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The weekly debriefing meetings about hotel business were Charlie’s idea and it wasn’t that Lucifer didn’t like them, it was just…yeah, okay, he hated them, they were boring beyond words. New words needed to be invented and added to the linguistic landscape to describe his level of boredom.
It wasn’t his fault! Look, he liked Vaggie a lot but discussing the progress of her ‘Bonding Through Krav Maga’ class just wasn’t his thing. Couldn’t they just send all this info in an email, maybe a printout to shove under Alastor’s door?
Maybe next time he’d bring that up as an option, but for tonight, he was trapped. They all were, in their own little special corner of double Hell.
Twenty minutes in and now Charlie was on her new Tea-Time Talks schedule, talks that provided one-on-one attention for their guests with special ‘issues’. Personally, Lucifer didn’t think an irresistible urge for indecent exposure was very special, but it was certainly an issue. At this point, he was seeing that guy’s dick more often throughout the day than he saw his own.
He did wonder what Niffty said or did to make their overzealous public nudist stay far, far away from her, but not enough to ask. Sometimes it was better for things to remain a mystery.
By the time Charlie got to her pie charts and graphs, Lucifer had completely zoned out and was reading the motivational posters hung around the room, huh, that one was actually pretty cute, ‘Hang In There’, indeed, you can do it, kitty!
His only saving grace was he wasn’t the only person sleepwalking through the meeting. Sure, Vaggie was smiling and nodding along, but on Lucifer’s left, Husk was outright snoring. Angel was sitting on the floor slouched back against Husk’s legs. Every few minutes his chin would slowly begin to droop and then jerk back up as Angel blinked wildly in his endless struggle to pay attention. The only lucky person was Niffty, who was engaged in a deep cleaning of the upstairs rugs and no one wanted to get in the way of her intense mourning over the loss of the stains.
And finally, on his right was the egocentric assmaster himself. Alastor, giving every appearance of listening intently which was such bullshit, he was totally zoned out behind that thousand-yard stare, he had to be. No one could be that interested in a graph describing the ‘Decreased Propensity for Exposure Events’. Besides, Alastor had an unfair advantage; it must be a lot easier to avoid looking bored when you only had one facial expression to deal with.
Well, that might be a slight exaggeration. Lucifer knew from personal experience Alastor had another expression or two tucked into his back pocket for the proper occasion and just because none of them should ever be shown in public didn’t mean they didn’t count. Not unless he was trying to one-up Expos-your Man, anyway. (worst superhero ever)
Hm. There was an idea somewhere in there. Nothing too extreme, of course, not in front of his daughter; sure, she knew about him and Alastor, didn’t mean they should advertise. But what if…nah, he couldn’t do that. As annoying as Alastor’s impression of intense attention was, this was for Charlie and while it would be extremely amusing to distract him, he couldn’t do that to Charlie. He couldn’t.
“…and if you check on this graph, you’ll see that our success rate in encouraging Mister Nudistas to wear underwear beneath his trench coat has gone up 3% since last week!”
Yeah. He could.
Without looking away from Charlie, Lucifer deliberately reached over to set his hand on Alastor’s knee. A discreet glance showed no obvious change in his expression, damn, so Lucifer upped the ante and rubbed his thumb along the outside seam of his pants. No big deal, it was just a knee, his thumb was moving like, two inches, back and forth. Not like he was going to end up with his own pie chart for ‘Obscene Public Groping Events’.
From the corner of his eye, Alastor’s expression hadn’t changed even a fraction. It was all Lucifer could do to keep his disappointment from showing. Not that he’d expected Alastor to leap to his feet or faint or chew up a sofa or something, but a twitch in that smile would’ve been nice.
Ah, well, he’d tried. He left his hand where it was, though, because fuck it, why not? If Alastor wasn’t going to react or complain or go all ‘j'accuse!’ on him, he might as well. His knee was warm and fit nicely in Lucifer’s hand and touching him was a delightful little reminder that Alastor was naked under his clothes, now there was a nice daydream to hang out with until the end of the Perversity Pie Charts.
Lucifer was pretending to pay attention as Charlie went into wrap up mode, trying very hard to give a ‘No, I am not thinking of your facility manager naked in my bed, whyever would you ask’ vibe, when he heard it.
At first, Lucifer thought his ears were ringing. Wouldn’t be the first time, after the minor explosion when Niffty decided to create a better toilet cleaner in the upstairs Maintenance Room, the ringing in his ears lingered for a week. Then he realized it was an actual sound, a sort of faint, high-pitched squeal. Huh. Smoke alarm, maybe? But no, that would be louder and more beep-y, this was just annoying, a mechanical mosquito whine that should have every dog in the area howling in agony.
Hm. Weird.
“Can anyone else hear that?” Lucifer asked. He guessed they could, no one looked bored now. In fact, they were all staring, even Husk, directly at him, or, wait, not at him, but directly next to him, what—
“Um, yeah,” Charlie cleared her throat. “We can hear it, Dad. You, uh.”
“You broke ‘im,” Angel interrupted gleefully.
What? Lucifer glanced at Alastor again and merged right into a doubletake. His smile hadn’t changed, that much was true, but his eyes were pinpricks of crimson in wide black pools. That sound wasn’t exactly coming from him but more like from the air around him in a weird and frankly creepy way, how did he even DO that?
Lucifer looked down at his hand where it was resting innocently on Alastor’s knee. His fingers flexed automatically, and that whine went up another notch in both volume and pitch.
“Oh!” He snatched his hand back as if Alastor suddenly began sweating acid, which might not be out of the realm of possibility. “Um, sorry. Sorry, everyone. Didn’t mean to, uh, do. That.”
Next to him, Alastor blinked a few times, color high on his cheekbones, holy shit, was he blushing? His cheeks above his smile were nearly the same shade of red as his coat, his eyes darting around, flicking briefly at Lucifer and then away as he made little wordless, irritated sounds, straightening his tie, brushing off his coat.
Oh, he was actually flustered, holy fuck, that was an extreme amount of embarrassment for a little public knee groping, especially considering all the places Alastor let him put his mouth last night in the privacy of Lucifer’s bedroom. This, this was the best thing ever, Lucifer needed to see that again, so very many times.
“Sorry about that,” Lucifer said directly to Alastor, with all the sweet, apologetic solicitude he could summon, and Heaven might not welcome him back based on the innocence in his tone, but at the very least they might put him on a watch list. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”
He so had and wanted so much to do it again.
Alastor did not look at him. “Quite all right,” he gritted out. He turned that smile in Charlie’s direction. “Do go on, dear, you were saying…?”
Charlie was working through her own fluster and Lucifer’s apologetic smile to her was of the more honest variety. She rallied well and gave a firm nod. “Right,” she said, “As I was saying, I think the trends are showing some success here and—"
Whatever she was saying shot directly through Lucifer’s attention and outside his ability to hear. Lucifer’s hand, a recent occupant over at the bizarre neighborhood of Alastor’s knee, was currently residing on his own leg and the feel of a warm, oh, so warm hand settling gently over it was enough for his hearing to short-circuit. Lucifer swore he heard that high pitched sound again, only this time, it was playing from inside his own head, and it came with words, terrible lyrics to the world’s most annoying sound bite.
Alastor is holding my hand Alastor is holding my hand Alastor is holding my hand Alastor is holding my hand Alastor is holding my hand Alastor is holding my hand
Interruption came from his left in the form of a loud groan from Husk. “Do we really gotta be here watching them play out their shitty sit-com bullshit every fucking nigh—!” He grunted as Angel viciously elbowed him.
“You! Shut! Up!” Angel hissed, glaring furiously. “I swear to god, if they stop simping around each other in public because of you, I will get you neutered! I got fifty bucks riding on this.”
Alastor’s eyes narrowed, and to the detriment of Lucifer’s sanity, his grip tightened, fingers flexing as if he was already imagining someone’s throat beneath them. “Simping? What does that—“
“Well!” Charlie interrupted loudly, clapping her hands together. “And that’s all for tonight! Good job everyone on their assignments!”
“Good job,” Vaggie echoed, and the focus of her narrow glare was directly at him and Alastor. Who took back his hand with only a last little squeeze and disappeared into a shadow, leaving Lucifer alone with a scowling Husk, a grinning Angel, a glaring Vaggie, and…Charlie. Who was looking right at him and that was an expression Lucifer knew, he knew it very well, had seen it on another face similar to Charlie’s so many times before. That was a ‘We Need To Talk’ look and Lucifer had a sudden, deep longing for obscene pie charts.
There was no point in trying to avoid it, he’d learned that long ago. It was Vaggie who nudged the others and pointedly led them away, literally in Angel’s case.
Lucifer stayed where he was as Charlie came to him and so many words were crammed into his throat wanting to be spoken, apologies and promises, whatever she needed. He said nothing, only let her come to him. After so many years of not being there for her, she deserved every chance to speak her piece.
“Dad?” Charlie crouched down in front of him and took his hands in both hers. Her touch was cooler than Alastor’s, soothing against his suddenly twitchy fingers. “Can you do something for me?”
“Sure, sweetie.” Anything, he didn’t say. He squeezed her hands in his, dread rising because he’d do it for her, he’d stop with the touching, the flirting, he'd stop all of this, end things with Alastor, even if the thought made him feel sick inside. Alastor wasn't anyone's idea of a dream step-parent, not even a step-booty call, and he knew it, and he’d stop all of this for Charlie if she asked it of him. He would.
Charlie looked up at him with earnest eyes, his eyes, and said, “Can you make sure there’s no public kissing for at least a month? If you hold out that long, I’ll have beaten that bitch Susan in the betting pool!”
Lucifer stared into his daughter’s beloved face, at her fiendishly scheming grin that was so like his, and he didn’t know who Susan was or the terms of the betting pool, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask. “…sure, sweetie. I can do that.”
“Thanks dad!” Charlie said happily. She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and left Lucifer sitting alone with the remains of his pride, the pie charts and his thoughts.
Yeah, so, his life had taken a serious turn for the weird when he’d left the palace and came to stay here at the hotel, but honestly? He couldn’t say he minded.
Nope, he didn’t mind at all.
Lucifer left the pie charts where they were and went off to find wherever Alastor escaped to. He had his own Exposure Event in mind and he was pretty sure Charlie would be happy, and relieved, to know that he planned to keep it a very private affair.
-finis-