Chapter Text
Lucifer was beginning to think he might like the humidity.
It was a ridiculous thought, especially when he’d spent the better part of his earlier visits to Alastor’s bayou-infested hotel room complaining about the damp. But tonight the thick, floral-heavy air felt less like a weight and more like a nice, comfy blanket. It felt cozy. Right.
The king was currently enjoying that weight and heat sprawled out near the fireplace across a new addition to the room: a low-slung, velvet chaise longue of deep crimson that Alastor had likely manifested just to discourage the king from treating his old armchair like a jungle gym. If so, Lucifer wasn’t complaining. The thing was comfortable, and he got enough passing amusement from the grimace Alastor made when Lucifer conjured a plush duck pillow to lean his hip into. He pressed into both the pillow and the cushions with luxuriant ease, his limbs feeling heavy and loose in a way they rarely did, his eyes half-shut… even if his heart continued to beat a rapid, private beat as he watched his sole company.
The usual crickets and frogs were buzzing and croaking in the distance, and the fire crackled in the hearth beside him, but it was the soft jazz humming from another corner that caught Lucifer’s ear, produced not by the usual radio, but by the same sinner he had his eyes on. The Radio Demon was sitting at his piano, a study in sharp angles and deliberate grace, back straight, posture perfect as his fingers danced across the keys with a liquid precision Lucifer found himself mesmerized by. That brought a newly familiar, treacherous tightening to his chest.
The music itself was a soft, wandering thing. Some old jazz piece Lucifer didn’t recognize, full of shifting rhythms and elegant trills, but lighter and less ‘plucky’ than Alastor’s usual fare. A nice match to Alastor’s softer touch that evening—relatively speaking. He’d been generally less acidic and prodding of late, and Lucifer wondered if the sinner simply shared the devil’s want for a kind fall of an evening, or if Alastor was trying to placate Lucifer in some quiet, indirect way. If so—and if not—it was still nice. The whole atmosphere was a cool compress against the fever of a week he had had, dragged into damage control after quiet damage control meeting with his sweetly worried daughter, after his last…he hoped his last fight with Lilith.
There shouldn’t be a need for another now, right?
He breathed out the question, willing the tension and weight of it to leave his bones, for the pain to not rise back up like a tide, and returned his focus pointedly to Alastor. In particular, his playing. Lucifer found himself watching the movement of Alastor’s hands, the long, elegant fingers and claws playing so cruelly well over the keys. Those hands were capable of so much, Lucifer knew. True cruelty and gore. Violence both vicious and playful. Persuasion and charm. Beauty. Tenderness.
Lucifer’s gaze lingered on those fingers, and suddenly his mind wasn't in the present anymore, but trapped in the memory of those same hands… one firm on his elbow, the other pressing flat against the small of his back to catch him before he fell.
Both on his back, keeping him still as he trembled.
One in his hair, little pinpricks of reality prompting him to open his eyes and look up, and—
“You’re playing that awfully well,” Lucifer remarked, breaking the silence, his voice to his relief not cracking nor too high. Just slightly breathless, and that was easy enough to smile over.
Alastor didn't turn to see how strained or not that smile was. He kept playing, still turned to the piano, but Lucifer caught the corners of his mouth twitching upward out of his baseline smile. “Practice, Your Majesty. A good century of it, regular and steady. It’s a wonderful way to drown out the less… melodious aspects of life.”
Lucifer let out a long, heavy breath, the anxiety of his spinning thoughts fading away as he focused on the music. On Alastor’s hands again. “Beautiful, really,” he insisted, dragging his eyes reluctantly back up to a half-obscured profile. “Though, maybe a bit… stiff?”
Alastor’s pointed ears gave a sharp little flick in his direction. “‘Stiff?’”
“Yeah! You know, just a little… safe,” Lucifer pushed, feeling a spark of that old, addictive mischief. “Well enough for a moment or two, but you’ve been playing for a while now! Why not mix things up?”
Finally, the music stopped. The fire and the frogs rose back up to fill the silence, but still Alastor didn't turn around, his fingers lingering on the ivory keys of the old upright he favored. “And what, pray tell,” he asked, his voice carrying that familiar, underlying crackle of a radio signal. “Would meet your exacting standards for an evening’s entertainment, Your Majesty? I was under the impression that the King of Hell preferred the grand and the theatrical.”
“I do! Exactly!” Lucifer hopped off his seat, his movements a bit too energetic as he tried to shake off the lingering vulnerability of the previous moment. He paced a short arc in front of the fireplace with its grim green glow. “I want something fun. Something… I don’t know, lively. Maybe a little scandalous?”
For a breath, Alastor went very still. Then he swiveled on his bench and arched a brow directly at the king. His expression was soundly unimpressed. “Scandalous? I am a professional, Majesty. I do not play ‘scandalous’ ditties for the amusement of bored royalty.”
Lucifer stopped his pacing. “Come on, don’t play the saint with me.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at the deer. Felt the sparks of his own shock and dismay and rode them to feel the thrill of it. “I’ve seen what you do and where you like to hang out. I know there must be something tucked away in that dusty radio-head of yours that isn't suitable for an old Victorian parlor.”
Alastor let out a snort to say what he thought of that accusation. Shot Lucifer a look that said he knew perfectly well Lucifer didn’t believe a word of it either. “I wasn’t aware you had a taste for the tawdry, Sire.”
“Oh, don’t give me that. I’m the King of Hell. I invented the word.”
The look he received for that was—again—unconvinced. And unimpressed.
Lucifer offered a wide, prodding grin in return. The kind that had let him get away with sin time and time again, and usually earned little more than an eye roll from this particular crowd. He was still willing to try. “Come on, Al—please? Just one song? I swear I won’t tell!”
…Alastor’s smile dropped to near gone, his gaze going sharp and unblinking on Lucifer’s face, and the angel was uncertain for one, horrid moment if he had pushed too far, or really pushed too far.
…Then Alastor sighed a long, dramatic sigh on a brief burst of static, shutting his eyes as he reached up to adjust his monocle. “You are a most demanding guest,” he lamented, though the way he said it had the tension falling out of Lucifer’s shoulders, not building up. “Very well, if you insist. But you must promise me something, Sire.”
Lucifer’s eyes went wide, and if the little badly hidden layer of indulgence in the sinner’s voice made his heart skip a beat—well, that was just his business, wasn’t it? “…Anything. Within reason. And maybe out of it.”
There—there was Alastor’s proper smile, twitching back into place. “Do not,” Alastor began, his eyes narrowing into glowing red slits, voice dropping into a lazy drawl that sent a shiver down Lucifer’s spine. “Tell a soul about this. If I hear even a whisper of this outside this room, I shall ensure your entire rubber duck collection meets a very watery end.”
The nerve of the man. Lucifer was smiling like a fool as he mimed locking his lips. “Cross my heart and hope to—well, you know.”
Alastor turned back to his instrument with a pointed harrumph that did nothing to Lucifer’s grin. Then he adjusted his posture, put his claws back to the keys, and fell directly into a jaunty, almost irreverent tune. It was bouncy, cheeky, and distinctly theatrical.
Then Alastor sang to match. “I got it from Agnes! She got it from Jim! We all agree—”
Lucifer’s jaw didn't just drop. It practically hit the rug. He stared for all of four bars without a single peep or breath.
Then he started to giggle.
Then he covered his mouth as a proper laugh fell out of him.
Then he was doubling over, clutching his stomach as laughter gasped and wheezed out of him and Alastor went right along breezing through the absurd and thinly-veiled lyrics with a steady voice and straight face like it was nothing.
The Radio Demon, singing a song for the King of Hell about that.
What was the world coming to?
“Alastor!” Lucifer managed to choke out between fits of giggles, and he could have sworn he saw Alastor glance over his shoulder at him between verses with a distinctly wicked glint in his eye. “I—is that—what do you mean—?”
Alastor didn't stop, his fingers dancing over the keys with a playful lightness. By the time he reached the final, triumphant chord, Lucifer was on his knees, still holding his stomach as he laughed so hard no sound came out, just small, pathetic puffs of air.
“I had no idea you were even capable of a joke so… off-color!” Lucifer wheezed, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Damn, Alastor, that was… I didn't think you had it in you!”
Alastor scoffed, though the sound was unmistakably good-natured. “It is hardly my ‘cup of tea,’ I assure you. A bit modern for my tastes. Certainly lacking in true musical depth. However, I can respect the wit, and it has a certain… bite to it that I find tolerable in small doses.”
“Tolerable? Alastor, that was the most human thing I’ve ever seen you do!” Lucifer teased, his face still flushed from laughter as he grinned up at the sinner, not even bothering to pick himself up off the floor. “Where did you even learn that?”
…Alastor’s smile shrank a little.
Lucifer’s own grin curdled, caught before it fully fell, suspended in confusion as he wondered what he had said.
But his trepidation remained stuck in limbo as Alastor gave no further indication of concern. He simply stood, rolling his shoulders and smoothing his coat with an air of reclaimed dignity. “As I said, it is certainly not of my time. A one-time concession done merely to please your whims.” Certainly not the most reassuring of responses, but after he was done, Alastor looked at Lucifer. Really looked at him, the defensive little smirk he had taken on softening into something not quite a smirk, nor a sneer. It was… fond?
Lucifer swallowed.
Alastor’s grin twitched, his ears flicking back. “Let us not get carried away, Your Majesty.”
What was that supposed to—
The fire in the hearth crackled and spit, making the shadows dance as the green flame suddenly danced as if in a wind, and when Lucifer blinked past the effect, he just caught sight of Alastor’s odd shadow zooming away, leaving its source to ‘solidify’ on the piano bench with a crackle of static and a happy little wiggle.
Lucifer stared at it until a clawed hand filled his vision.
“Since you seem so determined to ruin a perfectly peaceful evening,” Alastor said, his voice dropping into a smooth, inviting purr, “Perhaps you’d care to put that nervous energy to better use?”
Lucifer blinked, his heart doing a frantic little somersault. He looked at the hand, then up at Alastor’s glowing red eyes.
Behind him, the sinner’s shadow began to play all on its own, bursting into a song that wasn’t just swing, but electric. A modern tune in homage to the old style that Lucifer actually knew well, limited only by the sole instrumentation of the piano.
Alastor continued to stare down at him, a challenge—no, an invitation in his smile.
The surprise lasted only a second before Lucifer’s delight burst into a laugh. “Oh, you want to dance, do you?” he asked, leering happily up at his waiting demon. “Fine. But if we’re doing this, we’re doing it right.” Then Lucifer snapped his fingers, and in a spark of gold light, three miniature, puppet-like versions of himself appeared on top of the bookcases and the vanity. They each clutched tiny brass instruments, and at once they put them to use by blasting a loud accompaniment to the shadow’s piano.
Alastor shot them a side-eye and arched brow, but otherwise did not comment.
Lucifer soon stole his attention back by grabbing his hand.
The room filled with the full, brassy sound of a big band, the music vibrating through the floorboards as Alastor pulled Lucifer to his feet, and into a dance. And they danced like they hadn’t at Mimzy’s club, the last time or the first. Those dances had been a performance, competitive displays of skill or mindful obeisances to the formal style of whatever dance the rest of the crowd was following. This was improvised and messy and just fun. No worries about which dance form they were in from moment to moment, or how to do it.
They just danced.
It almost made up for that last time at Mimzy’s, when the lady herself stole Lucifer’s partner out from under him—something about ‘can’t hog him to ya’self all night, Sire’ or some such hogwash—and it had taken two whole songs for Lucifer to think up a little localized rainfall of gin in the bar area to distract the owner long enough to sneak by and claim Alastor’s attention back for himself.
Now there was no one there to jump in, no one to interrupt as Lucifer spun Alastor across the wet floor and Alastor practically threw him in return, made the angel laugh and break out his wings—likely making for a silly sight with him in his fuzziest sweater—to catch himself and evade the demon’s attempts to snatch him in an impromptu waltz, coaxing him into an off-beat synchronized dance with the horns instead.
And Alastor—he acted put out about it, but he was grinning when he finally managed to pull him back in, matched Lucifer laugh for laugh as they fell into a rhythm together, there in his odd little room, and it was fun. For those few minutes, everything fell away. Nothing existed except the soggy floor, the music, and the man smiling back at him, his hand in his.
Then it stopped.
Crickets filled Lucifer’s ear as he gasped for breath, still arched back over Alastor’s arm, his own hand clutching the sinner’s lapel, both of their other hands clasped together. Alastor was short of breath too, and they were both smiling, wide and easy, eyes locked in a lingering look that seemed to stretch on forever as one frog and then another joined the chorus of the silence around them.
Lucifer wondered dizzily if they were real, or just a glamour for atmosphere.
He wondered at what made Alastor’s eyes burn that specific shade of quiet red, and why it was happening then.
Wondered if Alastor would ever—
“Well!” Alastor said, his smile spreading, voice returning to its usual jaunty pitch as he righted Lucifer and stepped back. He let go of Lucifer’s hand with a wry, almost dismissive flick of his wrist. “That was fun.”
Lucifer felt the sudden absence of the warmth like a physical blow. He stumbled back half a step, flustered… then let out an awkward laugh. “Yeah. Yeah! Totally fun.” He cleared his throat. Clutched his abandoned hand to his chest and frantic beating heart and turned back to the chaise, retreating to its safety. “Great cardio. We should… do that again sometime! In another century or two.” Stop talking. “Or, you know, tomorrow. That would be fine too, haha!” He needed to stop talking.
Alastor gave a noncommittal little hum, and when Lucifer sat down and dared a little peek back up, he found Alastor crossing the room with long strides, straightening his bowtie before coming to a stop beside his piano. Pressing one fist against the small of his back, he bent forward and made a shooing motion at his shadow. The thing managed to pull off a very clear pout between its silhouetted expression and movements and sudden, alarming growth, but then it retreated into Alastor’s actual shadow without another complaint, freeing the sinner himself to sit down with a prim flourish and reclaim the ivories.
He rolled into the instantly recognizable ‘Pine Apple Rag’.
Lucifer listened… and quickly relaxed, the tension that had built up within him eroding away.
Alastor didn’t do ragtime often. It was no more of ‘his time’ than that Agnes song was, just in the other direction. But he did know it, mentioned at some point he had grown up with the tunes, and he broke them out when he was feeling particularly nostalgic. And relaxed. And happy.
Lucifer beamed at the thought, relieved by this little bit of evidence Alastor’s abrupt break from him wasn’t a sign of distress, or rejection. Alastor had enjoyed their dance too, in some sense.
Then Lucifer’s smile ebbed, weighed down by the wonder that he knew that. Lucifer had been lingering about Alastor so much, for so long… he had keyed into something as subtle as the mood reflected in Alastor's choice of music.
…
He leaned back against the cushions of the chaise, picked up his pillow and hugged it. Let his gaze follow the movement of Alastor’s fingers. Again. Watched the way Alastor’s ears flicked in time with the music, the way his shoulders lost that defensive hunch of his.
…Being near Alastor was… incredible. It really was. He was. He was so present. So oddly dependable. That should be an oxymoron given how chaotic a creature he was, the extremes he was willing to go to, how clearly set he was on being terrifying and inscrutable and frustrating to those around him. But he was. Despite the barbs and the power plays, Alastor had been... there. He’d looked after Charlie in his own twisted way, looked after Lucifer in countless more. In ways that—Lucifer knew—he wasn’t even comfortable with.
Lucifer had been in no state of mind to consider it at the time, but he saw in retrospect how much he had put Alastor on the spot, turning to him when he was so upset about Lilith. About failing. Alastor was just there when he had come home to the hotel, and he had needed him, and… and Alastor had come. He’d let him lean on him. He’d held him. Even when Alastor clearly felt as comfortable about it as anyone would be cuddling a tarantula, he’d held on.
And yet… even when Alastor acted like he hated hugging him at the time, Lucifer had caught him doing more when Alastor thought he wouldn’t know. Caught him touching him like… like he cared.
He cares about me, Lucifer thought, the realization settling in his chest like a warm coal. At least a little.
And if he didn’t? If it was all just part of Alastor’s schemes, like Lucifer had feared from the start? Then Alastor was the most remarkable player Lucifer had ever encountered. Because, not only would that mean he had tricked him… he’d won so thoroughly that Lucifer didn’t care anymore. Or he did—very much so—but it didn’t matter, because it was… worth the risk. Alastor was worth the risk.
Even their deal… There was no reason for it now. Lilith was never going to approve. Was never going to take him back. And Charlie—she didn’t see any of this as protection. She just saw the people she wanted to save getting hurt. Even if it was making the hotel safer, protecting them, she didn’t want this. She had made that clear.
But still, Lucifer didn’t call it off. Hadn’t told Alastor about any of this.
Because he didn’t want it to end. He didn’t want to lose him.
Because he loved him.
And it was…no shock, to think of it. He had been fearing the draw Alastor had on him for months. Had seen the pattern within himself as far back as—what? Their first dance? He had seen enough to be scared of what being near Alastor made him feel.
And he had still done it. Still allowed himself to be pulled in. Whatever Alastor intended, whatever he felt about him, or didn’t, Lucifer had allowed this to happen.
The most dangerous, manipulative, irritating, charming sinner Lucifer had ever met, and he had gone and fallen in love with him.
And he wasn’t even sorry. Couldn’t make himself be sorry. All he could do was stare at the man playing another ragtime song in the middle of the night for an audience of one, the green firelight bleeding black into the red of his coat and hair. Listen to the mindless little hum-along Alastor was humming as he played, his voice and static nearly lost beneath the notes, but still there.
Lucifer wanted to reach out. Grab the hem of that coat. Those hands. Ask if any of this was real for Alastor too. Say things that may or may not get him laughed at, or send his sinner scurrying off to the winds.
Lucifer sat, and wanted, and hugged his pillow and bit his lip and pulled at his own fingers until—
He looked down. Stared at what had suddenly grabbed his attention. Bit his lip again… and breathed out. Felt the tension holding him still drain out.
He stood up. “Hey, Alastor? I’ll—uh, be right back. Just need to go do something.”
Alastor offered another vague little hum in answer, sacrificing only his left hand for a quick wave as he continued playing. “I will be here when you get back.”
Lucifer imagined he would be.
Lucifer didn’t bother with a portal, using the couple of minutes it took to walk to his room the traditional way to let what he was considering sink in, settle as a certainty before he ever got to his door and slipped inside his unlit chamber. He didn’t bother with any lights. He moved across the dark room on sure feet…until he was about halfway across the room. Then he turned. Looked up at a portrait he couldn’t make out properly in the dark, but would know forever by heart, even if he was blinded tomorrow and never saw it again.
His family. Him, his little girl, and his wife. One of his favorite portraits of them, where they looked really, really happy, taken maybe a couple of centuries back. He couldn’t remember exactly when, or where it was taken or what they were doing. Back then, happy days were the given, not the exception, and they all blurred together like drops in the ocean.
He… couldn’t really say when that had changed. He might like to think it was eight years ago, that it was his handling of the exorcisms that tore everything apart. Then maybe it could be something Lucifer could fix. One mistake, however big, he could face. He could spend the rest of eternity trying to make it right, if only there was a hope of redemption.
But there wasn’t. Like his first sin—the first sin—this… ending, was a given. Set in stone by far more years of erosion than he wished to admit to, and the hard fact that no love could be saved, be made into more than a feeling, if it was held by only one.
Lilith had walked away long ago. Had made that perfectly clear in a way that… may have been a kindness, now that Lucifer faced it. Now that he was here, and… the only thing holding him back, making him feel guilty about what he felt, was himself.
He stared at that portrait, let the reality it showed sink in as true, but gone… And looked down at his hands.
At his ring.
…He reached for it. Slid the plain golden band off his finger.
It was heavier than he remembered, sitting in his palm. It had not been anywhere but his finger in eons, and it felt like there should be some mark there, where it had been. Some proof that what had been for so long had just been abandoned.
There was nothing. Just the same charred black skin as the rest of his hand.
He didn’t feel like he would expect either. No guilt, no crippling sadness, no breathless relief. Just… a faint weightlessness. But only a little.
In the end, it was just a ring.
He clutched it close all the same, just for a moment, before turning to the bookshelf behind his bed and conjuring up a little box of applewood, just for it, carved with a mindless array of apples and music notes and trees and crowns and fire and keys—the marks of their beginning and end. Lucifer kissed the ring once, telling himself it was goodbye, then shut the gold inside on a cushion of purple velvet.
He lingered with his hand on the lid just a moment, then turned his back and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
“Sorry about that,” he remarked, letting the door shut behind him with a quiet tap of the latch, closing himself in with the heat and the smell of rotting flowers and Alastor.
“Think nothing of it, Sire,” Alastor said back just as casually, still playing away at… was that the same tune Lucifer had left to him playing? Had he truly been that quick? “I am perfectly capable of entertaining myself for a few minutes. Not that you were exactly ‘entertaining’ when you left, thrilling as your company may be.”
Lucifer gave a snort, considered tossing back a retort of his own, or tossing himself into the challenge of being ‘entertaining’ enough for the sinner in whatever capacity would make him eat those words, or just pressing Alastor to stop with the titles already, but… He didn’t do any of that. Especially the last. He had already stated his opinion on that months ago, and if Alastor wanted to maintain that distance? That was his prerogative… Lucifer couldn’t force it. Accepting his own feelings for the man didn’t entitle him to anything.
But as Lucifer crossed the rug, he caught Alastor tossing him a passing look. Just a quick one—scarcely more than a flicker of red—but Lucifer was very conscious of it. Of who was looking at him. Alastor rarely missed anything, after all.
But Lucifer kept going anyways. He would notice sooner or later, after all. Everyone would, whether it was tonight or in a day or a week, it was inevitable. And he made himself comfortable with that back on the velvet chaise Alastor had provided him with near the fire, reclaiming his duck pillow as he settled in, hugging it between his lap and chin and shutting his eyes, letting the old ragtime tune wash over him…
Alastor stopped playing.
Lucifer opened his eyes.
The Radio Demon sat remarkably still, his back a rigid line of crimson. His hands, usually so fluid and restless, were hovering just over the ivory keys.
His gaze was fixed pointedly on Lucifer’s bare hand, currently clutching a plush duck.
And Lucifer watched, holding his breath, but—not hiding it. Not doing anything. He just let Alastor look.
The silence stretched, marked only by some wood cracking in the hearth. A frog croaked once as well.
Finally, Alastor turned back to the piano. Started playing again.
Lucifer bit his lip. Found he… honestly didn’t mind. Didn’t feel disappointed, nor relieved by the lack of comment. The need to explain himself. There was just a knowing there, heavy with weight. Alastor knew.
…And if Lucifer wasn’t mistaken, that odd pause there in his newest song was the first mistake he had heard in Alastor’s playing all night.
He played with the idea of it, true or not, and just watched, letting the ease sink into him. Usually, he would busy himself in some way while Alastor worked or played in this room. Sketch something or conjure some new flock or fiddle with whatever trinket caught his eye or imagination. But there was no urge to do so now. Maybe a distant thought that he should play with Alastor one day—a proper duet, without the aggressive theatrics and friction that colored the day they’d met. That would be nice… but he couldn’t be bothered to ask just then. His eyes were too tired. The lids too heavy. And the newest song Alastor had picked was soft, and dragged his mind into idle places.
…
The fire was warm.
…
When he opened his eyes again, the light from it was nearly gone. All that was left was a low, emerald glow amid a bed of ash, and Lucifer stared into it a long time before reality sank in.
Time had passed.
And, despite the lack of fire, and the damp air in the room, Lucifer was… still warm.
There was a weight on his shoulders.
He turned over against it, and realize in the turn that he had been lying down, that he had been curled around his pillow on his side, and—there was a blanket on him. A soft, heavy green thing that had been nowhere in sight last time he sat down.
He’d fallen asleep.
In Alastor’s room.
Right in front of him.
An embarrassing thing to discover, certainly, but it was difficult to care much through the fog of sleep. It was hard enough to sit up, to blink the stars from his eyes and look about, get his bearings and find his host. Presumably Alastor would be in one of his many corners.
But he wasn’t at the piano. It was silent, the lid shut.
The desk was a no-go as well. His papers had all been put away, the tabletop cleared of everything but writing supplies and some book in the corner—no hope of telling what from there, in the dark.
Lucifer considered he might just be gone, or—for one wary, braced second—that he might have missed him in his chair right in front of him, watching him sleep. But in the end, neither possibility proved true when Lucifer’s gaze finally fell on one piece of furniture he took starkly for granted, tucked away in the corner and never touched as it was in front of him.
Alastor’s bed.
With Alastor in it.
He was right there, a narrow silhouette beneath the covers, clear in the dying firelight, gleaming off the monocle set aside on the nightstand beside him. His face was bare, and peaceful, and just beneath the sounds of the fire and the bayou, there was the faintest sound of static coming and going. Like a radio snoring.
Lucifer listened, stared, and was caught, a sharp sting of understanding making his chest ache. He had fallen asleep. Alastor had found him asleep, and not woken him up. Hadn’t mocked him, or even moved him, or disappeared to find his rest elsewhere in privacy, leaving Lucifer alone in the dark. He had found him, tucked him in, and just gone to bed himself. Allowed himself to sleep with Lucifer right there, in the room with him.
It was so simple, but it made it hard to breathe, thinking of it. To think that Alastor would trust him that far—
Lucifer finally managed to force air in through his nose, filled up his lungs, and held his breath, smiling ridiculously through the burn in his eyes and cheeks. Clutched his pillow tight and buried his nose in the blanket wrapped around him and breathed deep.
It smelled like the bayou.
Lucifer let it sink deeper into his brain, settle there… and laid back down. He didn’t go back to his room. Didn’t return to the room he had settled his heart in some hours ago, with the sign on its door forbidding Alastor entry. He stayed right where he was, curled on his side, clutching a pillow as he stared into the shadows around Alastor’s bed, wondering, longing… savoring. Letting the warmth of the room and the moment wash over him until his eyes naturally shut again, and he fell back asleep.