Archive of Our Own

It starts with a phone call.

This, in and of itself, is not particularly strange. Alastor has a lovely old rotary phone sitting on his desk and from time to time has been known to take a call. Why, when he’d been growing up, he’d often used the public phone in the street to speak to friends! He does not, however, have one of those newfangled devices that everyone’s eyes are glued to 24/7. Not just because he’s old-fashioned, but because the one time he’d tried it, Vox had immediately spied on him and plastered vile pornographic images all over his screen. He’d looked away quickly, but Alastor was rather certain that they had been poorly taken photographs of Vox’s violently blue prick.

It had soured the experience.

So it comes as somewhat of a surprise when something begins to vibrate against his sitting place; if he’d been anyone else, he might have humiliated himself by jumping. As it is, he keeps his composure, slowly reaching into his back pocket only to find...a small device of some sort. It’s nothing like the phone that Angel Dust has. Instead, it appears to be folded in on itself with a tiny screen lighting up on the front.

Blocked Number. What the Hell does that mean?

Alastor pries it open as if it’s going to explode at any moment, glancing around at the rest of the room to make sure he’s not being watched. Thankfully the only other two people in the lobby are Charlie and... Lucifer. Lucifer Morningstar. Alastor’s throat clenches as he allows himself a moment to openly stare at the other man while he isn’t looking, swallowing around a suddenly frantic heartbeat that he hopes Lucifer can’t hear.

It had only been a day since their encounter at the peep show, and Alastor is still a bit of a mess over it. They hadn’t even spoken upon their return the previous night, Alastor growing so withdrawn during the walk back to the hotel that Lucifer had mercifully allowed him to retreat to his room without conversation or complaint.

He hadn’t gotten a moment’s sleep, tossing and turning for hours until he’d simply given up on the idea of getting any rest and went on a long walk through his bayou. Now that the frantic passion had passed, Alastor couldn’t believe it had happened. It was like some kind of bizarre fever dream; what in Hell had possessed him?! He’d dipped his hooves into the water from the dock near his bedroom, watching the water ripple around his ankles as he let the memories play out over and over in his mind. The rush of adrenaline. The way Lucifer’s skin had glowed from within. The way his plump pussy lips had felt in Alastor’s mouth. The warm, hot taste of his come dripping down his chin.

Alastor had been so engrossed with the fantasy that he hadn’t even noticed when he’d leaned back and started to palm his prick through his nightpants, only realizing it when a shock of pleasure shot up his spine. He’d pulled his hand back with a startled gasp, staring at it as though it belonged to someone else.

Alastor never touched himself. Never.

After washing his hands three times in an effort to scrub off the shame, he’d come down to breakfast early, only to discover that Lucifer was being called away to business for a few days. There would be no opportunity for them to talk and that was just as well...Alastor wasn’t sure what to say.

He still isn’t, even as he stares down at the open phone, noting one of the buttons (the one with the little envelope on it) is blinking. Is he meant to press it? Alastor is far from stupid, but he isn’t good with technology he doesn’t have first-hand experience with. No one need know about his ever-growing collection of “Idiot Guides” that sit in the back of his library.

It wouldn’t do to be left behind, regardless of his personal opinions on such matters. So, he goes to bed at night and teaches himself about podcasts and buffering and digital media, even though he has no intention of ever actually using any of them.

Taking a fortifying breath, Alastor presses the flashing button and brings the phone up to his ear, nestling it deep within the fur there so as to avoid being overheard.

“You have one unheard message. Press two to listen.”

It is in this moment, as he boldly presses the two, that Alastor happens to glance up. Lucifer, who until now was in an animated conversation with Charlie by the front door, has gone entirely still. Time seems to stop as he slowly looks over his shoulder with a playful smile. In fact, Alastor is rather certain the man has truly stopped time. Because...Charlie isn’t moving anymore. No one is moving. Nothing is moving but the slowly widening smile on Lucifer Morningstar’s ethereal face.

~”...Fuck...Alastor...!”~

His name. Uninhibited. Breathless. Obscene. It’s followed quickly by a rhythmic, wet sound that nearly sends Alastor melting into the couch cushions imagining what it is. A desperate moan, growing in pitch, catching at the end. The sound of rustling, a body writhing on sheets. Heavy, labored breaths.

~“Mmm...you’re so..s-shy, Bambi.”~

Alastor crosses his legs, uncrosses them, crosses them again. Writhes against the back of the sofa. Tries desperately not to allow himself to look as affected as he feels. With each filthy sound that flows from the speaker into his ear he can feel his body heating up; a bead of sweat rolls down his temple and drips off his chin. He feels undone. Completely undone by this...eroticism.

And all the while, as Alastor’s world is crumbling beneath his feet, Lucifer Morningstar smiles.

He smiles while a recording of himself screams and cries out Alastor’s name in rapturous orgasm. He smiles as Alastor looks down at himself, utterly agape at the humiliating tent in his trousers, devastated that his body would betray him in such a way. He smiles when Alastor rises unsteadily as a newborn fawn, barely catching himself on the arm of the sofa. He smiles as Alastor turns and retreats like a pathetic coward, ignoring the sound of Charlie calling out to him, her voice concerned.

Even when Alastor’s back is turned, even as he takes the steps two at a time in his haste to escape, he can still feel him smiling.

The only time in all his days that he’d experienced such a thing, such an unwilling physical reaction, was during The Hunt. The beauty of the kill. The feel of blood in his mouth and the rush of unbridled power that came with staring into another human being’s eyes as the light faded away, knowing he’d been the one to steal it.

Alastor does not feel powerful now...he feels like prey.

He is the hunted one, retreating swiftly as his pride will allow, as he catches movement from the corner of his eye. Rows upon rows of angelic armor line the massive hallway, each one's helmet turning ever-so-slowly as Alastor passes by, their eyes glowing tellingly with a scarlet light. Alastor ignores them, shakes his head and speeds up until he reaches the staircase where classical paintings from every era of humanity line the walls.

He is not alone.

Sadak ascends the final cliff, rises to his feet, to watch him. A woman lounging in a flowing orange dress wakes from her slumber to watch him. Marat rises from the bath, water pouring from his greying dead skin, to watch him. Susannah wipes at her tear-filled eyes, raises her trembling chin, to watch him.

All with eyes glittering like perfect, precious rubies...

Alastor stumbles to a stop at the top of the stairs, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around himself defensively as he hears the angry sound of wood groaning and creaking nearby. There...there at the end of the hall, is a large set of dark double doors and above them a breathtakingly beautiful stained-glass window. Two delicate apples, plump and red and crowned in verdant foliage, are etched intricately into the glass; they eddy and focus on him now like irises as the wooden frame surrounding them twists and splinters and stitches itself back together.

And blinks.

“L-lucifer...?” Alastor says softly, feeling the plush runner beneath his feet curl around his ankles like an overzealous cat. He steps out from the twisting fabric, shoves it away with the tip of his boot. “What are you...?”

He receives no answer. There is no mouth. There are only the otherworldly eyes, wide and playful, twinkling at him. They smile when he shifts from one foot to the other, creasing at the corners in delight upon witnessing the discomfort Alastor is having more and more trouble not outwardly displaying.

He is watched. He is watched. He is watched.

This is the moment, as Lucifer observes him remotely from the weave of the hotel itself, twisting reality to suit his desires, that Alastor begins to get a sense of what he’s gotten himself into. Fuck it all. He’s been arrogant. Cocky. Overconfident. He’s watched this being, this creature, and mistakenly thought him human. Laughed at his buffoonish ramblings. Assumed that’s all there was.

One wooden eyebrow cocks upward, silently questioning.

“I’ll have you know,” Alastor says, raising up his chin despite feeling a bit foolish talking to an empty room. He walks up to the doorjamb and gives Lucifer a solid smack directly between the eyes with his microphone, cracking the glass into a satisfying spiderweb. “I don’t particularly like being spied upon. I get more than enough of it from that television dunderhead.”

The room groans and the wooden eyes blink once more before fading away, Lucifer’s consciousness dissolving along with them. Suddenly Alastor can breathe; it’s only then he realizes how heavy with power the air had become. In some ways it had almost felt good? Like a warm blanket wrapped all around him...

Best not to buy a ticket to ride that train of thought.

“Just so!” he sniffs, straightening his jacket lapels. “See that you keep your...mind to yourself, you little voyeur.”

**********

Alastor sleeps like a baby.

Obviously, he’s spent many a night staying up to scheme and plot, but that doesn’t really count as insomnia so much as productivity. Not to mention his late-night broadcasts are always a treat for the entire family. No, in all his years, Alastor has never lost a moment’s sleep over anything he’s ever said or done. No regrets! Not really. Not many.

Nothing worth mentioning, anyway...

So it comes as somewhat of a surprise to him that once he finishes brushing out his fur and slides between the sheets...sleep doesn’t come. Nothing. Nada. Instead, for the second night in a row, he finds himself curled up on his side, soft cotton pulled up to his chin with a million thoughts running through his head.

He squeezes his eyes shut tight and tucks his face into the pillow, willing his mind to empty, but the unbidden thoughts keep coming. The sound of Lucifer’s voice crying out over the phone. The way Alastor could hear his fingers pumping into himself, conjuring images of the way he must have been spreading that smokey, sticky fluid all over the inside of his perfect thighs. The heavy feeling of his power twisting the architecture around Alastor as he fled, all-knowing eyes on him from afar, his attention all for Alastor.

All for Alastor.

And though he’d rather tear out his own tongue than let the words leave his mouth, he’d liked it. Very much. Lucifer’s strange affection felt different than Vox’s obsessive stalking and pestering. There was something pleasant about it, like a whisper of feeling long since forgotten. It made Alastor feel oddly good to be the object of Lucifer’s doting.

It felt so good that Alastor spent the next hour imagining what it might be like to be doted upon further. To be spoiled and pampered. To have his every whim catered to. Alastor likes the thought of having everything he wants.

Ugh! What in the Hell is wrong with him?!

How do other people tolerate this utter lack of control over their emotions, of their bodies? How do they manage their days with all these feelings bubbling up inside them at completely inopportune moments? Alastor has never felt anything like it. He’s never wanted to feel anything like it. He’s watched people do the most ridiculous things to satiate the stirring in their damn loins over the years.

Shifting restlessly, he jolts when his prick rubs against the mattress, a soft kind of pleasure prickling at his thighs. He sits up with a huff, tugging the sheets away from his waist to peek at himself; he scowls. Just as he suspected…hard as a rock. Long moments pass as he and his cock stare at one another, Alastor determined to glare it into submission. When it proves unsuccessful, he sighs and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. Oh, how he wishes he could just go to sleep and escape these frustrating thoughts.

“Well, you can just forget it,” he says, shoving the blanket back over his body. “I’ll not kowtow to an overzealous erection.”

And that’s that!

Or at least it would be, if he didn’t still feel as though he were going to implode at any given second. Drawing up his legs, he wraps his arms around his knees and shoves his face against them until light starbursts behind his closed eyelids. Despite all outward appearances to the contrary, Alastor is not particularly good at self-soothing. During childhood, his beloved mother had often been subject to his tantrums and emotional outbursts; he just couldn’t seem to keep himself together, no matter how hard he tried. It had been like he was constantly walking a tightrope of his own emotions, never sure when he was going to lose his balance and teeter off.

Drawing in a deep, shaky breath, Alastor forces himself to hold it and counts back from twenty. As he reaches one, he slowly exhales, focusing on the (unusually loud) sound of his breath leaving his body. He does it again. Louder this time. At first, he attributes it to anxiety, to the way it always seems to amplify everything around him, makes everything louder and brighter. But the more he repeats it, the more he starts to think that maybe the sound is not coming from himself at all. It’s almost as though the soft swishing, the soft scraping, was all around him, separate, not really breathing so much as a faint swooshing.

It takes much more courage than he’d prefer to look up and ascertain what’s going on, and even when he does, he’s not entirely certain what he’s seeing. His eyes don’t want to make sense of it. Surely, it’s a trick of the light, some kind of optical illusion, but then why would his brain be playing such a prank on him? Has he finally lost what was left of his mind? Has he finally cracked after all this time?

Because it appears that the walls, the ceiling, the room itself, is...alive? As though the studs are shifting and bowing to calmly draw breath; the ceiling is much closer than Alastor would like it to be. The delicate floral wallpaper that reminds him so much of his mother is buckling and flattening with each unnatural contraction, making him feel as though he were a tumor inside a giant lung.

Claustrophobia trickles down his spine; Alastor swallows, tries to stop himself from hyperventilating, fails. He’s proud that his voice isn’t quivering when he manages to speak.

“Your listening skills are atrocious,” he whispers, fingers digging into his knees so hard that his knuckles crack. The angel is literally everywhere; Alastor can smell him. “What are you even...”

The room holds its breath for a moment, the very air trembling with nervous energy as a soothing warmth begins radiating up from the mattress as though it were suddenly full of smoldering embers. It rises through his sitting place up into his back, sinks into the tense muscles of his shoulders like a balm; the duvet slithers to surround him in a strange kind of embrace as one corner rubs against his cheek. There’s a sensation of pressure moving slowly up and down his body, like someone is petting him, comforting him.

It’s so...nice?

“You’re very persistent,” Alastor surrenders at last, flopping back against the pillows in a melodramatic way. He rolls his eyes when the blanket immediately snakes up to swaddle him like some sort of pathetic child. “I’m fine, damn you,” he complains, all the while allowing himself to be angel-handled until he’s once more resting on his side.

“I just need my beauty rest...” he closes his eyes, tugging the warm blanket tightly around himself like a cozy shield from the outside world. He listens as the room--as Lucifer--begins breathing again. This time more slowly, measured and intentional; Alastor finds it’s very easy to match his own to, easy to focus on. If he really pays attention...

In...

And...

Out...

He is awoken abruptly by the shrill ringing of a phone next to his ear, struggling to free his arms from the tangle of blankets around him. A cursory glance at the clock on the bedside table tells him it’s morning; he’s slept through the night. The room is silent. Empty of presence.

He wonders when Lucifer left.

The phone, the same as the one he’d answered the previous day, sits innocently on the pillow next to his head.

“Hello?” he says, clearing his throat.

~“It felt so good to have you inside me last night...”~

**********

Two days pass by in a flurry of activity as they prepare for an elaborate party Charlie has planned to celebrate the year anniversary of the newly renovated hotel. There are so many inane things requiring his attention that Alastor barely has any time to breathe, much less be distracted by lascivious thoughts. It’s only when things begin to coalesce and calm down that Alastor realizes Lucifer’s otherworldly presence has been conspicuously absent.

He also realizes that he might actually miss that presence...just a little. It's become a bit of a habit, you see. It wasn’t as though this “thing” between them was entirely out of the blue. Alastor is a gentleman, and hardly the type to just fall into someone’s bed. Not even the King of Hell’s! Despite its somewhat rocky beginning with a drunken bet over the strange smell coming from the basement (Lucifer had won, it was a nesting hell serpent), every night for the past six months had been willingly spent in one another’s company.

Happily, even.

They argued over politics. They tinkered with Lucifer’s inventions. Alastor, upon discovering just how much human music Lucifer had missed over the years, learned dozens of piano pieces; he played Liszt and Chopin and Brahms until the wee hours of the morning, until the others came down for breakfast and shooed them both to bed. When Alastor mentioned offhandedly how much he had loved mahjong when he was alive, Lucifer had presented him with a set carved from the darkest, most brilliantly polished onyx.

Alastor had taught him to play and hasn’t won a game since.

And it’s there that Alastor now sits by the light of the fire, cheek resting in his palm as he fights the urge to reach into his pocket and look at the small phone Lucifer had gifted him. He’d carried it everywhere for the past two days, pulling it out hopefully every time he’d mistaken some other noise for the sound of it ringing. The disappointment at receiving no call was something he’d be twice damned before he’d admit.

“Alastor?” He glances up to see Charlie coming towards him, waves her politely towards the chair in which her father usually resides for their nightly game. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Nonsense, my dear!” he waves off her concern, picking up one of the delicate white tiles from Lucifer’s side of the board to rub between his fingers. There is a chocolate smear along the back where the angel had been eating candies the previous week. “I’m merely taking a break. This is usually the time of night...”

A pause. Charlie is a perfectly delightful young demon, charming and sweet, but Alastor doesn’t share his inner workings with many. The fact that he’s opened up so much to Lucifer is an outlier situation and a mystery even to himself. So, he dare not give away too much with a careless word, especially considering he’s not sure how Charlie might react to his and Lucifers...current relationship.

Were they in a relationship?

“Well...my being awake this time of night is hardly unusual.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes, Charlie stifling a yawn as she surveys the board while Alastor finally gives into temptation and plucks the tiny phone from his back pocket. No calls. He doesn’t know how to call Lucifer back even if he wanted to; the thing seems wired for one-way communication.

“You know,” she smiles, collecting two spring tiles in a pair and setting them to the side. “Dad said he’d be back in another day or two.”

A warm spark flickers somewhere in his ribcage at her words, his heart thumping a little harder at the thought of Lucifer’s return. “Did he?” he replies without thinking, feeling his ears perk up. “I didn’t realize...”

Snapping his mouth shut with an audible click, Alastor narrows his eyes. “And why should that matter to me?”

“I dunno,” she shrugs, a lock of blonde hair falling into one mischievous eye. She makes another pair and sets it with the others. “You guys have just seemed kinda close these past months. I thought maybe you were, y’know, lonely.”

Lonely!?

He, Alastor, the Radio Demon...lonely?!

“My dear,” he stands primly, straightening his jacket sleeves as he looks down at her over the bridge of his nose. He shoves the phone back into his pocket with much more force than necessary. “I’ll have you know I’ve spent most of the last hundred years alone. A few days without your father’s company is hardly an inconvenience.”

Charlie looks at him critically for a long moment, her eyebrow raising up in a way that reminds him of Lucifer so strongly that his stomach flips. “If you say so,” she replies softly. “Heading to bed?”

He nods, turning on his heel without another word. He decides to use the stairs all the way to his and Lucifer’s floor to calm himself, nearly to his room before stopping for a deep breath. He rubs a hand down his face. He’ll have to apologize for his behavior tomorrow; he’s usually not so affected as to be short for no reason.

It’s just...how many other people have noticed he and Lucifer’s...attachment? Alastor usually plays his cards close to his chest; it’s upsetting to discover that he’s become so distracted by pleasant company that he’s forgotten to do so, that he’s let his guard down enough for it to be noticeable. He can’t do that. Everything hinges on the persona he’s built up around himself. Everything depends on maintaining it.

Feeling mildly defeated, he sighs and continues down the hall, deciding he’s going to take a long bath to regroup. Except...the walk seems to be taking a very long time. Longer than it should? What is usually a thirty second trek from the staircase to his door has gone on for a least two minutes, though he’s been so engrossed in his thoughts that he’d barely noticed.

What in the Hell?

Where once was screaming vermilion carpet is now pillowing green grass beneath his boots, plump bushes of sweet pink swamp roses popping up all around with delicate white butterflies emerging from their leaves to flit between the blooms. The walls melt away, an entire forest sprouting and growing in seconds until the trees bow down from where the ceiling has turned to perfect blue sky. Spanish moss clings from their branches, dangling thickly to form a long tunnel to his doorway in the distance; it hangs so close that Alastor can reach up and wrap strands of it around his long fingers. The sound of running water comes from somewhere deep in the woods; if Alastor squints, he can see pools of it glittering in Lucifer’s sunlight.

He thinks Lucifer might be the sunlight...

It’s not an exact replica of what Alastor remembers from his living days, if he’s even recalling it correctly anymore, but it’s so close that his throat is tight. So much more alive than anything his own magic can hope to accomplish. This is real.

“And here I thought you were too busy to make a nuisance of yourself,” he laughs, shoving off his shoes so he can feel the grass whisper against his ankles; he misses toes at times like these, having no feeling in his hooves is something he’s never quite gotten the hang of.

There is no verbal response, though he’s sure Lucifer could do so if he chose. Instead, he feels a sensation like fingers weaving themselves shyly between his own to clasp his hand and squeeze. The feeling tugs his arm gently forward, urging him wordlessly to stroll through this little pop-up paradise; Lucifer’s invisible feet crunch the grass next to him.

He laughs, unguarded and uncaring, when his arm is swung back and forth between them in a wide arc. Silly, romantic nonsense. Picture show stuff.

Alastor had taken many aimless walks through the woods in his youth, back when he was still trying to sort himself out, to figure out why he was so different from everyone else. Many long hours passed as he struggled with what his true nature craved against what he was repeatedly told was right. Eventually he’d given up on the whole concept of right and wrong, but in those days he had been a very lonesome young man indeed.

He doesn’t feel lonesome now.

A warm breeze blows his hair back from his face, pungent with the scent of growing things, though perhaps not the growing things that Alastor immediately recognizes. Lucifer’s knowledge of the human world only goes so far after all. Some of these things, Alastor thinks, must be from Lucifer’s own past, memories of a forgotten garden. The sweet scent of flowers that have evolved beyond recognition, smells that have long since gone extinct.

He stops to sit on a moss-covered log near the edge of the path, stretching out his long legs until his knees crack. When had he gotten so damn old? He gasps when Lucifer’s presence immediately presses along his side, a pleasant fizzle all the way from his shoulder to his fingertips. Closing his eyes to focus on it, he lifts his chin to let the sparkling sunlight caress and warm his face before turning his cheek into the empty space where he imagines Lucifer’s head would be.

They sit together in silent peace for a long time. Till long after the sun sets and the night insects come out to sing. Till the moon has risen high into the night sky and the stars sparkle like diamonds through the branches of the trees. Finally, when Alastor is having trouble stifling his yawns, Lucifer leads him to his bedroom door and with invisible lips kisses his cheek goodnight.

The ghostly touch burns against his skin for hours.

**********

Alastor likes his baths hot.

Not only because it feels insanely good on his constantly tense muscles, but because having a readily available source of hot water always feels like such a luxury. When he was a child, it had taken at least an hour to boil enough water on the stove for a hot bath; a small eternity to young Alastor and his constantly racing mind. But, despite the challenges, his mother had insisted on dragging the tin tub into the kitchen at least once a week. Most days he’d sufficed himself with a basin of soapy water and a good scrub; he was certainly never dirty, but sinking down for a soak never loses its appeal.

Taking a gasping breath as he emerges from beneath the water, Alastor shakes his head violently back and forth, watching with childish glee as the water splatters all over the tile walls. He sighs and rests his head against the ledge of the bath, his left ear twitching when a bead of water rolls into the curve. Steaming water rises around his body as he grunts and dangles one long leg over the edge of the tub to get more comfortable; water drips from the tip of his hoof onto the linoleum floor.

Drip...drip...drip...

He would always do that to his mother...

”Alastor! You’ve gone and got me all wet!” she laughed, wringing out her apron. The warm, humid air of the kitchen curls her dark hair around her face just like Alastor’s does. People were always commenting on how beautiful his mother was...

“You told me to shake out my hair, mama!”

“Not like a wild beast! I swear, the Lord tests me. You stop playing and wash, hear? I’ll not have people thinking my son comes from a filthy home. Wash. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Drip...drip...drip...

Grabbing a washcloth from the nearby basket, he rubs it vigorously against a bar of soap until its frothing with bubbles and begins the arduous process of washing himself in earnest. It takes a bit of effort to get all the scent glands on his body as clean as he prefers them to be. Back when he had first manifested in Hell in this deer form, he was shocked at how damn smelly he was. Not that anyone necessarily noticed, or even cared, but Alastor would be constantly sniffing at himself, at the strange musky odor he carried around with him.

Once he’s clean he relaxes once more against the tub. It feels good to scrub himself, to get the oil off his fur until he’s soft and feels somewhat human again. He should dry himself and get to bed, but the water is so warm and comfortable...

It almost feels as though it’s getting warmer somehow, as though he’s lounging in warm, syrupy honey.

Drip...drip...drip, drip, drip...

DRIP!

The intensity of that final sound draws Alastor’s attention, and he opens his eyes to see a strange droplet of some gold liquid rippling out in ever-widening circles at the top of the water. It dissipates and fades away just as another splatters down to take its place, eddying out in glittering swirls. Again. Once more. It’s only when it starts to become like a strange kind of drizzle, catching in his hair and trickling down his face that his brain catches up with his eyes.

Alastor, holding his breath, draws his palm across his wet cheek and cautiously licks the pad of his thumb, shivering as the flavor bursts across his tastebuds.

It’s blood.

Angel blood, has soaked the ceiling and rains like a fine mist all around him, pouring down the walls in long, shining rivers. They ooze along the floor like liquid snakes, alive and curling up the legs of the bathtub to waterfall over the edge of the porcelain and replace the water until Alastor can no longer see his body or the bottom of the tub. It climbs and climbs and climbs until its spilling out over the edge to pool on the floor.

Slowly raising his hand aloft, he fans out his fingers to watch the blood trickle from between them as his breath stutters gloriously in his chest. It’s so thick that it glitters in the overhead lights, casting long shards of amber and copper dancing all along the walls in a whirling kaleidoscope of color. It’s so beautiful; Alastor feels like he’s been dipped in molten metal, like he’s covered in spun sugar, the smell of it just this side of overwhelming. He nearly shoves his entire fist directly into his mouth in sudden enthusiasm, noisily sucking it clean with a muffled moan before tipping back his head. The blood lands on his outstretched tongue like snowflakes in a blizzard.

Fuck...he’d always wanted to do this when he was alive. How many times had he laid in bed at night and fantasized about what it would be like to bathe in a tub of blood? To feel the viscous texture of it caress his body, to be inundated with the smell of it? More’s the pity, the semantics of such a thing were beyond him at the time. Who could find enough victims all at once without rousing suspicion? How to keep it warm once you managed to drain them dry? It was a logistical nightmare. He was only one man, after all.

Some things, he’d resigned himself, had to remain fantasies.

His own unhinged laughter barely registers as he submerges once more, flailing his arms like a lunatic to splash about; he blows bubbles under the surface like a delighted child before emerging in a tidal wave of gold. Alastor can barely breathe. Can barely hear. His ears are weighed down, drooping heavily against the back of his head; blood is caught in every eyelash and sticking to every strand of fur. It’s on his cock and between his ass cheeks and in his tail and all over his face.

Lucifer is everywhere.

Alastor is so goddamn filthy and soaked through and overwhelmed and suddenly wants to touch himself so badly that he’s doing it before he even realizes his hand is moving and comes in a split second. The orgasm, pleasant to be sure, is barely a blip, hardly an afterthought to the mental bomb going off in his head.

He’s bathing in fucking blood. Angel blood. Lucifer’s fucking blood is all over him and he’s bathing in it.

This is the best day of his entire life.

**********

The flood departs as quickly as it arrived, but it takes Alastor another two hours of solid scrubbing to get the stuff off his fur and out from under every claw. Angel blood appears to have a viscosity different from that of humans; Alastor never had this much trouble getting cleaned up back in his living days. The second it began to cool it turned an almost syrupy consistency, nearly like glue! He decides that while it was a delicious experience he’ll cherish forever, he might not actually want a repeat performance. His delicate skin simply can’t handle being scoured like that on a regular basis.

Pulling his bed warmer from the fireplace, he slides it gently in between the sheets before doing so himself, sighing with satisfied exhaustion as he closes his eyes. Alastor is asleep from the second his head hits the pillow...

He finds himself back in the small room at the peep show, standing on the ledge before the window where Lucifer had performed on the other side. The light once illuminating the stage is gone, only darkness lay beyond where his fingertips press faintly against the cool glass. There’s a strange, fuzzy feeling running up his arms coming from each point of contact, as if his brain is slow in picking up the physical signals, as if his head is stuffed with cotton fluff. Everything is delicate around the edges of his peripheral vision, hazy like soft gossamer.

Is he dreaming? It’s been so long since Alastor had anything other than a raging nightmare that he barely recognizes a relatively harmless dream. Still…this has a different, more tangible flavor than anything he’s ever experienced before.

Something stirs within the nothingness, the motion barely caught in Alastor’s night vision, though even that is limited due to the intense lack of light. He squints and leans in, pressing his palms flat against the glass and watches his panting breath fog the pane. The small figure emerges, casting off the darkness like a cloak to puddle at his feet, the shadows parting for him like the Red Sea as he moves between them.

Because it most certainly is a him.

Lucifer Morningstar glows from within, as though he were a vessel filled with burning candles, his skin crafted from the finest vellum paper. He is gloriously nude, faint lines of gold rushing all over his body where the blood is running hot just beneath the surface. Disheveled hair falls over his smiling eyes, a small trail of it leading down his abdomen to the pretty mound between his legs where glittering curls catch the light from his beneath his skin.

He is otherworldly and beautiful in an untouchable way that makes Alastor want to ruin him. He has never been a particularly physical man, but in this moment, as Lucifer prowls ever closer, Alastor feels every inch of his skin tingling, the blood throbbing in his ears as his breath stutters in his chest.

In a way, he is more alive now than he ever was when he was actually alive.

How ironic.

In a blink, Lucifer is suddenly there, grinning face within inches of Alastor’s own on the other side of the glass; it takes every ounce of self-control he has not to jump back. There had been no warning. He had simply appeared from one moment to the next. Whether that was due to the fluid nature of dreaming or Lucifer simply having the ability to magic himself anywhere he wanted to be was up for debate.

“Are you actually…here?” Alastor whispers, bending down so that they’re eye level with one another. “Is it you?”

Lucifer nods with an affectionate smile, rising up on his toes to push forward and press his lips against the window; they glow slightly brighter as they pancake against the surface. Alastor rolls his eyes and debates on whether or not he should participate in something so ridiculous, whether to indulge such foolishness. He’s still deciding when Lucifer begins tapping impatiently against the pane, pointing at his kissing lips still there smearing messily against the glass.

In the end he figures what the hell…it’s just a dream, after all.

Electricity jolts through his jaw as he begrudgingly presses his mouth to Lucifer’s, the force of it sending him stumbling back. Power crackles between his lips and fingertips in bright arcs when he reaches up to rub his mouth. That had felt...real! Something much too tangible to be a simple lucid dream. It’s as though he’s existing somewhere between dreaming and reality, some mental plane that only Lucifer can reach and has chosen to drag Alastor’s sleeping mind into.

When he can focus again Lucifer is gazing at him softly, leaning his forehead against the glass with a tiny smile. There’s a weariness to his stance, a deep fatigue to the set of his shoulders. He looks tired in a way that Alastor hadn’t thought immortal beings could actually be.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asks, wishing he could reach through and touch Lucifer’s perfect hair, comfort him somehow. From this distance he can see how golden the strands truly are, more like the actual metal than simple blond. There’s a depth and luster to the way it catches the light in a way that no human hair ever could.

Lucifer nods, turning away to disappear back into the shadows. The veins beneath his skin are bright all over the strong lines of his back, centering in glittering webs where his wings lay somewhere beneath the surface.

“Wait!” Alastor lunges forward, pushes against the glass, trying to get to him. “Wait! Wake me up!”

Lucifer’s flashing eye glancing back at him through the dark is the last thing Alastor sees before he finds himself bolt upright in bed, his breath coming in ragged pants. There’s an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind; he twists the sheets in his fists, trying to decide if he’s actually back in reality or not, if he’s actually awake.

And his damn cock is hard again.

Deciding he must he (his dick only betrays him this way in the real world), he tosses the blankets aside and makes his way from his bed and out into the hall, pausing for a moment outside Lucifer’s door. He can feel him, the steady thrum of his power pulsing off the door in warm, soothing waves against Alastor’s skin.

It pops open of its own accord as he reaches for the handle, swinging wide to reveal the beautiful room on the other side. Where the rest of the hotel is a garish mass of circus themed eye-vomit, Lucifer’s room is...surprisingly understated. Dark wood floors gleam in the low light of the large fire that flickers from the corner, complimenting the lovely burgundy walls. There is little furniture beyond the massive bed other than a cozy armchair and cherrywood table sitting in front of the fireplace. The rest of the room is a scattered mess of drop cloths, easels and art supplies, half-finished sketches and paintings lying in wait for the day their creator deems them worthy to complete. Alastor’s eye lingers on one he recognizes as himself; he blushes at how...beautiful he looks through Lucifer’s eyes.

“I am more than capable of opening a door,” he says, making his way into the room. It closes behind him with a decisive click, the telltale sound of a lock turning the clear indication of how the night is going to go.

“I was trying to be a gentleman.”

There, yawning widely in the middle of the bed and surrounded by pillows, lay Lucifer Morningstar, wearing little more than a pair of plain white panties and a fluffy dark blue robe that gapes open to reveal every inch of skin. His hair is slightly damp and curling around his face as though he’s just gotten out of the bath, cheeks gold with a healthy flush. He smiles and sits up at Alastor’s entrance, quickly sliding off the plush bed to bound over into his personal space; the smell of clean soap drifts around him.

Alastor takes a deep breath of it, feels his nerves calm a bit, the scent comforting and vaguely familiar. “Welcome home,” he says, daring to reach out and push a curling lock of Lucifer’s hair behind his ear.

“Sooooo,” Lucifer grabs the lapels of Alastor’s coat and tugs them gently. His eyes are glittering with anticipation, a childlike glee that both enamors Alastor and makes him a little suspicious. “Did you like my gifts?”

Gifts?!

Slightly confused, Alastor takes a moment to reflect on the previous week, at the seemingly random acts of what he is now being told were...courting gifts? Instead of bizarre feats of magic that Lucifer had performed to fuck with him, they were, in reality, affectionate gestures that he genuinely thought Alastor would enjoy and subsequently be wooed by? He had to admit, when viewed through that lens, they had most certainly done the job. Every single one of them, despite whatever initially strange form they took, had eventually turned out to be...pleasant. Calming. Delightful, even.

“How could you be sure I’d like all those things?”

Lucifer raises a perfect eyebrow, a knowing smile curling the edge of his lips. The expression does something to Alastor’s insides, makes his heart flutter painfully. “Did you not?”

“Hmmm,” he taps the tip of Lucifer’s nose with his index finger. “False modesty is a bad look on you, darling.”

Effervescent laughter tumbles from Lucifer’s lips like the sound of literal bells, filling the room with light and the physical presence of Joy for the briefest of moments. It seeps through Alastor’s skin and fills him from the bottoms of his hooves to the tips of his ears, makes him gasp in astonished awe. Alastor wonders, as he’s led to bed’s edge and deposited upon it, if all angels sound that way when they’re happy or if Lucifer is just unique. He doesn’t get much time to ponder it as the angel in question goes down on his knees between Alastor’s spread legs and runs his hands up his thighs, leaving a trail of gooseflesh behind.

To Alastor’s immense shame he must look overwhelmed, because Lucifer pulls back, reaches up to brush his cheek. “You okay? Hasn’t anyone ever touched you this way?”

“I do detest when people ask questions they already know the answers to.”

“I didn’t! Really!” Lucifer shakes his head, moving in closer so that his shoulders force Alastor’s thighs further apart. He swallows, fisting the comforter. Alastor knows where this is leading, finding himself not only agreeable but anticipatory. Still, he’s vastly nervous, every bit the bashful virgin. “You’re so beautiful. It’s hard to believe you’ve never been with anyone.”

A blush, rather unusual for Alastor, heats his cheeks. He’s had people call him that before, knows himself to be at least minimally attractive, but has never been affected by it this way. How many times had Vox tried to woo him with pretty words and false flattery? Yet not one of his bloated compliments ever hit Alastor’s heart in such a way as this. “I would never let just anyone touch me.”

“Does that make me special?”

“What did I just say about questions you know the answers to?”

Lucifer practically vibrates between his legs with sparkling happiness, his sharp teeth gnawing at his bottom lip until that beautiful golden blood beads up at the corners. He crowds into Alastor’s space, practically wrestles him to the bed in his excitement. “I’m gonna put my mouth on every inch of your skin, you hear me?” he murmurs, kissing Alastor to let him have a taste of that bloody mouth. “I’m gonna taste every single spot.”

Half expecting Lucifer to snap his clothes away in his enthusiasm, Alastor is pleasantly surprised to find he takes his time. Slowly and meticulously he stays true to his word, taking Alastor’s clothes off one piece at a time to press loving kisses in between, to run his fingers through each patch of fur. He leaves nowhere untouched, unexplored, biting and sucking from the soft insides of Alastor’s ears all the way down to the delicate backs of his knees. By the time he’s made it to his hooves, Alastor is a writhing mess, barely able to believe that he could experience this level of arousal from something as simple as the brush of someone’s lips along his skin.

“Well, well,” Lucifer coos, rising from the floor where he’s been licking along Alastor’s ankles to take his hard cock firmly in a warm hand. It makes Alastor jump and gasp, propping himself on his elbows to watch Lucifer’s face as he runs the tip of his nose along the long length of Alastor’s cock. “I didn’t get to play with this last time. You’ve been holding out, Bambi.”

Neither of them mentions that the last time, Alastor came in his pants so quickly that there would have been little point to getting it out. Still, some part of him inwardly preens at being found a suitable sexual partner, even though penis envy had always been something Alastor laughed at other men for falling prey to.

“Ready?” Lucifer’s mouth opens and his long, forked tongue comes out, mere centimeters from the tip of Alastor’s cock. His breath fans against him, making it hard for Alastor to think, but he keeps it together long enough to nod, to prepare himself for what he thinks is coming.

But he had no idea.

Lucifer’s mouth engulfs him with blazing heat, quickly working his way up and down the shaft as the forks of his tongue encircle the girth, massaging him with each pass. Alastor could have never imagined that Lucifer had so much conscious control over his body, but it makes sense considering his shapeshifting abilities. The result leaves Alastor arching off the bed, unable to keep even remotely quiet as unbelievable pleasure shoots through each limb of his body to pool in his gut and burn.

“L-Luci...fer...,” he calls, already finding himself much closer to climax than he’d prefer. But it’s hard to hold back when the tips of those forks are running teasingly along every vein of his cock, when he can feel them dip into his slit and wrap around the flare of the base to squeeze.

Who could be expected to maintain their composure when faced with the sinful mouth of the King of Hell himself?

He’s never felt anything like this; fumblings with lady friends in his youth were never reciprocated, nor had he desired it. But now? Now Lucifer is making the most delicious gagging sounds as he pushes further down to take Alastor completely in his throat, his face partially obscured in the red curls of Alastor’s groin. He swallows, the muscles of his throat flexing, and Alastor cries out with the blissful pleasure of it, doesn’t bother to muffle himself.

“Fuck!” Alastor cries out, reaching out blindly to take a huge handful of those lustrous strands to guide Lucifer’s motions as he loses control of his hips, thrusting up unthinkingly into that perfect mouth. He hears Lucifer’s approval vibrate all the way into his balls, pries open his eyes to witness the sheer bliss on Lucifer’s oh-so-fuckable face as he’s used for Alastor’s pleasure.

And then he looks at him. Lucifer Morningstar opens his crimson, all-knowing eyes, stares directly into Alastor Fouche’s very soul, and sends him screaming over the edge of orgasm so hard that he damn near blacks out. It shrieks down his spine as he thrashes, his hooves clattering against the hardwood floor, his body spasming out of his control. Through it all his hips are held in Lucifer’s arms, unearthly strength keeping him from bouncing right off the bed and onto the floor.

Sitting up once he somehow manages to put the shattered pieces of himself back together, he pets the abused hair on Lucifer’s head in apology for the rough treatment. “Lucifer?” he says softly, leaning in when he doesn’t get a response. The angel is panting for breath, rubbing the fingers of one hand along his lips where a bit of Alastor’s spend has leaked out and dribbled down his chin. The other is nestled firmly between his legs, rhythmically stimulating his clit in a way that has him whining and squirming on his knees.

Well...that just won’t do....

Reaching down with trembling arms, Alastor grabs Lucifer by the shoulders and hauls him bodily onto the bed until he’s straddling Alastor’s chest. The bed bounces beneath them as he pats Lucifer’s bottom a few times, urging him up higher, to ride his face. The tangy, musky smell of his cunt is so close that it’s nearly overwhelming, his soft cock twitching in interest despite him having only come moments before.

“Apologies for coming before I could be inside you,” he says, surprised at the husky sound of his own voice, the way it catches in his throat. Lucifer shakes his head, strands of his hair sticking all over his face as he situates himself firmly over Alastor’s before lowering himself down.

“Next time!” he gasps as Alastor shoves his panties to the side and presses up, tonguing and sucking his clit as he feels Lucifer’s thighs flex around his head. Lucifer wails as Alastor quickly continues his onslaught, so far down the path of arousal that he’s already leaking down Alastor’s jawline. It’s not going to take long, which is both a blessing and a curse; Alastor would eat his pussy until his soul withered away to nothing.

“There! There, Alastor! Fuck, fuck!”

Slapping his hands so hard against the headboard that it rattles the entire bed, Lucifer uses it as leverage to ride hard against Alastor’s face, his clit grinding rhythmically between the bridge of his nose and the flat of his tongue. “Oh fuck, fuck, yes! Ala-Alastor--!!” he cries at last, bearing down with such force that Alastor can scarcely breathe, his lungs burning with the need for air, his nose full to overflowing with the smell of Lucifer.

If he died again this way...with Lucifer Morningstar screaming his name, it would be worth it. Totally worth it.

It’s a small eternity before Lucifer stops twitching and collapses to the bed in a heap of limps, a satisfied smile on his face. Alastor slowly runs his palms along the leg still draped across his chest, trying to sooth his lover despite not being very put together himself. His face is a wet mess, his hair sticky with Lucifer’s come; he feels deliciously used and sated.

“So good,” Lucifer murmurs, somehow still having the energy to move until he’s resting fully on Alastor’s front like a living blanket. “Good?”

“Mmmhmmm,” Alastor replies, kissing Lucifer’s smiling mouth softly. “Consider me thoroughly wooed.”

“You know, I’ve never done this before? Courted someone?” Lucifer laughs, pressing his face into Alastor’s throat. “Lili and I...we just sort of...fell together. We didn’t have our first date until we’d been together four-thousand years!”

Bristling slightly at the mention of Lucifer’s ex-wife, Alastor calms himself quickly with the reminder that Lucifer was here in his arms tonight. That he’d gone out of his way to get here. Lucifer Morningstar wants Alastor. That much is very clear and there is no reason to feel jealous or possessive.

Right?

“Well,” Alastor sniffs, pinching the perfect globe of Lucifer’s ass to hear him shriek with offense. “We haven’t had a proper date yet either! I demand you rectify the situation post haste.”

“Okay, okay,” Lucifer giggles and rests his chin right over the steady beat of Alastor’s heart. “The bathtub doesn’t count?”

Alastor laughs, feels his smile grow sappy and infatuated. Under any other circumstances he’d be self-conscious about giving away so much of himself, but between the blossoming emotions in his heart and the endorphins in his brain, he can’t be bothered to care. “Certainly not. How did you even get that much blood, anyway?”

“Oh, darling,” Lucifer replies, waggling his fingers about. “Nothing but a papercut.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to need an explanation.”

“We have all night...”