Work Text:
The devil is not what Alastor imagined.
He’s short, for one, and strangely doll-like. A porcelain doll given life, looking back at Alastor with glowing red-and-gold eyes. Just enough like a person to be both familiar and unsettling at once, and not even remotely in keeping with the imagery Alastor has seen all his life.
But all of that pales in comparison to the conundrum of his personality.
“I don’t really know what to tell you,” Lucifer is saying, as he crosses one leg over the other and makes himself comfortable in Alastor’s best chair. The one that is tattered around the edges, but only marginally bloodstained. “I’m not usually in the business of making deals for men’s souls.”
“But you’re the devil,” Alastor says.
“Yep.”
“I’d rather thought that was in the job description.”
“Eh.” Lucifer waves an ambivalent hand. “It’s not not in the job description, but it’s not really what I like to do. You know?”
Alastor blinks. “Then what good are you?”
“Oh,” Lucifer says. “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, I can just go.”
He seems poised to disappear—possibly in the same swirl of fire from whence he came after Alastor finished his summoning circle and recited words he had not been entirely convinced would work—and that can’t be allowed. Alastor put far too much effort into this to just let the devil slip through his fingers now.
“Now, now, there’s no need to be so hasty!” He holds up a hand. There’s blood under his nails. “We’re just getting to know each other.”
“Uh huh.” Lucifer tilts his head to one side. “That’s what I thought. So what do you want, then?”
It’s an intriguing little question and, now that Lucifer has asked, Alastor finds himself with no choice but to pause and really consider what he wants to say. The answer is something he has been thinking about for so long he almost says it without thinking first, as the moment of his triumph comes into reach, but he worked so hard to get here and he wants to savor every second of it.
And then he says, “I want power. Not now—I have what I need—but later.” He smiles. “I know what kind of man I am and where men like me end up. I want power when I get there.”
Lucifer blinks asynchronously, which is . . . unusual. Then he says, “Yeah, I’m not sure about that one.”
He might as well have doused all of Alastor’s triumph in a bucket of swamp water. But Alastor will not be put off so easily. “I summoned you.”
Lucifer laughs. “And I’m the devil, so I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.” He smiles broadly, showing off a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. He seems so absurd, flashy and not taking any of this even half as seriously as Alastor would like, but then his face moves just right and there’s something there that makes Alastor’s breath catch in the back of his throat.
He is, however, still talking: “Handing an asshole demonic powers just because he drew some symbols on the floor of his tacky little murder shack is a lot, don’t you think? I’m not sure you’ve earned it.”
Alastor did not summon the devil to be insulted—he’ll show Lucifer tacky—but that is something to address later. For now, there is only one reply and so he says, “Then tell me what will prove it to you.”
Lucifer doesn’t respond right away. He just looks at him for several long seconds, his face so still it begins to make the hair at the base of Alastor’s neck prickle, like the prelude to a lightning strike.
Until he smiles again. “I’m not sure yet. Dazzle me and we’ll figure it out together.”
And with that, he’s gone, leaving Alastor alone in his shack, as though he was never there in the first place. He was there, though. Alastor succeeded at long last and now he only needs to take his work to the next level to show Lucifer that he deserves what he’s asking for.
It isn’t quite what he had in mind, but he always has enjoyed a challenge.
So Alastor kills a few more men. In light of his current circumstances, it’s really the only thing to do.
The first time after the summoning, it goes much the same as it always has. Alastor picks out a man in the club, someone he wouldn’t mind never seeing again, and lures him away with the dangling promise of something he might like. From there, it’s a simple thing to slip a knife between his ribs. And from there . . . well, he always has a few ideas to keep things interesting.
But Lucifer doesn’t come.
Alastor will not be daunted, though. If one of his usual murders isn’t enough, he’ll simply have to show the devil the full range of what he has to offer.
His next attempt at demonstrating his worthiness has a touch more dramatic flair, which he thinks Lucifer might appreciate. A dash of showmanship to keep things fresh, with blood and dismembered limbs and bits of viscera dangling from the furniture.
“I appreciate your sacrifice,” he tells the corpse as he spreads the pieces out in the middle of another summoning circle. “It will all be worth it in the end, I assure you.”
The corpse doesn’t reply, but Alastor didn’t expect it to.
With his victim neatly laid out, he dips his fingers in the pool of blood to place the finishing touch: Lucifer’s name, just above the corpse’s head.
“I dedicate this sacrifice to you, Lucifer,” he says, as seriously as he can manage considering what he was faced with when he and the devil actually met. “Blood to strengthen our bond and seal our partnership.”
Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. But that’s fine. Alastor will make it fine.
On to the next.
It is in the wake of the sixth murder, with a brand new summoning circle only half drawn, that Lucifer finally deigns to reappear.
“Are you sure this is what you want to spend your life doing?”
Alastor looks up from his work to meet Lucifer’s unimpressed stare. “Yes.”
“Interesting choice, buddy.” Lucifer sits down on the arm of Alastor’s chair and balances his cane on his knees. It has an apple head, which Alastor would argue feels a bit on the nose. “Killing your way through New Orleans to guarantee a first-class ticket to Hell.”
“Merely a side effect, my good man.” Alastor offers him a smile and gives up on the circle, though he leaves the corpse where it lies. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the real prize.”
Lucifer tilts his head and falls silent for a concerning length of time. It makes Alastor’s pulse skip erratically.
“Something to do with power, right?”
“You must be joking.”
“I wasn’t that interested!” Lucifer says, a defensive edge to his tone. “But you’re so determined and now I am, kind of. So what was it, again? Refresh my memory.”
Lucifer is unbelievable. For a passing moment, Alastor can only wonder if he truly is the devil at all. But no, he is. Alastor isn’t certain how he knows, but he can feel it down to his bone marrow. Lucifer is exactly what he claims to be, as incongruent and unlikely as that seems.
So he says, “Power upon my arrival in Hell, so I don’t have to start from nothing.”
“Right, right.” Lucifer nods. “I remember now.”
Alastor spreads a hand wide. “Well?”
Lucifer clicks his tongue. “Not sure yet.”
“Not sure yet,” Alastor repeats. “And what might nudge you along on the path to making a decision, hmm? Inquiring minds would love to know.”
Lucifer laughs. “You’re a funny duck, you really are.” His grin shows a mouthful of teeth and Alastor’s pulse skips again. “How about this? Keep on doing whatever it is you think will convince me, and we’ll see if you’re right.”
“Pardon me?”
“Well, I can’t make it easy, can I?” Lucifer pitches it low, almost sweet. “Nothing comes from nothing, sweetheart. If you want a deal with the devil, you have to work for it. At least a little.”
“This seems”—What is the word Alastor is looking for to describe this situation?—“impractical. At best.”
“Eh.” Lucifer shrugs one shoulder. “You’ll figure it out. Or you won’t—it doesn’t matter to me either way.”
This is quite possibly the least helpful interaction Alastor has ever had in his entire adult life. Lucifer seems bound and determined to make this as tedious as possible, which Alastor supposes makes a deranged sort of sense. The devil, indeed.
“Thank you,” he says, and does not aim for sincerity. “Truly.”
“You’re welcome.” Lucifer gives him a smile so cheerful it could serve as a weapon. “Alastor.”
He’s gone again, leaving Alastor alone with a half-finished summoning circle and a lightly mangled corpse. But this seems to be Lucifer’s modus operandi, and Alastor can appreciate a bit of theatrical flair.
And it wasn’t a no, which is more than Alastor can say about a significant number of past events in his life. Lucifer has left the door open to a yes and Alastor will see himself through it.
He smiles at the circle. “Be seeing you.”
Alastor carries on. Another body, another day on the air, another night at the clubs, and every piece of it one more brick laid in the road to everything he’s ever wanted. An eternity other men could scarcely dare dream of.
Lucifer will return with the yes Alastor has been waiting for. It’s only a matter of time.
“You’re really putting a lot into this, aren’t you?”
Alastor, wrist-deep in intestines, gives Lucifer a savage smile. “You asked for it.”
Lucifer laughs, low, and reaches out to brush Alastor’s bangs back off his face with sharp nails. It feels almost like a caress and the weight of his gaze is heavy, as though he’s taking stock of Alastor and deciding how he feels about what he sees. He strokes his hair back once more and then his hand withdraws.
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Happy Birthday,” Lucifer says by way of greeting, the moment he appears in Alastor’s living room.
Alastor looks up from his book. His face feels warm but he ignores that in favor of saying, “Who said it’s my birthday?”
“I did.” Lucifer crosses the room to offer him a bottle wrapped in gold tissue paper. “And you can’t tell me otherwise because I’ll know you’re lying. This is for you.”
Alastor sets the book aside and takes the gift without rising from his seat. He unties the ribbon holding the paper closed and peels it back to reveal a bottle of rye. It’s a good brand, and one Alastor hasn’t seen in some time.
“I know the radio station doesn’t pay very well,” Lucifer says. “So I thought you could use something nice.”
Alastor looks back up; the warmth is lingering. “And yet not the thing I’ve been asking for.”
Lucifer makes a light, scoffing noise, shaking his head. “Don’t even start. It’s your birthday! Live a little.”
Alastor considers Lucifer for a moment, then looks at the bottle, then back up. “Oh, I suppose so. If you insist.”
“I do.” A pair of glasses appear in Lucifer’s hands and he sets them on the coffee table with a flourish. “Murder and mayhem will still be out there tomorrow.” He smiles at him. “What’s the rush?”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Alastor sniffs and opens the bottle to pour a finger of whisky in each glass. But his mother didn’t raise a brute and, as he closes the bottle again, he adds, “Thank you.”
Curiously, he finds that he means it.
Alastor loses track of how many times Lucifer has dropped by for a visit since their questionable first meeting. At first it was easy to keep an accounting in his head, but as their conversations pile up, sometimes over a corpse and sometimes not, the details begin to blur together.
He finds that he doesn’t mind as much as he thinks he should.
But all games, no matter how interesting, come to an end. And strangely, Alastor isn’t even murdering someone when it happens.
No, instead he’s walking down Dauphine Street in the middle of a perfectly ordinary afternoon when, without much thought, his gaze lands on a building coming up ahead, just on the other side of Canal Street.
The Immaculate Conception Church.
It is a place he knows quite well, from a childhood spent attending Mass at his mother’s side, but he hasn’t set foot inside in . . . many years. Not since she left this world for what Alastor is now quite confident—having made Lucifer’s acquaintance—can only be Heaven.
But there it is, with its dark facade and stained glass windows, and he finds himself drawn closer.
He spends a not insignificant amount of his life these days talking to the devil, after all. Perhaps it’s time he visited a church, just to see how it feels.
He crosses the street and hops up on the curb to make his way to the front entrance. It’s an odd time of day, in between services, which is really for the best. Alastor may be an apostate Catholic on a collision course with Hell, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the market for a priest to try to save his soul.
It is far, far too late for that sort of intercession.
As he steps through the door, he pauses briefly, nonsensically, to see if his association with Lucifer has somehow impacted his ability to enter the building. It hasn’t and so he continues, across the threshold and down the central aisle, his gaze drifting from the altar with its gold details, up to the intricate tiers of colored glass rising above his head.
It is as beautiful as he remembers and feels strangely more meaningful than it did when he came here as a child. There is something different about it now that he knows Heaven is real, even if he will never see it
The light flickers, casting beams like stardust across Alastor’s face, as the window he’s gazing at seems almost to change.
There’s a figure there, indistinct at first but rapidly taking shape. A man, framed in a spray of wings, looking straight back at him as though they are the only two beings in all of creation.
And Alastor knows him.
“Lucifer,” he says on a soft exhale. He didn’t mean to say it aloud, but no one seems to notice him, the thin crowd parting around him like water. He may as well be a ghost.
It emboldens him to say it again: “Lucifer.”
Lucifer, framed in multi-colored light, doesn’t respond, but Alastor doesn’t need him to. He knows what this visit means and smiles up at him, stomach taut with anticipation and his mouth tasting, deliciously, of triumph.
“What made you change your mind?”
Under ordinary circumstances, Alastor allows Lucifer a moment of arrival before beginning their conversation. But these are not ordinary circumstances and, nearly a year into this thing they’ve been doing, he has finally run out of patience.
Lucifer laughs and sits down on Alastor’s small sofa, patting the empty space beside him until Alastor joins him. “You did, I guess. You’ve been trying so hard to win me over.” He lifts one hand in a shrug. “So if selling me your soul for power is really what you want, you know what? You got it.”
Alastor’s jaw tightens in the wake of that explanation, but he forces himself to relax again. “So it’s pity.”
“No!” Lucifer’s eyes widen. “If I pitied you, I’d just stop showing up and leave you to it. No, I just figured, if anyone’s ever earned it, it’s you.”
It is a more palatable explanation and Alastor offers him a thin smile in return, even as anticipation spikes. “And so where do we go from here, hmm?”
Lucifer blinks twice, as though he wasn’t expecting the question. “Well . . . we’ll need a contract, to set the terms and all that, get it in writing so no one can play stupid later. The little details matter more than you might think.”
This has the potential to be interesting and Alastor hums again to keep Lucifer talking.
“You’ll sign on the dotted line and that’ll be it, really.” He smiles. “Power in exchange for your soul.”
Which all sounds lovely, except there is a minor detail Alastor feels ought to be cleared up before they proceed. “For how long? I can’t imagine in perpetuity is required.”
Lucifer pauses. “No, I guess not.” He laughs. “I think I told you that I don’t really do this, and I hadn’t thought all that through yet. But you’re right. We’ll need fixed parameters.”
It’s still all so vague, maddeningly so. Perhaps he should wait for Lucifer to present his idea of terms, but there is a solution right in front of them, if Alastor is bold enough to reach out and take it. And boldness has never been his problem before.
“I want to be the most powerful demon in Hell,” he tells Lucifer plainly. “Our deal will hold until I am, and not a moment longer.”
“At which point, you’ll be able to take care of yourself,” Lucifer says. “Or so one would assume. Who am I to say?”
“That’s hardly reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.” Lucifer’s eyes gleam and his gaze is very direct now. “You need to understand something, Al: soul deals can play out all sorts of ways you never intended. I’ll do this with you, but only after you realize that.”
Irritation cuts through the anticipatory warmth and Alastor tilts his head. “And what will you do if I’m disappointed by the end result?”
That makes Lucifer laugh again, bright and full throated. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” His teeth are a white slash in his white face and Alastor’s breath hitches, his pulse pounding in his throat. “Won’t you?”
This is the moment, at long lost: Alastor knows that he has well and truly won. No matter what Lucifer says from here, Alastor is about to get everything he’s ever wanted, at a cost he is still willing to pay. He’s gone too far to even consider turning back now.
“Yes,” he agrees, and is somehow not surprised when Lucifer reaches out to take his hand.
Lucifer lifts Alastor’s hand to his lips to kiss his knuckles, but that feels . . . insufficient for the weight of what is happening here. So Alastor does something he has only ever done once in his life, with anyone.
He darts out a hand to grab Lucifer’s shoulder and pull him in close. Lucifer’s eyes widen, but Alastor doesn’t give him time to react or respond before pressing their lips together in a firm, dry kiss. Just one, just to try it and see, and he thinks as he does that it might be worth trying again later, to confirm.
“Yes,” he says again, their mouths still touching. “We will.”
