And most days now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever understood the former Queen of Hell’s mind. At least after their Fall.
All that to say though, he remembered one of her last ranting sessions. Her, at the time favorite, little pawn-companion had been annoying her, apparently making deals and moves without her say so.
Lucifer had been blunt in asking what she expected of a Sinner, which had devolved into an argument, of course.
But the reason the Sinner had, even vaguely, stuck with him was because not long later Lilith had been pleased as punch to realize that all those unauthorized powerplays had paid off and her toy was an Overlord.
Not an easy position to reach, especially when kept on a leash. Or, well, Lilith had rarely made such official deals. She preferred subtlety over outright soul ownership.
But still, it was rare for one of her toys to become an Overlord, and even rarer for them to remain an object of interest after they reached such a position.
So, of course, Lucifer would remember Rosie.
Not officially owned by Lilith, but with enough ties and little deals for information and support between the two that…
Well, let’s say it suddenly made sense how a Sinner could guarantee Alastor so much power, even if Lucifer was still fully on his ‘amplification over creation’ theory. And Alastor was unique anyway-
Okay, focus!
Lucifer took a breath.
There was a reason he was thinking about Lilith more than he had since he reconnected with Charlie, and even Alastor. Which, by the way, fuck whoever decided he should drop off the face of Hell for seven years.
It wasn’t like they’d talked a lot between each other back then but Lucifer had enjoyed the Radio Demon’s less scream-filled broadcasts.
But again! Reasons! Lilith! Rosie!
Which just so happened to go hand in hand with why Lucifer was stepping into the quaint little building known as Rosie’s Emporium in a part of Pentagram City he’d normally steer clear of, unless it was specifically Alastor bringing him along.
It was only a moment later that the attention had swivelled to him, and Lucifer pasted on a well practiced smile as he inclined his head. “Good afternoon!” he chirped with a cheer he didn’t feel, nodding at a couple of the cannibals closest to him before zeroing in on the surprised woman behind the main desk. “Pardon the interruption, I’ve just heard so much about the wonderful Rosie! I couldn’t help but want to meet her in person!”
Which, he recalled vaguely, he sort of had? But honestly, all the shit with Vox was kind of a blur after the machine powered up again. Alastor and Charlie had both filled him in, of course, but he didn’t remember much of it himself.
“King Lucifer! What a pleasant surprise!” The woman, definitely Rosie if the way the crowd parted for her was any indication, slipped from her post to approach him, dipping in a curtsy. “Whatever brings His Highness to my humble establishment?”
Lucifer smiled, the kind of smile from biblical stories that warned of the Serpent and his double-meaning gestures. The same kind of smile Alastor gave someone when he was thinking five moves ahead to what he’d have for lunch after defeating them. “Just a friendly chat, I assure you. Alastor’s spoken so highly of you, I figured it only fair I met one of his few real friends.”
The name drop and warning in his gaze did the trick, Rosie’s smile seeming to thin as she nodded. “Of course! Let’s speak in private.”
“A good idea,” he agreed, letting himself be steered away from the crowd to a private room, the Overlord closing and even locking the door behind them.
As suspected, Lucifer mused, she didn’t seem all that powerful on her own. He was sure she’d earned her position, but he had a feeling it was more through influence and widespread control than raw power. Not that she was unformidable, even Lucifer wasn’t naive enough to believe one could hold an Overlord position without some strength, but nothing like Alastor, or even that Carmilla Carmine he’d had the brief pleasure of meeting when she’d approached him to apologize for her part in the Vox Debacle.
“So, Your Highness… Alastor, hm?”
“Alastor,” Lucifer agreed crisply. He tilted his head. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to threaten you or anything.” Not that she was under the impression that he could hurt her, anyway. Seriously, fuck Vox and fuck his creepy eye-mind-manipulation shit. “And he really does speak highly of you, deal or not.”
“Hm, and here I thought he was humoring me,” she mused, but the smile that graced her lips seemed real enough at the information.
So, that confirmed that Rosie had developed at least some level of care for Alastor, even if he’d also been a tool for her to use.
Good enough to sooth some of Lucifer’s paranoia about the situation as it stood.
“But I’m assumin’ you’re not just here to tell me that our favorite deer doesn’t merely tolerate me for tea and some of his favorite treats.”
Lucifer, being that he was in Cannibal Town, decided he was not going to think about what kind of treats those were. Instead, he let his smile dim, his gaze go harder. A more serious version of the Devil that had faced down Vox rather than his usual bright air.
Just because he wasn’t usually gung-ho for torture or making people scared of him didn’t mean the biblical stories had come from nowhere, and this was one of the cases where Lucifer thrived on the little flash of hesitance he could see take root in Rosie at the shift in the air.
A predator who just realized that there was an apex predator in the room, and she’d gone from top of the food chain to a potential meal.
“Astute observation,” he conceded. “Now, let me make this clear: Al didn’t tell me any nitty-gritty about you or the deal you two had. Just the gist. You got his soul and could use him as a tool, he was guaranteed to be the most powerful Sinner in Hell. Clever wording, by the way, most people wouldn’t have thought their way out of it.”
Unfortunately for her and very fortunately for Lucifer, Alastor was far from most people.
“The deal’s expired, as I’m sure you know,” Rosie hummed.
“Of course,” Lucifer conceded with another well-practiced threat of a smile. “But, you know, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of Sinner he could make a deal with that could guarantee that. And with relatively little risk from what I’ve picked up, because even I didn’t know a Sinner could be as powerful as him. I mean, he’s him, so I think we both know that’s part of it.”
The way Rosie shifted her weight gave her away. She’d sensed the same thing Lucifer had, then, that Alastor’s very soul was different from that of a normal human.
“But, of course, that would make him more alluring to your game, wouldn’t it? Someone so powerful, so unique.” Lucifer laughed, a low sound that seemed to reverberate in the air. “I’m sure it was an exquisite plan, really. Have the most powerful Sinner, a being only rivalled by Archangels and the Devil himself, on a leash. A weapon you could control. You just had the misfortune of forgetting that a bird in a cage is gonna fuckin’ soar if you give them the chance. And he’s not one to be content in captivity to start with.”
Rosie chuckled. “And you haven’t made the same mistake?” she taunted, clearly trying to disrupt his own confidence, put them back on even ground.
“That’s where we’re different, Rosie. I don’t own him.” Alastor was Lucifer’s, yes, but no more so than Lucifer was Alastor’s. Equals, lovers. Partners, if Lucifer so dared. “And I have no belief I have any more control over Alastor than he allows.” He shrugged, careless with the admission because it made it all the more frightening in his opinion that Alastor stayed beside him.
Because he didn’t need a deal or a leash to keep Alastor at his side, didn’t need to twist words and their meaning and build a fake platform. He could just… be, and Alastor chose to stay all the same.
“He’ll stab you in the back sooner or later.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Lucifer shrugged once more, twirling his cane before planting it on the floor again, leaning forward as a sharp grin stretched his lips once more. “Besides, I didn’t come to discuss my standing with Alastor. I came to discuss your former deal with him, because here’s the thing… Even in Hell, most things don’t come from nowhere. I mean, sure, plenty of magic to create different things, including stuff from Earth. And some Hellborn have found ways to and from Earth.
“But power? Magic itself? That doesn’t come from nowhere. So I’ve found myself wondering: How did a Sinner, Overlord or not, manage to guarantee him that he’d be the most powerful Sinner in Hell? And not even by a slim margin, at that!” Lucifer waved a hand. “Of course, part of it almost had to be natural inclination on his part. That whole can’t create something from nothing theory, and all! And clearly whatever the deal did to his power was permanent because if anything, he’s more powerful than ever now that he’s got his soul back.
“Which again, begs the question of how you managed to do that. Because from what I know, and from what I’m sensing standing right here, you aren’t all that magically inclined yourself. Now, don’t get me wrong, clearly you’ve got power. Strength. Whatever you want to call it. Even I know you don’t make it as an Overlord if you don’t have something behind your name. But nothing that says you could give Alastor that much power.”
Rosie’s shoulders had tensed. “I’m not sure I follow, Sire.”
“Well, as I said, I was pretty stumped on how someone could give Al, or anyone, so much magical power just like that. Even with how Hell’s laws and magic worked, it should’ve made him just powerful enough for the deal to work, if it could work at all! Not, you know, how he is. And then, he told me your name.” Lucifer grinned, the cat that caught the canary.
Or, in this case he supposed, the snake that found the bird’s nest.
“And I knew I’d heard it before, and not because of that TV-headed bastard. But I’m sure you know where, and it didn’t take me long to remember either. Because, you see, I think we have a figure in common.”
Rosie’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what you mean!” Too high-pitched, too forced.
“Oh, I think you do,” Lucifer all-but purred, and even with all of his Devil form tucked away, he was certain he looked the perfect picture of the creature humans were warned about to Rosie in that moment. “But don’t worry. Like I said, I have little to no interest in you, considering you have no pull over Alastor now.”
“Then why are you here?” Wary, finally realizing she was far too outplayed to have a place on the stage. She was playing the right game, just at the wrong level.
“Because I have a message for your boss.” And, at last, Lucifer let his tail and horns flare into existence, was certain that his eyes inverted as well. “Tell my dear ex-wife that if she’s smart she’ll stay in whatever hole she climbed into when she abandoned our daughter. This is my domain, and I will take any threat or slight against Charlie, the Hazbin Hotel, or Alastor as a personal attack.” He grinned, all brimstone damnation. “And she doesn’t count as a Sinner.”
Charlie might not forgive him, if such a threat came to pass, but he’d… As much as it would hurt, probably more than the Fall or Lilith leaving, he’d rather face that future than stand by and allow Lilith to destroy even the smallest speck of what he and Charlie had built for themselves.
Lucifer had never been good at figuring out, let alone playing, Lilith’s game. But that didn’t matter if he forced her to play his.
“I…” Rosie faltered. Lucifer’s tail lashed in warning. She finally bowed her head. “Of course, Your Highness.”
“Good.” His tail vanished, horns receding from view as he offered the cannibal a genuine smile. “Well, it’s been a pleasure! Do make sure that you pass that message on, and I’ll tell Al the two of you are on for your usual tea and gossip session!” he chirped, whisking past her without waiting to be dismissed.
He didn’t know what was to come, but…
Well, he’d laid his first card on the table, put the ball back in Lilith’s court. It was up to her if she was going to play chicken with the Devil and his guardian deer or have some self-preservation now.
Hm… Maybe he should grab Alastor one of those desserts he liked on the way back. Yeah! That sounded good!
Lucifer grinned, humming under his breath.