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Pain, he was in pain and in some odd way he liked it.
Lucifer was lying in his hotel bed as he had been for a week now, Vox’s machine had utterly wrecked havoc on his body, he sometimes could scarcely shift in bed without everything in him hurting. The amount of magic that Vox had torn from his body had been immense, coupled with the injuries he’d sustained when the machine he’d been in had basically exploded, pieces of angelic steel cutting him all over.
He’d managed to escape, he’d seen his daughter and tried to make a joke so she wouldn’t worry, Sir Pentious in heaven had appeared on a large screen and then Lucifer had fainted. He’d woken up alone where he’d dropped and had been in a lot of pain, his teleportation magic would only move him a few feet at a time and even that was difficult. Feeling vulnerable and scared, he’d crawled to hide next to a broken corner wall and texted Charlie, asking if she could collect him, she didn’t answer, he text her girlfriend as well- nothing, he text everyone he had in his contacts and no one came.
There was no one, he felt repeatedly like he was going to faint again but he couldn’t let that happen, he was surprised sinners hadn’t found him and tried to further damage him already. It had taken ages to get to the hotel, he’d limped, crawled, had to stop so many times because it felt like there was glass in his lungs, he’d spat out angelic blood so often he was surprised that he had anything left.
When he’d made into the hotel and gave up, half sitting, half lying on the hotel carpet, Charlie had walked by, paused and smiled, “Ah good, you’re here, I saw your text but I knew you wouldn’t really need my help”, he tried to say something but she’d interrupted, “Sorry Dad but I’m kinda buy and I cam see that you’ve got this, you always bounce back, you are the King of Hell after all”.
And then she’d just left him there, Angel and the cat… Dusk? Had walked past him, he’d looked pleadingly at them and tried to ask them for help, they’d given him a disinterested glance and walked right past- What should he have expected really? He was the King of Hell and he’d allowed the execution, his short term memory was so badly damaged (another ‘gift’ from heaven) that he struggled to remember names, he couldn’t focus on conversations, he got nervous easily, he struggled to keep on topic in conversations, it was no wonder everyone hated him, he couldn’t even socialise properly.
As more and more people walked by, Lucifer realised that he didn’t deserve to have escaped that machine, “Staying there all day?”, Lucifer glanced up, Alastor was watching him on the floor with some badly hidden amusement.
“Downsizing”, Lucifer answered glibly, giving a pained wheeze, “Who needs a hotel room anyway?”.
Alastor tilted his head, smirking with interest as he leant heavily on his staff, “How about a deal?”.
Lucifer stared at him, knowing the red guy would just screw him over, “Sure Bellhop, how about this, I stay here and you go away".
Alastor leant down and carelessly grabbed Lucifer by the back of his shirt collar, almost raising him off the ground like he was a kitten, “How about this, I get you back to your room and make sure you’re safe there for 5 days and you let me take some of that lovely angelic blood of your off your hands, lets say 1 small vial a day?”.
Lucifer gagged slightly, almost being hung by the way the shirt pulled against his neck, his vision went in and out, everything hurt worse than before. People walked past, no one cared, and neither did Lucifer, he nodded, giving out a weak, “Yes”, he let Alastor grasp his hand and shook on it.
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On the fifth day, Alastor had arrived and taken his last vial, he barely spoke to Lucifer except to smirk and say, “No visitors Lucifer? Oh, how awful for you”, the Radio Demon seemed to relish in how much it upset the King that no one, not even his daughter cared that he was so ill he could barely move.
Lucifer had been so lonely that he'd tried to keep Alastor talking every day he’d arrived, offered him drinks, asked if he wanted to play boardgames, even tried to cause an argument just so he’d have someone to talk to for longer. Alastor wouldn’t raise to the bait, he enjoyed making sure the bed bound Lucifer didn’t get what he wanted, he wanted him to suffer as much as possible, Lucifer was never sure why.
On the sixth day, Lucifer figured out what Alastor had been doing, he arrived and preposed another deal, he would be Lucifer’s ‘friend’ and visit him for two hours a day if Lucifer gave him angelic blood everyday for a month. Lucifer had told Alastor to get out, Alastor wouldn't, instead standing at the edge of Lucifer’s bed and telling him to stand up and make him, they both knew he was too weak to even stand.
Alastor had stood by Lucifer's bed for over an hour, grinning as he attempted to bargin out a deal, before growing angry and devolving into nasty remarks about Lucifer’s weakness and how he must be incredibly unlikeable if he’d living a millennia and yet he had no one who cared if he lived or died. Unable to move away, Lucifer had started to cry, repeatedly asking and then begging Alastor to leave. Alastor wouldn’t stop and Lucifer had eventually fallen asleep from stress and exhaustion, clutching his hands over his ears as desperately trying to drown out the truth that Alastor spoke, that he was truly an unlovable person.
It was the seventh day now, Lucifer could feel some of his strength returning, but he didn’t want or deserve it. No one wanted him here, including himself, the King of Hell couldn’t die, but there was one thing he could do to stop the pain of it all at least for a few months while his body healed enough for him not to have to mentally suffer whilst he was bed bound.
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Alastor strolled into Lucifer’s room with some flowers, upsetting the king hadn’t worked, maybe some false kindness would work instead. He closed the door behind himself and stepped over to the sleeping King, “Oh Lucifer”, he sing-songed, the fallen angel didn’t respond- he wasn’t asleep either, his eyes were wide open but unseeing.
Alastor put his staff to the side, placing a clawed hand to each side of the angel's face and stared into the dulled eyes, “Lucifer?”.
The fallen angel blinked but otherwise stared off and didn’t respond, Alastor didn’t know how to react, was he drugged? Alastor pinched Lucifer’s arm, somewhat startled as the angel's dilated red pupils shifted towards the source of pain but otherwise he didn’t respond.
There was a note on left on the side table, Alastor picked it up and read it, “To anyone reading this, I’m not dead, I just figured it would be easier on everyone if I just wasn’t here for a while. Feel free to leave me here or put me in a different room if you need the space. I’ll be back in a few months, I’m just in pain and figured it would be easier for everyone if I stopped asking for help. What I’ve done is called a lobotomy, it is essentially intentional brain damage that I will have used magic to perform. If Charlie would respond to any call to my phone from heaven, that would mean a lot to me but I will understand if she cannot. I’m sorry for any inconveniences I may cause. Lucifer.
Alastor glanced casually from the body to the note and back again before rolling his eyes and snorting in dirision, he helped himself to several vials of the unresponsive angel's blood before hand delivering the note and Lucifer's phone to Charlie. Charlie rolled her eyes, her dad always left his problems with someone else, he was just so unbelievably irresponsible.
Save for Alastor's daily visit for blood vials, Lucifer's body was pretty much ignored, no one came to visit and the room gathered dust, no one cared but that was fine with Lucifer, he couldn't feel anything anyway.