Lucid Dreams of New Orleans - CyberWords (2024)

Chapter 1: Revelations 12:12

Chapter Text

Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!

He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.

- Revelations 12:12

New Orleans. October. Sunset.

Alastor hops off a cable car in Tremé and weaves through the crowd of evening commuters. Hollis is right behind him. The crowd thins and Alastor breaks into a run, his schoolbooks rattling against the violin case in his backpack.

It is finally Friday. Tonight, he and Hollis and the rest of the band are playing the Francs Amis dance hall — and they're late.

They pound the pavement down Robertson St. and skid to a stop by the front door of the Francs Amis. Alastor grabs the strap of Hollis's backpack before he can go in.

"Suit check," Alastor whispers.

"Right."

They turn to face each other. Alastor dusts off the shoulders of Hollis's jacket and straightens his shirt collar; Hollis tightens Alastor's bowtie. Hollis's forehead glistens with sweat — Alastor produces a comb from his pocket and runs it through Hollis's hair.

"We're ready," Alastor says. He takes Hollis firmly by the shoulders and looks him in the eyes. "Don't forget to smile."

Hollis nods.

Alastor pulls open the door. Tobacco smoke washes over them. Alastor breathes it in and blinks, waiting for his eyes to adjust. This early in the evening, the bar is mostly deserted. The rest of the band is in front of the stage, waiting for them.

Alastor crosses the empty dance floor and turns back toward Hollis. At that moment, he realizes there is a white kid seated at the bar, staring at him.

The Francs Amis caters to a diverse clientele, but the kid still sticks out like a sore thumb. He's about Alastor's age — 16 or 17. His golden hair reflects the dim light of the bar's single electric chandelier, and he has the palest blue eyes Alastor has ever seen. When their eyes meet, the kid turns away to nurse his soda. Alastor only catches a glimpse of his expression — but that brief moment of eye contact sends a lick of fear up Alastor's spine. He's frowning, his eyebrows drawn together, like he doesn't understand what he's seeing. Alastor freezes, his smile faltering.

Hollis catches up and follows Alastor's eyes to the bar, but the white kid is now studying the patterns on the wood, and Hollis's gaze slides right past him.

"Is everything okay?" Hollis whispers.

Alastor brightens his smile. "Of course."

The white kid sticks around as Alastor rosins up his bow. While the band is tuning up, the kid raises a hand for another drink — after a brief back-and-forth, the bartender pours him another co*ke. He sighs, reaches over the back of his seat to dig through his backpack, and produces an unopened bottle of whiskey. He pries the cap off with his thumb and pours at least three fingers into his co*ke.

Hollis taps Alastor's shoulder. Alastor nods. The drummer taps out a beat. Alastor tucks his violin under his chin, lifts his bow, and the world falls away.

Their band is called the Moonlight Orchestra. Hollis joined a year ago, after the band's old trumpet moved to Chicago — Alastor joined later that winter, when Hollis finally convinced the band to add a violinist. Alastor plays violin for the majority of the set, except for the songs where he swaps onto piano and the pianist switches to saxophone.

As he settles down on the piano bench, he spots the white kid in the crowd, watching him — but his gaze slides away, again, when Alastor meets his eyes.

After the set, the band gathers around a table at the back of the bar, where the owner brings out food, drinks, and a $2 bill for each performer.

Patrons crowd the table offering their congratulations — Alastor is pulled into a conversation with an old man he recognizes as a curator at Economy Hall. When he turns back to the table, Hollis is laughing, radiant — he has already charmed a girl halfway into his lap.

"Alastor, right?"

"Yes," Alastor says. He turns — the white kid from the bar is behind him with his hand extended.Alastor stares at the kid's hand in shock for a moment too long, and he drops it.

"I'm Lucian," he says. "Lucian Magne. It's good to meet you."

Alastor masks his confusion behind a smile. "Likewise."

"I see you're a multi-instrumentalist," Lucian says. "What do you play?"

"Piano, violin. Clarinet, briefly. I'm not half bad at cello. Why do you ask?"

"I'm looking for a teacher," Lucian says. "I play violin, but the piano has always eluded me. Will you teach me?"

The table has gone quiet. Alastor can feel the eyes on them.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Alastor says.

Lucian glances over Alastor's shoulder at the table. Alastor can only guess at the expressions he finds there.

"Understood," Lucian says, and disappears into the crowd.

Alastor stares after Lucian for a long moment. He turns back to the table to find Hollis looking at him with raised eyebrows. Alastor shrugs and returns to his food; the hum of conversation picks back up, and Lucian is forgotten.

Hollis Fisher has lived on Alastor's street as long as he can remember. They leave before the others, whose mothers aren't waiting up for them, and step through the door of the Francs Amis together onto the silent, misty street.

Hollis fists a hand in Alastor's shirt and shakes him. "We did it!"

Alastor stumbles, laughing, when Hollis releases him. "You played well."

"Do you think? I made a couple of mistakes in 'Avalon' — "

"Completely unnoticeable, and you recovered gracefully."

Hollis leaps down the sidewalk, pumping his fist in the air.

"Excuse me," a voice says.

Hollis freezes and turns back toward the Francs Amis. Lucian is leaning against the wall, next to the door. He stands upright and approaches them. He's small — a head shorter than Alastor — but Alastor is more certain than ever that they are the same age.

"Pardon me for interrupting, and for putting you on the spot in there," he says, "but I'm hoping you'll think about my request."

Alastor blinks. "I can't," he says. "I'm sorry."

"I'll pay ten dollars an hour."

Alastor instructs Lucian to meet him that Sunday after church. Before the service, Alastor approaches the pastor and gets permission to use the piano after everyone clears out. Then he returns to the pew where his mother is waiting.

"You don't have to wait for me," Alastor says. "I can just meet you at home."

"I want to meet this boy," she says.

Alastor feigns interest in the sermon, which seems to last an age. Finally, it ends, and people begin to file out.

Alastor and his mother find Lucian on the church lawn, sleeping against the trunk of a tree. Lucian is unnaturally pale in the sunlight, like it is his first day aboveground.

"Hello," Alastor says.

Lucian jolts awake. "Oh — hey! You're done!" he says. He gets to his feet. "You must be Alastor's mother. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Thomas. I'm Lucian Magne." He extends a hand and Alastor's mother shakes it.

"Magne — un nom français. Parles-tu français?"

"Un petit peu. Je l'ai appris á l'école," Lucian replies in perfect French, "mais je sais mieux lire que parler."

Alastor's mother gives Lucian a warm smile. "I hear you've asked my son to teach you the piano."

"I have. He's a skilled musician."

"That he is," she says. "Maybe you can help him brush up on his French when you're finished with your lesson." She kisses Alastor's forehead. "I'll see you back at home. Pleasure to meet you, Lucian."

She heads off down the sidewalk.

"Come on," Alastor says.

The church is empty now, though there are a few groups still congregating on the lawn. Lucian follows Alastor up the church steps, but freezes in the doorway.

"We're going in there?" Lucian says.

"I don't have a piano at home, so I asked if we could use this one," Alastor says. "Is that okay?"

"Yep — fine," Lucian says, and follows Alastor inside.

Lucian and Alastor step up onto the chancel and sit side-by-side on the piano bench. The pastor gives them a friendly nod and retreats into his office.

Behind the piano is an overstuffed shelf of music books. Alastor leafs through them at random, searching for an appropriate starting piece.

"It's sorta pretty in here," Lucian says. "The stained glass is nice."

Alastor looks up. "I guess."

"I've never been in one of these."

"You've never been in a church?"

"No."

"You're not religious?"

A beat of silence. "It's complicated."

"Huh," Alastor says. He pulls out a book of songs for children — surely those are simple — and every book that was balanced above it topples to the floor. He curses under his breath.

"What do you do in church?" Lucian says.

"Take communion. Pray. Sing. There's a different sermon every week."

"What was this week?"

Alastor glances up to make sure they're still alone. "I wasn't really paying attention," he whispers. "Something about God's unconditional love?"

"Ah," Lucian says. "That."

Alastor finds the hymn he's looking for, bends the book's spine backwards so the pages lay flat, and sets it on top of the sheet music from today's service.

"We'll start with this," he says.

"'I Lived In Heaven,'" Lucian reads.

"Yes. It's a simple song for kids — it'll be easy to learn. Do you know which key is middle C?"

As promised, Lucian is a comically poor pianist. He instantly forgets the location of every note; he flattens his hand no matter how many times Alastor reminds him to arch his fingers. It takes Lucian their entire first lesson to stumble through the right hand of "I Lived In Heaven".

They end after an hour. Lucian pays in cash, and they part ways at St. Bernard.

Alastor arrives home in the early afternoon. Alastor lives in a yellow clapboard house in Filmore. His father will be away until late that night — jambalaya and radio jazz drift through the kitchen.

"I'm home," he calls.

He finds his mother in the kitchen.

"How'd it go?" she says.

"Pleasantly enough, but he's terrible at piano." Alastor slides the $10 bill across the counter and his mother pockets the money.

"That may be why he wants to learn," she says. "He seems like a nice boy."

"I wouldn't go that far. I mean — he's sort of ... creepy."

His mother frowns. "Why do you say that?"

Alastor shrugs. "Just a feeling."

"You know that is not how we treat people in this family, Alastor." She wipes her hands on her apron and turns to face him. "Growing up, you're going to meet all kinds of people from different walks of life. You have to keep an open mind and look for the best in folks, no matter what. Understand?"

"Yes, ma," Alastor says. "Sorry."

"There's no need to apologize to me. When is your next lesson?"

"Tuesday, after school."

"I expect you to invite Lucian to join us for dinner with the Fishers that evening."

"Mother," Alastor says. "He won't come. It's just business."

"That may be. I expect you to invite him anyway."

They return to the church on Tuesday after school for Lucian's second lesson. Lucian is already inside when Alastor arrives. He's sitting in one of the pews, studying the mural of angels on the ceiling.

"Hello," he says as Alastor approaches.

"Shall we?"

"Yeah."

They settle side-by-side again on the bench.

"You'll be playing the left hand today," Alastor says.

The left hand is a repeating sequence of three two-note chords. Naturally, it takes Lucian half an hour to manage it successfully. From there, they move to playing both hands at once. It is a disaster from the outset.

"You're thinking of what your hands are playing as two separate things," Alastor says. "You need to connect them in your mind. You are not multitasking. You are playing the piano."

"It's harder than it looks," Lucian snaps — then says, apologetically, "I'm trying."

Alastor suggests they try scales. The improvement is instantaneous — Lucian is forgetful, absent-minded, but dextrous. For the first time Alastor can imagine him playing an instrument with competency.

He loses track of time running Lucian through different scales — eventually he looks up and is shocked to find the sun setting.

"We should go." Alastor stands. Before he can second-guess himself, he says, "my mother invited you to dinner, if you'd like."

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Hollis and his mother will also be there. We're having gumbo."

"Yeah, sure," Lucian says.

Alastor leads Lucian down the streets of his neighborhood as the sun sets. Lucian is curious about almost everything they pass —What do they sell here? Is that place good? Have you ever gone there?

Alastor replies in monosyllables — but a smile creeps onto his face the further they walk.

"How long have you lived in New Orleans?"

"Always," Alastor says. "That's our house, down there. The yellow one."

"I like it," Lucian says. "What do you have growing on the porch?"

"Flowers and herbs. They're my mother's."

"They're nice."

They climb the creaky porch steps together. Alastor pushes open the screen door.

"We're here," he says.

Hollis rounds the corner from the living room to the entry hall. "We?"

"You remember Lucian," Alastor says. "My mother invited him for dinner."

"Oh — hello," Hollis says. "Nice to see you again."

"Likewise," Lucian says.

"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes," Alastor's mother calls.

Alastor gives Lucian the tour while Hollis sets the table. Lucian is drawn in by Alastor's record collection; he resumes his line of questioning until he spots the family portrait on the wall and falls silent. He studies it for a moment, then points to the child in the photo.

"Is that you?"

"Allegedly," Alastor says. "I was too young to remember."

They are all sitting stiffly in their Sunday best, Alastor seated in his mother's lap, his father's arm wrapped around the small of her back.

Lucian's eyes linger on Alastor's father. "What's your dad like?"

Alastor hesitates; Lucian turns to face him.

"He's not around much. Works at the docks," Alastor says at last. "What does your father do?"

"Oh. I don't see him much, either. He, uh — he works in construction."

They are spared further discussion when Alastor's mother calls them for dinner.

Alastor sits between his mother and Lucian. They all join hands for the prayer, except for Lucian, who is frozen in confusion until Alastor takes his hand from his lap. Hollis snickers and takes Lucian's other hand. Then his mother prays, and Alastor wonders how Lucian's hand in his can feel cool and warm at the same time.

After the prayer, Lucian tastes his first spoonful of gumbo.

"Oh, hell, that's good," he says.

Hollis lets out a bark of laughter. Alastor covers his grin with his napkin.

Lucian glances up to find Alastor's mother and Mrs. Fisher both staring at him in shock. "I mean — I'm sorry — excuse me," he chokes. "You're an excellent cook, Mrs. Thomas."

"Thank you," says Alastor's mother. "It's a family recipe."

Lucian swallows, his eyes fixed on his spoon.

"So — are you from around here, Lucian?" Mrs. Fisher asks.

"No, I'm from out of state," Lucian says. "Just — straight down from here ... south."

The table quiets as they collectively consider the geographical implications.

"The ocean?" Hollis drawls. Mrs. Fisher elbows him.

"Carolina! South Carolina," Lucian says.

"How are you liking the city so far?"

"It's lovely," Lucian says. "The music, the food, the people." He glances at Alastor briefly. "I'm learning more every day."

Alastor's mother looks between the two boys with a smile. "You know, the pastor's daughter is married to a fellow from South Carolina, isn't that right?"

"I think so," Mrs. Fisher says.

Lucian brightens. "Oh, really? Which part?"

And so Alastor watches in amazement as Lucian charms his mother.

Lucian offers to help with the dishes, but Alastor's mother waves him off; that's how Alastor finds himself in the kitchen washing bowls beside her.

"Do you see what I meant, about reserving judgements?"

"Yes — but for a moment I thought you might have changed your mind. Such language."

Hollis's laughter filters in from the living room. A warm smile breaks across his mother's face.

"You should've seen his face," she whispers.

"You should've seen yours," Alastor replies.

His mother pulls the towel off her shoulder and whips it at him. "Go play cards with your friends," she says. "I'll finish up here."

Alastor returns to the living room to find Hollis cross-legged on the floor, delivering a passionate explanation of the rules for bridge. Lucian is on the couch, listening with rapt attention.

"He's been searching for a partner to beat me with since we were ten," Alastor tells Lucian. He leans over Hollis with a cold smile on his face. "Not a chance."

Lucian and Hollis lock eyes, and Alastor senses the forging of an unholy alliance.

They lose their first game against Alastor — and the second. They keep playing long after their mothers have gone to sleep.

"I hate that smile," Lucian whispers to Hollis.

"It's so creepy," Hollis whispers back. "But I know how to get him to stop — it works every time."

Hollis takes three breaths, each deeper than the last — then he stares directly into Alastor's eyes and blows a long, slow raspberry.

Alastor cracks after about fifteen seconds; he laughs, his smile turns fond, and he reaches across the table to swat the back of Hollis's head. "You're spitting all over the table," he says.

The front door slams open. Hollis and Alastor both flinch.

"sh*t," Alastor whispers.

"What's going on?" Lucian says.

Hollis shakes his head sharply and starts picking up the cards.

There's a clattering sound in the kitchen — then heavy footsteps in the hall. Hollis jumps to his feet and stuffs the deck of cards in the pocket of his trousers.

The dark shadow of Alastor's father appears at the end of the hall. He is hunched over, his ears just brushing the low ceiling — he scrapes his claws along the wall as he stomps down the hallway, leaving a trail of muddy footprints. His paw knocks a portrait off the wall, which shatters on the floor. His eyes are two enormous voids of black, which he fixes on Alastor.

"Good evening, Mr. Thomas," Hollis says. His voice is calm, but behind his back his hands are clasped in a white-knuckled grip.

"Pleasure to meet you," Lucian says. He inches out between Alastor and his father. "How was your evening?"

His father turns his gaze from Alastor to Lucian. There is a long, tense silence, where the only sounds are his father's heavy, labored breaths.

Finally, his father grunts, stomps to the bedroom, and slams the door.

"Come on," Hollis whispers to Lucian.

The three of them slip out onto the porch. They linger there for a moment — both looking to Alastor with concern.

Alastor meets Lucian's eyes. They're so blue, they seem to glow in the darkness. "My father is a strict man," Alastor says softly. "One never knows what mood he'll be in when he comes home."

"He's a monster," Lucian whispers.

Alastor snorts. "I guess you could say that."

"I'm serious. He's dangerous. You need to stay away — lock your bedroom door tonight. Promise me."

"Lucian," Hollis says softly. He rests a hand on Lucian's shoulder. "That's enough."

Alastor smiles coldly and leans in, his face inches from Lucian's. "You think I don't know that?" He straightens back up. "You should go before he realizes you're still here."

Hollis steps down off the porch and pulls Lucian after him.

"See you, Alastor," he says.

"Goodnight," Alastor whispers.

He stays on the porch until they have both disappeared into the darkness.

Lucifer jolts awake, like someone has poured a bucket of water on his head. He's back in the hotel, kneeling at Alastor's bedside. Alastor looks worse than he did when Lucifer entered his soul — paler, somehow — and his labored breaths rattle in the back of his throat.

Charlie's hand on his shoulder.

"Dad?"

"How long has it been?" he says.

"A couple of hours. Is everything okay?"

"Fine." Lucifer rubs his hand across his face. "I'm making progress, but I need to go back in."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Make sure I don't let go of him again," he says.

He reaches out and takes Alastor's hand once more.

Chapter 2: Psalms 104:20

Chapter Text

Thou makest darkness, and it is night:

wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth.

—Psalms 104:20

They meet again at the church before school on Thursday. It is a bright morning, and the rising sun scatters a constellation of stained glass reflections across the walls. They begin by reviewing the scales from their last lesson. The intervening days seem to have cemented the movements in Lucian’s muscle memory —his hands move up and down the octaves effortlessly, even as he continues to grill Alastor about his life and family.

“You’ve worked so hard, with jazz,” Lucian says. “Now you’re finally playing the most prestigious venues in New Orleans. Aren’t you satisfied?”

“You sound like my mother. She’s always telling me to slow down and be thankful for what I have. Psalms 106:1: ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.’” Alastor laughs. “She doesn’t understand. I’ll never be satisfied. I need to know how far I can go —if I can make it to the top. Isn’t it the same for you?”

Lucian inclines his head — his hair catches the sunlight. “Hmm?”

“When we first met, you mentioned that you also play.”

“Oh, yeah — it’s different for me. It’s just something I do.”

“How long have you played?”

“Always,” Lucian says. “It calms me.”

“Can I hear?”

Lucian’s hands still; the chapel falls into silence. “Now?”

“Yes,” Alastor says. “I have my violin.”

“So do I.”

Lucian reaches around the piano for his backpack, rifles through it, and produces the most beautiful instrument Alastor has ever seen. It is made of metal —gold? — pristine and reflective as a mirror, engraved with intricate patterns: apples across the body, constellations of stars along the ribs,a snake winding around the neck.

Lucian sets it on the piano and rifles through his backpack again for the golden bow.

“My God,” Alastor says. “How on Earth did you come into possession of an instrument like that?”

“Family heirloom.” Lucian stands and stretches his arms over his head.

Alastor reaches for Lucian’s violin. “May I?”

“Of course,” Lucian says. “As long as I can tune yours up, in the meantime.”

Alastor nods his head toward the front pew, where he’d unceremoniously dumped his backpack when he arrived. Lucian casually tosses Alastor the golden bow —which Alastor fumbles frantically to catch —and bounds down the steps.

The metal warms quickly in Alastor’s hand. He picks up the violin —it’s heavier than his own, but not by much. He runs his fingers over the engravings. Above the bridge is a tiny, smiling angel with three sets of wings and Lucian’s face. It’s easily the most expensive thing Alastor has ever touched. He holds up the golden bow in his other hand and tries to imagine how Lucian could toss it around so carelessly.

He looks up to find Lucian seated on the first pew, reverently examining the spot on the back of Alastor’s violin where years of pressing the instrument into his shoulder have worn the lacquer away.

“It’s the only violin I’ve ever had,” Alastor says. “It was a birthday present from my mother, ten years ago.”

“It’s great,” Lucian says without looking up. He tucks it under his chin, draws the bow across the strings, then lowers it to adjust the tuning pegs.

Alastor follows suit. The sound of Lucian’s violin is bright, haunting, smooth, and already perfectly in tune.

Lucian looks up at him. “May I play it?”

“If you like.”

Alastor expects Lucian to test his violin, briefly, and find it wanting in comparison to his own. Instead, Lucian takes a breath, raises Alastor’s violin, and plays a solemn series of notes that Alastor instantly recognizes as the beginning of “The House of the Rising Sun”. Lucian opens his mouth to sing —

There is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God, I know — I’m one.

Alastor sets Lucian’s violin on the piano and settles on the bench. At the end of the verse, he watches closely as Lucian raises his bow and holds it in the air —the instant he brings it down, Alastor jumps in on the keys.

Lucian paces across the front of the church while he plays. Alastor sneaks glances over the sheet music, which is still turned to ‘I Lived In Heaven’, a smile breaking across his face as Lucian’s fingers fly through some of the most complicated violin solos Alastor has ever seen.

Alastor pushes his hands faster to meet the blistering pace Lucian sets —he improvises a piano solo after the second verse, then takes the third:

So, mothers, tell your children

Not to do what I have done —

Spend your life in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun.

Lucian’s playing is heartbreakingly expressive —unfiltered emotion passing across his face with every measure. His voice cracks on the last line:

And I’m going back to New Orleans,

To wear that ball and chain.

Alastor ends with a glissando, the sonic equivalent of the swooping sensation in his stomach at the realization that Lucian might, in fact, be a better violinist than he is.

Lucian lowers Alastor’s violin, his expression triumphant. “I love it,” he says. “It has a warmer quality than mine.”

“Where did you learn?”

“Huh? Nowhere. I just messed around for a very, very long time.”

“I see,” Alastor says. He is struck by the implication of solitude —he nearly asks Lucian if he has any other friends, but suspects he already knows the answer. “We should get back to it,” he says instead. “I need to leave for school soon.”

For the rest of the morning, Alastor watches in amazement as the most skilled violinist he has ever known utterly fails to play both hands of a children’s hymn.

“Now that I’ve seen you play violin, it truly astonishes me how terrible you are at piano,” Alastor says as they’re packing up.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve tried to learn.”

“You do seem to be making progress —barely. At this rate, you may be competent in a few hundred years.”

“Ha, ha,” Lucian says. “Listen, Al —you’re playing Economy Hall on Saturday, right?”

“Yes,” Alastor says. “I don’t think you’ll be able to come.” Economy Hall is a squarely Black venue.

“That’s fine. I was wondering —can we meet up afterwards?”

“I take no issue with that, though Hollis and I will probably be headed straight home.”

“Then I’ll walk back with you. I’d like to congratulate you.”

“Very well,” Alastor says. They’re now standing on the church’s front steps. Alastor turns down the sidewalk, glances over his shoulder. “I’ll see you there, Magne.”

“See you,” Lucian says.

Economy Hall is packed.

Hollis and Alastor sit backstage, their instruments tuned, playing one of their favorite games —narrating the actions of the crowd as if they were radio sport commentators. For the better part of fifteen minutes, they have been engrossed in the bartender’s pointless quest to shoo a white pigeon from the rafters with a broom.

“The bartender winds up another strike,” Alastor whispers in his best impression of a mid-Atlantic radio accent. “Hold onto your hats, folks, ‘cause this could be it —he swings!”

“And it’s an expert dodge from the pigeon!” Hollis whispers. “This is a special night in Economy Hall.”

“An inspirational showing for pigeons everywhere.”

Alastor and Hollis stay for a drink after the show. Within minutes, Hollis is swept up by the most beautiful girl in the room —he shoots Alastor an apologetic wave as he leaves with her on his arm.

Alastor smiles ruefully and lifts his glass. He has already introduced himself to everyone in the room who matters —and parties are much less enjoyable without Hollis’s edifying presence. He knocks back the rest of his drink and heads for the coat check.

A light rain is falling on the silent street. Lucian is leaning against the wall beside the door, a hood pulled up over his blond hair —he straightens and holds out two white roses.

“One was for Hollis, but he seemed preoccupied when he left,” Lucian says.

“Thank you. I’ll give it to him tomorrow.” Alastor tucks the flowers into the pocket of his suit jacket.

Lucian falls into step beside him. “How was the show?”

“Incredible,” Alastor says. “I never imagined I’d be on that stage.”

An unplaceable sadness crosses Lucian’s face. “I’m sure it won’t be the last time.”

They take a cable car up to Gentilly and walk the dim-lit streets back to Alastor’s place. They spot a raccoon rifling through a dumpster, and Lucian stops to watch it for a full five minutes.

“Is this a friend of yours?” Alastor says. "I almost can't tell the two of you apart."

Lucian shoots him an amused glare. “Your true nature finally emerges,” he says.

“The insufferable bastard? Yes —it’s a wonder Hollis has endured my company all these years.”

Lucian smiles wryly. “Guy must have the patience of a saint.”

Alastor laughs. “I think you’ll come to find that there’s not a saint among us. I trust you are no different.”

Lucian chuckles. “You have no idea.”

They exit the alley and fall back into step.

By the time they reach Alastor’s street, they’ve fallen into a companionable silence, a reprieve from Lucian’s endless barrage of questions. Lucian stares straight ahead with a grim smile, his hands clenched into fists. Alastor is about to ask him if he’s alright, but the question dies in his throat when they reach his house.

The front door is ajar.

Alastor speeds up —Lucian is right behind him. Alastor bounds up the porch steps and pushes the door; it creaks open.

“I’m home, ma,” he calls out.

There is no response. Alastor’s pulse accelerates —she has always waited up for him after a show. Perhaps sensing his anxiety, Lucian enters the house right behind him.

“Hello?” Alastor calls out again.

He tiptoes down the hall, his pulse roaring in his ears —on the kitchen floor, in front of the stove, is a single drop of blood.

“No,” Alastor whispers.

Lucian squeezes his eyes shut.

Alastor stares at the blood, frozen. The only sound is the slow drip, drip, drip of the kitchen sink behind him. He takes a shaky breath and lurches into action, tearing out of the kitchen and into the living room. “Ma!”

“Alastor — wait,” Lucian calls after him.

Alastor throws open the door to his parents’ bedroom.

Inside is his father.

Inside is his father as he has always been,

yet unlike Alastor has ever seen him —

a mountain in the place of a man —

cold, vicious black eyes — long, glistening claws — maw dripping with blood Alastor knows, in his bones, belongs to his mother.

His father’s cold, vacant eyes gaze at an empty wall while he licks the blood from his paws.

“C’est un rougarou,” Alastor whispers. Half-man, half-wolf —a wolf in his father’s clothing. The rougarou haunted his nightmares as a child. The reality is more terrifying than anything he’d imagined.

The rougarou’s head snaps to Alastor when he names it. Its mouth splits open into a low snarl.

Lucian grabs Alastor by the back of his suit jacket and hauls him backwards, out of the doorway. He steps in front of Alastor, his gaze trained on the beast. “We need to run, Al,” he whispers.

“Ma,” Alastor says, weak, broken, frantically searching the corners of the room for traces of her.

His father drops into a low crouch, ready to pounce.

“Now that this thing knows you can see it, it won’t rest until it destroys you,” Lucian says. “That’s why it’s here. I can help you, but we need to buy ourselves time. We have to run.”

But Alastor can’t move —can’t think —can’t hear over his blood pounding in his ears. “I can’t leave without my mother,” he manages.

Lucian looks back over his shoulder. The faint luminescence of his blue eyes is the only source of light in the dim hallway —in that moment, Lucian seems impossibly old, his expression heavy with a sadness Alastor’s years can scarcely comprehend.

“She’s not here, Al,” he says softly.

Before those words can send Alastor careening over the precipice of grief —before he can process them at all —the rougarou pounces, its teeth aimed at Lucian’s throat.

Lucian curses and raises his arm to protect his face. The rougarou’s teeth sink into his forearm —Lucian snarls and, with outsized strength for his short stature, flings the creature backward into the footboard of his parents’ bed. The wood splinters in half.

Lucian slams the door to his parents’ room.

“O-kay, time to go,” he says.

He takes one look at Alastor’s shell-shocked expression and hauls him up into a bridal carry — warm blood seeps through Alastor’s suit jacket from Lucian’s injured arm pressed against his back.

Lucian kicks the front door shut behind them and sets Alastor down outside in the glow of a streetlight. Lucian’s injured arm drips a trail of blood on the sidewalk.

“Sorry for the manhandling in there — just buying us some time,” he says.

Alastor glances at Lucian’s injured arm and frowns. “Your blood,” he says. “It’s gold.”

He glances at his arm as if he forgot the injury was there. “Oh — don’t worry about that.” He takes Alastor’s shoulders and looks up into his eyes. “Alastor. Listen to me. None of this is real. This is your memory. All of this happened a long time ago.”

Alastor senses the truth of these words. He gazes up into the starless sky. “Am I asleep?”

“You’re dying. Your soul has been damaged; the damage is here, in this memory, manifesting as the monster that was once your father. If —” Lucian glances up at the house —“oh, f*ck.”

The kitchen window shatters. The rougarou sprints through the opening, a hurricane of fur, claws, and teeth. The very Earth shudders when its paws hit the sidewalk.

The fear of Death claws free of Alastor’s ribcage — he turns and stumbles into a thoughtless run down the street, Lucian close behind him. There is a crack, like thunder —the asphalt splits, and the houses across the street lurch and sink into swampwater. Behind them where another city block should be is the bayou outside New Orleans —the black silhouettes ofcypress trees draped in Spanish moss.

It is the place where Alastor’s father took him fishing as a boy —before the drinking, the gambling, the anger.

The pavement runs out —Alastor presses on through the mud, the creature close enough behind them now that they can hear its gasping breaths.

“Don’t freak out about this,” Lucian says behind him.

There is a rustling sound, like the unfurling of a flag, and Alastor is swept up into the air. His heart skitters into his throat, certain he’s caught in the jaws of the beast —but he looks down and sees Lucian’s pale arms wrapped around him.

He twists in Lucian’s grip to see over his shoulder. Three enormous pairs of wings have sprouted from Lucian’s back.

The rougarou at their heels pounces and bites into one of Lucian’s left wings —Lucian banks to the side, flapping harder, and for a moment the creature is lifted into the air with them, hanging limply by its teeth, its eyes fixed on Alastor with a look of pure hatred. Then it closes its jaw. There is the sickening sound of tearing flesh —Lucian hisses in pain, and the creature lands beneath them in a heap with a mouthful of white feathers. Golden blood beads along the top of Lucian’s wing where the primaries were pulled out at the root.

But Lucian is still gliding low above the trees. “I’m fine,” he gasps out, even as his left wings flap frantically to maintain their course. Their altitude dips —the treetops scrape past Alastor’s shins, and his ribs ache from how tightly Lucian is holding him.

The rougarou howls in the distance. Lucian finally sets Alastor at the top of a high cypress and alights on a branch next to him —his injured wing scrapes the trunk of the tree, and he groans and pitches forward. Alastor catches him, steadies Lucian’s shoulders against his chest —Lucian’s wings fold away into his back as though they had never existed.

The rougarou howls again —impossibly closer.

Lucian takes a deep, shuddering breath and straightens. “I heal quickly,” he says. “We’ll be able to take off again soon. Are you okay?”

Alastor looks into Lucian’s ancient, blue eyes —after everything he’s seen, he is becoming convinced that they truly are illuminated by some unearthly power.

“Who the hell are you?” Alastor says.

Chapter 3: 1 John 3:20

Chapter Text

For whenever our heart condemns us,

God is greater than our heart,

and He knows everything.

—1 John 3:20

Charlie is still a little girl on the night of the first extermination. When the screaming starts, Lucifer is in her room, curled around her tiny body, his wings a cocoon around them —he sings softly in her ear, even as she cries and bangs her tiny fists against his chest.

“Daddy,” she sobs. “Help them —please!”

I can’t, he doesn’t say. She hasn’t learned, yet, that there are no correct moves in this game —that he is a pawn locked in Heaven’s trap, always three steps behind.

It is Lilith who oversees the exterminations. In those years, she often returns with a scrape or two from an angelic weapon. These are a joy to heal —her soul is made of Lucifer’s most treasured memories. It feels less like a curse, then, to crawl into her arms —to press his forehead to hers and dive back into Eden.

When he touches her, it is easy to forget that Eden was an age ago.

When Charlie is thirteen, the Exorcists arrive six hours early; the denizens of Hell are unprepared, still out drinking to their own impending doom. It is a massacre.

When the rift opens, he is at Lu Lu World with Charlie. He brought her there to cheer her up before the extermination. The Exorcists swarm the park in seconds — Lucifer pulls Charlie against his chest to whisk her away, but not before she catches sight of a ticket-taker with an angelic arrow in his heart.

She struggles in Lucifer’s grip, her hand outstretched, as if there were anything she could do — and then they both dissolve in a red shimmer of light.

They materialize in the parlor.

Charlie snarls —her horns sprout from her forehead. “Let me go!” she yells.

Lucifer releases her instantly. She stumbles forward; Lucifer reaches out a hand to steady her, but she rounds on him and bats it away.

“I can’t believe you!” She says. “I know you heal Mom when she comes back from the exterminations. If I had that power, I’d be out there right now, trying to save as many lives as I could. They’re our people, dad!”

Lucifer frowns, removes his hat, and runs a hand through his hair. “Come on, Charlie. You know I can’t do that.”

Charlie squares her shoulders in defiance. “Why not?”

Lucifer sighs. He crosses into the dining room and sits at the table. He’s tempted to tell her the entire truth —but of the host of indignities that come with his sentence, the worst has always been explaining each punishment to his daughter. Her naïve confusion when she learned he once lived in Heaven still haunts his nightmares.

He drops his head in his hands.

Charlie’s soft footsteps —she pulls out the chair next to his and sits down.

Lucifer settles for a partial truth. “You and I are very alike,” he says. “It is sometimes more natural for us to … care.”

Charlie’s hand lands on Lucifer’s back. He looks up at her.

“One day you’ll understand that caring is part of our punishment here,” Lucifer says. “The more you care for these sinners, the more it hurts.”

Lucifer moves his things into the hotel after their fight with Adam — the next time Heaven sends their thugs after his daughter, they’ll be knocking on his own front door.

It is the first time he has ever lived in such close quarters with unfamiliar sinners. Fortunately, fear keeps them at a respectful distance —with the exception of Alastor, who continues to demonstrate a shocking disregard for Lucifer’s position. Yet Alastor takes to avoiding everyone at the hotel equally —so as the days pass, Lucifer becomes less afraid of bumping into someone in the hallway, of sitting too close during Charlie’s redemption exercises.

His first weekend in the new hotel, he rises early to make chocolate chip pancakes, like he did every Saturday when Charlie was small.

He’s flipping the first batch over when he hears footsteps.

“Excuse me, Your Highness,” Alastor says. “I didn’t realize the kitchen was already occupied.”

“Yeah, well.” Lucifer grasps for a witty retort. “I live here.”

“Too true,” Alastor says with a patronizing lilt. He approaches the counter and reaches for the cabinet next to Lucifer —inches from Lucifer’s skin. Fearless. Immune to whatever quality it is of Lucifer’s that makes most sinners shy away.

Alastor catches Lucifer staring and raises one eyebrow. Tall, dark, mean —Lucifer had suspected trouble from the moment he laid eyes on Alastor, but it is only at this moment that he recognizes the true danger.

Alastor glances at the pancakes. “I see you’re a man of refined tastes.”

“They’re for Charlie,” Lucifer says lightly. “It’s our tradition.”

“Ah — how very saccharine. Odd she’s never mentioned it.” Alastor taps a finger to his chin in mock confusion.

Lucifer frowns and glances at the pan. It has been years since he made pancakes for Charlie —what if she doesn’t even like them anymore? What if she doesn’t eat gluten? What if —

“I’m actually on my way to meet Charlie now,” Alastor says. “We meet each Saturday morning to discuss our progress with the hotel.”

Lucifer glances at Alastor’s hands. He is, indeed, preparing two mugs of coffee —one with sugar and cream, the other black —and Lucifer realizes, with rising hysteria, that he can’t even be sure which one is for his daughter. Surely the black coffee is for Alastor. It must be. Right?

Alastor glances at the pancakes Lucifer has already finished, cooling on a plate next to the stove. “I’d be more than happy to deliver those to Charlie, if you’d like.” His smirk widens.

“Nope!” Lucifer flips the last of the pancakes onto the plate and scoops it up. “I’ll give them to her myself. Lead the way, pal.”

The incident sticks in Lucifer’s mind for several days, though he isn’t sure why — Charlie loves the pancakes.

In subsequent days, Alastor all but disappears from the hotel. Charlie claims Alastor is still around, but as the days become weeks, Lucifer begins to wonder if Alastor finally accepted his redundancy and left Pentagram City altogether.

Which is the only reason he’s so startled when, on his way back to his room one evening, the elevator doors slide open to reveal a dark figure standing stiffly in the corner.

Okay — so he does jump, a little. And maybe he yelps. It’s just that he had sort of begun to hope he was the only one who still lived on the upper floors.

Lucifer steps into the elevator with what he hopes is an air of dignity and composure. He turns to face the doors, which slide shut before him. The elevator begins its leisurely ascent; Lucifer feels Alastor looming behind him, which sends a strange prickling sensation across the back of his neck. There is a tense silence punctuated only by the tasteful elevator music.

Lucifer should stay out of this. He’s glad the Radio Demon has all but disappeared from his daughter’s hotel. He isn’t needed here — with any luck, he’ll stay gone. Then his stupid mouth opens, of its own volition, and he hears himself say: “Why are you here.”

Great. Lovely.

The elevator hasn’t yet ascended even one floor. Lucifer made it slow on purpose. It’s just that he likes elevators. He thinks they’re charming and silly. And he’s rather proud of the fresco in this elevator — a picturesque, dreamlike pond of ducks. It took a long time to get the details right. He likes his work to be appreciated. That’s normal. And sinners probably need to learn a lesson about always hurrying everywhere. Like, they’re in Hell forever? What’s the rush?

But for the first time, he wishes he had made the elevator faster. He considers snapping his fingers and speeding things along, but he’s pretty sure Alastor would notice their sudden acceleration and that would feel too much like conceding defeat.

“Why, because I live here, Your Majesty,” Alastor says. His voice is bright and upbeat, but there is more static than Lucifer remembers. Was his radio filter always this thick?

“No, why are you here — in the elevator?” Lucifer says. “Can’t you just do your — creepy — shadow thing to get upstairs?”

“Certainly, I have other ways — as do you. Why have you foregone your own magic in favor of the elevator?”

“Because — ” he says. His composure is already faltering; no one in Hell dares speak to him like this.

Well, except for his (ex)-wife. But that’s different.

“Because I made this elevator! And I like it! And I might as well use it!”

Alastor hums.

The elevator dings on the second floor and continues its ascent.

“You might have selected more tasteful music,” Alastor says at last.

Lucifer whirls around, affronted. “This is tasteful!”

Alastor leans in slightly, and Lucifer is forced to look up at him — and there it is, again, the faint acceleration of Lucifer’s pulse. The whisper of danger.

“By what depraved metric,” Alastor says, “is Karl King’s insufferable circus march ‘The Melody Shop’, circa 1910, an appropriate choice for airtime in a gaudy, duck-themed elevator?”

Lucifer blinks. “Holy sh*t, I’m gonna kill you,” he says, but it comes out breathless and not at all as intimidating as intended.

Alastor’s smile widens. He hums again, straightens — Lucifer takes a breath as a little of the tension leaves him.

“You know this song?” Lucifer says. He hates how it sounds almost hopeful.

“Ha!” Alastor’s cold laughter is jarring in the confined space. “Not at all. My personal tastes are far more refined. But I am the Radio Demon, Your Highness — I always know what’s playing.”

The elevator doors ding open. Lucifer stumbles a little in his haste to exit; he rights himself and turns down the hall in the direction of his rooms, as quickly as he can without actually running.

That’s when he hears it —

A muffled cough.

Lucifer glances back, but Alastor has already disappeared around the corner.

That night is the first he is awoken by faint, disjointed music and whispering voices in the hall outside his room.

He groans, pulls a pillow over his head, and goes back to sleep.

But it happens again and again. Finally, more than a week after the elevator incident, Lucifer is awoken in the dead of night by an ear-piercing screech of feedback.

Lucifer bolts upright in alarm, wide awake.

That’s it, he thinks. Enough is enough.

He swings his legs out of bed to put an end to this twisted new form of torment. The polite thing to do would be to poke his head out into the hall and ask Alastor to keep the noise down —but Lucifer isn’t feeling particularly neighborly at this ungodly hour.

He bangs on the wall next to his door.

“Hey, Al! I don’t know what kind of freaky sh*t you get up to at night, but some of us are trying to sleep, so if you could just —”

The wall bursts open in a blinding flash of green light. Lucifer careens across the room and smashes into his workbench, scattering hammers, protractors, and pencils across the floor. Alastor stands in the opening, but Lucifer hardly recognizes him, tangled as he is in threads of writhing shadow.

“Are you f*cking kidding me? We’re really doing this? Now?” Lucifer says.

As if in answer, the dark tendrils slam Lucifer down to the floor. The floorboards shatter beneath him, and the hotel’s supports groan in protest — Lucifer lands on the coffee table in the vacant suite below, which splits beneath his weight. He groans and pulls himself off the splintered wood and to his feet. It seems unlikely that Alastor will just let him go back to sleep, so he snaps his fingers to replace his duckie pajamas with his usual attire.

Through the hole in the ceiling, Lucifer sees Alastor suspended in the air by his shadows like a puppet on strings, smiling down at him with vacant, black eyes. Something is definitely off about him, but his face does still look perfectly punchable, which Lucifer confirms by unfurling his wings, surging upward, and catching Alastor’s jaw in a left hook. He unleashes a burst of holy light to weaken the shadows’ hold, grabs Alastor’s jacket with his right hand, and rams them straight through his room’s floor-to-ceiling windows into the cold night air.

Lucifer flies straight upwards, out of the range of Alastor’s shadowy tendrils —they grasp at Lucifer from below, seeking purchase. Lucifer turns up his holy light a little — like, to medium-low —and the tendrils that make contact shriek backwards as if they’ve touched a hot pan.

Still Alastor struggles in Lucifer’s grasp, pushing against him and raking his claws across Lucifer’s chest. The pain loosens Lucifer’s desperate hold on him until it’s broken, sending Alastor into free-fall.

Lucifer watches him fall for a moment before he realizes with a jolt of panic that Alastor is making no move to right himself in the air. He dives and snatches Alastor back up. He seizes violently in Lucifer’s grasp —Lucifer restrains him from behind and presses an unyielding hand to Alastor’s face.

“Sleep,” Lucifer says. His fingertips emit a glimmer of red magic, and Alastor’s body goes limp in his arms. Lucifer opens a portal to Alastor’s room and sets Alastor down on the bed.

He looks so peaceful, for a guy who just exploded Lucifer’s room. Lucifer is a little jealous.

He steps back from the bed and makes for the door, but freezes when there is a wet squish from the carpet beneath his feet. Mildly horrified, he looks down.

He’s standing in a pool of blood several feet wide. Red, human blood —on the edge of the pool is a narrow, grasping handprint. He glances from the blood to Alastor’s pathetic figure on the bed.

Okay — this is definitely not good.

He backs out of the room and magics the blood off of his shoes. He needs to get someone — but who? Surely there is someone more qualified in this hotel who can decide what to do about this.

He opens the door to find everyone —Husk, Charlie, Angel Dust, Vaggie, and Niffty — all standing in the hallway and regarding him with befuddlement.

Angel Dust co*cks an eyebrow. “Well, there’s our answer,” he says. “Are you two having fun in there? Need me to loan you any supplies?”

“Oh, shut it,” Lucifer says. He turns to Charlie. “Something is really wrong with Alastor. I put him to sleep with magic after he, like, exploded my room?”

Charlie leans around Lucifer to look into the room. “But — why would he do that?”

“I dunno,” Lucifer says. “It was weird —like he wasn’t in control of himself. And there’s also — uh — kind of a lot of blood on the floor in there.”

Charlie frowns. “Okay. I’ll get to the bottom of this. Thanks, Dad.” She glances up at Lucifer’s horns, at the flame still flickering above his brow. “You should go cool off. I’m sure Alastor could use some space.”

Lucifer blinks and forces his horns to recede. “You sure?”

“Don’t worry — I’ve got this,” Charlie says. “I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

Lucifer heads back to his room. It only takes him a few minutes to repair the damage to his room and the one below it — but once he’s finished, he just paces around his sitting area, restless.

He glances down at his shoes. The blood is gone, but it feels like it isn’t — like he’s tracking it everywhere he steps.

Lucifer gives up on sleep and heads for the bar.

He’s still there an hour later when Vaggie comes down the stairs.

“Mr. Morningstar —sir,” she calls. “Charlie is asking for you. It doesn’t look good.”

Lucifer reluctantly stands. “All right, then,” he says. He snaps his fingers and opens a portal to Alastor’s room. “Let’s see what the fuss is about.”

He steps through.

The first thing he sees is Charlie on her knees at Alastor’s bedside, crying. Lucifer rushes forward —and then he gets a better look at the figure on the bed. Alastor’s shirt is unbuttoned. Underneath, his chest is split open, his red sheets stained a darker red —his skin deathly pale —his expression slack. Unsmiling. Breathing, but only barely. In the ruin of his chest, the white of an exposed rib.

Lucifer opens his mouth to ask what happened, but as he approaches, he gets a clearer look at the wound, and he already knows.

This wound was inflicted by a direct hit of enormous angelic power. Adam did this.

“This must be why he lost it earlier,” Lucifer says. “I thought —I thought he didn’t even fight Adam.”

Husk speaks from the corner of the room. “Guess he kept his word.”

Lucifer turns and realizes that Angel Dust, Husker, and Niffty have also returned. They are huddled against the far wall, regarding the scene with solemn expressions.

“I think it’s time to say goodbye,” Charlie says, her voice small and thick with tears.

Lucifer turns back to his daughter.

She offers him a small smile. “It’s okay, dad.”

With those three words, his fate is sealed. Hadn’t he promised her —hadn’t he said? Anything in my power is yours for the asking.

“Charlie stays with me,” Lucifer says. “Everyone else — out.”

Vaggie herds the sinners out. Lucifer ignores their questioning glances. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself against the wall. The certainty of what he is about to do has sent his head spinning with images of Alastor —in the kitchen, in the elevator, leaning into Lucifer’s space. Leaving him off-balance, unsteady.

It’s a faint whisper of desire, but he recognizes it all the same.

Charlie’s hand on his shoulder. “Dad?”

They are alone now. Lucifer glances at Alastor on the bed, the feeble rise and fall of his obliterated chest —Lucifer threads his fingers into his own hair and lets out a single hysterical bark of laughter. He doesn’t want to know what memories make up Alastor’s soul. He knows damn well that Alastor wouldn’t want him poking around in there, either.

Charlie’s grip tightens. “Are you okay?”

Lucifer laughs again, pulls free from her grasp.

“f*ck!” he screams, and punches his fist through the wall. The impact cracks the wall from floor to ceiling —a faint dusting of drywall falls over their heads.

“Everything still cool in there?” Vaggie calls through the door.

“Yep, fine!” Charlie calls back —then, softly, to Lucifer: “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Lucifer says. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He repairs the damaged wall with a flick of his wrist —then he drops to his knees at Alastor’s bedside and pulls off one of his gloves.

He glances up at Charlie. “See you on the other side.”

He takes Alastor’s hand in his. The skin is cold —colder than anything alive should be.

Then his eyes flutter shut. He’s falling forward, Alastor’s soul laid open before him —his mother’s homemade cinnamon rolls, summer afternoons with Hollis, the cramped studio where he recorded his first radio show. Nights spent out on the bayou in the rain, digging. An empty, lonely, yellow house.

This won’t be a small fix —not like the simple scratches Lilith used to bring home. The wound has burned a hole in Alastor’s memory where his father should be.

He opens his eyes in New Orleans.

He knows everything.

“Who the hell are you?” Alastor says.

Lucian blinks. “Lucian Magne.”

A twig snaps. Alastor freezes. A breeze rolls through the trees — on the edge of hearing, Alastor can just make out the sound of a creature, sniffing.

“What are you?” Alastor whispers.

“That’s personal,” Lucian whispers back. He drops into a crouch on the branch, eyeing the edge of the wilderness. “We need to see this memory through to its conclusion.”

“Which is?”

The sound of rapid footfalls.

“Hold on,” Lucian says.

CRACK.

The tree shudders from an enormous impact. Alastor grips the trunk so hard, his hands bleed.

“It found us,” Lucian says.

“How does this memory end?” Alastor asks again.

“Don’t you remember?” Lucian snaps his fingers. A Winchester bolt-action hunting rifle appears in his hand —the same one Alastor’s father keeps at home. “Does this ring a bell?”

CRACK.

Alastor holds on for dear life as the tree creaks and lists to the side. Lucian unfurls his wings and flaps them to maintain his balance.

“I swore I would never touch that thing again.” Alastor doesn’t know where the words come from —can’t remember ever using the rifle to begin with. Yet he already knows how it would feel to pull the trigger.

“You have to,” Lucian says. He extends the gun to Alastor. “It’s your only way out.”

Alastor’s chest seizes up at the thought of taking the rifle —of hearing the click, again, of a bullet sliding into the chamber —the one that still haunts his dreams. “I can’t do it,” he says.

“You already did.”

With those words, Lucian is transformed —the blue drains from his eyes, leaving behind a bright, apple red. A flame flickers to life above Lucian’s brow; claws sprout from his fingertips.

“Take it.” Lucian’s voice is heavy, inexorable, commanding —with a hiss at the edges, like the song of an inferno.

CRACK.

The tree shudders again. Alastor reaches out and takes the gun. The weight of it in his hands —he thinks he might be sick.

“It is the night of your first show at Economy Hall. Hollis leaves the afterparty early with a girl on his arm, so you walk home alone.” Lucian’s voice is firm and merciless. “You know something is wrong as you approach the house. You open the door and call out, but your mother isn’t there. The only trace of her is a single drop of blood on the kitchen floor.”

“Stop,” Alastor whispers.

“You know who has taken her. Over all the years of your life, you have borne witness to the rise of that murderous glint in his eyes. The ferocity with which he hurt you —” Lucian rakes his claws down the trunk of the tree. He takes a breath; when he speaks again his voice is softened by sympathy. “You take Hollis’s bike and ride it out of town, into the bayou.”

CRACK.

The tree lists to the side, groaning under their weight. Numbly, Alastor checks the rifle’s magazine — it’s full.

“Think of what he did to you.” Lucian leans in, his red eyes insistent, and whispers: “Think of what he did to your mother.”

“I killed him,” Alastor whispers, his voice trembling.

Lucian points out between the trees, where the rougarou is pacing, readying another strike.

“Make him pay.”

Alastor co*cks the rifle. He hears the click; he peers down the scope. With shaking hands, he lines up the shot.

Chapter 4: Job 33

Chapter Text

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

He is chastened with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:

Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.

If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to shew unto man his uprightness:

Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found his ransom.

His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth.

— Job 33

Alastor’s consciousness returns in fragmented pieces — the sound of distant footfalls, the ticking of a clock. A warm thumb pressed against his wrist.

His chest burns; his shoulder aches; his head pounds like the sound of a gun. He groans.

“Alastor?”

The voice is familiar, but Alastor struggles to place the name. He blinks, but the light is too bright — he shields his eyes with his free hand.

“Hollis?” he manages.

“Ah — no,” the voice says. “It’s me. Lucifer.”

Lucifer. Alastor peers around the room: the bloodstained sheets, the tattered curtains, the window cracked open to the red sky. The two figures at his bedside. He blinks to bring them into focus.

One is Lucifer — a flood of conflicting emotions wells up in Alastor’s throat, mostly in hues of anger. Then the other name swims to the surface: Charlie.

“Did I die?”

“No,” Charlie says — at the same time Lucifer says, “Yes.”

Charlie shoots Lucifer a glance, but Lucifer misses it, his attention fixed on Alastor.

“You died almost a hundred years ago,” Lucifer says.

Alastor remembers the dogs now. He takes a deep breath, the air shuddering in his lungs — he brings a hand up to his throat, but the skin is smooth and unbroken.

Then the hard truth settles over him.

Hollis and his mother — they are both gone. It has been a hundred years since he last saw them, spoke to them — he closes his eyes as though darkness could call back the dream.

The thumb gently strokes Alastor’s wrist, once. He opens his eyes and follows the hand back to Lucifer’s face. He frowns, and Lucifer at least has the decency to look sheepish and release him.

“Well.” Lucifer claps his hands together. “It looks like the crisis has been averted! So I’ll just — ah — be going.”

Lucifer crosses the room and freezes at the door. He snaps his fingers; the glove on Alastor’s bed disappears and reappears on Lucifer’s hand.

“Let me know if I’m needed, Charlie,” he says softly, then disappears into the hall.

Alastor’s head is spinning, retracing the steps taken from his arrival in Hell that have landed him here, in this hotel, on the brink of death after a brief, experimental dalliance with self-sacrifice. He grasps for his final moments of wakefulness —he remembers kneeling on the carpet of his room, gasping, struggling frantically to hold his chest together as blood poured between his fingers. He glances down at his chest.

A thin, purple scar bisects his torso where the angelic wound once festered.

“It’s gone,” he gasps.

“My dad spent all night healing you,” Charlie says.

The Lucifer in his dream —worming his way into Alastor’s life, incessantly questioning him about his attachments, his preferences.

He glances at Charlie sharply.

“What did he do to me?”

“He healed you,” Charlie says, with obvious patience. “That’s why the wound is gone.”

Alastor searches her face, but finds no sign of concealment, her wide eyes painfully earnest. Deceit has never been dear Charlie’s strength; whatever Lucifer did to take advantage of Alastor’s moment of weakness, Charlie is ignorant.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Charlie says softly.

It is only at this moment that Alastor realizes he has been speaking without his radio filter.

“As am I,” Alastor says, and is relieved when the filter comes out smooth — no static, pops, or clicks. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to change into something clean.”

“Oh —of course!” Charlie backs away, toward the door. “When you’re feeling up to it, you should come downstairs! Everyone’s gonna be so glad you’re okay.”

Charlie slips through the door; Alastor is left to the sound of his own breathing, to the breeze rustling through the curtains, to the ticking of the clock. To his questions.

He sits up in his bed. Phantom pain flickers across his chest, but it is a mere whisper of the agony he remembers.

Too many questions. The New Orleans of his childhood still breathes in the corners of his mind, nearer than it has felt in any of the ninety years since his death.

He shrugs his stiff, blood-crusted shirt off of his shoulders.

How many decades have passed since he last called to memory the fire in Hollis’s eyes when he raised his trumpet to his lips? The way he could speak volumes with a single glance across a dinner table; that crooked smile from some private joke, for which Alastor had gladly razed the earth.

Lucifer’s unearthly blue eyes, glowing in darkness.

To what end did the Devil call back these long-dead memories?

Alastor staggers to his feet, leaning against his headboard. His Shadow follows meekly behind him, cowed, obedient —a promising sign for his other powers. He snaps his ruined shirt and sheets out of existence, and breathes a sigh of relief when the angelic wound does not reopen.

Still, he is tired. He goes about the remainder of his preparations the traditional way, stumbling about and rifling through his closet of identical shirts and trousers.

With every passing moment, the inevitability becomes clearer. Alastor’s questions are too many —and the answers are vanishingly few.

He adjusts his bowtie, smiles, and steps through the door of his room to seek out the Devil.

If Lucifer could describe the punishment inflicted upon him by Heaven in a single sentence, it would be this:

He is haunted.

The rifle fires.

Lucifer wakes kneeling at Alastor’s bedside, his ears still ringing from the shot. He looks up at Alastor’s slack, unsmiling face; his head is swimming with memory. It has been seven thousand years since Lucifer last entered a new soul — and yet the effect of returning to his own body is no less disorienting than it was in the first centuries after the Fall.

Every moment of Alastor’s thirty-one-year human existence competes for Lucifer’s attention — all of it etched somewhere on Alastor’s face, his lips slightly parted. Lucifer shudders; the weight of another lifetime settles on his shoulders. He can’t unsee the soul beneath Alastor’s demonic exterior — his upturned nose — his warm, terra-cotta skin desaturated by Death.

He leans over Alastor’s body to check his injury and finds the skin healed, perfectly smooth apart from a thin scar. He searches for Alastor’s pulse with his thumb — finds it — and breathes a sigh of relief. At least it worked. He gets up, but he doesn’t let go of Alastor’s wrist — his thumb lingers there, above that delicate bundle of veins, of its own volition.

He should leave now, before Alastor wakes.

He doesn’t.

It could be said that Lucifer is the afterlife’s foremost expert in falling. The landing is always painful — but he knows how to protect the important bits from obliteration on impact with the ground.

When he leaves Alastor’s bedside, he heads straight back to his room and flops onto his bed.

The first and foremost objective is to continue to be exactly the same Lucifer he was before he knew Alastor’s soul. No new worldviews. No new interests. No new attachments.

But there’s jazz spinning in his head: the 1930 standard “Memories of You” — specifically, Alastor’s performance of the song at the Pythean, when he was 26. Another cruel twist of Lucifer’s curse — though he experienced Alastor’s memories at a surface level, like skimming a book, at the slightest nudge his subconscious will call every detail to mind with perfect clarity.

Stifling humidity. Beads of sweat across Alastor’s forehead. The low, orange light. The haze of smoke.

Lucifer stares at his ceiling for several minutes trying that trick for getting songs out of your head, where you just focus on the end —

It doesn’t work. The problem is that Alastor was on piano and vocals for that performance at the Pythean —and Lucifer both anticipates and dreads comparing Alastor’s hellish mid-Atlantic radio voice against the one that’s on loop in his head, warm and real behind the vintage microphone.

He groans and rolls out of bed. The song follows him down to the kitchen, where he pleads with Vaggie for something to do.

For the rest of the day, he throws himself into work on the hotel with such enthusiasm that he might have bought the ruse himself, were it not for Alastor’s presence around every corner, lingering down the hall, perpetually in the next room. Lucifer’s desperation to avoid looking at, talking to, or thinking about Alastor finds its equal opposite in his desperation to avoid any noticeable change to his routine.

He has never seen so much of Alastor around the hotel — it appears that Alastor has gone from avoiding Lucifer to seeking him out deliberately.

That evening, Alastor heads to Cannibal Town on a special, secret mission for Charlie. Lucifer heads to the bar to drink himself into oblivion and then call it an early night before Alastor returns.

It isn’t that it doesn’t bother Lucifer anymore, that his daughter went to Alastor first — of course the slight still makes his chest burn with envy.

It’s just that he sort of gets it, now. If the crusade of vengeance that landed Alastor in Hell proves anything, it’s that he is reliable, detail oriented, devoted to his allies, and driven past the point of obsession in pursuit of his goals — who wouldn’t think of him first, if there was a special, secret mission that needed taking care of?

Husker, perhaps sensing Lucifer’s mood, spares Lucifer the trouble of conversation — just places a full bottle of whiskey in Lucifer’s hand and turns back to his book. It takes a great deal of alcohol to have any effect on Lucifer — he’s on his second bottle of whiskey when someone pulls out the stool next to his.

“So, are we allowed to ask what miracle you pulled to drag tall, dark, and scary back to the land of the living?” Angel Dust says.

“Angel,” Husk whispers in warning.

“I’d hardly call this the land of the living,” Lucifer says.

“Fair enough,” Angel says. Husk slides a pink co*cktail across the bar into his waiting hand. He raises it to his lips. “So, what —was it some kind-a demonic equivalent of divine intervention?”

Lucifer takes a long swig of whiskey. “Some King of Hell sh*t,” he says at last. “Don’t worry about it.”

Lucifer is relieved when Angel doesn’t keep pressing — avoiding one of the hotel’s residents is difficult enough, and he doesn’t want to resort to spending every evening for the foreseeable future cowering in his room.

They slip into a comfortable silence. Lucifer finishes his second bottle of whiskey and motions for a third.

A moment later, Husk glances at the door, pulls down a bottle of rye whiskey, and pours a highball. A memory of Alastor in the Francs Amis holding the same drink, the first night Lucifer really saw him as a human —

The stool on Lucifer’s other side scrapes on the hardwood floor.

So someone is back early from Charlie’s special, secret mission. Lucifer doesn’t move —just studies the reflections inside the bottle and tries to convince himself that he is starting to feel a little bit of a buzz now.

“Long night, Boss?” Husk says.

There is no response; Lucifer feels Alastor’s gaze on the back of his neck.

“I didn’t expect to find you here, Your Majesty,” Alastor says.

Lucifer can hear it now, under the radio filter and the gratingly false accent — the last dregs of Alastor’s human voice.

f*ck.

Lucifer takes a swig; there is a long, tense silence before he finally gives in and looks.

This close, Lucifer can see the flecks of maroon in Alastor’s red irises, how they match the pattern of the hazel eyes he had when he was human. Alastor is regarding him with his typical inscrutable, unbreakable smile — the effect is eerie now that Lucifer is more accustomed to seeing real emotions on Alastor’s face.

Hollis’s voice in Lucifer’s head: I know how to get him to stop — it works every time.

The memory of Alastor’s fond laugh.

Lucifer’s gaze skitters away, back to his bottle; he tries to muster up a convincing facsimile of the resentment he once felt for this demon.

“Yeah, well.” His voice comes out more exhausted than exasperated, but it’ll have to do. “I still live here.”

“Quite,” Alastor says. He knocks back his drink, stands — hesitates.

Surely he won’t try to confront Lucifer here, in a common space?

Then he leans over Lucifer’s shoulder, his mouth inches from Lucifer’s ear.

“Is it true,” Alastor says softly, “that you don’t know how to play the piano?”

A blush crawls up Lucifer’s face.

“Yes,” he whispers.

Alastor hums, straightens, and sweeps from the room without another word.

“Holy Hell,” Angel says.

Lucifer jumps— the moment Alastor leaned over him, he’d forgotten Angel and Husk were even there. He shakes his head and takes another swig of his drink.

“Good thing I know better,” Angel continues, “Or after that little display, I might think you two got up to more than just King of Hell sh*t in that locked room.”

Lucifer slams the bottle back down on the bar. “Charlie was there the entire time, you sick f*ck.”

Angel raises his hands. “Like I said — good thing I know better.”

Lucifer finishes the third bottle and asks for a fourth to go.

Husk slides it across the table. “I can give you a piano lesson, if you want,” he says.

Lucifer takes the bottle and staggers to his feet. No doubt about it — he finally is a little bit drunk.

“No, thanks,” he says.

He snaps himself back to his room, uncorks the bottle, and knocks the whole thing back at once, praying to whoever might be listening that the alcohol will grant him the reprieve of a dreamless sleep.

It doesn’t.

That night, as he sinks into sleep, Alastor dreads and anticipates in equal measure the inevitable dream of New Orleans, of his mother, of Hollis —

Instead, he dreams of falling.

He doesn’t see Lucifer again until that evening; Lucifer slinks in through the front door as everyone is gathering for the evening’s redemption exercise. He scans the room and spots Alastor on the couch —Alastor holds Lucifer’s wide-eyed gaze. His eyes are the same red they’ve always been.

Lucifer looks away and turns tail toward the staircase.

“There you are, dad!”

Lucifer freezes, his retreat thwarted. Charlie sweeps him up in a hug. He glances at Alastor again over her shoulder.

“You should join us,” Charlie says.

Lucifer glances once more at the staircase. “Sure, honey,” he says.

Alastor enjoys a place of honor at Charlie’s right hand —Lucifer joins the circle on Charlie’s left. He shoots Alastor an unprompted look of resentment as he sits down; Alastor raises his eyebrows in reply.

They are each given a notebook and pen for their redemption exercises. It most often serves as a welcome distraction from the tearful soliloquies of the hotel’s real residents. Alastor turns to it now, adding detail to a drawing of his old violin.

Charlie takes her place at the front of the room and claps her hands together. “Okay! Now that we’re all here, let’s get started!”

She sits cross-legged on the carpet in front of the fireplace and pulls her own notebook into her lap. “Tonight’s activity is called a Dream Circle. We’ll each go around and share a dream we’ve had recently. Each person in the circle will ask a clarifying question about the dream, and then we can offer interpretations. The person who shared will share their own interpretation of their dream. Then we’ll move on to the next person. Does anybody want to go first?”

“Me!” Angel’s hand shoots up in the air.

“Okay — great! Whenever you’re ready.”

“Wait,” Angel says. “How do we feel about sex dreams?”

“Bad,” Vaggie says.

“Maybe you can skip over the sex part,” Charlie says.

Angel sits back in the armchair and frowns in concentration.

“Well, I was in a pool,” Angel begins slowly. “With a lotta guys. And then … we all got out of the pool.”

“And then what?” Charlie prompts.

Angel dust frowns. “You said to skip the sex part.”

“All-right then, on to questions and interpretations!”

There is a long and uncomfortable silence.

Typical — and Alastor would really rather not spend the entirety of his evening on this silly exercise. He opts to nudge things along. “Perhaps the pool represents your subconscious,” he says. “The characters in the pool might be various aspects of the self.”

Utter nonsense, of course — but Alastor glances around the circle to find his fellow residents nodding thoughtfully.

“Huh,” Angel says.

Charlie beams at him. “Wow, Alastor — that was great! You’re really good at this!” She turns to her father. “Dad? Do you want to go next?”

“Oh — uh — no. I’ll pass. I never remember my dreams.”

“Ah, memory issues.” Alastor nods solemnly. “I hear those do come with old age — and upon reflection, I suppose the signs have been in front of us all this time.”

Lucifer splutters indignantly. “I do not —”

“Now, now.” Alastor pleasantly cuts him off. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Your Majesty.”

Charlie steps in to steer the exercise back on track with her own dream about hotel maintenance, which is clearly the result of overwork; Alastor sits back and listens, all the while enjoying Lucifer’s flushed, enraged expression in his peripheral vision.

Alastor’s turn to share comes last. He briefly weighs the possibility of fabricating a dream, but decides the effort would be wasted. His dream last night was utterly unoriginal and meaningless.

“Last night, I dreamed I was falling from the sky,” Alastor says.

Lucifer’s head snaps up from where he had been focused on picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. He frowns, and his expression mirrors the one he wore when he first caught sight of Alastor in the Francs Amis, in the dream — like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.

“That sounds stressful,” Charlie says. “How did you feel as you were falling?”

“That when I reached the ground, I would certainly die,” Alastor says.

Alastor glances at Lucifer for his reaction — he has smoothed his expression into neutrality, but he’s still staring at Alastor across the circle with inexplicable intensity.

“Did anything happen before you started falling?” Angel says.

Alastor hasn’t considered this. He pauses thoughtfully. “I believe I was pushed.”

“Was it cold?” Lucifer says. His voice is flat, devoid of inflection.

Alastor meets Lucifer’s serpentine, red eyes. “Freezing,” he says.

An uncomfortable silence falls, which is only broken when Vaggie makes a halfhearted attempt to connect the dream to Alastor’s recent near-death experience.

“Perhaps,” Alastor says, though he is certain the two are unrelated.

Alastor glances at Lucifer again across the table, but he has turned attention back to unraveling his sleeve. The only sign of his former intensity is the faint trembling in his fingertips.

Then the exercise adjourns. Lucifer dismisses himself instantly and is halfway up the stairs before Alastor has so much as shifted in his seat.

Just as well. Alastor is already resolved in his next course of action, but it wouldn’t do to seem too eager. Instead, he drifts over to the bar, where he engages Husker in an inane conversation about chess gambits over his nightly highball.

He turns the dream over again in the back of his mind. He is no stranger to nightmares — but upon further examination, perhaps there was a different character to this dream that warrants his attention. Not because the dream is related to his brush with Death. No — Alastor had certainly been afraid, in those ugly moments when it seemed he would meet his second end in a pool of blood on the carpet — but the fear he felt then is dwarfed by the primal, screaming terror he felt as he was falling. It was as though the fate that awaited him upon impact was more permanent than Death and twice as terrible.

But it won’t do to dwell on it now, when there’s work to be done. Several minutes have passed; it is time to act.

He places his empty glass on the bar and follows the Devil up the stairs.

Chapter 5: Hebrews 4:13

Chapter Text

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight:

but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

- Hebrews 4:13

Alastor knocks firmly on Lucifer’s door.

There’s a clattering sound inside the room, followed by the unmistakable squeaking of a chorus of rubber ducks. A moment later, Lucifer peeks through the door, looking disheveled. His hat, cloak, and vest lie discarded on the floor behind him. The top three buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned.

His eyes meet Alastor’s. “No. f*ck, no. Please — get out.”

“Not so fast,” Alastor says. He melts into the shadows, slides along the wall, and reforms inside the room. Lucifer rounds on him in indignation; Alastor snaps his fingers and the door closes gently behind him. He makes a show of brushing off his jacket. “I believe you owe me an explanation,” he says.

Lucifer steps forward and grabs a fistful of Alastor’s shirt. “I said get out.” He drags Alastor forward, toward the door; Alastor stumbles and grabs at the collar of Lucifer’s shirt. His thumb brushes Lucifer’s exposed collarbone.

Then the floor gives way beneath them. They are falling through the sky, into the darkness — the air rushes up around them, so cold it burns. A terror unlike any Alastor has ever experienced floods his system — he hears a scream, but he doesn’t know if it’s his. There’s no space left in his mind for anything but the approaching darkness, the herald of their inevitable deaths.

Lucifer is still gripping Alastor’s shirt — and, Alastor realizes belatedly, already in the middle of some kind of lecture, shouting over the roar of wind.

“God damn you, you controlling bastard — you couldn’t just leave it, could you? Couldn’t just say thank you, Lucifer, for saving my life— ”

Alastor hardly hears him. He’s staring down at the shapes forming in the darkness beneath them. Are they pools of water? Jagged rocks?

“— and I’ll have you know my knees hurt like Hell afterwards. How dare you act like I’m the one in your debt. How dare you — what are you looking at?”

Lucifer follows Alastor’s gaze down to the earth rushing up to meet them.

“God damn it!” Lucifer says. He reaches for Alastor and pulls him in with both hands, then twists in the air so that Alastor is above him.

“What are you doing?” Alastor says.

Lucifer looks at him incredulously, as if it should be obvious. His eyes are incensed and burning red.

Then they hit the ground.

The sound, like a sigh, of the air being knocked out of Lucifer’s lungs. A flash of searing, blinding pain — then he’s sprawled on the floor of Lucifer’s room, curled up facing Lucifer, who gasps — one desperate breath — then rolls up onto his knees and leans over Alastor.

“Alastor,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Alastor sits up and wills his heartbeat to slow, digs his fingers into the carpet. In the corner of his eye, his Shadow grows restless — he breathes there for a long moment to bring it back under his control, but when he finally speaks, his voice still shakes. “That was miserable. Stay the f*ck out of my head.”

Indecision plays out across Lucifer’s face. “That wasn’t your head,” he says at last. “It was mine.”

“That was my dream.”

“No — that was the memory the dream is based on. I have that dream almost every night. Sometimes humans catch it from me — I don’t know why.”

“We were falling from heaven,” Alastor says — daring Lucifer to deny it.

“That doesn’t concern you,” Lucifer says.

“Doesn’t it?” Alastor says — he snarls and lunges toward Lucifer, who jumps back, like he’s been burned. Alastor’s fingertips brush Lucifer’s forehead, and they’re toppling backward, again —

Alastor is sitting behind the piano bench at a dance hall, mid-performance; on instinct, he searches the stage for Hollis — but then he recognizes this as one of the white venues he played towards the end of his jazz career, before his radio station and after Hollis was gone.

His fingers still over the keys, moving instead to press on his temples — the rest of the band comes to a discordant stop. The audience mutters uneasily — Alastor scans the crowd and finds Lucifer’s glowing blue eyes among them.

“What are you doing to me?” Alastor says. His voice echoes through the room. He intends it to be commanding, or at the very least demanding, but he can’t quite keep the tremor out of it.

In the corner of his eye, the third man Alastor ever killed exits the washroom. Alastor’s gaze zeroes in on him instantly, as though not a day has passed since he tailed this man on his morning commute, to his home, to his children’s school. The sight of him alive and content, with a faint smile on his face as he spots his low-life friends across the dance floor, fills Alastor’s stomach with burning, indescribable rage.

It hardly matters that this man is already numbered twice in Alastor’s list of kills — the first tally on the list that landed him in Hell, and the second in his inventory of radio screams. It also hardly matters that all of this is merely a picture-show for Lucifer’s amusem*nt.

After Hollis, Alastor never left home without a pocketknife in his shoe. He finds it there, right where it belongs. He leaps off the stage and, with the practiced hand of ninety years in Hell, throws the knife.

The knife lodges in the man’s heart. A wet, choking sound — the man collapses to the floor — a scream —

And Alastor is back in Lucifer’s room with a manic smile on his face.

Lucifer scrambles to his feet and backs away from Alastor. “Stay away from me.”

Alastor smells blood in the water — he rolls up to his feet and crowds Lucifer’s space.

“Scared?”

Lucifer laughs. “Of what? A little unpremeditated murder? Nah — that guy deserved what he got.”

But his expression remains uneasy — glancing at Alastor’s hands. Alastor lunges forward — Lucifer dances back.

“Hey — watch it with the — with the hands, would you?”

Alastor makes a show of examining his claws. “Gladly — once you explain this new form of torture.”

“That really isn’t any of your business?”

“Hm,” Alastor says. Then he drags Lucifer forward by his bowtie and slaps him across the face.

“Oh, please,” says a woman’s voice.

Alastor is in the hall of an unfamiliar building. Ornate crown moulding in the shape of snakes lines the walls; beams of red afternoon light spill across the carpet. The stillness of this place weighs heavily on Alastor’s chest.

Just ahead of him is a half-open door — the woman’s voice drifts through it into the hall.

“Torture — really? You’re the most powerful creature in this godforsaken place. Get a hold of yourself — this is pathetic,” the voice says. “If you can’t cope with the emotional fallout, there is a simple and obvious solution: keep your distance from sinners.”

Alastor reaches out and pushes the door open.

Lucifer is in a heap on the floor, surrounded by a pile of wet handkerchiefs. A large blanket patterned with rubber ducks is draped over his shoulders. His face is streaked with tears. His hand is raised to his cheek, incredulously — between his fingers, blood beads along three thin, golden lines where Alastor’s clawed hand struck him.

Lucifer looks up and meets Alastor’s eyes. For all of one second, Lucifer looks heartbroken — but that one second unfolds into an eternity in Alastor’s mind as he struggles to comprehend what he’s seeing. His smile falters. His hands itch to do — what? Reach out and slap Lucifer again?

In an instant Lucifer’s expression contorts into one of pure rage. He wipes his eyes indignantly and stands; the blanket pools at his feet.

“Get out,” he hisses in the voice of a snake.

The woman turns around, and Alastor meets Lilith’s cold, unfeeling eyes.

Lucifer slams the door in Alastor’s face.

Alastor’s eyes blink open and he’s back in Lucifer’s room; Lucifer is looming over him in his demon form, his wings extended. Beneath that gaze Alastor is frozen — a mouse in the jaws of a snake.

“Do not touch me again,” Lucifer hisses. The flame between his horns flares with each word.

Alastor’s restless Shadow makes a move toward Lucifer — Alastor waves it off with his fingertips and is thankful when it actually obeys him instead of getting them both killed. “Understood,” Alastor says.

Lucifer doesn’t move — a drop of his blood falls onto Alastor’s cheek. The question of what the Devil’s blood might taste like tears violently through Alastor’s mind, and a shiver rolls through his body, unbidden. His thoughts are frayed by panic and the repeated onslaught of visions — still he searches frantically for the words that will keep Lucifer from destroying him.

“Intrusion was not my intention,” he says softly.

Lucifer’s gaze falls to the drop of blood rolling down Alastor’s cheek, but the intensity remains.

“I thought you controlled what we were seeing,” Alastor says, because it is now abundantly clear to him that Lucifer doesn’t.

Lucifer finally turns away. “Not really,” he says. His wings fold into his back. He flops down into an armchair and flicks his wrist at the fireplace, which happily bursts into flames. His head falls. “Please. Just leave. I’m tired.”

Alastor gets to his feet and nearly obliges, but stops himself. So many of his questions are still unanswered — but the Devil’s patience wears thin. The next step will be the most delicate of all.

“I will, momentarily,” Alastor says softly. He moves to stand by the armchair opposite Lucifer. “I came here in hopes that we could reach an agreement.”

Lucifer is unmoved, still gazing straight into the fire. “Your negotiation tactics leave much to be desired.”

Alastor swallows his irritation and brightens his smile. “My offer is generous.”

A lone, cold laugh escapes Lucifer. He sits back; his horns cast long, flickering shadows across the far wall. “There’s nothing you can offer me.”

Alastor hums. “On the contrary. I’ve been told my deals can be very persuasive.” He finally sits, rests his elbows on the arms of his chair, and steeples his fingers in front of his face. “Your daughter can attest.”

That gets the Devil’s attention — his eyes snap up to Alastor’s. “You bastard,” he says, his voice tinged with betrayal.

Alastor smiles warmly. “Not to worry — she merely owes me a favor. If you answer my questions about how you healed me, I will consider Charlie’s debt paid. I will never collect on her favor.”

Lucifer leans back in his chair and groans in frustration. The fireplace flares — a few embers singe the carpet. He runs a hand through his hair, gazing up at the ceiling.

Finally he turns his gaze back to Alastor. “Fine. I’ll do it,” he says.

“Wonderful,” Alastor says brightly. Alastor extends a hand.

Lucifer leans forward in his chair, eyeing Alastor’s hand pointedly but not taking it. “I will explain how I healed you — in return, you will keep what you learn secret, never collect on Charlie’s favor, and never enter into a deal with my daughter again.” By the end, the flame between Lucifer’s horns burns so hot and bright that it singes Alastor’s skin and he has to fight the urge to back away. Lucifer extends a gloved hand; golden light winds around Lucifer’s arm from his shoulder to his fingertips. “Do we have a deal?”

Alastor hesitates; the stipulation against a new deal with Charlie is a major setback — but continued uncertainty about Lucifer’s knowledge is untenable.

Alastor takes the Devil’s hand. “Deal.”

A burst of white light electrifies the room — golden tendrils of magic snake up Alastor’s arm. Alastor’s smile turns manic as the seal rings through the air, like the sound of a bell being struck.

“Would you prefer I return tomorrow night, or shall we begin now?” Alastor says as the light fades.

Lucifer scrubs his hand across his face. He fixes the terms of the deal in his mind, to write down later — he ordinarily wouldn’t enter into a deal unless it’s in writing and he’s had a scholar look over it — but the truth seems a small price to pay to break any hold Alastor might have on Charlie.

But Lucifer has never explained the full extent of his curse to anyone. He isn’t even sure he can. Lilith didn’t even know all the details, and she was there.

“Let’s get this over with,” Lucifer says at last.

“Lovely,” Alastor says. He plucks a sheet of paper from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and unfolds it.

Lucifer catches a glimpse of Alastor’s precise, narrow handwriting — it hasn’t changed a bit since he was alive.

“This isn’t necessary,” Lucifer blurts out. “It’s really no big deal — what’s a bit of psychic healing between, uh —” Lucifer cuts himself short before he can say friends.

He glances up to find Alastor regarding him with a judgmental raised eyebrow.

“Your reticence is duly noted.” Alastor smooths the paper on his lap. “How did you heal me?”

“I entered your soul, kept you from getting eaten, and helped you identify where the injury was reflected in your memories.”

“Was it real, then?”

“Depends what you mean by real,” Lucifer says. “That was me in your head, if that’s what you’re asking. And the outcome did have a real effect when you woke up.”

“In the dream, you said the rougarou represented some kind of … corruption?”

“Let me answer your question with a question. When a sinner’s physical body dies, their soul is all that’s left — right?”

“Don’t patronize me,” Alastor says.

“Right. So, what do you think a soul is made of?”

Alastor is silent — Lucifer fights a smile. “It isn’t common knowledge,” Lucifer says lightly, and drinks up the glare Alastor shoots him in response. Pretentious f*cker.

“Souls are made of memories,” Lucifer says at last. “And angelic power damages the souls of sinners. When a soul is physically damaged, their memories become corrupted. The psyche can usually resolve minor cuts and scrapes on its own, in dreams — but when the damage is catastrophic, the corruption spreads and fights back, seeking to destroy the self. The subject loses consciousness and falls into a kind of nightmare. Usually they’re being chased by a monster that represents their worst fears — in the end, the monster consumes them, and their soul is obliterated.”

“So you entered this dream to aid me — your knowledge of my past is limited, then, to the brief window of time you witnessed?”

“Ah — that. Um. No?”

“No,” Alastor repeats, as if testing the answer in his mouth.

“No, I — uh. Golly, I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t — you were dying, Al.”

“How much did you see?” Alastor’s voice is low.

Lucifer clamps his mouth shut. The silence stings, a little, because of the deal — Alastor’s green magic winds around his throat and singes his skin. It would probably burn if he weren’t The Devil (From The Bible).

His mouth falls open, unbidden, and the answer spills out: “I saw all thirty-one years of your human life.”

Alastor’s eyes widen.

“Nothing after that,” Lucifer adds, as if that will really help.

A popping sound — Lucifer glances down. Ah. Alastor’s claws have punctured the velvet on his favorite armchair.

“How dare you,” Alastor says in a low, dangerous voice.

“I don’t control it,” Lucifer stammers. “It — uh — it happens the first time I touch a sinner. It’s — like — a flood of memories. Very disorienting. I can’t stop it. I wish I could.”

Alastor glances up. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Lucifer says. “That’s why —” he holds up a hand and wiggles his fingers — “gloves.”

“I saw your memories, a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah — well — if we’re both conscious, and I’ve already seen your soul, it’s actually sort of a crapshoot whether we’ll end up in your head or — ah — mine.”

Alastor extends his hand. “Show me.”

Lucifer flinches away instinctively. “That isn’t part of the deal.”

“No,” Alastor agrees. He stares at Lucifer with a challenge in his eyes, his smile inscrutable.

Lucifer thinks of Alastor in the kitchen, crowding his space — fearless — and something warm settles in the pit of his stomach. How long has it been since Lucifer held someone’s hand? Would Alastor’s hand be warm, this time, now that his circulatory system is back in working order?

Lucifer tugs off one glove. This should be okay. He’s calm and prepared, so he has a good chance of steering where they land — he flips through the aeons in search of a suitable memory. Then he finds it.

He fixes his mind on that moment — on the low murmur of the crowd, the delicate wisps of clouds overhead, the gentle plucking of a harp.

He reaches out and takes Alastor’s hand.

Alastor’s soul rushes up to meet his, pushy, unwilling to let Lucifer in again, which suits Lucifer just fine. He yields and falls backward.

They are seated next to each other in the stands of a golden amphitheater, open to the bright blue sky.

Alastor’s hand is warm, and soft, and Lucifer desperately wants to keep holding it. He risks a glance at Alastor — and his mouth goes dry.

His red suit has become a simple white dress shirt with maroon pinstripes. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows; his skin has taken on the same warm hue it had in life. His hair and ears are entirely black — but the tiny antlers perched atop his head are gold.

Alastor is staring up at the blue sky. His grip on Lucifer’s hand tightens, and Lucifer’s stomach swoops.

Then he turns back to Lucifer — his eyes are hazel, again, and his cheekbones are dusted with pale freckles like the spots on a fawn.

So this is what Alastor would have looked like in Heaven.

“This memory is from when I was very young,” Lucifer says.

“This is Heaven.”

“Yes. This is Heaven just before the first human souls were born.”

There is movement on the stage — an angelic choir files in. Lucifer points into the orchestra pit. “That’s my brother, Michael.”

“He also plays violin?”

“Yeah.”

The orchestra warms up. Lucifer leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and sighs. “This is one of my favorite memories to visit,” he says.

“I thought you couldn’t control it.”

“I can’t control your soul,” Lucifer says, “but this is mine. I can steer in here. Sometimes. Kind of. As long as I’m not surprised.” He opens his eyes and looks at Alastor. “Or pissed off.”

Feigned disbelief spreads across Alastor’s face. “You? Quick to anger? I can’t imagine that’s true, Your Majesty.”

“Yeah, well — this is the second time some halfwit has attacked me in my own damn room, so forgive me if I’m anything less than a paragon of virtue.”

“Worry not, my good man; all is forgiven.” Alastor nods sagely — his stupid halo bobs in tandem, the perfect picture of piety.

Lucifer knows that snapping back with a retort will just prove Alastor’s point, and he’s going to do it anyway — but then the conductor raises their baton and all gazes are pulled to the stage. Which is lucky, because it gives Lucifer a moment to interrogate the fluttering feeling in his stomach. Would he really mind so much if Alastor kept showing up late at night, looking for a fight?

The song begins with the ethereal melody of a harp — then the strings come in. Alastor leans forward, studying the musicians with rapt attention.

“Your brother plays better than you do,” Alastor says flatly.

“Yeah — well — I’m actually —” Lucifer’s face burns — “I’m actually a pretty sh*t musician, by angelic standards.”

Alastor turns to him with a delighted smile on his face. “Really?”

“Shut up,” Lucifer grumbles.

Alastor turns back to the stage, that insufferable pleased smile still on his face. “That explains how little progress we made with piano.”

“Music is supposed to come naturally to angels,” Lucifer says, and hates how petulant it sounds.

They watch the performance for a long moment in silence.

“If the violin was equally difficult for you, I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to reach that level of proficiency,” Alastor says at last. “Why go to the trouble?”

“I like violin. And — I wanted to be able to play something,” Lucifer finds himself saying. “Just one thing.”

Alastor hums; they fall back into silence. Alastor leans back into his seat next to Lucifer and closes his eyes; Lucifer follows suit. His attention drifts to Alastor’s hand in his — he focuses on remaining absolutely still so he doesn’t do something stupid like stroke Alastor’s wrist with his thumb, or lace their fingers together.

It’s just that the last sinner to touch him willingly was his wife, and that was — what, a thousand years ago?

Lucifer doesn’t know how long they spend there, just letting the music wash over them — eventually, Alastor whispers, “we should be getting to sleep, don’t you think?”

“Oh — yeah,” Lucifer says. He had forgotten that they are still, technically, in the hotel — and they still, technically, have to get up and work tomorrow morning.

He lets go of the memory — the amphitheater dissolves around them, and they’re back in the hotel. The fire in Lucifer’s room is now little more than dancing embers.

Alastor pulls his hand away. Lucifer tugs his glove back on, still looking at the hearth. He is off-balance, unsteady — there is a long silence, where the only sound is the crackling of the dying fire.

“I see why you would return to that memory,” Alastor says at last. “The performance was wonderful. Shame about the subject matter, though.”

Lucifer meets Alastor’s red eyes. His smile might be almost — kind of — fond.

Lucifer stands. “That’s Heaven for ya,” he says.

Alastor folds the paper in his lap and tucks it back in his breast pocket, then follows Lucifer to the door — he hovers for a moment with his hand on the doorknob.

“I haven’t yet exhausted my questions,” Alastor says. “I’ll come back another time.”

With that, he slips through the door. It clicks softly behind him, and then the room falls into silence.

Lucifer stares at the closed door for a long moment. Then he leans back against the wall and slides down to the floor, his forehead on his knees. The hand Alastor held fists the fabric of his shirt, right over the center of his chest — the other hand works its way up into his hair.

He stays there for a long time. Breathing.

Chapter 6: Intermission

Chapter Text

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

by T. S. Eliot — 1917

If I believed that my response would be
to someone who would ever return to the world,
this flame would move no more.
But because no one has ever returned
alive from this gulf, if what I hear is true,
I can reply with no fear of infamy.

— Dante’s Inferno, Canto XXVII

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare …
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For
 I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
 So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin?
— To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
 And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
— Is it the skin, or perfume from a dress
 That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
 And should I then presume?
 And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
 And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
 Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
 And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”
— If one, settling a pillow by her head
 Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
  That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
 “That is not it at all,
 That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
 Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

 Shall I part my hair behind?Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Chapter 7: Luke 4:5

Chapter Text

And the Devil, taking him up into an high mountain,

shewed unto him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

— Luke 4:5

All Hell breaks loose the next morning.

Niffty has, apparently, been keeping a colony of more than three hundred rats in her room — and the prior evening, while Alastor was occupied with his interrogation, she had seen fit to set them loose in the hotel.

Charlie calls an emergency meeting after Angel Dust wakes the hotel with his — frankly childish — screeching about a rat in his bathtub.

They convene in the kitchen to assess the situation. Niffty, perched on the counter, snickers and openly admits to releasing the rats for what she terms their playtime.

A consensus quickly emerges. Niffty is Alastor’s responsibility; so, too, are the rats.

Alastor’s dominion over the radio is equal parts blessing and curse in his search and rescue operation. If he concentrates, he can hear the shuffling, sniffing, and squeaking of all 312 rats in the hotel — which, while helpful in locating the rats, makes it more difficult for him to plead ignorance regarding those that have wormed their way into the worst predicaments imaginable.

This is how Alastor finds himself on his knees, dismantling the toilet in Husker’s bathroom.

“Oh, Hell,” Angel Dust says — Alastor hadn’t heard him come in, focused as he is on loosening two pipes in the water line that appear to have somehow, in the six weeks since they rebuilt the hotel, rusted together.

Alastor grimaces. “I’m quite busy.”

“Sure,” Angel says. “Y’know, you ain’t gonna find a rat inside the pipes. They can’t live in there.”

“These ones can. I’ve come to the conclusion that these are not rats —they’re demons, sent from some lower ring of Hell to ruin us. They are relentlessly determined to evade me. And they. Don’t. Die.” Alastor heaves at the wrench with both hands — it budges perhaps an inch. He huffs.

“Huh.”

Alastor shakes out his aching hands and looks up at Angel. “Can I help you?”

“Oh — yeah, I was just wondering if my bathroom is clear, now, or if I should wait to shower? It’s just, I gotta get to work soon.”

Alastor listens — one of his ears twitches.

“It should be fine, if you’re quick,” he says.

“Right,” Angel says. He takes off at a run. “Thanks!”

Alastor raises a hand in acknowledgement and returns to his task. The pipes have begun to drip around the join, which complicates matters — Alastor did shut off the water before he began this accursed project, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still wet in there.

Footsteps behind him.

“Angel. If don’t leave me to my work, I’ll —” Alastor glances over his shoulder — “Oh. It’s you.”

Lucifer stands behind him, smiling sheepishly, his hands clasped behind his back. “I brought you a present,” he says.

With a flourish, he produces a rat in a golden cage. The creature is standing on its hind legs with its tiny hands wrapped around the bars. At the sight of Alastor, it shrieks in frustration — further evidence that the creatures’ disdain for him is somehow personal. Lucifer places the cage on the tile next to Alastor.

“Thank you,” Alastor says. “That leaves only —” he co*cks his head to the side and listens — “Two hundred and sixty-two. Including this one.” He inclines his head toward the plumbing and resumes the miserable task of loosening the pipes.

“You don’t know a thing about plumbing, do you?” Lucifer says.

Alastor huffs in irritation — Lucifer leans over him with a smug smile on his face. “Those pipes are heat welded,” Lucifer says. “You’ll be here all day if you insist on using a wrench. Allow me.”

Before Alastor can protest, Lucifer tugs off a glove and places his hand over the join. There is a sizzle, a puff of steam, a flare of heat across Alastor’s face — and the two pipes come apart effortlessly in Lucifer’s hand with a cartoonish and unnecessary pop. Lucifer withdraws, a smug smile on his face — his fingers leave molten orange prints behind on the metal, which fade away after a moment.

“Show-off,” Alastor grumbles. He sends a shadow tentacle in after the pipe rat — a tiny shriek echoes from the darkness. As the rat emerges, it makes a desperate grab for the edge of the pipe, kicking and screaming.

Lucifer snaps his fingers; the rat disappears and reappears inside the golden cage with its brother.

“Your assistance is unnecessary,” Alastor grumbles without any real heat — getting into those pipes on his own was pretty miserable.

Lucifer smiles like Alastor has just given him a compliment. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Now — I need to get back to it. I just made a breakthrough on a project I’m working on, and I have a meeting this afternoon with the other sins.”

“The project is a rubber duck.”

Lucifer frowns. “What else would it be?”

“Just confirming,” Alastor says. “Now, there’s another rat in the light fixture. So. If you don’t mind.”

“Oh! Sure. Good luck.” Lucifer backs out of the room, but pauses in the doorway. “I’ll — I’ll see you later? Tonight?”

“I will be back to collect on our deal once every single one of these infernal vermin are back in captivity.” Each word is punctuated by a further unfolding of Alastor’s antlers — he breathes deeply to bring them back under control. “I expect it will take several days. Enjoy your reprieve.”

“Right. Right. Of course. Okay. See you, Al.” Lucifer ducks out of the room.

Alastor stares after Lucifer in confusion for a long moment. Al — the abbreviation reeks of familiarity. The people closest to Alastor had called him that, when he was alive — does Lucifer share that fellowship now, due to the knowledge he’s acquired? The idea is disconcerting, so he puts it aside and returns to his work.

It takes Alastor all day to wrangle the first 104 rats. He delivers them into Niffty’s waiting hands, and she welcomes each one home by name.

He heads for the bar, exhausted, to collect the night’s highball from Husker; then he slips into the shadows and across the hotel to his room. He hangs his coat by the door. His ears twitch — on the other side of the wall is the unmistakable cacophony of a dozen displeased rats.

He peeks his head through the door. He blinks. Twelve pairs of irate red eyes regard him from twelve golden cages, stacked neatly on his doormat like the misguided offerings of a house cat.

A smile creeps across Alastor’s face. He closes the door gently — he’ll bring the rats to Niffty in the morning.

When Alastor wakes the next morning, three more rats have appeared outside his door.

It’s Saturday; Alastor finds Lucifer preparing his daughter’s pancakes in the kitchen. He leans against the doorframe, blocking Lucifer’s escape. His Shadow flits across the ceiling, unbidden, to examine Lucifer’s cooking. Lucifer doesn’t notice — he’s too focused on his work, humming an off-key tune that strikes Alastor as vaguely familiar, though he can’t quite place it.

“I must admit I’m curious,” Alastor says.

Lucifer yelps and nearly drops his spatula — he glances over his shoulder, and his expression darkens to find Alastor in the doorway.

Alastor smiles wickedly and makes a show of inspecting his cane. “While any are welcome to contribute their efforts to the operation of this hotel, you have always seemed occupied with more important matters.”

Alastor glances up. Lucifer is incensed; a golden blush has risen in his cheeks.

“So I do wonder,” Alastor says, “about this sudden interest in our rat problem.”

Lucifer drops the spatula in the pan and turns around. “I can’t believe you’re still claiming I don’t contribute when I literally rebuilt this hotel.”

“Semantics,” Alastor says. He takes a step closer to Lucifer. Then another. “And a futile attempt at redirection.”

Lucifer’s face is quite flushed — Alastor watches with growing amusem*nt as he opens his mouth to speak and closes it again.

“I just felt guilty,” Lucifer manages.

Alastor tilts his head. “For what?”

“The rats,” Lucifer whispers faintly.

“The rats?” Alastor says at full volume.

Lucifer jumps in surprise. It’s possible he didn’t intend for Alastor to hear — but Alastor, of course, hears everything.

“I created them,” Lucifer whispers. “I put them in the hotel so Niffty would have something to do —I just didn’t think there would be so many. I especially didn’t think Niffty would — keep them.” He shivers.

Alastor laughs. “Now you know — Niffty keeps everything.”

Lucifer glances up at Alastor with the barest hint of a smile on his face, then returns his attention to his pancakes.

Alastor supposes he should be irritated to learn that Lucifer is to blame for the vermin — but upon reflection, his true response is something more akin to amusem*nt.

“If the rats are your creation, I suppose it is only appropriate that you contribute,” he says. “If you wish to carry on with abandoning them on my doorstep, you have my blessing.”

“How generous,” Lucifer says dryly. “We’ll see.”

But when Alastor returns to his room that night, he finds another neat stack of rat cages by his door.

Two days pass — the following afternoon finds Lucifer at his workbench soldering LED lights onto the circuit board of his latest rubber duck. That morning, Lucifer had finally caved and used magic to create a record of “Memories of You” — it’s playing on his record player at low volume.

A knock at the door. Lucifer’s hand jerks one millimeter and he accidentally bridges two contacts. He sighs — that will be tedious to fix later — and returns the iron to its stand.

“Come in,” he says.

He turns expecting Charlie. Instead, Alastor stands in his room.

“Oh — it’s you,” Lucifer says.

“I’ve just returned the last of the rats,” Alastor says. “I thought we might resume my line of questioning, if you’re amenable.”

“Well, sure — I mean, I thought if you were going to come by, it would be tonight?”

Alastor raises an eyebrow. “I was unaware that my intrusion is only welcome in the dead of night.”

“Oh — no —” Lucifer’s face heats up — “that isn’t what I meant, I just thought —” he gestures to the sitting area. “Please, come in.”

Alastor takes the same armchair he did in his last interrogation. Lucifer hasn’t yet bothered to fix the torn velvet, and Alastor worries the shreds of fabric with his fingers.

Alastor’s ear twitches. “Louis Armstrong’s 1930 recording of ‘Memories of You?’”

“Oh — yeah, I. Uh. I guess it’s hard to spend a couple weeks attending shows in New Orleans and not — uh. Start to … like. Jazz.”

“This song was part of my band’s set for several years,” Alastor says.

The words I know nearly slip out before Lucifer bites them back. “Cool,” he says instead. He turns the music down with a wave of his fingers and takes the seat across from Alastor. “So, um — what do you want to know?”

“You said you can control what we see, if we’re in your soul,” Alastor says. “Does that mean I can control where we go if we enter mine?”

“Theoretically,” Lucifer says. In Lilith’s soul, there had never been anywhere to go besides Eden. “I do it by concentrating on the memory I want to land in. It helps to call back specific sensory details. But it’s always unpredictable; even the smallest emotional impulses will throw you off course. If the memory isn’t aligned with your feelings, or if you’re reminded of something else, the subconscious won’t cooperate.

“Then there’s the persistence of the memory — some hold on until they end naturally, others will flicker out after a few seconds. And then there’s the ones that linger past the memory’s natural end.”

Alastor seems to process this information behind his inscrutable smile — his eyes drop to Lucifer’s hands, clasped in his lap. “I’d like to try,” he says. He extends his hand; Lucifer’s heart does a little backflip in his chest.

“Sure,” Lucifer says.

He pulls off his glove and reaches for Alastor’s hand — in his excitement he almost forgets to prepare his own memory in case they end up in his head.

But he needn’t have worried — they’re back in Alastor’s yellow house on a summer afternoon.

Alastor stands in the center of the living room, wide-eyed, smiling only faintly and holding tightly to Lucifer’s hand — he is, Lucifer thinks, twice as impressed by his own house as he was by his first glimpse of Heaven. He’s also young — perhaps thirteen.

“Is this where you wanted to go?” Lucifer says.

“It’ll do,” Alastor says. His voice is warm and human — if higher in pitch — and he has even slipped back into his genuine New Orleans accent.

Lucifer smiles. He had liked this house.

Alastor releases Lucifer’s hand and flops down onto the couch.

Lucifer crosses the room to mask his disappointment at the loss of contact — he busies himself studying the row of photos on the mantel, most of them familiar from his first trip into Alastor’s past.

“This is different from the dream,” Alastor says at length. “I can remember my life after this. I know we’re still in Hell.”

“That’s because you’re awake,” Lucifer says. “If you were unconscious, it would be like it was before — you would be living out this memory as though for the first time, but with me here.” Lucifer turns his attention to the bookshelf — he holds up a cribbage set. “Wanna play?”

“Sure,” Alastor says.

Lucifer examines the board while Alastor shuffles the cards.

“Another question,” Alastor says as he deals the cards.

“Shoot.”

“When you entered my memories, why did you play along? Why the piano lessons — the trip to my house? Why not find my father and end him yourself?”

“Because.” Lucifer plucks two cards from his hand and places them in the kitty. “You were on the brink of death. If I disrupted the integrity of your memories myself, I didn’t think your soul could handle the shock. I needed to get close, keep you stable, and be nearby to protect you when you recognized the corruption on your own. Ah — fifteen for two.” Lucifer moves his peg up.

Alastor seems to digest this for a moment. “Last card for one,” he says. “Where were you between lessons?”

Lucifer opens his mouth to answer, realizes how insane the truth will sound, and closes his mouth again. The deal’s binding magic flares to life around his throat.

“Around,” Lucifer tries. The tendrils of magic tighten around his windpipe.

“Near enough to hear if you were attacked,” he tries again, and this time the magic lets him go.

Alastor raises his eyebrow judgementally — the cold expression is jarring on his thirteen-year-old human face. “How comforting.”

“I couldn’t actually get too far away, even if I’d wanted to,” Lucifer says. “If I left the bounds of your memories, I’d either wake up or get snapped back to you, like a rubber band — it’s not a fun feeling. And that thing could have gone after you at any time. I wasn’t going to have to face Charlie, knowing I’d let you get eaten just because I decided to — what — do some sightseeing?” He glances down to score his hand. “That’s 24 points.”

“Let me see,” Alastor says.

Lucifer lays his hand on the table. Bitch. He’s been alive for over eight thousand years — he can count, thank you.

“You’re right,” Alastor says.

“I know.” Lucifer smiles smugly and moves his peg. Then his voice turns serious. “I thought the monster was going to kill you the moment it laid eyes on you, that night when we played bridge — but it turned away, like it didn’t even see you. Then I realized we were less than a week out from the night you killed your father.”

“So you made sure to be there when I arrived home from Economy Hall.”

“Yep.”

A creak filters down the hall from Alastor’s parents’ room — Alastor sits up rigid in his seat.

“Al? Is that you?” Alastor’s mother says.

Alastor squeezes his eyes shut and says nothing.

The floorboards creak again.

Alastor reaches for Lucifer’s hand; Lucifer accepts it unthinkingly. Then Alastor silently stands and pulls Lucifer across the room to the entry hall. He reaches for the front door, but his hand freezes on the doorknob, stricken.

“I’m going out, Ma,” Alastor says in a strained voice.

He opens the door and pulls them both through.

Lucifer opens his eyes back in his room. Alastor is gripping Lucifer’s hand like a lifeline — Lucifer searches his face, but his smile gives away nothing. Hesitantly, Lucifer brings up his gloved hand — his fingertips brush the back of Alastor’s.

Alastor’s smile falters — he jerks his hand free of Lucifer’s grip as if burned, and his smile snaps back into place.

Lucifer lets his empty hands fall to his lap, searching for the right words to say.

“Cribbage was fun,” he says at last. “Maybe we can finish that game?”

He snaps his fingers and a golden cribbage set falls into his waiting hand.

“Perhaps another time,” Alastor says. He rises to his feet. “Thank you for the diversion. If you’ll excuse me, I should be getting back to work. We can continue our discussion at another time.”

Alastor dissolves into the shadows before Lucifer can make a move to see him out.

In the quiet, Lucifer can just make out Louis Armstrong’s low voice —

Though for years we’ve been far apart,

Time heals everything but my heart,

That still aches for you the same old way.

Alastor materializes in radio tower. His smile falls the instant he is alone. He presses his hands to his head. His breaths are quick and sharp — he is helpless, pinned by a rising wave of grief.

This is the same place where, weeks ago, he reformed dripping and half-dead after his fight with Adam. Until the moment Adam’s blow struck him, Alastor had been ignorant of the growing danger of ingratiating himself to Charlie Morningstar. He had thought himself immune to self-sacrifice. But like a boiled frog, he had grown accustomed to her kindness — to her childlike idealism. Now the damage is done. Alastor has not left, will not leave the hotel, despite that it nearly cost him his life.

Yet Alastor’s brush with Death taught him nothing. He has fallen again into the same trap. He believed Lucifer shared little in common with his daughter — that he was merely cold, obtuse, uncalculating, and easily controlled.

Now he understands. Charlie’s most dangerous quality — her ability to pinpoint the humanity within even the most wretched of sinners —

It comes from her father.

Alastor stumbles forward and rests his elbows against the radio console. Through the window, Pentagram City glimmers beneath him.

He has never minded Hell — he actually prefers it to his brief glimpse of Heaven, if only for the freedom it affords. Pentagram City has never felt like a prison; it is bright and sprawling and chaotic and so much bigger than New Orleans. After all these years, he holds a certain affection for the place.

But. It was one thing to wake, healed, and remember that his human life is over. It is quite another to hear his mother’s voice speaking to him after all this time, after everything he’s done — all the choices he’s made that she could never understand.

It is different to hear his mother’s voice and know that he will never see her again. That she lives on, permanently outside Alastor’s reach.

Because this is Hell, and he can never leave. Even if he could bring himself to give up the unmatched pleasure of violence — even if he could forswear the taste of blood — it would make no difference. Any far-fetched prayer of redemption would be better reserved for those a little less drenched in sin — a little more forgivable.

Alastor buries his face in his hands. A muffled scream of anguish escapes him. He takes a series of gasping breaths and lets his claws dig into his scalp — the pain is sharp and grounding.

He finally straightens; he glances down at his hands to find them trembling and wet with tears.

Then he laughs aloud at the pointlessness of mourning what was lost a century ago.

He now understands the sinners who take on a new name when they arrive in Hell. Alastor is a child who loves his mother, his best friend, and jazz — a human still governed by attachments.

The demon he has become in the intervening decades is a different entity.

Al? Is that you?

Is it? Who can say, anymore?

Sleep eludes Alastor that night. He dreads closing his eyes, so he stares at the ceiling — meanwhile, his restless Shadow haunts the corners of his room. Inching closer — testing the limits of his control.

He could let this go — he could stop questioning Lucifer. He should stop. It’s killing him.

It’s just that he can’t forget it’s possible — to be somewhere else.

The damage is already done.

So Alastor finds himself inexorably drawn back to Lucifer’s door. He knocks softly; Lucifer answers in his duck-patterned pajamas, rumpled, and Alastor is grateful when he does not question his presence, but rather steps aside and grants him entry.

“My apologies for waking you,” Alastor says, though he feels absolutely no remorse — it is the itching restlessness at the corners of his mind that keeps him from sleep, and Lucifer is the one who put it there.

It is difficult to force the question out — but Alastor lets it roll off his tongue anyway, like it’s effortless: “If you don’t mind,” he says, “I was wondering if we could go somewhere.”

Lucifer rubs the sleep from his eyes and flops down on his armchair. His arms are bare, his pale skin tinted orange by the firelight. “Where do you want to go?”

“What’s on offer?”

“I’m pretty well-traveled,” Lucifer says. “We could go anywhere.”

“Anywhere?”

“Pretty much.”

Alastor takes the seat across from him. “Anywhere, then,” he says. “Surprise me.”

Lucifer nods and rests his hand on his knee, palm up — Alastor reaches across the space between them and takes it.

When he opens his eyes, he’s staring down at the lone drop of his mother’s blood — the same image that has haunted him all evening. He drives his palms into his eyes, as if he could scrub the memory from his mind, and when he takes his hands away he’s back in Lucifer’s room.

He wishes Lucifer would mock him — drag them back onto familiar ground — but he doesn’t. He just says, calm and unaffected:

“Do you want to try again?”

So Alastor takes Lucifer’s hand a second time.

They are standing on the side of an asphalt road, on a grassy hill. It is night; spread out below them in the dark is an enormous city. Behind them is a row of futuristic suburban houses. Alastor glances down at himself — he’s human, wearing maroon sweatpants and a black T-shirt for Louis Armstrong’s band The Hot Five.

“Where are we?”

“Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles. 1999.” Lucifer steps off the road and sits in the grass.

Alastor follows him down, still holding Lucifer’s hand — wondering if he was supposed to have let go already. The contact is not entirely objectionable.

“It’s enormous,” Alastor says.

“Yep,” Lucifer says. “Los Angeles is many cities, all spilling across each other — and this is only part of it. There’s more behind us, in the valley, on the other side of these hills.”

“Are cities this bright on Earth?”

“These days? Yeah. They started getting pretty bright after about — oh — 1950?”

“And what’s that?” Alastor points off to the left. “Are those all cars?”

Lucifer shoots Alastor an amused glance. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have seen a highway before,” he says. “That’s the I-5. It goes from southern California all the way up to Seattle.”

Alastor is transfixed. “They’re like veins, and arteries,” he says.

He watches the cars in silence for a long while. A cool breeze rolls over the hills.

“It’s hard to say which is my favorite city on Earth,” Lucifer says softly, “but it might be Los Angeles. I think it’s because — with the heat, and the way it seems to go on forever — it reminds me of Pentagram City.” He glances at Alastor. “Isn’t that funny?”

“Why would it be?”

“Because.” Lucifer turns away, back to the city. “No one is supposed to like Pentagram City. It’s a punishment. Everything is terrible there. But when I spend too much time up here, on Earth — I miss it.”

“I understand,” Alastor says. “I think I would miss it, too, if I ever really left.”

Another long silence. A car drives by on the road behind them with the windows down. An unfamiliar modern song is playing on the radio — “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls, released 1998, originally from the soundtrack for the film City of Angels, later included on the band’s sixth studio album, Dizzy Up The Girl. Alastor must still have access to his powers here, in Lucifer’s memories, because he can still hear the song as the car drives away.

Alastor leans back and closes his eyes, his face tilted up to the sky.

An unquantifiable amount of time passes. The song ends — an advertisem*nt plays for a local car dealership — the radio host, who is called Delilah, takes a request from a caller.

“Hey,” Lucifer says. “I — uh —”

Alastor lets the connection drop; his head goes silent. “Hm?”

“I just wanted to say that — um?”

Alastor turns his face slightly to glance at Lucifer, amused. “You have a way with words, Your Majesty.”

“f*ck you,” Lucifer says, but there’s no heat to it. “I just wanted to say this is nice. That’s all.”

“It is,” Alastor says, before he can think better of it.

They remain there for a long time, watching the city — and when Alastor finally returns to his room, he falls immediately into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 8: Song of Solomon 2:3-6

Chapter Text

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved.

With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick with love.

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.

— Song of Solomon 2:3-6

Alastor returns the next three nights. Lucifer brings him first to Victorian-era London, where they explore the rainy streets under a conjured umbrella. The following night they visit a speakeasy in Chicago — the next they spend wandering the streets of modern Tokyo.

It is nothing like those nights, so many years ago now, when Lucifer would seek out Lilith’s warmth on the other side of the bed. When he and Lilith touched, they almost always ended up somewhere sleepy and serene — a meadow in the midst of Eden’s enormous, ancient trees, or a breezy morning on the deserted Mongolian steppe, in one of Lucifer’s memories of the age before humans spread across the Earth. Perhaps it had reflected a love built more on companionship than actual desire — the love that would bind any two souls alone at the desolate edge of the world. The love that hadn’t been strong enough, in the end, to hold them together — that had instead flickered out over the years into a warm but lonely friendship.

This is different.

The doors of the F train slide shut and the train lurches into motion — Lucifer glares up at Alastor, both of them gripping the pole in the center of the car.

They’re in New York in 2019. Alastor’s visit today was an unexpected surprise on a lazy morning with no meetings and nothing to do; they’d arrived here just before sunset and spent a while exploring the Lower East Side before they hopped on the train at 2^nd Avenue.

“You are f*cking unbelievable,” Lucifer says, too loud — a father seated between his two children casts him an affronted glance over the top of his phone. Lucifer continues at a whisper: “How the Hell can you be so sure this is a downtown train? You’ve never even been to New York.”

“I can be sure because I have made use of an advanced technique known as observation of our surroundings. I highly recommend it.”

“Okay, well, you’re wrong. I’m getting off at the next stop. Asshole.”

“This is a downtown train,” says a voice behind him, not unkindly — Lucifer turns around to find an elderly woman watching them, leaning her forearms against a cart of groceries. She inclines her head above her, at the monitor that lists the upcoming stops. “See? It’s going to Brooklyn.”

“Oh,” Lucifer says.

He shifts his weight on his feet as the train slows to a stop. The doors slide open; Lucifer stares out at the pillar reading Delancey/Essex and fights a losing battle against the flush rising on his face. After what feels like an eternity, the doors close again and the train accelerates out of the station.

“This is my first time in New York,” Lucifer says to the woman, as if it will in any way improve this situation. The woman glances up at him again and offers him a smile, but says nothing.

“No, it isn’t,” Alastor says behind him. “He’s been here many times before. He is the Devil, nearly as old as time itself — unfortunately he is notoriously absent-minded and plagued by the regrettable belief that he is always correct.”

The woman blinks at Alastor. The silence is broken by the deafening screech of the train’s brakes as it slows; the doors slide open before an enormous sign that reads East Broadway.

“Ah — this is our stop. Thank you for your assistance,” Alastor says. He steps fluidly off the train and turns down the platform, toward the exit.

Lucifer stares after him in shock for a long moment, then jolts forward. “Hey!” He trips off the train, quickly rights himself — “You can’t just tell people I’m the Devil!”

Alastor’s laughter echoes down the platform like music.

It isn’t as though this outcome was inevitable. That’s actually the worst part — the fact that it wasn’t inevitable. Lucifer is becoming increasingly certain that if he laid his hand on every sinner in Hell, this would still be the one that undoes him — Alastor Thomas, serial killer, shot in the bayou outside New Orleans at thirty-one. Pushy, controlling — the soul that would seek him out relentlessly. The soul that would defend Charlie with his life.

They wander south, through Chinatown. Alastor launches into a lengthy diatribe about the fact that there is a psychic on every block offering $5 palm readings. Eventually they find themselves on a bench between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. Night has fallen. Before them, the East River, and downtown Brooklyn beyond it; behind them, Chinatown, the eternal overpass beneath FDR drive, a group of elderly women dancing in synchronicity around a large boombox.

“May I see your right palm?” Alastor says.

Lucifer extends his hand to Alastor unthinkingly. Alastor takes it in his and turns it face-up, studying the lines on Lucifer’s palm — he runs his index finger lightly across one, and the touch is so unexpected that Lucifer chokes on a soft hum of pleasure. Alastor glances at him quizzically, but says nothing — he returns his attention to Lucifer’s hand and says, in a soft voice: “Your fate line begins joined with the life line. This indicates a clear sense of purpose from a young age.”

Alastor carries on reading Lucifer’s palm in this way for several minutes; Lucifer agrees mindlessly with every prediction no matter how inaccurate and keeps an iron grip on the bench’s armrest to hide how boneless he’s gone under Alastor’s gentle inspection. Alastor tilts Lucifer’s hand to catch the glow of a streetlight and narrows his eyes — it’s the same expression he wears when he makes a delicate incision with his scalpel, and Lucifer will have to unpack later why that image makes him shiver with desire.

It doesn’t even make sense — Alastor doesn’t believe in palm reading, or at least he didn’t when he was alive. He only learned the basics as a party trick. And last night, in a crowded train station in Tokyo, Lucifer reached for his hand and Alastor jerked away abruptly, like the touch was both unexpected and unwelcome.

Alastor trails his thumb over the head line, again, and Lucifer’s thoughts are washed out by static — it’s so good he feels it in his teeth. It’s agony. He never wants it to end.

“Your head line is deepest, but it’s broken,” Alastor says. “That makes sense. Your convictions have been met with resistance in the past; you bounce from project to project, impossible to pin down. And you think too much.”

“Probably,” Lucifer says.

The thing is that Alastor’s behavior is often unpredictable and incomprehensible — yet another reason Lucifer is haunted by him even when he’s not around. He has flipped Lucifer’s days upside-down — they are now spent in anticipation and analysis of Alastor’s evening visits.

“May I see your other hand?” Alastor says.

Lucifer could ask to read Alastor’s palms, after this — but he already knows. Alastor has a pianist’s hands, long and thin. He received three palm readings while he was alive, each with wildly different interpretations. The one common theme was that Alastor’s heart line is long, firm, and unbroken, an indicator of enduring romantic and family attachments. Maybe that’s why Alastor never put much stock in palmistry — in retrospect, his short human life was defined by loss and heartbreak.

The discordant sound of knocking on the door — Lucifer is wrenched from the memory and back to his room so violently he gets an instant headache.

“Dad? Are you in there?”

It’s Charlie.

Alastor glances at the door, and that’s all the warning Lucifer gets before he dissolves into the shadows.

Okay — so apparently it’s still a secret that they’ve been hanging out like this. That’s fine. Lucifer can work with that.

Lucifer takes a deep breath, wills his racing heart to slow, and ignores the pounding in his temples. “Be right there,” he says.

He crosses the room and opens the door. Charlie is on the other side, looking frantic — she glances at Lucifer’s hand on the door, and Lucifer realizes belatedly that he forgot to put his gloves back on. That’s fine — it’s fine. He vanishes the gloves from the sitting area with a discrete flick of his fingers and gestures for her to come in. She does, and closes the door behind her.

“What’s up?” he says. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Oh my gosh. Dad. You’re not going to believe this.” She crosses the room and sits in the armchair which Lucifer has begun to think of as Alastor’s chair — she casts a confused glance at the holes in the upholstery from Alastor’s claws, which Lucifer still hasn’t fixed — then leans forward with her elbows on the armrests.

“I wanted you to be the first to know. I — gosh, I can’t believe I’m about to say this. I just got out of a meeting with Heaven. And — Dad.” She leans forward with wide eyes. “Sir Pentious is up there. He got redeemed.”

Lucifer gapes at her; he grasps for words and finally manages to form a sentence after several false starts. “Is that … the snake guy? But it’s impossible.”

“Look.” Charlie pulls a photo out of the pocket of her suit jacket — it is unmistakably Sir Pentious in a new, Heavenly form.

Lucifer crosses the room and takes the photo from her hand. He stares at it, dumbstruck.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says breathlessly.

He tears his gaze from the photo to meet Charlie’s eyes. She’s smiling up at him, vibrating with excitement.

“Charlie.” He reaches for her — she accepts his hand and lets him sweep her up into an embrace. “You did it!”

He lifts her off the ground and twirls her around — the movement makes his headache worse, but he doesn’t mind because it makes her laugh. “You did it,” he says again. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you for all your help,” she says softly.

Lucifer sets her down. “Of course — always.”

“I’d better tell the others.” She crosses the room towards the door, hesitates — tucks her hair nervously behind her ear. “Before I go — I never thanked you for healing Alastor. I know you wouldn’t normally heal a random sinner like that. But we wouldn’t have gotten this far without him, and — I just don’t know what I would have done if he … So. Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. I wasn’t about to let him die after he risked his life for you.”

“How are you doing? You said that sometimes the aftermath can be … a lot?”

Ha. Charlie has a clearer idea of the cost than she did when she was a kid, but she still doesn’t know the half of it — and even if she did understand the finer details, Alastor has put him through more whiplash than any soul he’s ever known. His soul is like spilled wine — no amount of scrubbing will get him out. Lucifer likes jazz now. He misses New Orleans all the time.

He rubs a finger across his own palm reflexively, where Alastor touched him just a few minutes ago. He forces a bright smile.

“I’m fine,” he says. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Charlie.” Lucifer reaches up and rests a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t regret it. I would do it again without hesitation. I’m fine. I promise.”

Charlie smiles, and some of the anxiety in Lucifer’s stomach uncoils.

He holds out the photo of Sir Pentious for her to take. “You’d better go tell everyone the good news.”

“Oh! Yes! Thank you!” She takes the photo and turns to leave, but pauses in the doorway. “I’m glad you’re here, Dad,” she says softly.

“Me, too,” Lucifer says.

The door clicks shut behind her. Lucifer crosses the room and flops back onto his bed — his head is pounding, and it’ll take a nap at least to clear it. He snaps his pajamas on and stares up at the embroidered constellations on his bed’s golden canopy.

So — sinners can be redeemed. They aren’t barred from Heaven.

Not like he is.

He traces his thumb again across the head line.

Lucifer is absent for the remainder of the day. He skips dinner and the evening’s redemption exercise — an unusual deviation from routine. Tonight’s exercise is art therapy, and Charlie keeps getting up every few minutes to change the water for the paintbrushes. Every time she returns to the table, Alastor’s head snaps up — in his peripheral vision, she looks so much like Lucifer.

Perhaps Lucifer’s absence is related to his conversation with Charlie. Or perhaps it relates to today’s revelation that redemption is possible. Surely the news would be cause for celebration rather than withdrawal — and yet.

Alastor wastes no time heading up to Lucifer’s room when the exercise ends. He knocks firmly; Lucifer opens the door almost immediately.

“I hope my presence is not unwelcome,” Alastor says.

Lucifer smirks. “Since when has that stopped you?”

Alastor closes the door behind him. The lamp on Lucifer’s workbench is turned on, and the faint smell of solder hangs in the air.

“You were absent today,” Alastor says. “I wondered if you’d prefer to be alone this evening.”

“Oh — no. Not at all.” Lucifer rubs his thumb against the palm of his hand. He isn’t wearing his gloves. “I was just tired, is all — I get these, like …” He glances up nervously. “Never mind. It’s complicated.”

Alastor sits in his armchair and crosses his legs. “I’m in no rush, Your Majesty.”

Lucifer takes the chair opposite him and tugs off his gloves. “It’s just that I’m the Devil, right? Like, the equal opposite of God? But physically I’m still just a seraphim — and sometimes the power is too much for my body to keep up with, and I just … have to lay down for a while.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Getting yanked out of that memory this morning gave me a pretty bad headache — it finally went away about an hour ago.”

“Ah — yes,” Alastor says. “The interruption was certainly an unpleasant end to a pleasant evening in New York. Well. There’s no need for us to visit a memory tonight, if you’d prefer to stay here.”

Alastor snaps his fingers and summons his own cribbage set; Lucifer glances up, surprised, then smiles and summons a deck of cards. Alastor sets up the pegs as they were when they left off, and Lucifer deals the first hand.

Alastor’s hand is good — very good. He hides his genuine smile behind a false one. “I had thought your absence might have been related to Charlie’s news.”

Lucifer winces. “I guess… I also needed some time to process that.” He worries the cards in his hand. “She didn’t say anything about me not being there, right? I — this is fantastic news and I don’t want her to think—”

Alastor raises a hand. “No, she’s quite alright. Regardless, I quite doubt anything could sour her mood today after the revelation. Quite the surprise, don’t you think?”

“Yes and no,” Lucifer says. “Last card for one. Do I think Charlie is capable of achieving the impossible? Absolutely. Did I expect my father to pay this hotel or its residents any mind? Absolutely not. Last card for one — again.”

A faint smug smile crosses Lucifer’s face, which makes it all the more satisfying when Alastor counts his hand. “Thirty-two points,” he says.

“You’re kidding.”

“Score it yourself, if you must.”

Lucifer plucks the cards from Alastor’s hand and studies them intently. He frowns, then tosses them back down on the table.

“f*ck you,” he says.

Alastor laughs and moves his peg up ahead of Lucifer’s, then collects the cards to reshuffle the deck.

Several more rounds pass. Alastor pulls ahead of Lucifer by a wide margin; soon Lucifer is in danger of getting skunked. Alastor drinks up every curse, insult, and petulant huff — by the final round, Alastor is so full of warm joy, his smile is completely genuine.

Then Alastor reaches across the table to deal what is likely to be the last hand, and his fingers brush against Lucifer’s —

They tumble forward and land in grass. It’s night; Alastor looks around and realizes they’re in City Park, at the base of a tree on the edge of the racetrack.

“Sorry about that,” Lucifer says. He pushes himself to his feet. “Where are we?”

Then it hits Alastor which night this is. He’s twenty-one and trespassing in City Park. He yanks Lucifer back down; he cups the back of Lucifer’s head with his hand to keep him from hitting it on the tree trunk.

“Hey!” Lucifer says, too loud — Alastor clamps his other hand down over his mouth.

Lucifer stops struggling and goes very still — the same curious response he had to Alastor’s touch this morning in New York. Interesting — but this is neither the time nor the place to test his reaction further. Alastor leans in to whisper in his ear.

“Don’t you remember?” Alastor whispers. “We’re in City Park. You’re going to get us caught.”

Alastor holds him there for a moment, studying the faint golden blush on Lucifer’s cheekbones. Then Lucifer’s eyes widen in realization, and his face breaks into a smile under Alastor’s hand.

Alastor releases him.

“Let’s do it,” Lucifer whispers. “Where’s Hollis?”

As if on cue, Hollis emerges from the bushes — he zeroes in on Lucifer with obvious wariness. “Who is this guy?” he says.

“This is Lucian,” Alastor whispers. “He’s a friend of mine — he followed us here. He’d like to join us.”

Lucifer extends a hand to Hollis. “It’s a pleasure to trespass with you.”

Hollis raises an eyebrow, but accepts the handshake. “All right, you can come — but if we get caught, you’re distracting the cops.”

“Of course,” Lucifer says, deadly serious. “I am the stuff of nightmares.”

Hollis stifles a laugh at that and turns to Alastor. “I like this guy,” he says, and Lucifer’s smile widens.

“Lead the way,” Alastor whispers to Hollis, even though he already knows. They snuck in through the northwest entrance — now they move south, darting silent and swift through the trees, sticking to the shadows. They cross through a narrow strip of trees between two parking lots — finally, the Spanish tiled roof of the public pool’s shelter comes into view. The pool is surrounded by a chain-link fence and illuminated by a single mercury vapor streetlight.

Hollis whoops and sprints ahead — Lucifer laughs, right on his heels. Alastor watches them go with a smile on his face. They scale the chain-link fence together. The instant Lucifer’s feet hit the concrete, he pulls his shirt off over his head and kicks off his shoes — in the blue light of the mercury lamp, the pale skin of his human form is faintly luminescent, like his eyes in the dark. Then he drops his trousers, and he and Hollis jump in the pool in their underwear.

Alastor scales the fence. He is suddenly nervous — even though it occurs to him now that Lucifer must already know this body, its awkward joints and sharp angles — and how foolish it is to be self-conscious of a human form that hasn’t belonged to him for a hundred years.

Does he really want to do this? Jump into this pool, nearly naked, with his childhood best friend and the Devil?

He glances up at Lucifer, who is swimming away from Hollis — Hollis catches him and shoves him under the water. He glances up at Alastor.

“Come on, Al,” he whispers.

Lucifer pops up, spluttering, and pushes his hair out of his eyes.

“Oh, you’re gonna get it now,” he says, and reaches for Hollis, who kicks away.

Yes. He wants to.

He unbuttons his clothes, leaves them in a pile next to Hollis’s and Lucifer’s, and jumps in, letting the water take him under.

Later, he and Lucifer sit on the edge together while Hollis floats on his back on the other side of the pool. Alastor watches the reflections in the chlorinated water — blue on blue.

“I’m glad you and Hollis came to a truce,” Alastor says solemnly. “I was beginning to fear the naval warfare would never end.”

Lucifer barks out a laugh. “Yeah, I can see why you two are close. He’s great.”

Something in Alastor’s chest tightens uncomfortably at that. He can’t place the feeling, so he shelves it for later. “I thought he might remember you, from when you healed me.”

Lucifer’s smile tightens, turning rueful. “Ah — yeah, no. It doesn’t really work like that. We’re not actually altering the memories, so every time I come in, it’s like, poof!” He makes an exploding gesture with his hands. “Blank slate.”

“The memory of Hollis acts just like him.”

Lucifer nods. “That’s one of my favorite things about human souls — they get all tangled up with each other while they’re alive. Time isn’t really as linear as humans like to believe — no matter how far apart you are or how much time passes, a piece of Hollis’s soul will always be tethered to yours.”

A gentle splash on the opposite side of the pool. They both glance up; Hollis has spread his arms, and the ripples from the movement travel across the pool and lap at their feet where they dangle in the water. “But if it’s a link to his real soul,” Alastor says, “why wouldn’t it be impacted by what happens here?”

Lucifer shrugs. “That’d be a question for the big guy upstairs. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe it’s because the Hollis in Heaven doesn’t even know I exist. Beyond, I guess, the Bible stuff.” He pulls his legs out of the pool and tucks his feet against the edge of the pavement. “But I don’t know how it all works, really. Just speaking from experience.”

Alastor hums and they lapse into silence.

“You know, now that we’ve done this together so many times, you can probably learn to do it on your own. Lilith used to. It’d take practice, but …” Lucifer tilts his head and casts a sidelong glance at Alastor, his expression neutral. “They’re your memories. You don’t need me here, if you want to visit this place.”

“Perhaps I will try — but I don’t mind the company,” Alastor says. “Though I do apologize if you would’ve preferred to finish our game.”

“I bet you would’ve,” Lucifer says, “but it suits me just fine to call that game a draw — and I missed New Orleans.”

A breeze blows through the trees.

“Between your travels of Earth and the other souls you’ve visited, there must be many places you miss.”

“Not like this,” Lucifer says. “It’s different. I think it’s because …” He trails off.

A long moment passes and Alastor realizes Lucifer isn’t going to continue. He turns to face him; he’s leaning back, his glowing blue eyes trained on the sky.

“What?” Alastor says.

“You always paid attention,” Lucifer says softly. “You would stop to watch the sunset. To look up at the buildings outlined against the sky. The yellow glowing windows. And the bayou.”

Alastor sucks in a breath — Lucifer turns to him. His wet hair still clings to his forehead, and his eyes are wide.

“Sorry,” he says. “That’s probably a weird thing to tell somebody.”

“It’s fine,” Alastor says.

Lucifer’s gaze skitters away to where Hollis is floating on the other side of the pool.

“This is about how long you stayed here before,” Lucifer says. “Should we get him and get out of here before we get caught?”

Alastor gets to his feet and walks around the pool to collect Hollis, still struggling to place the tangled feelings in his chest.

Alastor and Charlie hold their weekly hotel management meetings in their shared office on the third floor of the hotel. One side of the office belongs to Alastor, the other to Charlie. Alastor keeps his half of the space meticulously organized —his desk is always clear apart from a single legal notepad. Behind his desk is a bookshelf where he keeps an abridged version of his record collection, and a phonogram on a small table. A painting of the bayou hangs on the wall; in the center of the frame, a deer looks back over its shoulder, gazing directly at the viewer.

Charlie keeps her half of the office in a state of perpetual, ever-evolving chaos — at present, her desk is cluttered with stickers, gel pens, and stationery for the hand-written thank-you notes she has taken it upon herself to offer the sinners who come by to tour the hotel. On this particular Saturday morning, Charlie is twirling a pink gel pen between her fingers, waxing poetic about the redemptive potential of expanding the hotel to include a swimming pool.

The wall behind Charlie’s desk is a mess of tacky motivational posters; Alastor is studying the one that reads “Mistakes Are Proof That You Are Trying.” One corner droops slightly where it has come unstuck from the wall.

The office door flies open — Charlie yelps and drops her pen.

Lucifer holds a tray aloft. “Breakfast!”

“Thanks, dad!” Charlie says. She leans down and fishes under her desk for the lost pen.

Lucifer sets the tray on the only available surface — Alastor’s desk. He hands a plate of pancakes to Charlie and brings his own to a conjured chair in the center of the room.

“I figured you wouldn’t want pancakes,” Lucifer says.

It takes Alastor a moment to realize this is directed at him. He picks up the third plate on the tray. Eggs and bacon in the shape of a smiling face.

“What’s this?”

“Eggs and bacon,” Lucifer says, as if that weren’t obvious. “In the shape of a smiley face.”

Alastor supposes the question he should have asked was why. He stares into his eggs as if they hold the answer.

“Do you like it?” Lucifer says.

It is only at this moment, with Lucifer’s question hanging in the air, that Alastor notices the anomalous twist that is now woven into the fabric of his afterlife.

“It’ll do,” Alastor says.

Somehow, against all expectations, Alastor has befriended the Devil.

Chapter 9: Job 13

Chapter Text

Only do not two things unto me: then I will not hide myself from thee.

Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.

Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.

How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.

— Job 13

The days pass. On one slow afternoon, Alastor slips out of the hotel for tea with Rosie. He returns as the violet of evening bleeds across the horizon. The bar is deserted — Husker has vacated his post.

There is a low, menacing chuckle behind him. Alastor turns, sighs in fond exasperation, and plucks Niffty from her perch above the doorframe by the back of her dress.

“Alastor’s home!” Niffty screeches.

“Great!” Charlie calls from the next room. “Will you ask him to join us in the dining room, please?”

“Charlie wants you in the dining room,” Niffty says.

“So I hear,” Alastor says. He sets Niffty down and she scampers off — Alastor follows.

The hotel’s residents are gathered at the table, mid-meal; a plate has been set out for him between Charlie and Angel Dust. It is piled high with what he can only hope is spaghetti — he notes with resignation that everyone at the table is ignoring their food, apart from Niffty, who has clambered back up onto her chair and is digging in with reckless abandon.

“Okay!” Charlie claps her hands together. “Now that everyone’s here, I can finally share the good news!”

Angel grips the edge of the table with four hands. “I’m unbanned from the ice cream machine?”

“Absolutely not,” Vaggie says. “After what happened last time, you are never touching that thing again.”

“Neither am I,” Husk mutters.

Angel frowns and slumps back into his chair.

“Actually, the news is a little more exciting than the ice cream machine!” Charlie says. “Emily reached out to me, and Heaven has invited my dad and I to visit Sir Pentious! While we’re there, they want to meet with us about the redemption exercises we do at the hotel.”

Vaggie smiles. “Charlie, that’s amazing!”

“I know!” Charlie says. “Maybe they’re finally taking us seriously.”

The table erupts with chatter — but Alastor is hardly listening. He is looking at Lucifer across the table. He has gone very still, his expression neutral apart from the faintly downturned corners of his mouth — his shoulders are drawn inward, slightly, and Alastor is reminded of the blanket he wrapped around himself when he was crying, in the memory Alastor caught only a glimpse of.

A disquieting emotion churns inside of Alastor. He himself has certain memories he would rather run from.

“It’s interesting that they requested Lucifer’s presence,” he says lightly.

“Yeah, I was a little surprised,” Charlie says. She turns to Lucifer. “Emily seemed convinced that you were the reason for our success, even though I explained that you only joined us after Sir Pentious was already redeemed.”

“Well, if they’re sure they want me there,” Lucifer says, and the thread of tension in his voice only strengthens Alastor’s assessment.

“Hold on. Lucifer — are you sure you can spare the time? I’d be happy to attend in your stead,” Alastor says — and then the gears in his mind come to a screeching halt as he processes what he’s just done. What he’s just volunteered to do. He scrambles for a way to back down and still save face, but comes up empty — when that fails, he searches for an explanation to smooth over his uncharacteristic lapse in self-interest. What dynamic was he meant to have with the King of Hell, again? Ah, yes — antagonism. “Besides, if Heaven asks any pertinent questions about our operations, I’m sure they’d prefer accurate answers, as opposed to whatever meaningless folderol you might see fit to share.”

Not his most convincing barb, but Charlie frowns anyway. Lucifer, however, seems to see through the deception and recognize the olive branch Alastor has extended. His expression is pure, unfiltered gratitude.

“I, uh — yes,” Lucifer says, too quickly. “That’s fine with me. I don’t mind at all. I’ve got lots of — uh — stuff on my plate already. Thanks.” Then he tacks on, as an afterthought: “Asshole.”

So Alastor’s interpretation was correct — and now there’s nothing else to be done but see this through. He widens his smile.

Charlie’s mouth snaps shut and she blinks in surprise. “Okay, then! It’s settled,” she says after a moment of floundering. “A week from today, Alastor and I will go to Heaven.”

Alastor clenches and unclenches his fists beneath the table. “I look forward to it,” he says.

Lucifer lasts scarcely five more minutes at the table before he mutters something about a project he needs to get back to and slinks from the room.

Alastor watches him go. There is a tightness in Alastor’s chest, one that is completely separate from the newfound dread of his imminent trip to Heaven. No — this is somehow related to the sight of Lucifer across the table, frozen in shock — to the barely-concealed tension in his voice.

“I had best be going,” Alastor finds himself saying. “Thank you for the lovely meal.”

He drops his napkin on the table and leaves the room — once he’s out of sight, he dips into the shadows.

So it seems his self-sacrificial episode in the battle with Adam may not, in fact, have been an anomaly — it may have been the beginning of a new and troubling pattern of behavior. Why this surge of protectiveness? Alastor has always been defensive of his allies, but the Devil hardly warrants such behavior.

He reforms and realizes belatedly that he has not gone to the radio tower — he’s standing at Lucifer’s door. He raises his fist to the door, hesitates —

Well. He and Lucifer have only recently settled into a mutually beneficial routine, and it won’t do to disrupt it now. So he knocks.

Lucifer portals back to his room the instant he is alone.

He falls to his knees on the carpet. His breath comes in trembling, heaving gasps. Phantom pain trails down his wings — he unfolds them from his back, wraps them around his body, and runs his hands over each one to verify that it is whole, real, and unbroken.

Heaven has never invited him back before. Never. How many nights had Lucifer lain awake praying for Heaven to take him back — pleading with a God that had long since abandoned him?

All these years, and it was only in the wake of Charlie’s announcement that he had finally realized: he never wants to see that place again. His memories of Heaven are different — they’re his. But to go back there now, to see with his own eyes how his home has changed without him —

No. It’s over. He can’t go back. Never again.

There is a soft knock on the door.

Alastor — it must be.

Lucifer wipes his eyes and gets to his feet. He doesn’t want Alastor to see him like this — but it occurs to him that Alastor probably isn’t thrilled about a trip to Heaven, either, given that his mother and Hollis are both up there — and in that light it feels a little like Alastor just dove in front of a bullet for him. Did he really do that? Why would he do that? Lucifer can’t just leave the guy standing in the hall.

He cracks open the door. Alastor is there, and when he catches sight of Lucifer’s face his brows draw together slightly in concern. Lucifer steps aside and lets him in.

Alastor pulls the door shut behind him. “I assumed you didn’t want to go,” he says. “Was my assumption correct?”

Lucifer forces a smile and shrugs. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. He feels exposed — his wings are rumpled, trailing limply behind him, and it must be obvious he was just crying.

They stand there a beat longer than is comfortable, watching each other. Alastor raises a hand toward Lucifer, hesitates — but Lucifer’s self-control is questionable even in his strongest moments, and he steps forward until Alastor’s palm is pressed against his chest.

Alastor inhales sharply, and his smile falters until it’s more the memory of one — his lips faintly upturned, at the corners, out of habit — and just as Lucifer is beginning to wonder if he has done something terribly wrong, Alastor tugs him forward into a clumsy embrace. His hand falls over the base of one of Lucifer’s wings, and Lucifer sighs in utter contentment.

A clap of thunder. An onrush of pouring rain.

Lucifer pulls away, shielding his eyes with his hand, and looks around.

They’re standing at the side entrance of the Pythian in the French Quarter. Above them, a vertical neon sign reads PARKING; it spills red light across the wet cobblestone street. Lucifer is already soaked, and Alastor is no better — water beads along the curls of his human hair, and he’s looking down at Lucifer with a gentle smile on his face.

Alastor inclines his head toward the side door. “Shall we?”

Lucifer nods and follows Alastor inside and up the stairs to the dance hall on the top floor. The double-height windows that surround the room are streaked with rain, which beats a melody on the rooftop in place of music. The place is packed; Alastor guides him through the crowd with a hand between his shoulder blades. His thumb brushes the back of Lucifer’s neck, and the sound of surprise Lucifer makes is swallowed by the hum of conversation.

There is only one empty stool at the bar. Lucifer takes it — it puts him at eye level with Alastor, who stands close at his side. He leans around Lucifer, resting his elbow on the bar, and waves at the bartender.

“One highball, and —” he glances at Lucifer, then back to the bartender — “can you make a Roffignac?”

“You got it,” the bartender says.

There’s applause near the stage — Lucifer looks up and sees Hollis on stage with his band, the one he joined after he left the Moonlight Orchestra. He recognizes this performance instantly — it is one of the last times Hollis ever performed, in the final weeks of his life. He and Alastor are both twenty-six.

Lucifer glances at Alastor, ready to head back out into the rain if necessary — but Alastor is watching Hollis with a content smile on his face.

Hollis holds his trumpet in the air and smiles. He leans in toward the microphone.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The band and I are sure happy to be here,” he says. “I’m Hollis Fisher, and this is my band. We’d like to play some music for you tonight, if it’s all right.”

More applause; Hollis raises the trumpet to his lips and begins to play.

The bartender returns with their drinks. Alastor presses a raspberry-topped co*cktail into Lucifer’s hand.

Lucifer takes a sip. “It’s good,” he says. “You had these when you were alive.”

Alastor nods. “I thought you’d like it. The Roffignac was a favorite of mine. I haven’t much taste for them now — too sweet.”

Lucifer takes another sip, still leaning into Alastor’s space. “The whiskey’s a little watered down,” he says.

“That’s Prohibition for you. Now — watch.” He points with his highball in the direction of the stage.

Lucifer straightens in his seat and turns back to the stage just as Hollis enters a trumpet solo. His eyes are squeezed shut in concentration — in these later performances, Hollis masterfully channels every bit of his exuberant personality into the tone of his instrument.

“Wow,” Lucifer whispers.

The solo ends; Hollis lowers the trumpet with a bright smile. A group approaches the bar behind Alastor; Alastor moves in closer until his chest is pressed against Lucifer’s shoulder. “He always was the better musician,” Alastor says softly.

“He plays as well as an angel — but differently,” Lucifer says, and means it — because the expressiveness of his style more than makes up the deficit of his expert but human technique.

Alastor hums. Another song begins, and they slip into silence; Alastor still doesn’t move away.

“Why didn’t you try to join him up there?” Lucifer says, even though he already knows the answer — he likes to hear Alastor explain these things in his own words.

“Hollis lived with his parents all his life; I did not. I lived alone and provided for myself. Hollis improved, and improved, and I couldn’t afford to follow him — I couldn’t spend the time with my instrument to match his skill. I still played with the Moonlight Orchestra when we were able to book venues that paid well, usually the white dance halls. But by this time I had already set my sights on the radio. The new medium would still leverage my knowledge of music, but it paid better. I had an apprenticeship at the telephone company — I had ingratiated myself to the founder of WWL, a man by the name of Mr. Cummings.” Alastor takes a sip of his drink. “I love the radio, but had my financial circ*mstances be different, I can’t say if I would have chosen it over performing up there, with him. I suppose we’ll never know.”

“Do you still play?”

“When the mood strikes.”

They lapse into silence; Alastor turns and leans his elbows on the bar. His left arm settles behind Lucifer, just near enough that Alastor’s fingers reach out to trace faint nonsense patterns on Lucifer’s lower back.

Lucifer takes a trembling breath and keeps absolutely still — first unable to comprehend that it’s happening, then unable to comprehend why.

Alastor’s tiny, subtle touches unravel Lucifer’s brain one thread at a time. In the silence between two songs, Alastor scoots his elbow forward and presses his palm flat against Lucifer’s back. Lucifer’s next breath is more a faint sigh of pleasure — Alastor abruptly draws his hand away, and Lucifer’s face heats at the possibility that he was heard.

Then the set ends. Hollis steps down off the stage and cuts through the crowd toward Alastor. He pats Alastor’s shoulder. “Good to see you — glad you could make it.”

“Of course,” Alastor says. “It was a lovely show.”

“Thanks,” Hollis says. He casts a confused glance at Lucifer.

“I’m a friend of Alastor’s.” Lucifer extends his hand. “Lucian Magne.”

They stay for a few drinks with the band. Hollis warms up quickly once Lucifer has the chance to crack a few jokes. Then they tumble back out onto the wet cobblestone street together. Hollis and Alastor are a little drunk — Lucifer is still completely sober.

The night is warm, and the downpour of rain has settled into a faint mist — they stand beneath a streetlight and wait for the streetcar to Gentilly in companionable silence. When it comes, it’s completely empty; Hollis and Lucifer sit next to each other and Alastor stands next to them.

“Where do you live, Lucian?” Hollis asks.

“Vieux carré,” Alastor says. He smirks down at Lucifer. “He’s a bellhop at the Hotel Monteleone.”

Asshole. Lucifer narrows his eyes at him. “Just until I can find something more permanent,” he says. “I’m an architect by trade. I just moved here from Denver.”

“Why? Do you have family in the area?”

“Something like that.”

Lucifer is sick of small talk — he would so much rather talk to Hollis about literally anything else. There is a brief silence before Alastor engages Hollis in a spirited analysis of the songs from the new Broadway musical Girl Crazy, which have quickly made their way onto Alastor’s radio show and the set lists of every jazz group in the city.

Lucifer watches them talk and burns with envy — though he doesn’t know what he’s envious of, exactly. He has nothing to say about Girl Crazy, so the conversation proceeds without his input; he has the inexplicable urge to climb over Hollis’s lap, to get between them and say something like, hey — I’m still here — why don’t we talk about something I give a sh*t about, like Louis Armstrong, or ducks, or the f*cking violin.

The streetcar jolts, and Alastor grabs the back of the bench to keep his balance. His fingers brush Lucifer’s shoulder and Lucifer’s irritation sputters out like a punctured tire. He glances up at Alastor, who is smiling softly, looking at Hollis with delight — actual delight — in his eyes. Then he turns that same gaze onto Lucifer.

“Lucian has just begun listening to jazz, since moving here,” Alastor says.

Hollis turns to Lucifer. “Really? Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Lucifer says.

Hollis and Alastor both beam at him, and it hits Lucifer all at once that despite the cost, there is nowhere in time or space he would rather be than here in this streetcar with these two humans.

“What are your favorites?” Hollis says.

“Louis Armstrong,” Alastor says softly, before Lucifer can answer.

“Yeah,” Lucifer says. “I’ve also recently discovered Kid Ory.”

“They’re both great,” Hollis says. “Al and I saw Louis live a few times, before he made it big — for a while we all ran in the same circles.”

Four performances. Lucifer remembers each one well. “I bet that was incredible,” he says.

“Louis is definitely in my top ten,” Hollis says. “Okay, so — Alastor, have you already shown him your Bing Crosby recordings?”

“I have not,” Alastor says. Then, to Lucifer — “I have them in my collection. I can bring them the next time I come by.”

“Sure,” Lucifer says. He can borrow Alastor’s memory of the songs, but his Louis Armstrong record has taught him that it’s different to hear the music with his own ears.

They walk Hollis all the way up to the porch of his house.

“It was nice to meet you, Lucian,” Hollis says. “Don’t be a stranger.”

Lucifer’s stomach sinks. “Likewise,” he says. “You’re great company.”

“Hollis,” Alastor says.

Hollis turns to Alastor, and Alastor pulls him into a tight hug — Hollis’s eyes widen, and his hands hover uncertainly in the air before he tentatively brings them around Alastor’s waist. Alastor grips the back of Hollis’s suit jacket desperately, his eyes squeezed shut, his smile heartbroken — Lucifer looks away, studies the peeling paint on the Fishers’ house number. Eventually, Alastor lets go.

Hollis laughs nervously. “What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Alastor says lightly. “Just take care.”

“You, too,” Hollis says.

Then Hollis goes inside, and Lucifer follows Alastor down the sidewalk. Alastor’s yellow house comes into view — the windows are dark, and the flower pots where Alastor’s mother once grew flowers and herbs are empty. By unspoken agreement, Alastor and Lucifer pass the house and wander deeper into Alastor’s neighborhood.

The question spills out before Lucifer can stop it:

“Did you ever love anyone again, after Hollis?”

Alastor’s face goes very still.

Abruptly, Lucifer recalls Alastor’s second kill.

It was sloppy, unpracticed. The man died before Alastor intended him to, didn’t suffer as much as he deserved — Lucifer thinks of Alastor’s hands, sticky with blood, clumsy and trembling — of Alastor weeping openly, twisting the knife, how the monster screamed — and how it was the same scream that had been building up inside of him since before he identified Hollis’s body, since before he ever helped his mother scrub her own blood from her Sunday dress — the scream that has always echoed down the shadowy hallways of Alastor’s soul. Screaming at the unfairness of it all — how much it hurts.

The man stops struggling too soon, goes limp too soon, the final rattling exhalation leaves his lungs too soon. And Lucifer hears it now — Alastor sobbing, gasping, dropping the knife, the way it clatters on the concrete floor of the abandoned shack he commandeered for this purpose — how the wind and the stars and the frogs and cicadas all go silent as the man dies, too soon. Alastor brings his bloody hands up into his hair and barks out a single, hysterical laugh because there is no one left to scream for him — and then Alastor screams, and the sound is like the wailing of a creature doomed and dying.

And, Lucifer thinks, in that sound is the full breadth of humanity’s potential. The tender, limitless devotion. The cruel twist of the knife.

“For many decades,” Alastor says softly, and Lucifer is wrenched back to New Orleans, to the silent street — “I thought that part of me had died with him.”

Lucifer says nothing. The mist has thickened into a light rain. Ahead of them, a streetlight flickers.

“But things don’t really die, do they? And after all these years, I think it would be more accurate to say that it wouldn’t be easy, anymore. It would require effort,” Alastor says, “and I simply haven’t tried.”

“I get that,” Lucifer says softly.

He walks a few more steps until he is bathed in the glow of the streetlight, then turns around to meet Alastor’s narrowed eyes.

“It’s been nice, getting to befriend Hollis,” Lucifer says. “I’m glad we can at least visit him here.”

Alastor frowns, and the memory dissolves — they are standing next to the door of Lucifer’s room. Alastor takes a step back. In the silence, Lucifer suddenly feels very wrong-footed.

“That’s not what this is,” Alastor says. “We can’t visit him. Not ever.”

“I — well — yeah, I get that, but you know what I —”

“You are not his friend,” Alastor says with disgust. “You’ve never even met him.”

Lucifer’s throat tightens. “Al, I didn’t mean to —”

“No.” Alastor’s tone is cold and tinged with real anger. “You cannot know him from these century-old memories. Hollis is a stranger to you. Pretending otherwise is delusional, twisted, and cruel.”

Lucifer steps back like he’s been slapped.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” he says, and hates the way his voice trembles — hates the way he feels like he’s about to cry in front of Alastor, again. “You think I don’t know that no matter how much I care for Hollis, he’ll never know I exist? Do you think it’s fun for me to share all your memories of him, but every time I see him, I’m introduced as a stranger?” Lucifer blinks back tears. “This f*cking sucks! That’s the whole point! That’s why this is a punishment!”

Alastor freezes. “What punishment?”

Silence hangs in the air.

Alastor’s anger vanishes, replaced by confusion. “What is your punishment, and how does it relate to the way you healed me?”

The green magic of their deal snakes around Lucifer’s throat, compelling him to answer. He groans in exasperation and opens his mouth to speak.

“I —” he says, before a chain of blinding white light pops into existence around his neck, searing his skin. It burns — it’s excruciating — but he is unable to cry out.

Alastor takes a hesitant step forward. “Lucifer?”

“I can’t,” Lucifer manages, and then the white chain tightens and closes off his windpipe. He closes his eyes and wills himself to remain calm — after a long moment, when he doesn’t try to speak, the chain fades away. Maybe if he just —

The binding magic of his deal with Alastor flares back to life, which is definitely not good. Lucifer sucks in one desperate breath before the deal compels him to try to speak. He grits his teeth, resists as long as he can, but the green magic pries his jaw open. The moment the words are on his lips, the white chain reappears and grips his neck in a stranglehold.

“Who is the other deal with?” Alastor says with rising alarm.

Lucifer can’t answer — he just falls to his knees. He hadn’t actually known his father’s binding magic worked this way — but he supposes it serves him right for agreeing to a verbal deal with no safeguards. Now that Alastor has voiced the question, Lucifer is bound to answer. This is exactly the kind of thing the scholars might have warned him about.

Lucifer closes his eyes and waits for the chain to vanish. He can hold his breath longer than most creatures — but even his lungs are beginning to burn. He vaguely registers Alastor picking him up off the floor and carrying him to his armchair. He’s saying something, asking him a question, but Lucifer can’t make out the words. The chain vanishes a moment after Alastor sets him down, and Lucifer heaves in another breath before it clamps down again, suffocating him.

Two conflicting deals, impossible to fulfill — could this actually kill him?

A faint trickle of genuine fear runs down Lucifer’s spine.

The burning in his lungs blooms into pure agony by the time the chain releases him — another frantic breath, and he’s plunged back under, drowning. His hands claw uselessly at the restraint on his neck. Black spots appear at the edges of his vision, creeping inwards. He searches frantically for a loophole.

I bind you — do not speak of this.

Lucifer tugs at the fingers of his glove. His movements are clumsy, sluggish — the darkness is creeping in. Alastor is still talking, but he’s too far away. The pain in his lungs fades, replaced by something else. Peace? Contentment? He tugs on his glove again —

Then darkness pulls him under.

Chapter 10: Isaiah 14:12

Chapter Text

How you have fallen from Heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!

You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

— Isaiah 14:12

Later, Alastor will wonder at the fact that he had a chance to kill the Devil and he did not take it. That once he realized the issue, he immediately tried to break his deal with Lucifer so the man could breathe — a wasted effort because Lucifer was too near unconsciousness to hear him, much less consent. That when he then noticed Lucifer’s feeble attempt to remove his glove, he did not hesitate for even a second before he pulled it off the rest of the way and took his hand, let himself fall forward into a memory.

Green leaves against a blue sky. Alastor squints against the sudden brightness — he sits up, and his human hands sink into a carpet of cool, damp moss. He’s in the center of a meadow speckled with tiny flowers in every imaginable color. Surrounding him on all sides is an ancient forest — the trunks of the trees are as wide as his radio tower.

“Well, hello.”

Alastor twists to look over his shoulder. Lucifer stands at the edge of the clearing in his angelic robes. He wears no gloves. A halo glimmers above his head; his glowing blue eyes regard Alastor with delighted surprise.

“Who are you?” Lucifer says.

Alastor suddenly remembers Lucifer’s words, all those days ago, in his childhood home: If you were unconscious, it would be like it was before — you would be living out this memory for the first time, but with me here.

This Lucifer, then, has no knowledge of Alastor — and no clue that they are in a memory, stepping through events long past.

Hadn’t Lucifer also said it was dangerous to disrupt the integrity of the memories?

“Are we in Eden?” Alastor says.

“Where else would we be?”

Lovely. Alastor could not have landed in a place where his presence would be more difficult to hide and impossible to explain. Alastor stands. He’s in his human form, wearing a loose white robe, secured by a maroon sash around his waist.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Alastor tries.

“That’s all right.” Lucifer smiles, unfolds his wings, and darts forward into the clearing, his movements light and carefree. “Do you know your name?”

“Alastor.”

“I’m Lucifer. Seraphim, Father’s favorite assistant. I’d guess that’s why they sent you to me. I usually give the tour.” He inclines his head. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Lucifer gestures toward the edge of the clearing. Alastor falls into step behind him.

“I think I’ll take you to the waterfall first. I just added some new little critters to the lake today. You’re gonna love them — they’re kinda like doves? But with funny feet and beaks … Well, I guess you haven’t seen a dove either, yet …”

“You create things?”

“Yep! It’s part of my job. Father does most of the complex creation, but I spend a lot of time down here adding variation to the things he’s already made. This morning I copied the honeybee but made it fluffier and like, clumsier? So now we have a new bee. I’ve never done anything as complicated as a bird before today. You’ll have to tell me what you think.”

“I’d be happy to,” Alastor says. “Tell me — what else have you created?”

So Alastor listens, with a rising sense of unearthly awe, as Lucifer casually lists his contributions to Earth. Dandelions. Moths. Sage. He seems to have a special fondness for fruit — salmonberries, tomatillos, gooseberries. Pomelos. Avocados and pomegranates. Then there are the creations Alastor doesn’t recognize: he speaks of a butterfly with transparent wings, of glowing jellyfish, of a eucalyptus tree with colorful bark.

All the while, Lucifer leads him deeper into the ancient forest. The earth slopes sharply upward — they are ascending. They duck beneath the lichen that droops from low-hanging branches and pass a tree with an enormous, flat, white mushroom sprouting from its trunk. At one point, Alastor glances up and finds a doe watching him from between the trees — it studies him for a moment with wide eyes, then bounds off into the shadows.

Lucifer’s chattering requires little of Alastor’s input apart from the occasional hum, which suits him just fine — his mind is occupied trying to reconcile Lucifer’s contradictions. The childlike exuberance with which he leapt into the pool in City Park. His ancient, incomprehensible power, which he himself described as the equal opposite of God. Alastor’s hand on the soft fabric of Lucifer’s shirt, earlier this same night, in a moment which already feels like a lifetime ago. Lucifer glancing up nervously at Alastor — his eyes wet, vulnerable, and glowing red.

Alastor hears the waterfall well before he sees it. When they reach the water’s edge, Lucifer is explaining pomegranates — he cuts himself off short and points across the water.

“Look!” he whispers.

Alastor looks first at the waterfall, some twenty feet in height, the way it casts a thick mist over the pool — then he looks at the water, how the reflections of green-tinged sunlight waver along the smooth stones at the pool’s shallowest edge. Finally Alastor glances up at the pair of white ducks floating on the water. One is sleeping — the other ruffles its bill through the feathers beneath its wing.

The scene is just like the tacky fresco Lucifer had seen fit to include in the hotel’s elevator — Lucifer had painted this scene. This pond — these ducks. He must admit the original inspiration is far more picturesque.

“They’re lovely,” Alastor says softly.

Lucifer beams up at him. “Really?”

Alastor nods; Lucifer reaches for his hand, and Alastor lets him take it. The shape of it is familiar, even here at the beginning of time.

“Let’s see if we can get closer,” Lucifer whispers, and pulls Alastor out of the trees and along the water line.

They are halfway around the pool when a stone comes loose beneath Alastor’s feet and rolls into the water. The ducks both startle at the sound, spread their wings, and take flight, disappearing between the trees.

Lucifer drops Alastor’s hand. “Aw, well — you’ll have plenty of chances to see them. I don’t know what’s gotten into the animals today. Normally you can walk right up to them.”

Alastor sits down on the stones next to the water. Lucifer takes a seat next to him.

“So,” Lucifer says. “Wanna hear a secret?”

Hollis’s voice in Alastor’s head, the first time they ever spoke, when they were eleven — Wanna hear a secret?

Alastor glances up at Lucifer sharply, and there it is, in his eyes — that mixture of innocence and mischief, so similar to the one on Hollis’s face every time he proposed another ridiculous scheme, like skipping school or sneaking into segregated City Park at night. The one that made it so easy for Alastor to say, yes — I’ll do it — I’ll be right beside you. He thought he would never see it again — but here it is, on Lucifer’s face. Alastor can’t imagine how he never noticed before.

“Tell me,” Alastor says.

“I gave the other humans a gift, yesterday — the knowledge of good and evil.”

“Ah — the apple.”

“You know about that?”

Alastor nods.

“I guess word would have gotten around by now. Maybe that’s why you’re here. Which reminds me — I’m dying to ask. You’re the first human to be created with the knowledge of good and evil. How do you feel? Is it — nice?”

Alastor leans over the water, studying a school of blue fish no larger than his thumbnail. They swim in meaningless patterns, circling each other.

“I feel free,” Alastor says. And then he adds: “Thank you.”

Because he thinks he understands now what must be coming, what memory Lucifer must have flung them into to satisfy the terms of both deals. And Alastor has always been selfish. Soon Heaven will sink their teeth into Lucifer. But not yet. Alastor found him first.

“Oh — I made those!”

Lucifer disappears with a flap of his wings. Alastor glances over his shoulder to find him hovering over a bush at the edge of the trees. He plucks a handful of berries and flits back to sit beside Alastor. He holds out his hand — they’re blueberries.

“Try one,” Lucifer says.

Alastor pops a berry into his mouth — they are still cloyingly sweet, but not at all unpleasant. Certainly preferable to any fruit he’s tasted since his death. He reaches out for another. It is only then that the irony of being given fruit by the Devil catches up with him. He laughs.

“What?” Lucifer says.

“Nothing.” Alastor slides the rest of the berries out of Lucifer’s palm and into his own hand. He eats another. “I don’t ordinarily like sweet things, but these are palatable.”

Lucifer smiles. He leans forward and rests his head on his knees; he reaches out and absentmindedly runs his fingers through the water. The school of fish scatters, disappears into some quieter corner of the pond.

Alastor finishes the berries. They sit in silence for several minutes — eventually, Lucifer stands and dries his hand on his robes.

“Where to now?” Lucifer says. “I can take you to the beach, or introduce you to the other humans? We can do whatever you want.”

CRACK. The sound comes from overhead, deafening and resonant like thunder. Alastor looks up — three bright white dots have appeared directly overhead. They stretch into pillars of light, descending toward them at great speed.

They have run out of time. Alastor’s Shadow pools around the forest floor at his feet, ready to whisk him away — but he hesitates.

“I have to go,” Alastor says. “Good luck.”

With that, he dips into the shadows.

“Wait,” Lucifer says, but Alastor is already gone.

He is unsure if the approaching angels will be able to sense his Shadow’s demonic presence, so he slinks back into the forest until he can only just make out the glow of Lucifer’s halo between the trees. An instant later, there is a flash of white light and another loud, echoing CRACK. Alastor shrinks back from the light — when he recovers, four angels have materialized surrounding Lucifer, their angelic spears pointed at him.

“Lucifer Morningstar,” one says in a deep voice. “The Lord summons you to answer for your sin.”

“Ha! That’s funny. Who put you up to this? Raphael?”

The sound of shuffling on the stones. The deep voice speaks again: “We suggest you come willingly.”

“You’re — you can’t be serious. Is this about the apple? It’s no big deal! The humans loved it! They’re happy, and … free …” Another scuffle; Lucifer trails off. A flash of movement between the trees.

“Ow — that hurts — stop!” Lucifer says. “Fine! I’ll go.”

In the instant that Lucifer consents, there is another bright white flash, and all four figures are gone. Alastor creeps forward and gazes at the empty clearing. The leaves are frozen in place — the waterfall is suspended in the air. A still photo. A tingling sensation begins at the base of Alastor’s neck, then upwards towards his brain, like a limb falling asleep.

Lucifer had described this. If I left the bounds of your memories, I’d either wake up or get snapped back to you, like a rubber band — it’s not a fun feeling.

Alastor agrees. It’s not.

Then his vision goes black.

Elbows and shoulders jostle him on all sides. He opens his eyes — he is in Heaven, standing on a gleaming sidewalk in the midst of a crowd of angels. The street is lined with simple, ancient houses — a golden, glowing rope barricades the crowd from the street.

Alastor leans up onto his tiptoes and is afforded an unobstructed view of Lucifer at the end of the street. Behind him is a closed, golden gate. His wrists are bound in the same chain of white light that nearly suffocated him tonight, and a row of angels drive Lucifer forward by the points of their spears. Just as Lucifer passes in front of Alastor, an angel jabs their spear forward sharply; Lucifer stumbles, loses his balance, and falls to his knees on the shimmering golden pavement. The same angel grips Lucifer’s arm roughly and drags him back to his feet — as he’s wrenched upward, Lucifer’s eyes sweep over the assembled crowd, heartbroken and confused.

Alastor stumbles back away from the barricade and heads down the congested sidewalk, squeezing between angels and cherubs who glance at him suspiciously. He pays them no mind, determined to keep Lucifer in his sights.

Ahead of him, the city climbs into the sky, tiered like a layered cake. He traces the path of this road all the way up to the highest tier, barely visible at this distance; at the point where the road intersects with the horizon, a thin beam of white light slices through the clouds.

Alastor follows Lucifer down block after block, passing quiet roads lined with houses and taverns. The sidewalk along this main road becomes more congested the higher they climb. Eventually Lucifer begins to outpace Alastor, no matter how viciously Alastor shoves at those in his path. He must remain close — he doesn’t want to know what will happen to Lucifer if this memory ends with his question still unanswered.

Alastor ducks into a side street, dips down into the shadows, and surges forward in spite of the risk of detection. He keeps pace with Lucifer in this way for the remainder of his trek to the summit of Heaven — eventually, a high stone wall comes into view, where the road ends at a wide gate flanked by two watchful cherubim.

Alastor twists his Shadow into a smaller shape and darts into the center of the street, where he overlaps it with Lucifer’s — one of the angels driving Lucifer forward frowns directly at Alastor, and he readies himself to fight if he is somehow dragged up out of the ground. But after a long, tense moment, the angel finally looks away.

The cherubim at the gate nod solemnly at Lucifer’s guards — the great doors creak open and Lucifer is shoved forward into a grassy courtyard.

In the center of the courtyard is a rectangular temple, elevated above the grass by a thick stone foundation. A wide staircase leads up to intricate golden doors flanked by two copper columns, their capitals cast in the shape of pomegranates. Through the roof of the temple, a blindingly white beam of light shines straight into the sky.

There are two structures in the grass before the temple. On their right is a wide, flat sacrificial altar, its four corners adorned with sculpted horns; on their left is an intricate copper sculpture of twelve oxen holding an enormous cauldron.

The angels prod Lucifer past both, in the direction of the temple. As they approach, the engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and flowers on the golden door come into focus.

The angels shove Lucifer to his knees on the ground, just before the first step leading to the golden door.

Behind them, the golden ropes dissolve and the crowd surges forward into the empty courtyard. Alastor remains folded in on himself under Lucifer’s shadow — above him, Lucifer’s breaths are quick and shallow, his shoulders faintly trembling. From somewhere in the crowd, an unintelligible jeer — Lucifer’s head falls forward.

A thunk echoes through the courtyard as the enormous golden door unlatches; a hush falls over the crowd. A crack appears between the doors, and through it pours a beam of bright white light.

Two seraphim push the doors open from inside and step out of the field of absolute whiteness behind it. One is Michael — Alastor recognizes him from his first trip to Heaven with Lucifer. He is the spitting image of Lucifer, apart from the fact that Alastor cannot imagine such a severe expression on Lucifer’s face. The second seraphim is unfamiliar; he shares Lucifer’s diminutive height and delicate features, but his hair is a few shades closer to red.

Both seraphim step aside; each stands beneath a bronze pillar with their hands clasped behind their back. Whereas Michael keeps his cold eyes trained resolutely forward, the unfamiliar seraphim frequently glances down at Lucifer’s kneeling form with concern etched on his face.

Then the field of white changes shape, expands beyond the confines of the door, creeps closer to Lucifer. Alastor blinks and shields his eyes — the light contorts into the shape of a hand, a foot, and finally a head — an enormous figure made of light straightens to loom over Lucifer, the crowd, and the building itself.

Lucifer remains still with his head down as the figure leans down to regard him.

Then the entity speaks, and its voice echoes within Alastor’s own mind: Lucifer.

Lucifer looks up and stares directly into that blinding light.

The figure extends a finger. Lucifer leans forward, and the figure presses it to the center of his forehead.

Another tingling wave of static — Alastor opens his eyes in a void of perfect blackness.

In the distance, Lucifer is speaking, his voice thick and frantic. “I didn’t mean any harm, Father — I’m so sorry.”

Alastor reaches for his Shadow — the blackness swallows him gladly, and he creeps forward toward the sound.

“The cost of pride is ignorance,” a voice says.

As Alastor approaches, the darkness narrows, flanked in both directions by an infinite whiteness. Finally Alastor makes out Lucifer. He stands between Alastor and the figure of light, whose humanoid silhouette is just barely discernible in the field of white. Against the figure’s brightness, Lucifer’s body casts a long, unending shadow into the void behind him — Alastor is concealed in this shadow, a katydid clinging to a tree.

“Then teach me, Father,” Lucifer says. “Show me how to correct my mistake.”

The light bends. In a smooth motion, a figure steps out of it — pale white, the face striking in its resemblance to Lucifer’s, dressed in a plain robe. Alastor knows intuitively — the way he knows air, or water — that he is looking at the face of God.

Alastor draws closer — the angle of Lucifer’s shadow changes as God takes the light in his fingers. It drapes like fabric — he flips it over and pulls it over his shoulders, like a cloak. The cloak’s reverse side glimmers with stars, and it hangs open, spilling light around the physical body of God. One blue eye blinks open in the air behind God — then another — then another. They glide lazily through the air like fireflies.

“You do not yet understand the magnitude of your sin,” God says. “I have brought you here that you might learn. But the things we will discuss in this secret place are neither for the ears of men nor angels. I bind you — do not speak of this.”

Alastor draws forward — hovering between Lucifer and God is a sphere of liquid several inches in diameter; it rotates slowly, a miniature planet.

“We stand at the beginning and end of time’s circle. In this globe, the deeds of men are set forth from the first to the last. In the beginning, I drank of it and was granted dominion over all things.”

“There’s so much darkness.”

“Yes — now there is. In the beginning, it was made only of light. I drank of it alone, and all things became my dominion. Before your sin, there was only light here. Now your pride has driven you to grant man the knowledge of good and evil, and in so doing all things — behind and before — have been divided into light and dark. And so the cup must be drank again. But I am light — the deeds of men that are not light cannot reside within me.”

God snaps his fingers. A simple table with two chairs materializes below the liquid sphere.

“Sit,” he tells Lucifer.

Lucifer glances nervously at God — then he slides out the chair on his side of the table. It squeaks against nothing — he flops down in it and shivers.

God conjures a translucent tea set of frosted glass. He lifts the lid off of the teapot. Then he leans over the table and taps the sphere; it shatters, and the liquid falls into the pot. God pours the drink into his own cup — the liquid comes out almost perfectly white, with only the tiniest swirl of darkness.

“You will suffer several punishments for your sin. This is the first,” God says.

He pours Lucifer’s cup. The liquid is dark with only the faintest glimmer of light.

“I bind you to drink every drop of this bitter cup, which is the wickedness you have brought into the world.”

Alastor inches closer to the table so he can see better. Lucifer stares into his teacup — swallows. He opens his mouth to speak.

“Father —”

“Drink,” God says.

Lucifer picks it up and takes a tiny sip — his halo flickers, and he coughs and drops the teacup, which rights itself without spilling. Lucifer hunches over the table, breathing hard. “No,” he whispers. “I can’t. Please.”

“The iniquity of man is a heavy burden — but this cup is your creation. You must bear it.”

Lucifer is trembling — Alastor watches in fascination as a single tear forms at the corner of his eye and rolls down his cheek. “Father, please — I didn’t — I don’t —”

“Drink,” God says, and Lucifer’s hand jolts forward to grip the handle of the teacup. He raises it, and the liquid sloshes into his mouth — it dribbles down from the corners of his lips, where it is absorbed by his skin. Lucifer’s halo sputters out. He coughs violently and drops the cup — God takes a sip of his own cup, then leans over the table to refill them both.

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer whispers. “I’m sorry — I’m sorry — I’m —”

“Drink.”

This time Lucifer knocks the entire cup back at once. The cup falls from his hand to the floor — he cries out in pain, and his wings sprout from his back, still pure white and angelic — but after a moment, patches of red seep into the feathers, and Alastor realizes with a jolt that it’s because Lucifer is bleeding — not his own golden blood, but the red blood of a sinner.

God downs his own cup effortlessly. He snaps his fingers to return Lucifer’s cup to the table and refills both.

“Drink.”

Lucifer reaches out for the cup without looking and takes another mouthful — his tail sprouts from his lower back and snakes around the leg of his chair. He then leans over and retches, but nothing comes up.

It is only now that Alastor realizes Lucifer’s shadow is widening — expanding to cloak his half of the infinite field in perfect darkness.

“Good,” God says. “You’re about halfway done.”

Lucifer opens his eyes — they are red now, glowing in the dark. His cheeks are streaked with blood and tears. “Father,” he whispers. “Please — drink it. Please. I can’t. It’s —”

“Drink.”

Lucifer whimpers and downs the next cup. His feathers are now soaked in blood — permanently stained red. Human blood seeps from his temples, down his arms; His hands leave red fingerprints on the frosted glass of the cup. Floating red eyes blink open in the air around him like fireflies, each one weeping its own tears of red blood.

God refills their cups. “Last one,” he says. “Go on — the whole thing at once. Drink.”

Lucifer groans, but his body obeys — the liquid sloshes down his chin, his throat — his horns erupt from his forehead, and the blood that pours from his temples soaks the collar of his white robes.

God knocks back the remainder of his own drink and brushes his hands on his jacket. “Well — that’s taken care of,” he says.

Lucifer grips the edge of the table, bleeding sluggishly, still gasping and shaking. Hundreds of red eyes now surround him, their gazes fixed on God, weeping and miserable.

“Which brings me to your second punishment,” God says. “Now that you have drank this cup, you shall be ruler of the wicked, just as I am ruler of the righteous — the new realm of darkness your sin has created, which is called Hell, shall be your domain, and you shall rule over it. And it shall be the final resting place for the wicked and unrepentant.”

Lucifer doesn’t respond — he brings a trembling hand up to his forehead, then flinches away when he feels his horns.

“And I have devised a third punishment, lest you forget the bitterness of the cup which is man’s iniquity and sin,” God says. “For if you should lay your hand upon a human soul, you will know them as I know them, in the moment of their death, when their soul is weighed in judgement — and you will love them as I love them, and you will remember the suffering your pride has wrought upon the wicked.”

Lucifer sits upright, still in his demon form, and blinks at his own clawed hand. He reaches it out toward God — as he does, the silhouette of a giant hand reaches out of the void of darkness, clawing desperately towards the light. “Father — please —”

“Now,” God says. “Let us return.”

God snaps his fingers.

An unpleasant wave of static. Alastor opens his eyes in the midst of the crowd — God is once more a figure of light, standing before the open temple doors. Alastor scans the crowd for Lucifer and spots the curve of his red horns above the crowd, up ahead in the direction of the altar. An uneasy murmur rolls through the crowd.

But Alastor only asked what Lucifer was being punished for — and that question has been answered. There is no need for either of them to still be here.

I have rendered my judgement, God says. Lucifer’s pride has brought sin into the world. Mankind shall be hunted by temptation for as long as they walk the Earth.

Alastor shoves through the crowd toward Lucifer, dread heavy in his stomach. He has a much clearer view of Lucifer now — how he’s kneeling on the sacrificial altar, dripping red blood onto the grate below him. How his shoulders are still trembling. He is hauled to his feet by two angels while a third holds one of his wings.

As punishment, Lucifer has been stripped of his grace. Henceforth he shall be known as The Devil. He shall no longer be immune to earthly desires. He shall be banished from Heaven and cast down into Hell to rule the wicked.

In a sudden movement, the angel twists Lucifer’s wing — with a tearing sound and a sharp snap, he rips it free and throws it into the crowd. Lucifer thrashes in the angels’ grip and screams like an animal, high-pitched and pathetic —

And Alastor, who considers himself a connoisseur of punishment — who has himself taken pleasure in inflicting far worse torture — Alastor stumbles when his knees suddenly give out.

His stomach flips; he blinks against the prickling in his eyes. Anger burns through his chest and sharpens his focus. He isn’t sure exactly how to stop this memory, but he has a strong hunch that violence will help. Without any further deliberation, he dips into the shadows and slinks up the side of the altar.

An angelic spear lies forgotten on the altar next to one of the angels holding Lucifer in place. Alastor surges up from the shadows on the edge of the altar with the spear in his hands. He twirls the spear — the angel holding Lucifer’s wing glances up at the movement, and their eyes widen in shock — then Alastor drives the point of the spear into their throat. They fall to the grate behind Lucifer in a wet, golden heap.

Alastor breathes in the sharp citrus smell of angelic blood — a manic smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. His antlers crack and expand — a second angel turns toward him in the commotion, and he drives the spear through their heart — they fall backwards into their last comrade, who scrambles away from the body and backward toward their weapon. Alastor tugs Lucifer behind him, and Lucifer goes limply, bleeding gold from his back where his wing once was.

Alastor steps forward; he rests his shoe on the sternum of the angel in front of him and yanks the spear free. The angel jerks, but makes no sound.

It is then that Alastor looks down through the grate for the first time.

His stomach drops —

He is staring down at clouds, at the open sky —

And he knows in his bones that if one without wings were pushed through this opening, they would fall from this holiest point in Heaven all the way to the pits of Hell.

Alastor chokes back his paralyzing fear — smiles wider around it — and stares down the last angel. They pick up their spear, still stumbling backward, watching Alastor with wide, terrified eyes. Alastor lifts the spear to his lips and licks the angelic blood from the blade. It is sour on his tongue, an electric shock — then he swallows, and the heat sinks into his body and sings through his veins.

He laughs, cracks his neck, then his shoulders — his body unfolds, expands until he stands eye to eye with God, looming above the crowd. He squints into the light and smiles.

“As much as we all enjoy a little self-righteous torture now and then, I’m afraid I have to ask that you seek your entertainment elsewhere,” Alastor says — and then, because he’s addressing God, he tacks on: “Please.”

God says nothing — he just brings his hand up to cup Alastor’s cheek. Alastor’s eyes flutter shut, and his human life flashes before his eyes, just as it did in the moments before his death — but this time the slideshow continues into his afterlife, up until the image of Lucifer choking at the end of God’s chain.

Alastor opens his eyes again to find himself back in his human form, kneeling prostrate at the base of the stairs to the temple. God looms above him, surrounded by a thousand floating eyes whose unblinking stares bore into him. Perhaps he should have thought things through before confronting God directly. A flicker of fear runs through him — if the memory of God smites him in a dream, will his actual soul be obliterated? — before he dismisses the foolish notion.

So, then, God says. Did these memories answer your question? Or will they leave you wondering, Alastor?

Lucifer’s soft voice behind him. “… Alastor?”

Then the memory comes apart around them like a shattered dome of glass.

Chapter 11: 1 Corinthians 13:12

Chapter Text

For now we see only a reflection as a mirror;

then we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part;

then shall I know fully, even as I am fully known.

— 1 Corinthians 13:12

Alastor opens his eyes in the hotel. It is the early hours of morning — dim violet light filters through the windows of Lucifer’s room. And Lucifer —

Lucifer sits across from Alastor, taking desperate, ragged breaths. His unfurled wings spill over the back of his chair. He runs a hand over the one he lost in the memory and shudders.

“Alastor?” Lucifer says in a hoarse voice.

“Yes,” Alastor says.

Lucifer exhales once, twice. Finally he seems to catch his breath. He looks up, his red eyes flickering in the dark. “I’m sorry,” he says faintly.

This is perhaps the last thing Alastor expected to hear immediately after his magic strangled Lucifer into unconsciousness and forced him to relive what was almost certainly the worst memory of his millennia-long existence. “Pardon?”

“I’m sorry you had to see that. I — ah — I couldn’t think of another way to fulfill both my deal with you and the binding from you-know-who.”

Alastor can find no retort to this, no response. No existing script will be of any use.

“How are you,” Alastor says at last, his voice barely above a whisper.

As the words leave his mouth, Alastor realizes he wishes to ask every possible angle of that question. How is Lucifer? How does he cope with the paradox he embodies? The creature of stardust, holy thumbprint of God — and the progenitor of sin, the pariah made to bear the weight of mankind’s depravity. Shackled sovereign of the universe’s negative space. It is easy to forget that Lucifer is inarguably another kind of God — a God of entropy, of emptiness, of endings. How is he?

Lucifer chuckles darkly. “Eh — been worse.” He snaps his fingers and a bottle of some kind of hard cider appears in his hand. He pries off the cap with shaking fingers, takes a swig, coughs. “f*ck — I always forget how bad that sh*t tasted.” He exhales a pathetic wheeze of a laugh and meets Alastor’s eyes. He seems to be seeking some kind of commiseration, but Alastor, having never personally tasted the Bitter Cup of Man’s Iniquity and Sin, cannot relate, and blankly returns the stare.

“Oh — sorry, do you want some?” Lucifer snaps his fingers and a second bottle appears in front of Alastor.

“Why are you doing that?”

Lucifer looks at the bottle in confusion. “I dunno, it just felt rude to not offer —”

“No. Why did you apologize? I —” Alastor cuts himself off. He is completely out of his depth; he cannot recall the last time he felt this sick over another person’s suffering. Perhaps not since he was alive. He nearly laughs aloud as he finds himself sifting through Charlie’s redemption exercises for guidance. What would she say in this situation?

“I regret my words,” Alastor finally manages — the acknowledgement burns on the way out.

Lucifer shakes his head. “Not your fault. I didn’t think about the deal contradiction either. Probably should have.”

“No.” Alastor squeezes his eyes shut in frustration. He realizes belatedly that his smile has fallen, and he’s been speaking without his radio filter — details which would ordinarily alarm him but that now feel utterly unimportant. “I was referring to what was said prior.”

When Alastor had snapped at Lucifer for considering Hollis — the easiest person in the world to love — a friend. He thinks of Lucifer and Hollis in the pool, or teaming up at bridge, or sitting next to each other in a streetcar, both of them smiling up at him. Alastor has no issue with any attachment Lucifer might feel toward Hollis — quite the opposite. That truth is obvious to him now.

“Oh,” Lucifer says softly. “Well, I mean — I get it.”

An unidentifiable emotion looms in Alastor’s chest, behind the long purple scar — it is tightly wound like a spring, the tension of inaction nearly unbearable, though Alastor hasn’t the faintest idea of what exactly he must do. His claws dig into the hole he put in the armchair’s upholstery, weeks ago now — Lucifer might have repaired the damage at any time with hardly a thought. Why hadn’t he?

Alastor reaches across the space between them without thinking — he buries his hand in the feathers at the base of Lucifer’s wing, the one that is still attached to his body, the only tangible evidence that the memory was merely a terrible dream. He trails his fingers along it; Lucifer’s feathers are unbelievably soft, the skin beneath smooth and unbroken. The terrible feeling in Alastor’s chest unclenches, just slightly, and the room around them flickers — a staticky signal of sitting on the bed in Alastor’s childhood bedroom. Alastor leans in — from a distance, the red hue of Lucifer’s wings appears smooth and solid, but in the memory of sunlight he finds the network of saturated lines where rivulets of blood formed when Lucifer drank the cup. Lucifer shudders, and his eyes close. Alastor’s fingers reach the tip of Lucifer’s wing, and he draws his hand away. The room snaps back into place around them.

“We need to end our deal,” Alastor says. “I tried to break it myself, but by then you were already nearly unconscious. I’d rather not leave open the possibility that the wrong question might send you into another death spiral.”

“Ah. Yeah, that’s probably for the best. How about we just call it a gentleman’s agreement with the Devil?” Lucifer says with a wry smirk. He reaches out a gloved hand.

Alastor takes it. Golden-green magical chains manifest around their wrists only to dissolve and fade into the aether.

Lucifer takes his hand back and flexes his fingers. He chuckles.

“What?” Alastor says.

“You’re crazy.”

“You’ve just noticed?”

“Just thinking about how you tried to fight God.” Lucifer takes another swig of his cider.

“I wasn’t — I wanted to end the memory after I had my answer, but you were still unconscious. Based on our experience in the bayou, I thought a bit of violence might have been in order.”

Lucifer looks at him incredulously. “Wait — I’m sorry. Let me get this — you thought to end the memory, you had to kill my dad?”

“You must admit there would have been a certain symmetry —”

“You thought you were going to kill God?”

“I thought it was worth a try,” Alastor says indignantly.

Lucifer starts to laugh — the bright sound cuts through the somber atmosphere. He doubles over, and Alastor only manages to maintain his irritation for a moment before he, too, succumbs to the absurdity of the situation — then they are both laughing, and the tension in Alastor’s chest unclenches by another degree.

“We should be getting to sleep,” Lucifer says at length. “We only have a couple of hours before everyone wakes up.”

Alastor recognizes the dismissal for what it is and stands. Lucifer walks him to the door; Alastor hesitates with his hand on the doorknob.

“Lucifer,” he hears himself say.

“Yeah?”

Alastor struggles with the words — warring sentiments trip over each other in his head. He keeps his eyes fixed on the doorknob.

“Are you all right?” Alastor finally says — though the question still doesn’t feel quite correct or sufficient.

“It isn’t the first time I’ve been back there. First time with a plus-one, though.” Lucifer rests a hand lightly on Alastor’s arm. “I’m fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Alastor nods and leaves the room without turning back.

For the first time since he and Lucifer began their nightly routine, Alastor doesn’t sleep. He nearly dozes off, once, but as soon as consciousness begins to slip away, he jerks awake with the sudden and terrifying sensation of falling. He bolts upright in his bed, breathing heavily — then he leans back against his hands and stares at the ceiling.

Perhaps an hour remains before the day officially begins. Alastor sighs and swings his legs out of bed; he crosses the room and sits at the bench of his piano.

He plays mindlessly and ceaselessly. Each song blends into the next, a random assortment of favorites from Alastor’s life and afterlife. When the soft knock comes, Alastor is so focused on his playing that it is a wonder he notices it at all.

But he does. His hands still.

He crosses to the door, opens it — Lucifer stands on the other side. He is fully dressed, but Alastor knows the exhaustion in his eyes, just as he knows Lucifer’s other little expressions and tells.

He steps aside and lets Lucifer through; Lucifer crosses the room past Alastor’s unmade bed and steps over the threshold into the bayou. He flops on his back in the grass and sighs.

Alastor follows him and leans against the wall. “Couldn’t sleep?” he says.

Lucifer shakes his head. He’s looking straight up at the trees, his gaze a million miles away.

“Me, either,” Alastor says.

“Sorry,” Lucifer whispers.

The last thing Alastor wants is another unnecessary apology, but he squashes his frustration; instead he smiles and forces his voice to remain neutral. “Don’t,” he says. “There’s no need.”

Lucifer says nothing; after a long silence, Alastor turns away and settles back on his piano bench. Jazz is in order; if there is one lesson Alastor’s century-long existence has taught him, it’s that there is nothing jazz can’t fix. He begins with the opening measures of “Memories of You”. After a moment’s deliberation, he flicks off his radio filter — then he sings:

Why can’t I forget as I should?

Heaven knows I would if I could,

But I just can’t keep you off my mind.

They head downstairs together at the usual time. Lucifer catches Alastor’s wrist as he’s buttoning his suit jacket — he presses his bare thumb to Alastor’s forehead, and a puff of red sparks fizzle against Alastor’s skin. The exhaustion of Alastor’s sleepless night evaporates; he catches a brief glimpse of what he assumes is the kitchen of Lucifer’s real home, the palace, before the memory dissipates like a wisp of steam.

“That should help,” Lucifer says softly.

Lucifer still looks exhausted, his clothing rumpled from laying in the grass.

“Don’t you intend to give yourself the same treatment?”

“Hah! I wish.” Lucifer tilts his head to the side. “Sadly, that’s not how it works. I just gave you some of my energy. I’m fine — I don’t need much sleep.”

Alastor frowns. “Then I suppose I should thank you, though I’m not sure I approve.” He channels a little magic into his hand and smooths down the shoulders and lapels of Lucifer’s suit jacket. Lucifer glances up at him with wide eyes; Alastor flicks his fingers to put Lucifer’s hair back in order.

There. They are both suitably presentable. Alastor dons his smile and his radio filter. “Shall we?” he says.

Charlie and Vaggie are already in the kitchen. Vaggie is asleep in front of her empty plate, drooling on Charlie’s shoulder; Charlie is sifting through a pile of mail. Lucifer ruffles her hair and takes the seat next to her. He’s exhausted enough that he can’t be bothered to physically rifle through the cabinets, so he waves a hand to magic his cereal and milk over to the table.

“Morning, Dad,” Charlie says.

“Morning,” Lucifer says with false brightness. “What are you up to today? Anything exciting?”

“Paperwork, mostly.” Charlie unfolds a bill and frowns. “f*cking Hell.”

“What?”

Charlie hands the paper over — it’s a power bill. At the bottom, an exorbitant five-digit sum is highlighted in red.

“I know we aren’t exactly strapped for cash, but they keep jacking up the price on us,” she says. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“Yeah, we’re not f*cking paying this.” Lucifer holds up the bill and vaporizes it in a puff of smoke. “The hotel doesn’t even need to be connected to the grid — I can create a generator to power it just like the palace.”

Charlie’s eyes widen. “Really? That’d be amazing!”

“Of course, honey! It’ll be done by the end of the day.”

A mug of coffee slides in front of Lucifer; he glances up to find Alastor reaching over his shoulder, smiling inscrutably.

“For me?” Lucifer says.

“Evidently.” Alastor pulls away and returns to the coffee pot to pour his own cup.

Lucifer takes an experimental sip. “Holy sh*t,” he says. The coffee is the perfect temperature and plenty sweet. “Did you add cinnamon?”

“Among other things.” Alastor returns to the table with his Oh Deer mug in his hands and takes the seat at Lucifer’s other side.

“What would it cost to get you to make this coffee for me every morning for the remainder of my miserable, God-forsaken existence?” Lucifer says, only half-joking.

Alastor casts him an amused glance over a sip of his coffee. “No less than your immortal soul,” he says.

Alastor conjures a newspaper, and they sip their coffee in silence for a few minutes. Lucifer only realizes how close they were sitting when Alastor glances up at the door and scoots away abruptly; a moment later, Angel Dust and Husker enter the kitchen. Angel’s gaze flickers between them, but he says nothing. He grabs a banana off the counter and sits at the table between Husk and Vaggie. “What’d I miss?”

Lucifer swallows a bite of cereal. “You should both know — I’ll be shutting down the power in the hotel this evening to install a new generator.”

“They raise the prices on us again?” Husk says.

“Yep,” Charlie says.

“Fine by me,” Angel says. “I’m headed to work soon — probably won’t be back until late tonight. As much as I’d love to fumble around in the dark with any of you.”

Charlie’s eyes widen. “Oh! That’s a great idea, Angel!”

Angel pauses with his banana midway to his mouth. “Deadass?”

“We should have a sleepover! We can order pizza and get flashlights and tell scary stories …” Charlie digs a reporter notebook out of her pocket, flips it open, and starts writing frantically. Lucifer glances over discreetly — she has begun a sleepover to-do list. He suppresses a smile.

Angel’s phone buzzes on the table; he glances down at it and frowns. “sh*t. I gotta go.” He scoops up his phone and stands. “I’ll try and head back early, but no promises,” he says to Charlie, and then he’s gone.

“I’m afraid I will also be unable to attend the festivities,” Alastor says.

He rustles his newspaper and turns the page, the picture of unaffected indifference; he doesn’t even bother to offer an excuse.

Lucifer runs the mental math. That leaves only Husk, Vaggie, and Niffty to attend the sleepover. That won’t do — Charlie is so excited.

Lucifer kicks Alastor under the table. Alastor’s smile widens infinitesimally, but he doesn’t even look up from his paper. Fine. Lucifer tried to be subtle — now he gets to make a scene.

“What the f*ck do you have to do that’s so important?” he says.

“It’s fine, Dad,” Charlie says. “He doesn’t have to come.”

“No,” Lucifer says, because he’s familiar enough with Alastor’s routines by now to know that he is almost always finished with his obligations by 5 p.m. — the chance that he’s actually busy tonight, of all nights, seems vanishingly small. Of course Alastor wouldn’t want to go to a sleepover — but it’s important to Charlie, and Alastor cares about Charlie. Right?

“He should at least come up with an excuse,” he says to Charlie. Then, to Alastor — “you’d better come up with an excuse.”

A cold smile splits Alastor’s face. “I wasn’t aware that I was required to keep Your Highness appraised of all my engagements and whereabouts,” he says flatly. He stares Lucifer down with a glimmer of anger in his eyes.

“You’re not,” Charlie says quickly.

Lucifer meets Alastor’s cold stare unflinchingly, even as Alastor’s completely emotionless expression sends a flicker of anxiety up his spine. What the Hell is going on in Alastor’s head? Can he really turn off his concern for Lucifer and Charlie just like that — just like flipping a switch?

But Alastor has always been like this, hasn’t he? Even as a child. He keeps his soft, human soul swaddled in a shock blanket of insulating apathy. The real Alastor is somewhere else in the maze of his mind, throwing levers to affect the perfect simulacrum of ambivalence — somewhere behind the impenetrable façade.

Well. Almost impenetrable.

I know how to get him to stop — it works every time.

Lucifer fills his lungs to their full, inhuman capacity and blows a raspberry in Alastor’s face.

In his peripheral vision, Vaggie’s head snaps up at the sound — but Alastor’s eyes narrow, and he just keeps staring. Then Lucifer’s lungs run out of air, and silence falls over the table.

Lucifer breaks away from Alastor’s stare. Vaggie and Husk are both watching him across the table, mildly horrified.

Alastor had been a teenager the last time Hollis tried that little trick. Of course it wouldn’t work anymore. How could he have been so stupid? Lucifer scrambles for a way to play this off — should he start speaking in tongues? Make it seem like a weird Devil thing?

Then he hears it. A soft chuckle.

He turns back to Alastor and his heart trips and stutters like its starter cord has been pulled — because Alastor is smiling fondly at him, just like he has in New York and London and the streetcar to Gentilly. It is an expression Lucifer has only ever seen on Alastor’s human face. It should look out of place in Alastor’s demon form, but it doesn’t — if anything, it looks better — on the face of a sinner it becomes a miracle.

There you are, Lucifer thinks.

He is aware, in some distant corner of his sleep-deprived mind, that they aren’t alone — what he forgets is the importance of meticulously concealing the reality of his inexorable, devastating, and unrequited affection for the Radio Demon from the hotel’s other residents. So he leans in, laughs softly, mirrors Alastor’s fond smile.

Alastor holds up his newspaper, which is now speckled with Lucifer’s spit. “Look what you’ve done,” he says.

“Serves you right.” Lucifer’s voice comes out a little dazed and too soft.

“I suppose I can rearrange my schedule, if you insist,” Alastor says smoothly. He leans forward to look past Lucifer, at Charlie. “Assuming I’m still welcome?”

“Of course,” Charlie says without missing a beat, and the remaining tension evaporates. Lucifer risks a glance across the table. Vaggie has dropped her head back into her folded arms, and Husk has returned to his breakfast of plain toast. No one is paying them any mind — Hell hasn’t frozen over after one warmer-than-usual exchange with Alastor.

Charlie stands and brings her and Vaggie’s plates to the sink. “I’d better go get planning,” she says. She wakes Vaggie with a hand on her upper back — Vaggie’s head snaps up, and she pushes herself to her feet. “I’m so excited,” Charlie says. “This is going to be great!”

“Before you leave, Charlie —” Alastor says — “a word, if you don’t mind.”

Charlie stops in the doorway. “What is it?”

“I’d like to invoke our deal,” Alastor says.

Husk chokes on his toast.

As the words leave Alastor’s mouth, the air in the room thickens with crackling green energy. Eldritch symbols coalesce in the air. Charlie is rooted in place; Vaggie grips her arm and glares murderously at Alastor.

“My favor,” Alastor says to Charlie. “Surely you recall the terms?”

“I — yeah, I do,” Charlie says, her voice guarded. Vaggie takes a step toward Alastor, but Charlie holds up a hand to stop her.

Lucifer takes a deep breath to try to calm down — but when he exhales, it comes out as smoke, which further thickens the air around them.

He doesn’t want Charlie to know he’s been meddling, so he’ll need to play dumb. “What’s this about a deal?” he says — a hiss has crept into his voice, which is layered now with the voices of the damned. To think he trusted Alastor enough to let him out of the deal — but he has always been a fool.

If Alastor would break this promise from their former deal, perhaps he would break the other — there are no longer any chains keeping Alastor from laying bare Lucifer’s secrets.

The room is electric with tension. It crackles along Lucifer’s skin, runs down his thrashing tail.

Charlie looks at Lucifer sharply. “Dad, stop.”

Lucifer stills. He takes another deep breath — exhales another puff of smoke.

Charlie turns to Alastor. “What do you want me to do?”

Alastor gives Lucifer a withering look (seriously, where does this guy get the nerve?), then stands. He reaches out a hand and, in a measured, steady movement, knocks his Oh Deer mug on its side. It was already nearly empty, but it spills the remainder of its contents onto the table.

“Oh, dear — I seem to have spilled my coffee,” Alastor says. “Silly me. Could you hand me a towel?”

No one moves. Alastor stares at Charlie expectantly.

“I — uh. Yes?” Charlie walks over to the counter, every footstep measured. She tears a paper towel off the roll like she’s defusing a bomb, then returns to the table, holding the towel out at arm’s length in front of her.

Alastor plucks it from her hand. There is a flash of green light and a hiss of static — then the air clears.

“Thank you, my dear!” Alastor says. He turns to the table and wipes up the mess.

For a long moment, no one else moves.

“What the f*ck? Why did he do that?” Vaggie says to the ceiling — then she turns to Alastor. “Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just get it yourself?”

“Don’t presume to understand my motivations,” Alastor says lightly. He crosses the kitchen to dispose of the paper towel, then he washes his hands in the sink.

He returns to his seat and glances up at Charlie and Vaggie as if surprised to find them still standing there. “Well?” he says. “Didn’t you say you had planning to do?”

“Well, yeah, it’s just — is that all?”

“Of course. We have no further business here. Unless there’s another matter you’d like to discuss?”

“No,” Charlie says.

“Well, then,” Alastor says. “I look forward to tonight’s gathering.”

Charlie nods and backs out of the room — Vaggie is right behind her, her murderous gaze still fixed on Alastor.

Lucifer, Alastor, and Husker spend a few uncomfortable moments alone at the table before Husk grunts and leaves the room without a word.

Once they are alone, Lucifer turns to Alastor, incredulous. “What the Hell was that?”

Alastor quirks an eyebrow and says nothing.

“That may be the dumbest thing you’ve ever done — and I would know,” Lucifer says.

“Oh, spare me. I’ve lived a century in Hell outside your observation. I contain multitudes — the missteps I’ve made over the years would shock you.”

“Bold of you to assume you can top threatening my daughter in front of me — need I remind you I’m the Devil? Do you really want to get smited that bad?”

Amusem*nt creeps into Alastor’s smile. “I believe it’s ‘smitten’?”

Lucifer groans and pounds his head on the table. “It’s too early for these mind games, Alastor. Good Lord almighty.”

“Was the coffee helpful?”

“Huh?” Lucifer says.

“Did the coffee alleviate your fatigue?”

“Oh,” Lucifer says. He glances down into his empty mug. “Um — maybe a little? I need to drink a lot more coffee than a human before it affects me. Maybe I’d start to feel something if I had, like, fifteen cups.”

“I see,” Alastor says. He stands and returns to the counter.

“Seriously — what was that about? With the deal?”

“We had an agreement, didn’t we? I thought it best that Charlie’s favor be removed from play.” Alastor turns, leans back with his hands on the counter, and studies Lucifer’s expression. What he finds there seems to give him pause. “Surely you didn’t think I would break my word.”

“I dunno,” Lucifer mumbles. “It was just — freaky, I guess.”

“Ah. Well.” Alastor reaches forward and plucks Lucifer’s mug from the table in front of him. “It wasn’t my intention to cause alarm.”

Alastor pulls down sugar and spices from the pantry, and Lucifer realizes belatedly that he’s making more coffee.

“I thought it best to conclude Charlie’s deal in the presence of all parties who were already aware of it. I wanted there to be no doubt that she has no further obligation to me,” Alastor says. “Husker’s presence was circ*mstantial.”

“I see,” Lucifer says.

Alastor slides Lucifer’s full mug back in front of him. “This is stronger,” he says. “Hopefully you’ll still find it palatable.”

Lucifer takes a sip. “f*ck,” he says. “Where the Hell did you learn to make coffee?” It wasn’t when Alastor was alive — Alastor’s coffee had tasted like sh*t back then.

Alastor’s smile widens. “Some secrets must remain secrets.”

“Yeah — uh, speaking of which.” Lucifer drums his claws on the side of his mug. “You should know that I haven’t — I’ve never …” Lucifer trails off, swallows. He casts a glance over his shoulder to check that they’re still alone and takes a deep breath. “No one else down here knows about … everything I showed you, last night,” Lucifer whispers. “Not even Charlie. I want to keep it that way.”

“I had assumed as much, given that it was a condition of our original deal.” Alastor’s gaze sharpens — studying Lucifer intently. “I am a man of my word,” he says. “I have never broken an agreement and I don’t intend to start now.”

Lucifer says nothing. Under Alastor’s scrutiny he suddenly feels vulnerable — he glances down, traces the rim of his mug once, twice. “It’s a lot to wrap my head around — that after all these years …” Someone else knows, he doesn’t say.

“Don’t you realize,” Alastor says — he closes his eyes, breathes. “Is it not obvious to you that —” Another breath.

Lucifer looks back up to find that Alastor’s smile is gone.

The sight of Alastor’s neutral expression in this common space is so unexpected that all Lucifer can do is stare, spellbound.

“The inverse is also true,” Alastor says at last. He drops his head, and his hair falls to cover half of his face. “Since the moment you first touched me, you have had the power to ruin me — it’s why I sought our deal in the first place. But that possibility no longer concerns me. It hasn’t for some time.”

“Why?” Lucifer whispers.

Alastor glances up. “Because I know you,” he says. “And you won’t.”

“Oh,” Lucifer says.

Alastor’s true face vanishes again behind his smile, like the sun ducking back behind the clouds; he adjusts his jacket. “Well, then,” he says. “I believe we both have responsibilities to attend to. Shall we?”

“Yeah.” If Lucifer is going to finish the generator today, he needs to start now. He opens a portal back to his room, where his workbench is waiting. “I’ll — um — see you later?”

“You will.” Alastor stands and holds Lucifer's mug out towards him.

Lucifer smiles, takes the coffee, and steps through.