Chapter Text
A morning out in Cannibal Town with dear Rosie and an afternoon Overlord meeting in which he put the Vee’s in evidence was everything the Radio Demon needed to consider a day as ‘satisfactory’. He felt revitalized as he paraded inside the hotel almost by dinner time, most of the sinners inhabiting it lazing in the lobby. As per usual, he made a quick check to ensure that yes, Husker was attending the hosts behind the bar —while also drinking and talking to Angel, of course—, and Niffty was chasing behind some annoying bug. Everything in order, then.
Or so he thought.
“Hi, Al!” Charlie exclaimed as she planted herself in his way. “Quick question, do you know where my dad is? He was supposed to help with dinner preparations, but he’s not down yet.”
The Radio Demon sighed, rolling his eyes while maintaining his typical smile.
“Well, my dear, you have to consider that my arrangement with your father does not imply having him attached to my hip” he said. “Therefore no, I don’t know where he may be. Did you try his bedroom?”
“Yeah, I… Uh, tried both yours and his, but he didn’t answer” the princess explained with a mix of embarrassment and worry. “Maybe he went for a walk in the city?”
Under other circumstances, Alastor may have used the opportunity to fluster Charlie further. As much as the young lady repeated she was completely fine with the relationship he and her father had entangled themselves into, she didn’t seem yet capable of talking some details without reddening. It was surely entertaining to see!
“Perhaps” he answered instead.
In all honesty, he doubted that was the case; Lucifer rarely entertained going down to Pentagram City alone, and if he had gone visiting any of the other Rings at least one of the staff members of the hotel would have received word. His best guess? The moronic man had gotten caught up in another of his duck inventions and forgotten to check his clock.
“I’ll send him your way if I see him.”
“Thank you, Al!”
With that, he was finally free to retire to his own quarters, losing the gloves, coat and shoes for commodity purposes. It was not like anybody else than he and Lucifer could reach their floor of the hotel so late in the day, anyways.
He spent around an hour bussing himself with a book he had wanted to finish and a good glass of Rye whisky from his private bar. But of course, because he had developed these horrible feelings through the last months of his afterlife, he could not stop thinking about the tiny idiot that would normally be pestering him at this hour.
See, the King of Hell was a walking catastrophe. Completely uncapable of keeping up a normal schedule unless he had it —literally— printed in front of him. Instead of dividing his daily tasks in a logical order to have time for everything, he focused on irrelevant activities like creating new rubber ducks and then perished among the piles of paperwork he had to deal with as the Devil he was.
Did that render Lucifer useless? Not exactly, as for all the time losing he also had these days of hyperfocus, in which he would reduce by more than half all those serious tasks that required his attention, often forgetting to pay attention to his own needs in the process.
As established, a catastrophe in short legs.
Or at least that was how he used to be, until Charlie and Alastor intervened. Now, the devil was capable of following more or less a daily routine, attending to his tasks and taking care of himself —and others— in the process. It hadn’t been easy to get him to this point, but they did. If it wasn’t because Alastor had zero interest in it, he would have say that simply act of patience should have guaranteed him redemption.
Nonetheless, all that also implied that by that hour Lucifer would have stopped doing whatever he was doing and go down to socialize —normally helping with dinner or setting the table—, or come looking for Alastor for some private time together. Knowing the first situation hadn’t manifested, the Radio Demon had expected to have the king knocking at his door by then. Instead, silence ensued.
Running his claws against the table, he decided to finish his whisky and then get out of his room. Lucifer’s energy was still inside of the building, which meant the devil was there also, probably in his room and —just as he had suspected— unbothered by the pass of time.
After the first nock on the king’s door, nothing came out.
“I really hope you haven’t forgotten about dear Charlie in favor of your ducks, darling” he sighed as his hand reached for the knob and gave himself entrance to the room. “That would be rather—”
He stopped dead on track when the sweet smell of angelic blood hit him like a wave. In a good demonstration of how fast it could move, his shadow turned on the light of the quarters, opened the curtains to let some of Hell’s night light inside and closed the door behind them. A moment after, Alastor had pulled up his walls to make sure they would not be interrupted.
There was a small bump on the bed, completely drowned by the covers and immobile.
He cannot die, his brain reminded him.
Which for someone with the king’s condition was rather torturous, as he had once explained him.
“Come now, my dear” he said as he approached the bed in long strides. “You should not keep Hell from your presence, if only for a day. Even with your tiny frame you would be missed!”
The mocking rendered him no reaction, confirming his first assumption.
Now, the question that invaded his mind was: how? How hadn’t he noticed the signals? How had he let it get so bad? Sure, Lucifer had been rather clingy the last couple of days, but nothing out of the normal. He also seemed to have followed his normal routine and interacted with the staff, maybe with a few weird remarks and some strained smile, but nothing too bad.
Or so he had thought.
No point on dwell in the past now, he reminded himself, work with what you have.
If Charlie hadn’t seemed his father in the whole day, it meant that Lucifer had stayed in bed since Alastor had left. Those were far too many hours of the devil listening only to his own voice. And even if bad days were less usual now, they still happened and in those days the devil was weak against the malice in his mind, feeding him lie after lie.
The sinner seated on the border to the mattress, carefully extending a hand towards the covers to peel them off. There was a little bit of resistance, but the king finally gave up and let him uncover the small body in fetal position, face embedded in a pillow.
“There you are” he chuckled, no allowing an inch of worry to slide out. “You’re being missed today, darling.”
A sob broke the silence of the room, Lucifer’s face shaking against the cushion in denial. As if the statement could only be a lie. As if he didn’t believe himself of enough importance despite being the King of Hell, Charlie’s father, Alastor’s… Alastor’s.
And the Radio Demon wanted to scream to the Archangels in Heaven and the God that his own mother used to pray so much, telling him how benevolent it was. He wanted to bring them down to Hell for torture. Because as good and pure as they were, they had managed to destroy the man in that bed. They had made him claw at his arms time after time until there was a stain of golden blood on the sheets big enough to worry anybody, even if there were no scars on the angel’s black skin. They had desecrated his mind so much that their voices still prevailed over Alastor’s and he just couldn’t have that.
And if that had not been enough punishment to him, then Li —she— had put him back together just to break him further after. And there was only so much a man —devil or not— could take.
His anger would not help him now, however, and he had to make a conscious effort to push down the eldritch magic threatening to come out, his shadow abandoning the sadistic expression it had acquired in the last couple of minutes.
Moving slowly, he shifted to pull Lucifer into his arms and against his chest. In moments like this, his funny size acted as a clear advantage and Alastor was thankful for it.
The other man fought back, of course. He had only seen a similar situation to that two other times through their time together, and his reaction was always the same; to push away. The Radio Demon, however, was even more stubborn than him, and therefore always stayed.
This time was no different, but Alastor pressed the king’s body against his chest until the battle stopped and soft sobs ensued.
“It’s ok, my dear” he murmured with a softness he would never let anyone else hear. “You’re not alone, and you’re more than enough.”
Lucifer hurt.
He hurt so much that he wanted to cease his existence. To rest forever. To just… end.
The day hadn’t started so bad, at least not the first time he woke up as Alastor left the bed. He had been happy then, his head following the soft touch of the other man over his cheek as goodbye. However, his mindset had changed completely when he properly awoke a couple of hours after.
Bad days sometimes tend to come as a surprise, or with so little warnings that he is uncapable of preparing himself for the crash.
Initially, Lucifer had acknowledged the reality and gone through his ABCs as he knew he should do.
‘Routine is good to keep your mind on check, dad’ Charlie used to say.
‘To follow a proper schedule is imperative to ensure your little brain doesn’t derail, dear’ Alastor would add.
Problem was, even thinking on the first step of his normal routine had suddenly become too much. What was the point, anyways? He knew how everything would end, sooner or later. Charlie would realize he was a horrible dad and forget about him. Alastor would come to the conclusion that he was not worth the effort, just as Lilith had. The Sins would get used to his absence once again, keeping Hell alive by themselves. And he would be alone in his castle. Existing in solitude.
And it was just—
Too much.
He didn’t want to feel.
He didn’t want to…
He just didn’t.
And therefore Lucifer had stayed in bed, trying to destroy his own existence in vain, as his skin kept growing back didn’t matter how many times he teared it down to the bone. His body would prevail, because this was Hell and his punishment. Not even sleep would come back for him, giving his brain a respite, and he was forced to just exist in agony.
Waiting.
Praying.
Begging for it to end.
The sudden break of the dark thanks to the chandelier of the room was uncomfortable and painful, but not near enough to distract him from the linear thought his brain was fixated on. The king hadn’t even realized Alastor had knocked on the door, and that meant he would have to improvise his speech. Somehow telling him that it would be better for him to leave now, before Lucifer stained him too much and he lost precious time on a broken man that could not even act as the Devil and ruler he was supposed to be.
His body, however, stubbornly remained in place, no reacting as a static voice filled the silence of the room or the mattress dipped to one side. He barely put any resistance when the bed cover was pulled off him, too tired to protest. His body shivered, but he was uncapable of feeling the cold.
“…You’re being missed today, darling.”
Something in him broke. It was not fair, that such a statement could come out from Alastor as anything else than a lie. How could he be missed, if he had been gone for years and nobody cared? If day after day he had screamed for help in the silence of his palace as he tried to end his life over and over again.
Warm arms embraced him and he tried to fight back the comfort he didn’t deserve and still craved. Because at the end of the day that was all Lucifer wanted; to have the reassurance that he was not alone. That even if he was a sorry excuse of a king, of a devil, of a father, he still was…
“…you’re more than enough.”
Enough.
He hung onto Alastor as he cried, loud screams irritating his throat and letting it become raw. And still, the Radio Demon stayed. He held his pathetic form against his chest and breathed soft words that mixed with threats towards anybody that had ever made the king feel useless.
Sometime after —maybe a few minutes, maybe a couple of hours—, his voice gave up and his eyes dried, face still buried in the sinner’s body. There was a growing pain in his head and a feeling of shame building up in his belly. No prideful man would ever make a display as ridiculous as the one he just put on.
Lucifer only noticed he was being carried when another light turned on. He felt himself being carefully dropped on a wooden stool, Alastor having to disentangle his limbs from his person. The tiles on the floor indicated they were in the bathroom, and his brain slowly started to catch up with the present. He frowned, blinking as he tried to understand what exactly was going on.
At one point, a couple of hands started to undo the buttons of his pajama shirt until it was completely off. He only reacted when his figure was promptly pulled up on his two trembling legs and then the two hands were back to remove his pants.
Conscience finally coming back, he lifted his eyes from the floor of the bathroom to see that in front of him Alastor was practically naked, only his underwear covering him. And that was just… Wrong.
Lucifer looked away immediately, because this was not how he wanted to remember seeing Alastor’s bare body for the first time. The Radio Demon was a piece of art that should be worshiped and appreciated. Anything else would simply be ungrateful.
“S-Stop” he muttered, voice raw and painful.
“You need to take a shower, my dear” the sinner simply responded, lifting one of his legs and then the other to fully take off the king’s pants.
“I… I can do it alone.”
At that, Alastor just kept silence, which was rare on him but at the same time not. Because Lucifer knew what he was thinking, even if it didn’t make sense because he couldn’t kill himself.
“Nonsense! I’m also in need of a shower after such an eventful day, and I would dread going all the way back to my quarters when we have a perfectly functional shower in here, don’t you agree?”
“B-But, you… I… We—”
“It’s quite alright, darling” the demon pressed, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him around. “Now, why don’t you bring out your wings so they can be cleaned as well?”
A soft finger brushed through the middle of his back as it had done numerous other times, and his angelic appendages came to life in a second. As they had been preened by Alastor shortly ago, they were in perfect state and some cleaning would make them shine even more.
“Perfect.”
And why did a word make him feel like crying again?
“I’ll start the water” the sinner continued. “Join me when you’re ready, my dear.”
Lucifer once again looked away as the other man walked into the shower, completely naked and in a display of trust they had not crossed before. After a beat, his hands moved for the first time in hours and pulled down his own underwear to follow Alastor.
The warm water on his back made his body relax and his wings flutter a bit. The hands entangling on his hair as apple scented shampoo was spread on his head were unexpected and still pleasurable, his mouth opening to let out a mix of sob and whine. This… This was…
Different.
He didn’t remember doing something similar with Lilith in all their millennia together. The gentle care lacking any kind of implication. Careful hands trailing his body with soft touches as they removed any remaining of golden blood from his arms.
It felt… marvelous.
He had experienced more than enough naked intimacy through his existence, but this was unique. Something he had never shared with anyone besides Alastor, and that made him feel better. More like himself.
And even if he kept his eyes glued to the ground, even if most of his mind still felt disconnected from reality, he also noticed that breathing was not so difficult anymore. That the thoughts of ending were not there lurking. That tomorrow would come, and he would still be there, but not alone.