The Consort's Gambit - Cordelia Viori (nihilists), PeachieMomo (2024)

Chapter 1: A Game

Chapter Text

There was no good reason for the bar to be so f*cking creepy. That was what Lucifer had told his daughter and her equally creepy "friend", Alastor. Why did it have to be a pocket dimension? Couldn't they manage something a little less eldritch? The taxidermy was .. cool, kinda, sorta. Definitely a conversation starter, couldn't deny that. Also a conversation ender. The whole space smelt faintly of bayou and felt several degrees warmer than the rest of the hotel.

Yet, the abomination of a watering hole remained as it was because Charlie had gotten her backbone from her father and would not do anything about it because Alastor had put it there.

Alastor. That f*cking guy. All the more reason to be rid of it, as far as he was concerned. Lucifer wouldn't trust that guy with a dog he liked, let alone the hopes and dreams of his one and only daughter. Every time he saw that sh*t-eating grin his eye twitched. Hell, it twitched the moment he thought about him.

All this led to spite. And spite leads to pettiness. Pettiness turns into plans.

Lucifer would put his mark on the bar, yet. He took it upon himself to trash all of the middling spirits to replace them with choice, top shelf offerings. He'd also gotten Husk a tip jar after noticing he lacked one. He would bet his hat that Alastor didn't want the guy to have one. Lucifer'd super glued it to the bar top so it couldn't be taken away.

Grinning like a child getting away with a devious little plan, Lucifer lined all the impressive bottles up himself before standing back to admire his handiwork. This place would have some class, yet!

As a reward for his hard work, Lucifer took up a seat on the newly reupholstered bar stool to pour himself a martini since he was feeling quite good about himself at the moment -- a rare treat. Martinis were something cool, confident people who had their sh*t together drank. Lucifer was pretty good at manifesting.

Lucifer had forced his way into the hotel like a whirlwind, shaking everything and everyone up, but especially Charlie. He’d tried to put a wrench in between Alastor's carefully laid plans, trying sooo pathetically to convince his daughter that he was the better option rather than Alastor was.

As though Alastor hadn’t been Charlie’s only support through out this entire hilarious debacle that was this poorly planned hotel.

Too little too late! As it were.

If there was one thing that irked Alastor to no end, it was that the infuriating King of Hell was still here.

And now Alastor watched, from the warm, wriggling embrace of the shadows and darkness as the ever so powerful Lucifer, with all the might of heavenly divinity and hellish magic, rifled around the bar Alastor had so lovingly ripped into being through void and writhing other.

Alastor rolled his eyes as Lucifer sat up with all pride of some mastermind who pulled off a feat of absolute brilliance, instead of a buffoon who superglued a tip jar to the counter as though Alastor didn’t know ways around that.

And he wasn’t surprised in the slightest, that Lucifer made himself a martini, people who drank martinis were fussy people who were so fully of themselves.

Alastor moved through the shadows, the pieces of himself reconstituting themselves and rising like blood falling upwards on judgment day.

“Sire!!” he said cheerfully, “My what an absolute pleasure to make your acquaintance again on this fine evening! Might I join you for a drink?”

And before Lucifer could say yes or no, Alastor took the stool next to him, reaching over it to take a clear tumbler and filling it with a couple fingers of whiskey, neat.

"Why, look who the cat dragged in~" Lucifer sing-songed from his perch, grinning with what he hoped was irritating enthusiasm. He hurriedly placed down his martini, the olive sloshing dangerously close to the edge of the glass.

With flourish he presented the radiant stock of fancy booze that Alastor just might know something about if he was worth his paycheck.

It then occurred to Lucifer that he had no idea if Charlie was paying him.

No matter. Lucifer waggled his thick eyebrows at Alastor, spinning his scepter just to add a little more flair. His good humor brought the King's magnanimous nature to the forefront. Killing with kindness and class was that much easier when he was feeling good. At least, when the tactic could be counted on to be effective.

Whether or not it would work on Alastor had yet to be determined.

"You'll enjoy that. I got the good stuff, old boy."

Alastor raised an eyebrow at Lucifer as, so very like the ringleader of a failing circus, postured and acted entirely ridiculous, showing off the spirits he’d replaced as though Alastor hadn’t seen the entire thing happen.

However, Alastor would concede that Lucifer did know his liquor, the whiskey burning down his throat smoothly, with the full bodied tang of fruit and vanilla.

He held the glass out as though to consider it and glanced over at Lucifer, closing his eyes in satisfaction and taking another drink.

“Well sire, I must admit that this whiskey is certainly pleasant on the tongue. Your multitude of years must have refined your palate!” he conceded, “Though I do wonder why you were skulking about and replacing the liquor at this hour when you could have simply done so at a more reasonable time, I don’t think Husker would have rejected your kind offer.”

Lucifer ran one finger around the rim of his martini glass, grinning over at the man enjoying the liquor he'd only gotten to one-up him. Talk about satisfying. It was the little things in life, truly: a sunny day, a bubble bath, getting your rival to admit that you had great taste in booze...

"What, not the type of guy to appreciate a well-intentioned surprise, Al?" teased his King as he nursed his martini with small sips from his cherubic lips before he poured it on thick. "This isn't for Husk -- that's the tip jar. No, no, this is for you."

Alastor’s smile twitched, straining a bit at the nickname, his ear flicking in annoyance.

He let the statement hang in the air as he took another swig of his drink, quietly enjoying his whiskey before he turned to regard the royal pain in his neck, far too smug for his own good.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow, your majesty,” he said, tilting his head coyly, “I’m not in particular a day drinker, and certainly I don’t visit this bar any more than say, Angel, so in what way would your magnanimous gesture be a surprise to me?”

Nor did Alastor believe for a second that it was well intentioned at any rate.

Lucifer's face soured only slightly. He took a moment to pop the olive into his mouth and chew -- give him some time to come up with a devastating comeback or something along those lines.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Lucifer spread his arms helplessly, casting a smirk at Alastor. "Take in the moment. Are you not surprised? Are you not enjoying yourself?"

Lucifer truly was so easy to read, it was almost amusing if it wasn’t also so very sad that the King of Hell had no regard for how he was viewed by his subjects.

Then again, consider the way he dressed.

Alastor looked at the king, smile turning almost pitying at the way Lucifer scrambled for a way to bite back at him. “Surprised? I can’t say that I find myself particularly surprised, and as for enjoyment .. ”

He paused, sighing as he took another sip of whiskey, smiling sardonically at Lucifer, “The whiskey is nice, but the company could surely be better!”

"Charming," Lucifer snorted, and with a snap of his fingers Alastor's glass disappeared from between his claws only to reappear in the grip of his King.

Lucifer relaxed, crossed one leg over the other, and sipped generously from Alastor's cup. He hummed exuberantly, as if it was one of the best things he'd tasted in years, raising his glass to toast himself for having such a marvelous idea.

Alastor’s eyes narrowed, unamused.This too, was very like the petty, little monarch. Lucifer had proved himself to be easily provoked and even quicker to lash out at the slightest sign of opposition. Much like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Go hang out someplace else, then, and I'll enjoy myself here in my bar," Lucifer purred, drumming his claws upon the polished bar top, smoothing his hand over it in an almost intimate caress. "I was thinking about redoing the interior, next."

Unfortunate, that this unruly brat had far too much power to back him up. Perhaps that’s why Lucifer acted much like the subjects he hated so much. Certainly that sort of behavior had to be learned.

Alastor folded his hands primly atop the old wood of the bar, turning to face Lucifer once more.

“Why, I didn’t know that being a supplier made you a proprietor to something you had no part in building or contributing to in any meaningful way,” Alastor said, clicking his tongue. “Then again, I suppose barging into places, unwanted, and attempting to stake a claim by making them bigger and gaudier is very much like you, isn’t it, sire?”

Alastor's aura radiated righteous indignation, and the way he sat was precisely how Lucifer would imagine he'd look if a stick were stuck firmly up his ass.

The dark chuckle that left Lucifer was something he felt in his marrow. "You're spicy. I wonder if I can't ply you into a better mood by giving you that whiskey back.”

Spicy was not a word Alastor thought would ever be attributed to his mood. Vox liked to call him a bitch a lot of the time, but spicy was new.

Alastor was so very bothered by Lucifer, and Lucifer was so very bothered by Alastor. It really got his temperature rising.

In any case, the fury etched into Lucifer’s face was a finer look than the sad, searching gaze of someone who wanted so desperately to be approved of even by someone he clearly disliked. Alastor found he preferred it.

“Well! Now, that sounds like a better idea, I’ve been told I'm more agreeable drunk, though it would take more than a glass to get me there, no matter how fine you consider your liquor to be,” he chirped, smiling maliciously at the king as he held his hand out palm up to receive his drink. “No need to get so short, your majesty, it’s not becoming.”

Lucifer found himself fascinated by just how antagonistic Alastor was. There was a bizarre magnetism to it. He gestured with his fingers almost idly, but those minute movements were pouring Alastor another four fingers of rye this time.

The Radio Demon rather liked to monologue, didn't he? Like a villain in a tale.

"You like to hear yourself talk," Lucifer pointed out viciously, a smirk sweetening his expression as he watched Alastor like a bug in a jar. "And I suppose you could tell me a thing or two about what is becoming?"

Alastor accepted the glass of whiskey with an incline of his head. It’s not like he minded the back and forth, clearly Lucifer didn’t either, he was sure the man would have stormed off if he found Alastor’s presence any more unbearable than he currently did.

And yes, he supposed that spoke volumes about why he was still in this situation when an out had been so thoughtfully provided for him.

“Much obliged, sire!” he said, taking a long drag of the drink and humming thoughtfully, “Well, I suppose I do like the sound of my voice, I am a radio host after all! Ha!

“As for your behavior, well. I’m afraid you may just be a lost cause, sire,” Alastor said forlornly, accompanied by a slow shake of his head as a laugh track played briefly in the background.

Lucifer made a weird face, quickly hiding his mouth behind his fist -- clearly trying not to appear as though he was about to bust up laughing. This was getting weird.

Alastor would probably not appreciate to know it, but Lucifer was beginning to find his nonsense pretty entertaining. The degree to which he was trying to get his goat had to be respected, at the very least.

Lucifer scrutinized Alastor quietly as he put on airs, ultimately deciding that could stand to have a few laughs tonight.

That was a reaction Alastor hadn’t been expecting. Whatever strange aborted motion Lucifer was trying to hide was, at least, amused in nature which… Alastor didn’t really know how to feel about.

"Right." Unaffected by Alastor's insult as he was too lost in the sauce to really care, he raised his glass up, canting his head to the side. "Let's toast to something."

On the one hand, Alastor could have felt proud about getting the king to try (and fail) to stop himself from seeming hopelessly amused, but on the other, he didn’t think he had said anything particularly amusing.

As Lucifer stared at him, Alastor raised an eyebrow in challenge and then relaxed minutely.

“Splendid idea, sire. What will we be toasting to? The continued success of dear Charlotte’s pet project?” Alastor offered, raising his own glass.

"No, something else. That's too obvious," Lucifer rejected quickly, soothing his bluntness with -- "Let's pick something we don't have any control over. Toasts are like wishes, you know," he informed Alastor sagely.

Alastor gazed flatly at Lucifer, flicking his gaze away from the king with a dull hum of acknowledgment that sounded sarcastic, even to his own ears.

“Then .. to Heaven? And their cooperation with the hotel?” he offered mildly, unsure exactly what Lucifer had in mind for the toast, and why the infuriating little man wouldn’t just toast it himself.

Lucifer smiled, nodding approvingly before very smoothly clinking his glass against Alastor's. He already found himself acclimating to the Radio Demon's bristling condensation -- like how a houseguest eventually accepts the aggression of the pet chihuahua.

"Much better. To Heaven." The words tasted like bile on his tongue, but Lucifer agreed. "Talk about something out of our control!" he hooted, before sipping the liquor indulgently. His eyes were shut -- lashes long. His wedding band glinted in the light.

“Indeed, ‘out of our control’ is certainly what I’d call the whole situation,” Alastor agreed, taking a long gulp of his whiskey, smile twitching as he felt his limbs getting heavier the more he was drinking.

Still, Lucifer wasn’t terrible company as originally believed. There was worse. Alastor eyed the wedding band distaste while Lucifer’s eyes were closed with. Yes, there was much worse company.

“I have to ask, sire. Why did you decide to spend your evening at the bar? Certainly, it couldn’t just be the desire for renovation?”

Weighing the pros and cons of admitting to his little scheme versus telling a white lie, Lucifer ultimately concluded that stretching the truth had more potential to be entertaining.

"When your little girl is dealing with the same group of hypocritical paper pushers that tossed you out on your ass for daring to care about other people, in what other way should I pass the time?" Lucifer told Alastor with a shrug that belied the intensity of his eyes as he discussed the topic. "She'll come home -- for better or for worse -- and I'll be right here, ready to teach her how to do a tequila shot."

Lucifer sipped his bourbon with a subtle sigh, his eyes going half-lidded as he willed himself not to tense up. The booze helped. "It'll distract her from whatever happened up there, for at least a moment."

It certainly wasn’t the full truth, but it still betrayed a lot of what Lucifer was feeling, at least on the matter of Heaven.

Not that Alastor was surprised that the Devil himself wasn’t fond of Heaven. That seemed to be the only thing that was the same from what he’d known of the Bible.

“Well, I suppose it’s admirable that you appear to be caring about the hotel now,” Alastor said, running his finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. “Though, color me curious, why agree to the Exterminations in the first place? Certainly if they weren’t happening Charlotte wouldn’t be galavanting in Heaven trying to redeem these pathetic souls.”

What a knockout of a question. Lucifer whistled appreciatively, his eyes narrowing as he considered even answering.

"I suspect you have your own theories," Lucifer ventured, his gaze pulled by that circling finger. He mimicked the action on his own glass in a childish game of copying-me. "Why don't you test them out? If you guess correctly, I'll tell you."

Alastor wasn’t an idiot. The question was loaded like a gun. Contrary to what he was sure was popular belief, Alastor had no desire to invite Lucifer’s actual wrath. The king was stronger than him, as loathe as he was to admit it, so more .. nuanced methods were required.

“I do have a couple,” Alastor acquiesced, picking his glass up again and regarding the whiskey in the tumbler and tapping his talons against the reinforced glass. “One such, is that you simply hate us sinners, and wouldn’t mind terribly if Heaven wiped all of us out,” he purred, coy, as he propped his head on his palm and regarded Lucifer through lidded eyes. “The other that’s floated about, since meeting you, has been that the agreement was forced — some clause involving Charlotte’s continued safety.”

"Charlie," Lucifer was quick to correct the sinner, giving him a pointed look. They all knew that was what she preferred. To disregard it was a dick move. Go figure that Alastor would be the one to do it.

Alastor nodded his head in acknowledgment, raising his head and a hand in mock surrender, that was a bad habit he had to break still, it wasn’t right to Charlie for him to stick to old mannerisms.

While this brief flare of protectiveness soured Lucifer's mood a little, he gracefully moved on. The liquor made that easier than it was before, loosening his tongue.

Graciously, he continued. "You're referencing the pardons I gave my family," he began, notably referring to his wife and daughter as such so he wouldn't need to say Lilith's name. "It's not like I have much bargaining room when Heaven makes that kind of decision," Lucifer offered with a shrug, his eyes darkening. "But, you know what, when you're right, you're right. I didn't give a damn about sinners prior to Charlie's influence.”

The explanation was frankly a bit insufficient for Alastor’s liking, but it’s not like he could demand a better one. Besides, it confirmed what he already knew: that Lucifer hated sinners and had been more than happy to sell them off.

“Right! Of course you wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Alastor said, and if he was a tinge more bitter than before, that wasn’t anything special. He took another long drag of his whiskey, hissing through his teeth at the burn. This was getting dangerous. “You don’t expect me to believe you care now, right? Your majesty.”

"With all due respect," Lucifer began acidly, his own eyes slitting to thin slashes warningly at Alastor as the both of them continued to verbally spar. He could feel himself flushing both from liquor and from indignation. "What you believe about my motives isn't of particular concern to me, Al."

“No of course not, sire! I’m just a lowly sinner after all!” Alastor said cheerfully, rolling his eyes as his ears flicked in annoyance.

A beat.

"And I could say the same about you."

Alastor could feel the liquor lowering his guard, had the cognition to know he was slipping. And yet, the idea of taking the solution of walking away and bidding Lucifer good night was an even worse thought. Despite himself, Alastor was having fun bantering back and forth with the king.

“Oh? My motivations?” Alastor asked, hand coming to light at his chest. “I have been nothing but forthcoming about why I am here and my desires on the matter.”

"That it's entertaining?" Lucifer raised one skeptical eyebrow. "You must realize how difficult that is to swallow. Out of boredom? Especially now that things are looking rather dire? And then you made your buddy leave because she brought trouble."

Lucifer was tallying it all up as he recounted, looking more and more suspicious as he went on. "One would think it would be far more amusing to you for her to stick around."

"I’m not surprised your little mind can’t comprehend my motivations,” Alastor said with a faux put off sigh. “But unlike you, sire, I have no problem explaining myself.”

He set his glass down on the countertop again, turning in his stool to regard Lucifer, propping an elbow up on the counter and setting his head on his palm.

“There is nothing more entertaining than watching people struggle against their nature only to fail so fully in the end, however dear Mimzy being here would only draw trouble to the hotel, which would detract from people feeling so inclined to check in! And she can be quite the seductress,” he explained, altogether far too happy about the prospect of people losing hope.

Lucifer didn’t need to know the actual reasons behind Alastor being at the hotel, he’d made sure only Husk knew, and Husk was very well sworn to silence.

"Oh, trust me, my pea brain is capable of grokking the sh*t you're shoveling," Lucifer scoffed, strangely deciding on that moment to top off both of their drinks. What a bizarre pleasure bickering brought. Full on arguing, screaming, yelling, crying? For that he was well-practiced.

"I just don't think you're telling the truth. Whatever, we'll all discover why you're actually here. It's only a matter of time."

Alastor laughed, rolling his eyes again and turning, picking up his drink, giving it a critical look and then motioning to Lucifer with it.

“If you aren’t inclined to believe me, I doubt I’d be able to convince you,” he began. “So, how about a game? We can ask each other a series of questions, if you decline to answer. Drink.”

Lucifer's eyes went wide at the suggestion of a game. That's something friends did, or lovers, or people on a date, or as a group -- not two f*cks needling each other every chance they could.

And yet, the King found himself mulling it over as he sipped his bourbon, his gaze shifting to the side to get a small moment to himself.

f*ck it.

"Yes or no questions only," he stipulated first, and then second, "And I want to put on music. It's too quiet in here."

“Why, sire! All you had to do was ask.” Alastor snickered, inclining his cane and a couple of moments later, a set of jazz began pouring from a radio he’d set up ages ago in the lobby.

“Yes or no .. ” he muttered quietly, mulling over his first question before it came to him unbidden, a little something he’d overheard Charlie say months ago, “Do you truly think of Charlie as a failure?”

To say that Lucifer was affected by the second bomb of a question Alastor dropped on him would be akin to describing Hell as a mildly unsavory place. His eyes blew wide, staring aghast at the demon, mouth dropping open but uttered nothing for a long moment.

"Of f*cking course not," Lucifer asserted passionately. "What the f*ck. No!"

Charlie would certainly be thrilled at the news if Lucifer would ever be so inclined as to actually tell her that. Alastor knew the two were on their way to restoring their relationship, but a couple words were not enough to repair years of neglect.

Though, he did wonder where she had gotten the idea that her father considered her a failure. The glint of Lucifer’s ring caught his attention and Alastor figured he had an inkling.

“Oh good! I had been wondering,” Alastor said pragmatically, drumming his fingers against the counter as he waited for Lucifer to regain his faculties.

The King did indeed need a minute. He sighed, smoothing his hands down the front of his pink waistcoat as he drew a settling breath.

"You go right for the jugular, don't you? That isn't my question, either, don't get any ideas," Lucifer warned, pointing an accusing finger at Alastor. He had a more important one: "Does Charlie think that I think that she's a failure?" he balked.

“Is there any other way to play this kind of game?” Alastor answered genuinely, tilting his head in confusion. He’d only heard of the game in passing, never one for bars where sinners got far too handsy for their own good. What was the point of asking questions if one didn’t get the answers they were seeking?

He let out a dark chuckle as Lucifer pointed at him, “I suppose I’ll give that one to you for free, though it was a yes or no question. And yes, she does.”

He gave no additional information, humming noncommittally as he considered what to ask next. “Have you truly been locked away in your palace since I took my sabbatical?”

"Bored already?" Lucifer asked, huffing breath and doing his vest not to be too petulant about this new question. What had he gotten himself in? "I don't know, this was your idea! And, yes. Auspicious timing, isn't it?"

The joy of this kind of game, is that when double questions were asked, rhetorical or no, Alastor had the pick of the litter when it came to which one to answer. Though he was sure Lucifer would catch on quickly.

“Bored? No, of course not sire. Simply thinking about what to ask,” Alastor said. “Hm .. did you really restock the bar to simply ‘pass the time?’”

Lucifer opened his mouth to protest Alastor’s question — it was his turn! — only to shut it with a soft click of teeth and a tongue pop. He’d just unthinkingly asked not one, but two.

He wanted to blame Alastor for that, quite unfairly. He’d been had, lured in by the demon’s incensing questions. He shifted his weight on the stool, reversing the crossing of both slim legs. One of them began to bounce — a betrayal of the effect of liquor, the jazz, or restlessness? Perhaps a combination of them all.

Another one right between the eyes. Lucifer wondered why he’d agreed to this. He shifted his gaze to his glass, rubbing his thumb along the side as he puffed out one cheek, mouing.

“Well~” he hedged, humming. “No~”

Ah! Lucifer was catching on. Mores the pity, Alastor was having fun pulling information from the unsuspecting monarch as they went on. He’d been offering so much and all Alastor had to do was needle him a little bit.

He hummed in acknowledgement, “And here I thought you’d drink! What with how non-forthcoming you’ve been with that particular bit of information,” Alastor said, cheery, clearly pleased with himself as he motioned to Lucifer, “Ask yours then.”

Lucifer wanted to make his next question devastating after that targeted assault of queries. He glared at Alastor as he took a new, long, deep sip.

“Do you blush when you’re drunk?” he asked before he had a chance to second guess. It did have a point.

Strange question, and honestly one Alastor did not know the answer to. He’d been drunk a precious few handful of times while alive, and not at all since he’d manifested in Hell like a herald. There were far too many who would have taken advantage of any inebriated state if he were to have let his guard down. Like Vox, for instance.

So, in lieu of answering, Alastor raised his glass to his lips and swallowed a healthy amount of whisky. It served both as a refusal to answer and an invitation to the king to find out.

“Right! In the same vein, as a previously angelic being, can you even get drunk?” he asked.

"Oh, hell no," Lucifer shot back immediately, wagging a finger in the air in reply to that sassy little response to his question. "That was very charming, but no, no, no, that was not an answer. I get another question."

The King was prepared to play hardball on this. Excitedly, he leaned over to give Alastor's glass a little rat-a-tat-tat with one gloved claw. "Finish your drink. That's the rules."

“Oh! Why your majesty! I didn’t know you found me charming!” Alastor purred, before his smile soured and he regarded the very full tumbler.

This was a bad idea, but Alastor wasn’t one to be out done, however he was good at finding loopholes, and tilted his head at Lucifer.

“Oh, I never specified how much we would have to drink if we declined to answer, just that we would have to drink,” he said, faux innocent, “And I drank! So you need to answer my question.”

As far as Lucifer was concerned, if the Radio Demon had some sense, he should be able to ascertain to himself that, yes, Lucifer could get drunk. What good was this vice and sin if it didn't bring some degree of pleasure?

"Of your own volition, not in obedience to the rules of the game!" Lucifer pointed out savagely, but a pout was growing on his face instead of a grimace of irritation -- which would have been what he'd done before the buzz kicked in.

"You're a slippery little snake," hissed Lucifer, making a show of it with a flick of his forked tongue. "Follow your own rules. At least a sip," he added at the end, making a confused face at himself afterward. Why was he conceding, he was in the right!

Alastor’s smile twisted to something unamused and annoyed, and he waved his markedly emptier tumbler at Lucifer as if doing so would make the monarch less blind.

Was he trying to infuriate Alastor on purpose?

“Sire, I understand at your stature, it’s hard to see at eye level, however I already drank,” he snarled, sighing at the insistence and taking another, smaller, swig. “There! Now. Answer.”

Alastor had a particular way with words when he wanted to be scathing. Like it had before, the cleverness made Lucifer laugh notwithstanding the insult couched in his words.

This time, he didn't try to hide it, cracking up brightly like the ringing of a bell.

Things were getting weird. Lucifer grinned from ear to ear to watch Alastor brandishing the tumbler in exasperation. The King had realized his mistake, and was humble enough to feel bad about it for half a second, but not only was it too late to go back now, but he was quickly growing addicted to the energy Alastor gave off when he was irritated.

"Good boy~" he praised appealingly.

Alastor tried to curb the annoyance that spiked as, once again, Lucifer laughed at him for reasons that were entirely incomprehensible to him, and that was saying something considering how incomprehensible Alastor was.

His nails dug grooves into the countertop as he drummed them impatiently and far too hard in his irritation and then—

Unbidden, Alastor felt heat crawling up his face at the unexpected praise, and try as he might’ve, the flush refused to leave. Apparently, he did blush when he was drunk.

Right. Drunk. That was the reason.

“I reserve the right to change my question, as you haven’t been forthcoming,” Alastor snapped, taking a breath to compose himself, “Do I amuse you in some way?”

"Very much so," Lucifer seemed eager to admit, his eyes lit from the inside and sparkling with mirth. His eyes flicked between the new damage to the bartop -- poor Husker -- and the ruddy glow of Alastor's face.

His turn, finally. What to ask next? He had a clean slate with nothing to volley back. The possibilities were endless.

"Are you having a good time?" Lucifer's voice came husky with confidence that not only would the question be disarming, but the answer was yes.

It would be safer to answer the question.

But to answer Lucifer’s question would be to admit that he enjoyed the king’s company. More than that, he would then have an ego blown Lucifer on hand and Alastor wasn’t sure if he could deal with it.

His sin was pride for a reason.

So once again, despite knowing Lucifer would still be co*cky and smug because his nonanswer was answer in and of itself, Alastor pointedly looked away from Lucifer and took another hefty swig of his drink.

Now it was his turn to ask a question, but his head was starting to spin, and he sighed, resisting the urge to lean his upper half against the counter.

“ .. do you want to be here?” he asked finally, vague and unclear as to where here was supposed to refer to exactly.

"I'm not usually in places I don't want to be in," Lucifer answered noncomittally. Then, predicting that his answer would not satisfy, he added, "So, yes. Do you want to be here?"

An out of left field question like that was free game for slapping right back.

“Yes! Very much so,” Alastor said cheerfully, brow furrowing as his smile twitched down at the tumbler of whiskey that was still surprisingly full. “Hm. Are you feeling the liquor too?”

He was starting to feel warm.

Absolutely tickled by this question, Lucifer gave an easy chuckle. He reached out, delicately but swiftly plucking Alastor's glass out from between his dangerous-looking claws.

"Yes. I think it might be time to end this game, lest you end up sick," Lucifer said loftily. "Sorry, I'm cutting both your questions and your booze off."

It was a testament to how much he was feeling the liquor that Alastor didn’t put up a fuss when Lucifer invaded his personal space to take the tumbler away from him.

He still had all of his facilities, but any more and he’d be at risk of making foolish decisions. Such as staring at Lucifer for far too long.

He tore his eyes away to attempt to shake himself out of his daze. It worked to an extent, but he truly risked something stupid in the name of drunken heat if he stayed here any longer.

“Well! This was certainly an entertaining evening. Thank you kindly for your company, your majesty, I will be excusing myself then,” he said hastily, standing and immediately regretting the action.

"Whoa!" Lucifer dove forward with catlike reflexes, catching Alastor, keeping him steady as he found his footing.

Alastor’s ears pinned back the second Lucifer caught and steadied him. He wasn’t fond of touch at the best of times, and this wasn’t anywhere close to something he’d be okay with.

The problem came from Alastor not minding Lucifer’s touch.

"What a lightweight." There was a tinge of fondness in the King's tone, but majority was long-suffering. A total brat, this one.

Alastor needed out of this situation ten minutes ago, and so he very quickly extricated himself from Lucifer’s grip, dusting himself off petulantly. “Thank you for the assistance your majesty," he ground out, summoning his cane to steady himself, “But I assure you I am fine.”

Alastor may have lost at his own game, but he'd done so while reading him to filth all night long to the extent that Lucifer wasn't sure if he was the one who'd come out on top. It felt more like a tie.

Lucifer didn't press, releasing Alastor when he strained against his hands as if burned by his touch. He frowned, brushing his palms over his hair in a well-embedded self-soothing action.

"Yeah, no problem~" he said back magnanimously. Then silence fell between them, Lucifer unsure if Alastor was about to make his exit or not. He seemed poised on the threshold, skittish somehow.

Despite the original intention of the night, he’d found himself .. enjoying the king’s company. It was certainly nice to be able to talk to someone who could match his wit. He wouldn’t be opposed to doing it again, though, with substantially less alcohol.

Alastor made his way to the stairs, pausing at the top of them to look back down.

“Good night, Lucifer,” Alastor called, waving a hand in his direction as he sauntered away to his rooms.

Chapter 2: A Deal Is Struck

Chapter Text

When Charlie returned to the hotel, it was to a group of people excited for her arrival, excited for good news and receiving only terror at the end of it.

Honestly, Alastor hadn’t been expecting much to begin with, so he wasn’t thrown off by the news, if anything, he saw it as a wonderful opportunity, and with some careful deliberation, he found himself standing in front of the room Lucifer had claimed for himself, during his extended stay at their lovely hotel.

It wasn’t the possibility of securing a deal that could help him out of the one that chained him so that drove him to the King, but also the remains of the… whatever that had wormed its way into the rotted remains of his chest. Paradoxically, he wanted to see Lucifer again, even if he drove Alastor entirely crazy.

He knocked, primly, folding his hands behind his back as he waited for Lucifer to answer the door, smile a carefully crafted thing of sympathy and underlying concern.

Lucifer had not been expecting company.

"Charlie?" Because who the hell else would it be? He rose from his workstation to jog across the distance and open the door. "Heeey bi--"

Alastor.

"--iiitch?" Lucifer choked, flummoxed.

“And a very good morning to you too sire!” Alastor chirped, giving Lucifer a quick once over as he towered over him.

Lucifer was in a state of disarray, but when wasn’t he, even when properly dressed the man walked around less like a monarch and more like a person trying to make himself seem as put together as possible.

Alastor twirled his cane out, gently pressing it against the front of Lucifer’s chest as he pushed the monarch back and further into the rubber duck infested wasteland he had the audacity to call a room.

“May I come in? Lovely.” He demanded more than asked, striding past Lucifer and making himself at home on the one love chair that wasn’t swarmed by the little rubber abominations, “I’m afraid, your majesty, we have a predicament, with the Extermination upon us, and Adam apparently aiming for our dear hotel, I was wondering what you had planned.”

In a moment of self-doubt, Lucifer rethought his decision to transport all of his .. projects.. to his room at the hotel. He caught how Alastor looked at them, something akin to arson written on his face. With a snap of his fingers he banished every little rubber duck back to the palace. Save one -- it rested on his work station, too pure for this world.

"Make yourself at home," Lucifer drawled, watching Alastor plop himself down. "You want a drink? A pillow? A key?" Choosing to antagonize Alastor rather than face a question he had no answer to, Lucifer cast his uninvited guest a look of distaste.

“Oh, no thank you my dear! Good on you for remembering how to be a host! I figured you too short tempered for the task! Ha!” Alastor said, watching the ducks in the room disappear one by one and quickly snagged one off of the floor before it could be banished to wherever it would go.

Perhaps upon some poor saps home, perhaps they’d be crushed to death by the sheer amount. The thought made Alastor laugh, squeezing the little rabbit shaped ducky in a vice grip.

“Please do try to keep up sire, we are on a time crunch and time is of the essence,” he said again, pointing the ducky at Lucifer, “What is to your plan for the Extermination?”

Lucifer snatched the duck away as if his own spawn were being threatened. The look he leveled on Alastor could have turned most to stone.

"You're being a bitch right now, and not in a hot way," the King spat, and yet he waved a hand, a serving tray of tea and coffee materializing on the small table between them.

Once more he had bowed to the uncanny desire to prove something to this sinner. Kill him with kindness wasn't the right way to put it. Piss him off with politeness? Fluster him with fine etiquette?

"Be civil or leave, Alastor, I don't have the patience for your teasing for the same reason you're up here."

The Extermination loomed over all of them, even the King.

Alastor raised an eyebrow as Lucifer— implied he was attractive in some way? And promptly ignored and killed any feelings the idea may have brought up, choosing instead to focus on the serving tray the king materialized.

It was a fine assortment of teas and coffees, and taking it as invitation, Alastor fixed himself and Lucifer a cup of coffee, taking his black, but allowing Lucifer to do what he pleased to it. Though he reserved the right to judge if he ruined the coffee.

He nursed a sip as Lucifer snapped at him, perhaps he pushed it a bit too far, but the king had yet to kick him out, so certainly it meant Alastor could push him further.

Vanilla heavy cream went into Lucifer's cup in a modest portion all on its own, like enchanted fairytale nonsense, as Lucifer threw himself onto the available space left on the loveseat. He spread his body, legs stretched and splayed, leaning into the cozy corner as he took a bracing sip of his coffee.

The smooth flavor settled his nerves, reminded him that it was still morning. With a twinge of annoyance, he realized that observing this little nicety had benefitted him.

Ugh, see, ruined. Far too much cream in a good cup of coffee, and the flavored kind that tasted of nothing but sugar and artificial flavoring. How could Lucifer have such good taste in liquor, but such terrible taste in coffee?

Mysteries of the world, Alastor supposed, as he regarded the monarch sitting practically legs akimbo in his chair, no regard for manners or coffee.

“I know something you don’t know~” he sang, staring at Lucifer intently over the rim of his mug.

"I bet you do," Lucifer snorted, scowling at Alastor. "Why should I care?"

Alastor’s smile tightened. “Hmm, well, it involves the angels that plan on attacking our fair hotel, I may have discovered someone who knows how to execute the feathered vermin.”

Naturally, Lucifer first latched on to the cutting remark. Alastor was f*cking with him, he was sure of it. Sans bourbon, it wasn't as fun.

"I'm sitting right here, you know." Lucifer's nostrils flared, one small tip of a wing slipping itself out of the lined slits in his waistcoat as if to wave at Alastor. "It's me. Hi. I'm an angel, it's me."

Alastor gave Lucifer a dry look, honestly was he trying to be as dense as possible today? This was infuriating, here he was, trying to further both of their causes and Lucifer insisted on being the most maddening person around.

“Oh, my apologies, I had no idea you were planning on rejoining your brethren and attacking the hotel,” Alastor began, drily, “Please, sire, employ some listening comprehension and understand I mean the Exorcists coming for the hotel and Charlie.”

"I know what you mean," Lucifer groaned in exasperation, letting his head thud back against the plush upholstery. He couldn't help it, Alastor made him petulant in the same way hay fever produced hives. "Yeah, yeah, they can be killed, tell me something I don't know."

Well. That certainly put a damper on his plans. A rather big one actually. But Alastor was nothing if not resourceful.

“And you were not planning on sharing this information with the rest of the staff? With your daughter?” he asked, far more agitated than he had a right to be, one ear flicking in irritation, “At least I came here to inform you of what I know, how can they be killed then? Hm?”

"f*ck if I know. You think the All-Father deigned to pass that delectable piece of information to his favorite? Hm? Taint his little doll's mind with knowledge of how death could befall him, or any such creature?"

There was venom in those words born of endless years of roiling bitterness and grief. Lucifer's voice shook, his fury at the suggestion that he would willingly withhold such information palpable.

“Ah! So I do know a bit more than you then!” Alastor said, quickly moving to diffuse the situation, he had to calm Lucifer down if he was to send him to Carmilla to get the information that would hopefully save their hides in the coming war.

(And perhaps he didn’t like this look on Lucifer, the despaired fury, and perhaps he didn’t like Lucifer referring to himself as a doll.)

“My dear king, I propose a very simple deal, nothing is free and information, especially!” he began, “I tell you who has the knowledge of you and your fellows doom, and in return you do me a, let’s say nonlethal favor of my choosing at a later date, are those terms fair?”

It started with the word 'deal'. The eternal flame of Lucifer's anguish flickered to life as his horns rose from his smooth forehead. By the time Alastor had finished, his tail was lashing, thumping against the loveseat restlessly, itching to cut into something.

"You are a snake," Lucifer hissed, his normally emotive eyes losing that quality as they filled from waterline to lash with hellfire. "And what keeps me from just taking the information from you?"

Not for the first time, Alastor lamented that such mouthwatering, potent power, was in the hands of someone wholly unwilling to use it for more than parlor tricks and petty threats.

Still, Alastor found Lucifer looked… stunning like this, wreathed in hellfire, crowned with horns, he should stay like this more often.

He bit back the retort he wanted to say, choosing instead to set his coffee down, and tilt his head to the side, “Certainly sire you could, but what would Charlie say? I don’t think she’d appreciate my death, or any grievous injury to my person," he said, raising his hands as though in surrender or perhaps submission, “And besides, I am not asking for much, a simple transaction, you’re welcome to add a term, if you so wish.”

It was only by mentioning Charlie that Alastor avoided being squashed like a bug then and there.

"You think you're such a smooth talker," Lucifer ground out, but was clearly exercising restraint even as his eternal form lingered. He was on guard now, watching Alastor like a hawk. The King breathed deeply, pushing against the brimstone in his nature to remain in full control.

It could be said that the only people who should have power are those who do not want it.

Alastor knew when he was on thin ice, the surface cracking beneath his feet, he hadn’t survived this long by dancing foolishly around unstable surfaces.

He kept his hands up, making himself as nonthreatening as possible, as though the king of hell was nothing more than an unruly, aggressive hound that he had to keep calm around.

“Your majesty, I do want to help, I would not offer the information up at all if I wanted to see the hotel ruined,” he said, and it isn’t hard to let the sincerity into his tone, “However, I must also cover my own back, to ensure my continued safety as well. Please do not take my offer as malignant.”

"Like a tumor." Lucifer snorted like a beast, his large, dangerous teeth on display as he smiled nastily.

The King had turned. Turned, and begun to stalk Alastor.

The canopy of his wings hovered above them, all six having silently raised on either side of the angel. Taking up space. Filling in even Alastor's peripheral with scarlet feathers. Lucifer's claws were extended. Hooves, too. They gleamed like blades of ruby in the lamplight as Lucifer gripped the cushions of the loveseat, crawling over it quick and agile as a lizard, to lean his body over Alastor's.

Alastor was surprised to find that the very threatening display was having the opposite effect in him. Instead of being afraid, as he probably should, or cowed, like he never would be, Alastor found himself deeply intrigued by Lucifer, interested, even.

He tilted his head mildly, to gaze upwards at Lucifer, he reached out, gently to run a talon down the gorgeous scarlet feathers in front of him, not quite able to stop the impulse before he gave in.“Your wings are beautiful,” he said, sincerely, “However, I can see when I am not wanted, if you do not want to deal, then I will be taking my leave, your majesty.”

To be touched and spoken to in such an intimate way while in the highly aroused state of a blind rage felt eerily familiar to Lucifer.

Disarmed, the King blinked, crimson irises returning as a very queer feeling permeated his skin. Lucifer was somewhat breathless in the aftermath. He'd returned to normal.

Lucifer leaned away from Alastor. Of the myriad of things he was thinking and the emotions he was experiencing, one made it to his face: disappointment.

"I'm not making a deal with you." A beat. "But you'll make a deal with me."

It was at times like these that Alastor was very glad that his face was forced into a permanent smile, he appeared more unreadable that way, able to stop his ears from pinning back at the sheer dislike of the idea of losing the right to bargaining power in this situation.

But if he didn’t take it, then he’d lose the ability to walk out of this with a fuller deck than before, so he inclined his head, watching disappointment blossom on Lucifer’s face with a twinge of confusion.

“What, pray tell, are your conditions then? Sire." he purred.

"My conditions -- " Lucifer began, " -- could be simple. They could be for you to tell me what you know, and in exchange I don't destroy you."

Lucifer reached out to retake his coffee, needing it even more now. Alastor was f*cking exhausting.

Still, the way the sinner's claw drifted down the vanes of his feathers lingered in his head. It confused him.

Lucifer wanted to punish Alastor for making him feel this way, for daring to propose a deal to the King of Hell. Was there any greater transgression of position?

"But that wouldn't teach you a lesson."

Lucifer didn’t do simple, Alastor understood that much simply by having observed him replacing all of the bottles in Husk’s bar for reasons still entirely unknown to him.

A small part of Alastor still hoped that it would be that simple, yes, Alastor would lose out on a finer deal, but it would ensure he wouldn’t be dead to face the Extermination. He’d chafe at it, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

The tone Lucifer adopted as he finished his statement however, didn’t promise anything good for him.

Alastor eyed Lucifer warily, “… so what, pray tell, are the terms.”

Lucifer was so angry with Alastor for his gall. He'd just begun to think maybe he wasn't all bad. His guts twisted with vexation. What condition could he come to that would benefit him given what this sinner was giving him to work with?

Lucifer had to think quickly. It wasn't as if he could take a day to chew on it. As much as he wished it weren't true, they were running low on time and the last thing anybody needed was him waffling on how to discipline Alastor.

So, he reached for something off the top of his heart. A little worm of a thought that sprung on them as he flicked his gaze to Alastor's unfinished coffee. The memory of how their abortive drinking session had gone.

"Once a week," Lucifer started, at a loss. "You drink with me. Like the other night. You might just show me that I made the right choice in not executing you for this transgression. Let's hope you do."

In all, it wasn’t a terrible deal to be roped into, however it was still bad. Alastor hated it, yet another noose around his neck binding his activities to the whims and wills of someone else again.

It was clear how displeased Alastor was, unable to stop his ears from pinning back at the conditions, smile twitching to something flat and grimacing as he regarded Lucifer.

Still, it was a testament to how bad at this Lucifer was, that the deal still had some upsides to it. He wasn’t blind, he saw the way Lucifer’s face changed when Alastor touched his wings, he could use this, get closer to the king, worm way into his heart and enclose himself safely within Lucifer’s ribcage.

He held his hand out, “Then, I suppose we have a deal don’t we, your majesty?” he said, coming back from his displeasure with a vengeance.

“One more thing,” Lucifer held up a finger. “Tell Charlie. Not me. This is her fight. I’m not going to swoop in and take that from her.”

With a shake, so it was.

Chapter 3: An Unusual Evening

Chapter Text

Alastor’s return to the hotel was very well received, which was excellent for recovering his reputation. Those worthless Vees had done a number to it after Adam had dealt a near fatal blow to him.

And truly, what an absolute delight Rosie had been. She nursed him back to health and then some after Alastor had stumbled his way into her Emporium to rest. Who knew the flesh of angels could speed up healing so much!!

Therein lied the problem Alastor found himself in. His body was screaming at him. The accelerated healing had triggered that wretched biological need that had him prime and ripe and aching for conception. His blasted heat had come early, and it was particularly vicious this time around. No amount of detached petting relieved the itching. He supposed the only thing he had to be grateful for was that his heat lasted as long as an actual does, if he had to stomach this for longer than a couple days, he’d saunter up to Heaven to kill himself.

What’s worse is Lucifer chose the beginning of his damned heat to call in their weekly drink, and Alastor couldn’t say no.

He made his way down the stairs, keeping incredible control over his faculties -- hoping he could hold out for an hour before he’d excuse himself and disappear for the remainder of the week.

"You're here before I am!" Lucifer pointed out the obvious, striding up to the bar after descending the stairs, skipping the final four steps with a hop.

After they'd sealed the deal all hell broke loose. Armed with the knowledge Carmilla had reluctantly imparted, his daughter had -- against all biblical odds -- thwarted Heaven's attempt at annihilating her kingdom. If you asked him, Lucifer would say that Charlie was Hell's first true sovereign. Not even her mother could hold a candle to Charlie's devotion to her people.

Lucifer's bearing as he came to stand at Alastor's side was night and day compared to their last encounter. It was no secret -- much to the Radio Demon's chagrin, to be sure -- that he'd taken a critical hit from Adam before the end. Putting himself in harm's way to defend the hotel had, pun intended, redeemed Alastor in Lucifer's eyes. At least, redeemed him enough to make smiling at him an easy thing to do.

After taking in the state of him, though, Lucifer frowned. "You look like hell."

Oh, wonderful, the stain on Alastor’s afterlife noticed something was wrong. He had been appreciative of Lucifer and the others not asking where Alastor had gone after he’d been so viciously injured. It had allowed him to keep some level of obscurity, some level of dignity. Dignity his heat was threatening to ruin.

There seemed, par for the course misery came in threes, yet another problem, as Lucifer took his seat next to Alastor and Alastor became suddenly very aware of the body sitting next to him, incredibly grateful that his tail was carefully hidden with the way it was wagging as the king of hell came into close proximity.

The joy of being an Overlord, and a very powerful one at that, was that he’d never felt the need to submit to anyone. No one managed to hit that threshold of superiority he needed during his heat.

Except for, apparently, now! Naturally! Of course!

Lucifer'd been busy working just prior, tinkering with machinery he wished to repair. It was a secret little project, and all the dust and grime that came with restoring antiques left Lucifer feeling too grubby to go downstairs without a shower. Fresh as a daisy now, his hair framed his face unstyled.

So, there he was with Alastor in casual clothing -- pants that fit him closely, tapered to the ankle. His top, however, had a generous scoop neck that put his clavicle on full display. It threatened to slide down off of his shoulder.

How unlucky for Alastor that Lucifer had chosen garments that allowed his skin to meet the air. Nothing prepared him for a fine eyeful of the monarch’s flawless porcelain skin as Alastor turned to greet Lucifer. He felt choked and starved in equal measure. His teeth ached with the desire to bite into Lucifer’s shoulder, to provoke him into biting back.

Alastor scrambled back away from Lucifer when he realized he had been leaning in, ears pinned against his head as his face was painted in red. This had been a terrible idea. He should have claimed to been sick, should have come up with some excuse and had Lucifer cancel the meeting by any means necessary. He felt stiff as a board as he shakily took a sip of the whiskey, putting it down immediately as the sensitivity caused by his heat made the liquid taste sour.

Lucifer was speechless. Alastor was a mess. Flush as if with fever, trembling. Could sinners catch the flu? Was that even possible?

He carefully reached over to slip Alastor's glass out of his hand for the second time, scooting it far away from the demon's unsteady claws before he could lose himself in contemplation of if bacteria and viruses were present in Hell.

"Is it your wound? Are you in pain?" Lucifer's face drew tightly inward in stubborn concern. Without a doubt Alastor was going to try and blow him off, but he tried anyway.

If Lucifer was looking at Alastor with that much concern in his eyes, then he undoubtedly looked as bad as he felt. His breathing sounded heavy to his own ears and he barely stifled the whine that wanted to leave him when Lucifer reached into his personal space.

Pain? That was certainly the word he felt for the all consuming emptiness. He felt starved and deranged and— he caught himself as he started leaning forward again, jerking back to steady himself.

"Still? After over a week?" Not that Lucifer was the expert on these things. Alastor had basically gone on vacation to recover from what Adam did to him, but here he was, seemingly weak as a kitten and holding himself upright by a thread. "Let me help you upstairs, you look pale. I mean, paler than usual, even. Are you about to start hyperventilating??" Lucifer's eyes went wide with alarm as Alastor's breathing morphed into panting. "f*ck, Al, let me help, this is so unlike you."

“Do not touch me,” Alastor warned, but the warning was feeble at best and his hand flew up to his tie, quickly undoing it as another wave of heat ran through his body.

His clothes felt too warm, too tight against his skin, so restrictive and keeping him away from Lucifer’s glorious person. He moved far too quickly for his body to keep up, reaching out to crush Lucifer against himself, instantly sagging at the modicum of relief the contact brought.

He dimly wondered if he was as warm as he felt as he rested his head against the junction of Lucifer’s throat.

Lucifer was left hopelessly confused, blinking owlishly as Alastor pressed his person flush against him. He was so tall -- Lucifer's nose pressed into the center of the sinner's chest, not even nipple-height.

"You're, uh, burning up .." Lucifer managed to say, Alastor's red face practically steaming up his neck as he puffed breath and pressed his flush skin to his throat.

Convinced that Alastor was deteriorating from neglecting his injuries -- what else could it be? -- Lucifer made an executive decision. As the momentary relief brought with it clarity, Alastor realized exactly what was happening as Lucifer picked him up, like one would grab a towel or some empty box. He had to clap a hand over his mouth to kill the whine that threatened to leave. Sparkling energy the color of blood swept around them, enveloping them in an impenetrable barrier as Lucifer transported the both of them to his room.

"What the f*ck! Alastor, hold on a second!" Lucifer couldn't conceive of what would evoke such a wild reaction from the always composed, always clever, always dignified demon.

Perhaps it was the delirium of the heat driving Alastor crazy or perhaps this absolute pain in his ass, but clearly Lucifer wouldn’t be allowing him to leave in peace unless he knew what was going on.

“LUCIFER!” Alastor snarled turning to face the Devil himself, chest heaving with wanton desire. “I am in heat. Allow me to leave so I may deal with the infernal thing.”

One could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed Alastor's passionate confession. Lucifer blinked one eye, then the other, like a lizard.

"Heat," he repeated, seeming to digest the information at the same time that he let the word roll out of his mouth. "You're in heat? Is that why you.." Lucifer was slowly putting two and two together, and despite his better judgement, he was allowing an exultant smile to curl his lips.

Oh, he couldn't help himself. Lucifer ran a hand down his chest alluringly before backtracking, his bare claws resting on the dip of his collarbone.

He followed Lucifer’s claws slowly, breath hitching into his throat before he processed what Lucifer was saying and fixing him with a deadly glare, smile straining against the confines of his face. "No,” he purred, “but the heat is making you seem rather attractive, I’ll admit.”

He could leave, but his instincts screamed at him to stay exactly where he was because if he played this right he could achieve the relief he needed like a man deprived of water.
Lucifer chuckled, rolling his eyes at Alastor. Snapping his fingers, Lucifer considerately covered himself in a heavy linen shirt buttoned high.

Alastor truly was far too gone for any sane or rational thought. His only hope at this point that Lucifer wasn’t inclined to tell everyone about this, which, he didn’t think he was.

He made his way over to the bed, sitting down heavily on it with a groan. He felt exhausted and worked up in one; like a rusted spring coiled far too tight. Alastor truly couldn’t be bothered with decorum at the moment, mind consumed with heat as it were. He simply undid the buttons of his shirt and motioned to the angry, but perfectly reasonable scar on his chest.

"There. Satisfied?”

The King hadn't expected Alastor to sit on his bed given he had not only a loveseat but a chaise available, but he chalked it up to the delirium the sinner was clearly experiencing. His eyes were glassy, his pupils dilated, and as he revealed his scarred chest Lucifer could see his breathing speed up.

"Not yet." Lucifer's boots clicked over the hardwood not covered by one of the several area rugs keeping his drafty tower room just a touch warmer. Lucifer stood in front of Alastor, his hand extending toward him, pausing halfway. He met Alastor's eyes and inclined his head in a way he hoped would be mollifying.

Alastor recoiled as Lucifer held his hand out, closer to the apex of his wound which was healing very nicely, thank you very much.

"If you let me touch it, I can tell how deep it goes, and make sure nothing is wrong," Lucifer went on to say.

Alastor recoiled as Lucifer held his hand out closer to the apex of his wound which was healing very nicely, thank you very much. He didn’t see any need for Lucifer to press any portion of his bare skin to his person. More than that, he worried that he’d embarrass himself further if he allowed it.

“Why?” he asked, petulantly, tilting his head and regarding Lucifer through lidded, hazy eyes. “Your majesty, I’m starting to think you are into me, what with how insistent you’re being about putting your hands on me despite the evidence of my healing being on full display.”

So accused, Lucifer withdrew. His expression was troubled -- hurt, even.

Perhaps Alastor's pheromones were affecting him -- making him touchy -- but something about the way Alastor'd said what he had implied a degree of predatory motivation he didn't want associated with himself, to say the least.

"I thought we'd come a little farther than this," he couldn't help but say, averting his eyes. He swallowed down something else he wanted to express, thinking better of it.

Alastor didn’t like the hurt look on Lucifer’s face one bit. It made the remains of his vile heart, coated in teeth as it was, squirm, and he let out an agonized groan as another wave of heat passed through him, he was over this.

“Forgive my accusation, I’m afraid I’m not in my right mind at the moment, as is plainly apparent,” Alastor said, gesturing vaguely to himself, in the throes of heat as he was, thighs pressed tightly together. “If it will make you feel better and dissuade any nonsense you have rattling about that brain of yours about how close I am or am not to death, then you may touch me.I will not be held responsible if you have to restrain me afterwards.”

"At least you're insulting me instead of accusing me of trying to molest you," Lucifer granted.

Very, very lightly, the King rested his left hand on Alastor's bony shoulder to keep him steady. He took a few deep, centering breaths and closed his eyes, his free hand reaching up to rest the pads of two fingers against the tip of Alastor's angry, red scar.

Lucifer pushed his senses outward from the sensitive tips of his fingers. He dragged his touch across Alastor's chest, following the path the keloid tissue paved, all the while probing deep within the wound to ensure no rot, no trapped shards of angelic weaponry. Alastor took a deep breath as Lucifer touched him, desperately trying to keep his wits about him as the kings nimble fingers so agonizingly slowly traced down the scar.

“Are— are you done?” he all but begged. “I don’t— I don’t know how much longer I can keep my wits, your majesty.”

"Almost," Lucifer soothed, making a second pass, spreading his palm over the scarring now, increasing the surface area of his touch. He would never forgive himself if he failed to detect something. The consequences of such would be fatal, full stop.

Without warning, Alastor surged forwards a second time. His eyes were wide and wild and full of agonized need. His panting had evolved to full on gasping as he sat atop Lucifer. There were no remains of anything inside of the wound, simply the remains of healing tissue, but the movement was driving Alastor crazy. He squirmed in Lucifer’s grip, small, punched out whines being dragged from his gritted teeth. He braced one hand on Lucifer’s shoulder and his forearm against Lucifer’s throat as he used his weight to push the shorter demon to the side and then onto the bed.

“E-enough!” he gasped, sagging forward to bury his face in Lucifer’s neck, trying to calm himself even a small amount. Motions of grabbing or grinding or otherwise were aborted half way through as Alastor fought against himself and seeking sweet relief for the cruelty his own body was putting him through. The knowledge that Alastor couldn't really hurt him in any ways that counted -- physically -- kept Lucifer calm even though the demon had him pinned down quite effectively.

"You're really suffering." Compassion filled Lucifer's voice, climbing into his expression. Alastor was so restless. It was a strange sight indeed to witness him squirming, let alone feel him doing so against his front. A pang of sympathy rang through Lucifer to hear Alastor's voice strained with what had to be torture. What else was there to do when such a creature was in his arms, wild with distress? Magnanimous to a fault, the King pressed his palms against Alastor's shoulders to try and anchor him. Alastor sagged into the touch, eyes fluttering shut, wanting to get closer and canting his hips forward before his eyes snapped open, and he climbed off of Lucifer as though burnt, moving to the far end of the bed as let out a truly wretched noise and pulled at his own hair in distress.

“Don’t you pity me,” he snarled, chest heaving. Ever his own worst enemy the way he fought against seeming weak and helpless, refusing help even if it would save his life, Rosie was an exception, he would not give Lucifer that sort of power over him. He couldn’t continue to let this happen -- couldn’t succumb to every instinct telling him to beg the King of Hell to breed him and give another heir. His stomach roiled at the idea of being reduced to such a thing.

After a moment, Lucifer brought himself to a sitting position, casting a completely baffled look in Alastor's direction. It was a dreadful experience to butt up against such pushback. He had to ground himself, take a deep breath after releasing the one he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Words didn't mean anything to Alastor, so Lucifer offered none. Cheerlessly, perfunctorily, the King waved a hand to the nightstand, manifesting a bucket of ice, a glass, tongs, and a large pitcher of cool water.

"I'll go. Just -- hydrate, you know? You'll be okay, Alastor." The King tried to reassure him with a brave smile. "Stay here as long as you need to until you feel pulled together enough to go back to your tower. I'll go," he repeated, rising, preparing the spell to spirit him away.

Alastor watched like a hawk as Lucifer vanished in a plume of brilliant red smoke.

His nerves were fried and buzzing like a moth against a mosquito lamp, he didn’t think he could muster the energy to shadow travel back to his room, let alone walk there. He sagged against the bedclothes of the king's bed. A frustrated scream died in his throat as he turned to bury his face in Lucifer’s sheets, only to take in the mellow scent of apples and rough cinnamon bark. He let out a frustrated groan as this didn’t help his arousal any.

But he knew what would.

Alastor turned fully onto his knees, flicking his trousers open and pushing his hand down against himself where his c*nt was wet and waiting and the moan that tore through him was nothing short of relieved. Shame and embarrassment attempted to win out over sheer arousal and failed miserably as he rutted against his hand, face buried thoroughly in Lucifer’s pillow.

It was a quicker affair than usual, as worked up as he was. Alastor knew it would accomplish nothing but allow him clarity with none of the relief. The cycle would continue until his body finally realized he could not and would not conceive a little monster.

He rubbed circles into his cl*t as he ground downwards onto his fingers, panting wetly into Lucifer’s pillow and wishing, in the dark subconscious of his mind, that he was being impaled with co*ck.

He moaned helplessly, rocking closer, closer, close — coming with a gasp, stiffening against the pillows and sagging against the mattress.

The shame came back with a vengeance as he came down. On impulse he stripped the bed and replaced the sheets before he vanished in shadow to more of the same in the lonely comfort of his radio tower.

Chapter 4: Absolution

Chapter Text

The next day was much of the same. Alastor was distressed and felt entirely awful, still in the death throes of his heat.

What was worse is what kept bringing him to the closest thing to relief was remembering his shameful masturbation in Lucifer’s room yesterday. The thought nearly drove him to his knees again as he remembered how complete Lucifer’s scent made him.

This couldn’t continue. He needed help, and though he wanted none of it, the sheer wanton knowledge that his body would crave the smell of apples and cinnamon bark and something wholly angelic that made him clench around nothing and swallow around a doe-like bleat.

He knew where Lucifer was, and he moved there through shadow. He was far more put together than yesterday, but still clearly unwell. He appeared behind his king like a bad omen, grin softening against his wishes.

Tired of being cooped up in his room while he worked, Lucifer had asked Charlie permission to set up a work tent out on the back terrace. Tarp down to protect the stonework, spread across it was wiring and tubing of the electrical sort, all lined up and organized by size and type. A whole standing wooden toolbox was out with him, including soldering iron.

Sure, he could just snap his fingers and accomplish what he was after in the blink of an eye, but there was no satisfaction to be found in that instant gratification.

“Sire!” Alastor chirped happily, caging Lucifer in. “I was hoping to talk to you about yesterday.”

Lucifer tensed, long tweezers poised, soldering iron hot and sending grey curls of metallic smoke up into the late afternoon air. The component he was affixing to the innards of an elegant, peaked wooden casing was both delicate and rare. A slip of his grip and he'd be digging around in a scrapyard for ages trying to find another -- if he even could. It came to Alastor’s attention that he continued to find Lucifer at, perhaps, the wrong time, always about to either work on something or actively working on something. Whatever it was this time would have likely intrigued Alastor, had he been in any mind to actually ask questions about it.

"Shhh," Lucifer breathed, too focused on this step in the restoration process to redirect energy toward being perturbed in Alastor's presence. That feeling would come in around 25 seconds, when he released the tweezers, peered close to inspect his work, and finding it satisfactory, slowly turned to meet the other's eyes. Soldering iron set safely aside, Lucifer straightened, passing a gloved hand down the front of his leather apron.

"Alastor." Lucifer nodded in greeting. ".. What do you want to discuss?" His tone was guarded.

Alastor watched Lucifer as his guard is immediately up and he can’t blame the king. Alastor had been sporadic at best yesterday. What was needed now was some vulnerability, and that was something Alastor was actually willing to give -- considering the circ*mstances.

So he sagged, just a little, exhaustion painting his face, squeezing his radio cane so tightly that it creaked under his hands.

“Your majesty, I .. I need help,” he forced out, looking at Lucifer pleadingly.

Lucifer's eyes went round as dinner plates. His throat flexed as he looked at Alastor, reading him, scanning his rictus features. His eyes journeyed to check how his ears were poised -- that would be a telltale thing. Nevertheless, if he snapped a picture of Alastor now and showed it to the him of last week, without a doubt his past self would bust up laughing.

In the present, though, he couldn't help but frown in sympathy. While Alastor did not at all sound contrite, what he did sound was humbled. Alastor’s ears were pinned back as though waiting to be hit, like a deer who’d just been shot at and was hiding in fear for its life.

"Okay, okay," he raised his hands, not breaking eye contact. "Okay. I'm going to help. Take it easy."

Those same ears shot up as Lucifer agreed, somehow. Strangely. Alastor had to remind himself that he wanted to set rules for his safety and for his sanity. Goodness knew that he’d never be able to look at Lucifer the same way after this.

“I .. have some conditions, you must understand,” Alastor said, stifling a groan as his proximity to Lucifer had his heat stirring with burst of excitement. “One, you cannot come inside me. Sinners cannot procreate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you were somehow an exception, considering Charlie’s existence and all.

“Two, you will tell no one about my heat. I’ve gone this long with minimal people being aware and I will not have that change.

“And three, we will not let this change our dynamic. I .. rather enjoy our drinking evenings," he said, trying to think of anything else and finding his mind starting to drift away into a lustful haze.

Lucifer looked like he'd just bitten into a lemon. His hands had come in front of his face, palms pressed together as if in prayer. He kept tilting his head to the left and the right, as if he were listening to a foreign language he was only partially proficient in.

"Back up, back up," he finally hooted, clearing his throat. Lucifer was blushing -- his golden blood made his face glow from within -- the apples of his cheeks like a solar eclipse.

"You.." Lucifer arranged his words very carefully, as if he were diffusing a bomb. "You want me to have .. .. sex with you?"

Alastor stared at Lucifer, the sheer confused rage that suddenly coursed through him granting him clarity reminiscent to that of his heat finishing. He let out a frustrated noise, turning as though to stride out of the tent only to whirl around on his heel and point his staff at Lucifer.

“What else could I possibly be asking for help with from you, you ill mannered, infuriating clown —! !” With each word Alastor came closer and closer to Lucifer before the smell of apples and cinnamon bark nearly drove him to his knees, biting down on his knuckle to kill his moan and breaking skin, sending blood cascading down his hand.

“My heat is driving me crazy, I cannot handle it, and the foolish sex crazy part of my biology has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that you are the only acceptable partner,” Alastor panted, pointing his staff at his own chest, “because I will not settle for anything less than the best and unfortunately it seems to be you."

Alastor cast words at Lucifer as if they were arrows flown after a beast hardly deserving of the hunt. Pierced by each one, Lucifer was breathing fast, tears of fury gathering in his eyes unbidden. He stared down Alastor as he ranted like a madman in a park does at pigeons — ruthless, theatrical, crazed. Lucifer was hard pressed to recall what he’d ever found charming about this sinner’s fierce derision. Each biting insult raised his hackles further and further, pushed his stance more and more from the defensive to the offensive.

“You done, asshole?” the King asked flatly, his eyes glassy, hands clenched into tight fists at his sides.

Once again, Lucifer made Alastor lose his temper, and once again, doing so caused that awful hurt look to grace his fair features and Alastor felt .. bad? Guilty? Especially upon seeing the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes and— this was not helping his case at all. The vitriol wasn’t doing anything for him but making him feel worse.

He paused, carefully fanning himself with one hand. The trapped heat in the tent did not hel[ his mood. He bowed his head in genuine supplication.

“I’m .. I’m sorry, your majesty. That wasn’t fair of me, nor did you deserve it when you asked a genuine question,” he apologized, internally chafing at the gesture, but finding it amendable if it meant furthering his goal of ceasing this infernal heat. “I .. am asking you to .. Bed. Me. Yes.”

“No,” Lucifer said with distinct finality. “I’m not keen on performing the most sacred act in creation with someone who thinks so little of me. I’m not a breeding stud or your punching bag. You want to know what I was even doing out here, you unbelievable ass?”

Alastor had to suppress the desire to roll his eyes. Sacred act, did he forget where they both were? Though he couldn’t stop the shudder of revulsion at the idea of Lucifer being anything resembling a breeding stud.

Lucifer stalked to his work table and turned his project so Alastor could see it properly.

The cherry wood needed refinishing, but it was prepped and sanded. The speakers were not yet installed — her gully works were all torn out, a painful sight, but all of her new parts were lined up, ready to piece her back together bit by bit.

A large, impressive cathedral radio.

“I found it after you were hurt,” Lucifer explained. He needed to keep this brief, lest he risk exploding. “I was grateful to you. I felt..”

Lucifer cut himself off, grimacing. He was questioning if he’d been wasting his time.

“.. then we had drinks, and it was really weird, but you made me laugh. I hadn’t in so long. I — ”

Lucifer balled the hand that he’d been using to stroke the fine wood detailing on the radio into a fist. “Yesterday, you were feeling sh*tty. I thought you were sick, or in trouble,” Lucifer laughed mirthlessly to think of it. “I thought — maybe you’d appreciate this. Maybe it would cheer you up.”

As the monarch talked, Alastor did find himself with some approximation of guilt. Not much, mind. The cathedral radio was beautiful. yes, even as gutted out as she was, but Alastor had never asked Lucifer to take on such a sentimental task, nor would he be made to feel bad about the king wanting to give him a gift.

That defeated the point of the gift, no?

Lucifer stripped himself of his apron, hanging it over a tent pole, passing his claws gently down the familiar worn leather. His back was to Alastor now. Silence fell. The King could think of nothing more to say for a long time.

“You owe me a formal apology.”

Despite it all, the guilt did worsen just a bit more at the sight of Lucifer still so clearly upset. Alastor supposed that yes, he did owe the angel an apology. Alastor was blessed and cursed in equal measure in this moment, his heat granting him both agony and a special sort of clarity, thus he bowed low at the waist with his hand over his writhing heart, as though he were a knight.

“I do apologize, I .. hurt you, and caused you discomfort when you truly were only trying to help. You didn’t deserve my misdirected anger, especially when we’ve been attempting to get along.” He paused, swallowing around a noise. “Please forgive me, Lucifer.”

So much time passed without Lucifer replying to Alastor’s half-hearted apology Alastor might’ve begun to worry that the King hadn’t even heard him. Far from the case, the angel just had to get a solid grip on what it was he wanted after so much bullsh*t.

“You don’t engender yourself well to forgiveness,” he said flatly, but went on. “You’re going to have to make it up to me.”

Alastor stared at Lucifer, face unreadable from his permanent smile. Make it up?

He understood why Lucifer was upset. Tt wasn’t as though Alastor hadn’t done anything to earn his ire, having accused him and snapped at him though Lucifer had only been trying to help.

Alastor paused, before slowly, ever so slowly lowering himself to his knees, looking up at Lucifer heavily. “How can I earn your forgiveness, sire?” he asked, quietly.

The quality of Alastor’s voice had shifted, and that earned him the King’s gaze. He gave no start of surprise, no widening of his too-innocent eyes when he took in the sight of him kneeling on the tarp like a common disciple. Alastor had blown his ability to be taken aback so far out of the water that even such an uncharacteristic act of humility didn’t faze him at this point.

“That’s better,” the King said smoothly, but was not yet approving. He shifted his weight, relaxing into his own body, placated by this new direction their interaction was taking. “Crawl to me.”

If this was any other situation, Alastor would have snarled, chafed at giving so much vulnerability and to be asked to humiliate himself further.

But this wasn’t a common situation, and despite himself, the command only fueled the desire running through him.

Alastor would have to unpack that sentiment at a later date, but for the moment, he shifted on his knees and crawled forward, nails leaving gouges in the tarped floor until he was knelt at Lucifer’s feet, staring up at him through lidded eyes.

“All right,” Lucifer said observingly, giving Alastor a measured once over. Whatever switch that needed flipping had been triggered if appearances were to be believed. Only time would tell the truth. “You might actually be contrite,” he said approvingly, but a skeptical eyebrow still rose. “Tell me again how sorry you are. Tell me all the bad things you did.”

Alastor’s ears flicked once, unreadable in whether it was in annoyance or glee or otherwise, and he sighed, the sound shaky. There was the bubbling of anger, but he was better than that, he was better than the childish outbursts he’d been displaying, in part due to his heat and in part due to Lucifer’s effect on him.

“Sire,” he breathed, “I am very sorry, truly, please believe me .. I was very wrong. I snapped at you for no justifiable reason. I implied you would touch me without my consent. I wrongly assumed you would agree to my every whim with no regard to your desire.”

He bit his lip, hanging his head, ears pinned back, he wasn’t sure if this was enough for Lucifer, maybe .. “When you left .. I touched myself to your scent. I am sorry, Lucifer.”

The King came low into a crouch, his claws gentle as they curled under Alastor’s chin. He tilted the sinner’s head, insisting that their eyes meet. He wished to commit that miserable face to memory.

“You’re like a schoolyard bully picking on the girl he fancies,” judged Alastor’s king, but there was no acid in his words. He spoke like a father would to his son when explaining the err of his ways. “You want, but you can’t have, so you lash out and lick up the crumbs left behind. It’s unsightly, unseemly. Don’t you want more?”

Alastor sagged against Lucifer’s touch like it was the only piece of divinity left in the world, a ragged gasp leaving his lips as the king, his king, raised his head.

“I do,” he pleaded, voice barely above a whisper.

“Ask me for it,” Lucifer murmured. His thumb passed over Alastor’s lips, watching the flash of his ocher teeth as they parted under the gentle pressure from his nails. Fascinated by how the tables had turned, Lucifer allowed himself to be lost in Alastor’s eyes. “As if it’s the first time. As if you could do this all over again.”

“Please sire,” Alastor began, eyes fluttering closed at the delicious agony running through him, heightened by the close proximity to Lucifer. “I am burning, I beg you, put me out. Give me the honor of taking my first, baptize me upon the altar of your co*ck.”

Lucifer was affected by this, by him, by the psychological whiplash their erratic dialogue had given them. Lucifer felt quite like he’d known this sinner 100 years already if he measured time by the depth and breadth of feeling gained.

“Taking your first?” Alastor couldn’t say something like that as if it were nothing.

“I normally spend my heats alone, by choice,” Alastor explained, feeling a torrent of word vomit bulge in his throat and spill outwards, headless of any attempt to stop it. “I am not normally one for the more carnal pleasures, nor do I debase myself during my heat, as doing so would allow whoever learned of it to take advantage of a weakness. And yet.”

He let out a stuttered, shaking breath, “And yet somehow, as with most things, you managed to make me want it.”

“Tell me the other things I make you want,” Lucifer commanded, lapping up Alastor’s confessions. All of the inexplicable animosity that didn’t sync up with their fatherly rivalry over Charlie now made a hilarious amount of sense.

“You make me want to rip you open and feast on your angelic insides. You make me want to crack your ribcage and crawl inside, make a home inside you,” he said, smiling serenely. “You make me hungry for things I can’t put names to.”

Oh yeah. Alastor was into him. But more importantly, he was dancing around Lucifer's question.

“Alastor, are you a virgin?” Lucifer asked very delicately, his voice coached into velvety, soothing tones.

“I am,” he said, ignoring the way his rational mind screamed. Alastor couldn’t get upset, not when he was so close, so close to this maddening itch, this burning being finally and thoroughly killed.

“Aaah~” Lucifer’s eureka moment painted a knowing smile on his face.

Alastor had proven himself dangerous and selfish over and over again. Both of these qualities made up two out of the three main ingredients in obsession. The third being: hopeless.

“You’re asking me to take your virginity? That’s very special, isn’t it? That makes you mine, you know,” Lucifer told Alastor smilingly. The look on Alastor’s face was so appealing, so uncharacteristically open, he simply could not help but say things just to see what emotions would flash over the demon’s face. “Forever and ever.”

And besides — he made the rules. Maybe it would do just that.

Alastor squirmed a bit as though what Lucifer was saying was having a great effect on him (ignored the fact that it was). His smile twitched on his face, ears flicking in anxiety. It took no effort to give in to a bit of the heat coursing through him.

“If you don’t want it,” he began, shuddering, “I am desperate enough to go elsewhere. If what you’re saying is true, then I’d rather give it to you. You seem kinder than most.” That was enough of a concession, wasn’t it?

“I wonder if you have any idea how romantic what you just said was,” Lucifer said with great pleasure, his entire demeanor softening toward the sinner. “It would be so nice if you were always this honest, but whatever. Now is now.” Lucifer outstretched his hands to help Alastor to his feet.

“Listen ..” Lucifer said, not releasing Alastor’s hands just yet even though he was steady. So much was happening in such a short amount of time that he needed to just take a small moment and recenter. He couldn’t get swept up again.

“Take an hour. Shower, relax, light candles, have a glass of blood or wine or whatever. Think. But take an hour, and if you still want these things when the time is up, you can find me in my tower.”

Alastor wanted to scream.

Making him prostrate on the ground, making him beg and spill his secrets only to tell him to cool off?!

Alastor took a breath, managed to let go of Lucifer’s hand as though it were a Herculean effort and melted into the shadows without another word. If he opened his mouth, Alastor knew he’d ruin his chances again.

Chapter 5: An Auspicious Occasion

Chapter Text

Alastor spent the better part of the hour he was given freshening up.

Frankly, he had needed the shower. His scent had been entirely out of sorts and stronger than usual. The last thing he needed was some miserable wretch catching it and following it back to the hotel.

The last portion of the hour was left to wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He knew he found Lucifer’s company pleasant, but this went far beyond pleasant. In fact it drifted into outright insanity.

Alastor could ghost the king, simply never speak of what happened in the work tent again, and suffer through the remainder of his heat alone, as usual. But he’d also worked so damn hard on getting Lucifer to agree that he refused not to see it out, there was no other reason. He would not entertain any other reason.

So he made his way over to the kings garish apple tower, hesitating at the door for a moment before rapping on it in his signature pattern reminiscent of when he’d shown up to Lucifer’s door not a couple weeks prior.

Lucifer received Alastor at the door. Once more dressed down in the same scoop neck shirt that had sent the sinner into a bout of vapors, the king was quite chuffed to find Alastor had come calling.

So, he hadn't taken the out Lucifer had so courteously supplied. The king would be lying if he said he wasn't pleasantly surprised. It must have been tempting to pretend like he hadn't crawled to him like a disciple would to wash the feet of a holy man.

This whole thing was madness. If there was one thing that Lucifer knew, it was the chaos that always followed after pushing against that is supposed to happen. Had Alastor been in full possession of his usual priorities and principles, he'd be no where near his tower.

And yet, here he was.

Lucifer offered a gracious hand to Alastor. "I was waiting for you. You wanna come in?"

"Well," Lucifer began evenly, exuding calm as he strode to his gramophone, popping on a record he hoped would help settle Alastor some. It was a collection of low and slow violin concertos. Sometimes he would listen to this when he had trouble getting to sleep. "That's not in the plan. Would you like a drink?"

Alastor perked up at the sound of violin music. Mendelssohn. It wasn’t all too surprising that Lucifer knew his music well. He was just glad that he had an appreciation for the finer musics as opposed to something .. clowny. Perhaps he really didn’t give the king enough credit.

“No, thank you, I don’t need alcohol in my system alongside my heat,” he declined.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I have orange juice, or iced tea, sparkling grape juice, things like that," Lucifer pointed out, definitely not interested in Alastor's deflowering being an inebriated one. Alastor simply looked distinctly uncomfortable and as host, he wished to soothe him. The sinner must feel quite hysterical, all things considered. Lucifer himself could feel his heart threatening to triphammer. "Unless you'd rather undress."

Alastor looked at Lucifer humorlessly, the king looked nervous, once again showcasing his inability not to broadcast his thoughts all over his face.

“Your majesty, if I seem uncomfortable it’s because I am being ravaged by heat, not because your presence is unwelcome, or because I don’t want to be here.” He turned, setting his hands on his hips, “Contrary to what I’m sure you believe, I am still in some control, and I wish to be here.”

He sighed, shrugging off his jacket, folding it properly and setting it on Lucifer’s desk, before his tie joined the garment and his boots were set on the floor.

Lucifer manifested a simple, inky black silk robe for Alastor and inclined his head to the dressing area in the corner nearest to his large, four poster bed.

"Go ahead and get a little privacy if you wish. I'm going to wait for you in bed. Good?" The last word wasn't really a question. It was requesting confirmation of understanding. This part he was guiding with a firm hand.

He gazed at the robe, took it and strode to Lucifer’s bathroom, appreciating the invitation for privacy more than he would admit, getting undressed in private did wonders for his nerves and allowed him to calm his excited heart.

When he was ready, he joined Lucifer at the kings bed, unable to stop the hum of dissent that left his mouth.

“Really sire? White?” he asked.

Lucifer's smile was impish and he gave a hapless shrug by way of reply. He couldn't help himself. Clearly, the symbolic choice hadn't been lost on Alastor and thus needed no explaining.

"Come closer. Put your legs over my lap and your arms around my neck," he instructed gently.

Alastor rolled his eyes, climbing onto the bed and, after a brief moment of hesitation, doing as directed and sitting in Lucifer’s lap.

The movement made him gasp, shoulders stiffening at the sharp burst of pleasured relief that went through him at the small movement, and his smiled stiffened before he relaxed again.

Lucifer was tapping into his own memory to bring to the forefront the ways he'd been touched that had been a balm to the soul his first time.

And the time after that.

And the time after that.

It had taken so long for his body to grow accustomed to this human carnality, and more than once he had been driven to the point of tears from the pressure and intensity of the act. It had been a struggle.

He didn't want that for Alastor. Or for anyone, really.

"Can I kiss you?" asked Lucifer, who passed his palms flat against Alastor's bony shoulder blades, caressing in wide circles. The sinner was understandably tense. He watched Alastor's rictus expression, wondering if he even could release that smile.

Alastor had never done anything approaching this. He’d never been interested in life, and after death he’d been less so. No one caught his interest and he was perfectly content in that -- especially considering how those who gave into their lust fell into the grasps of the cruel and violent.

So, it was a surprise the first time he’d ever had his heat. It only served to remind him just how much of a prey animal his demonic form attempted to force him to become. He’d never succumb to his heat in this way purely because he didn’t want to.

Lucifer had been an exception from the moment they’d met; crashing through Alastor’s carefully crafted persona and making him effortlessly angry -- and now, hungry.

“Please,” he said, and it sounded high and wanting even to his own ears, tension slowly bleeding from him the more the king treated him gently even if he’d normally chafe against the treatment.

"Come here," Lucifer whispered, his eyes half-lidded as his voice bordered on sultry. He put his hands on Alastor's thin waist, drawing him up into his lap fully so the sinner was straddling him; a position of power and control.

Lucifer reached up to press his thumb against Alastor's lower lip, his long fingers pressing firmly against his sharp jaw. "Open your mouth."

Alastor understood, suddenly, where all of the stories about Lucifer being the ultimate tempter came froml the people stricken with madness shouting about the Devil made them do it.

He was all but powerless to stop himself from obeying the command, breath hitching in his throat as Lucifer drew him closer, shuddering again --

-- and again --

-- and again, as Alastor eagerly opened his mouth, rows of sharp teeth exposed.

"I'm going to put my tongue in your mouth," the devil instructed Alastor ruthlessly, his forked tongue flicking at his lips, wetting them minutely. Then he glided that snakelike little muscle along the serrated edge of his teeth, canine by canine, before flowing like water into the hot confines of his mouth. Alastor tasted of iron.

All the while Lucifer's claws dragged over the slippery fabric draped over Alastor's long back, counting each vertebrae as he made southern progress.

Alastor melted into the Lucifer’s ministrations, the slow, methodical way he pressed into Alastor’s mouth the first balm against the inferno that had been steadily consuming him from the inside out. Whoever said Lucifer was near irresistible was a liar, because who could ever resist him? The taste of him divine, a flavor Alastor wouldn’t be able to name even if he had it every day until the stars burned out. Uniquely the Morningstar.

Each slow movement down his back felt like it was driving Alastor further onto the brink of madness, and he whined, ears pinning back. Every sense he had was heightened, it was ridiculous to be getting off purely on Lucifer running his claws down his spine.

"You're doing great," Lucifer murmured against his lips in a talkative kiss. The movement of those ears drew his attention and he reached up with both of his hands to stroke over the rounded swell of each. He used the sensitive pads of his fingers and thumbs to massage the bases, luxuriating in the velvety fur.

"You're so soft," he marveled. "I wonder if you're soft everywhere.."

The hands against Alastor’s ears were a welcome distraction, and he sighed as the touch soothed his fraying nerves. He felt strung to near snapping, a combination of his heat and the worry and apprehension he felt in regard to giving his virginity to the king of hell.

It also wasn’t helping that it appeared Lucifer was talkative at all times.

One hand dropped down, slipping past the opening in the robe Lucifer'd gifted Alastor.

Alastor barely caught the comment before he jerked like a cattle prod had been pressed against his back as Lucifer pressed his hand against his dripping c*nt and there wasn’t a force alive that could have stopped the moan that was ripped from him.

Lucifer's touch grew more confident -- ah yes, he knew how to work with this -- cupping the full swell of Alastor's sex in his hand, fitting up against him, getting his palm and the backs of his fingers wet.

"You poor thing," Lucifer murmured, turning his face to speak the words low and slow against Alastor's hot neck. He took to kissing him there, against the wild beat of his pulse in his jugular. "How am I meant to take this slow when you're already so ready for me .. ?"

“It’s your first time,” Lucifer said simply, leaning back to go about gazing up at the demon from under heavy lashes. “It won’t do to rush.. but you’re squirming like a fish, so let me make it easier on you..”

The king grinned down at Alastor; admiring the way he looked from this angle before he began laying a slow trail of kisses down the sinner’s front. Lucifer was stirring. The way Alastor was looking at him, face full of unguarded longing, made him throb between his legs. He spread Alastor’s skinny legs apart, tugging them high over the tops of his own thighs so he could kneel, get in close, and kiss him again.

Alastor kissed Lucifer back with all of the ferocity of a dying man, hands shaking from where he gripped that infernal scooped shirt, netting him an ecstatic moan against Alastor’s kiss. He was smiling ear to ear even as he flicked his tongue into Alastor’s mouth in mimicry of fornication.

Slip down he did, down, down -- down, so he could smell him on that same forked appendage.

The twin tips of his tongue flickered intermittently against the outer petals of Alastor’s honey-sweet puss*, drinking in his heavy scent. What a bouquet.

Humanity was beautiful.

“Tell me this is all mine.”

Alastor was a pinned butterfly against the loving fingertips of an entomologist, unknowing of the agony he was causing to his hapless victim. The way Alastor gripped onto the pearl white sheets that tore against the cruelty of his talons as Lucifer slipped down closer and closer.

He wanted to snarl, wanted to snap that Lucifer would never own him, but his hips twitched, and the soft, barely there feeling of the devils forked tongue against his sopping c*nt was enough to make him a praying man.

“It’s yours. To take, to breed, however you like,” he rasped out, chest heaving as he refused to take his eyes off of Lucifer.

“To eat?” The devil told more than asked, his eyebrows canting upwards briefly.

He bent closer, wiggling only the ends of his tongue up at the apex of his puss. That little bud. The tangy core. Lucifer groaned to sample his deep aroma.

“If you wish,” Alastor answered, knowing the question was rhetorical and feeling compelled to give the affirmative regardless. He hissed, mouth snapping shut with an audible noise as Lucifer again, torturously, only lapped a small sample from him. He was ever in the throes of his biology, a trickle of slick as dripping from him as he canted his hips closer, thighs shaking from the exertion of staying still.

Lucifer bit him.

Right on the thigh, right up close and high, close to his femoral artery — thank god not close enough.

His white teeth sunk in sharply and with precise control. Just enough depth to fulfill the purpose.

To leave a mark.

There was a tearing sound as Alastor threw his head back and ripped straight through the sheets, low drawn out moan echoing through the room.

A simpering, doe-ish part of him keened at being marked and he viciously beat that part down. He was not being mated; this was nothing more than a means to an end.

But goodness, if it didn’t excite him to know Lucifer didn’t mind drawing a little blood.

Lucifer drew on the wound.

The sound of something guttural and wild ripping from Lucifer’s throat had Alastor bearing down on nothing, hole clenching around gaping emptiness that drove him the closest to feral than anything the king had done.A primal sound rumbled up from deep within Lucifer as the first rivulets of Alastor’s blood swept over his tongue. Iron and knives. The primal need to copulate blooming through his senses like gunsmoke. Breathless, he gulped it down.

His teeth ground together, Alastor took a deep breath to try and calm himself, releasing the tension in his jaw when he was sure the only things that would emerge from his mouth were words and not demure bleating.

“Sire,” he said slowly, as though speaking were a monumental effort. “Please, enough with the teasing.”

He pressed wiggled and wormed up, up, all the way in until he bottomed out. He could feel Alastor’s cervix shudder against the seeking flicks of his tongue.

Hallelujah.

”f*ck!” Alastor’s hand flew to Lucifer’s hair, thighs coming up to clamp around the kings head as his eyes rolled back into his head.

Oh lord, Hell was truly his perfect Heaven, and Alastor suddenly understood all the excitement in this particular act, intimately aware of every press of Lucifer’s skilled tongue against his cervix and — and, this wasn’t enough, the heat surged high to choke him, he needed— he needed. How was he ever going to spend his heats alone knowing this being sat across the hotel from him?

“Please,” he begged, hips stuttering against Lucifer’s eager tongue, “Please, please, please!” He couldn’t hang on, it would be a miracle if he didn’t cum down Lucifer’s throat.

“Please what?” Lucifer teased him, passing his hands underneath Alastor’s long, slim thighs to cup beneath his knees. He dragged him closer and really reached, stroking the hot little spot he knew laid hidden within Alastor’s gorgeous anatomy with vigorous commitment.

“Mmnn..” The King purred with satisfaction, withdrawing, his touch continuing over Alastor’s curved hips. “Tell me.. please what?”

Damn him!! Damn Lucifer! Alastor didn’t care that the sentiment was redundant, that the fallen angel had already been damned, he wanted Lucifer damned again.

His smile was barely that anymore, more a twisted mockery and resembling a snarl, choking on moans and whines and aching to the point of pain, so close to his ultimate relief and yet held from it by this devil.

"Bed me" was what Alastor meant to say, "breed me" is what came out instead.

A darkly sweet laugh bubbled out of Lucifer, rewarding Alastor for his very good answer with achingly slow, indulgent, twisting plunges of his tongue within the sinner’s tight channel.

The devil dipped one long claw into the blood oozing from the mark he’d left on Alastor’s quaking body. He used it like an inkwell, practiced movements painting a simple yet beautiful pattern just below the swell of his navel. Just above his womb.

Delirious as Alastor was, and made more so by the way Lucifer f*cked his tongue into aching c*nt, he still had enough sense left in him forged by years of needing to deal with this infernal heat to notice when Lucifer dipped his talon into his blood like a quill.

It was truly the most effort he had to endure, forcing his gooey body, soft and pliable from how wonderfully Lucifer was eating him out, like Alastor’s puss* was a dessert at the end of a four course dinner, up onto his elbows, staring balefully at the pattern Lucifer sketched against him.

The animalistic part of his mind sang, but Alastor just curled his lip, smile sharp, “W-why? What - ah! what is t-that?” he asked, suddenly suspicious.

Lucifer bit him again.

Same spot, same intensity, same goal, only on the other side of Alastor’s quivering body. As the King drew another mouthful of his pungent sinner’s blood, riding high on the flavors of war and lust, the blood he’d smeared onto the sinner’s dark skin slowly sunk into his body like water evaporating on hot asphalt. The same pattern now glowing faintly from within.

Alastor hissed, thighs spasming as Lucifer bit him again hanging his head at the delicious hurt feeding into his arousal and his clarity and his wonderful relief -- so much so that he almost missed the mark Lucifer traced in his blood above his womb sinking into his skin.

Rage filled Alastor like a drug, swallowing around a shriek as Lucifer slowly rubbed circles into his cl*t -- to distract him? to make him forget? -- he wasn’t yet so consumed by the heat that he’d ignore a blatant branding.

“What— ugh! — what have you done?!” he snarled, attempting to angle his hips away from Lucifer’s placating stroking.

Mouth presently occupied, Lucifer soothed Alastor’s aching heat with his hand, dipping his knuckles into his slick so he could rub that wetness over his cl*t to tease him.

“Giving you options. Be still.”

Lucifer held Alastor down, giving his hipbone a warning nip with teeth still ruddy with blood. Then he sighed, his claws running up and down through the damp leaves of Alastor’s dripping c*nt. “The spell doesn’t trigger unless you want it to so relax. You’re still in control,” the king told his charge patiently, returning his mouth to the center of Alastor’s body. He pressed his lips over those glowing marks beneath the delicate skin.

“Oh! That certainly makes it so much better, sire!” Alastor snapped, the effect lost by how his voice hitched and broke as he squeezed at the mattress, “What does— does, stop that, I am— I’m close.”

“You’re being a bitch in the hot way again,” Lucifer elected to point out, a grin brightening his face as his wicked tongue swiped from the tippy top of Alastor’s ass, down, down, up, up, to wiggle around that swollen cl*t like a rattlesnake tail.

Alastor grit his teeth so tightly his jaw creaked audibly, glaring down at Lucifer as though he could kill the devil with his gaze alone.And yet he stilled -- well, as best as he was able to be still -- dropping his head backwards as the sound of Lucifer thoroughly applying his tongue registered through the room, sticky and obscene.

Alastor’s long legs hitched over Lucifer’s shoulders, he pushed them back toward the demon’s chest, folding him, arranging him just how he wanted him, pillow pressed under his backside with a gasp.

Alastor snarled, crying out as Lucifer pulled him and folded him in half, stiffening slightly as Lucifer was bound to see --

Alastor’s climax brought with it a tsunami of scents. They washed over Lucifer’s olfactory senses like a rush of perfume, arousing him, taking his breath away, making his eyes go hazy with pure desire. Lucifer responded enthusiastically, gathering as much of the sinner’s nectar as he could on his tongue, sampling it as a bee would honey. He f*cking loved how much of a mess he was making, getting his face all wet. The rush of it all made him groan as he edged toward desperation himself. Transfixed. Alastor was putting on quite the show for him.

“Nnn..” Lucifer felt himself growing impatient. He gazed at Alastor, catching his eyes. He leaned in close, giving Alastor a taste of himself as he sunk his lips onto his. It should be disgusting, the taste of himself on Lucifer’s eager mouth, but all it did was remind Alastor how hungrily the king ate him out; how desperately the man who ruled over Hell looked at him.

It was intoxicating.

The king guided himself forward, lining himself up.

“Do you still want this?” he breathed, puffing breath against the demon’s open mouth.

He slipped his hand between his legs, hissing at the still heightened feeling against his c*nt as he pushed Lucifer’s co*ck away and covered his fluttering hole, denying him access.For every high Alastor gained, the inevitable drop always managed to frustrate him to no end. This would not be over until he was f*cked properly and when he felt Lucifer’s co*ck at his hole Alastor had to bite down on his lip to stop the keening bleat that nearly left his lips. But first, he didn’t get an answer earlier.

“I do. But first, your majesty, what does this little spell do to me?” je asked, pressing his tongue against Lucifer’s jaw, licking his own slick off of the devil’s face, other hand pressing against the glowing mark in his womb.

Lucifer, ever the gentleman, didn’t simper or complain when Alastor dared to assert his bodily autonomy. Far from it, he nuzzled up against that hand blocking him from breaching that tight heat that not yet knew the weight of a man within.

“It’s a fertility mark,” Lucifer explained, his hand passing over the glow emanating from the pattern he’d etched.

“Fertility mark?” Alastor asked in disbelief, hissing lowly as Lucifer rocked gently against his hand, hesitating for a moment before crooking his fingers inward and pressing inside himself, moving the digits in time with Lucifer’s movements. “You intend to get me pregnant? Desperate for a spare child, sire?”

“You told me to breed you,” Lucifer chuckled, getting up close and personal as he ground up against Alastor, urging the demon’s fingers deeper within the canal the king was fixated on. “How am I meant to do that if my seed has no chance of taking root, mm?”

Lucifer’s smile wasn’t quite manic — it was blissful, watching as indignation and pleasure mingled on Alastor’s expressive face as heshuddered, shifting his hips to draw his fingers deeper into himself, panting gently as he locked eyes with Lucifer, f*cking into himself at the same pace the king took.

“I will remind you again that I am in heat, I naturally want to be bred, but how inconvenient it would be to be swollen with child, with no guarantee the father would be there to help?” Alastor said lowly, rolling his head to gaze heatedly down where he was f*cking himself. “And if I do not want to catch?”

Alastor couldn’t harsh his vibe even with digs at his fraternal track record. Lucifer was high on the spiciness of Alastor’s desire. It thrilled him to no end to see that face dark with both pleasure, lust, and peevishness.

“I’d be there,” Lucifer chuckled assuredly, hushing Alastor with a kiss — the most practical and effective method, and thus his top choice. He then whispered up against the curve of his lovely, twitching ears, one of his hands wrapping around Alastor’s wrist to bring that wet hand up to his mouth. He kissed the back of it. “Like I told you, it doesn’t happen if you don’t want it to.”

It was meant to be placating, clearly, and yet Alastor only found himself being wound up again, kissing Lucifer harshly and considering his words. Playful promises made in the heat of the moment held no worth to him, and he would not be made a simpering fool carrying the devils child with no true guarantee the short bastard would actually stay with him.

So his smile changed into something sultry and sharp like the call of a garrote wire, reaching down to spread his own slick against the glowing mark. “Oh~ perhaps you’ll get lucky next year then, your majesty,” he purred, reaching down to spread his dripping folds open for Lucifer to slip into.

“I’m already lucky,” Lucifer hissed with satisfaction, Alastor’s alluring antagonism drawing him into his orbit like an errant star plunging down from the force of Earth’s gravity. “Just look at what I’m about to make a mess of — who I’m about to make a mess of.”

Exquisite.

Still, he inclined his head, chest heaving, “You would like that wouldn’t you? For me to let you claim me in my entirety. For tonight, I am yours, only yours, Lucifer.”

That was concession enough — for now.

Glad to have this unobstructed view of Alastor’s face as gave up himself, Lucifer sunk both of his hands into the sinner’s scarlet hair, filling Alastor’s mouth with his tongue at the same moment he slid forward. That hungry little puss* was so ready for him. Alastor’s body swallowed him up without so much as a single moment of resistance.

If Alastor could throw his head back he would. Caged by Lucifer’s hold in his hair, the kings tongue in his mouth, he would swear up and down he saw stars; gold and every facet of creation in that moment; every cell in his body screaming in completion -- at being made whole.

Finally, finally, finally!

He felt stretched full, speared upon Lucifer’s co*ck, and it felt like mercy, it felt like a blessing being given to him and only him. He felt well and truly delirious, only truly aware enough to warn his wretched body not to conceive in full remembrance of the very real threat branded onto his body by the same man who now baptized Alastor on his co*ck.

Lucifer remained still, giving his trembling partner time to adjust, doing his own reminding to himself; that this sweet body below him was virginal, and it wouldn’t do to participate in unnecessary roughness.

Not this time.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he spoke up against Alastor’s lips, his small hands curling over Alastor’s bony hips to keep him securely in place as he shut his eyes and concentrated. Within the depths of his body, Alastor would feel his shape shift. Lengthen, thicken, gain ridges and girth. Lucifer filled the sinner in a manner that could only be described as bespoke. “Hold on to me,” the king advised serenely, guiding Alastor’s tense arms to wrap around his neck. “I’ve got you.”

What— what was that?

Alastor was given warning and yet that didn’t prepare him for Lucifer adjusting his anatomy while actively sheathed inside him. He jerked, a surprised noise leaving his mouth as his smile twitched, ears pinning to the side of his head as the sheer feeling of fulfillment took him.

Apprehension filled his body the more his heat was tempered by the weight of the co*ck inside him, and he tightly wrapped his arms around Lucifer’s neck, prepared to choke the pathetic excuse of a monarch if needed. He was wary, and had a right to be, he felt stretched to a mouth watering degree, as though Lucifer was trying to mold his c*nt to his co*ck, as though he wanted to ensure every drop of cum they produced would push past his cervix and paint his womb.

The brand against his pelvis throbbed and Alastor bit back a moan.

“Exhale,” Lucifer guided, canting his hips back to perfect his angle. “And if you keep holding everything in, I’m going to do things to you that will make you wail and wake Charlie.”

He was in rare form tonight. His eyes were threatening to fill with hellfire, and his horns emerged from the top of his smooth forehead just enough to be visible. His wings itched inside their sheaths, every nerve alight and restless.

Lucifer circled his hips slowly, keeping the withdraw long and the upstroke strong. He shuddered, a moan wracking him from the top of his head to the top of his lashing tail. The spade at the end thumped against the sheets as it sought out Alastor, wrapping around his leg possessively. Alastor felt like paradise within. Lucifer wanted to curl up and stay forever. So soft and hot and tight and begging for the dousing force of his seed.

Alastor didn’t even realize that he’d stopped breathing, thighs twitching as Lucifer shifted and readjusted to find his perfect home deep inside him.

A thread of pride made him hope that it was perfect enough to make Lucifer keep coming back for more.

More than that, Lucifer was a vision: horns peeking out, tail wrapped around Alastor’s thigh, and the slow way Lucifer f*cked into him had him swallowing another moan. The only thing audible a breathy, barely there sound, punched out by a co*ck he swore he could feel in his throat.

“Try me,” he said, sultry, challenging, because the day he followed Lucifer’s orders without fuss under any circ*mstances, was the day he died. Again. Issuing a challenge to the King of Hell while Alastor was actively in a state that encouraged his moaning was, perhaps, not the brightest thing to do in the moment, because now he was challenge bound to keep his mouth shut.

The fire in Alastor lit up Lucifer’s face, his eyes flashing like daggers as the sinner took him on in all the right ways. Not one to back down — a trait that had earned him his fate in Hell — Lucifer’s smile split his face wickedly as he wriggled in excitement at a challenge. Lucifer turned his face to kiss the bend of Alastor’s knee, giving that little hot spot a little nibble as he rolled into Alastor with all the urgency of an ambling stream. He was creating art out of this sinner’s deflowering.

The ridges in his co*ck sought out all those tender places within Alastor’s velvety birth canal, pre smearing all over the gate to his womb. Each time he pulled out he left Alastor empty save for the tip only to glide forward and bottom him out each and every time. Savoring it.

With Alastor’s thighs braced against his chest he could access the round globes of his ass. He reached down, cupping and squeezing before giving his flank a spank.

Lucifer having an advantage on Alastor's inexperienced, needy body, the drag of his co*ck as it left his aching, soaked puss* only to f*ck into the hilt in slow, unbothered movements were going to drive him mad.

Never mind that his body sang for the reverential treatment as though Alastor’s wanton puss* were a temple, as though his cervix and womb were an altar that Lucifer’s co*ck was lovingly preparing for mass. And oh, how his body responded well. He’d no idea his c*nt was so well prepared for this, tightening around Lucifer with each thrust.

Though Alastor managed to valiantly refuse to let a single noise get passed his smiling lips, there was no doubt in how he loved everything Lucifer deigned to give him. He was grinding his hips down as he bottomed out with each thrust, radio static crackling the air as Lucifer cracked a hand against his flank.

Undeterred, Lucifer changed tactics, distantly glad for the excuse for continue experimenting. He would root out what drove Alastor wild soon enough. It was simply a matter of time.

Lucifer laid his body over and onto and into Alastor, pillowing his face against the fluffy fur of the sinner’s slim chest. Careful claws sought out the sensitive buttons of his nipples, pinching, squeezing, tugging, his tongue curling and wetting one and then the other as he pulsed his hips just a little faster, just a little shallower, just a little harder. The virile urge to unload his seed inside the perfection of Alastor’s body made him groan, and he panted gracelessly as his body and face flushed with pleasure.

The first groan that pulled free of Alastor’s mouth as Lucifer leaned forward, laying against his chest and pressing his legs ever closer to ending up on his thighs, was nothing short of bitter defeat on his part, but it somehow didn’t feel like it.

Totally lost in the sauce.

“You’re amazing..” the king praised his desperate, sweet sinner. He churned his hips into that dripping, hot honeypot. He used gentle claws to brush errant scarlet hair away from Alastor’s sweaty face. “You look so beautiful this way..”

Alastor's initial refusal to give any ground where he didn’t need to bore wonderful fruit as Lucifer picked up the speed just that much more, grinding against his cervix and sending little bursts of electricity up his spine. The pleasure was near mind numbing, and Alastor’s eyes fluttered closed as he let out a barely audible bleating noise.

He turned his head against Lucifer’s gentle touch, feeling such like a sacrifice being praised before his death, and his grin turned upwards, lips parting around a near silent moan. “Is my body to your liking, sire?” he purred, rolling his hips up against Lucifer’s expert thrusts. “Is this all you have for me to take?”

Lucifer paused in his spirited undulations, a fresh bout of dark laughter slipping out from between his lips. He folded his arms across Alastor's chest, gazing up at him dreamily from under heavy lashes -- giving himself a brief moment to catch his breath.

"All right, spice. You want more?"

Lucifer slipped -- never once leaving the hot confines of Alastor's body -- to lay beside him. He manipulated his partner onto his side so he could press flush against his back, dotting kisses from antler base to the nape of his neck. He bit him there, but there was no drawing of blood this time.

He drew Alastor's top leg up and back to drape over his own hip, opening the hinge of the sinner's legs nice and wide, giving him plenty of room to work. His hips rolled up against Alastor's backside as he pumped his co*ck into that waiting body at the same speed as his racing heart -- unrelenting, chasing a high he hadn't experienced in decades.

Then the hand not supporting Alastor's leg went for that lovely little tail again, swirling his fingers through the fluffy fur with a sigh of pleasure. He fisted that delicate little appendage at the base next, using it like a rudder to steer Alastor a little to the left or to the right as he f*cked him good and deep.

Lucifer picked up his pace so suddenly that it made him choke, the slam of his hips kissing his cervix each time and ripping a cry from his mouth, tipping his head back so as to lay across Lucifer’s shoulder.

The angle was good, reaching inside him deliciously, the issue came from the position itself, as Lucifer pressed kisses into his hair, his antlers, his neck, occasionally biting, something in his chest purred at the intimate nature of it.

The roll, the way he could feel every ridge on Lucifer’s co*ck dragging on his sensitive insides was all together too much, and he bore down on his impromptu mate as Alastor came suddenly, a canting wail breaking the spiteful silence. It was fulfilling, it was ecstasy, it wasn’t enough and Alastor pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes to stop the onslaught of tears as his pleasure spiked again, abandoning all pretense of haughty silence grinding back against Lucifer’s hips.

Lucifer could smell the salt of those tears, Alastor’s hormones sending ribbons of endorphins through the air; alerting him. His arms snaked around his demon’s middle, hands stroking up Alastor’s sensitive midline, caressing every bone he could find. He lingered on Alastor’s prominent sternum with one hand, the other taking one of those damp palms in his.

In an act of tenderness, he laced his fingers through Alastor’s longer ones, giving them a gentle squeeze.

“Do you need to stop?” Lucifer’s voice was soft and caring, underscoring the much more ginger rolling of his hips — barely withdrawing.

“No,” Alastor said, flinching slightly as Lucifer took one of his hands, using the back of his free one to wipe the rush of tears away. “It’s simply a little frustration, nothing more.”

He sighed, the slower pace letting him think a bit more; let him catch his scrambling thoughts as the burning throes of pleasure tempered to something a little more tender. “You do need to stop treating me like some fragile waif,” he said petulantly

Lucifer sighed long-sufferingly, a fond, breathy laugh exiting his lungs. Alastor was such a brat. He loved it. Well, when it was in the right amount and didn’t involve a temper tantrum.

“You’re so difficult to please,” Lucifer complained, but he was shifting Alastor again, withdrawing his absolutely still hard length from his demon’s needy sex. It couldn’t be helped. Alastor snarled like a wounded animal when Lucifer pulled out of him, c*nt clenching down on nothing, the sudden emptiness singularly devastating in ways he hadn’t been aware were possible.

Lucifer took up a position behind Alastor, but now he was on his knees. Like a doll he maneuvered Alastor into place on his knees as well. Only difference was the king pushed Alastor’s chest to the sheets with a firm had against his back. To soften it all, he stroked that expressive tail of his, working his fingers through each layer of fur.

“Maybe I should restrain you?” Lucifer whispered into one long ear, both sets of claws running from shoulders to wrists.

Alastor was so distracted by that supposition that he didn’t realize he was on his knees, face buried in sheets that smelled of sex and apples and wholly Lucifer, tainted with the scent that was unmistakably his.

Was— was Lucifer going to mount him?

“Do not dare,” he snarled, radio feedback spiking through the air in response to Lucifer stroking through his tail, making him moan. “W-what is with your sudden fascination with my tail?”

“When you look at me that and talk to me like that while I know you love it, how can I resist?” Lucifer purred, giving his tail a little tug. “It’s the only part of you that can’t lie.. well, that, and your hot little honeypot.”

Lucifer was beginning to lean into the dirty talk. It was so satisfying to watch him bristle and bitch. He tended to clamp around him when he did so — further motivation.

It was true enough that Alastor's tail was rather truthful with what it wanted as opposed to Alastor, but that didn’t mean he didn’t bristle at the way Lucifer referred to it. This was exactly why no one knew he had a tail.

“Didn’t you say not to treat you like you’re fragile?” the King reminded him, swiftly taking both of Alastor’s wrists in his hands, securing them behind his back in an iron grip as he thrust forward, a wild wet sound cutting through the air.

“Is that why you enjoy my honeypot so mu— a-ah!” Whatever else he was going to say was ruined by the way he cried out, this— this was the angle he needed. He sagged against the mattress, not even protesting the rough way Lucifer restrained him, taking it in stride the way a yowling cat took being mounted for the first time.

The fight was dragged out of him with each thrust against his wet puss*, the sound of himself loud and humiliating in his ears.

“Aah .. thats’s right..” Lucifer purred, wiggling his hips giddily against Alastor’s firm backside. He gripped the meat of his hips, bound to leave bruises, angling himself to drive his length up to the hilt with every marvelous press forward into Alastor’s perfect c*nt.

Lucifer could not shut up.

Well, he would consider it excessive if he could think anymore.

He panted wetly against the soft sheets, eyes closed in absolute bliss, each deep thrust making him twitch and keen.

Awe filled Lucifer’s mind and guts — he’d said what?? — but he quickly dismissed the impulse to second guess. Alastor’d said yes. He wasn’t going to give him a chance to change his mind.

Lucifer flared. Like a burst of plasma from the sun, he burst into the form eternity would remember him for. His horns grew long — as long as his desire ran deep — his sclera deepening to luminescent blood red. His wings spread with the speed of light. They surrounded the two of them in a feathered canopy. Secluding them from the world. Creating an oasis for just the two of them.

“Turn over.”

Alastor felt like he’d made a very foolish mistake. The room became suddenly hotter and Lucifer’s blood red wings fanned out to cover the both of them. The sound of the King of Hell made him whine. This wass who the world should remember; this was who should be ruling over Hell with an iron fist.

This is the version of Lucifer worthy to be his mate.

Slowly, Alastor pulled himself onto his elbows and flipped over, keeping himself propped up so as to look at the intimidating picture Lucifer painted; how eager this man was to breed him. Alastor was almost tempted to let it catch.

Almost. Not quite.

Lucifer descended upon Alastor with purpose and passion. He made no motion to kiss him, to partake in trivialities. Lucifer’s breath streamed in the air as he bent over Alastor, his eyes fixed on his demon’s face. His wings came to caress his charge. As the vanes of his feathers stroked across Alastor’s dark skin he hissed with pleasure, fire in his eyes.

The king aligned Alastor to him, his elongated, crimson claws cradling his hips as if he weighed nothing.

“Look at me and not away, spice.”

Lucifer held Alastor’s knees against his hips as he stroked forward, slipping within effortlessly. Hiswings flapped rhythmically as he began to thrust. First the front pair would rise, then the main flight set, then the lower. In turn they beat at the air in time with each forward stroke.

Lucifer’s tail held one of Alastor’s legs aloft by the shin and ankle.

Lucifer truly was a vision, poised like a predator claiming a kill— no, strutting like a stag who’d chased the others off and was prime to seed the doe.

Which, ironic that that was what was at the forefront of Alastor’s mind as Lucifer slipped back into his aching c*nt like he belonged there. And oh had he ever f*cked an afterimage into Alastor’s puss*, if he never engaged in such carnal acts again, the feeling of Lucifer f*cking into him with single minded purpose, co*ckhead kissing his cervix with each driven thrust, would serve Alastor very well in future heats.

Universes were birthed and collapsed over and over again within the devil’s heart as he found himself trembling from within Alastor’s body. He howled, claws pinching in against his mate’s delicate skin. Drawing blood.

Feathers caressed Alastor's battered body, while Lucifer added bloody welts to the soft flesh of his hips, he wrapped his legs around Lucifer as the devil began to shake, slamming home one final time.

“Alastor—!” The devil gasped ecstatically as he released within, long glistening streams of angelic spend painting Alastor’s sweet c*nt.

The feeling of Lucifer’s spend pooling deep inside him, warming him, was the ultimate relief, and Alastor threw his head back, covering his mouth to stop the onslaught of doe-like squeaks and bleats as finally, finally, as though with righteous purpose, his heat tempered. Lucifer growled, panting, shuddering, wings shaking and folding around the both of them as his horns slowly receded. With a gasp he regained his normal vision alongside his scarlet irises. Dizzy, speechless, he collapsed upon Alastor bonelessly.

“Damn,” Lucifer marveled breathlessly, heaving himself off of Alastor with a cursory kiss of apology. He was absolutely wasted. His wings hung around them, trembling with the blissful frissons of afterglow. Alastor let out a noise of disgust as the King collapsed on top of him, suddenly very aware of the vile state he was in.

Alastor grumbled as Lucifer pressed a kiss to his lips, leaning into reciprocate before he paused as Lucifer slipped out of him.

He sat up with a hiss. He felt sore and used in ways he had never felt before, but deliciously so. The aches and throbs were reminders of how thoroughly he’d managed to seduce the Devil himself.

“Hm, I would not be so crude myself, but yes, a very good first. I think,” he said, voice at its full static clarity, no longer plagued by the sickly sweet clouds of heat.

Lucifer drew himself into a seated position. His smile was dopey, eyes limpid. His wings finally finished resheathing and he gave a long, luxurious stretch. He shivered pleasurably and reclined, beaming at Alastor fetchingly.

“The stuff of dreams.”

Alastor scoffed, rolling his eyes as he directed his shadow to retrieve his clothes for him.

“Well, I can say with certainty that I understand why people are so enamored by the act, but .. " he paused, reaching between his legs where a gathering of combined cum beaded at his hole. “It’s incredibly messy.”

“f*ck,” Lucifer stared at what Alastor was doing with wild eyes, his horns peeking out as he saw his iridescent spend slickening Alastor’s fingers. “You’re ..”

“Hm?” Alastor asked, catching the way Lucifer was looking at him and lifting the pearl seed up to his mouth and licking it off of his fingers. “I’m what, sire? You’ll have to use your words I'm afraid! I can’t read minds, contrary to popular belief!"

Lucifer made an absolutely crazy noise when Alastor licked up his cum, a whole body shudder rolling over him in a wave. “You incorrigible tease, you make me feel nuts.”

“I have been told I have that effect on people!” Alastor said cheerfully, tilting his head as he observed Lucifer’s reaction. “Alas, unfortunately for you, I am quite tuckered out! Perhaps you’ll get the chance to put a fawn in me next year.”

Lucifer only grinned, shrugging coyly. “I’d consider myself lucky to have the chance, you brat.”

Alastor hummed noncommittally at the remark. Maybe the king would find himself lucky. Though if he had anything to say about it, then he would be making sure that it didn't happen again. The king looked at Alastor quite fondly now, enchanted by this new .. shall we say, acquaintanceship-cum-situationship.

Lucifer’s face dropped any pretense. He wore a calm, easy smile.

“You probably will say no, but, do you want to spend the night?”

At the request, Alastor turned to look at Lucifer before slowly laying back down and making himself comfortable. “Well, the alternative is a walk of shame I woefully am not sure I could make right now, so if you don’t mind, my dear king, I’d be happy to warm your bed for a bit longer.”

Visibly and genuinely stunned, Lucifer sat upright. Thankfully he had no habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

“Oh — great. I want to be here with you for a little longer.”

Lucifer shut up. He reached toward Alastor, but only for his hands. He laid his hand beside, fingers touching. Accepted, they’d travel further. Weave fingers. Squeeze.

Lucifer was a rather touch starved creature. Normally, Alastor would be more than happy to point this out and laugh at his expense, but he wanted Lucifer to look at him just like that for a little while longer.

So he squeezed the kings hand, smile turning small and tired as he closed his eyes and finally got the first bit of good sleep in the better part of a set of weeks.

Chapter 6: Alarming Developments

Chapter Text

It happened during a meeting.

Alastor knew the exact moment his heat hit again, when the room suddenly shrank and he felt like he was suffocating, his puss* dripping out of nowhere and he knew at least one other overlord in the room could smell him.

Bless Rosie for her quick thinking honestly, she got him out and away from the building before anymore people, or Hell forbid Vox, noticed.

But he was aching and empty, and his c*nt was practically weeping with the desire to go and ride Lucifer.

However, once had been quite enough for Alastor. He didn’t fancy giving the king anymore leverage or weight over him than he already had due to that unfortunate deal.

So he found himself, for the second time that year, in the throes of heat, confused as to where it was coming from, but finding it easier to deal with from the comforts of his lovely bayou.

And due to his tentacles. Having something girthy and filling did also help, even if his body did crave the real thing, as he bounced deliriously on them. Smaller, thinner tentacles flicked against his cl*t, carefully taking him apart with no additional direction from him, all the while his fertility mark pulsed in time.

The worst part about f*cking himself was that Alastor only really had last month's heat to go by, so each org*sm that was ripped out of him due to him moving the tentacle one way or grinding against it so it dragged against his cervix was entirely based on how thoroughly Lucifer had f*cked him.

At some point Alastor had ended up on his knees again, tail shivering against his spine as he urged the tentacles deep inside him until he came, unsatisfactorily, around them, high keening squeaks muffled by his arm and the soft earth of his bayou.

Unseen, Lucifer sipped wine from a large, red goblet as he sat comfortably in one of Alastor’s armchairs. The King was quite enjoying the show if the tent in his pants was any indication.

He’d manifested into the room several minutes ago out of concern — as the inscriber of the mark he was sensitive to its reactive energy. Alastor had gone nearly mad during the last one, was he out of control again?

But, no. He was rather enthusiastically pursuing his own solution to the problem. Lucifer relaxed and took it all in.

Alastor smelled— wine? Looking up, he made eye contact with Lucifer and felt humiliation along with a needy gush of slick as his greedy puss* squeezed around the tentacle inside him — how long had he—

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, glaring daggers at the haughty monarch.

"The better question might be what the hell are you doing here?" Lucifer dared to wear a disappointed expression, gesturing without embarrassment between Alastor's shapely legs. "What's the big idea? After all that effort I made, you're just going to schlep through your heat without me?"

Lucifer placed a hand on his chest, affecting a pouting tone. "You wound me."

“How… how dare you?” Alastor demanded, smile warping and dials flashing briefly in his eyes, bracketed by a crack of radio static.

Humiliation temporarily forgotten, he banished the tentacles, climbing to his hooves, glowering at Lucifer, rage and indignation in equal measure, even as his body sang with want.

“What right do you have to barge into my rooms unannounced? I went to you for help, but I am more than equipped to handle this on my own in fa—” Alastor paused, “How did you know I went back into heat? Do you know why it happened? Because it should have been done last month!”

Lucifer co*cked his head at Alastor. He drew his leg up, resting his shin over the opposite knee; getting comfortable. He couldn't help but sneak a glance at the tentacles he'd been so ineffectually utilizing with an unmasked grimace.

"I could smell you," Lucifer put it bluntly, smirking at Alastor smugly. He was so very pleased with himself. He watched the sinner's rapidly developing indignation. How very titillating. "I could feel you pulsing."

Despite himself, Alastor could feel his face burn at the comment. Lucifer looked far too smug for someone who assumed his presence would be needed, and as he watched Lucifer glance over at where he’d been, admittedly unsatisfactorily f*cking himself, he smirked.

As uncomfortable as it would be, being dressed helped minimize the discomfort he was feeling being nude around Lucifer at the moment, so he snapped his clothes back into existence and regarded the king with a nasty smile.

“Ha! And what? You thought I’d be so thrilled to have you here? I do not need you, Lucifer. I am more than capable of finding another partner,” he said, tucking his hands behind his back as he drifted towards the door, planning on doing no such thing except finding a different place to spend this wretched heat. “In fact! Perhaps I’ll do that right now.”

"Yeah -- like you'd give another person that kind of leverage over you," Lucifer scoffed, clearly not buying it. His smile had faded into a mopey frown.

“Oh? And if I use someone I have leverage on? Then I’m simply net positive and they’d have to forget about it after it was done, or else,” Alastor said, nonchalantly, regarding Lucifer again, “And besides, they wouldn’t need to know I am in heat, I’m sure Vox would be more than happy to bed me.”

Fussily, Lucifer shifted his position in the armchair once more. This time, he tossed his legs over one arm while using the other to prop up his back. He tapped one heeled foot against the air, tucking his hands behind his head in an unbothered display.

"You'd never f*ck someone you've got that much influence over, first of all," Lucifer said with smooth assuredness. "Second of all, I know you want me. Your scent gives you away, honey. As for barging in.. well, I did it out of concern, you see. Why are you making this so difficult? Just get over here."

Alastor rolled his eyes, refusing to return to Lucifer’s side, “Why do you continue to assume I want you? If I did not come to you when this started again, then why would I do so when you barged in uninvited?”

Alastor felt seen in ways he greatly disliked, tightening his grip on his hands that he’d tucked behind his back, he hated how Lucifer sat, mimicking Alastor’s movements and being so assured in the truth.

His body sang for Lucifer, he wanted the kings co*ck again, if Lucifer truly could smell him, then he definitely knew how wet Alastor was for him.

"Oh, you," Lucifer sighed in mingled fondness and exasperation, shaking his head as Alastor gave the wrong answer.

"Bo he na, ayalah."

The words were a benediction that called straight to Alastor's revived and unseeded, unsatisfied womb. Like a hook caught in the sinner's navel there was a tugging. Not a compulsion, more like an irrefutable beckoning. The red thread of fate bound them together this way, and Lucifer had lit it on fire.

Whatever Alastor was about to say in retort was swallowed by an ear piercing shot of microphone feedback as he damn near doubled over, hand flying to press against his lower abdomen, heat intensifying so suddenly it nearly brought him to his knees.

The distance away from Lucifer was instantly too much, everything in him purred to go back, to sit on his own personal throne and be made complete and he whirled around to face Lucifer, ears pinned back, antlers cracking in width with the force of his anger.

“What did you just do?!” he snarled.

“Just gave you a little motivation to make peace with reality,” Lucifer said lightly, rising from Alastor’s armchair. He gave a languid stretch with the same easy grace as a cat waking from an afternoon nap.

Lucifer reached for the buttons on his waistcoat, and after being sure he still held Alastor’s gaze, undid each one.

Alastor shuddered, near sagging with the sheer amount of relief that hit him when Lucifer shortened the proximity between them, the burning, the calling almost, quieting to a whisper.

“Motivation?” he asked, reaching up to grip Lucifer’s wrist weakly, “Are you saying that you can just— control me? With this?” He pressed Lucifer’s hand where he knew the fertility mark stained his skin.

Lucifer paused, aghast. “Of course I can’t control you. I wouldn’t, even if I could.” Clearly revolted by the notion, Lucifer actually looked a little pale as he considered the distressing implications.

He recovered well, shaking off the disgust in favor of looking into those wild, confused crimson eyes.

“I just said one little phrase. Did you hear it?” Lucifer smiled so sweetly, but his eyes glinted with mischief. “Or should I say it again?”

In Alastor’s opinion, Lucifer had no right to be so taken aback by his accusation. He had, after all, interrupted him, and then did something while Alastor was rightfully upset about the whole affair.

But this was comfortable, this was fine, a push and pull was good, equal footing and all that.

“Say it again then, I clearly didn’t catch it the first time, so I know what to tune out,” he snapped, eyes hazy and ever so similar to a cornered animal.

“Bo he na, ayalah,” Lucifer repeated, the words rolling around on his tongue, tasting divine.

The low, even tone of his voice carried those smooth, ancient syllables to Alastor’s pinned-back ears, the arrangement of sounds like music — like a spell. It compelled Alastor, evoking the thought of he wants me. I’m his.

There wasn’t a force in heaven or hell that could have stopped the squeak that left Alastor’s lips, flinching back as if struck. The words resonated through his body like a siren call, and he moved purely on instinct, grabbing Lucifer by his lapels and taking them both to the ground.

When Alastor regained his sanity, he groaned again, pinching the bridge of his nose, “What is that? Why do I feel a pull to you? You have to understand this is wholly inconvenient under normal circ*mstances, but while I am in heat, you are asking for trouble.”

“This doesn’t look like trouble to me,” Lucifer countered, quite happy to be tumbled to the ground of Alastor’s frankly bizarre living quarters. He could hear bayou birds and could have sworn he’d seen a crane or two moving through the high reeds.

“It’s just some words~” Lucifer maintained. It was too early to show all his cards. “Words your soul knows. And unlike you, your soul can’t fake anything, let alone disinterest.”

Lucifer undid the fastens to the front of Alastor’s slacks.

The effects of the spell in combination with his heat had left an all mighty mess of slick against his c*nt and thighs, and it would certainly get on Lucifer’s nice pants, but he could deal, he’d clearly been eager enough after all.

“Hm… I wonder why I don’t believe you?” Alastor snarked, shifting his hips to shrug out of his slacks, settling back in Lucifer’s lap.

“My soul feels nothing for you, whatever those words are doing, it certainly is provoking my body, and not much more.”

Lucifer stilled, a pang of hurt spearing through him, the look on his face completely betraying how Alastor got to him.

He did not reach up to touch Alastor, instead keeping his to himself as he looked up at the Radio Demon. The mild aroma of Alastor’s wanting body nearly paralyzed him, but it was not enough of a balm to erase how much that bold-faced admonition carved into his psyche.

Alastor couldn’t stop the way his ears pinned back again as Lucifer froze, a tidal wave of injured emotions crossing the kings face, in the air of Alastor’s bold faced lie.

“I’m sorry. I’m going to have to call this off," said Lucifer.

Alastor's body was screaming, telling him to fix this, to soothe his mate, but he brushed it off, climbing off of Lucifer and settling on the warm carpet of the normal half of his rooms.

“.. Why? You cannot tell me that you actually want me, in more than a way that’s carnal, your majesty,” Alastor said, brow furrowing, “I am— confused. I admit I enjoy your company, but— were you not simply assisting me in the craze the heat brings? Did you not come here in search of a warm body to sink into?”

Dejected, sliding down the beginnings of a spiral, Lucifer groaned and avoided Alastor's eyes as he retreated from him with a few steps backward. One thought echoed in the reverberation chamber of his mind: Idiot.

"It's just like the other night, on the terrace," Lucifer laughed cheerlessly, running a hand through his pale hair before looking down at his open palms. "Only now, I can feel what you're feeling, and damn, I'm really barking up the wrong tree, aren't I?" he confessed, bordering on rambling now. "I -- look, I'm --" he stumbled, suddenly very lost.

If Alastor was confused before, that held nothing on how confused he was now, as Lucifer seemed to spiral. He was frozen in place, smile wide as it normally was.

Lucifer shut his mouth with an audible clack, and turning his back so he wouldn't have to watch, he snapped his fingers. In an instant, the scrawled spell low on Alastor's tummy froze mid-pulse before fading away into nothing.

Alastor let out a punched out noise, as his heat vanished as quickly as it had come again, hand flying to his womb as he felt it die again.

Lucifer was turned away from him, but all that he was saying was pointing to— did he want Alastor? For more than this carnal mess? Alastor felt delighted, the king of hell, lonely and craving kinship, was willing to crawl to the radio demon to burn the dregs of deep sadness.

In this moment the devil showed his hand, and Alastor was more than happy to play the part. He would make a home within Lucifer’s bleeding heart.

But first he had to remedy this situation.

“Ask me for it,” Alastor said, reminiscent of the night in the work tent, echoing Lucifer’s words, “I cannot know what you want, nor respond to it, if you do not ask, sire.”

Humiliated by his thwarted attempt at asserting himself into the situation, Lucifer grit his teeth. He covered his eyes with one hand, shoulders slumping as the overwhelming feeling of .. what? Numbness? It overcame him, defying description, leaving him so exposed.

Through Alastor's prodding he discovered once again that the sinner was dense as the day was long.

"Of course I f*cking want you," Lucifer rumbled under his breath. "You don't just.. spend the night with someone like we did without.." He paused as his throat seized up. Without feeling something.

No, evidentially not, for Alastor felt nothing for him. Lucifer was a means to an end, and he'd fairly assumed the same.

Alastor softened his smile, ears standing straight as though in surprise and he sighed, loud and purposefully dramatic.

Caught him.

Carefully ignoring his partial nudity, Alastor approached Lucifer, kneeling next to him as he considered his next words with incredible precision.

Lucifer, startled by the submissive position Alastor had chosen to fold down into, cast his wide eyes down at the sinner sitting on his knees beside him.

“Lucifer. In addition to you taking my first, you’d be the first to, hm, have me feel something more than amicability,” he tilted his head, “I would be… amendable, to trying. I was not lying when I said that I enjoyed your company, and I would not have sought you out had I not wanted to, but this is all very out of my depth.”

".. when you said, then, that I mean nothing to you, were you bullsh*tting?" Lucifer asked dryly, roughly. "Or are you just taking your moment to f*ck with me, now?"

Alastor waved Lucifer’s dry tone away, motioning to himself.

“My dear, heat makes me angrier than usual. Once more, if I did not want you in some capacity, I would not have sought you out. I would have chased you out instead of playing coy and I certainly would only contribute the bare minimum on our weekly excursions.” He reached out to flick Lucifer in the forehead, “Weren’t you the one who said he could sense me? Heat or no, you have been the only creature to get under my skin, and certainly the only one my body sings for.”

"I hear a lot of excuses but no actual answer to my question. Do you feel nothing for me? And I don't mean lust." Lucifer was being direct, something he was more often than not reticent to do. Alastor, though, was so good at tap-dancing around queries that he'd put Fred Astaire to shame.

Leave it to Lucifer to misunderstand subtext. Alastor wasn’t surprised, he was so short the point did loop de loops over his head.

Alastor leaned down until he was very close to Lucifer’s face, nearly brushing his lips.

“I feel quite a bit for you, your majesty,” he said, truthfully for once.

Lucifer shut his eyes with an audible gulp, Alastor's breath smelling of meat and blood. It triggered a memory -- one of him clamping down on the insides of the sinner's quivering thighs, drawing great mouthfuls of his essence so he could sample the dank, dark magic of human desperation and agony as he deserved.

It sent a shiver down his spine.

"What is it that you feel?"

Alastor was of the opinion, that this shivering, raggedly breathing version of Lucifer was just as good as the filled with unholy lust version he’d gotten a good glimpse of last month.

“Must I put a name to it?” he asked, rhetorically, chuckling low in his throat. He shifted onto his knees and climbed back into Lucifer’s lap, “Kinship, perhaps, admiration… occasionally. Fondness, unfortunately… possessiveness… definitely.”

A small sound left Lucifer as Alastor drew closer, invading his space with nary a word of request. His expression was so naked -- needy, wanting, daring to hope that believing Alastor by inches wouldn't be folly.

Upon Alastor's tiny waist his hands rested, that simple touch driving his pulse up. His face glowed gold subtly as he flushed. He ran his palms down the long muscles in Alastor's thighs testingly, allowing himself the treat of it, before sliding firmly behind to grip the underside of his ass with both hands.

This was awful. This was painful.

"I want you."

Alastor let out a sound of contentment, victory singing in his bones at the pathetic hope lighting on Lucifer’s face. How long had the king been waiting for someone to test him? To give themselves to him.

Alastor felt, perhaps a bit surprised that he seemed to be the first, but he was nothing if not incredibly ambitious, and what bigger target than Lucifer himself? The Morningstar, the first rebel. Alastor would milk this for all it was worth until Lucifer had nothing left to give.

He wrapped a hand around the bird bones of Lucifer’s wrist, bringing it away from his ass and up to his mouth, pricking a blackened finger with his canines, and then pressing the gold coated hand to his womb once more.

Lucifer sucked on his own tongue when Alastor drew blood. Nothing could have prepared him for what came next.

“Then take me, my darling king.” He purred, grinning down at Lucifer, “And make it stick."

Lucifer searched Alastor's rictus mask of a face, seeking anything that could give him deeper insight into why. The breath stuttered out of him as he stared dumbly at him, but his hand did as Alastor wordlessly bade. He held Alastor's gaze as he traced the familiar pattern with deliberate slowness above his womb -- giving him plenty of time to change his mind.

He cast his gaze down, watching the inscription glow and sink like water onto hot sand, instilling Alastor with a richness he had not before possessed.

"This is a big move," he breathed, his hand slipping down between his sinner's legs. "Do you understand what you're offering me..?"

For the third time in as many months, Alastor felt heat drip like molasses against his bones, tempered this time, as though his body knew there was no need to rush or go into a frenzy when his mate was in front of him.

He shuddered, allowing a squeak to leave his lips as Lucifer slipped his hand against his c*nt, tilting his head once again and Alastor pressed a hand against his chest in mock affront.

“Sire! You wound me, I don’t make offers without taking careful consideration of the consequences beforehand,” he said, he was offering to chain the king to himself, to a lowly sinner, with no hope of escape, “However..”

He thread his hand with Lucifer’s spare one, giving the golden band on Lucifer’s finger a baleful stare. “I don’t share well.”

Lucifer caught that look, and his guts twisted for his sentimentality to be acknowledged. The King had never spared a thought to taking a concubine. Oh, how time marched on, changing all.

“I’m a one woman man, so to speak,” Lucifer told him, his fingers curling, seeking entry to the dripping heat within Alastor. There, past the wet leaves at his gates, where his seed could take root. “There’s no going back, no exit after you give yourself to me, Alastor.”

Hm, well, Alastor would strive to change that, until Lucifer forsook his connection to his estranged wife and kept him close in every way that mattered. He recalled, vaguely, how concubines rose to higher status with enough time and cunning.

He sighed, rocking his hips against Lucifer’s hand, tilting them just so, allowing his fingers to slip inside without resistance, “I believe that should be my line, Lucifer.”

"As if," the King whispered dismissively as he got his second wind, his breath coming easier and his touch sure as he dipped his knuckles in to soak them in Alastor's rich juices. Swirling his claws oh so carefully, making a drippy, frothy mess. He wanted to play. He wanted joy. He wanted. "A lot would change. There's rules," Lucifer continued blithely, as if discussing a promotion. "Rules I've not come up with yet, but rules."

Lucifer tipped Alastor unceremoniously backward, easing him onto his back on the carpet. Lucifer admired the way his hair fanned out on either side of his face, how his ears twitched.

He had it bad. And now Alastor knew.

Alastor hissed, adjusting his hips to grind down against Lucifer’s fingers, breath going ragged at the careful, slow way Lucifer worked him open. Goodness, when had Lucifer changed from being annoyed and repulsed by Alastor’s presence at the hotel, in Charlie’s life, to being .. Alastor didn’t know what to call this, the way Lucifer looked at him, like he was some fine painting to be treasured.

Well, it served Alastor well to prey upon that, so he supposed he’d weather the fine treatment in pursuit of his goals.

Lucifer pushed Alastor's knees back against his chest; he recalled clearly just how flexible he was. He could handle it. Now he had ample space with which to work. The King nuzzled up against Alastor's wet puss*, inhaling the alluring, musky and sweet scent of him mingled with the peaty smells of his bayou.

The Devil's tongue lathed up Alastor's sex without asking permission, worming the tip against his cl*t for a bout of slow strokes. Humming, murmuring delicious, he went in for more.

Alastor thumped his head against the carpet, squeaking again as Lucifer lavished his cl*t with attention, reaching up to hold his knees out of the way. He shuddered delicately at the rough press against his puss*, the stimulation making him wetter.

Lucifer certainly enjoyed eating Alastor out, didn’t he?

He swallowed, trying to coordinate his brain back to respond, “Rules? I’m afraid I will need to aaask for specifics, if I am to understand what you expect of me,” he said, shuddering at the gently lapping, murmuring 'there, there' in encouragement.

Lucifer didn't just enjoy eating puss*. puss* might as well be a gourmet dessert given the way he took to sampling every rich drop of his exquisite slick. Sweetness just for him.

Listening to Alastor try to talk as he gobbled up his juicy little peach was just divine. Cute, even. The King smiled, working his tongue through damp petals, groaning as his appetite was whetted.

"You want me to come up with them right now?" Incredulous. He chuckled, tickling the points of his claws behind Alastor's knees, his thumbs brushing over the sinner's wrists. He took a moment to simply take him in. Holding his legs up and apart, trembling, that squeaking noise echoing around his head. The fact that they'd ever argued was foolishly far from his mind.

Alastor felt Lucifer’s tongue breach his eager c*nt and squeaked, shuddering against the relief and wonder the act brought him, even as shallowly as the king was pressing in. He wanted him against his cervix again, threatening to breach and spill directly into his womb.

And that thought was precisely why Alastor wanted to talk terms now, before he lost his senses to the sensation of thick co*ck spearing him open, before he took to his role as being wholly Lucifer’s. Before he was taken apart and made divine against Lucifer’s practiced movements and he agreed to whatever foolish things the king might come up with.

Alastor caught the look Lucifer was giving him, smiling coyly at him as he let go of his long legs to cross them over each other, shins against Lucifer’s chest.

“It’s always best practice to talk about and agree to terms before springing into any sort of arrangement!” he said cheerfully, “Besides, you were the one who brought them up, darling, surely you wish to speak of them. Else why would you say anything?”

"Clothes," Lucifer proposed immediately, frowning as he got Alastor's legs out of the way, hitching them up over his narrow shoulders so he could continue torturing Alastor's wonderfully responsive sex. The forked end of his tongue tickled here and there, focusing on the delicate strip of skin between Alastor's ass and his puss*.

"Mmm.. if you're going to be my concubine, a uniform of some sort is going to come with it. Something.. easy access.." he mused aloud.

Alastor decided he hated the title concubine, he’d fight for the higher title, so help him, he was made for these sorts of politics, any children he bore would be the same.

Alastor hissed partially in indignation that Lucifer pressed his legs away so nonchalantly, partially in pleasure, rocking his hips against his tongue as he zeroed in on the wallpaper. The fine pattern of it gave his brain something to focus on that wasn’t the tongue flicking against his c*nt slow and clearly designed to drive him crazy.

“Easy access? So you can pin me against any surface and take me where you please?” Alastor teased, humming thoughtfully, “I would never say no to a tastefully crafted outfit, however— if you want me, we will find privacy.” He swallowed. “Continue.”

"No, no, please do continue to give me ideas," Lucifer goaded him, his tongue dancing around the pink, clenched star in the center of Alastor's rear end. The scent was curious and not unpleasant. He kept going, curving the tines of his tongue into a point so he could twist and enter.

Alastor jolted in surprise at the press and enter against a very different hole than he was expecting, but still whined in pleasure. It wasn’t a bad feeling, more unexpected than anything.

“Did not take you for an ass man your majesty!” Alastor moaned, “I would like access to the other rings, surely one of us should run Hell and prep it for dear Charlie’s eventual coronation no? But… rules… hm. What do you expect, in terms of children? Or activities of— ooh!! Ah— wait, ugh— the sexual nature? I cannot guarantee I will always be in the mood.”

Lucifer ladled his fingers in Alastor’s obscenely plentiful slick, and he couldn’t help but suck on each digit as if he’d just been messy with a melting ice cream cone. He dipped them in again, coating them, so he could press one past his tight little pucker, wiggling inside.

A second virginity to take. Lucifer would show him everything.

“I’m just seeking to sample the full repertoire of the music you make, you brat,” Lucifer said with menacing fondness. His tongue, prehensile and distressingly elongated, sought deeper passage into Alastor’s body. Maybe he could reach in and taste his heart.

That mission had to be put on pause for him to talk.

“I don’t know.. what’s stopping you from running off to hide in a ring where I can’t find you?” Lucifer said in disapproval, rotating his finger and wiggling his tongue inside his entrance all at once. “Aah.. I could do this all night.. nn .. ah, anyway,” he pressed on breathlessly. “Children.. sex.. f*ck, we’re actually discussing this..” Lucifer was suddenly gobsmacked and also the hardest he’d perhaps ever been. “You drive me crazy..”

Alastor rolled his eyes at Lucifer’s scolding tone, lifting his head to give him a look that said and?? before settling back down, a little series of uh, uh, uh noises leaving his mouth as Lucifer liberally coated his fingers with Alastor’s slick, satisfied by how hungrily his mate lapped it up, before pressing his fingers inside him again.

Alastor bleated when Lucifer pressed his fingers into his ass, finding the sensation distinctly strange, but not especially unpleasant. The burn slowly slipped away, giving way to a pulsing sort of pleasure.

“Oh please Lucifer, don’t sell yourself short, as difficult as it may be,” he said, whining gently as he dropped a hand down to press against the mark that made itself home again, before drifting further down to rub at his cl*t, knuckles brushing against Lucifer’s forehead, “You said you could find me with your little gift, we could even make a game of it~… and of course we’re talking about this! Keep up, your age is showing.”

Honestly, what a perfect time to negotiate: when one has a body part of any sort inside their opposition. The both of them were pliable — pun definitely intended — and uncharacteristically willing to compromise and concede.

So far.

Lucifer’s eyes fluttered open when he felt Alastor’a touch against his forehead, and looking upward he groaned to see Alastor pleasuring himself. He’d even permit it — for now — so he could watch the show.

“You’re such a bitch,” he moaned, working in a second finger. “But.. I can admit, I hadn’t considered that, spice.”

Alastor’s eyes were fluttered closed, rocking his hips against Lucifer’s fingers, biting his lip as he added another finger into him, the strangeness of the act had drifted away entirely at this point. He’d resigned himself to simply enjoying the ride, circling his cl*t with careful, precise movements perfected over years of dealing with heat.

Well, at least until Lucifer spoke again, and Alastor opened an eye to glance down at the devil. Lucifer’s face was practically glowing with sappy emotions as he fingered Alastor, watching him pleasure himself with the look of a patient lord.

“In deer mating habits, it’s normal for the buck to chase the doe until he catches her, and then they mate,” Alastor said breathlessly, grinning wicked and sharp at Lucifer, “A chase through the rings for my hand sounds right up my alley.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Lucifer purred, crooking his fingers a hair, getting in up to the last knuckle. His ring pressed up against his asscheek with a cool press of metal.

Lucifer batted Alastor’s hand out of the way in annoyance. He licked his lips, descending upon the sweet berry that was his direct line into the most sensitive parts of him. He sucked noisily, getting sloppy, getting shameless, the lewd noises of his puppylike lapping interspersed with his words.

“Next rule: Since you shouldn’t be drinking… nn… our weekly meetings, ah, I get to ravish you.”

Alastor squeaked as Lucifer smacked his hand away and descended on his cl*t with all the desperation of a starving man. His head fell back against his carpet, grinding downwards against Lucifer’s clever fingers as he f*cked into Alastor.

He blinked deliriously, giving Lucifer a heated, filthy look as he spoke. “Oh~, you would like that wouldn’t you? Do you truly expect to produce fruit from tonight? Or is this your way of making sure I do?” he asked, nonchalantly, or as nonchalant as he could, “I will agree to your rule, with some exceptions and on one condition. I would like to help you run Hell, there are a lot of things that need to be fixed, but I cannot do so unless I am able to.. make some changes.”

"Pressing for political influence already?" Lucifer mocked him with a grin, giving Alastor one final twist and scissor of his fingers before withdrawing.

Alastor hummed, shameless, shuddering as Lucifer withdrew from him. “Of course I am sire! As I said, look at the state of Pentagram city! Not to mention the rest of the Pride Ring! Don’t your subjects deserve a modicum of respect? If not for the sinners, then for the Hellborn who have not done wrong by you?” He said, passionately, he needed to be able to manipulate certain pieces of his ability as a concubine before he could consider himself safe by any means.

The processes they had in the east should serve him well.

Lucifer considered the next term without any sense of urgency, splitting his attention between that and turning Alastor onto his side. There was a specific angle he had in mind -- one that necessitated Alastor's top leg being up over his shoulder while the other pressed into the sheets. Alastor was so easy to manhandle despite being bigger.

Alastor allowed Lucifer to manhandle him into the position he wanted, pressing his hoof into the devils porcelain back as he was pulled wide with no possibility of covering himself, c*nt clenching down on nothing as Lucifer rocked his co*ck against his wanting hole.

Lucifer dipped the proof of his arousal just past Alastor's entrance, not yet claiming him. He crowded up against his mate, his hands sliding into all that mussed red hair to take hold of it and pull his head back so he could whisper into one of those large, velvety ears.

"Give me a son."

Alastor snarled as Lucifer yanked his head back, ear flicking in his direction and he shuddered.

“You’ll have to put a fawn in me before I can give you a little heir, dearest,” he said, glancing down at the mark that pulsed against his womb, “But I will certainly give you a child, if you so wish for one.”

Lucifer slid the hand not in Alastor's hair up his midline to grip his throat in a firm hold. Then he pressed forward swiftly all the way -- to the hilt -- sucking in a breath.

"Well, if and when you bear me a son, then you can start making calls about the world he lives in," Lucifer told him unflinchingly, beginning to rock his hips, groaning as he bottomed out. "It's amazing, the decisions you make if you care about no one versus when your children could suffer."

Alastor choked, less as a result of the hand around his throat, and more of the unforgiving breach. Lucifer pressed inside him until his co*ck head pushed lovingly against his cervix, like he belonged there and was simply coming home.

Though less intense this time around, his heat still sang at his mate nestled deep inside him, at the promise of conception.

Alastor bleated, shuddering delicately as Lucifer rolled his hips in a languid f*ck, “Yes, I’m sure you know all about it, what with the Exterminations and all. I will hold you to that, when I am swollen with your son, I expect you to give me what I asked for.”

“Stop talking and start moaning, ayalah,” Lucifer commanded airily, his thrusts lengthening, withdraw shallow, f*cking into Alastor with laser focus.

It was different this time. The degree to which Alastor was surrendering himself, did he fully understand it? The new jurisdiction he’d have over his body?

Lucifer wanted that — to possess him, to have control over his destiny in this way. The prospect was irresistible.

“Then f*ck me properly, sire,” Alastor snapped, hissing through his teeth at the shallow-then-deep f*ck Lucifer chose to take this time around. He let his head roll against the grip Lucifer had on his throat, resting as best he could against his shoulder.

It was clear to him that Lucifer wanted to possess him, and Alastor was more than happy to let him think that this was the case.

Lucifer was a generous lover. Alastor’s pillow princess tendencies meshed well with his. He enjoyed the way Alastor relaxed and gave him the wheel. There was a baseline romance that he started with that shifted by degrees depending on how c*nty Alastor was being.

“As you wish,” he murmured amiably, a cheeky smile spreading across his face as he got his knees under him, lifting up Alastor by the hips to really give him the business.

Alastor settled against the carpet, shoulders flat against it as Lucifer pulled his hips up, throwing his head back with a needy squeak as he f*cked into him with force behind him.

Delight and relief surged through his body in equal measure, and he rocked in time with Lucifer’s thrusts. This perhaps wasn’t the way he’d intended to get into Lucifer’s good graces, but it wasn’t a bad way by any means.

His hand drifted down once more, pressing against his cl*t with a bleat. Alastor felt far more confident in his own pleasure now, more sure of what was happening between the two of them than he was.

Lucifer was wound so tight he couldn’t help but hurtle over the edge a touch earlier than he would have liked. His hips stuttered and he gasped, waiting until the last possible second to withdraw, pearlescent spend falling onto the smooth curves of Alastor’s bruised and bitten inner thighs.

“f*ck.. f*ck.. f*ck,” he chanted, trembling as aftershocks rolled through him. “Mmmmn. f*ck.”

Alastor could feel Lucifer as he got close, the way his co*ck twitched against his cervix, the way his king shook against his hips with each thrust. Alastor was tense like a bowstring in anticipation, wanting the burst of warmth that would pool deep inside his belly as Lucifer poured his misguided love into him.

And then he snapped his head at an unnatural angle with a sickening crack, to glower at Lucifer when he felt the angelic seed splatter against his thighs instead.

“What.” He said, voice low, dangerous, like a rifle being co*cked, “Why didn’t you cum inside?”

Oblivious to Alastor’s displeasure for the moment, Lucifer slumped against Alastor carelessly with a low sound of deep satisfaction the sinner was bound to be annoyed by.

“You didn’t ask me to,” Lucifer said simply and with a tone that implied how obvious the fact was. “Don’t you remember? We both have to want it, and you show me that — you put that into motion — by asking me to.”

Lucifer took a moment to himself, rolling onto his back with his eyes closed. His tail thumped weakly against the floor. “Spells are spells, you know. They have rituals,” Lucifer patronized him, but not unbearably.

Alastor stared at Lucifer, face murderous, smile tight lipped and looking for all intents and purposes like some sort of terrible statue of a monster that you weren’t entirely sure came to life or not.

And then he forced himself to relax, taking a breath to calm himself and waved off Lucifer’s patronizing comments, blood simmering and cackling beneath the wrongness of his skin. Due time, due time.

“Oh, how silly of me to forget to beg you for that, certainly will not forget the next time,” he said, frowning as he examined his poor suit, sullied with the remains of their activities, “My, I’ll have to pay a visit to the dry cleaners it seems.”

Lucifer rolled his eyes, sneering at Alastor. “For a virgin, you certainly seem to have a very narrow idea of how consent is valued.”

Alastor rose, gracefully, gathering his slacks and stripping out of the rest of his clothing, folding them primly. Lucifer followed suit, dusting himself off and refastening the front of his pants, muttering to himself the words bitch and heaven forbid I take this slow.

“I simply figured, considering I have been all but begging you for a child the entire time we’ve been having this, hm, conversation, that I would not have to tell you how badly I wanted you to paint my insides and leave me dripping,” Alastor said, sighing, “But I suppose I do thank you for valuing my consent over wanton desire.”

He was clearly amused, posture loose and easy as he languidly pulled his sleep wear out of its designated storage space to change into it. Lucifer’s indignation and annoyance was music to his ears, and he would have to continue dealing with Alastor and his cotton candy moods forever, if he had anything to say about it.

Chapter 7: Arrangements Made

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Altogether Foolish

Chapter Text

“Why the f*ck—” Lucifer laughed, his eyes inverting, his golden irises flickering like flames. “— would you agree to that?”

“Hm. Must I answer?” Alastor asked, turning to look at Lucifer again, sighing at the vision his king made before shrugging. “You do foolish things when you’re desperate and dying.”

Dying.

“You aren’t lying,” Lucifer acknowledged, his throat — bereft of Adam’s apple — bobbing as he swallowed down the fist that threatened to choke him.

Lucifer sat himself down on the wide lip of the fountain, his legs dangling, too short to reach the ground. His mouth was slack with shock, his irises vibrating from the speed of his racing thoughts.

Oh, if only Lucifer knew.

Lucifer had done what now? Oh, this was far too good. No wonder he’d been so willing to debase himself with someone like Alastor; he had initiated the separation.

“No, sire, she did not deem that information necessary,” he said, and in fairness, it hadn’t been necessary at the time. It hadn’t mattered to Alastor in the moment.

“Ha! One of the few things I’ve heard from you in the past week that hasn’t surprised me! High five!”

Lucifer held up his hand expectantly. What kind of existence led him to develop such stamina? He rebounded from shock like a champ.

Alastor frowned, hesitantly high fiving Lucifer like he’d seen Angel and Husker do on occasion.

“Do you still want this?” Lucifer asked abruptly, the look in his eyes beyond description. Like the sun collapsing.

He gestured to himself as if presenting a lackluster cut of meat. “Now that you have a clearer image of how much of a loser I am?”

“Ah, there’s the self-deprecation! I was wondering where it had gone!” Alastor said, rolling his eyes and reaching over to flick Lucifer in the forehead. “I know it’s rather difficult for you, but do not sell yourself short. I have had ample time to make my decisions and I want this.”

He sighed, swatting the air as though the question was an annoying flea that wouldn’t leave him alone, crossing a leg over the other. “The only person who seems to be getting cold feet is you, your majesty.”

“That was rather on the nose,” Lucifer sulked, embarrassed, watching as the fountain began to come back to life. The ice broke up, refilling the basin. The mirrored bottom reflected the two of them, side by side, a perfect picture of hellish drama.

He snatched Alastor’s hand on the withdraw, bringing his fingertips up against his lips with his eyes closed. He exhaled, the pricks of the sinner’s claws against his lips anchoring him to Earth.

“.. I like when you do that,” he muttered, looking up at Alastor from under his fine lashes. “That thing you did just now.”

Alastor raised an eyebrow, watching Lucifer calm the longer they talked. What exactly had happened between him and Lilith to leave him so .. broken like this? Battered, bruised, willing to accept whatever cruelty came his way.

Or did that occur when he Fell? Alastor couldn’t wait to learn more and more about his king — he wanted to learn every one of Lucifer’s squirming, pathetic secrets.

Alastor pressed his ruby tipped fingers further into Lucifer’s mouth, humming as though thoughtful about the idea.

It was sweet, almost. Not many people thought Alastor was cute, many less lived after saying so, but he didn’t mind it terribly from Lucifer.

Hm, watching Lucifer with his mouth full was .. a rather pleasant sight, Alastor found. The skillful way he pressed and rubbed his split tongue against the pads of Alastor’s fingers was very nice.

After a moment, Alastor pressed his fingers down to the knuckle into Lucifer’s throat, before just as quickly removing them and sucking one into his own mouth.

Lucifer gasped, experiencing white out in the second he was nearly choked by Alastor’s bold fingers. He clapped a hand to his throat, looking at Alastor with wild eyes, watching him being excessively lewd.

“.. we need to finish this before you make me implode.”

“At your command sire!” Alastor chirped, standing once more and returning to the table, seeming for all the world like he was entirely unaffected by delightful choking noise he’d forced out of Lucifer.

Alastor froze, radio static and microphone feedback cracking through the air as he stared at Lucifer in disbelief, smile as small as it could possibly get.

What a condition. Had Lucifer truly fallen so far? Alastor felt sympathy for the poor man. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to match the depth of his kings feelings.

But, he supposed he would know if he ever did.

He reached out, gently wiping the tears away from the corners of Lucifer’s eyes, inclining his head. “Are you sure you want to put that down as a condition?” he asked, purely out of courtesy.

“It’s the only thing worth listing,” Lucifer said, falling apart at the seams, death sweet on his lips, eager for his vanishing. “Kill me.. torture me.. do whatever you want.. take it all. just.. Tell me that you love me.. just once..”

Alastor felt shocked, more than that his heart gave an uncomfortable sort of twinge, thrashing against his ribcage at the sight of Lucifer collapsing.

What else was he to do with a beloved doll, now broken? Alastor gathered the remains of Lucifer in his arms, cradling him close as he pieced him together again with gold and blood and sulfur.

“ .. I do not wish to lie to you,” he said, wishing for all the world he could frown, that the deal he made didn’t hold his face up like a puppet, “I care about you Lucifer, however, at least for the moment, I do not love you. If I do, I promise you, I will shower you with it until you beg me to stop.”

"I'm so f*cking dramatic," Lucifer mocked, passing a black gloved hand over his eyes, impatient with himself over such an undignified display. "None of tonight was what I had anticipated." Or wished for was the unspoken implication.

To be drawn into Alastor's embrace, though, was a balm for the soul. The touch he craved, starved for. He plopped his head upon Alastor's velvet lapels, passing his hand down the sinner's chest, coming to rest over his heart.

Tongue loosened, he babbled on. "I feel insane. Is any of this really happening? Will you punch me, so I can see?"

Alastor scoffed. Lucifer continued to fall apart and crumble in his embrace, no matter how deftly he tried to piece him back together. It was like the pieces of him had been crushed into fine powder.

Well, when something breaks beyond repair, melt it down and make something new.

“I will do no such thing,” Alastor said, reaching down to pull Lucifer up to face his smiling person, “I cannot fathom the depths of what you had to go through in order for you to be shattered so thoroughly, however, pull yourself together. You are Lucifer Morningstar, first rebel; whether you wished or no, this was the fruits of your labor: allowing me to be all that I was meant to be, no matter how horrifying and unnerving the aberration. You cannot change the past, you can only shape the future, so make it something to be proud of. Make something you can leave to Charlie, to the son you’ve asked me to bear you.”

The ducks were long gone, but the water was running undeterred by ice, and their breath no longer steamed in the air.

Lucifer hadn't asked for any of this, but this was what he had, as much as he wished he could close his eyes and make it all disappear. Pretend he was still playing with fish in a pond in Eden, never having met a single human before.

This was the fruits of your labor.

Arrested by these admonitions, Lucifer went quiet. What a queer image, the two of them sitting in the center of a labyrinth of his own design. The perfect staging for his unraveling and reweaving in Alastor's claws.

".. your conviction and ambition might be a good influence on me, yet, Radio Demon," decided Lucifer, his eyes drifting to their abandoned pens.

“I certainly hope so,” Alastor said airily, giving Lucifer a smile that could only be described as fond. “Who else would be so willing to put your beautiful ceramic back together?”

He paused, before fixing Lucifer with a look, “That is a joke, by the by. Quite a few people here are fond of you and wish to see you succeed, including yours truly.” For reasons that were beginning to be lost to Alastor, as infuriating as it all was.

He turned back to the paper, picking the pen up and motioning once more to Lucifer.

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me sire, I am incredibly keen on it,” Alastor said, rolling his eyes at the gesture and waving his hand dismissively, “However the idea of receiving it simply because you think it will gain you my affection leaves a sour taste in my mouth.”

He smiled wickedly at Lucifer. “I want you to give it to me because you long to give it to me.”

Lucifer's mouth formed a perfect 'O' as Alastor's words sank into his brain. A flush of pleasure rose up his body from hoof to horn to hear such a thing -- that Alastor -- Alastor -- would rather be handed the crown from the King himself rather than acquire it in a deal.

"Okay.." he breathed, blinking rapidly as he regathered his senses in the wake of yet another shocking revelation. "I'm going to have a stroke if you say anything else as wild as that .. let's finish this."

Lucifer retook his pen and wrote:

I, Lucifer Morningstar, pledge to Alastor, the Radio Demon, the following:

That he pass freely from Ring to Ring, but only with myself or a representative of my choosing in his entourage; That he join my Court with the authority of Consort; That he be free as Consort to choose the time and place of the fulfillment of his intimate duties; That he be free to participate in the common goal of bolstering the Princess' efforts at the Hazbin Hotel.

These privileges are dependent on the following: That he Pledge himself to me, and only me, for Eternity; That he bear me a son; That he never be traitorous; That he never inflict harm upon me or our son or any other member of the Morningstar family; That he dutifully return to my bedside at least one day per seven days.

This agreement shall be in full effect upon the destruction of the current deal between Alastor and the Queen.

Alastor read over the contract in excruciating detail, nodding in satisfaction. Though he would not get the crown so easily, that made it all the better. A crown that could be taken away by his fickle feelings was worthless.

The crown he would get by Lucifer begging on his knees for Alastor to take on the other hand, that would be eternal.

He raised a finger to his mouth, pricking it on his canines and letting the blood drip to his talon like a terrible quill before he scrawled his name on the bottom of the paper.

“Now then!” he said cheerfully, turning to look at Lucifer, “Will you f*ck a fawn into me, sire?”

Lucifer gave Alastor the hairy eyeball at such an unromantic suggestion as he followed suit, pricking his finger to sign the document in his golden blood.

Then it burst into flame, leaving nary a mote of ash behind. The smoke, however, floated up into the air, spreading throughout all of creation for the forces of good end evil to enforce.

"Are you .. in heat?"

Alastor laughed, the ruffled look that Lucifer gave him entirely hysterical.

Lucifer straightened at the mentioning of dancing, light refinding his eyes after all that distress, all those stifled tears, all that noisy nonsense not at all suited to an elegant night of gifts, riddles and clandestine dealmaking.

"f*ck sex. I would love to waltz with you."

Alastor grinned and the soft music of an unnamed waltz poured through the radio waves he commanded. He stood, elegant, as he bowed and held a hand out to Lucifer.

“Then may I have this dance, your majesty?”

The writing desk vanished into the ether as Lucifer stepped toward his impromptu dance partner, absolutely giddy.

Accustomed to being the smaller partner, he took up a position that clearly signaled that he expected Alastor to lead.

The King was beyond thrilled, wiggling on the spot, unable to contain himself. Overeager to leave the sorrow of minutes ago behind him — on to the next wave of emotion that would sweep him away. "I haven't danced in centuries. Thank you for asking me."

“Thank you for accepting. Though I certainly hope you can keep up,” Alastor replied, settling his hand at the small of Lucifer’s back as he swept the devil into a fine waltz.

Forward, side, back, side, repeat, Alastor was a flurry of expert movement, taking lead with practiced ease. He spun Lucifer outwards with the trill of the rising violins, pulling him back and continuing onwards in an enthusiastic circle around the hedge clearing.

The night was a roller coaster, and so was this. Alastor was a magnificent lead. Lucifer followed his guidance like water over silk, twisting and somehow able to tell when he needed to raise his leg to be caught by the knee, and the right moment to entrust Alastor with his full body weight.

Alastor smiled smugly, delighted by the easy way Lucifer followed his directions without need for slowing down or hesitation or even spoken words. As though the two were each others ideal dance partners, Lucifer completed each move Alastor put him through with grace and dignity.

"Oh, you can dance," Lucifer declared in delight, impressed.

“Of course I can!” Alastor said, proudly, “It would be wholly disappointing if I could not cut a rug considering the type of music I listen to.”

He eyed the lip of the large fountain mischievously, dancing towards it and when he was close enough, spinning Lucifer outwards so he could step onto the fountain before pulling his partner up along with him.

“Oh!” Lucifer’s heels clicked earthily upon the stone, and he gripped Alastor tightly as he reached a new elevation.“Oh god, if you pitch me in that water!” Lucifer warned him, grin glinting with starlight. He stilled, spark of an idea igniting.

“Don’t tempt me! Ha!” Alastor said with a laugh, steadying Lucifer once he was standing on the firm stone of the fountain.

“Alastor.. .. can you tap dance?”

He gave the king a look that was equal parts offended and amused, “Of course I can tap dance, what sort of question is that? I pride myself on being able to dance to just about anything!” he said cheerfully.

"Tap dance with me right now," Lucifer demanded, grabbing Alastor by the lapel to drag him down and growl the words against his thin lips.

“Goodness!! A simple please would have sufficed your majesty!” Alastor teased.The heels he was wearing weren’t the best for tap dancing, nor was the skirt, but the skirt at least was easy enough to fix.

“Forgive my blasphemy,” he said, bunching the skirt up so the split spreads across his legs and tied it at the opposite side as the music changed. Lucifer was distracted only for a moment when Alastor did what he needed to do to increase his mobility. If that slit went any higher ..

He was pulled out of his reverie as the music broke the quiet.Begin the Beguine piped up from the radio and Alastor immediately tapped to the music, looking at Lucifer expectantly

Lucifer volleyed, a regular Ginger Rogers to Alastor's Fred Astaire. He went so far as to gain speed with a double time step, sliding over the stone as if it were ice.

Alastor was having the most fun he’d had since he’d fallen to Hell and reformed into some amorphous shadow of himself and had to figure out how to make himself look something approaching normal.

Lucifer watched with a growing smile the skilled swing, shuffle and slide of a sinner brave enough to make a deal with the devil.

Lucifer was enthralling. With the way he kept up with every shimmy, complicated two step and whirl Alastor did, their dance taking them precariously across the stones of the fountain — he wanted to hold onto this man and never let go. How peculiar.

The King’s laughter bubbled up out of him, his normally tidy hair starting to fall in golden wisps around his face. It made him look so much younger.

Lucifer leapt to the top of the fountain where Alastor had found him, light as a feather, spinning on one foot merrily.

He bent at the waist, resting his hands on his knees as he beamed down at Alastor, catching his breath.

Alastor felt winded in the best way, coming to a stop to stare up at the devil he’d become so entwined with in a short amount of time.

He placed his hands on his hips, observing the way Lucifer looked and—

“You really shouldn’t use all of that product, your hair looks just fine down,” he said primly, lifting a hand to fan himself, “And thank you for being such an excellent dance partner. I’d worried you wouldn’t be able to keep up, what with your time away and your height.”

“What’s how tall I am got to do with dancing!” exclaimed Lucifer, lifting one leg into a second arabesque with a low groan, his spine cracking satisfyingly.

“You’re really something, yourself,” Lucifer said fondly, daring to allow his smile to turn sultry. “You might have trouble catching a fawn. I might just want to spend all our together time doing that.”

“Oh~ don’t threaten me with a good time!” Alastor purred, hitching his talons on the slit on his hip and pulling it just that much higher before he let it fall and hopped off the fountain, “I love me a good dance! And I enjoy your company.”

He sat on the lip of the fountain and tilted his head back, neck cracking at an unnatural angle, regarding the now upside down Lucifer. “Although, next time we both happen to be in the mood, I think I’d fancy a little chase! It’s been a long while since I had that sort of adrenaline rush, and by long I mean never! Ha!” he said, sighing and straightening up. “You’d be the first to hunt me for sport.”

Lucifer alighted on the ground with a graceful swoop of his six wings, sending breeze Alastor’s way, sending that skirt up so he could catch a proper look this time.

Alastor glanced over at Lucifer and laughed, “Are you truly that curious?” he taunted, setting his legs down and spreading them just a bit. “Fine, go ahead and look.”

Alastor didn't have to tell him twice. A soft gasp escaped Lucifer as slipped right on over, getting on his knees on the ground before his.. his consort.

What a world, what a world.

Chapter 9: Agony

Chapter Text

Lucifer's small, gloved hands alighted on Alastor's bare thighs. He glanced up at his charge, catching his eyes as he shifted his touch north, easing the fine fabrics out of the way to see.

Alastor found he rather liked Lucifer on his knees, running his hands up his thighs so reverently. He would have called it a moment of madness, his choice of lacy, red panties that night, but they were very worth it, as his heart beat like a deranged drum against his chest as Lucifer finally got a look at them.

"White.." Lucifer said, tugging those scintillating panties down so he could press the narrow flat of his serpent's tongue against Alastor's delicious little berry. The scent of his arousal was sweet, sugary, fruity. He wanted to bite in, drink his juice, let it slide down his chin and quench his thirst.

Alastor let out a soft moan as Lucifer pressed his tongue against his cl*t, reaching down to gently tangle his hands in the devils hair, shifting and widening his legs a bit so Lucifer didn’t feel so crowded.

Alastor hissed, pulling Lucifer’s head out of his c*nt to lean down and press a desperate kiss to his kings mouth, sighing at the taste of himself on his tongue.

“Promise me you will,” he snarled.

"You have my word, ayalah," Lucifer breathed past Alastor's sharp teeth, his tongue giving chase to those words, finding Alastor's to twine and dance and swirl.

"Seems you like it, if this is any indication .." Lucifer purred, his fingers sinking in to that fresh wetness, letting it coat his skin and ease the passage of those digits into Alastor.

Lucifer stroked his free hand along Alastor's knee, trailing up his thigh. "Does that excite you? Imaging me punishing the cretins that dare to even look your way?"

“Nnnh~” Alastor gasped, hips twitching as Lucifer pushed his fingers into him properly. He’d never expected himself to enjoy this act as much as he did, but perhaps it was the person making him feel so good.

So Lucifer could be ruthless, it seemed, so long as it was relating to someone he wanted. Alastor wondered if Lilith had gotten this treatment. The idea made him angry.

A series of punched out noises were coaxed out of Alastor’s throat as Lucifer stroked against his cl*t, shuddering delicately and—

Alastor squeaked, the thought of having an audience as Lucifer claimed him as his mate soaking him. He turned wild eyes and a wide smile on Lucifer, chest heaving.

Alastor hadn’t felt this aroused since his heat. The desire coursed through him as Lucifer passionately described his possessiveness. He wanted this version of Lucifer forever, he wanted to see how Hell would suffer under Alastor’s playful provocation of his wondrous king.

Lucifer turned his face to kiss the inside of Alastor's thin wrist. He nipped, using his needle-sharp teeth to break the skin. He watched as dark crimson blood welled up and he swiped his tongue across the little cut with a groan of pleasure as he tasted the Earth, the ocean, flames.

"Like a house of cards," he breathed in answer, pressing forward, one of his hands braced against Alastor's supple tummy as his wet c*nt happily welcomed him.

Alastor threw his head back with a drawn out moan as Lucifer f*cked inside. Less intense and relieving than when he was in heat, but no less fulfilling, Lucifer’s co*ck pressed so full inside him felt like being completed.

“C-careful, your majesty, I might take you up on your offer,” he panted, forearm against his forehead.

Alastor looked so beautiful this way -- giving in, but not due to any preternatural mating compulsion. He was choosing to -- he wanted to.

"Enough words, spice," said the King hotly on a ragged breath, his wings unfurling as they were wont to do when Lucifer was making love.

All six extended, the full span of scarlet feathers blocking out the sky. They shuddered and stretched in rhythm with the determined motion of his hips as he churned within his consort. His long claws cupped Alastor's ass in both hands, lifting him, getting the best angle.

Alastor’s smile turned coy, and he slowly reached up to cover his mouth with one hand, looking at the beautiful stretch of Lucifer’s wings.

His moan of delight was muffled by the hand over his mouth, shuddering as Lucifer manhandled him to the right angle, jerking as Lucifer’s co*ck pressed against his cervix.

Alastor's hand was seized from where it silenced those sounds, pressed onto the stone above his head. Lucifer's hot breath gusted over his face, smelling of brimstone.

"Don't you dare," Lucifer scolded him, giving his ass a hearty crack with his free hand to punish him. "If you didn't want to be noisy, you shouldn't have let me f*ck you."

All he’d continue to do to climb ever farther.

He choked gently as Lucifer wrapped his hand around his throat, squeaking and moaning as his king f*cked into him ruthlessly, like he’d wanted to imprint himself on Alastor’s body.

“Well, your highness, let’s see if you can make me cry your name,” he taunted, squirming like a pinned butterfly. “Ah, and before I forget .. finish inside this time.”

Lucifer snarled like a beast, his grip around Alastor's throat tightening, bearing pressure down, down, to where his windpipe met his clavicle.

He picked up the pace, wings flapping excitedly as the lewd, wet sounds of their copulation mingled with the serenity of the fountain. The wind from his wings blew Alastor's red hair out of his face as he was held down and f*cked by the King of Hell like it was what he was made for.

Alastor gurgled, hands coming up to rest against Lucifer’s wrists, not pulling or frantic in anyway, simply enjoying the touch. His eyes rolled in the back of his head at the lack of oxygen, forgetting he didn’t need to breathe to begin with, that his body could contort to horrible angles at his kings command and it wouldn’t take from his pleasure.

He wrapped his legs around Lucifer’s waist, the cherry red painted over the bottoms of his heels flashing in the light, digging into the meat of the devils lower back.

He felt divine, as though his purpose was to be here in this moment, body destined to be used and abused in this exact way -- just for Lucifer.

Lucifer took to hitching Alastor's knee up high on his waist, his kneecap brushing against his ribs in a delicious caress as he worked his consort hard, his greedy co*ck leaking pre, slickening his velvety folds even more than Alastor's arousal already provided.

Lucifer rumbled dangerously, his eyes glinting like daggers as Alastor refused to submit. His dick twitched, so turned on, so single-mindedly persuing his goal that nothing else mattered.

Lucifer flipped Alastor over without withdrawing, his wings folding around the two of them, spreading his feathers over the stone so his knees wouldn’t get too banged up — ever the gentleman. He could endure the discomfort of someone kneeling on his wings in favor of continuing to rut into Alastor’s juicy puss*.

The king was relentless. He gripped Alastor by the hair, shoving him down to press his cheek against the stone. Ass up, Lucifer pummeled him.

Alastor was scrambling against the rough stone and feathers, bleating helplessly as Lucifer pressed his face against the fountain rim, yanking his hips up as though he owned him.

Alastor had never felt so warm than this moment, Lucifer slamming into his c*nt with such single minded focus. It was fogging his brain up. Oh, he wanted to give in, wanted to call out Lucifer’s name so sweetly, provoke him into seeding him well.

But defiance tasted so good, full into his throat, so hard he could almost feel it in his stomach. Alastor gnashed his teeth together to prevent himself from crying out too soon.

Lucifer's hooves scraped across the stone, leaving marks and chipping away at it as he got better purchase on his makeshift bed.

His wings rose up again, tearing vanes beneath Alastor's knees, dozens of feathers snapping at the hollow shaft. Feathers spread through the air like snow as Lucifer lifted his wings again with a great whoosh, catching some of the fountain spray. It arched through the air, sparkling, like a shooting star.

Both of Lucifer's hands gripped Alastor's antlers at the base. He was choking as Lucifer heaved him up like a hunter showing off a fresh kill, getting him into an angle that he would feel in his back for days and f*cking into Alastor as though Lucifer had learned exactly how he liked it in the short amount of time they’d been doing this.

“L-Lucifer!” he cried, talons carving grooves into the stone below him, “Luci— Lulu— ah, ah, ah!”

"Good boy," praised the King, rewarding his charge by winding his arm around his hip so he could reach his cl*t.

He was so gentle there. The juxtaposition between the way he brutalized Alastor's c*nt and the way he rubbed the pad of one finger over that little button absolutely wild.

"Cum around me. Suck me in."

Alastor was drowning in it, he thought, pressed— trapped— against Lucifer as the devil claimed him over and over.

He keened, high and loud and desperate as Lucifer lovingly stroked against his cl*t. His body spasmed, trying to hunch over at the bruising pleasure, but unable due to the still tight grip against one of his antlers.

Alastor had never been good at following directions, but there was only so much he could do to disobey when he was taken care of so lovingly and he came with shout, bearing down on the co*ck spearing him open.

A thought blinked into his head -- could he do this, should he do this, while Alastor was still under his deal? His deal with Lilith, of all the miserable creatures in this godforsaken hellhole. Would it jeopardize the child? Could she somehow lay claim to what he seeded?

The thought frightened Lucifer. He could not permit this. And so, as torturous as it was a decision to make and as much as he knew Alastor would be angered by the action, Lucifer withdrew, groaning his loss as he spent himself over his consort's round ass.

Again, again Lucifer stole the satisfaction of a good seeding from under Alastor, his bliss cutting short like an excellent song changed at the climax, like a frayed wire shorting right before electrocution.

Alastor snarled like a wounded animal, arms shaking as he braced himself to turn his head in such a way that would have killed a lesser man, eyes like dials, black bile dripping from his gnashing mouth. His form flickered, antlers stretching from the force of his indignation.

“How dare you,” he growled, low in his throat as he turned his body to match his neck, looming over Lucifer. “What is your excuse this time? I asked.”

“Is that truly it, your majesty?” Alastor snapped, tone hurt and mocking, retreating back from Lucifer. “Or are you simply regretting making this deal? Have you realized all you promised and are renegging on fulfilling the condition that would complete the contract?”

His smile was a mockery of joy, threatening to split his face in two and yet it resembled more of an animal ready to bite an attacker. “You are the one who can break the deal after all.”

Now it was Lucifer's turn to look hurt. His eternal form lingered, fueled by the adrenaline rushing through him, the gut-wrenching knowledge that he'd cast Alastor into a whirlwind of doubt.

"You have my word as your King. I promise. That was all. I want to protect you."

It was a paltry apology against the indignation and humiliation Alastor felt, but seeing it paired with Lucifer’s desperation, made it at least a suitable balm.

Alastor made an impatient gesture, form sparking and staticky as it strained against the confines of his manacled skin.

He was so close, he could taste it; freedom, the full breadth of his wicked power, locked away by Lilith’s clever deal.

Lucifer righted himself, still unable or unwilling to dispel his horns. He was so agitated it triggered the flame of his anguish above his head, flickering between his horns like a benediction.

He offered his hands to Alastor to help him rise, but not before getting on one knee in a gesture of contriteness. "Let's go. You'll never fret about this again."

Alastor stood on shaky legs as Lucifer helped him up, growing in height until he wasn’t so much towering over Lucifer as he was completely dwarfing him.

Like a mouse before a tiger. A king before a dragon. The monster tamer against the being writhing and forgotten by time.

He could feel his skin writhing, was sure it couldn’t look especially pleasant to behold.

“T̒̓̾h̓̉͛e͂̏͂ǹ̓̿ d̊̈̍ơ͌̀ i̍̎t͒̌͞ a̐̌̕ĺ́͊ȓ̛̓ě̛͘á̓͋d̈́̊y,” he snarled, voice barely recognizable over the scream of radio static.

"Will you calm down! I'm at your feet! Do I look like I'm trying to deceive you!?" Lucifer shot right back, smoke and flame billowing from his mouth as he faced down Alastor without fear.

A lover's spat.

“Ha!” Alastor laughed, distortion leaving his voice as he lowered his head to better look at Lucifer, finding his annoyance adorable. “Who is the one stalling? What would you call that, if not deception?” His voice was calmer, teasing almost.

Alastor rolled his eyes, form shrinking as he corralled the mass of writhing shadow and otherness back into something smaller, feeling contained and content.

Chapter 10: Ascension

Chapter Text

Alastor made a noise of surprise as he was unceremoniously flung over Lucifer’s shoulder like a bandit over a horse. His smile soured as he was bapped with Lucifer’s wing, but he supposed he did sort of earn the treatment.

Maybe.

Lucifer made quick work of getting them back to the gaudy, red apple tower. Alastor hadn’t been in here since his Lucifer had accepted his proposition, and who knew such a simple meeting born of desperation would bear such fruit.

Pun intended, ha!

As he was set down, Alastor brushed himself off. He found he very much did not like the wind against his bare c*nt and besides, he felt filthy.

“Am I able to bathe before you break my deal? I feel absolutely repulsive, and I look a mess,” he said, grimacing at the state of the fine outfit Lucifer had given him.

Lucifer swept his arms toward his ensuite, a huge, red-tile wet shower room with a bathtub big enough to do a lap in.

“Your bubble bath awaits, your excellency,” he crooned, gazing at Alastor with irritation that hadn’t quite cooled.

Alastor tipped his head back and laughed, looking at the fuming Lucifer. This felt more familiar, having provoked Lucifer into annoyance. It felt like it had been a while since he last achieved that. What joy.

“Goodness your majesty! Did I irritate you?” he taunted, bending at the waist to look at Lucifer in the eyes.

Lucifer gritted his teeth, steaming. “I’m going to blow your back out tonight. Go get clean.”

“How crude! You ought to work on your manners, sire!” Alastor chirped, straightening up and making his way to the bathroom, laugh track chasing his heels.

Lucifer growled, grabbing Alastor by the waist to jerk him back, giving his ass a crack with his bare, open palm.

“Behave.”

Alastor’s ears pinned back, spinning his head back to glare at Lucifer.

“Yes, your majesty,” he mocked, fizzing out into shadow and vanishing into the bathroom.

A while later, and if it were perhaps a lot longer than what he normally would take for his baths that was between him and the shadows in the bathroom. Alastor resurfaced into Lucifer’s bedroom. He’d sent his shadow to get him a set of clothing, and was happily comfortable, back in his slacks and button down.

Lucifer was buck naked, and he looked thoroughly put out that Alastor was not the same.

“The hell? Strip.”

Alastor blinked, smile twitching. “I— why? Is that necessary?” je asked, not self conscious, more genuinely curious.

“Can you just do as I say?” Lucifer hissed, resting one hand on his hip, temper flaring. “For once. Believe it or not, this is going to be really rough on me and I’m stressed about it.”

Alastor raised both hands in mock surrender, sighing as he undid the buttons on his shirt and folded it neatly, doing the same with his slacks and briefs before setting them down on Lucifer’s dresser.

“Forgive me for simply asking questions,” he grumbled, “but thank you, for doing this for me.”

“I’m just — tense. Can you turn on the honey? I need your sweetness right now,” Lucifer admitted tiredly, a ragged exhale leaving him. “This is not going to be easy.”

Alastor’s smile curdled, but only for a moment before it softened and he sighed, shaking his head fondly as he approached Lucifer.

“I can do my best to be sweet to you, sire, what does this entail? Am I able to help in anyway?” he cooed, pulling the shorter man into his chest, leaning over his head to stare into gold and red.

Lucifer broke his gaze, anticipating his protest or at least a look of distaste should he reveal the truth.

“I don’t think you want to know. Let’s just do this.”

That didn’t bode well. But what was Alastor to do? Say no? Reject the one chance he had to get out of this infernal deal before Lilith showed her accursed face again?

“All right then, what is the first step?” he asked, letting go of Lucifer to step back.

“The first step is going to be the hardest for you, Alastor. You have to completely relax and open your heart and mind to me,” Lucifer informed him with a definite sense of anxiety.

That was an incredibly tall order that Alastor didn’t like that at all. The level of vulnerability he would have to show ..

Still, he had to try. He sighed, motioning for Lucifer to get on with it as his ears pinned back and his brow furrowed. Let him in, let him in, it’s just the devil. It would be fine.

“.. I have brandy?” Lucifer offered, running a bare hand through his undone hair, his shoulders tense and hard as marble. He was scared.

“Two fingers, please,” Alastor said, looking over Lucifer’s taut muscles and skittish demeanor. It seemed he was far more nervous about this entire thing.

“I’ll give you three.”

He sat on the bed, looking expectantly at Alastor, patting the space beside him.

“Come here. Use the steps it takes to come to me to shed the world, and meet me here with a clear mind.”

In. Alastor's ears were pinned back and his tail was tucked downwards like a hunted animal. He took a breath. He took a step forward. Lucifer had been kind to him so far, it wasn’t like he would be using whatever it was he learned, if he learned anything at all.

Out. Another step and he pushed it away, all away, did his best, focused on the squirming of his heart, the crackling static of his bone, the whispering ooze of his blood, the purr of his shadow.

He didn’t notice when he arrived at the bed, only that there were suddenly plush and silken sheets beneath him. Lucifer drew Alastor into his bed, swathed him in luxury, held him with tenderness, handled him like a treasure.

This was going to be so hard for him.

“I believe in you,” the King whispered, drawing light fingertips up his consort’s spine, his touch drifting along Alastor’s arms, ribs, hips, seeking to relax him. “I’ve got you, ayalah. Give me your trust.”

Lucifer’s touch wasn’t unpleasant per se, but it was a lot in this moment where Alastor was possibly the most vulnerable he’d been in Hell.

“Find your heart inside you ..” murmured Lucifer, his skin beginning to glow ever so subtly as he began to raise the floodgates. “Close your eyes .. Let your heart speak .. can you hear that voice?”

Find his heart. That was ironically easy.

Alastor was intimately aware of his heart, the way it squirmed and laughed in his chest, cooing. Oh, he knew this voice, this sweet, sweet call, the vile void that purred to him from childhood.

It was like coming home.

“I do,” he breathed, smile softening.

“Calm it,” Lucifer said knowingly, his body illuminated from within, his eyes gleaming crimson through his narrowed slits, the warmth beaming out from under blonde lashes. “Bare your heart. Show it to me.”

Alastor gently placed his hand on his chest, taking a breath. He crooned to his monstrous, bleating heart. He soothed it, calmed it until it was simply purring around his chest.

He held his hands out, as though handing Lucifer his beating, teeth riddled heart for him to do with as he wished.

Lucifer’s hands slid into Alastor’s, the light of his essence spreading to the sinner’s scarlet talons like water seeping into land.

A good sign.

“Tell me what your heart says to you now, in this moment when you are safe. When you are shielded.”

Alastor shuddered, at the feeling of Lucifer’s hand against his own against his quietly humming pulse.

What did the chatty thing say? Alastor hesitated, but if he didn’t then this entire thing would be moot.

“I .. want to devour you,” he said.

Lucifer didn’t flinch. The truth was what was necessary, as dark and brutal as it was. He’d heard worse. The memory struck him before he could block it.

I want you gone.

“Keep talking, ayalah, let the stream of consciousness flow..” Lucifer guided him, glad Alastor could not see his eyes.

Alastor sighed, almost dreamy, the whispering of his over eager heart taking him into the warm, squishy, vulnerable parts of himself.

“I want to crack you open and make a home in your ribcage. I want to make you look only at me. I want— I want to be free.”

Lucifer, despite it all, drew in smooth breath as Alastor’s truth shook him. He’d known it, but to hear it was another matter entirely. The sinner’s ambition ran deep.. and Lucifer, against his better judgement, cast hope into the universe that it wasn’t his only motivation.

“There we are .. that’s what I’m looking for .. just a little more, ayalah, keep going .. tell me everything.”

Lucifer’s lips ventured to Alastor’s pulse, that bizarre thud of blood in his veins by habit and will alone. His palm pressed flat and full against the sinner’s chest, above his heart, light radiating deep within until the silhouette of his wild heart revealed itself like a solar eclipse.

Alastor’s heart was as pieced together as he was; a lump of meat encased within teeth and shadows and writhing ink. He shuddered at the feeling of Lucifer’s lips against his pulse, the calm jazz beat of his exposed heart spiking just a little.

What else could he tell him? What else was left?

“I .. you have become hopelessly entwined in my life, and I .. do not understand my feelings surrounding that, but I do not want to lose you,” Alastor confessed, quietly, feeling so much like a nun praying in confessional.

Lucifer’s palm grew warmer and warmer as Alastor continued speaking, their breathing falling in tandem, their hearts coming to beat together as one rhythm — the same as the drum of time.

Golden light spread through the sinner’s chest, filling him, his bones and tendons and flexing circulation mere shadows against that angelic luminescence.

His brow furrowed, Lucifer’s proximity a temptation that called to him, he wanted to open his eyes and climb back into his king’s lap. But there was work to be done.

“I need you to say these words, and do not stop saying them no matter what happens until I tell you to stop.”

“S-Samael hatzilu.” He breathed, as directed. “Samael hatzilu, Samael hatzilu.”

Over and over he spoke words that made his bones want to shatter and dissolve against the burn.

The light that had seeped into Alastor’s body pulsed in time with his prayer, deepening the color, bringing closer to the burning flames of the sun. Alastor’s body was impossibly hot, Lucifer’s angelic skin thrumming as he touched him. Lucifer’s body and touch super heated him near to the point of pain. He’d never been bothered by the heat in Hell, but this, this was what had been told to them in Sunday school to scare them.

Lucifer took a deep breath, and on the next Samael Lucifer used the excruciating sadness that name evoked to power the thrust of his hand past Alastor’s chest wall, his heart, his lungs — all without a trace; as if he were a ghost or a dream.

Lucifer’s hand burst out of Alastor’s back with a thunderclap, the angel going rigid as he used all the strength in his body to hang on to the ethereal, glowing chain now gripped in his fist.

“Don’t stop!” he cried in agony.

Then Alastor was gasping in pain, nearly stuttering as there was pressure and then breaching, his heart was screaming in his chest now, the chains that tied him down vile and barbed around the softest piece of him.

That wasn’t going to happen.

He was the Morningstar. Lucifer couldn’t be in this much pain, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t normal, and for it to be caused by his wife .. It incensed Alastor to no end. He would be better in every way. He would make sure of it.

“Samael hatzilu,” he said, voice shaky with the effort of forcing himself to continue to hurt Lucifer, the effort of the barbed chain slowly unhooking from his very marrow. “Samael hatzilu, Samael hatzilu.”

Lucifer reached through Alastor with his other arm, plunging past muscle and sinew to grip the chain with both hands and yank, desperate to make progress as he shook like a leaf in a gale. Huffing, puffing, whimpering and gasping, he silently reminded himself that he had all the power he needed in the steady stream of prayer Alastor provided. Lucifer’s blood flowed like molasses in June as he endeavored. Gold soaked their bedsheets as the barbed chain degloved him by millimeters; he tore it out by the same degrees.

He would not give up before the end. He could do this again.

“Samael hatzilu, Samael hatzilu ..” The prayer was designed to keep Alastor sane now. The way it was pouring from his mouth was the only thing keeping him from collapsing into wisps of shadow simply to get away from this vile pain. How this deal could be so determined to keep him helpless, he didn’t know. How it was so determined to stay chained to him baffled him, but it continued to slowly give way. Surrounded by the smell of blood, Alastor began to feel his bones sing.

Alastor’s pleas filled Lucifer's head, blotting out all else. Time seemed to stand still as he focused on the vibrations of his consort’s voice, the way it passed over and through him in a wash of urgent, frenzied energy. It was the faith, however, that sustained him. Lucifer strained, a King in battle. His arms ached in ways they had not in millennia as he fought against that which was meant to be unbreakable.

Alastor chanted like his unlife depended on it. In a f*cked up way, it did. His ability to operate at the same level that he used to depended on this deal being broken -- on Lucifer being stronger than Lilith.

Suddenly, like cold sweet tea on a hot summer day, he felt relief slide down his throat. Like the sharp twang of piano wire snapping, his face suddenly fell, free from its twisted smile, before the malicious expression returned in full force.

Alastor suddenly felt too small for his body. Like a bird who’d long outgrown its cage finally being let out.

His form burst at the seams and the room engulfed in sheer darkness. He stretched out fully, spreading shadow and consuming all light in the room except for the porcelain, bleeding form of an angel with wings long clipped and scarred over. Lucifer blinked blearily, watching with detached fascination as the room grew dark as a moonless night. His ravaged arm twitched and Lucifer wretched, lashes fluttering, dizzied, witless. He felt heavy, as heavy as that chain he had pulled from the very depths of Alastor’s inky dark heart.

The chain fell with a heavy clunk to the floor, pulled over the side of the bed by gravity as Lucifer lost consciousness and bonelessly released it.

The darkness coalesced back into Alastor’s form, comfortable and strong in his body once more. His smile no longer held up by cruel strings, it still painted on his face by his own making. His body felt his own again. His bones sang and vibrated against the frantic jazz beat of his cackling heart. He felt the shadows of his blood squirming beneath the smiling surface that was Alastor.

But then, what was he, as he dutifully tended to the Devil’s wounds? He cleaned Lucifer’s porcelain body free of sweet and blood, had his shadow change the sheets as he redressed his angel in the ridiculous pajamas he found in the dresser, snapping his own back onto his body.

He curled tightly, possessively around Lucifer, cradled tight even as a piece of his consciousness merged, temporarily, with his shadow to get some very important work done.

Chapter 11: Apotheosis

Chapter Text

It looked like gold foil, the scar. A bracer, maybe. From talon tip to elbow it glittered on Lucifer’s skin, an eternal reminder of his rebellious actions even now, 10,000 years after he should have learned his lesson.

Rules were rules, after all. To break one could not be without consequences.

Lucifer had no excuse to keep it wrapped and hidden any longer now that he was fully healed. Hiding the forming aureate keloid from Alastor had been a trial unto itself. It was a chore Lucifer was willing to maintain if it meant that the sinner would continue to come calling.

“Thank you,“ -- Lucifer meant for the tea -- “You have me in a state; don’t act like you didn’t come up here for .. you know.”

Alastor shuddered, the brush of Lucifer’s hand against his midline as though he were painting with lava down Alastor’s body. Heat pheromones were a hell of a drug. He caught Lucifer’s wrist before it could go any lower, taking a breath to calm himself only to fail miserably against the tempest.

“Besides, as luck would have it — ” Lucifer glanced up at Alastor from under his lashes “ — we have unfinished business.”

He raised an eyebrow at Lucifer, placing a hand on his midline like Lucifer had done earlier, trailing slowly downward.

He dipped the head of his co*ck into Alastor, but that was all.

The first breach was a welcome sensation, cooling the fires of his heat, Alastor's sbody tense in anticipation of the further Lucifer would press inside him and —

And nothing.

“Ask nicely. Be sweet about it,” Lucifer directed, his voice taking on a lazy sort of confidence. “You’re so worked up. Give me a kiss.”

Alastor winced, he hadn’t meant to hurt Lucifer. He did this a lot, it seemed.

Letting go of his legs, Alastor sat up, shifting over to sit behind his king, gently setting his hands on his shoulder.

How to go about this? “My apologies, Lucifer. I didn't mean to leverage my actions over you,” he said softly. “My care towards you was of my own volition, because I wanted to, no ulterior motive involved.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” grunted Lucifer, who flinched under Alastor’s touch, for the first time feeling truly repelled.

His opposite hand closed around his injured arm, a bolt of emotional pain jumping through him as if he’d been struck. He was marked forever from the damage his actions earned him, and he’d done it for the man now trying to backpedal after grousing about caring for him as he recovered.

He rose from the bed to the ensuite. Not once looking back, he shut the door behind him. Moments later, the shower started, breaking the silence.

Ooo! I well and truly messed up! thought Alastor. The guilt was a new feeling; Certainly one he didn’t appreciate. He simply had to stop putting his hoof in his mouth. He also hoped that Lucifer hadn’t reopened his wound, but Alastor was sure he’d smell the angel blood if the king did.

He sighed running his hand through his hair. Je’d have to be better about choosing his words when it came to the sore parts of Lucifer. The issue was, that Alastor didn’t know which were sore and which were okay to press against. Clearly, implying that the injuries Lucifer gained from breaking his deal were paltry in comparison to the loving work Alastor put into nursing him back to health was off limits.

Then again, even Alastor would have been sore had it been the other way around.

He snapped his clothes back onto his person, resolving to go and make Lucifer something to eat both in apology and to get something in the king's stomach.

But Lucifer didn’t come to breakfast. In fact, he didn’t come to lunch, dinner, or supper.

The king kept his door locked from the inside, and cast an enchantment that prevented mist or shadow from seeping in under door or through a drafty window.

He felt angry, he felt abandoned, and most of all he felt incredibly guilty and he hated it.

When Lucifer did emerge he looked like hell — like he hadn’t slept in all that time, like he hadn’t eaten in all that time — and that was, in fact, the case. To say that he was deeply troubled would be akin to saying the All-Father was a touch miffed with him.

The perfect picture of a happy, stable guy.

He’d lost his hat days ago and all of a sudden he did not want it out of his sight. He ultimately discovered it in the lobby. Mission complete, doubtless he would return to his rooms at the palace, alone, and continue to alternate between any number of raw emotions.

Alastor had happened to be in the lobby when when Lucifer turned to retrieve that terrible tacky hat (that Alastor had left downstairs by mistake). Seeing his opportunity, he cornered the devil like a man possessed.

“Sire,” he said, through gritted teeth as he boxed Lucifer in on the wall he’d pinned him at. “I am sorry, please, please let me in. I dislike watching you waste away.”

Lucifer all but hid behind his hat, quite uncomfortable with being cornered like a fox in a ravine.

“What do you want now?” he bit out rather unkindly, but his voice belied his eyes — weary.

“I want to apologize,” Alastor said, feeling quite mad in the moment, the state of Lucifer adding to his distress at the moment. “And I want to take care of you.”

Lucifer shut his eyes as if that would make this all end faster.

“What do you think you’re apologizing for?” he threw out there.

“For hurting you, for implying your sacrifice for me wasn’t enough, for acting like my doting on you was means to an end.” It was like word vomit, the way Alastor had been replaying the moment he’d f*cked up so royally over and over again. “For acting as though you weren’t entitled to being selfish for once after giving everything to give humanity free will.”

Lucifer’s mouth thinned to a line, his gaze intensely critical — especially for him. He drummed his fingers on the brim of his hat, wishing that he didn’t look as bummed out as he did. The last thing he needed was further ammo for this guy to bust his chops on how pathetic he was.

“I didn’t have to tell you to apologize properly this time. That’s a start.”

Alastor felt very judged in that moment, but he also felt very much felt like he deserved it. His fingers twitched against the wall he’d pinned Lucifer to. He didn’t like that look. He didn’t like how upset Lucifer was.

“I’m sorry, I will not do it again. What must I do to earn your forgiveness?”

“I don’t know, Alastor,” Lucifer clipped, a heavy sigh leaving his chest. He hugged his arms across his hat, smooshing it out of shape, his stomach turning. “You were so uncaring and I was about to try and conceive with you. I mean, f*ck, Alastor. You’re so blasé about it, and I ..”

Lucifer trailed off, no longer willing to be vulnerable. He did not wish to share that he clearly was more emotionally invested in the creation of life, and how, as the mother, Alastor was disturbingly detached. “.. I didn’t, don’t want it to be that way.”

Alastor winced, smile threatening to fall. Had he come off as blasé? He hadn’t mean to. He’d been teasing, and it clearly hadn’t been received very well, but sex and its process was a strange one to him. He was rarely in the mood for it and willing to deal with the mess it entailed. Thus far Lucifer had been the only one that Alastor felt comfortable enough to even want to do it with.

He didn’t mean to come off as callous, or any less invested in the little fawn that would grant him everything he needed to put his plans into motion. The child was very important and Alastor would treat him very well. He just .. wasn’t very good with being delicate with people.

“I .. do not want it to be that way either,” Alastor confessed, “I truly did not mean to come off as uncaring, I’d been .. trying to tease? I see now it wasn’t a good place to poke at.”

Being an innately forgiving creature, Lucifer inclined his ear to Alastor’s excuses. Given this predisposition, Alastor had the best chance to make amends with him compared to any other being in Hell.

That didn’t mean it was going to be easy.

“You’re being surprisingly open,” Lucifer credited him, but his body language had not yet softened. “I — just say you weren’t being like that because you have no respect for me or what we are trying to make together. That’ll go a long way.”

“That was never my intention,” Alastor said, passionately. “I took care of you because I wanted to, because you did me a service I could never hope to repay and because you were hurt in doing so. I did not like that.”

He dropped a hand down to gently pick up Lucifer’s injured one, pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist. “I have nothing but respect for what we are trying to create. I was not lying when I said I wanted him.”

It was nerve wracking for Lucifer to be told all the things he wanted to hear. Too good to be true type of thing. But Alastor was touching him, kissing him, smoothly assuaging every doubt and he couldn’t help but buy in a little bit.

“ .. How is it that you can be so tender now, but when I’m about to make love to you all you do is complain,” he groused, trying to suppress a smile.

“Because sex is a strange subject at best and one I dislike at worst,” Alastor replied. “I .. do not know how to act? Or react, really. It’s very new territory to me. You’ve been the only one who’s managed to work me up into wanting to and I .. don't .. quite know how to handle it.”

Alastor sighed, retreating back from Lucifer, “I get defensive and when I get defensive, I’ve been told I can be “catty”. I will work on it.”

“You don’t know how to act,” Lucifer agreed, his smile deepening as he got the chance to say something so blunt to Alastor and know he heard it. He halted Alastor by the wrist, pulling him back sharply, his arm slinging around his waist. “I can show you how.”

Alastor’s ears pinned back as Lucifer pulled him in, smile tightening. He hesitantly put his hands on the short king's shoulders, tilting his head.

“Show me?” he asked, inquisitive, judging his own mood and how he felt about what he assumed Lucifer was implying considering their conversation.

“Yeah. Next time.” Lucifer nodded to himself, brushing his thumb over Alastor’s jaw, slowly refinding his affection for him deep in his guts where he’d stuffed it down during his three day sabbatical. “We’ll give it one more try.”

Chapter 12: Alterations

Chapter Text

Alastor felt his muscles relax at the promise. He was less okay with the idea than he thought he was, but Lucifer always seemed to pick up on that, at least. He appreciated his attentiveness, even if Alastor clearly had a long way to go to give the same courtesy.

He smiled sweetly at his king. “Yes,” he agreed, pausing. “Will .. sire, will you allow me to tend to you again? You look unwell.”

“I’m depressed,” Lucifer said without thinking, flushing faintly gold across his face at such a direct assertion.

Alastor could have told Lucifer that. It was obvious, especially at times like these, but he figured it wouldn’t be good to point that out. He was trying to be better about how he interacted with Lucifer.

Only one way to find out.

“.. Well, you have said please ..” Lucifer acquiesced, rubbing the back of his neck, tense. “Okay, Alastor.”

Alastor’s smile was genuine as he swiftly picked Lucifer up.

Once in Lucifer’s ensuite, he promptly marched himself into the lavish bathroom, setting Lucifer down on the lip of the overly fancy tub, looking it over. Lucifer squirmed on the seat, feeling a little childish. Despite never having a mother of his own, he suspected this was motherly behaviour. He wondered what Alastor's own must have been like.

“Any scent requests? Though I see mostly apples and .. lilac?” Alastor said, picking up a bottle and observing it critically as he went about ensuring the water was pleasantly warm.

".. There's ylang ylang, too," Lucifer pointed out.

“Hm .. yes! Ylang ylang will do,” Alastor decided, taking the scented bath soap and pouring some in while the tub filled with water. He stood again moving to the side to shrug off his boots and coat for his general comfort and rolled his sleeves up, turning back to Lucifer.

Lucifer shook his head and stripped, flicking a look in Alastor's direction to try and catch his reaction as the texture caught the light like hammered bronze from knuckle to elbow.

Alastor’s ears stood to full attention as the full breadth of the scar Lucifer had gained in helping him was finally revealed. It was stunning, like kintsugi gold piecing together a broken ceramic bowl.

Alastor stepped forward again, catching the arm and pressing his lips against the raised lines.

“Stunning .. ” he murmured, letting go of Lucifer to motion for the king to step into the bathtub as Alastor knelt beside it.

"You're kissing me so much," Lucifer whispered, his tummy trembling to be given so much amorous attention. His throat flexed as he swallowed -- no Adam's apple -- trying not to be too wanting should Alastor's affection run dry before long. His knees felt weak. A part of him was ashamed for being so easy.

“Hm? Oh, my apologies if I made you uncomfortable,” Alastor said, raising a hand and helping his king into the tub, motioning for him to recline back. “I should have asked first.”

He carefully wet Lucifer’s hair, taking some shampoo and spreading it across his hands, focused on massaging his king's scalp thoroughly to remove the build up of grime.

"Did I sound like I was complaining?" Lucifer asked sincerely, his eyes locking with Alastor's for a moment before his consort set to work. "Because I wasn't. I love when you touch me," he added, voice low, willing to let the dangerous words be lost in the acoustics of the tiled room.

“Hm, I’ll keep that in mind,” Alastor said. “I didn’t assume that you were complaining. I simply didn’t want to cause you undue duress.”

There was a beat as Alastor rinsed Lucifer off and massaged a thin layer of cream rinse into his hair before he tapped Lucifer to sit up again so he could scrub his body.

“You do seem to be a very touch oriented person,” he observed.

Lucifer shivered even though the water was steamy just like he preferred it. Serendipity was a hell of a thing.

".. I was touched for the first time when I went to Eden." Lucifer absentmindedly ran a hand up and down his scarred arm, clearly self-conscious and wondering if it was wise to share these things. Nevertheless, he followed the impulse. "I wish you could experience what it's like for me, Alastor."

“ .. hm. I suppose in a way I do experience that,” Alastor mused, taking Lucifer’s arm along with a sponge to gently scrub over the surface in the way one would do to a prized creature. “I am very much not a touch-oriented person. I dislike it when people I do not give permission to touch me, but to those I do give permission to, the touch is very .. nice; a welcome weight on my skin instead of something that makes it crawl.”

".. That makes a lot of sense," Lucifer said measuredly, very much having a eureka moment. "Of course .. I'm surprised I didn't think of that.. but you respond so differently.. Touch was -- is -- intoxicating to me. It makes me feel crazy so easily .. why am I babbling about this.."

“By all means, continue talking, I do not mind your majesty.” He said, pushing Lucifer’s legs towards his chest, scrubbing against the small of his knee. “Perhaps you feel comfortable enough to do so.” Alastor hummed as he coaxed Lucifer to raise his legs, taking very careful care over his hooves and ensuring that any grime or dirt was removed from the limbs and fur.

"Experimenting?"

Alastor shrugged. “I am not sure what I enjoy. I like when you run your hands down my thighs and hips, but not so much when you brush down my sides, for example,” he commented, as though discussing the weather.

"Really .. ?" Lucifer found himself appreciating the knowledge. The king was watching Alastor bathe him in quiet fascination, trying to recall if he'd ever done this before -- let someone do this, at least when not injured. The intimacy needed was soul-shaking, and as tapped out as Lucifer's heart had felt, he found himself permitting it. With a shaky exhale, he let his eyes fall closed, giving in and trying to urge his muscles to untense. "Tell me other things you prefer over others.."

“Hm .. ” Alastor said, raising Lucifer’s head so he could gently scrub at his neck. “More about me, sire?"

"Yeah, more about you.." Lucifer confirmed, tipping his head back, gazing at Alastor as if observing a bug in a jar. He was telling him things. Lucifer was alert, like a crow creeping up on a cat to observe his day to day.

"I .. enjoy when you kiss me,” Alastor said, sighing. “I didn’t think I could. The act was never appealing, but you kiss with such .. care .. that it doesn’t cause me discomfort. You have taken my first in many ways.”

Mental notes were being made. "Okay.. thighs, hips, yes.. sides, no.. kissing, yes.. go on.."

Alastor chuckled. “What else would you like to know, then?” He was drifting the sponge down Lucifer’s chest, paying attention to ensuring the king was plenty clean. “It would be easier if you asked me.”

"Aah .. " Lucifer gave a pleasant shiver, gulping. Now that he was getting his guard to lower, the sensation of that sponge on his skin was felt more keenly. "Nn .. okay, uh. what about when I put my mouth on you .. ? How is that .. ?"

“Hm? I enjoy it,” Alastor said, running the sponge against his sides and his stomach, watching the skin twitch. And twitch it did. “More than that, I enjoy the enthusiasm you have when you do so. It’s rather flattering.”

Lucifer was so pent up it was painful. "I really enjoy it .. you taste and smell like strawberries," he confessed, wondering if Alastor would think he was ridiculous for saying such a thing.

“Strawberries? I don’t think I have ever heard that.” Alastor said, raising an eyebrow, coaxing Lucifer to sit up and hunch over to scrub at his back. "I suppose I’m very flattered that you enjoy the taste of me so much.”

Lucifer felt altogether rather bashful about it. He soldiered on, deciding to seize the day and crash through the china shop. "You smell insanely sweet, too .. like I can feel the sugar on my tongue .. and the way you sound.. Have you ever thought about maybe putting your mouth on me?"

Alastor hummed, the noise an agreement. “I have. You would have to walk me through it, but I don’t think I would mind.” He paused in his scrubbing to lean down and brush his teeth against Lucifer’s shoulder. “I have also wanted to bite you.”

Lucifer froze as he felt those teeth on his skin, prickling like needles. The sensation compounded with learning that Alastor had contemplated .. well..

Lucifer suppressed a moan, clamping his thighs together under the water.

“Sire, you seem a little worked up,” Alastor mused, teasing, shoulders shaking from his quiet, fond laughter. “If you wish to take care of yourself, I don’t mind. I’ll help if you wish me to.”

Lucifer worried his lower lip under the serrated line of his teeth, glaring at Alastor quite crossly.

“It’s your fault,” he declared, reaching up to cup and squeeze the base of one long ear, stroking the rounded back with a sure thumb. “Behave.”

Alastor shivered, ear twitching against Lucifer’s touch, the wetness making it flap. They almost had personalities of their own, Alastor’s ears. It made Lucifer want to name each one.

“I have been nothing but a gentleman, sire, I’ve been on my best behavior!” He raised both hands in mock surrender. “Have I missed a spot, dear, or are you clean?”

“I can handle the finer details on my own, I think,” Lucifer informed Alastor perfunctorily, stroking the end of that expressive ear with two loving, careful fingers as he recalled doing in Eden with the sika deer he played with. Alastor’s ears flicked against the treatment, and he snickered quietly, the wispy touch equal parts nice and ticklish.

There was a few moments of quiet, nothing but the water shifting and sloshing as Lucifer readjusted his position to face Alastor.

“Thank you, though .. this has been a .. a hell of a day. Pun intended. Ha!”

“I’m grateful you gave me the chance, sire.” Alastor said, enjoying how much better Lucifer seemed: cleaner, less plagued. “I am also happy to do it. I like attending to you.”

Offering to do something twice was basically the way Alastor communicated the sentiment I want to do it, but I want you to tell me to do it.

So, Lucifer gave in.

“Okay .. all right. You win,” he laughed. “Go on.”

Satisfied, Alastor resumed his cleaning, carefully running the sponge on the inner spots of Lucifer’s thighs. Lucifer sucked in a breath, gulping, shutting his eyes and encouraging his brain to go into unsexy places. The heat of the water and the undeniable romanticism of the action really got to Lucifer. He tipped his head back over the edge of the tub with a sigh.

“Are you quite all right, your majesty? You seem to be quite gold in the face,” Alastor teased, switching his attention to gently press the sponge against Lucifer’s groin, coaxing his legs apart.

“You are incorrigible,” Lucifer whined, taking deep breaths of the steamy air. He could feel condensation beading up at his temples, slipping down his jaw in a line of warm sensation. He swallowed thicky, unable to help how he was growing hard.

“You do seem to say that a lot about me,” Alastor said with a laugh, finishing his cleaning and moving back from Lucifer, flicking him in the forehead as he went.Lucifer groaned long and hard as he sank into the water up to his neck, thighs pressed.

“I’ll go and find you something to wear. Is it safe to assume you don’t still want to go downstairs?” Alastor asked, more rhetorical than anything. He stood with a small groan, shaking his legs out.

"You gonna dress me up?" Lucifer purred, chuckling, intrigued by the prospect. "You could magic something up to your tastes. Wouldn't that be interesting?"

Alastor glanced down at Lucifer and made an intrigued noise. “Hm, I suppose I could. Goodness knows you could be better dressed. Well, finish drying up when you’re ready and I’ll have something for you, your majesty!” With that, Alastor swept out of the room.

Lucifer rolled his eyes, knowing a jab at his wardrobe was coming. The circus aesthetic was very in vogue, after all, but it wasn't as if Alastor could be expected to keep up on fashion trends. Besides, he had always worn white.

Lucifer reached between his legs, palming his half-hard co*ck with a wince, gulping, thinking about Alastor's admission. What would it be like to look down and see him between his thighs, lips rounded to accommodate him, his ears pinned back --

Lucifer cursed as his dick twitched as a wave of arousal hit him.

He frowned, stroking himself under the water. His balls felt heavy in the hot tub. He gave a great, lip-fluttering breath outward, hoisting himself from the water to rub himself down with a towel to get dry. He wrapped himself in his enormous robe, glad it concealed his groin enough for his arousal to be hidden until he calmed back down.

This was a very good opportunity to dress Lucifer as a proper monarch. The issue became that Alastor wasn’t entirely sure what royalty wore. After all, they certainly weren’t very prominent at the time he’d been alive, but he supposed he could compensate something based on his knowledge of fine fashion trends during his time alive and what he’d seen while in Hell.

An (he hoped) outfit fit for a proper king.

Lucifer floated out, peering around with tense anticipation, clearly unsure of what the hell was Alastor going to put him in. He finally looked upon the ensemble with wide eyes, reaching out to run his bare talons over the detailing, thumbing the golden buttons, taking the scarf up in his hand to appreciate the slippery fabric properly.

".. damn, and here I halfway thought you were going to put me in clown shoes as a joke." Lucifer passed his hand over the cape. "Can I even pull this off? This would look better on you."

Alastor gave Lucifer a flat look, lip curling before he pulled his smile back onto his face.

“Do not sell yourself short your majesty! At least humor me. You can change into your little rubber duck pajamas afterwards.” He came almost close to pleading as he placed his hands on Lucifer’s shoulders.

Lucifer flushed, wondering if this was what it was like to be spoiled. Bathed, dressed, it made him feel shy and strange, but also .. prized. He ventured to rest his bare hands over Alastor's.

"Of course I will try! Just don't get your hopes up. I might end up looking like a little boy in his father's dress clothes."

“If my vision fails you, then I will accept appropriate punishment,” Alastor said with an eye roll, motioning for Lucifer to don the clothes he’d made for him. He then moved to the armchair, sitting primly and crossing his legs as he waited.

Lucifer thanked his lucky stars that his body had seen fit to return to normal levels of excitement. He shrugged out of his robe, hanging it on a hook shaped like the branch of an apple tree. Looking at all the ornamental elements of the suit, he felt himself balk and elected to just wave a hand and disappear the outfit to reappear on his person -- cape and all.

Lucifer turned this way and that in front of the large mirror beside his dressing area, those duck pajamas thrown over the top of his privacy screen. His lips puckered into an approving pout, appreciating the flow of the cape around his body and the comfortable but custom fit.

Alastor had such strong knowledge of his body .. it took him aback and put a thrill in his heart.

"Hey, wow. This .. dang." Speechless.

“The sound of your voice leads me to believe I was right~!” Alastor sing-sang, drumming his talons on the arm of the chair in impatience. “Sire, I am not a patient person. I would love to see how it looks!”

It was to prove a point to himself. Alastor felt almost twitchy with it; to see his king in proper attire, something that would denote his station to everyone.

Lucifer spun out from behind the screen, letting the cape flutter around him in an arch of crimson and ebony. It was velvet, how opulent. The chains swung and his still-bare hooves clicked over the hardwood until he reached the throw rug in front of Alastor's armchair.

Arms outstretched, Lucifer didn't bother to be humble. He smiled radiantly.

"Check me out!"

Alastor stood straight to attention, smile threatening to split his face with how wide it was. He felt his breath die in his throat at the absolute vision Lucifer made. He dropped to his knees reverently in front of his king. He looked exemplary; how a fallen angel, the King of Hell, should look. This is who Alastor had imagined when he had been told in Sunday school that the Morningstar had been the All-Father's most beautiful son.

Lucifer gasped, eyes blown even wider as Alastor knelt before him. No one had ever done that before in all his long years. Lilith, their queen, yes, sinners threw themselves at her feet in droves. But him? He was the King of Hell, a monarch who wished for nothing less than his own crown. Who would be so crazy as to view him in a way that would demand reverence?

Alastor, that's who. “You’re stunning,” he breathed.

He truly felt the part of a pious man in front of a saint. He’d been absolutely correct, It was still sending him reeling at how wonderful Lucifer looked dressed in blacks and red: resplendent, deadly, the absolute picture of a cruel monarch. Lucifer came to rest both of his now-gloved hands upon Alastor's shoulders, doing his best to commit the look on the sinner's free face to his memory. He didn't want to break the pregnant silence that had fallen, so he simply lifted his hand to stroke his consort's hair back from his face, then brush his knuckles over his cheek.

Alastor leaned into Lucifer’s touch with a sigh, eyes fluttering closed. He knew Lucifer wasn’t one for violence, so, in the privacy of this little moment, Alastor promised himself to undertake that for his kindhearted king.

He turned his head to press a kiss to the inside of Lucifer's palm, basking in the glow of his king and the attention his Lucifer was granting upon him. He wouldn’t let anyone take this from him.

Chapter 13: Adoration

Chapter Text

Lucifer’s heart was pounding. Seeing Alastor this way while draped in what this sinner believed would suit Lucifer — something regal, something reflective of his consort’s view of the position he’d vehemently denied for 10,000 years — took his breath away.

It occurred to Lucifer all at once that Alastor was the first true, real devoted subject in all of his horrific kingdom. It lit a fire inside him long neglected and dampened by ages of shame.

Moved beyond description, Lucifer’s eyes burned scarlet and gold down at Alastor, his hands cupping his sharp jaw with a new tenderness, a new appreciation. He’d come, he’d willingly become his supplicant, he’d cared for him and now this..

“Won’t you make me a crown, too, dearest?” he murmured in honeyed tones, looking at Alastor in a way he’d never looked at another.

Alastor’s eyes snapped open staring up at Lucifer in shock, ears pinned back before they sprang back up. What a request. It felt so out of character for Lucifer, but he’d asked, and who was Alastor to deny his king?

“Certainly, your majesty,” he purred, rising to his hooves. He surveyed Lucifer’s delicate features, now made regal and prominent by his attire. An oversized crown wouldn’t suit his king, no, but at the same time a diadem or tiara would be too delicate.

Carefully, he spread his fingers as he pulled an idea into form, gold and sharp edges, invoking the image of Lucifer’s horns with rubies inlaid. Once finished, Alastor set it reverently on Lucifer’s downy hair.

Lucifer shut his eyes as Alastor completed his unceremonious coronation. The crown fit well upon his head and thus would bring no headache, no soreness to his neck should he choose to don it for as long as court might take once it was implemented.

It really was the missing piece to complete the look, the outfit, the vision. Lucifer was perfect, well and truly perfect.

How could heaven toss such a creature out for the simple gift of free will? Lucifer had completed humanity and heaven had scorned him for it. Well, Alastor would make up for their foolish mistake. He'd keep his king company and lavish him with the attention he deserved.

Lucifer’s fiery eyes reopened, one hand lifting to drag light, gloved nails over the ornate and precious metals — as if checking to see if it was really there. He’d caught a glimpse of the precious thing as Alastor magicked it into the world; so fine and meant for the head of a monarch revered.

He met Alastor’s eyes with his small mouth gently parted in awe, unable to understand the feeling swelling up inside of him. The only sound was his breathing.

As if compelled, Alastor bent at the waist to raise Lucifer’s gloved hand to his lips.

“Glory to your majesty,” he purred.

The noise that left Lucifer deep from his belly was shaky and low, spellbound by his loyal subject once more bestowing him with gesture of adoration. This was going to go to his head if he wasn’t careful.

Yet, Lucifer then said, “You make me feel like a king.”

Alastor tilted his head, smile small and coy, slowly dropping to one knee like a loyal knight.

“Are you not one, your majesty?” he asked, equal parts rhetorical and begging the question to Lucifer.

Lucifer’s tongue felt too large for his mouth as he looked down on Alastor once more mimicking a paladin before his lord. The comparison was perverse and it heated his guts with unsurpassable pride that took his breath away.

“.. I am,” Lucifer whispered.

“And what does my king desire?” Alastor asked, gazing at Lucifer intensely. He wanted to know what was running through the monarch’s head right now. The way he was looking at Alastor was intoxicating; like he couldn’t believe Alastor existed. Head to toe in regalia borne from the mind of this frightening, powerful, entrancing creature, Lucifer felt indestructible. He flexed his hands in the fine suede gloves he'd been gifted, the almost familiar weight of his crown encircling his head as if he'd worn it before in a dream or a nightmare.

Was the crown bewitched? Lucifer'd never experienced such .. serenity. Alastor's eyes bored into his, drilling down deep, tapping into the core of him. A sureness in his stance overcame him, driven through his heart by the gaze of his supplicant. He stood with his feet slightly apart, solid, strong.

"Come closer, dearest," Lucifer breathed, beckoning with the slight curl of his fingers.

Alastor shifted so he was fully on his knees again, moving forward until he could touch Lucifer’s thighs with his hands if he so wished. Instead, he put his hands on his own thighs, polite almost, tilting his head as though waiting for Lucifer’s next order. He felt almost drunk off of the anticipating, a low buzz making its home in his body with the rest of the shadows and mayhem, the jazz beat of his heart frantic and cackling.

Lucifer gathered Alastor's jaw in his hands, the suede supple against the dark skin as the king caressed down his throat and up again. The backs of his fingers stroked over his high cheekbones, his touch loving. Alastor let his eyes fall closed, ears relaxing as Lucifer stroked across his face, as though committing him to memory. He let out a soft purr.

"Is your heart racing the way mine is?"

Alastor reached up to take one of Lucifer’s hands to press it against his chest, against the rhythmic thumping of his heart. “It is.”

The king took a single step forward, gifting Alastor with a hand slithering to the back of his head, tugging him forward to rest his cheek against his thigh.

" .. You've done something to me .. " Lucifer murmured next, wishing he could put a name to the whirling emotions like a tornado inside him. "I ask you if you feel those things because I feel those things," Lucifer told him, his fingers sliding over and past the edge of the buttons of his shirt to give Alastor's chest a chance to sample the light friction of the suede.

Alastor shivered lightly against Lucifer’s light touch, moving forward just that much more to make the motion comfortable and rest his head against his thigh,

“Have I?” he asked, lowly, inclining his head to stare at Lucifer through lidded eyes. “Is it terrible?” Good. Let Alastor consume Lucifer’s thoughts the way he plagued Alastor’s.

Lucifer shifted his touch, the tips of his nails coming to trace the bow of Alastor's lips, regretting that he could not feel the plushness through those gloves. "Yes."

" .. You look beautiful like this, ayalah .. like you're drunk and sleepy, ready to climb into bed and snooze the night away." Lucifer's smile beatific, his voice a low rumble, he parted Alastor's lips to stroke his tongue with a single finger. "I wonder what other terrible things you could do to me -- or that I could do to you."

Alastor closed his mouth around his finger, giving it an experimental suck, finding he didn’t mind the weight on his tongue, nor the digit in his mouth. It would ruin a good pair of gloves, but Alastor really didn’t mind that idea, reaching up to gently remove Lucifer’s hand from his mouth.

“All you have to do is ask, your majesty,” he said, breathless, grinning like a shark. “Your consort is more than happy to consent to your treatment.”

Alastor’s acquiescence and eager display with his finger in his mouth had sealed the deal. Lucifer brought Alastor’s hands to the fastenings of his fine trousers with an expectant look.

“Be careful what you wish for .. ” Lucifer cautioned Alastor in tones of steel sheathed in velvet.“ Imagine me seeding you right now, looking like this, feeling like this,” he suggested, caressing Alastor’s wrist with his thumb. “Our son would be born with a lion for a heart.”

Alastor deftly undid the buttons on the fine slacks, freeing Lucifer and pausing before hesitantly taking the king's co*ck in hand, pressing his tongue to the underside of it. He wasn’t surprised this was the direction this went, and he certainly didn’t mind lending a helping hand, or rather mouth.

“Hm .. seeding me will have to come another day, mon angé,” Alastor mused. “I'm sure I can work you up just as well as I have today.” Very well, if how hard Lucifer was in his hand was any indication.

Far from disappointed, Lucifer gripped Alastor by his hair reflexively as his sinful tongue rasped against the underside of his aching co*ck. Alastor hissed as Lucifer sunk his hands into his hair, ears instinctively twitching away from the grasp. Lucifer gasped, rocking his hips subtly to rub the leaking head against Alastor’s predatory mouth, watching his spend gather on his lips.

“I look forward to it,” he groaned.

He licked his lips, tongue brushing against the head rubbing against him. He opened his mouth on the next pass. He had to be very careful with his teeth, experimentally pressing forward and sucking inwards, eyeing Lucifer for guidance.

“Oh, f*ck, if you look at me I’m going to lose it,” Lucifer rasped, averting his eyes from the delectable sight of Alastor working out how to suck co*ck. He gulped and inclined his hips down, finding an angle he could work with, nodding his head enthusiastically.

That was an interesting reaction to be sure. Alastor bobbed his head further downwards, taking stock of how Lucifer twitched when he sucked a certain way, the noises he made when he didn’t like something Alastor did. He was glad he was a quick study even if he didn’t quite understand it. He breathed through his nose and pulled back a bit when the head of Lucifer’s co*ck hit the back of his throat and surprised him.

Lucifer panted, breath steaming in the air, a moan pushed out of him when he met resistance. He reached down to squeeze Alastor’s throat from the side.

“Relax..” he coached the virginal creature around his co*ck. “I want to feel your throat.”

Lucifer clearly enjoyed that, and Alastor acquiesced, taking Lucifer down to the root. He stiffened again as the head hit the back of his throat before calming and swallowing around it, shivering as he felt Lucifer’s co*ck slip further down, sitting heavy in the middle.

“Good boy,” praised the king, a tense but nevertheless satisfied sigh shuddering out of his chest. He gave Alastor time, just a little, to adjust himself before he got an even better hold on his sinner’s hair.Alastor audibly choked as Lucifer adjusted his hold in his hair before he was f*cking into his mouth. He dragged Alastor up and down his co*ck that way, his hips swaying forward with each movement of Alastor’s body swallowing him down. He braced his hands on his king's thighs, the odd feeling of co*ck moving down his throat making him feel so very light headed. Breathless with it, tears springing to his eyes and down his cheeks from the lack of oxyge -- oxygen he was once more forgetting he didn't need -- as Alastor again glanced up at Lucifer’s fervent, pleasured face.

“Oh, f*ck,” Lucifer, having met Alastor’s eyes, choked, but in a very, very different way compared to his charge.

Alastor’s tears seeped into his gloves as his king brushed them away, his hands cupping under his jaw, encouraging him to open his mouth just a little further with the right pressure at the hinge of his jaw.

“Look at you .. ” Lucifer uttered raggedly, magnanimously brushing Alastor’s hair out of his face. His hips stilled, withdrawing until he could see his co*ckhead resting at the tip of his darling’s tongue, before sliding smoothly forward to sink in to the hilt.

This was his. All his.

Alastor took a ragged breath when Lucifer pulled back, windpipe free for but a moment before Lucifer was pressing back into his mouth and down his throat. His nose was against golden curls at Lucifer’s pelvis, and he vaguely remembered he didn’t need to breathe when he realized that he should have passed out a long while ago.

Taking initiative, Alastor pulled back again, bobbing his head, eyes falling closed, acutely aware of his king's thumbs near the corner of his eyes.

“Yes .. yes .. perfect .. just like that ..” There was the talkative Lucifer Alastor knew so well. Alastor relaxed more when Lucifer began chattering, he always got chatty when he was losing it, at least in Alastor’s experience that was true. The walls of that cannibal throat brought Lucifer bliss, and he was quickly becoming undone, struggling with two options at war in his head: come hard down that sweet throat, or pull out and spill all over that flush face? He had to think fast.

Lucifer’s co*ck twitched in his mouth, spend leaking salty down his throat. Alastor pulled off with a gasp, reaching up to wipe a fresh set of tears out of his eyes, gazing at Lucifer as he languidly stroked his co*ck, pressing a kiss to the tip.

Lucifer whimpered with the loss of that welcoming, hot wetness. A complaint died on his tongue as he watched Alastor work him, that sweet kiss making him jerk and moan. He panted like a maniac.

“I’m so close .. ” he pleaded.

“Hm,” Alastor hummed, watching Lucifer fall apart in his hands with the fascination of someone pulling the wings off of an ant. “Then, you should finish, mon ange.”

He stroked Lucifer faster, opening his mouth as though to provoke the Devil. It worked. Lucifer’s eyes blew wide to see such a lewd display. So erotic, so tempting, so unbelievably sexy because of who was doing it to him.

Alastor’s mouth was so lovely, his tongue a dark red, ocher teeth framing a place of paradise.

Lucifer held his climax at bay desperately even as his hands clawed at his consort’s shoulders.

“Say my name, say it,” he begged.

So that was it: the reason Lucifer held his climax back, even as he shook with the desire. He wanted Alastor to call for him.

Alastor could do that, his face contorting as though in immense pleasure, mouth dropping open even as he quietly moaned: “Lucifer.”

He immediately surged forward, taking Lucifer’s co*ck in his mouth down to the root.

Lucifer’s cry cut the air, his body bowing forward, curling over Alastor as he went onto the very tips of his hooves, his wings exploding out of his back in a flurry of feathers and a gust of wind. He quaked, his hips jerking and squirming as he poured himself down Alastor’s hungry, greedy throat, both of Lucifer’s hands tangled in his hair, sliding upwards shakily to ground himself with a grip around the base of his antlers.

His crown caught the light, rubies gleaming, the sharp tips extending to the sky like raised swords.

“Uhnhnhhhnnn Alastor .. ” Lucifer melted like an ice cube in Hell.

Lucifer’s bruising grip on Alastor’s antlers made him choke again, having to pull off Lucifer’s co*ck in a hurry to avoid regurgitating cum. He cleared his throat, wincing as some of Lucifer’s spend hit his cheek, and he looked up at his exhausted monarch. He was still an absolute vision even as captured in the throes of pleasure as he was. More so, even, in Alastor’s opinion.

“You made a mess,” he teased, swiping the shimmering spend off of his face with his thumb and sticking it back in his mouth.

“You make me a mess,” Lucifer professed, hardly able to manage the words as he shook with aftershocks. He did not release Alastor just yet. His antlers helped him steady himself as his slim legs trembled. “f*ck, f*ck, f*ck..”

Alastor smiled, clearly proud of himself as he rubbed circles into the swell of Lucifer’s thin hip bones, feeling the body in front of him shuddering.

Maybe encouraging his king to get more elegant clothing was a bad idea. Alastor didn’t like the idea of sharing even a wholesome version of the king with anyone else.

Alastor smiled down at him, leaned in as though he was going to kiss him, and then flicked the king on the forehead. “Feeling better, I hope?” he asked, good-naturedly.

Lucifer grinned bright like the sun like he had been kissed. Those little flicks — I like when you do that — had become an instant mood booster.

“I feel .. f*ck, yes, good. Better. Wonderful. You’re .. f*ck, Alastor, where have you been?” asked the king, shaking his head in disbelief. It was rhetorical, but he still asked. He rested his cheek against Alastor’s chest with a reedy sigh.

“I’ve been here?” Alastor answered, confused. He ensured Lucifer was secure in his arms before he stood in a smooth motion, taking his content and grinning king back to the bed in the room, setting him down.

“Not always,” Lucifer pointed out, but it hardly mattered, did it? Alastor was here now.

“Are you willing to come downstairs? Charlie is worried for you, and there’s only so much longer I can cover for you before she barges in here herself,” Alastor said, pinching Lucifer’s wrist and frowning.

Chapter 14: Annointment

Chapter Text

Alastor had a slu*tty little waist. What was he doing, going around looking like that, a sh*t-eating grin plastered all over his stupid dumb face with his fitted jacket showing off what curves his skinny little body possessed.

He was asking for it. He’d been asking for it since the last Overload meeting, daring to show his face while reeking to such a degree that Vox’s sensors went haywire trying to figure out how to interpret the chemicals clouding the air from where he sat at the far end of the table.

Absolutely unbelievable, the lengths Alastor went to in order to annoy him. Why the f*ck else would he choose specifically the two days out of the year that had the power to send any man into a frenzy to attend an Overload meeting after such an absence? Alastor just wanted to get under his skin.

Boy, was he accomplished at it.

Alastor was so long overdue for a lesson, and seven years of having zero chance of putting the Radio Demon in his place had Vox implementing ruthless tactics he might not have before:

Vox was staring at him.

This wasn’t anything new for Alastor, mind. Vox was often staring at him: the one that got away even if he never had a chance to begin with. However, today especially he’d been staring, clearly not bothering to pay attention to what Carmilla was saying, to her annoyance and resignation.

Alastor took another sip of his coffee -- nice and bitter to combat the raging hormones in his pent-up body. This meeting in particular was very dull, but he supposed it was necessary.

When it was finally over, Alastor’s head was spinning. He stood, swaying a little and waving Rosie’s concern off. There were a couple benches he could rest on outside while he retrieved his bearings enough to shadow travel back to the hotel and figure out there what in the world was going on with his biology. Even with his heats coming more regularly, it wasn’t anywhere near that time of month, but he felt the pull and sluggishness all the same.

He stumbled his way outside, bracing himself on a wall as another wave of vertigo washed over him. This felt like heat almost, but twisted.

As Alastor turned the corner Vox reached out from the alley he was shrouded in the shadows of, grabbing that waist that haunted him with one clawed hand. It was a testament to how out of it Alastor was that he didn’t even notice Vox, shadows equally sluggish as he was until he was being snatched off of the streets like stray dog. Vox dragged the Radio Demon off the sidewalk like he was nothing, throwing him bodily into the waiting van.

The door slammed closed and Vox dusted himself off, looking this way and that, his personal assistant green around the gills in the driver’s seat. An anxious accomplice, but he had to do. He couldn’t let on what he was up to. Not to Velvette, much less Val. Vox got in the van, slipping to the back from the front, clanging the steel cage closed that separated him and his prisoner from the cabin.

“Drive.”

“Vox,” Alastor snarled, struggling to pull himself up from the floor of the van as it skidded off, nearly throwing him into the wall. His shadows thrashed and died weakly. He felt like he was suffocating.

His jazz beat heart was beating normally, blood a regular thickness in his veins. He— he could barely feel his shadows.

Panicking, Alastor tried to get up again. Would anyone find him? What was Vox planning? He— he wanted his king.

Vox grinned wickedly as he watched Alastor struggle to stand. He allowed it, glorying in how difficult it clearly was for the mighty Radio Demon to do something so simple. It was going to be so much more satisfying this way. With Alastor on his feet, the force of Vox backhanding him would send him crashing to the floor, and Vox wanted to see that.

So he wound up, and his screen flashed with his smile taking up almost every pixel as he sent the back of his right hand flying into Alastor’s face.

“Get down, bitch.”

Alastor hit the ground again, head spinning like a top sent flying in the face of Vox’s anger.

That— that hurt.

“Did you drug me?” he asked, smile souring as he put a hand to his tender face, glaring at Vox. “Is that what you’re reduced to now, Vox? Needing chemicals to do the dirty work for you? Haha!” He laughed even as he tried to figure out a way out of this. “So what, are you going to finish me off then?” What's going to happen to me?

“Oh, you’re going to wish that by the end,” Vox cooed venomously, cracking his knuckles as he closed the space between them.

The way Vox smacked Alastor around wasn’t wild or uncontrolled. He’d done this before. Skirts needed a knocking around every so often when they got out of hand and forgot their place, and Alastor was no exception no matter how much or how long he played pretend with his three piece suits and his tenor. Just a few cracks — he didn’t want to damage the goods too thoroughly. He’d rather have a pretty face to look at than a couple of black eyes. His strikes were expertly placed; high on the cheekbone, against the jaw.

Alastor hadn’t been beat this brutally since— well, Adam. Even then Adam had the common decency to hit him once, not this sort of brutish attack that had the little childlike part of him wanting to cower behind his mother's skirts. Alastor hated Vox’s type. He’d killed them in life and continued to do so in death.

Red blood that should have been wispy and dancing in his veins sat lifeless and disgusting in his mouth as Vox yanked him up to stare at his handy work. Vile man.

Vox hauled Alastor to his feet after the fourth, looking into that face he hated, smirking as he saw that the Radio Demon’s cheek had busted open, oozing blood like a boxer after a brutal K.O.

Alastor spat blood into Vox’s wretched TV face, trying to wipe that smug look on his face.

Vox laughed. He laughed and he laughed, using the hand not fisted in Alastor’s lapel to swipe the blood off of his screen with a satisfied smile. He dragged his bloody fingers over Alastor’s face, painting him with his own injury.

“Fiery,” he purred, reaching for something beside him. The van was clearly for transporting goods, and so crates and boxes and a tool chest were there. Out of the chest Vox pulled out a pitcher of coffee in the same carafe as the one Alaator had been served from at the meeting. “Let’s see if we can’t put that fire out.”

Vox dug his claws into Alastor’s jaw, forcing his mouth open so he could upend the carafe over his mouth, pouring cup after cup of drugged coffee down to splash down Alastor’s chin and shirtfront, cackling madly.

Alastor choked, feeling so much like he was drowning, trying to get away from Vox and his coffee and feeling the strength drain from him bit by precious bit until he was sagging against his enemy’s chest. The drugged coffee screamed through his veins, his jazz beat heart frantic like a hummingbird's as a wave of heat passed through him and he groaned. He’d take the floor right now, anything that wasn’t being pressed against Vox as this disgusting, molasses-like artificial heat passed through his body.

Vox observed Alastor critically, his face not unlike how it was when he was inspecting product at a sweatshop. The carafe clattered across the floor of the van where he'd tossed it, rolling under metal shelving built into the wall of the vehicle.

“Seems like you’ve had enough,” he decided, turning Alastor’s face this way and that to gauge just how docile he was feeling now. Docile would not be the word to describe Alastor in this moment, face contorted into weak snarl as Vox examined him as if he were an item for sale. “I haven’t had enough, yet, though,” Vox told him, sinister and cruel.

Vox drew a switchblade from his pocket, flipping it open with a very satisfying shnk. He pressed the blade beneath his enemy’s bow tie, slicing upward like a hot knife through butter. It thunked to the ground and a feeling of dread welled up in Alastor's stomach something awful. He weakly pushed at Vox’s chest, exerting any effort at all feeling like a Herculean task with the lead holding his limbs down.

“G-get off of me,” he snapped -- slurred, more like -- barely able to focus. “W-what are you planning?”

Vox slid the knife against every button of Alastor’s shirt. They dropped like coins onto the floor, rolling, scattering.

“This is more like it,” Vox purred, the sound loud and reverberating, shaking his speakers with the depth of bass in his voice. “Be a good girl and things might not be so bad for you.”

Vox’s voice was like a hammer to the head with Alastor’s current state, but even this false heat and the weakness it brought couldn’t stop the rage that spread across his face as Vox dared—

“I am not a girl!” he snarled, finding his strength enough to elbow Vox across the face, stumbling to his knees and fumbling with the van doors.

Vox’s screen swung on its stand, spinning like a top until he stopped it with both hands. His eyes bounced around, ricocheting from one corner of his screen to another. He regained his senses with a growl, gnashing teeth he didn’t have.

Vox got his hands on Alastor’s coat, jerking him backwards by the shoulder pads to toss him back on the floor prostrate like a rag doll. The first thing Alastor was going to do when he had the power to exert his will over Hell was going to be ban the production of this— this— aphrodisiac. Anyone who made or used this would be punished by slow disemboweling.

“So you still had some fight in you. And here I thought you might have learned what’s good for you after you finally got on your back with a man over you,” Vox bit out, the switchblade back. He carved a line down Alastor’s back, rending his coat in two perfectly symmetrical pieces. All the easier to wrench it off of him.

“Ha! You’d think I’d ever submit to you willingly?” Alastor laughed, weak, enraged by the damage done to his favorite f*cking coat. “Is that what this is about, Vox? Are you angry you hadn't been the one to take my worthless virginity?” He was playing with fire, but he needed an excuse to say Lucifer’s name out loud, and hope -- pray even -- that the devil would hear.

"That you lost to Lucifer?"

Vox shrugged his coat off, then undid his tie, looking down on Alastor as if he were a cheap whor*.

“I’m going to do a lot worse than pop your cherry like you let him do, slu*t,” Vox chuckled darkly. “If you only knew how many times I watched that secret camera footage. I hope you enjoyed it, bitch. I’m going to give it to you so hard that you’ll never think of another motherf*cker aside from me. I’m going to ruin you.”

Vox grabbed Alastor by his useless legs, plunging the knife into the gusset of his pants just far enough to slice and tear an opening.

Alastor kicked frantically as Vox cut through his pants, bile filling his throat at the idea of Vox— of anyone who wasn’t Lucifer pressing into -- into -- No. No, no, no

The sound of fabric tearing was like a thunderclap. Vox shredded Alastor’s pants off of him completely, and he grinned at the sight before him. What a pretty picture. He snapped a photo with his front-facing camera, filing it away in a very specific, very password-protected folder. There was something especially vile about knowing a picture of Alastor’s c*nt would be saved on his repulsive hard drive for eternity.

Alastor gagged, pressing a weak hand frantically against the mark Lucifer so lovingly left on his body, sending what little strength and magic he had left into it, hoping and wishing it would help him because he could not help himself.

Vox leaned over Alastor, one eye spinning madly as he worked his thigh between Alastor’s legs, pressing none too gently up against his enemy’s kitty. He rocked against Alastor, pinning both of his limp wrists down above his head with a single hand.

Alastor gagged again, feeling so much like flies and maggots had made a home on his skin as Vox pulled his arms above his head. He wanted to thrash and he tried, the movement weak and causing him to brush against Vox’s knee in such a way that made him snarl in disgust.

Let this be over, let it be quick, and he would make a deal with the first memory manipulator that he could get— someone, anyone— Alastor wanted to scream.

A fist broke through the roof of the van.

“What the f*ck?!” Vox exclaimed, the noise of metal being punched through more than enough to draw his attention. He didn’t release Alastor’s hands — he didn’t want to give him any means to attack — but now he had a new set of problems.

Suede gloves over petite hands reached through the fresh opening in the vehicle, bending metal back as if it were newspaper. Once the space was large enough to drag a body through, Vox was apprehended by the throat by one of those hands. He was jerked upward and out of sight in the blink of an eye. The van just kept on going.

Vox was gone in an instant the way Alastor should have been able to disappear the second Vox tried his f*ck sh*t. He’d let his guard down and had been manhandled and molested and nearly -- nearly --

Alastor sat up, turning onto his knees to vomit, tears sprung to his eyes as drugged coffee was expelled from his body. Alastor's body was tense like a bow string as he curled tightly around himself. He knew those gloves. He’d made them, after all.

Electricity crackled above Alastor’s head, light and sound filtering to the sinner’s sensitive ears as Lucifer made slow work of destroying Vox. The overlord begged and pleaded, especially when Lucifer used his own oil-slick, wired entrails to electrocute him at the throat. Oil splattered down through the hole, once, twice, thrice, as Vox’s garbled screams went on stuttering and stopping and restarting like a buffering video. The sound of shattering glass came next, over and over, for all the world just like a sledgehammer swung with all one’s strength into the outdated glass of an old tube TV.

The van screeched to a halt.

Lucifer, his grand finery soiled by thick blue coolant and copious oil, dropped down through the hole.

Alastor was sobbing. “L-Lucifer .. ” he cried, covering his miserable, aching face with his hands.

“I’m here.” That was all he said. He swung his cape off of him, wrapping his dearest in it, picking him up with all the tenderness in his body Lucifer had.

Alastor wished he could take joy in Vox’s destruction. Lucifer was pissed, but the smell of oil and the sound of electricity simply wasn’t helping his state and it made him feel all the worse.

More than that, the finery that he’d made for Lucifer was ruined and Alastor’s nerves were shot, his ears pinned back as he flinched when Lucifer helped preserve his dignity and picked him up. He barely had the strength to wrap his arms around Lucifer’s neck.

He— he was alive, and he wasn’t defiled, but it kept replaying and—

“I want to go home.” His eyes were wide and unseeing. “And I don’t want anyone to see me.”

“Your wish is my command,” Lucifer said simply. He brought Alastor close to him, tipping his forehead against his consort’s as thick streams of glittering energy rose up from his feet to engulf them and bring them home.

The familiar smell of Lucifer’s rooms were like a calming balm, Alastor's nerves soothed a little bit, but he still—

“I’m going to be sick,” he declared, struggling suddenly in Lucifer’s arms, stumbling to the restroom, barely making it to the toilet before he was expelling the rest of the drugged coffee, dry heaving.

The jazz beat of his heart was back again, weak it was, but the song of his life was back, in response to his king, his Lucifer—

A sob was forced out of his mouth again, Alastor covering his mouth as he pressed his forehead against the cool bowl. He was in pain and he was still horribly drugged and he was safe.

Calm down, he thought gently to himself, tipping the liquid back, sagging in clear relief as the water hit his throat.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely, rubbing his eyes free of tears and flinching as it aggravated the damage Vox did to his face. That damage did not last long. As the water passed down Alastor’s acid-ravaged throat, into his empty belly to spread rapidly through his body, his wounds sealed and vanished, his nausea ebbed, the dizzy spells ceased and his vision cleared.

Lucifer sighed with relief as he watched Alastor slowly begin to recover, his lips pressed to his temple. Now that he was safe, now that he’d taken the elixir, he could allow his tears to fall silently down his face.

“I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

The sudden clarity crashed into Alastor and sent him reeling, but the return of his powers, his shadow flaring violently, dangerously around him, avoiding Lucifer entirely, but shredding the bathroom around him, made him feel so much better.

He looked at Lucifer, exhausted, scooting closer to his king. He tucked himself close.

“I .. normally would object.” Alastor said weakly, sniffling and pressing his palms into his eyes as the accursed tears reared their ugly head, voice shaking. “But I never, never want such a vile thing to happen again. How… how did you find me?”

“You called for me,” Lucifer said tightly, his tears soaking into Alastor’s hair. The king passed his hand over Alastor’s belly, over his womb, over the mark he’d scrawled with his own blood. “We are connected, you and I. In that moment, I saw with your eyes, felt with your heart. You called to me. I will always come when you call, ayalah.”

“Promise me that you will always save me. I will do the same.” Alastor sobbed, well and truly sobbed, curled tightly against Lucifer’s back.

“I am your guardian. Your protector. Your weapon and your shield. I will always be there.”

“You will have more than just his territory,” Lucifer said darkly, his eyes filling with hellfire. “This is not yet over. I will see to the rest of it.”

“I want to help,” Alastor said, voice low and dangerous, stripping out of his ruined clothes and hiding himself in the water, holding himself as he stared into the bubbles as though he could turn them into spears. “My honor was defiled. I never want them to feel safe again. I want them to live and cower in fear of our wrath,” Alastor said passionately, scrubbing aggressively at his skin as though he could erase Vox from existence with the force.

“No, no,” Lucifer tsked, shaking his head, taking Alastor’s hand in his as he came to kneel once more at his side. “Your honor and your grace is intact."

“He tried to take it from me.” Alastor gagged again, talons digging into his stomach as he thought about if Lucifer had been a little later what filth could have been seeded in him. “The only one allowed to sit inside me is you.” He gazed into Lucifer’s eyes, his own blazing with murderous intent. “I want to destroy them.”

“That we will do,” Lucifer pledged. “They will pay for their sins with their eternal life. I will see you play with their bones by the end. You can lead this hunt. I am yours to dispense. You fought like a champion, Alastor. My dear. My knight.”

Alastor’s answering smile was nothing short of vile; far too sharp, far too too many teeth, far, far too wide.

“I will plan, but for now .. ” his anger fizzled out as quickly as it was there. He sagged into the tub, pressing Lucifer’s hand into his face. “I want you to hold me, I don’t want— I don’t want to be alone.”

“I will not leave you alone,” Lucifer told Alastor — promised Alastor — his hand caressing that dear, unmarred face, his forehead pressed to his. “It is my turn to care for you. Do you need anything? More water? Tea? Heads on a platter?”

Alastor relaxed more, the fight or flight of the situation was starting to wear off, finally. Lucifer’s careful doting was certainly helping his panic even as his ears continued to twitch and swivel at every small noise in the room. Though, it gave way to a different feeling, one that had him staring at Vox’s blood on the finery he’d gifted Lucifer.

He felt filthy.

“I don’t want anything, thank you. You should change out of that,” Alastor said, motioning to the ruined clothing, tucking his legs close to his chin.

Lucifer looked down at the masterpieces Alastor had conjured for him, the globules of coolant, the rainbow-mirror finish of oil and technogore. His mouth thinned into a line, a fresh wave of anger rolling through him like an earthquake, pressing a hand to his chest.

He lifted one hand and then the other to his mouth to catch the tip of gloved fingers in his white teeth. He tugged those precious gloves off delicately, resting them upon his padded shoulder.

Lucifer stood, taking a step back. He pressed his thumb and forefinger together, and as if he were pulling away a stray hair drew his hand away from his shirtfront. The substances sullying his precious gift coalesced, forming a shimmering thread. Lucifer drew them up and away, both of his hands coming to hover below the newly formed spinning ball of Vox's fluids.

The king clapped his hands around the ick, capturing it between his bare palms. His face a mask of vengeance, of unbridled, righteous rage, Lucifer's eyes glowed with fire as the dark light of his power peeked out from between his tightly-pressed fingers, mingled gold and crimson, swirling like magma in the earth.

All at once he was finished, his expression relaxing minutely as Lucifer's silent exertion drew to a close. He opened his hands, and sitting in the center of one cursed palm rested a tiny sapphire. Inconsequential, hardly worth cutting, but there.

The king's hooves clicked over the floor -- Alastor had never made him shoes, after all. He approached his crown, the wicked shape of it resting in a place of prominence on his vanity. The rubies gleamed like sleeping demons.

Wordlessly, Lucifer pressed the sapphire into an empty setting in the crown.

Chapter 15: Belonging

Chapter Text

Lucifer sat at his sewing machine just finishing refilling a bobbin. Pins pressed between his lips at the ready, he reinstalled the thing and returned the components to their position of readiness. One after the other, he plucked from his mouth each pin to fix the rich fabric under his hands in place before he carefully urged it under the needle.

Forget requiring an escort to go to a different Ring -- Alastor now required security if he wanted to visit the butcher. Half the time Lucifer just conjured a fresh buck for him as a means by which to keep him satisfied without needing to set foot outside.

Alastor had gone past being grateful for Lucifer’s overzealous protectiveness. He was entirely over it at this point. At the beginning, he’d even been relieved by it. What Vox did to him had him beyond spooked; a special sort of paranoid that had him watching every drink poured for him. Even if he’d seen it prepared, he had studied the effects of poisons and drugs on the body so he could know the millisecond something went wrong with the jazz beat of his heart. Rosie was leaving, Alastor was fine. He’d suffer through Lucifer’s over protective streak until Alastor slew the rest of those accursed Vees himself and proved himself more than capable of taking care of himself.

Even if there hadn’t been any penetration, Vox had taken his security from Alastor and he could barely look at Lucifer, afraid and nauseous of an act he’d been slowly warming up to the idea of. Which was even more frustrating when Alastor needed to conceive — wanted to conceive — to get the benefits of their contract.

Lucifer bit his lip, sighing, casting a steely look to the pitiful sapphire twinkling in his crown. Whatever he needed, Lucifer would give.

He lifted his foot off the pedal, the quiet hum of the machine coming to an end. He wondered to himself if Alastor was ready for Rosie to no longer be just a few steps away. He then flipped the foot up on the machine, reaching in to snip the thread at the end of his stitch. He turned the seam over and over in his hand, inspecting it. He wanted this to fit just right. Changing a long wrap skirt of satin into an elegant pair of trousers was no small feat, but he was nothing if not determined. Alastor would come calling tonight as part of his weekly duty and this had to be ready by then.

It was evening by the time Rosie did leave. She held Alastor close and made him promise to visit her whenever he felt insecure. He assured her he felt better. She didn’t much believe him. Unbeknownst to Lucifer, Alastor assumed he’d be allowed to go visit Rosie without the entirety of a hastily constructed royal guard shadowing his every step.

Lucifer made— oh. This man.

He called me a girl.

Never again.

Alastor laughed, turning his head coyly to regard Lucifer. “I’m not sure, I think I’d look just as fine in translucent gold finery.” He mused, before regarding the slacks.

"Now you've gone and given me ideas." Lucifer grinned, fabrics and cuts dancing through his head already that he hoped he would be able to draw upon again later once this task was done. As easy as it was to merely magic things into existence, there was nothing more satisfying than creating with his own two hands.

Lucifer sipped his sherry with a pleased noise -- so crisp, he really did need to ask Alastor where he found it -- as he rose, the garment over his shoulder. "I do need to tailor these. I want them to fit you perfectly."

Alastor held his hand out, taking the garment when it was offered to him and disappeared behind a privacy screen, changing into them and walking back out.

“Go on then.”

Lucifer got down on his knees, tugging the hem, observing the way the slacks tapered gently to the ankle. They were loose-fitting at the hip and thigh for ease of movement but hugged his waist like a glove. They were looser than what Alastor was used to, but they hugged him well; tailored for him with his style and desires in mind. Alastor loved them.

"What do you think of the fit? Are you comfortable?"

Lucifer rose with Alastor's encouragement, stepping closer to him, following his lead before he tugged on his sinner's hand to give him pause.

Lucifer was not Vox.

Lucifer was surprised by the response -- it wasn't a jerk of revulsion or a growl of anger or frustration or disgust. Alastor was .. blushing. Was he .. aroused? Alastor was just as confused by the reaction he had. Revulsion he’d expected, had even been prepared for misguided anger, but— arousal?

Lucifer ran a hand through his hair with an affable smile. "There. All done."

Alastor coughed delicately, stepping away from Lucifer. He needed the moment to calm himself. This was probably what Rosie said could happen. Everyone processed trauma differently, and his body reacting to Lucifer in an adjacent situation to what had happened was likely him trying to reclaim power in some way. Still, it was confusing no matter how much he reasoned.

“Mon angè, won’t you have dinner with me?” Alastor asked, taking Lucifer’s hand and pulling him towards the balcony, “it’s a nice enough night for it.” and motioning for his king to go to the balcony. “I will bring it to you, mon angé. Please wait for me.” Alastor felt warm, safe, cared for. He could almost forget that Lucifer was so deeply over protective in the moments like this.

"Of course, anything for you."

“Ah! The reappearance of the radio!” Alastor said, amused as he set the plates down. “Such .. interesting memories associated with that. I didn’t realize you’d finished restoring it. Does it play yet?” He admired the beauty of the well-lacquered wood. It was truly an hold over from his time, but no less beautiful than when he’d left Earth.

"I finished it last night," Lucifer told Alastor quite proudly, flicking the knob that brought the antique to life with a soft buzz and the illumination of the main center panel. "It took so long.. I had to look everywhere for some of the parts, and I'd never done anything like this before." Lucifer's eyes flicked to Alastor. Was he speaking of the radio, truly? "I learned a lot, but the look on your face now is what made me want to do it," Lucifer said quite honestly, passing a gentle hand over the shining wood of the now fully functional device.

Something was different. It was difficult to place, and it had to do with the furniture and and how high those things seemed in comparison to Lucifer. Hadn't the railing come all the way up to his chest before? It was at his waist now.

Alastor perked up, the changes to the balcony written off in favor of absorbing the way the antique radio waves purred across his skin. Smiling as he waved his hand and called up a favorite smooth and slow beat of his; suitable for dinner.

“Thank you again for fixing that for me, you didn’t have to. After all, I was less than pleasant in that stage of our relationship.”

Lucifer chose that moment to stride to Alastor, and now what had changed was evident. He came to stand before him, eye to eye, no longer sitting or kneeling or squatting as his consort's dutiful tailor. Alastor jumped at the realization that— was .. was Lucifer taller?

Lucifer cast Alastor out, then reeled him in, sweeping him into his arms on the return. He held him close, pressed tight together, chest to chest.

Alastor was delighted. How far his beloved king had come, how much more confident he’d become, more sure, more determined. More ruthless. More beautiful.

Every part the King of Hell, every bit the Morningstar.

"Ayalah .. " Lucifer sang the word past his consort's lips, clear like church bells, like nightingales, like the musical waters of the Mississippi. Lucifer’s hands against Alastor's back were tracing fire up and down his spine, and at the same time it burned away the anxiety that made itself known. Alastor wanted this, it was like some biblical level realization. He wanted this man, this angel, however Lucifer wanted him if it meant that he would only look at Alastor. The jazz beat of his heart changed, something sappy and almost romantic that he couldn’t unpack now -- wouldn’t.

Lucifer met each kiss with his own, tangling his fingers in Alastor's hair, nibbling at Alastor's petal soft lips just to hear him gasp. The sharp against his mouth made Alastor sigh, shivering. "Is it something we should go back inside for?"

Lucifer turned them both, backing his sinner up against the railing with two solid hands on his hips. He bit Alastor on the throat so lightly, like a cat trying to wake her sleeping master, hungry for kibble. Alastor shuddered, waist hitting the iron wrought railing, smile tight and slightly parted as he panted quietly. Lucifer leaned in to whisper against those velvety, sweet ears. "You're noisy, you know .. anyone could hear .. "

Charlotte? That wasn’t right, thought Alastor. Lucifer would never call Charlie something she didn’t enjoy. After all, he had scolded Alastor for doing the very same thing.

"I wonder, though, how much courage it would put into your heart should we make love while you can see all this .. " Lucifer gently turned Alastor so he was facing out at the spread of the Pride ring, his hipbones braced against the railing as Lucifer's hands rode up his midline, his arms wrapped around him from behind. Lucifer whispered into Alastor's ears again as one of his hands dipped into the back of those tailored trousers, his fingers seeking out the wetness he knew was there. ".. your kingdom."

The concern he'd felt left as quickly as it came as Lucifer pressed his fingers against Alastor’s weeping c*nt and he shuddered, stiffening slightly before he relaxed again. He swallowed hard, hands tight on the railing, the metal creaking.

"Shall we find out .. ?"