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Lucifer Morningstar will die by Alastor’s hand.
How Alastor will accomplish this feat is unclear, but as Lucifer pulls out to thrust back in hard, his long black tail curling tight around Alastor’s wrists, it is the only reasonable course of action. No one ever brought Alastor to this point before and Lucifer can’t just be allowed to carry on like a conquerer taking ownership of his dominion.
“You”—Lucifer grinds deeper, until Alastor gasps—“think too much.”
“Maybe you,” Alastor says through his teeth, “don’t—Lucifer—don’t think enough.”
Lucifer laughs roughly and skims his fingertips down Alastor’s stomach to his clit. Rubbing circles in time with the sinuous rolling of his hips, he says, “I think about you all the time.”
Everything about this is—objectively, in Alastor’s opinion—horrible. Wet and messy, Lucifer’s cock buried inside him, everything slick and driving and loud. No dignity, no detachment, everything out of Alastor’s control.
He should not enjoy any part of it.
It grates on him that he does.
Lucifer’s lips graze his sternum. “I’m going to make you come.”
Alastor lets his head fall back against the pillows. “I’d like to see you try.”
It’s an old line, one he’s said before, and they both know how this will play out in the end.
But that doesn’t stop Alastor from saying it. It’s the principle of the thing.
Lucifer rolls his hips again, his fingers trapped between their bodies, heat and pressure spiking. “Just remember that you asked for it.”
Alastor opens his mouth to say something to that, but then Lucifer does something else, some unholy slide and grind that reminds Alastor that he is indeed in bed with the devil himself, and he gasps instead.
Lucifer pulls Alastor’s leg up over his shoulder, folding him in half, and turns his head to kiss his calf. “There you go. That’s it.”
“Just”—Alastor grits his teeth to choke back another gasp—“get on with it.”
Another kiss that lingers, and then Lucifer’s voice, like velvet against his skin: “My pleasure.”
Alastor comes first, because Lucifer will allow nothing else, and then he rides out the rest, skirting the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain, as Lucifer comes deep inside him. He had never allowed anything like this before, but here, in the red-black of another night in Hell, it is not so very difficult to allow Lucifer to have it.
Nevertheless, in the quiet that follows, lying under the weight of Lucifer’s arm, he says, “What would you do if I were to decide I didn’t want to have sex anymore?”
Lucifer opens his eyes. “Then we wouldn’t. We can do anything you want.”
Alastor smiles. “Anything?”
Lucifer taps the end of his nose with a reprimanding finger. “Within reason.”
“You’re no fun at all.”
“Baby doll, I am more fun than you could handle.”
Alastor hums flatly. “You aren’t particularly funny, either.”
Lucifer presses a hand against his chest, eyes widening. “Al, how could you?” He grins. “It’s all right—I know you secretly think I’m hilarious.”
“And he’s delusional, too, how sad.”
“Speaking of fun and funny,” Lucifer says, brightening, “you still haven’t sent me a single sexy selfie.” He clicks his tongue. “Not even one. At this rate I’m going to start to wonder if you even like me.”
Alastor tucks a hand under his pillow to prop himself up more comfortably. “Who said I do?” He could leave it there, but can’t resist adding, “It’s tacky.”
“Oh, come on,” Lucifer says cajolingly. “People have been taking spicy pictures since the invention of the camera. It’s a noble tradition. Live a little!”
“I’m dead.”
Lucifer snorts and taps the end of his nose again, like a master scolding his pet. He is regrettably unbothered when Alastor bats him away.
“Point stands,” he says with breezy confidence. “Take a sexy picture for me, just once. I know you have it in you.”
“But haven’t you heard?” Alastor blinks at him innocently. “I don’t get along well with all this intrusive modern technology.”
“You get along with it just fine when you want to.”
“Did I say I want to?”
“Fine.” Lucifer waves a magnanimous hand. “Have it your way.”
Alastor smiles his sweetest smile. “Don’t I always?”
“I’m spoiling you.” But Lucifer is smiling, too, a real smile with no effort behind it at all. Alastor is something of an expert on smiles and knows what he’s looking at. And Lucifer is still talking: “I guess I’ll just have to live with my mistakes.”
Alastor lets his own smile shrink, mirroring Lucifer’s authenticity. Just a little bit, just because he can without an audience to bear witness. But what he says is, “If you must.”
As time goes on, the weeks of Alastor and Lucifer’s . . . arrangement turning into something more than a fleeting diversion from Hell’s unending monotony, Alastor finds himself mired in a peculiar problem.
He has always been inclined to secrecy, holding his own truths close and safe, everything under careful control, but the thought of being someone else’s secret needles at him. The idea that he—Alastor, the Radio Demon, self-made man in every sense of the phrase—might be considered unworthy of public acknowledgement sits sour in the back of his throat. He won’t have it.
The trouble is, Lucifer has shown no indication that he wants to treat Alastor like a secret, which leaves Alastor with nothing to fight over. But Lucifer hasn’t done anything to show him off, either.
Thus: Alastor’s peculiar problem. Trapped in the no-man’s land of not knowing Lucifer’s thoughts on the matter, with no graceful means of asking.
But perhaps Lucifer is more perceptive than he lets on, or has access to information he shouldn’t, which is marginally more palatable, because one morning he simply changes the rules of their game. That he does this without any discussion whatsoever is its own irritant, but hardly the worst of Lucifer’s sins where Alastor is concerned.
It is little wonder sometimes why Lucifer’s wife left him.
Alastor is standing at the kitchen counter making coffee with his syphon filter when it happens.
A hand, warm and confident, alights on the small of his back.
“Hey, you,” Lucifer’s voice says, close behind him. “Is some of that for me?”
Alastor leans into his touch. “Do you deserve any?”
“I think so.” Lucifer’s fingers splay wider, taking up more space. “I missed you this morning.”
“Hmm.” The coffee is finished and he takes it off the heat to pour. A second mug, white with an absurd duck pun printed on it, appears on the counter, ready and waiting. “Only this morning and not last night?”
“Oh, definitely last night.” Lips touch the back of his bicep in a brief kiss. “You should stay over more often.”
Alastor rolls his eyes and fills both mugs with perfectly hot coffee. He stays over very nearly every night these days, and Lucifer knows it.
“I have to keep a bit of mystique, don’t I?” He turns to lean against the counter, so they’re facing each other. It results in Lucifer’s hand sliding from his back to curl around his hip instead. “It wouldn’t do to give away all my secrets.”
Lucifer’s lips quirk up to the side. “It’s cute that you think I don’t know them already.”
“Was that meant to be attractive?” Alastor sips his coffee, maintaining eye contact, then adds, “Inquiring minds would love to know.”
“Holy shit.”
The new voice, loud in the quiet kitchen, is very nearly enough to startle. But not quite and Alastor turns his head all the way around to look at the interloper.
It’s Angel Dust. Of course it is.
“I knew it,” he’s saying, eyes wide and glittering with glee. “I knew you two was fucking! Husk is gonna be so pissed when he has to pay up.”
“Excuse me?” Alastor asks, turning his body now to face Angel fully.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Angel says quickly, waving two hands. “Don’t mind me. I’ll, uh, leave youse to it.”
He’s gone a moment later, back out the door to the dining room, letting it swing shut behind him.
“Lucifer,” Alastor says, gaze still on the door. “Am I correct in concluding that there has been some sort of betting pool over us?”
“Sounds like it.” Lucifer sounds so profoundly unruffled by this revelation that Alastor has to look at him again. He’s leaning back against the counter, mug cradled now in both hands. “I should’ve gone in on it. Missed opportunity.”
“Lucifer.”
“I would have split it with you!” Lucifer gives him a lazy grin. “It’s fine, anyway. They were bound to figure it out one of these days, if we didn’t just tell them first.”
Alastor eyes him suspiciously. “Did you plan this?”
“Of course not!” Lucifer almost looks offended for a moment before the grin returns in full force. “But we’re in the kitchen, so it wasn’t exactly outside the realm of possibility, was it?”
He did plan it, then. Ah well, it’s nothing Alastor wouldn’t have done in his place, had he been so inclined.
“You aren’t as subtle as you think,” he tells him flatly.
Lucifer laughs. “We’ll see about that.”
But there’s really nothing to be gained now by hiding in the kitchen, with their fellow hotel residents no doubt beginning to congregate on the other side of the door. So Alastor presses his free hand against Lucifer’s chest to nudge him out of the way.
“Not so fast.” Lucifer reaches up and wraps his fingers around the back of Alastor’s neck, pulls him down so their faces are level, and kisses him. Just once, firmly, before letting go and stepping away. “Now you can go.”
“Oh, I can, can I?” Alastor scoffs and pushes past Lucifer to leave the kitchen. “I don’t take orders from you.”
A hand catches him by the arm, fingers curling all the way around his wrist, and then Lucifer is once more close behind him. In a low voice, heavy with insinuation, he says, “Don’t you?”
And then he lets go, as easy as that, and passes Alastor with a soft caress down his side. The smile he tosses him is just as soft, at odds with his tone, and Alastor takes a slow breath through his nose, pushing down a little thrill of something not unlike anticipation.
Lucifer is a menace and Alastor really shouldn’t allow this to go on.
He follows him into the dining room anyway, where the hotel’s motley assortment of occupants are already seated around the table. They haven’t had any new arrivals recently—it seems the hotel being destroyed once already by Angelic forces has not been much of a selling feature.
“Dad!” Charlie says, too loud, and that is all Alastor needs to hear to know Angel wasted no time in telling everyone what he saw. “And Alastor! Good morning!”
“Good morning, sweetie,” Lucifer says, as unruffled as he was in the kitchen. Clearly someone’s morning is going exactly according to plan. “What’s on the menu?”
“That’s it?” Vaggie is looking between them, so visibly appalled that it goes some of the way toward redeeming the day. “Nothing else to say?”
“No,” Alastor says, looking her dead in the eye. “In fact.”
“No news here,” Lucifer says. “Nothing has changed since yesterday, or last week, or–well, you get the gist.”
Realization seems to be dawning, to a mixed response. Angel looks like he wants to ask invasive personal questions, Husk and Vaggie look like they want absolutely no one to ask any questions at all, and Charlie looks conflicted.
More or less as expected, then, had Alastor had any expectations.
“It didn’t have to be a secret,” is what Charlie says, after a silence that stretches out for far too long. “I’m not a kid, Dad.”
“I know you’re not!” Lucifer says, very fast. “That’s not why.”
No, Alastor thinks, it’s not. Lucifer doesn’t seem to make any of his decisions based on other people, or at least not in that sense. He is not—has never been—human and his understanding of the people around him strikes Alastor as somewhat theoretical.
It would not occur to Lucifer to treat Charlie like a child, because Lucifer has never been a child. He never went through the process of growing up and was not present for much of his daughter’s adolescence to experience it secondhand. His choice to withhold his change in circumstances vis-a-vis Alastor was not something she needed to know, and so he did not tell her. It’s as simple as that.
How strange to see this when Charlie does not, but perhaps it takes a certain level of detachment to get a clear view. After all, Alastor met Lucifer for the first time just three months ago. There is refreshingly little history between them to cloud his perspective.
Although, looked at from that angle, their relationship has developed alarmingly quickly.
Everything about this is Lucifer’s fault.
“Well,” Charlie says, “you don’t have to keep secrets. We’re trying out honesty here.” A hint of a scold enters her voice, but it isn’t overly harsh. She seems to be aiming for levity now. “We need to set a good example for the guests!”
A wince flickers across Lucifer’s face before he brightens to an almost comical degree. “Yep, working on it!” The hint of mania is a nice touch. “I’m not used to being much of a team player, if you know what I mean. But I wasn’t trying to keep things from you, sweetie, I promise.”
In a roundabout way, that might even be true. He wasn’t actively trying to keep anything a secret, was he? It’s all been a game he’s playing with Alastor, with no thought for anyone outside of their little folie à deux.
“And if we can all move on,” Alastor says, interjecting himself because he can’t take it anymore, “I would be much obliged.”
“Oh!” Charlie offers him a smile. “Of course, Alastor. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” He bares his teeth in a wide smile. “But not everything needs to be a topic for public discussion, hmm?”
“Right,” Vaggie says with palpable relief. “Let’s just–let’s just have breakfast.”
Everyone—even Angel, after watching Charlie and Lucifer’s awkward exchange—seems to agree on that front. As they take their usual seats around the table, Alastor feels itchy, as though he’s the wrong size for his skin, but it’s tolerable enough. He supposes the morning could have gone worse.
“You planned that.”
Lucifer doesn’t look up from his sketchbook. “Planned what?”
Alastor sits down on the corner of the desk, disturbing Lucifer’s space and forcing him to give Alastor his attention. “That little scene in the kitchen this morning. You planned that.”
“Did I?”
“Lucifer.”
Lucifer drapes an arm across the back of his chair to look up at Alastor properly. “I didn’t not plan it. It seemed nicer than a big dramatic announcement. Right?”
It was, but Alastor will go to Hell—again—before admitting it. “You didn’t consult me first.”
“Oh.” Lucifer blinks, asynchronous. “Is that all?”
“All?”
Lucifer holds his hands up. “Okay, okay, hold on, that came out wrong. What I mean is: you didn’t like feeling like a secret, but you were never a secret, so I let people know about us. Problem solved.”
The fact that Lucifer thinks that explanation is a significant improvement is revelatory. Lucifer Morningstar, the First Angel, the King of Hell, absolutely certain that he knows what everyone else should be doing all the time and moving pieces around to make it happen. Because he is what he is, viewing Hell from a vantage point beyond human comprehension.
It’s one of the reasons this thing between them works. The reason Alastor found him even remotely compelling in the first place. But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
“That’s not the point,” Alastor says, the words crisp around the edges.
“Then what is?”
“You decided you knew what I wanted”—that he was right doesn’t matter—“and acted without speaking to me about it first.”
“And you don’t like that,” Lucifer says with what sounds like genuine comprehension, albeit somewhat late. “I should have asked.”
“Yes,” Alastor says. “You should have. There are times when you don’t have to, but this was different.”
Figuring out which situation is which is Lucifer’s problem to solve.
“I’ll try not to do it again,” Lucifer says. Not a promise of success, only intention, but that’s fine. Alastor doubts he would believe him if he said anything more definitive. “Is that . . . are we good?”
It would be easy to say no and walk out. Make Lucifer work for it a little harder. But Alastor finds that he doesn’t want to. Not today.
He sighs, dramatically aggrieved, and doesn’t pull away when Lucifer rests a hand on his thigh. But Lucifer won’t let it go without Alastor laying the matter to bed, so he spreads his legs just enough to invite Lucifer’s hand to slip between them, and says, “We’re fine.”
So you coming over?
Alastor scoffs into the quiet of his room and sets the phone aside, leaving Lucifer to wonder for a moment or two. He can’t just give the game away immediately every time he asks.
Then, after a suitable delay, he sends back:
Is there something in it for me?
For you? Always
Predictable. It shouldn’t be even the slightest bit amusing, and yet Alastor finds himself smiling at the screen. Perhaps this is what insanity feels like.
I’ll consider it.
I’ll make it worth your while
More worth your while than anything you’ve ever experienced in your life
Alastor snorts.
Bold claims from someone whose wife left him.
It’s a good shot, if Alastor says so himself, but Lucifer doesn’t even falter:
So you know I know what not to do
Alastor could prolong this, make Lucifer sweat it out a little more, but he wasn’t doing anything interesting tonight and he’s curious what exactly it is Lucifer intends for them. What game he’s inclined to play.
I suppose I can humor you.
“Kneel.” Lucifer’s voice is a purr, as warm as the hand that brushes down the length of Alastor’s spine. He can hear the smile when Lucifer adds, “Now.”
Alastor could refuse and Lucifer wouldn’t force him. He would never even think of such a thing. But he could and that’s what makes it all so interesting.
Leaving Lucifer at his back, he drops to his knees. Gracefully, controlled, because that’s part of it, too, this game they’re playing. Control, control, control, until he can’t anymore and Lucifer is the only one left running the show.
“That’s it,” Lucifer says, running his fingers through Alastor’s hair, nails scraping across his scalp. Anticipation prickles down the back of Alastor’s neck. “You’re so beautiful when you do what you’re told.”
“Am I?” Alastor says, and it’s a challenge, albeit a breathless one.
Lucifer curls his fingers around one of Alastor’s antlers to pull his head back so they’re looking at each other. “That wasn’t a question.”
This is because of what happened yesterday, the kitchen and Alastor telling Lucifer that he doesn’t take orders and their little argument after. Lucifer reminding him that, under the right circumstances, he does take orders. And under those same circumstances, perhaps, Lucifer does have an idea of what Alastor wants.
Alastor stares back at him and says nothing else.
“Better.” Lucifer gives him a smile and lets go of the antler to stroke his ear back. “I’m going to fuck you tonight.”
A plan so obvious there is truly no need now to say anything at all.
But Lucifer is still smiling. “And you’re going to ask me to.”
So that’s how it’s going to be. Sometimes it becomes very clear that Lucifer is, in fact, the devil, and this is his domain. Alastor is only playing in it.
Alastor keeps staring at him, upside down, and says in his clearest voice, “You’ll have to make me.”
Lucifer coils a lock of Alastor’s hair around his fingertip and gives it a tug. “Oh, I will.”
“And what brought this on?” Sometimes Alastor can’t resist pushing his luck, if only to see what Lucifer will do with it. “Hmm?”
Lucifer tugs on his hair again. Alastor’s scalp prickles. “You did say you want me to ask rather than assume.”
“Did I?” Alastor smiles up at him. “You may have to refresh my memory.”
Lucifer lets go of the lock of hair and steps around him, as smooth as the snake that is his avatar in the minds of men. He’s smiling, but it’s a dangerous smile, like a poisoned apple, sweet and lethal.
The thought crosses Alastor’s mind, for the briefest of moments, that he must have pushed Lilith to the brink of madness for her to walk away from him and never return. Then again, is that truly such an outlandish idea? Lucifer infuriates people like it’s a competitive sport.
But then he says, “Actually, no.”
Alastor blinks. “Pardon me?”
Lucifer’s smile has softened. “We’ll get back to it, don’t worry. If not today, then another day. All the time in the world, right? Until it all returns to dust.” He laughs at what Alastor can only assume was meant to be a joke. “But we’re talking now.”
“Talking.”
“Talking.” Lucifer extends a hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, Alastor takes it to allow Lucifer to pull him to his feet. With their stark difference in height it feels vaguely absurd, but Lucifer moves him effortlessly, as though Alastor weighs nothing. “Come on.”
“I don’t recall saying that I want to talk,” Alastor says, following him nonetheless. “In fact, I was under the impression we were on the verge of doing something entertaining.”
“Yeah, well, we’re talking anyway.”
They reach the bed and, lacking anything better to do, Alastor sits down beside Lucifer. Then he takes his shoes off because it’s all beginning to feel a bit ridiculous and altering their state of dress seems like a step in the right direction.
And then he looks at Lucifer and says, “Well? I’m waiting.”
Lucifer rolls his eyes. His posture is relaxed, as he rests his weight back on his hands, no tension at all in the set of his shoulders. “We haven’t finished talking about your deal, and what we’re going to do about it.”
It comes so profoundly out of nowhere that Alastor wasn’t braced for it and, before he can stop himself, he reflexively recoils. Not from Lucifer as much as the suggestion that they reopen that line of discussion. It’s been weeks since Lucifer laid out the realities of Alastor’s situation at the hotel and Alastor had put the matter out of mind before it could drive him to distraction.
Freedom is within reach, just beyond his fingertips. But everything in Hell comes at a cost and he isn’t entirely convinced Lucifer’s offer is as open-handed as it seems.
“Hey now,” Lucifer says, more softly. “No need to look like that. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“How dull.”
Lucifer laughs, quick and low. “That’s different, isn’t it?” But in this it seems he is not so easily derailed because he doesn’t leave Alastor enough time to reply before saying, “I meant what I said, Al: if you want me to break the deal, all you have to do is say the word and it’s done.”
Alastor tilts his head. “And what will I owe you for it, hmm?”
“Nothing.” Lucifer has the audacity to look mildly insulted. “That’s not my style. Trust me, if I ever want to make a deal with you, you won’t have to ask that question.”
It isn’t really relevant to their current conversation, but Alastor knows an opening when he sees one. “Are you in the habit of making deals with sinners?” He smiles more broadly. “Coming to the aid of violent psychopaths?”
“Hardly.” Lucifer cuts a hand through the air. “But what can I say? I like you.”
He says it so readily, as though it’s a self-evident truth of the universe and no sort of concession at all, that for a moment Alastor isn’t certain where he’s meant to go from here.
“So,” Lucifer continues, tone abruptly businesslike, “let’s settle this.”
Alastor blinks, spine tensing. “Right now?”
“You’ve got it.” Lucifer leans closer, taking Alastor’s chin in his hand. “I’ve let it be, for you, but it is a threat to my daughter and everything she’s trying to do here. But it doesn’t have to be if you just swallow your pride for two minutes and let me help you.”
Two minutes. It is in all likelihood a number Lucifer picked at random and not the literal amount of time liberating Alastor will take, but it’s so . . . small. As though decades of inner turmoil over the consequences of a choice he made before he knew any better are little more than a trifling matter, something to be swept away and forgotten.
But of course, to Lucifer it is. What are a few decades in the face of all of time? A moment. A blink of an eye.
“Does it truly mean so little?” he hears himself say, as though from a great distance.
Lucifer frowns, creases forming at the corners of his mouth, altering the doll-like smoothness of his face. “No, of course not. But it’s not hard, baby. Not for me.” He tilts Alastor’s chin down, so Alastor has no choice but to maintain eye contact. “Let me take care of you.”
There are many things here that Alastor could respond to. What he chooses is to ask, “What would it entail?”
Lucifer’s face relaxes again into a smile. “From you? Nothing but your word that you won’t have buyer’s remorse. Anything and everything in Hell is mine to do with as I please—breaking a single deal is nothing. I could wipe it from creation if you really wanted me to, so no one would even know it had ever happened. I don’t recommend that,” he adds quickly. “Because I’m not sure exactly what it would do to you and don’t feel like finding out. But I’m just saying: I could.”
The sheer power in that suggestion leaves Alastor light-headed. Dizzy with the potential of it all. Lucifer could do anything and there is nothing anyone could do to stop him.
“How far have you gone before?” he asks, giving in to the siren call of curiosity. “How deeply have you interfered in this place?”
Lucifer actually hesitates then, letting go of Alastor’s face to lean back again. “Far.” When Alastor doesn’t respond, but only waits, he rakes a hand through his hair to rest a palm flat on the top of his head. “Overcrowding here has always been a problem. It doesn’t have to be, technically, but there are . . . guidelines, I guess you could call them. In the interests of order, et cetera and so on.”
Alastor hums, encouraging him along. It’s not often Lucifer talks about anything of particular substance, but when he gets going it can be enlightening. And Alastor enjoys it—it feels like being let in on a secret not meant for the ears of the damned.
It reminds him that, yes, he is singular. An island in a sea of wretched souls. He has always known this about himself, even when he was alive, but to sit with Lucifer now makes it all so obvious.
He was always meant for more.
It’s good of Lucifer to notice.
“We didn’t go straight to Exterminations as the solution,” Lucifer says. “Heaven wanted me to handle it myself, and I did give it a shot for a minute. That’s what I mean by ‘far.’ But it wasn’t what I wanted and I was sick of it before I even started, so we settled on scheduled Exterminations instead.”
“And you agreed to it.”
“Agreed to it?” Lucifer laughs. “Al, sweetheart, I designed it. Eternal damnation was their idea, not mine, so I kicked the overpopulation problem back to them. Not it.”
He makes it sound so easy, but Alastor has seen the way he looks at sinners, the irritated dismay that it’s all turned out this way, that humanity took his gift of choice without restraints and chose violence and chaos. And there is a question buried in all of that, but he won’t ask. Not tonight.
Instead, he smiles and says, “Does your daughter know?”
“Ah . . . no.” Lucifer smiles crookedly. “Well, all right, she’s smart, so she might have pieced most of it together on her own, but we’ve never talked about it.”
“Worried she’ll be disappointed in you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He pauses. “I’m trying to do better by her.”
“By withholding relevant details about how this situation came to pass.” Alastor smiles his sharpest smile. “I can’t imagine how that might blow up in your face somewhere down the line.”
“And that’s enough of that!” Lucifer reaches out to catch Alastor’s wrist and lift his hand so he can press a kiss into the hollow of his palm. “Nice try on the distraction, but we didn’t finish talking about your deal.”
Alastor curls his fingers in to skim his nails across Lucifer’s cheek. “Must we?”
“Yes.”
The part of Alastor—significant and occasionally defining—that responds poorly to demands screams at him to refuse. He could simply leave, get up off the bed, dissolve into shadows, and never allow Lucifer to open this subject again. But if he does that, Lucifer will insist that he leave the hotel, and if that necessitates telling Charlie the ugly details of certain choices Alastor once made, so be it.
Lucifer is not above it. Of that, Alastor is absolutely certain.
So he is left with two choices: refuse and be forced to leave on someone else’s terms, or believe what Lucifer is telling him and accept the offer.
Neither is wholly palatable, but one is worse than the other.
Isn’t it?
Before he can rethink it and wind up right back where he started, he says, “Fine.”
Lucifer brightens so suddenly and wholly that, for a moment, he glows like a star. Like his name. And for the space of that moment, something deep within Alastor whispers, beautiful.
“Well,” Lucifer says on an exhale, and the moment shatters, “all right, then.”
But Alastor feels edgy now and holds up a hand. “But not tonight. I need–give me . . . a moment.”
“Sure.” Lucifer brushes Alastor’s bangs off his face with gentle fingertips. “A moment it is.” His hand slides around the back of Alastor’s head to curl around his neck. A hint of danger there and Alastor’s stomach flutters. “But for now, I think you said something about entertainment?”
“Did I?” he breathes. “I don’t recall.”
Lucifer pulls him in closer, until their lips brush. “I’ll just have to remind you, then, won’t I?”
Alastor blinks at him, keeping it slow and lazy. “If you insist. I suppose.”
It’s enough because, within the span of one blink to the next, Alastor is flat on his back with Lucifer leaning over him, eyes dark and glittering. “Not good enough, baby doll. I know your memory is better than that.”
Alastor looks up at him and parts his legs to give Lucifer room to drape himself over him properly. Somehow Lucifer makes it all seem effortless, as though Alastor’s body is his for the taking.
“Hmm?” He smiles. “You’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid.”
Lucifer dips his head to trail his lips down the line of Alastor’s throat and bite down just above his collar. “Ask.”
“For what?”
Another bite, harder, and Alastor takes a sharp breath through his nose. But he keeps himself under control otherwise and bends his knee to hook his ankle around the back of Lucifer’s leg.
Lucifer’s voice is as dark as his gaze was when he says, “You know what.”
Everything here is liquid heat, shot through with a sparking energy that may or may not all be anticipation.
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh, that’s different, then.” Lucifer sits up with a wicked little smile. “Far be it from me to keep you.”
And this is all a bit of easy fun, after a conversation Alastor didn’t want to have, but suddenly he finds that he doesn’t want to prolong it. He just . . . wants.
So he stares into Lucifer’s eyes and says plainly, “Fuck me.”
Lucifer laughs and settles back down to kiss him, slow and wet and deep. His tongue is long when it slides into Alastor’s mouth, his nails sharp when they dig into his cheek to direct him. Not quite breaking skin, but the threat is there. Danger, heady, tingles like champagne on Alastor’s tongue, and Alastor stretches his arms up over his head as their clothes disappear.
“Impatient,” he murmurs into Lucifer’s mouth.
“Virtue is overrated.” Lucifer nips his lower lip. “Don’t move until I tell you to. If you do, it’s game over and we’re going to sleep.”
It isn’t anything ambitious or novel, but Lucifer always finds some little way to make things interesting. He has always understood that Alastor is easily bored, and takes very obvious pleasure in keeping him invested.
That being the object of Lucifer’s focus is interesting enough all on its own is a secret Alastor intends to keep. Lucifer is Pride, after all, and his ego doesn’t need any help.
Lucifer takes Alastor’s wrists in his hands and pushes them up over Alastor’s head to rest against the pillows. But he doesn’t try to restrain him; this is Alastor’s challenge to meet without help.
He moves down the bed, dragging his teeth along the lines of Alastor’s throat to kiss the hollow between his collarbones. But he doesn’t linger long, the forked tip of his tongue flicking feather-light across Alastor’s skin as he continues, fingers curling around Alastor’s hips, lips and teeth tracing the concavity of his ribs. Soft, so very soft, but that’s where the danger lies, in the gentleness that masks the potential for violence.
Alastor closes his eyes to bring the anticipation up a notch.
“That’s it,” Lucifer says, breath hot against Alastor’s stomach. “Spread your legs for me, baby . . . good. Just like that.”
His lips touch Alastor’s skin again, lower, just above his mound, and then lower still, to dip his tongue between dry folds. It takes more than a little anticipation to get Alastor wet, but Lucifer always seems to take it as a personal challenge, never an affront.
Alastor curls his fingers into the silk pillowcase above his head and says, “You do seem eager to spend your time with your face between my legs.”
“Are you kidding?” Lucifer’s tongue brushes him as he speaks. His breath is hot and Alastor tenses against a shiver. “I invented oral sex—this is my specialty.” He presses an open-mouthed kiss to the skin he licked, then adds, “And not many souls have had the privilege.”
“Am I meant to be flattered?” Alastor keeps his eyes closed and his voice level despite Lucifer’s mounting onslaught. “One might wonder if you simply struggled to find willing partners.”
Lucifer nips his inner thigh. “I wasn’t looking.”
Which heavily implies that Lucifer has found very few souls interesting, and that is what truly sends a jolt of heat into the pit of Alastor’s stomach. The reminder that Lucifer wanted Alastor before Alastor had even the slightest interest in him, and that he does not want anyone else.
Lucifer laughs and it vibrates through his pelvis. “I thought that might do something for you. Now be a good boy and shhh.”
Alastor might have replied to that, if only to be difficult, but before he can Lucifer lowers his head to press the flat of his tongue against the opening to Alastor’s body and then lick all the way up in a single slow stroke. He hums against Alastor’s clit, catching it between his lips, before moving lower again. The tip of his tongue circles, then dips inside him, quick like a snake.
Alastor’s breath hitches, and he knows it’s all over.
Lucifer takes his time, fucking Alastor slowly with his long, dextrous tongue. His tail wraps around Alastor’s thigh to pull his legs farther apart, but otherwise he doesn’t restrain him at all, leaving Alastor to dig his claws into the pillow and grind his teeth to swallow a moan.
If he moves, it’s game over, and he hates to lose.
Lucifer presses his face deeper, massaging his clit with the flat of his tongue before pushing it inside him again. He’s showing off now, not using his fingers for anything, pulling Alastor toward an orgasm with his mouth alone. The noises he’s making are obscene and Alastor squeezes his eyes shut, choking back a whimper.
And then Lucifer stops.
“You moved your arm.”
“. . . What?”
“Your arm.” When Alastor opens his eyes, Lucifer has his elbow braced against the mattress on the outside of Alastor’s thigh, cheek propped on his fist. “You moved.” His eyes glitter, a hint of red in their depths. “What did I say?”
Alastor swallows, scrambling to get his breathing under control. “Not to move.”
Lucifer hums. “When I tell you to do something, I expect to be obeyed.”
Alastor blinks at him. It’s hard to think like this, trembling, his nerves beginning to fray. “I . . .”
He trails off, not sure where that sentence was meant to go, and Lucifer laughs. He runs a hand down Alastor’s side soothingly. “You never learn, do you? I’m the devil, baby doll. You’re not going to win here.” He lowers his head to kiss Alastor’s stomach. “But I could still fuck you. Would you like that?”
Alastor’s head is clearing a bit, though he still feels wound tight as a spring. Once more he tries to begin with, “I—”
But this time Lucifer shakes his head. “That was a yes-or-no question.”
Alastor looks at him, and Lucifer looks back. A part of him, smaller than it once was, wants to say no, but that doesn’t seem as entertaining as it used to. He manages a sigh nonetheless, because he is who he is, and then says, “Yes.”
Lucifer smiles at him, eyes crinkling so that, for a passing moment, he looks ever so slightly human. Voice warm with approval, he says, “Good.”
It is not until he’s pushing inside Alastor, as indulgently as he fucked him with his tongue, that a curious little thought crosses Alastor’s mind. A thought that he will keep to himself, close and safe, at least for now.
Lucifer is right about a great many things, and wrong about one.
Alastor is winning.
As the days go on with little to show for it, a tension settles over the hotel like a death shroud. Guests are beginning to check in, though whether they’re driven more by curiosity than any real desire to ever see Heaven is a matter of some debate when Charlie isn’t in earshot, but it feels as though everyone is simply . . . waiting.
Heaven has made no apparent move to enact retribution for Niffty taking care of Adam, and all of Hell is beginning to feel like a powder keg, ready for the spark that will blow everything wide open once and for all.
And Lucifer is right there in the middle of it all, doing—as far as Alastor can tell—absolutely nothing about any of it. He draws a lot, little sketches and vignettes and potential plans for changes to the hotel, but that’s hardly preparing for an incoming threat.
“So,” Angel says one afternoon in the lounge, to no one in particular, “is there a plan here for if someone starts a war?”
“Angel,” Vaggie says with a note of warning.
“I’m just saying!” He holds up two hands. “It’s been awful quiet and I’d be more surprised if no one tried something. Ya know?”
Charlie grimaces before plastering on a smile. “We made it through Heaven’s last attempt to kill everyone . . . mostly, and we did a really good job . . . okay, mostly. Anyway, I don’t think they’re going to try again any time soon!”
“They won’t.”
It’s Lucifer’s voice, calm and clear, and the room crashes into perfect silence. When Alastor looks over at him, he’s sitting in an armchair like it’s a throne, one leg crossed over the other, shoulders relaxed. His gaze is on Charlie.
“Heaven and I had a deal,” he says. “They broke the terms, so the deal’s off. They’re not going to do anything else until we figure out what to do about it.”
He sounds matter-of-fact, almost bored. It is a very poor fit with how close several of the people present—Alastor, in particular—came to being killed, and Alastor might have words for him later. A bit of feedback on reading the room, perhaps.
“If anyone in Hell tries to make a move in the meantime . . .” Lucifer continues. “Well, that’s different. But I’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
“It’s ‘cross that bridge,’ Dad,” Charlie says.
“Oh, don’t be boring,” Alastor says with a wide smile. “Arson sounds much more entertaining.”
“That’s not in the mission statement, Alastor,” Vaggie says. “We’re the ones who are supposed to be setting a good example. No arson.”
“You’re no fun.”
“The point,” Lucifer says, as though there has ever been a point to any of this, “is that there was a way everything worked, for a very long time. Heaven changed the rules, so no one really knows what will happen now.” He smiles a strange, slanting smile. “I could even start a war, if I wanted to.”
Lucifer had mentioned order, when he told Alastor how the Exterminations came to be. There are so many rules in play here, games within games, and only Lucifer and Heaven understand them all. Alastor suspects not even Charlie knows more than could fill a thimble.
Lucifer’s parenting always does leave something to be desired.
“But you don’t, right?” Charlie’s eyes are locked on her father. “Right?”
“It sucked last time,” Lucifer says, “so no. Not really.”
It’s not the most emphatic confirmation Alastor has ever heard, but Charlie seems willing to take it at face value. The fact that she continues to give Lucifer the benefit of the doubt, after everything, is all anyone needs to see that she truly is too good for Hell.
“So the plan is to do nothing, then?” Angel says. “Just sit here and hope no horrible shit happens?”
“This is Hell,” Husker says. “Horrible shit happens every fucking day.”
“But not here,” Charlie says forcefully. “We can’t control what happens out there, but at the hotel things are different. I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but it will.”
Vaggie nods. She’s good about that sort of thing, supporting Charlie whether or not she believes in everything she says. It’s a level of loyalty not often see amongst the damned. “Trust the process, guys.”
“It’ll be fine,” Lucifer says, still matter-of-fact. Still very nearly bored. “Eventually. One way or another.”
Charlie’s jaw tenses through a smile. “Thanks, Dad. That’s–yeah, thanks.”
“Look.” Lucifer leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The worst thing that can happen is someone in Hell tries to start a war with Heaven. But after what happened with Adam and the hotel, they’ll probably come to me first before retaliating.”
“Probably,” Husker says, and it isn’t exactly a question. It is also, Alastor strongly suspects, exactly the word everyone else in the room has latched onto.
“They’ll want me to deal with it.” Lucifer flicks a hand through the air, brushing it all away. “And I can, if I have to.” He looks back to Charlie. “Just focus on the hotel, what you’re doing here. I’ve got the rest.”
There’s something in his voice that catches Alastor’s attention. And maybe it’s only that he’s beginning to know Lucifer that it stands out, but suspicion sparks.
Is the flighty boredom a front? Alastor has wondered for some time if Lucifer is more involved in recent events than he lets on. If he’s playing the role of the magician here, moving one way and talking another, too quickly for anyone to follow.
The hand is quicker than the eye, isn’t that how the saying goes? And the house always wins.
“Now we just have to prove to everyone that it’s possible,” Charlie says. Her hand clenches into a fist briefly before relaxing again, and Vaggie reaches out to take it. “It is possible. I know it is.”
Lucifer smiles at her. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you.”
It could be an empty platitude, but the sincerity in Lucifer’s expression is too obvious to ignore. He means what he’s saying, whatever that’s worth.
It’s enough, at least for now, because the impromptu little meeting dissolves and Alastor follows Lucifer up to his bedroom. He has questions that he’s certain will be better received without an audience. If he plays his cards right, Lucifer might even give him a straight answer.
“You believe redemption is possible,” he says without preamble the moment the door has closed behind them.
Lucifer looks back over his shoulder. “Was there a question in that?”
Alastor sighs and rephrases: “Redemption is possible, and you know it. Don’t you?”
Lucifer laughs and crosses the room to sit down on the overstuffed white sofa near the windows, perfectly placed to get a view across Pentagram City. He pats the empty space beside him invitingly. “I think it is. I mean, the snake guy made it and Heaven has no idea what the fuck to do with that, which is as good a sign as any that more of you could pull it off. But . . .”
“But?” Alastor prompts, sitting down beside him.
Lucifer pauses for a few seconds, gaze drifting away from Alastor to focus on something far beyond the room. Then he looks at him again and says, “I have a theory, if you’re interested.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Aren’t you just.” He laughs again with a quick shake of his head. “I don’t think it will be as easy as ‘repent for your sins and commit to a wholesome lifestyle.’ It might take something a little more dramatic to really move the needle, as far as Heaven’s concerned.”
Alastor tilts his head. “Dramatic, as in a display of noble self-sacrifice?”
Lucifer points at him. “Got it in one. I knew you were clever.”
Alastor ignores the mediocre compliment. It’s true, but it also doesn’t take a genius to follow this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. If anything, he should have got there without Lucifer’s prompting.
However . . .
“You said you don’t want to wage war on Heaven.”
“I don’t.”
“But if someone else does it, you won’t stop them.”
“Their folly, my gain,” Lucifer says agreeably. “Depending on how things are going here, I might even encourage them a little. Make sure we get a nice flashy spectacle out of it, so it can’t be ignored.” His mouth is smiling, but his eyes are serious. “No one can play this game like I can, Al. Not when I’m in it to win.”
Alastor stares back at him, struck momentarily silent by the possibilities Lucifer is floating before him, as the void in his chest where a heart once beat tightens. If Lucifer’s theory is how things go, it has the potential to be glorious. All the entertainment Alastor could ever want, and then some. And with so many players on the board, too, waiting in the wings for their big break, to keep things interesting.
“Charlie wouldn’t approve,” he says, because it must be acknowledged.
“I know.”
“She might never forgive you for letting it happen, if people die.”
“I know that, too.”
Alastor tilts his head all the way to the other side, vertebrae cracking. “I could warn her.”
Lucifer reaches for Alastor’s hand. “You could, and I’d let you.” He lifts their joined hands to kiss Alastor’s fingertips. “Telling you what to do is a strictly after-hours activity. You’re your own man.”
They look at each other for a long moment, perfectly still. Then Alastor says, “I suppose you ought to know that I find you unusually attractive right now.”
“Unusually, huh?” Lucifer says, voice shimmering, as he gives Alastor’s hand a tug. “Come here, then. It’d be a shame to miss out on that.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Alastor says, letting himself be drawn in. Lucifer’s eyes are so bright, like a star gone nova, and it’s hard to look away from their intensity. Nonetheless, he smiles slyly and adds, “Don’t worry: I’ll make sure you know the exact moment this little fit of madness passes.”
Two days later, Alastor is gripped by another fit of madness.
He rolls his pant leg up and turns his leg to the side to take a picture of his calf. Shoe still on, displaying just a few inches of black sock between his ankle and the garter below his knee.
And then he sends it to Lucifer.
Since you’re so desperate for a bit of prurient entertainment.
The reply comes almost instantly:
10/10. Worth the wait
Best keep that photograph to yourself or you’ll never see any of me again.
You wound me, sweetheart
It is a sexy ankle, though. This could be the start of something
I will end you.
Looking forward to the attempt
Come over?
We can’t have you pining for me. What would the papers say?
No situation can be allowed to carry on indefinitely, not even in Hell. This is how, one night that is otherwise no different from any other, Alastor comes to look at Lucifer in the warm light of his decadent circus tent of a bedroom and say exactly one thing.
“I’m ready.”
Lucifer doesn’t ask for clarification, which is for the best because Alastor suspects that he wouldn’t cope very well with being forced to explain himself. He never does, really, but particularly not when it matters.
Lucifer cants his head toward the sofa. “Why don’t you sit down?” When Alastor doesn’t move right away, he reaches out to wrap his fingers around his wrist. “Come on.”
Feeling somewhat like a prey animal, and resenting it, Alastor allows Lucifer to direct him to the sofa and sits down, clenching his hands around his knees. But Lucifer doesn’t sit with him. Instead, he remains standing, looking into Alastor’s face, expression still and gaze sharp.
Assessing him.
And then he says, “All right.”
Alastor takes a breath through his nose and lets it out slowly. “What does this entail? Hmm?”
“Just relax.” Lucifer cards his fingers through Alastor’s bangs, pushing them out of his face before stroking his ear back. “Didn’t I tell you? I can break any deal with or without cooperation from the souls involved—Hell is my dominion.”
That tells Alastor as good as nothing. But Lucifer’s touch is warm and he forces himself to relax into it rather than pull away. “This wasn’t what I had in mind for myself.”
“I know.” He kisses Alastor’s forehead, still petting his hair. “You wanted to do it all on your own. But look at it this way, if it makes you feel better: aren’t you? I don’t usually get involved in soul deals. What you all do to each other is your problem, not mine.”
“I don’t need to be coddled.”
Lucifer twists his fingers into Alastor’s hair and pulls. “Who said anything about coddling?” His grip loosens into another caress. “You’ve laid out a compelling case for why I should do this, so I am.”
Alastor snorts. “That’s certainly one way to describe it.”
“I could have just tossed you out,” Lucifer says in a mild voice. “I don’t have to do anything, but you gave me a reason to want to. Take some of the credit.”
There’s a whisper of a command in his tone, an unyielding steadiness that Alastor has become somewhat acquainted with of late. But it is a command he can disregard, if it no longer suits him.
If he does, if he decides that this is not what he wants, Lucifer will insist that he leave the hotel, for Charlie’s safety. And that will be a command he is not free to refuse.
It could so easily feel like coercion, but it doesn’t. Perhaps because it is what Alastor would want to do, if all the options in creation were laid out at his feet for the choosing.
Still, he finds himself making one small confession.
“I don’t know what will happen after.”
Lucifer’s face softens into a smile and he strokes Alastor’s ear back flat against his skull. “At this point, I have a pretty good feeling you’ll stay about the same. This idiotic deal you made didn’t create you—it just helped you along. Gave you the juice you needed to get going.”
It’s as good an answer as any, Alastor supposes, and so he nods. Lucifer likes him, enjoys his company, and it would be inconvenient for their pleasant little detente here if he suddenly fell to pieces or lost any of himself.
“That’s the spirit,” Lucifer says, voice lush with approval. His nails scrape across Alastor’s scalp in another pass. “You’re still a funny duck, you know? You trust me so much with some things, and then not at all with others, and I never know which direction you’re going to take.”
Alastor smiles, pleased. “Can you imagine if you did? You’d be bored in a minute.”
Lucifer laughs softly. “Maybe so.”
And right then, in the endless space between one breath and the next, suspended for the briefest of moments in the velvet expanse of eternity, a tether as fine and strong as a spider’s web snaps. Just like that, and Alastor hears himself gasp as a weight he had grown so accustomed to he hardly noticed it anymore simply falls away.
He gasps again, ragged around the edges, and closes his eyes, dizzy with the rush of . . .
He doesn’t know what to call it. He doesn’t know if this feeling even has a name.
“There it is,” Lucifer murmurs. He presses his lips to Alastor’s forehead in another tender kiss. “Just breathe, sweetheart, you’re all right.”
“I . . .”
“Take your time.” Lucifer’s lips brush his skin with every word. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
The feeling welling up in Alastor’s chest may not be one he can name, but it feels good. Silken euphoria, cradled in Lucifer’s touch as the limitations he’s strained against for decades become a memory in an instant.
Free, his soul sings. Free.
Through it all, Lucifer never stops petting his hair.
It’s almost too much, sitting there in Lucifer’s ostentatious corner of the hotel, with eyes on him that see as much as they watch. The shuddering awareness that he no longer has to seek out the demon who took possession of him, that all of Hell has opened before him, ripe for the taking. If he wants it. Only ever if he wants it now, forever.
But they can’t sit there like that all night and, finally, he manages to string together a coherent thought: “I don’t know what to do now.”
Lucifer laughs, but it’s gentle. “Whatever you want.”
Alastor lifts his gaze to meet Lucifer’s. “And if I want to stay here a little longer?”
Lucifer smiles at him, hand sliding out of his hair to cup his cheek. He leans in to press their mouths together in a kiss before saying, low and close, “I think that can be arranged.”
Alastor first came to the hotel imagining that it would be a vehicle to secure his own freedom. He finds very quickly that having that freedom land in his lap courtesy of Lucifer’s powerful touch rattles him more than he would like. If Lucifer were anyone other than himself, Alastor would be waiting for the revelation that the gift came with strings.
But if Lucifer were anyone other than himself, the gift wouldn’t have been possible in the first place, and this may end up being a bizarre trust exercise, when all is said and done.
He allowed Lucifer to do this, and now he has to decide how he feels about the world that choice has created.
His phone, resting on the arm of his chair, lights up.
It’s a photo with no text attached.
The photo is of Lucifer’s ankle.
He laughs before he can catch himself, and stares at the screen until it dims and goes dark. What a ridiculous man who isn’t really a man at all, never just one thing or another, and maybe that’s the appeal. The absurd inhuman vastness that is Lucifer Morningstar.
He unlocks the phone again to send a reply:
Harlot.
You know it, baby
Was that meant to be an invitation?
Depends. You saying yes?
What if I’m busy?
Then I’ll wait until you’re not
I’m not going anywhere
Alastor blinks down at the phone, on the verge of setting it back down. It no longer feels entirely like they’re talking about illicit sleepovers and Alastor is caught flat-footed by it. Lucifer means it, he thinks. He doesn’t mean everything he says, but in this he is sincere.
His fingers move almost before he thinks it through:
I won’t be late.
“Ride me.” Lucifer’s eyes flash red where he’s sitting up against the headboard. “Go on—I want to watch.”
Alastor tilts his head. “That sounds like a lot of work. And for what reward, hmm?”
Lucifer takes Alastor’s chin in his hand to pull him into a kiss, dipping his tongue into Alastor’s mouth for a taste before withdrawing to say, “You don’t think I’ll make it good for you?”
“Maybe.” Alastor swings one leg over Lucifer’s, but settles down on his thighs, leaving Lucifer’s hard cock untouched in the air between them. “But how can I be sure?”
Lucifer presses a hand to his chest, dramatically wounded. “I would never betray you like that.”
Alastor stares back at him, then smiles widely. “Well now, I suppose not. Not if you ever want me here again.”
“The threats really aren’t necessary.”
Alastor shifts his weight forward and up to hover over Lucifer’s cock. Still not making contact, but the imminent possibility is there. Lucifer isn’t the only one who can tease. “That’s not much fun.”
Lucifer’s hands curl around his hips, claws digging into his skin, not quite hard enough to draw blood. Not yet. He could pull Alastor down on him, but doesn’t. Instead, he smiles and says, “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m always fun.”
Alastor scoffs, rolling his eyes, but Lucifer is waiting for him and it’s gratifying to be wanted so much. So, not breaking eye contact for a second, Alastor sinks down on him slowly, inch by inch, taking him deep into his body with a single sinuous roll of his spine.
Putting on a bit of show, just for the satisfaction of watching Lucifer’s eyes flicker red again, as his forked tongue darts out to moisten his lips.
“That’s it,” he say. “Keep going. Let me see it.”
“Ah-ah-ah.” Alastor’s voice comes out ever so slightly breathy, but he covers for it by tapping Lucifer’s mouth with a fingertip. “No rushing me, now.”
Lucifer nips his finger. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Alastor taps again and smiles when Lucifer draws his finger into his mouth to suck on it. He finally lets himself sink down the final inch to sit in Lucifer’s lap, knees braced on either side of his thighs, and runs the fingers of his other hand through Lucifer’s hair, sending it into disarray.
Lucifer opens his mouth for Alastor to take his hand back, then says, “You’re so sexy.”
“How tedious.”
“You like it.” Lucifer wraps his hand around the back of Alastor’s neck and pulls him down so their lips touch. “You can’t lie to me.”
He presses their mouths together in a kiss and Alastor lets him, parting his lips for Lucifer’s tongue as he rolls his hips. Everything is hot and wet and it should be disgusting, but with Lucifer it never is. His mouth doesn’t taste like a human mouth and his tongue doesn’t feel like a human tongue and it’s all so good with him, in a way that Alastor doesn’t want to talk about.
Lucifer would never let him live it down if he did.
He rolls his hips again and Lucifer sighs into his mouth, almost dreamy, his thumb coming around to rest in the hollow of Alastor’s throat. Just touching, no real pressure, but he could do more and heat shoots down Alastor’s spine.
“You’ve got more than that,” Lucifer says, low. Commanding. “Give it to me.”
And in that moment, with Lucifer’s hand on his throat, all Alastor can say in return is, “Yes.”
He shifts his weight forward again onto his knees and lifts himself up off Lucifer’s cock to plunge down faster, clenching around him until Lucifer gasps. And again, and again after that, rocking against him so there’s friction, not just fullness. He won’t come like this, not from Lucifer’s cock alone, but there’s a sort of thrill in it, in feeling how hard Lucifer is inside him, how much he wants this.
When Lucifer comes, it’s without warning and Alastor gasps, too, as come trickles out of him, hot and slick down the crease of his thigh to drip between their bodies. But Lucifer moves fast when he wants to and takes him by the waist to pull him up and off before he has time to think, tossing him down on the mattress like a rag doll so he can bury his face in the mess between his legs.
Lucifer’s tongue chases the path his cock took, pressing deep inside him, then pulling out to drag slowly through wet folds up to his clit. He wraps his lips around it and sucks so hard Alastor throws his head back against the pillows, clapping a hand over his mouth to stifle a moan.
Pleasure that very nearly hurts, so intense Alastor can do nothing but wrap his legs around Lucifer’s shoulders and dig the fingers of his free hand into the sheets, holding on.
The pleasure-pain stops and Lucifer’s voice, rough around the edges, says, “No hiding from me, sweetheart. You’re going to come on my face and I want to hear you when you do.”
“M–ah—make me.”
A laugh that’s little more than a puff of hot air against skin as sensitive as an exposed wire. “I’m about to.”
He’s back at it then, pushing a thumb inside him as he sucks Alastor’s clit. And it’s unfair, it really is, because he knows exactly how to touch him, exactly how far to push.
His orgasm, like Lucifer’s, comes so suddenly he’s not quite expecting it and, in the seconds after, he lies very still, gasping for breath in the silence.
“What did I tell you?” Lucifer sounds pleased with himself. Alastor startles a beat later when a warm cloth brushes over his inner thigh. “Shh, it’s all right. I’m taking care of you.” He kisses his knee. “You were so good for me.”
Alastor is shivering and clenches his teeth, closing his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“I know you are.” Another kiss as the cloth wipes away fluids. “I’m taking care of you anyway.”
Alastor almost protests, but he feels a bit cold and Lucifer’s touch is soothing. It helps when the cloth lifts and all of the remaining mess clears itself away, leaving their bodies and the bed clean and dry.
The blankets come up and over him and Lucifer pulls him into his arms to cradle him against his chest. It should be ridiculous, with Lucifer quite short and Alastor quite tall, but somehow Lucifer makes it all slot into place.
They fit together like this and that’s a thought best not examined too closely.
He’s tired, anyway, and it’s pleasant to lie there and drift.
Then he says, “Do you still plan to do nothing, if someone outside the hotel decides to start a war or otherwise wreak unholy havoc?”
Lucifer kisses the top of his head between his antlers. “This is your idea of pillow talk?”
“I’m not boring.”
“Uh huh.” Lucifer kisses him again. “And yes, within reason. I’ll step in if it gets too out of hand.”
Alastor wonders what Lucifer’s definition of out of hand is, exactly. How far is too far in the mind of the Son of the Dawn, the Fallen Angel who once waged war on Heaven and took a third of the Heavenly Host down with him.
He suspects that Charlie will disagree with that line, wherever it is.
But Alastor . . . Alastor thinks he’d quite like to see it. To see what Lucifer is like when he stops making himself seen small. When he stops playing pretend.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he says against Lucifer’s shoulder. “It’ll be fabulous entertainment.”
Lucifer laughs, but it’s quiet. “Go to sleep, Alastor. We can talk about your idea of entertainment in the morning.”
“Don’t you be boring now,” Alastor says, though in truth he wouldn’t mind a bit of sleep. It’s been a long few weeks, draining in ways he had not accounted for.
Lucifer buries his nose in Alastor’s hair and the lights turn off. “Heaven forbid.”
“You’re really not as funny as you think you are.”
“Don’t even start—we both know better.”
“There are those tragic delusions again.”
“Go to sleep,” Lucifer says for the second time. “We’ll both still be here tomorrow.”
“Hell is forever,” Alastor agrees, tucking in closer.
Lucifer’s arms tighten around him. “Only you make that sound like a perk.”
“Don’t you think so?” Alastor sighs into the heat of Lucifer’s skin. “I do.”
It’s an off-hand remark, the sort of thing he has said a thousand times before in a thousand different settings. But just here and just now, with only Lucifer to hear it, it has the unintended benefit of being neither more nor less than the truth.
He may not be able to leave Hell, but he can leave the hotel if he wants to. He can go anywhere and do anything within the bounds of his eternal sentence. He could even strive for redemption one day, if he ever took leave of his faculties. It makes it strangely easy to stay right where he is.
Lucifer’s company is entertaining, after all, and Alastor would hate to miss out on all the fun.