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“Alastor… let me help you.”
The words came easiest the first time. Lucifer had expected them prickly sharp and stuck in the deepest part of his throat, caged in by an instinctive hatred of all things Alastor.
But it was hard to feel hateful when Alastor looked so small in that chair beside the bed, restrained by a suffocating coil of cables and surrounded by someone else’s clothes, ears pinned back so close to his scalp that at first glance he appeared to not have any at all. It was only upon seeing Lucifer that one flicked out, a panicked twitch of bristled fur. Each strand of hair stood on end as if it had been subjected to jolts of electricity, the worst of it concentrated at the base of his ears, imprints of fingers singed around them both.
You’re never fully dressed without a smile. The irritating mantra of a deranged psychopath desperate to appear in control even when he was drowning. His permanent smile was hidden by a mockery of it now, flipped into an exaggerated frown across the fabric that covered his mouth. Lucifer had lost count of how many times he wanted to pick at the stitches of that smile until it unraveled.
It didn’t feel good today.
Alastor curled in on himself like a wounded animal when Lucifer approached. His limbs that could so easily crack into unnatural angles stiffened tight enough to break. A hiss of static from beneath the gag rose into a shriek of radio feedback, popping the speakers in the room.
Smoke and mirrors; a frantic attempt to appear threatening. The Devil had nothing to fear of sinners, but in that moment it was unlikely for even a mortal to feel scared of Alastor. Not with the way his eyebrows pulled together, wrinkling the space between glassy eyes. Maybe the smile did afford him something beyond the illusion of control. Perhaps it was less about convincing others and more about letting Alastor feel safe.
“If I wanted to hurt you I could have done it from across the room,” Lucifer reasoned, kneeling down in front of the chair. This angle did Alastor no favors, looking smaller still despite looming over Lucifer. “Charlie sent me to come find you.”
He used magic to remove the mouth covering and cable bindings so he didn’t have to directly touch Alastor. The man’s shirt was unbuttoned, a festering wound peeling open between split stitches that left blood dripping into his lap. Not something the Vees could have done, not even with angelic steel.
But they had clearly done something.
“You alright, Bambi?” Lucifer asked him, walking the tightrope between not-too-condescending and not-too-gentle to find the middle-ground where he suspected a demon as prideful as Alastor most comfortably existed.
He failed, of course, clued in by the glowing dial eyes and the nonverbal vibe of ‘go to Hell’ radiating off of Alastor; already there, buddy.
There was something else. It wasn’t something he wanted to bring up, but Lucifer had never been smart about what came out of his mouth, and the clothes strewn about them beside an unmade bed with a half-empty bottle of clear liquid buried in the sheets spurred him to ask. He wasn’t yet sure what he would do if the answer was yes. Burning the place to the ground seemed reasonable, if detrimental to the hotel’s reputation.
Alastor’s red eyes were heavy on him, already anticipating the question.
“Did they–”
“No.”
“But they made you watch,” Lucifer said slowly, the position of the chair facing the bed telling a story that left an unfamiliar nausea roiling in his gut. Angels weren’t supposed to feel sick.
Alastor lifted his chin and sniffed; the haughty display of an Overlord negated by the tremor running from ear tip to toe.
“A thoroughly unimpressive performance.”
Oh, Bambi…
Lucifer opened a portal beside him, ignoring the tight clench around his heart that felt like clawed fingers testing its durability. It stood to reason that a fallen angel would have to contend with a broken body that felt far too much than it was designed to.
“Let’s get you home.”
“That is not my home,” Alastor snarled, the chair sent rolling back by the force of him standing.
“Interesting that you have a bedroom, a radio tower, and a half-eaten deer carcass in the fridge there, then,” Lucifer said, trying for a smile that didn’t want to come, not in a room surrounded by evidence of the violation Alastor endured. “Alright, Bambi, let’s get you back to your Definitely Not Home with all of your possessions and the people who notice when you go missing.”
Lucifer had noticed, even before Charlie had brought it up. The hotel was terribly boring without morning coffee interrupted by shadows and insults and rude mugs.
Alastor had trouble walking but Lucifer didn’t dare touch him, wouldn’t even try unless he seemed poised to collapse. Carrying seven feet of Radio Demon would be easy for the Devil. Watching him struggle to step through the portal on unsteady legs, however, elicited an ache that startled Lucifer. A feeling so foreign, sympathy ascribed in response to the broken pieces of Alastor he left trailing behind them. It left its own destructive touch on Lucifer; Alastor’s stitches, frayed and taut, threading a hole through the immaterial heart of a rejected angel.
~~~
Lucifer hadn’t ever seen the inside of Alastor’s room at the hotel. He knew what the press of its wood against his back felt like, smooth and cold where he rested his bare palms. This was the fifth night he’d spent sitting in front of it. It hadn’t opened once, not even when he’d left his self-assigned post; a rubber duck sat in the hallway across from it, ready to alert Lucifer of any signs of Alastor.
He talked to the emptiness of the hallway in the absence of a response from the other side. He didn’t expect one, but Lilith had told him while pregnant with Charlie that even inside the womb, through the swell of a belly holding life itself, their little girl could hear him talk to her. That it was comforting.
They weren’t particularly fascinating words. The daily minutiae of the hotel. What Lucifer had been tinkering with in his workshop. How Charlie missed him. And, on the rare occasion when the glow of the red sky through the window reminded him of a jagged chest wound, how Lucifer would help should Alastor want it.
Perhaps Alastor could find some comfort in the sound of a voice through wood imbued with layers of magic; Lucifer’s to hold the hotel together, and Alastor’s designed to keep everyone out.
For five days he waited for an answer and heard nothing on the other side of the door but a low hum of static.
On day six he was surprised with a great deal of talking through the wooden barrier; “Are you always this clingy?” “No wonder your wife left you.” “Shall I hang you up like a particularly uninviting door knocker?”
On day seven all he got was a “fuck off” heavily distorted by static.
Day eight was quiet again. Even the static had dimmed, the absence of it gnawing at Lucifer’s stomach with a worry that left him feeling uncomfortably human. But a flicker of something caught his eye; the movement of shadow under the door, darting back and forth in the small gap where it met the floor.
He watched that shadow flicker, come closer and move away, for another three days.
On day twelve shadowy fingers slid out from under the door. Flattened against the floor, two dimensional, sunken deep into the grooves of wood grains. A safe place to hide. Lucifer tried to gently touch the fingertips with his own but they pulled away at the first brush of contact.
He spent ten minutes berating his impulsivity. The curious angel who never learned restraint.
They came back, though– corporeal now, slipping out and poking him in the thigh where he sat cross-legged. It was cold, and it was impatient, and not terribly gentle, but it was Alastor.
On day thirteen the shadow hand slipped out again. Already corporeal, it opened and closed its palm several times, as if waiting. Slowly Lucifer touched it and, this time, the shadow allowed it. Just fingertips at first, flattening out with a delicate slide until they were touching palm-to-palm. Two inky black ears appeared beside his legs as the shadow slipped its head under the doorframe just enough to make itself known, staring up at Lucifer with unblinking eyes from flat on the floor.
“Hello, you,” Lucifer said softly.
An equally quiet warble came out of the shadow. Taking that as a sign that his presence was tolerated, if not welcome, Lucifer began to direct his words to it instead of the empty hallway.
On day fourteen, exactly two weeks since he had brought Alastor back to the hotel, the man’s shadow fully slipped out from under the door for the first time. It stayed flat against the wall opposite him, watching him talk. That first time it just listened, but the next day it seemed receptive, an active participant in Lucifer’s formerly one-sided conversations. It tilted its head, flicked both shadowy ears, even pantomiming responses in a captivating display of shadow puppetry. And, on very rare occasions, it nodded in agreement with something Lucifer said. Something Alastor himself had never done before; Lucifer hoped he was alright.
~~~
They kept up their routine for weeks. Five o’clock in the evening, every evening, and Lucifer was never late. Sometimes the shadow would be waiting for him, swirling up and down the walls of the hallway in anticipation of his arrival. Sometimes Lucifer would skip dinner when one hour stretched into two, or three, immeasurable time spent in a corridor that only knew the sound of his voice.
The shadow was a surprisingly delightful companion, its spirited disposition much more playful than the bite of its human counterpart, but Lucifer missed the bickering. He wanted an annoying radio filter to interrupt him as he filled the hallway with stories of Niffty crafting a mosaic of roach carcasses designed to look like Alastor’s face. He wanted his playmate back. Perhaps the shadow felt the same.
“Are you a part of him?” Lucifer asked one night.
The shadow nodded.
“Is he doing okay?”
A moment of hesitation before both ears flapped with a shake of its head.
“He’s hurt.” Not a question but the shadow nodded anyway. “Physically from the chest wound, or…?”
It lifted both hands, looking at one then the other before clasping them together. Both, then.
That very human nausea, so unangelic as it gnawed through organs his body didn’t even require, bubbled up once again upon remembering the state he’d found Alastor in.
Lucifer didn’t have to like Alastor to firmly believe he didn’t deserve that. No one did– and Lucifer knew with sickening certainty that it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Hell– but there was a unique horror for someone so disinclined towards sex to have to suffer through watching it as an unwilling participant. It was a guess, Alastor’s sexuality, one he’d pieced together from months of observation and a few choice words from Charlie after he’d teased the man with hollow flirting meant only to needle him; he’d stopped after her talk. But the more time Lucifer spent playing with a shadow outside that door, memorizing the shape of its wood against his back as he talked to the man inside who never answered, he realized he didn’t even know Alastor. Perhaps he could not not like him.
~~~
One night, after weeks of their routine and not a hint of warning, the shadow pulled itself off the wall into three-dimensionality to swirl around Lucifer where he sat on the floor. It scratched at the wall where Lucifer’s shadow lay flat and unmoving, claws leaving deep marks in the wood as it tried to peel the silhouette free.
“Mine can’t do what you can,” Lucifer said, frowning at the way it pulled its ears back and let out a disappointed warble.
He had an idea. It had been a long while since he’d tried, not since Charlie was very young.
Lucifer shook his hand sharply and his own shadow shook away with it, a burst of red and gold sparkles following the thing as it moved freely on the wall beside him. A bit of shadow trickery for his companion.
The shadow plastered itself to the wall alongside Lucifer’s, curiously swirling around it, poking here and there, determinedly trying to knock off the large hat. A playmate to keep it distracted when Lucifer couldn’t be the same for Alastor, not while he remained locked inside the room. Lucifer’s shadow was not alive, or whatever the equivalent of Alastor’s shadow’s state of being was, but it had a level of autonomy in its actions and a distinct personality– animated, silly, inquisitive; much like Lucifer had been before he’d fallen. He thought it would be a good match for the high spirits of Alastor’s shadow.
And so began a new routine. Lucifer would take his spot outside Alastor’s door, now twice a day, watching as the shadows got to know one another on the wall across from him. They chased each other, played together, learned the shape of each others’ silhouette with gentle touches.
They seemed friendly. If Lucifer didn’t know who the other shadow belonged to, he would say they almost seemed smitten.
Some days Alastor’s shadow whisked Lucifer’s beneath the door and into the room. He didn’t share Alastor’s powers; he couldn’t see what the two creatures got up to inside the bedroom, nor Alastor’s response to Lucifer’s shadow being invited in by his own. Even if he had been able to look through his shadow’s eyes he wouldn’t have. He could wait until he was invited in himself. If he was.
Lucifer still spoke the entire time. Not just to the shadows or empty walls but to Alastor through the door, listening for the quiet static.
~~~
There wasn’t anything special about the day Lucifer found the door open. Only slightly, just a crack, not even enough to let light nor shadow spill out. But it was unlocked, and it was open.
He pressed it openly lightly, waiting for resistance. He could be patient. He could wait, kneeling in front of a cracked door, accepting mere centimeters of progress per day if it meant Alastor was slowly letting him in. But apparently his dedication to empty hallway conversations had proven Lucifer trustworthy. A familiar silhouette, his shadowy companion, took his hand and drew him into the room.
He hadn’t expected something normal for Alastor’s bedroom, but very little could have prepared him for a seemingly endless replica of a bayou at twilight. Soft blues and glistening waters, the protective shadow cast by the sweeping branches of trees pushing gently against the glow of flickering fireflies. Lucifer couldn’t find the words, awestruck as he looked around. Absolutely stunning… Had Alastor created all this from memory?
It loosened something deep inside Lucifer, a forgotten spark of inspiration from his time as an angel of creation.
The shadow held his hand as it led him into the depths of the bayou to a sprawling bald cypress tree. Alastor sat at its base, much the same as Lucifer had sat pressed against the door every single day.
“Alastor… let me help you.”
He expected refusal, a fight; to be dragged out of the bayou in a glow of green magic and cold shadows, the door stitched up so he could never return.
Instead Alastor looked up at him, fingers shaking where they dug into his chest, a feeble attempt to hold the jagged edges of his wound together. It was killing him.
Would he have let it, if Lucifer hadn’t come back every day to sit outside his door?
“Do you have to touch me?” Alastor asked. And he sounded brave, tried to sound indifferent, but his ears were back and the muscles around his eyes were twitching and his shadow was frowning where it curled protectively around him.
“No,” Lucifer reassured him. “I can do it from here. Just move your hands so I can see.”
It would have been easier if he could touch him. Angelic injuries required such delicate precision. The fear of the infection seeping into Alastor’s heart curled around his own, unpleasantly cold in a way so unlike the shadow’s familiar chill. But Lucifer could manage. He could, he would.
He bit his lip to the point of bleeding as he concentrated weaving his magic through Alastor’s chest from a distance, clearing out the remnants of angelic violence, threading the muscles and skin closed when everything that wasn’t Alastor or Lucifer had been purged from his body. His own stitches left inside Alastor, holding him together so it was one less thing the man had to do himself. Much longer and the wound truly would have killed him. Lucifer didn’t mind if that was what finally got Alastor to let him into his room, rather than Lucifer’s patience in the hallway. The choice required trust all the same.
They didn’t say anything after Lucifer had healed him. A final brush of magic had Alastor’s shirt cleaned and fully buttoned, covering the mended chest where only a scar remained.
Lucifer sat on the bayou floor, back pressed against the nearest tree to Alastor’s. It wasn’t the door, it wasn’t familiar, but he could memorize the shape of this tree against his back too if Alastor would let him. They sat in silence and watched their shadows play together on the flat surface of the water.
~~~
Each day Lucifer came back, and each day the door was open just enough to let him in.
It was different, talking to Alastor when he could see him, no longer separated by the thick wood of a closed door. He wasn’t as responsive as his shadow had been, but he was listening. Sometimes he even spoke back. And the gap between trees wasn’t nearly as formidable as an isolated hallway, where the only proof of life was a familiar shape darkening the walls.
Days passed by, sitting together in the bayou. Sometimes in silence, sometimes talking, always watching the shadows play. Their own little safe pocket, away from the world. But the weight of the day Lucifer had found Alastor hung heavy over them. No one else in the hotel knew what happened to Alastor in Vee Tower. No one else had seen Vox’s room.
“You didn’t deserve it,” Lucifer told him, when he could no longer bear keeping it to himself.
Alastor needed to hear it from someone. Lucifer wished he could be next to him to say it. The distance between trees felt painfully infinite that night. Maybe it was the way Alastor’s radio filter skittered over the song he’d been playing for them, or the way he dug his claws into the tree at his back.
“I had it under control. Thank you, my dear King, for coming to my rescue and ruining my plans.” Alastor lifted his head to make eye contact with him; a rarity. “You’re a softhearted idiot with delusions of intellect and a savior complex. I can handle a bit of humiliation.”
“It wasn’t humiliation, Alastor. It was violation. Making you watch… They assaulted you. You get that, right?” Lucifer didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one. “You can be the biggest asshole in Hell– you very well might be, and I’m sure you’re proud of that fact. You still didn’t deserve that.”
“Shut up,” Alastor said quietly, voice free from static. “I am not a delicate flower scandalized by the existence of sex. I knew what I was getting into.”
“I know you’re not. And I know you did. My point still stands, Al.”
“Well then kindly take your point and shut up.”
But he didn’t kick him out.
There was the softest whisper of a warble as Alastor’s shadow came over to Lucifer, swirling around him. Lucifer returned the favor as best he could, sending his own shadow across the bayou floor, settling it on the tree trunk beside Alastor. He didn’t touch him, not even with a shadow. But Alastor found comfort in shadows, and Lucifer was happy to share his.
~~~
They spent months talking in the bayou. Months watching their shadows grow more affectionate with one another. Alastor and Lucifer made their own progress, moving a little bit each day, closing the gap between trees until they shared the trunk of one. Until Alastor allowed Lucifer’s arm to press against his, and their thighs to touch where they sat.
Perhaps feeling the warmth of a person, rather than the chill of shadow, left Alastor more inclined to open up. But Alastor opening up didn’t look the way it did for others.
His approach was a bit more… antagonistic.
“Are you trying to be my friend, sentimental little King?” he asked one day as they watched the shadows embrace one another on the trunk of Lucifer’s old tree.
He’d asked himself the same question many times. Like picking stars from the sky, befriending the Radio Demon. An impossibility for most. But the Morning Star could do it. He’d placed them there to begin with.
“We could be,” Lucifer offered.
“Vox and I were friends.” Alastor’s muscles twitched where they were pressed side-by-side, but he didn’t move away. “Apparently what I have to offer a friendship is not satisfactory.”
“You don’t need to offer me anything,” Lucifer hummed, drawing shapes in the dirt with his claws, grounded by the pulse he felt fluttering through Alastor’s body. “I figure if I like you, and you like me, that’s friends, right? Not so complicated.”
Alastor scoffed.
“When it came to Vox, I did care. I did want something. He wanted something more, something I couldn’t give him.”
Oh. That cleared things up a bit, and had Lucifer considering his plan to burn down Vee Tower once more. But before he could ask if Alastor would like to join him the man was speaking again.
“If he really cared about me that deeply then why was what I could offer not good enough?”
Lucifer could hear years of deep frustration in Alastor’s words, maybe even from before he died. How many times had he thought he’d found a connection only to be told the way he reciprocated wasn’t enough? Alastor was charming, and attractive, and larger than life. It stood to reason that he probably received quite a few offers he couldn’t reciprocate to a level that would satisfy the other person. The struggle of dealing with that alone, and being made to feel like the broken one, explained… well, a lot.
Not the cannibalism, or the murdery-ness, or the general asshole vibe, but still.
And Lucifer had been there before himself, that feeling of being dysfunctional for not meeting assumed expectations, even if the subject differed.
“It might not be in the same way, but I do understand, I think,” Lucifer said. “Sinners have this version of me in their heads. I think even Lilith did to a degree, which would explain the, uh… marital decline. Expectations of what the Devil should be. I realize I fall short.”
Alastor snorted, and Lucifer let him have it just this once.
“I failed to meet expectations in Heaven, too. Kinda got me thrown out.”
“For what it’s worth,” Alastor hummed, “I quite like what you did with the apple.”
Lucifer laughed this time, letting his head thunk back against the tree as he turned it to face Alastor.
“People just don’t get it, do they?” he asked.
“You seem to,” Alastor said, looking at him curiously. “Somewhat.”
His shadow came over, corporeal now, but still it had Lucifer’s shadow in tow connected where it met the ground. With a bright warble it took both of their hands, the ones nearest each other, and pulled them together. And then it simply… waited. One confused warble, and then an impatient one, shaking its grip on both of them.
“I think it wants us to hold hands,” Lucifer said slowly.
That seemed to be the correct assumption, based on the shadow’s eager nodding.
“What? Why?” Alastor’s nose crinkled at the suggestion.
“I don’t know. It’s your shadow.”
Alastor sighed, and he flicked his ears, and he muttered something exceptionally rude under his breath.
And then he clasped his hand around Lucifer’s, interlacing their fingers. Far different than the shadow’s hand, warm and thrumming with a soul beneath the surface. But still familiar because it was Alastor.
The shadow watched them for a long while, just as curiously as Alastor had been watching Lucifer a moment ago. It kept both of its large hands clasped around theirs, a chilly cage that left Alastor’s hand feeling even warmer against his own. One minute of monitoring them to make sure they didn’t separate seemed to soothe the shadow. The pair of silhouettes returned to where they’d been canoodling before, ignoring their counterparts in favor of embracing each other between the protruding roots of a nearby cypress tree.
~~~
Weeks passed where they tested the safety net of friends that were enough as-is. Weeks of sitting in the bayou, watching the shadows dance, laugh, embrace.
It was a wonder Alastor hadn’t banished the pair for being overly saccharine.
“I think your shadow has a crush on mine,” Lucifer said, using one finger from his free hand to send sparkles to the tree trunk where the silhouettes were rubbing noses. But it was his other hand that felt tingly, warm where it clasped against Alastor’s, fingers intertwined so he could feel the pulse point of a mortal soul.
“Why must it be mine? It was behaving normally until yours started coming around.”
“Mine isn’t real. Or it’s not alive, I guess. Not separate.”
“My shadow is not separate,” Alastor began, the muscles beneath the skin of his hand tensing. “My shadow is me.”
And it was the first acknowledgement of it spoken aloud. That it was Alastor that had opened up to Lucifer, allowed Lucifer to know him while he himself learned the shape of Lucifer through a fuzzy silhouette. The shadows were, for all intents and purposes, a very intricate case of plausible deniability.
“I know,” Lucifer admitted.
They watched across the bayou as Alastor’s shadow pressed a kiss to Lucifer’s. The way Lucifer’s released six shadowy wings to lift itself up and return the gesture. Alastor’s hand was shaking in the unwavering clutch of Lucifer’s fingers.
“I can’t give you much more than this,” Alastor said. “I offer no promise to meet expectations.”
“Lucky for you I don’t have any.”
Lucifer’s shadow kept its wings out, floating around the tree trunk as Alastor’s shadow chased it with kisses. It let itself be caught each time.
“What would you do if I kicked you out right now?” Alastor asked him.
“Start over, I guess. Sit with my back against the door again for as long as it took. Talk to you every day. I’ve got time.”
“And what if I wanted you to stay away?”
“Then I’d stay away. But only if you told me here, face-to-face,” Lucifer said, turning to face Alastor, waiting patiently until Alastor tore his eyes away from the shadows to do the same. “Do you want me to stay away, Bambi?”
And he would, if Alastor wanted. Alastor should get the chance to make that choice. Alastor should always have a choice.
But Alastor was full of surprises. He pressed in close, carefully wrapping both arms around Lucifer and bringing him against his chest. Newly healed, with a heartbeat reassuring Lucifer he’d done the job well. It wasn’t like how the shadows did it, light and playful, but a sturdy embrace that grounded them amongst the deep roots of the bayou’s trees.
“No,” he murmured, making space for Lucifer to slip his arms around and hug him back. “I suppose I’ve got time as well.”
~~~
They watched the shadows dance and kiss along any surface in the bayou. Rough tree bark against their backs, hands warm where they clasped together. Sometimes they would kneel near the water to watch the shades of themselves play on the glassy surface. On those rare occasions they managed to separate from one another, the shadows appeared particularly interested in exploring the reflections of their counterparts.
Alastor’s shadow– vain, prideful, smitten little darling– was getting restless, giving a sulky warble as Lucifer’s shadow seemed thoroughly enchanted by the real Alastor’s reflection. The cheeky thing’s eyes even shifted into matching heart shapes.
“How handsome you are, Mr. Radio Demon, charming all the creatures in the bayou,” Lucifer teased. Not that it wasn’t true.
Alastor laughed, both of them watching as his shadow whisked Lucifer’s away to canoodle in private, away from distractingly attractive human counterparts. He mimicked his shadow, pulling Lucifer into the dirt with him so they were lying side-by-side facing one another. The bayou smelled so familiar now. Damp earth and cigarette smoke and Alastor.
“I don’t think I want you to leave yet.”
It was a surprisingly candid way for Alastor to ask for something. No dressing it up in insults or radio laughs, no turning his own wants around on Lucifer at the fear of sounding vulnerable.
“I can stay,” Lucifer offered. “We can keep talking, or just lying here, or we can sleep.”
“It’s cold on the bayou floor.”
Not terribly so for Lucifer; angels ran burning hot. But Alastor was scratching his claws into the dirt now, looking rather disinterested, leaving Lucifer to shift the statement into a suggestion.
“Do you want to cuddle, Bambi?”
Alastor narrowed his eyes.
“No expectations, remember?” Lucifer continued. “You don’t have to worry about anything poking you. I don’t have anything down there.”
“What?” Alastor asked, glancing down with a startled expression as if expecting to see something. Or not see something.
“I can choose. Angels don’t have gender the way mortals do– the concept doesn’t exist for us. And that’s before you even take into account what’s going on with our bodies. There’s no need for reproduction so, when brought into creation, we don’t have the relevant parts; nothing going on downstairs, entirely smooth.” Lucifer stuck out his forked tongue between a smile, finding the visual of it a little funny after choosing to have human bits for so long. “I usually have something, but I don’t have to. Depends how I feel. Right now I don’t have anything. I haven’t since you started letting me into your room.”
Alastor gave him an incredulous look and Lucifer quickly shook his hands between them, not wanting to give off the wrong impression.
“Not that it mattered! Having something one way or the other wouldn’t change me not doing anything you didn’t want. But… I thought, maybe, it would be a small comfort if the subject ever came up. Or if my body ever accidentally reacted to…” He brandished his hand, indicating Alastor’s everything. “This.”
Look, Alastor was hot, okay? Can’t blame a Devil for noticing.
He was ready to admit defeat; rambling about not having a dick was probably more off-putting than simply saying “I’ll behave.” Lucifer wasn’t always great at reading the room. But, after a head tilt that read very much as Alastor questioning his sanity, Lucifer was pulled against a warm body, long arms coming around him like threads. Stitched together for warmth in the cold of the bayou. The shadows joined them, coming up under their bodies to cuddle in the darkness cast by the absence of space between them.
“How about an ear massage, hmm?” Lucifer said, glancing up to eye those fluffy tips. “Ears lose so much heat when it’s cold.”
“Perhaps, if you’d like to find yourself missing both hands in the morning,” Alastor yawned, showing off some very sharp teeth to drive the point home. “Don’t press your luck.”
~~~
It became routine. Not every night, but enough. There was a comfort in getting ready together the next morning. Easier for Alastor to go down into the rest of the hotel, as infrequently as he chose to these days, when he could leave with Lucifer by his side. He didn’t need him, but he wanted him, and it helped.
With sleep came dreams, however, and occasionally nightmares. Not that Alastor ever admitted the reason for those nights he woke abruptly, gasping through static and shaking in Lucifer’s arms.
“Do you want me to let go?” Lucifer asked.
Alastor shook his head, giving himself a bit of distance so his heaving chest no longer pressed against Lucifer’s, keeping his rapid heartbeat as private as he could even with the knowledge that angelic ears could hear it. Still touching Lucifer just enough to know he was there.
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
His companion glared at him and Lucifer raised one hand in surrender before it was snatched back by Alastor and pressed into the dirt between them.
“I can handle myself,” he said through teeth that didn’t part, glowing yellow like the cathedral radio that sat in the lobby.
“I know that.”
“I can handle him.”
They hadn’t spoken Vox’s name since their discussion about the past friendship, not once. But he existed between them like a ghost haunting the bayou, and Alastor’s dreams, apparently.
“Trust me, I know,” Lucifer assured him. “There’s no one else I’d sooner trust with the job. But you’ve had to deal with him for seventy years, Bambi. I can’t imagine anyone putting up with him for that long. You deserve a break. Tag me in, let me handle things once in a while.” He looked at their hands between them, idly threading his fingers through Alastor’s. “You don’t have to need someone to let them help sometimes. I’m offering because I care, not because I think you’re not up to it.”
Alastor hummed, shifting until they were pressed close together again. The soft thwack of his tail against the bayou floor earned him a warble of complaint from his shadow where it lay beneath him. He took Lucifer’s hand that was laced with his own and directed it to the base of one ear, tangling his fingers into the spot where fur met hair and encouraging him to rub gently.
“My brave and daring Lu, off to slay televisions.”
~~~
There were bad days.
“I can’t give you what you want,” Alastor insisted. How frustrated he sounded without the cover of static… it broke Lucifer’s heart.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Lucifer said, squeezing their entwined hands. “This is what I want. I don’t need more.”
Alastor didn’t believe him, not yet. Lucifer could be patient. He could remind him. Reassuring him that there were no expectations each time he needed to hear it was no different than sitting outside a closed door, in an empty hallway, talking to shadows.
~~~
There were also good days. Nights where they watched their shadows dance.
“Why don’t we ever dance?” Alastor asked.
“Do you want to?”
Oh, how Lucifer wanted to.
“There’s not much else to do.” An enthusiastic yes in the language of Radio Demons.
“Alright, then. Take me for a spin, Al.”
And it wasn’t so different from holding hands, or hugging, or cuddling on the bayou floor. But there was something so animated about it; a spark of life in Alastor that Lucifer wanted captured in a photograph and hung up on the wall of the bedroom he so rarely saw these days.
Perhaps they could hang it up on one of the trees.
~~~
Lucifer spent much of his spare time hidden away in the bayou with Alastor, but he always made sure to set aside days for Charlie.
“She misses you,” Lucifer told him one day as they sat against their tree, legs pressed together. “She asked about you. She asked–”
He cut himself off, unsure if he should open that box.
“Yes?” Alastor asked, and it was incredible how impatient he could sound while smiling fondly at the sight of their shadows trying– and failing– to catch fireflies.
“About us. If we’re… something. What we are,” Lucifer said.
A long hum of static stretched between them.
“And what did you tell her?”
“The truth. That you’re something to me, even if I don’t have the words to properly explain it.” Lucifer watched his own shadow pounce at a firefly that drifted close enough to its tree, going right through it and landing in Alastor’s shadow’s arms. “There’s comfort in the indefinable to an angel. Mortals always want the safety of precise words so they can feel in control, when sometimes things just… are. And you know it when you feel it. And you know when you don’t want to lose it.” His shadow was picked up and spun around by Alastor’s, nuzzling their faces together. “I like not fitting in a box; we’re just us. I know I want to keep doing this.”
“‘This,’” Alastor murmured, tasting the word.
“Spending time with you. The touching is nice,” Lucifer admitted, pressing his thigh more firmly against Alastor’s. “You know I don’t expect anything. I’m happy with this as is.”
Alastor pulled his eyes away from the shadows, casting their red gaze down at Lucifer beside him.
“I can’t give you sex.”
“I don’t remember asking for it,” Lucifer teased. “As gorgeous as you are, Bambi, I think I’ll survive.”
Gentle tail thwacks sent vibrations through the tree at their backs as Alastor regarded him curiously.
“I was under the impression you were quite fond of sex.”
“Fond of it, sure. But I can take it or leave it. I’ve got a perfectly functioning hand,” he said with a wink before picking up Alastor’s hand and pressing his cheek into the palm of it, rubbing affectionately. “Other things matter more.”
His cheeks were squished between fingers as Alastor angled his face up to look at him without shenanigans. As if that view was a punishment.
“I don’t need someone. Not for romance, not for power,” Alastor insisted with a haughty stare. “Not to be happy, nor to find meaning in my life.”
“I’m well aware,” Lucifer said, smiling at him. “Neither do I.”
Alastor regarded him, and Lucifer could almost hear the cogs turning between those furry ears.
“I’m not opposed to having a person,” Alastor said carefully. “To dance with. To pass the nights with. To stay warm in the bayou, and listen to music, and watch shadows.”
A person. His person, Alastor’s person. Lucifer might not have had the words for it but he quite liked Alastor’s.
Alastor’s shadow peeled itself away from Lucifer’s, off of the tree entirely, becoming corporeal as it swirled up right in front of Lucifer’s face. It peeked at Alastor just once before looking back at Lucifer with a curious head tilt. His chin was lifted up carefully with a shadowy claw as the creature that had kept him company in an empty hallway pressed the gentlest kiss to his lips. It was cold, light as air, strangely tingly against his mouth. And still he felt Alastor in it.
Those crimson eyes were watching him. They’d always felt heavier than the thousands of eyes around Hell but now it was a comforting weight, like being enveloped in Alastor. It meant Alastor was alive. When cold lips pulled away from his he sought out that gaze, his own eyes wide and desperate. He wanted to return the gesture, if Alastor would have it, but…
“My shadow can’t…” he said softly, glancing at where it remained affixed to a tree, two-dimensional and restless as it watched what it couldn’t do.
Alastor silently stood up and walked over to the nearby tree. Leaned in as if it was the easiest thing in the world, pressing a gentle kiss to the bark exactly where Lucifer’s shadow’s lips were. The silhouette of six wings fluttered out to meet him, lifting it up to kiss back with such affection, flat hands resting just beside Alastor’s lapels that it couldn’t properly grasp. Deep scratch marks were left in the trunk where it clawed for him. But Alastor met it as best as he could, his own fingertips lining up with the shadow’s.
The corporeal shadow came to fetch him, leading him back to where Lucifer was. It seemed to take great pleasure in pushing him down on his ass. With reverence it connected their hands, locking each finger together until they were tightly entwined, like it had done the first time. And, when Alastor hadn’t moved on from giving it an unimpressed look, it made– in Lucifer’s opinion– Hell’s cutest kissy face.
He sighed at the thing, of course. Rolled his eyes. A plausible deniability that shattered the moment he turned to Lucifer, leaned in close; let his breath warm Lucifer’s lips until his own pressed against them.
Angels didn’t need hearts. He could stop it if he wanted, the way his heartbeat sped up almost painfully against his ribcage, but he liked feeling human with Alastor. Their mouths moved together, as slow and gentle as the artificial breeze that blew through the bayou. It felt possessive for something so soft, Lucifer’s bottom lip caught between Alastor’s, and he hoped Alastor knew he was Lucifer’s person as well. He could do it all day. He didn’t require oxygen, had no use for breathing, so why not replace that with Alastor’s kisses?
Even though he could survive on Alastor’s lips against his, Alastor deserved a choice in the matter.
“You don’t have to,” Lucifer whispered, brushing their noses together before Alastor could fully pull away.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Alastor said. “I’ll kiss you if I want to, so long as you’re so inclined. Are you so inclined?”
Was he fucking joking, or just sensationally unobservant?
“I’m very inclined.”
Alastor met his enthusiasm with a raised eyebrow.
“Fine.” His hands were still on Lucifer’s face and he used both thumbs to tug down the eager smile, as if tempering his anticipation. “Don’t expect it often.”
“No expectations, Bambi,” Lucifer promised, nose crinkling up when he was allowed to smile freely again.
And Alastor smiled back, a real smile, leaning in– inclined as he was– to press another kiss to Lucifer’s lips.