Work Text:
In a way, Alastor and Husk's situation was quite similar. Husk had a master who was in another dimension for seven years, allowing him a respite, while Alastor had a master from another dimension for seven years and was now able to have a respite.
And unlike Husk, Alastor could now plan a way to throw off his chains with a little help from a certain princess. It was unfortunate, for his poor sanity and mental health, that those plans to get closer to the princess had brought him back to Morningstar Castle, a place he would have preferred not to see even in his nightmares.
Alastor tuned out the chatter of everyone around him as they hurriedly looked around and chose rooms for their hopefully short stay in this godforsaken place. His steps led him down the brightly lit, gilded hallway with his heels and cane clicking harshly. The only difference between this place and the one Alastor had already lived in was the light layer of dust that Lucifer removed with a snap and an awkward laugh and the abundant portraits of the Morningstar family, otherwise Morningstar Castle and Magne Villa were a fairly faithful reflection of each other.
The familiar path brought him to a stop in front of a door made of exquisite white wood with carvings of snakes. His thoughts drifted to the memory of a hat with a silver snake on it instead of a gold one. Little details, like the buttons and cufflinks, that helped him reassure himself that he was no longer there . He had escaped, he might not be free at all, but he was free.
His claws ran over the carving, searching for any difference that would help. But it was perfect down to the smallest detail, the only difference being that the carvings Magne added when Alastor moved in were missing. The absence of the modification, he decided, was in itself a major difference.
He opened the door and was greeted by a spacious, but empty room. Just a bed and a nightstand, not even an armchair in front of the fireplace. His shoulders relaxed slightly and he walked inside, running his hand along the stylized canopy of apples. Missing were the marks Alastor's claws had left in his moments of fury and passion.
“You like this one?” a voice startled him. ALastor’s head turned 180° before his body followed suit with narrowed eyes and a sharp smile. “It’s not bad, but I must warn you that it’s right next to mine.”
“On the contrary,” Alastor said, walking towards Lucifer. He suddenly wanted to get away from the little monarch and away from the oppressive room. “They are all terribly drab and tasteless. No taste or class. The best thing would be to stay with some friends for a few days. Husker will know where to look for me when Charlie decides to come back to the hotel.” Alastor summoned a hat over his head, only for the courage to raise it in a mocking farewell.
Lucifer dropped the awkward expression of false sympathy (and that was another difference. Lucifer could change moods easily, but he was never awkward) and put his arm through the door frame to block his path.
“Charlie loves you all here and everyone is doing their part to cheer her up, even I am willing to put up with you for a few days, couldn’t you do your part a little?”
Alastor pretended to think about it. “Let me see… No!”
He pushed Lucifer's hand away and found himself being pushed into a wall, Lucifer's hands beside the sinner's face.
“You loved putting on that whole show of being there for her, but in the end, when things get tough, you. leave. her” Alastor’s eyes narrowed even more, his wound throbbing beneath his shirt.
“You would think that would make you happy”
“I’m happy if Charlie is. And right now she wants all of them with her.” Lucifer smirked and Alastor’s stomach dropped into a familiar mix of fear and interest as his eyes lit up with a bit of hellfire. “And let me be clear, Alastor, if you don’t support her this moment that Charlie and her project isn’t ‘fun’ or whatever it is you’re getting out of playing with her, I will make sure there is no crack for you to crawl back through, bambi~” he practically growled against his face.
Alastor felt one of his eyes twitch in suppressed anger and annoyance. “Let me be clear, Your Majesty~” Alastor growled in the same tone. “If I really wanted to annoy Charlie or had no interest in his misery I would simply leave…” ALastor’s grin grew a few more teeth and the shadows swirled closer “and take Husk and Niffty with me. Do you think sweet Charlie could handle any more loss and abandonment?” Alastor asked with false sweetness, cocking his head to the side.
Lucifer’s hands curled into the lapels of Alastor’s jacket instead of his hair, and relief fought the disappointment inside him. “Listen to you…”
“Dad! Al!” Charlie’s voice grew closer. Lucifer let go and Alastor sat up, lifting his clothes and struggling to regain control.
“Char-Char!” Lucifer cried joyously, a joy that was too loud, too forced, too false, and lacking any of the easy, dark charm.
“Has Alastor picked a room yet? There are still a couple closer to mine and Vaggie’s and…”
“Actually, dear,” Alastor began, turning on his own charm. His voice fluid and energetic with just a hint of false apology that could be taken as politeness or something more genuine depending on how intelligent his interlocutor was, but not necessarily as something false.
“It's ready! What do you say? I think it's tailor-made,” Lucifer boasted.
Alastor turned his head so hard that if his neck wasn't so flexible and had so many joints he could have gotten a stiff neck. A low, static sigh of annoyance escaped him, his tense smile on his face about to turn into a grimace of fury.
The guest room was now filled with two cozy armchairs in front of the fire, a beautiful bookshelf overflowing with books off to one side, and the colors were much darker and more muted, with green accents here and there among the red that looked a lovely beige in the eye that didn't have its monocle. There were even a couple of animal skeletons.
“Like something out of Alastor’s dreams,” Angel Dust said approvingly and Charlie quickly jumped up and down happily, feeling cheerful for the first time after sad weeks of no one new showing up at the hotel.
“Ha. Ha. Almost,” Lucifer laughed uncomfortably.
“It's perfect, Dad. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Isn't perfect, Alastor?”
He looked at her excited face and for a second he wanted to make her feel half as bad as he felt at that moment. But he couldn't lash out, he couldn't attack and undo the work of so many months when he was so close.
“Like something out of my nightmares, darling,” he announced with joy and canned laughter.
It was the truest thing he had said all day.
“Now, is there anything interesting in this tacky place? A library perhaps?” he asked, walking away and closing the door.
Alastor didn't hear the answer. It didn't matter, he knew there was one and where it was. His eyes, however, were more occupied with looking at the deer around which the snake was wrapped as if it were strangled.
At least the canopy remained unmarked… as far as Alastor knew.
“I’m glad you convinced us to come, Dad,” Charlie said with a soft smile as they prepared cups of hot chocolate, one of them mixed with a good splash of whiskey and the other with coffee to allow the overly smiling deer and the overly grumpy cat to share with the rest that they didn’t have bad taste.
“I did that?” Lucifer frowned in confusion as he placed a couple of marshmallows in three of the cups.
“Yes!” Despite his joy, Charlie’s smile faded.
“Sorry, princess. I’ve been a little distracted lately,” he smiled awkwardly. He knew Charlie deserved a better father, but for once it wasn’t his mind racing. Lucifer had genuinely been sleeping poorly and having strange dreams.
That's where he saw the room he designed for Alastor.
He dreamed he had walked into that room, grief and anger coiling like an oroborus around his heart at the absence of its owner and then… he had blown the bed into the air in a blaze of red and gold.
Many of his dreams were like that lately, haunted by Alastor's absence or presence and an all too familiar abandonment. Lucifer must have felt threatened by those dreams, taken them as a sign of his fear that Charlie preferred Alastor as her father, even if she was no longer a child and already had a father; but instead Lucifer wanted him closer, somehow feeling more comfortable with Alastor sleeping in a room that was a mirror image of Lilith's on the other side of his.
It was a bit amusing and Lucifer thought ALastor might throw a scandalized fit if he ever found out, but the room he took was according to the Ars Goetia that designed it, one meant for a concubine or a third party. Perhaps Alastor really was drawn to places of power, but he didn’t know what he thought of that kind of power given how prudish he seemed. Not that it mattered. Lilith had laughed in amusement and he had spluttered, but neither sought out a permanent third party to fill that room so many Goetia had coveted several centuries ago.
“It’s okay, Dad. By the way, thanks for getting along better with Alastor. The lack of fights… has helped,” said his little girl with a small, sad smile.
Lucifer caressed her cheek. “There may not be any new sinners, but you’ll see, Charlie. I believe in your dreams. I promise.”
Charlie threw herself into his arms and Lucifer hugged her tightly. Everything was almost perfect. “Thank you.”
Alastor entered at that moment, his eyes softening almost imperceptibly and he melted into the shadows, for once allowing them privacy. Sometimes Lucifer felt that there was more to the overbearing man and the part of him that didn't lose his curiosity wanted to pursue that mystery until he knew how dangerous it was for his daughter… or if he would really have to accept that Charlie had more family than just her biological one.
For a long moment Alastor stood there, his forehead against the door, his hand twisting the knob and holding it open. The door was open. Lucifer hadn't locked it. He wasn't going to lock it either. Lucifer wouldn't, he had no reason to.
Alastor sighed shakily. He released the knob… and turned it again. Still unlocked. It was still tempting not to sleep here, to go home to Cannibal Town or to his room at the hotel. To leave Charlie to regain his optimism, to show up when every touch from the king, every time he opened his mouth, every time he was near him wasn't something that made him want to run away or lean into the demanding touch (which wasn't demanding here, no matter how possessive his grip on his hip had felt when he moved him out of the way a few hours ago. Just the way Magne used to move him.
And then there was the coffee, the damn coffee that was made so perfectly when it was impossible for anyone there to know his tastes with such precision, especially since they had changed after living two years with Lucifer when they had a fight and he brought him a new coffee blend that ended up becoming his favorite. One of the many figurative chains the devil had wrapped around him making him feel appreciated, making him almost not want to leave.
It was too much, that whole day had been too much.
Lucifer Morningstar wasn't interested in him that way. Thank whatever higher deity, but there were enough similarities that combined with his memories of the place were too much for Alastor to feel comfortable with.
Alastor sighed once more (he looked like a balloon at a birthday party at this point) and headed to bed to sleep. He didn't take off his clothes. Not even his shoes. It was more comfortable, more practical. Just in case.
Alastor was drifting off to sleep when he felt warm lips nibble where his neck and jaw met, soothing the sting of his teeth with small licks. Alastor growled his displeasure, but the figure, now a warm weight riding on him, only laughed in pleasure.
“Did you miss me, pet? Very rude of you to leave in the middle of the night.” The familiar voice sent electricity through Alastor’s body, jolting him awake. He sat up and kicked blindly, his eyes focused on snake eyes that glowed in the dark and a hat with a silver snake on top.
“Let me go!” he growled and Magne laughed, a dark, mocking laugh that echoed against his lips as Magne grabbed his hands and brought their lips together, swallowing Alastor’s protests.
“Mmm… I did miss you.” Lucifer held his hands with one of his own and tangled the other in Alastor’s hair, forcing him to arch his body with a tug. Alastor growled in frustration. “I missed your lips, I missed your taste, I missed your beautiful, sexy body.” Lucifer pushed against him. “Did you miss me?” he asked again.
“Not even a little” he assured him, and Lucifer pulled hard.
“And yet you called to me in your dreams, searching for me, a part of you begging to be found.” Lucifer’s hand reached down and pulled as a golden chain appeared around Alastor’s neck. “I thought someone had taken you, that you had been hurt. I was prepared to force them to face torment never before seen.”
“I'm not an object to be stolen,” Alastor growled and choked when Lucifer pulled the chain.
“And you should still be punished for the anguish you put your king through,” he said, moving down again to take his lips.
Alastor headbutted him and when Lucifer moved away with a hiss Alastor finished pushing him, backing up to the headboard. Lucifer's body fell and hit his head against the floor unpleasantly. Alastor didn't feel worried, just scared, and he moved to put distance and look for his cane, look for something that would make him feel less helpless.
Lucifer groaned and sat up rubbing his head. “Alastor? What are you doing in my room?” he asked incredulously.
“WHAT?” he shrieked through the static. Lucifer put his hands on his hips and a flash of moonlight illuminated his hat.
The snake on the hat was gold.
“It was you who came into my room and climbed into my bed!” he yelled at him.
Lucifer looked around. “ooohh. oops” he smiled shyly and rubbed the back of his head.
Alastor did what he had wanted to do to every Lucifer he had ever met. He threw them out the window. It was okay, maybe they had wings to catch them, but at least it was momentarily satisfying.
The blow sent Lucifer back into his body and the king of hell fell with a grunt onto the pentagram he had drawn.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting such a welcome,” he said to himself, rubbing the fading bruise. “Have you traded me for another, my deer?” he murmured to an unpresentable Alastor. “Never mind, my love.” He made the chain appear around his hand and wrapped it around his fingers.
“I’m coming for you,” he promised and kissed the bond of magic and power that united them.