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The first time it happened, obviously it was a teeny-tiny bit of a shock. One minute they were carrying out their starting-to-become-normal routine, splaying across Lucifer's sheets - himself supine with a loose arm tossed around Alastor's shoulders; Alastor prone, one calf hooked somewhat possessively under Lucifer's knee, ribs a grounding pressure on his stomach and face pressed against Lucifer's jugular - in the aftermath of yet another sidewalk spat involving Vox's ego against Alastor's pride. Even though this oddball, unspoken agreement had only existed for approximately six weeks at that point, Lucifer hadn't startled when inky shadows coalesced in his room, bringing muggy humidity, metallic blood and rain-soaked moss as scented overtures to Alastor appearing from within the eldritch tangle a second later. He didn't ask, either, didn't say anything - knew better by then - simply transferred the book he was reading into one hand, lifted his arm, and let Alastor slot into place.
As always, irritated crackles writhed through the air and, in his periphery, Lucifer saw the faint yet unmistakable flickers of fading symbols emanating off Alastor's wiry frame. Snippets of songs or advertisements occasionally peppered Alastor's persistent radio feedback, forming words his gritted teeth could not yet shape, and all were vitriolic, poisonous and angry. This, too, was normal. As was the shaky path Alastor traced along Lucifer's bouncing artery with his nose, almost like he was smelling the gilded blood beneath his skin. At the time, given how ordinary it was, Lucifer thought nothing of it and continued reading as though the room wasn't alive with sharp static or abyssal shadows weren't slowly creeping out from under the valance.
"Lu-ci-fer," Alastor's voice rattled, vibrating along his trapezoid.
"Yeah, Bambi?" Lucifer replied, maintaining nonchalance and turning a page with his magic.
"I need," scarlet claws completely encompassed the hand Lucifer was holding his book aloft with. His forefinger was prised away, bent at an angle which most mortals would find painful.
"Look, buddy," it doesn't take much effort for Lucifer to escape Alastor's grasp when he is like this, and didn't then either. Merely tilting his arm out of reach was enough, though Alastor's razor-like claws still caught his wrist, and Lucifer's expression was unimpressed as he looked down at the creature half-buried in his neck, "I get that you're brain isn't, y'know, all there right now, but I'm gonna need you to use your words,"
"Lu-ci-fer," Alastor growled again.
"Al-as-tor," Lucifer mocked, replacing Alastor's scratchy rumbles with simpering, babyish tones, "either speak up or get out; don't forget I'm allowing you to bleed on my sheets."
Alastor's head turned, exposed one hooded eye - its pupil a dial, yes, but a stationary one - and bared that ever-present grin. Its corners twitched, fleetingly revealing the magical, neon-green stitching therein that, despite a burning curiosity it placed amongst his synapses, Lucifer didn't query.
"I want-," Alastor managed, though his mouth did not move, only flashed, "I find it- calming, if I can hold flesh-," he blinked then, slow and pinched beneath a small frown, and lifted his head further to enforce eye contact, this time shaping, "if I can bite down," on his lips.
And, of course, him being who he was and his companion existing in that odd limbo between argumentative rivals and almost friends, Lucifer stared at him with narrowed, withering eyes.
"You're such a freak," he had said with the intention of snapping his fingers, of sending Alastor to his own damn bed; of trying to uphold boundaries he had felt crumbling ever since they first found comfort in each other like this. But, instead, he sighed, dismissed his book by twirling his fingers, and extended the now unencumbered arm towards Alastor. Still, it would have been remiss of him to not drizzle his additional, "go on, then," with resigned disgust.
He had expected Alastor to react with greed, haste or something which betrayed his exceedingly inhuman proclivities, and was therefore utterly surprised by gentle, almost caressing fingers closing around his wrist, and a thumb extending, rubbing up his own in a manner he could have called affectionate if he hadn't been very, very against the idea of losing his arm entirely. Not that it wouldn't have grown back, this is, but even angelic grace takes time to reform limbs, and he could do without being temporarily monodextrous.
"I must warn you," Alastor murmured, eyes pinned on Lucifer's arm as he drew it towards himself until, close enough that his breaths stirred the fine cross-hatching of golden hair upon its swell, his gaze flicked sideways, striking Lucifer's, "you may feel a slight... Prick,"
"For fuck's sake," Lucifer huffed and considered changing his mind, "will you hurry up al-,"
Pain cut him off. Bright, bristling and burning, erupting where Alastor's teeth sunk into his forearm; gaudy with his ethereal blood and scraping his veins as though the agony itself was dragging his life force towards Alastor's mouth. Somehow, jaw clamped shut and grimace a knife's edge, Lucifer refrained from flinching, perhaps in the knowledge that doing so would only exacerbate things. Alastor's tongue settled on his skin, wet, warm and haloed by golden teeth marks, but whilst Lucifer's blood was making a slick, shimmering mess down Alastor's chin - one which dripped, syrupy and luminous like honey in sunlight, onto his originally white shirt - Alastor made no move to lap it up or swallow it down.
As Lucifer watched, a great sigh heaved through Alastor's chest, shook his shoulders and shuddered down his spine, provoking a looseness of limb that brought their bodies closer than before, nearly chest-to-chest. His eyes became lidded, pupils returned to their natural circular state and widened, smoking out the fragmented crimson his eyelids allowed to peek through. And then, something happened that was so unforeseen it terrified Lucifer far more than any eldritch shadows, snarled words or broadcast screams could: Alastor went silent.
Not radio silence, not muted static burbling away wherever it manifested; complete, peaceful, unbroken quiet. If his lithe ribs weren't pushing against Lucifer's stomach on every inhale, or his exhales weren't bubbling against his forearm, he would have assumed the pure angelic power within his blood had rendered Alastor well and truly double-dead. Which, Lucifer couldn't help but reflect, would have been a nightmare to explain to Charlie. Back then, it had taken him a few minutes to control his blood flow manually, to avoid bleeding out, and wrap his head around the unmitigatedly serene sight of Alastor, still somehow smiling around his bite, not using the opportunity to actually eat his arm. He hadn't seen it for what it was at the time, had his view too clouded by the thick branches of his deep-rooted doubt; hadn't realised the mirrored trust which was as evident between them as his own blood on Alastor's lips.
Now, weeks later, Lucifer looks down, face soft under a small smile he will never admit to wearing, and bites his lip when drawing two fingertips up the back of Alastor's velveteen ear causes the frankly adorable appendage to flick under his touch. The initial agony which pierced his left side has faded into a subdued pulse now, one he barely feels beneath Alastor's warm mouth, and the only effort found in his muscles at present is the one stopping his wounds from closing around Alastor's teeth. That would just be awkward. Almost as awkward, in fact, as the angle his hips are cocked at, less for his own comfort - which is non-existent - and absolutely for Alastor's sake. Otherwise, the rather unfortunate, quite honestly reprehensible reaction offered by Lucifer's stupid body who doesn't know any better, would be poking Alastor in the neck.
Add that to the growing list of things he never in a million years thought would, ahem, 'pop up' between himself and his daughter's very creepy, frustratingly attractive hotelier. Put it there, right above cuddling after a long day and underneath letting Alastor bite him because, for a reason he values his head too much to ask, it is the only thing which truly relaxes the demon.
"Forgive me if I am mistaken, your majesty," Alastor croons in a sleepy, punch-drunk manner after carefully extracting his teeth and beginning, as usual, the part where he rubs his cheek against the nebulous, puncture-framed bruise he has left behind. He peers up at Lucifer as he does this, eyes still drooping yet gradually regaining their vibrance like a sunrise, "but I was under the impression our companionship did not yet involve frotting,"
"What?!" Lucifer blusters, tries to shove at Alastor's face whilst scrambling backwards, and thus hits the headboard, though his shoulder blades make a stunning attempt at digging through it anyway. "Uh, no? No," he laughs and hastily tugs his shirt tails back into place, ignoring his disgusted shiver when this, perhaps expectedly, leaves him with blood-soaked fabric in his grasp, "first of all, that's disgusting, bellhop, ah no thank you,"
Alastor raises an eyebrow, tongue snaking out to lick the blood smeared on his teeth, and tilts onto an elbow, using its corresponding hand as a prop for his cheek.
"Second-," Lucifer's brain short-circuits for two reasons then: one being that it has just caught up to what Alastor actually said - not yet he had drawled, implying that maybe, at some point, it might be - and the other being that Alastor's hand, the one not cupped on his cheek, is tracing the distinct outline in Lucifer's trousers with a single fingertip.
"Well, if I had known this was a sure way to instill reticence," Alastor practically purrs, "perhaps I would have engaged sooner,"
"I-," Lucifer chokes, his gaze darting between Alastor's finger and his mouth, where the slow, almost laborious slide of his tongue tracing his lips must be deliberate. "Wait- wait, hang on, hold up, one sec," he finally manages, yanking conscious thought past his dazed senses and reaching down to grab Alastor's wrist, "engaged, like, you actually want this? Because, I swear Al, if you're fucking with me right now, I'm gonna- oh, fuck,"
A small, static-tainted laugh crackles within Alastor's throat. His hand, easily cupped onto a firm warmth that unspools curious delight all along his arm given that Lucifer grasped his wrist as opposed to any opposable digits, applies just enough pressure that Lucifer's inhale catches and his hips lift. As he rises, holding Lucifer's flickering gaze in his own until their faces are level, the crux of Alastor's hips deliberately presses against Lucifer's thigh, and the indecent desire he witnesses deepening alongside understanding within Lucifer's eyes sends a thrill he is unused to through his vertebrae.
"Want is a strong word," he tells him, rolling and coercive like the heel of his hand between Lucifer's legs, "but I am most definitely curious, which is so," ducks in, so close he can taste Lucifer's shaky exhale when he parts expectant lips, "very interesting," and relishes the triumphant lightning brightening his veins when, hungry and moaning deep in his throat, Lucifer lurches forwards, taking the kiss Alastor had promised into his own hands.
Lucifer is, in a word, confused. Not only because tasting his own honey-sweet blood on Alastor's tongue isn't repulsive, nor thanks to the wound closing itself on his abdomen, or even hearing enthusiastic static bouncing off his teeth as he latches both hands on Alastor's collar and hauls him downwards as he slides onto the pillows. The sun his confusion orbits around is, however, who, specifically, is bringing his arousal to boiling point. Sure, it has been a good, long, while since he had any action not provided by his right hand, and yes, he can now admit that maybe he has a type since Alastor has always looked tall, dark and mind-blowing in his eyes, but it is still Alastor. Alastor who, against all odds, is licking into his mouth and rearranging Lucifer's legs around his hips like this is a normal endeavour; like this is an act he has rehearsed many times before.
"Wait, wait," Lucifer swallows a whine as he slides his lips free and grabs Alastor's chin in his hand - promptly ignoring the abrasive clatter of feedback he gets in response - to melt their gazes together, "what is this? What are you doing?"
"I thought that was rather obvious," Alastor drawls, hand squeezing Lucifer's dick with impudence, "I presumed, being a father, you were well aware what this appendage is meant for?"
"Fuck off, smarty pants," Lucifer gives his chin a shake, "I get that you're trying to fuck me, or whatever, but why,"
"Why?" Alastor glowers, pushing his forehead into Lucifer's and blotting his gaze with scarlet, "Why not? Most people wouldn't care to ask, you know."
"Ch'yeah, well," Lucifer snorts and brings a foot up, pushing it into Alastor's hip to encourage space between them, "don't know if you know this, but I'm not most people. And you," his other hand pushes Alastor's shoulder, earning him an offended trumpet blast - which, given that Alastor was trying to get him naked two seconds ago, seems a bit counterintuitive, "don't fuck."
"Oh, is that right," Alastor's grin curls, threatening and dangerous; a crack like ice thawing splinters through the air as his antlers expand by a fraction, "have that on good authority, do you?"
"You know what?" It doesn't require much strength for Lucifer to bisect Alastor's wiry chest and shove him backwards, nor does he need to evoke magic in it, but the sparks dancing past his fingers to illuminate the radio dials in Alastor's eyes emphasise it nicely anyway. "Fuck this," he snaps, climbing out of the bed, hauling his already mangled shirt over his head, "fuck you," and throwing it at Alastor. He is angry, fuming, gathering blotchy crimson like a vignette around his vision; wings cacophonous as they erupt from his bare back and tail thrashing in his lower periphery, "this little seduction tactic might work on sinners, but guess what baby," and what's worst, an accelerant to his fire, is the look on Alastor's face. It isn't rage, isn't even disgust, it is betrayal, as though Lucifer is the one who was breaking what had been a pretty sweet deal with an incongruous seduction attempt. Smoke curls around his voice as he gets in Alastor's face, lending a hellish resonance, "I'm the fucking devil."
"I wasn't-," Alastor, unexpectedly, closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. When he speaks, they remain that way, shielding Lucifer from any emotions he might glean, and the words arrive unfiltered for once, "I was not attempting to manipulate, I assure you my perhaps misguided intentions were-,"
Lucifer pauses, suddenly wrong footed and bewildered. His wings remain, arching and grand behind him, but his horns creep inwards, burrowing beneath his skull again, and in a blink his sclera fade from burning red to baffled yellow.
Alastor peers up at him, repulsion tugging at the very corners of his grin as if intending on pulling them down, and his words are murmured, human in tone, as they arrive, "in earnest, as apparently inconceivable as that may seem."
"You-," Lucifer descends onto the carpet, wings drooping like a cape, "huh?"
"You are correct, even if your methods of delivery are to be desired," Alastor continues whilst stiffly arranging himself into a cross-legged sitting position, elbows propped on his knees and hands fisting in his hair, "I do not, as you so crassly inferred, fuck, as a rule."
"Bambi, look," Lucifer contemplates reaching out and thinks better of it, curling his hands into fists at his sides instead, "I'm trying to figure this out, okay, so don't-," he huffs, gesticulating in search of words, "don't call me a fucking- imbecile, or whatever, but if you don't fuck, and you're not trying to, I dunno, seduce me for power, then what-,"
"Do you think I know?" Alastor snaps, whipping his head up and collecting static in his throat again, "perhaps it has escaped your feeble notice, but none of this," he sweeps a hand out, denoting the rumpled and blood-stained sheets, "can be constituted as normal for me,"
"Oh," like the first dawn of spring, comprehension rises past Lucifer's nape and paints his mind in golden understanding.
Maybe he should have queried this when Alastor first collapsed against him, in the parlour after he had been chased by a maniacal mechanical shark and Lucifer had been used as a battery; perhaps he should have said something about Alastor's arm, trembling and bloody, snaking around his waist before he portaled them both to this very room. Obtuse and oblivious as he may sometimes be, even he had noticed how little Alastor touched other people unless absolutely necessary. It should have been clear then, if not during any repeat thereafter, that seeking quiet and comfort in each other wasn't ordinary for him. Sighing, lowering himself onto the bed at Alastor's side, Lucifer arcs a wing behind him, not quite touching but close enough if Alastor wants it.
Looking at him askance, realising that Alastor's half-closed eyes and furrowed brow indicate weariness and wondering when he learnt how to recognise that or was allowed to see it, Lucifer cocks a wry grin and attempts mild humour, "man, you've had a shit century, huh?"
"You have no idea," Alastor grumbles, though his frown smooths out and a warmth which means amusement - if Lucifer's newfound Alastor dictionary is correct - glows within his softening gaze.
"I mean, hey, join the club am I right?" Lucifer's laugh is flat and he is glad Alastor doesn't remark beyond an eyebrow raise, "And, I'm not exactly used to this either, okay, I was married to one person for, like, ten thousand years, and when we met she was the only woman in existence, so,"
"Are you suggesting," Alastor muses, head cocked and ears tilted towards Lucifer, "that we should, if I am to understand the current phrase, take things slow?"
"That's if you want to, uh, take things at all," Lucifer holds up both hands in defence when Alastor's eyes narrow, "not arguing, not fighting you, I just-," and flops them into his lap with a sigh, "I kinda-mighta got the impression that you, I dunno, didn't like me all that much, and then you're grabbing my dick like it's-,"
Of all the ways to be interrupted, Lucifer has to admit that Alastor's fingers weaving into his hair, scratching pleasantly sharp claws on his scalp, and pulling him in whilst turning, gliding their mouths together in a way that is so seamless, so easily done, that if he were anyone else he might call it heavenly, is probably his favourite.
"You are," Alastor murmurs, treating small kisses as punctuation, "exceedingly irritating," immediately antidoting any poison in his words with sweetness, "exceptionally supercilious," which almost makes Lucifer forget he is being insulted, "and abundantly exasperating."
"Hey now," until he catches up, pushing awareness through the calming whir of his thoughts going into standby, and leans back, "is this how you flirt? Cause I've gotta say," a laugh pops on his tongue, "I like banter as much as the next guy, but I ah- might have some notes,"
"On the contrary," Alastor's eyes flash and Lucifer can feel his grin as he tilts to nose at his cheek, "I have merely not reached the conclusion of my statement," and definitely feels it as he nips at his jaw line, provoking a hearty shiver along Lucifer's extremities, "which is that I am actually quite enamoured with you, regardless of your glaring inadequacies."
"Enamoured, huh," Lucifer turns his head, catching their noses on each other and using all the confidence Alastor placed in his lungs to draw his lips into a smirk. Draping his wing around Alastor, pulling him closer, he lifts a hand and twirls that enigmatically soft, scarlet and black hair around his fingers, "I can work with that," as a prelude to bringing their lips into alignment again.
He reflects later, after they have practically eroded each other's mouths through slow, savouring kisses and have become one of those intimate entanglements which makes discerning limbs borderline impossible, that avoiding questions is an act he should cease going forwards. Especially if he wants to keep seeking out Alastor after a particularly taxing day, and be saught out in turn. Doubly so if he wants to keep learning every shape Alastor's lips can make against his own. At present, they are both on their sides, legs hooked into helixes, and whilst his right hand is rubbing gentle circles on Alastor's ear, the left has its fore and middle fingers tucked in Alastor's mouth, held in place by his teeth between the middle knuckles. As is always the case when Alastor bites him in this manner, the room is silent without his radio sounds and his eyes, although not closed, are barely more than vermilion slithers infused with inky, expansive pupils.
"Hey, Al," Lucifer murmurs, lightly brushing his thumb on Alastor's bottom lip.
"Nn," is the responding hum alongside the ear flicking against Lucifer's caress.
"Don't have to say, but I am kinda curious," Lucifer pushes on and awaits the gradual easing open of Alastor's eyes, inferring his attention, before continuing, "what's with the-," he takes his hand off Alastor's ear and gestures, "biting?"
Jaws unhinge and teeth slide free, allowing Lucifer to retrieve his now gold-streaked hand. Slow and softly hissing like the tide, static rises into the air once more. At first, Lucifer hesitates, wondering where to put his hand without potentially staining Alastor's clothes, until Alastor's fingers encompass his wrist and guide him to his chest where his palm can collect heartbeats.
"I find it soothing," Alastor explains, tone low and only a little crackly, "the yield of flesh, readily given, and the pressure against my tongue act as a dampener for my otherwise incessant thoughts," pausing, glancing at Lucifer's lips as though contemplating their placement, he hums pleasantly and leans in, sharing its mellow buzz with Lucifer by kissing him. There is no time for Lucifer to respond, though he wouldn't have been anything except eager, before Alastor is gone again, soft around the eyes and unstrained in his grin; happy. "I suppose you could imply that the peace I achieve by holding you in my mouth is borne of its ilk, which led me to embrace you that day in the parlour."
"Uh," Lucifer believes he knows what Alastor means here, but hope is a small flame compared to a darkness which has lived inside him for too long and he needs the reassurance to let it glow, "come again?"
"Do not let this go to your head," Alastor begins, "your hat is already on its way to blocking out the sun,"
"Hey," Lucifer is grinning anyway.
"But for some reason beyond my reckoning," as he speaks, Alastor drops the filter he rarely lets fall around others, sighs and rests their foreheads upon each other, filling Lucifer's world with his blood-red gaze, "out of all the beings in this afterlife, I feel safest with the devil,"
"Aw, Bambi," Lucifer simpers, half-teasing and half disguising how weightless and buoyant his existence has just become, "you know, for a freaky-deaky eldritch deer guy, you're pretty dang adorable," and wraps both arms around Alastor's chest, pushing just enough weight into him that he rolls onto his back, allowing Lucifer to nuzzle under his jaw.
"Coming from God's most beautiful angel," Alastor replies without any irony or static, "that is quite the compliment. I suppose I'll have to accept it, given the circumstances."
Unable to form the warm, swirling effervescence this washes into his veins and floods his lungs with into words, Lucifer pretends he can't see his own gilded blush illuminating his periphery and hugs Alastor tighter, murmuring, "shut up," against his pulse. A laugh, little more than a huff beneath Alastor's ribs, almost makes him resurface, but then there are long, sharp yet careful fingers in his hair again and, hey, there will be plenty of opportunities for learning Alastor's expressions in the future; he might as well continue learning the melody of his heartbeat in the present.