Chapter Text
As with many things, eventually Charlie got her way. The masque would be held in the hotel, ostensibly as a show of contrition for past wrongs and a desire to improve relations on Heaven’s end, and Lucifer dealt with the agony of his family by doing what he always did: avoiding any and all mention of them.
Or at least, he tried to. It was, as it turned out, much harder to seclude one’s self in a building with others in residence, and unlike when Lucifer was alone in his tower, now there were people to miss him if he didn’t show his face for a few days; people who noticed if he was actively avoiding them.
People who needed him.
It was strange. It was… Well. It wasn’t something he was used to. Lilith, after a point, always left him to it, confident he would resurface eventually, and though she’d occasionally need him and the power at his fingertips, she’d never liked to rely on him overmuch if she could help it. Charlie, for her part, had stopped needing him very early on, if she’d ever needed him to begin with, beyond his role in her creation, and he wasn’t naive enough to discount his own fault in the centuries-long distance between them.
Still, when his third day of relative solitude had come and gone, spent between pacing anxiously and occupying his hands wherever he could to avoid thinking of the coming weeks, he’d been baffled to hear an incessant banging on his door early one morning, and even more confused when Charlie had blown into the room, her words flying over his head while Lucifer stood there dumbly, half-asleep and clad in nothing but his shorts, one of his wife’s too-large concert shirts, and sporting an impressive array of bedhead.
She spoke of the masque, the things they’d need to do to get the hotel ready (things he'd need to do), but he was hardly able to pay attention, too busy trying to wake his mind up, blinking ineffectively past the haze of sleep and the creeping tendrils of depression. Then again, part of him wondered if his attention was expected in the first place. The thought made him flush, this time with guilt. He was her father—she shouldn’t be up here taking care of him and bearing witness to his mess.
Self-consciously, he dug his nails into the palm of his hand, eyes tracing her every movement, the excited way she spoke, and the guilt intensified. This was important to her: the culmination of all she’d been working for, the pinnacle of all her dreams, healing the mess he’d made long ago with his wreck of a family. He should have been excited, but instead, all he could do was selfishly think of himself and wallow in his own misery and terror.
Fuck.
The guilt swiftly turned to embarrassment when Alastor glided in shortly thereafter, tutting in that way of his and drawling that it was best to let her poor old father get his bearings.
“Sleeping in, Your Majesty?” he asked, the derision in his words and the snide flick of his eyes evident, and it left Lucifer feeling uncomfortably judged, an angry red replacing the embarrassed flush his cheeks.
“What are you doing here?” Lucifer demanded, crossing his arms as his eyes narrowed.
“Just seeing how the other half lives,” Alastor replied, his smile inching into shit-eating territory. “Rather pathetically, as it turns out.”
“It’s six in the morning, asshole! I was sleeping! That’s a perfectly reasonable time to be sleeping!”
Alastor shrugged, eyes sparking, though Charlie elbowed him, sighing.
“Alastor was just helping me go over a list of things that need doing,” Charlie explained. “We need to make sure the ballroom is ready, make sure there’s food, music… we need to send invites, too, and I thought, well, maybe it’s best if—if you and Alastor handled those…” There was a hesitance to those words that made Lucifer frown, inclining his head, one hand rubbing at his exposed shoulder. Alastor’s eyes, he noticed, traced his every move.
“Well, uh, sure, sweetheart, but…” Lucifer floundered, trying to figure out how to word it delicately before he sighed and gave up. “I thought that was something you’d like to do?”
Charlie winced, and Lucifer bit his lip.
“Well, it’s…” Her eyes ticked between him and Alastor. “Well! You know, you and Alastor know a lot more people than I do, I just… thought we’d reach more people this way! Yes!”
Lucifer, who kept up with a grand total of ten people, and Alastor, who had been gone seven years, both looked at each other, and then pointedly at her.
“I think, as your dad, I should be very happy you never learned you lie well, yes?” Lucifer asked, smiling as he said it, fondness leaking through despite his amusement. Next to him, Alastor sighed, hands resting behind his back.
“Ah, the sad state of youth these days.”
“She’s older than you,” Lucifer countered mildly, before making a face, almost missing the slanted look Alastor sent him. It was an odd thing to consider, when Alastor seemed far older than Charlie most days.
“But seriously, kiddo,” Lucifer continued, “what’s the real reason?”
Charlie’s shoulders slumped. “Okay. Okay. It’s only… well. I’m not… I know… I think we’d have a better chance of attendance if the invitations came from you and not… me. Alastor’s an Overlord, and he knows a lot of people. If he hadn’t brought me to Rosie, we wouldn’t have had the backup we needed for the fight, and I know she only agreed to hear me out because they’re friends. People seem to respect him. And dad, you’re… well, you.”
She said that like it meant anything at all. Lucifer just stared at her, baffled, before glancing down at himself again—same duck shorts, same oversized tee-shirt, same… everything. Countless thousands of years, and his reflection in the mirror hadn’t changed substantially since the moment he was cast down, barring any deliberate shape-shifting. He could count on one hand the people he actually considered to be his friends, and though he was aware of more than he let on, his political presence was minimal at best.
“What I am is not following,” he muttered, running a hand through his already-mussed hair, and trying to ignore Alastor’s heavy gaze and the way Charlie sighed.
“Dad. You’re the King of Hell,” Charlie said. “People listen when you talk. They pay attention when you do things. If you asked them to come, they’d feel like they had to. Alastor too, even if he’s more… threatening about it.”
It was Lucifer’s turn to wince. “Yeah, ah, I’m not sure that’s a positive thing? Besides, you’re the princess. Any pull I have, you have.”
Charlie looked down. “But I don’t,” she said, quiet. “That’s the thing. I want so badly to make things better, but… But I know they don’t respect me. Not yet. Even after the battle, their praise wasn’t really for me, it was for you. That you had to step in and save us. They respect you still. Or fear you enough. Maybe it was a start for me, but if I sent them, I’m sure they’d find a way to write it off as more optimism. I’m not stupid, dad, and I want this to succeed, so I’m asking you this favour.”
“Charlie—“
“No! Please, just… listen.” Listen. Lucifer tried not to look as stricken as he felt. “This is important. I’m not—well! Okay, maybe I’m a little bit bummed about it, but! It’s not a setback, dad. And this is official. Even if I had the same respect you do, it needs to come from you. You used to be one of them. You’re the king, and we’re inviting a bunch of angels to out realm after Adam and his Exterminators almost slaughtered us all. It needs to come from you so our people feel more confident and protected. So they’ll know you’ll be there to stop things getting out of hand. Alastor can talk to the Overlords, but if you back this officially, people will have to take it seriously.” Her eyes flashed with determination, and really, what other choice did Lucifer have? Any platitudes would sound empty, and he cursed himself inwardly for being so absent he didn’t notice how this wretched place treated his own daughter. If he thought it would help, he’d have forced them all to acknowledge her work—seized them with his bare hands and dragged them kicking and screaming to grovel at her feet for her forgive. She would grant it, because Lucifer had passed many things onto her, but his most fundamental sin was not one of them.
“All right, I… I’ll see about it. Asking some people,” Lucifer said, and Charlie smiled.
“Thanks, dad. Alastor?”
“Why of course,” Alastor replied, but there was a tightness to his voice; a slant of displeasure that undercut the affirmation. “You will have to tell us who you want in attendance, however. I can personally suggest some people who shouldn't be there, of course.”
Lucifer snorted quietly, appreciating the pettiness for the levity it brought, and Alastor shot him a quick, narrow look.
“Of course,” Charlie said, nodding. “I’ll get something to you, though you’ll probably have to add more to it. And we’ll have to plan the food, and the music. Or should I leave that to you? Dad, do you know what they like?”
Before Lucifer could even think to panic, Alastor cut in smoothly:
“Why don’t you leave the music to me, hm?”
“Oh… all right. But it needs to be stuff everyone can enjoy, Alastor.”
“Why, my dear, I had the most popular radio show in Hell for decades. Trust me—the selection will be to die for.”
“Please don’t mean that with your unusual… enthusiasm,” Charlie pleaded.
“I’m hurt,” Alastor simpered. “A bit of enthusiasm can make a world of difference.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Charlie sighed.
“Oh, don’t worry your pretty head about it. If things get too rambunctious, we can send your father and his black cloud of despondency to dampen things.” Alastor’s eyes swept up and down Lucifer’s body again. “He can even wear the same fetching attire.”
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, and while he normally never employed his magic for such things, it was the work of a moment to snap himself back into his regular day clothes, scowling at the way Alastor’s mouth twitched and settled from his normal smile to something that more closely resembled a self-satisfied smirk.
“Charlie,” Lucifer said, with the most pleasant tone he could muster, “if you could excuse us for a moment? There’s something I need to speak to Alastor about, if we’re going to get the hotel ready for you and start issuing invites.”
“Of course!” Charlie said, though when she’d embraced Lucifer (God above, would he ever get used to that? To the sheer volume of love in her heart?) she whispered in his ear, please don’t kill him before withdrawing, far too readily, as though she’d been expecting this.
“Unfortunately, I am going to kill you,” Lucifer said simply, and Alastor smirked, laughed, and, well—
Two hours later found them in the kitchen, snarking over a pot of lentils and meat on the stove, Alastor’s teeth snapping with genuine frustration and Lucifer’s hand clutching possessively around the ladle, squabbling over the proper seasoning techniques for whatever it was they’d inadvertently created. Alastor seemed to take Lucifer’s sweet tooth as a personal affront, and he was sneering about Lucifer’s sugar intake even as Lucifer dumped more Creole-spiced lentils into the simmering gumbo.
“God, who knew you were such a control freak,” Lucifer muttered, irony dripping from his voice. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he’d already had to magic his clothes clean twice, snarking that at least the splatter would match Alastor’s varying tones of red.
“It is not being a control freak to instruct a pitiful, know-nothing imbecile in the proper ways of—“
“What?” Lucifer laughed, cutting in. “What are you talking about? ‘It’s not being a control freak’? It absolutely is! You grabbed my arm and hauled me halfway across the kitchen when I was going to add something you didn’t like! In what universe is that not you simply being the psychotic control freak you are?”
“Hm, he who casts stones in a glass house, Your Majesty. It is not my fault you simply have no sense of taste or class—“
Lucifer threw the ladle at him, too fast for Alastor to stop it from making contact, grin becoming vicious when he heard the screech of a discordant radio moments before Alastor’s shadows surged forward, curiously careful not to disrupt the cooking as they surrounded Lucifer, who only smirked, and then they were arguing again, voices doubling up, speaking over one another even as Lucifer wove in and out of shadows, the gumbo bubbling gently on the stove.
“I don’t think the man whose entire personality consists of being a curmudgeonly, red-wearing, radio-obsessed cannibal gets to tell me what class is!“
“And I don’t think a man who spends days at a time wallowing in his room alone gets to do that either, now does he?”
Lucifer scoffed. “Oh, please, you? Lecturing me about wallowing? Does this sound familiar? ’Alastor, where have you been wallowing for the past seven years? How the city has missed your murderous rampages and broadcasts! Perhaps he is on sabbatical! Perhaps he has fallen so tragically to an angel’s blade! Oh wait, no, he’s merely off somewhere being dramatic! Our brooding, Hellish hero! Ascended to the light!” As he spoke, the air shimmered around him, his hair lengthening, body curving, voice softening and becoming higher, more feminine. Shapeshifting was an instinct he’d never curbed, and in truth, he’d never tried to, either. In the past, he’d done it to make Lilith and Charlie laugh and smile, and before that, before the Fall, he’d also used it to dig under Adam’s skin on occasion. The snake had been his favourite, but he’d delighted in the way this particular form had made Adam splutter and stumble, never failing to throw him off. It certainly seemed to throw Alastor off, his eye twitching just barely at the corners, his smile seeming frozen.
“Why, Your Majesty, I didn’t realise you’d paid attention to my broadcasts,” Alastor eventually drawled, voice dangerously silky as he drifted forward, though there was something strained about it, his smile tight at the corners. “It is always nice to be appreciated by an audience.”
“That’s what you got out of this? Unbelievable. Also, you interrupted my jazz, you prick; of course I noticed.”
Alastor tsked. “That’s not very ladylike,” he said, eyes slipping up and down Lucifer’s current body. Lucifer rolled his eyes again, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind his ears. It was always longer when he took this form, and though it made his resemblance to Charlie more obvious, it also made their differences more apparent.
After all, though there’d never been any doubt that she’d resemble him, Lucifer had always intended she not carry any of his failings.
“All I’m saying,” Lucifer continued, prim, still in the same feminine voice, amazed he could talk about this at all without being crippled by thoughts of Lilith, “is that you weren’t exactly out being Hell’s Social Butterfly, now were you? Besides, it’s not like I knew who you were. I just liked the music. Now, if you wanted a more recent example, there were also, oh, right, the last seven years, and those days you spent licking your wounds with no word at all to anyone after Adam.”
Alastor scoffed. “It is quite a bit different to hiding in one room because I’m sad,” he mocked.
“Right, right, because being sad would involve having feelings, and we all know the famous Radio Demon doesn’t have those,” Lucifer said pointedly, rolling his eyes again, one hand mockingly ghosting over Alastor’s chest, where his beating heart and his fractured soul both vied for space.
“Feelings are pesky things,” Alastor said, eyes still narrowed, “best left alone.” There was something strange about the way he regarded Lucifer now—something almost uncertain. Lucifer could follow every movement his eyes made, the way they focused on Lucifer’s wrist, as slender as before, but where Alastor would have normally gripped it by now, wrenching Lucifer’s hand away, this time he looked as though he didn’t know quite what to do with it.
What to do with Lucifer himself.
Lucifer’s eyebrow lifted.
“Don’t tell me you’re too much of a gentleman to fight a lady.”
Alastor’s eyes snapped back to his face, incensed. “You are—“
“Um. Am I interrupting something?”
Lucifer blinked, drawing back, realising almost belatedly how close they were standing, leaning into each other’s spaces, and—ah.
“Vaggie,” Lucifer greeted, his form slithering back into the male one they knew best as he pretended to dust off one of his sleeves, stepping away from Alastor, whose eyes ticked to Vaggie and immediately narrowed.
“I can come back,” Vaggie offered, looking more uncertain than Lucifer was used to seeing her. Part of him wanted to say yes, do that, but she was important to Charlie, so she was important to him, too.
“It’s fine,” Lucifer said, waving off the apologies. “Uh. Do you… need anything? Does Charlie need anything? There’s nothing wrong, is there?” The last sentence ended on a note of worry, his mouth turning down, but before his mind could spiral more Alastor was back beside him with a disparaging look, and it kicked at Lucifer’s vanity, making him straighten.
“Charlie’s fine. It’s me,” Vaggie said eventually, eyes still drifting between them with no small amount of suspicion, at least when she focused on Alastor. Worry seemed to be the predominant emotion, though, and Lucifer inclined his head, wondering what it was making her seem out of sorts—hesitant, really, in a way he rarely saw her.
“Did you mean it?” Vaggie blurted then, folding her arms over her chest defensively.
“I mean many things, my dear,” Alastor drawled before Lucifer could answer, still eyeing her with distaste. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Lucifer elbowed him, frowning, and Alastor rolled his eyes minutely. Still, something in Alastor’s body language seemed to hint at acquiescence for once, and Lucifer would take what little he could get.
“Ignore him,” Lucifer said. Vaggie huffed.
“I do my best, sir,” was her dry response, and Lucifer chuckled, noting the way Alastor’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he slipped away only moments later, checking the pot.
“But, ah, seriously—something you need?” Lucifer asked, watching Alastor out of the corner of his eye and fighting the urge to shake his head—or worse: smile with any degree of fondness. Control freak, he thought, pointedly, watching the way Alastor’s eyes narrowed as he checked the status of the food. That, too, was more fond than he’d like.
“Charlie’s set the date. She’s set… everything. Everyone has their list of things to do, and I know you’re both probably going to be busy, but I wanted to know if you meant it when you said you would teach me to dance like you and Alastor do, even if we can only fit a few lessons in.” Her eyes flashed with determination. “This is important to Charlie, and I won’t disappoint her, or embarrass her.”
Nor will you, her expression seemed to say, pointed and narrow-eyed. Not more than you already have. It was out there now, and Lucifer hid a grimace even as he found himself half-remembering the promise, the memory interspersed with others: himself, in Alastor’s arms, alive and vibrant for the first time in so very long, meeting movement for movement and challenge for challenge.
“Well, of course,” Lucifer replied at last, and before he could even think to get nervous about committing himself to a promise already made, before he could even think about what it meant, a hand settled on his shoulder, gripping tight, Alastor gliding into his previously vacated spot with an amused slant to his perpetually-smiling mouth.
“Hm. You and His Majesty are rather vertically challenged,” Alastor said smoothly, eyes sweeping over her and punctuating the action by lifting his other hand and moving it, as if measuring the tops of their heads. “Must be an angel thing. Will you be leading, or following? Oh, don’t answer. There’s only one possibility.”
Vaggie balked. “Uh.”
Lucifer took pity on her, stepping closer, but pulling Alastor with him, eyeing their heights critically. He himself was taller than Vaggie, though barely so, and Alastor was even taller than Charlie, certainly taller than Lilith had been. It was more than possible for a short lead to guide a tall follower with adjustments, Lucifer knew, but after a certain point, and with a height difference that extreme, it could be… Limiting, especially if one were a beginner. Still…
“Charlie can lead and follow,” Lucifer murmured. “We’ll teach you both, but for this, it might be best to let her lead, so we will focus on that.” He rubbed his jaw, frowning, and barely noticed Alastor’s hand settling back on his hip. “When do you want to start?”
“Now.” Blunt. Direct. Lucifer tried not to balk. “We don’t have much time. If you two aren’t… busy with whatever weird seduction ritual I interrupted—“
A screech of radio static, quickly smothered. Both Lucifer and Vaggie stared at him, but Alastor only smiled placidly back, and Lucifer doubted Vaggie could read the small tells in Alastor’s face that spoke to his displeasure—the tightness around his smiling mouth, the pinch at the corners of his eyes.
“What, that?” Lucifer leapt in, forcing a laugh for good measure. “I was just—“
“Turning into a woman and pulling pigtails?” Vaggie said dryly. Lucifer waved his hand.
“Seeing if I could get a rise,” he corrected. “Someone needs to keep him on his toes. Easy enough to shift into, you know, that—certainly easier than snakes and peacocks.”
“Right.” She eyed him. “Family resemblance is strong.” Then she made a face, like she wasn’t sure what to make of her own statement.
“Ah. Yep! Had to be,” Lucifer replied, feeling a little ill at ease at her pointed tone. He’d always known Charlie looked like him. There was never any doubt that she was going to. Never any possible way to prevent it. That Lilith shared similar colouring was simply luck on their part.
“Right. So. Are we cool? With this? The lessons,” Vaggie eventually said, glancing at them both, though the look she sent Alastor was far more suspicious. “I know you might be… busy.”
“I don’t know,” Alastor said in response, faux-casual. “You’re right, I do have a rather busy schedule, and I’m afraid I didn’t hear a please.”
They glared at each other, and Lucifer wondered if this was what it felt like to be in the room when he and Alastor were arguing. Then he saw the genuine ire in Alastor’s expression, and the genuine mistrust in Vaggie’s, and stepped smoothly in between.
“Right! Well, uh, this will keep if we want to go now, right? Yes! Now works.” He snapped his fingers—more for show than anything—and set an alarm for the gumbo, one that would go off if anything were to go wrong. For good measure he added an element that would violently ward off anyone who tried to sneak some. Then he brushed at his sleeve, turning to them both. “Shall we?”
The ballroom had been one of Lucifer’s favourite additions to the new hotel—and one of the final ones. It had been added after Alastor crawled back to them in the days following the battle, licking his metaphorical wounds and hiding their remnants under a smile that apparently only Lucifer had seen through, and it had been sheer spite that had led Lucifer to healing the rest of it, his teeth bared and his touch unkind as he’d seared through and mended Adam’s hurt the way no one had been able to do for him.
It had been messy. It had also been… not Lucifer’s finest work. But he’d done it, he’d done it, and after Alastor had stood there, hand clutching at his healed chest while Lucifer grappled with everything he had learned when his magic had touched the Radio Demon’s blackened soul.
There’d been no thank-yous. That wasn’t how they were, or how they spoke to each other. Instead, there’d been sharp, angry words between two creatures unused to giving or receiving help, Lucifer snarling over betrayals old and new, and Alastor—
Angry. Livid. The sort of wrath that made their little pissing contest in the lobby before Adam’s attack seem like fledglings fighting over the last scrap of mana. They’d levelled the venue room, Alastor unable to match Lucifer for raw power and speed and Lucifer bound by the unspoken threat of his daughter’s disappointment to not destroy the crazy prick of an Overlord he’d just helped to piece back together.
The ballroom had been borne of the ashes of that fight, in the end, and now it stretched before them in all its glory, the dual chandeliers sparkling overhead, the panelled walls crowned by swirling, gold-plated motifs of interlocked apples and antlers, much like the the concierge in the lobby and in the room where he and Alastor had first danced those weeks, months, ago.
Charlie had loved it, touched that they’d worked together on the entire thing. She hadn’t seen the way they’d fought over nearly every last addition, neither willing to let the other do more, to leave a bigger mark on the space—the interlocked carvings were proof of that. Still, Lucifer couldn’t help but be proud as they stepped in, the space tasteful and reminiscent of days gone by. If there were little touches of the home Lucifer had been banished from millennia ago, well, none of them had to know it, even though he’d felt Alastor’s eyes on him, heavy, as the art on the ceiling had swirled into place. In the end, that had been the only thing Lucifer and Alastor hadn't fought over, for Lucifer had remained silent as Alastor subtly altered the ceiling, making it look less like Heaven’s Garden and more a mix of things—something familiar, a piece of Lucifer’s place of origin, once beloved, and something that had seemed alien until he’d danced with Alastor in the light of a false moon and recognised it as something from Alastor’s own home, Alastor’s own past.
Lucifer hoped, a sharp smile spreading across his face as he looked up, that Heaven recognised the parts that were him. He hoped they also recognised the parts that weren’t.
He hoped they choked on them both.
(God, he wished he didn’t have to see them at all.)
“Well!” Lucifer said, his voice echoing in the hall, as he turned to Vaggie with a grin. “Might as well learn here, I say! Far less worry about tripping up on unfamiliar terrain. So! Probably should have asked this earlier. What dance do you want to know? Not sure how much use you’ll get out of swing or the Charleston for this particular shindig—“ Alastor looked pained; Lucifer shot him a sickly sweet smile “—so maybe if there’s something else? As you’ve noticed I’ve been, ha, well, away from Heaven for awhile, as the kids say, but let me tell you, if I know them, and I do, they’re probably all over a waltz, at least the higher-ups. I also imagine Charlie will try and force them into something else, and she’s always liked to tango too, and of course ballroom, ballet, swing, the quadrille, samba, an assortment of other social and street dances, and don’t forget—“
Alastor’s hand curled around his upper arm, stopping Lucifer’s tirade. “Do cease your incessant over-sharing.”
“Well excuse me for trying to set the picture frame!”
“It’s set the stage, Your Worship.”
Lucifer, hearing the inserted T in the otherwise T-less worship, rolled his eyes. “Ha! Oh, clever. Haven’t heard that one before.”
“I know a little about waltzing,” Vaggie cut in, sound exasperated. Alastor’s did not let go of Lucifer’s arm. “The Exterminators didn’t have much use for dancing, but we knew enough to do that. If Charlie likes to tango, then I’d like to learn that. Work with what sounds familiar, right?”
Lucifer and Alastor both looked at her, then at each other more critically.
“Is that within your abilities? I understand if you’re rather limited,” Lucifer drawled before Alastor could say something similar. Alastor’s eyes flashed, his hand tightening around Lucifer’s upper arm, their bodies shifting into orbit.
“Trust me, Highness—“ Lucifer’s grin widened at the slight, the lesser title, even as his eyes narrowed “—when I say I am a man of many talents. The real question,” Alastor continued, smug, “is whether or not you’re willing to leave yourself in my exceedingly capable hands for the duration.”
“Uh,” Vaggie said, her brow arching. “What.”
“He’s too tall for me to lead,” Lucifer told Vaggie, unbothered by the admission. Of course, Lucifer could simply magic himself to be taller, but that sort of thing had never held any appeal, even to a shapeshifter. “It’s more than possible for the shorter partner to lead the taller one, of course, but with the difference in our current heights so, well, extreme, it would be…” Lucifer wrinkled his nose.
“Hm, a disaster, shall we say? At the very least an exercise in comedy,” Alastor chimed in. “On second thought, Your Majesty, perhaps you should lead after all. It would be amusing to watch you stumble.”
“Right. You, let someone else lead, even if you weren’t so freakishly tall? Should I expect the wings of redemption to sprout from your back, too?” Lucifer snarked, his own shimmering briefly into place before disappearing once more. “I define my capabilities by the fact that you still deign to choose me as a dance partner at all, and have on several occasions.” It was sarcasm—Lucifer knew his own strengths as a dance partner—but it still brought a gleam of satisfaction to Alastor’s gaze. Ignoring it, he turned to Vaggie. “How, uh. How familiar are you? With the tango?”
“I think…” Vaggie trailed off. “It’s like one of those things I used to know… before. I remember little things. Seeing people dance, but it was never something I learned.”
Alastor chuckled. It was an unkind sound. “Perhaps… a demonstration, then? After all, I need to make sure His Majesty is as up to par as he thinks he is. Wouldn’t want you looking like a clod on the dance floor, dear.”
Lucifer made a low noise, his eyes flicking back to Alastor in exasperation, but finally he nodded and they disengaged, Alastor releasing him as he shed his red overcoat, Lucifer doing the same with his white one, having left his hat in the kitchen.
“Pick something nice; no lyrics,” Lucifer muttered to Alastor, listening to the answering, mocking chuckle as Alastor waved his hands, music starting to filter from everywhere and nowhere—all of it underlaid with the tinny echo of a radio. In a room built for an orchestra, it leant a strange, eerie edge to the notes, at once making the space feel both full and yet blissfully empty. The song he did not know, did not recognise, but he paused to listen to it all the same, head cocked to the side, poised as if on a precipice as the strings whispered and fluttered, each adding a new layer; a new tone.
A hand curled around his hip again, and Lucifer turned his head slightly as Alastor shifted behind him, extending his other hand out to the side, fingers uncurling like claws, waiting. Lucifer didn’t have to truly look up to know the ever-present smile was fixed firmly in place, but this time there was something else lurking at the corners of Alastor’s eyes.
Are you willing to leave yourself in my hands? Alastor had asked, and Lucifer’s pride wanted to say no, but even as the instinctive refusal welled up, he thought, with far more rationality, that it was untrue, and he knew it. He’d known it from the moment of that first dance, and had reaffirmed it with the second. Now he was merely confirming it with the third, both to himself and the demon at his back, God help them all.
“Tango’s a more complicated dance,” Lucifer explained as he reached out and placed his hand in Alastor’s, as though he had not made yet another momentous realisation. “In a sense, anyway. More so than the waltz, I find. There’s two people, obviously, and but you can dance it either open or closed.” Alastor’s hand closed over his. “Either way, it’s meant to be passionate, sensual, and since you’re dancing with my daughter, we assume you’ll want the closer version.” The thought made him pause, but then again, he’d been forced to make his peace with Charlie dating long ago.
Slowly, he also glanced up at Alastor. “With a tango, you also lean on your partner a lot, and I mean that very literally. You’re trying to couple both the sharpness and the sensuality of motion and god can it look silly when you’re stumbling around—“
He snapped his mouth shut and hid a grimace. From above, he heard Alastor’s voice, rumbling with a deep sigh:
“I do so hate teaching.”
It was something Vaggie was meant to hear, judging by the volume. “I will step on your foot,” Lucifer said in response, “and I will make the heels on these boots taller to do it.”
“Truly? I would have thought you’d have done so by now, Your Majesty, if only to—“
“If you make another short joke I swear to Christ—“
“All right!” Vaggie said loudly as Lucifer and Alastor eyed each other, Alastor still at Lucifer’s back, hand on his hip, Lucifer’s hand still resting in Alastor’s outstretched one. “Can we maybe do this without having to break up the bickering every few moments? Or whatever the adults are calling it these days.” She was eyeing them skeptically, and Lucifer didn’t have to read her mind to understand she was second-guessing asking them to help. He didn’t blame her. Teaching, in this way, had never been his strong point either.
“Let’s start with the basics, if we must,” Alastor sighed, and Lucifer hummed his agreement, letting Alastor tug him—with surprising gentleness—into a proper starting position. The music was simpler now, easy to hear and count.
“Basic to the cross,” Lucifer said, trying to remember the names of things he’d learned long ago. It was so much harder to teach something that came naturally; so hard to have to actually stop and describe something as opposed to simply doing it, letting instinct take over before he could overthink anything. That had always been the allure of music and dance: it was something that could steal him away, a vehicle for all the things he could not express well with words. Once words got involved, it didn’t matter how much he loved something. How important he found it.
He’d never had much of a voice for persuasion.
Lucifer cleared his throat. “Right! Well, eh, the basic to cross is sort of your… basic… step. Right? Right. You’re the follower, Vaggie, so watch what I do, first. Ignore Alastor for the moment, and pay attention to my footwork.”
“Ignore Alastor?” came the dry response. “I’ve been wanting to do that for over a year.”
“Ha-ha, my dear, yes, but never forget who’s doing you a favour now, hm?” came Alastor’s response, each word carefully selected and dragged out, his eyes narrowing slightly. “If you wanted to impress your princess so badly, perhaps I should have added conditions…”
“You are fucked if you ever think we’d be stupid enough to make a deal with you.”
“Oh? Well, perhaps—“
“Stop,” Lucifer groused, his hand squeezing Alastor’s. “You!” He said, looking at Vaggie, “stop letting him weasel under your skin. He’s just doing it for a reaction. And you!” He looked back to Alastor, leaning forward. “Stop deliberately prodding people for five seconds. Focus.”
“You, telling me to focus?” Alastor said, but there was something in his expression now that had overtaken the vexation he’d previously shown at Vaggie. Amusement, perhaps, Lucifer thought, but it was genuine when so much about Alastor was not, so he’d take it.
From there, it was a series of demonstrations, interspersed by one of them speaking, where they could. Sometimes Lucifer would leave the cage of Alastor’s grip, and he would gently lead Vaggie through the same steps they’d just demonstrated, smiling and praising her when she got something right and grinning when he saw an answering flush in her cheeks. It didn’t surprise him, overmuch, that she was good at the technical footwork—Vaggie had been trained for battle, and in many ways battle was just another form of dance, but Adam’s training had been crude, insufficient, and while she picked up the steps quickly, there was a stiffness to the movements that was harder to train out.
“Relax,” Lucifer cajoled gently, smiling as she stared down at their feet, eyes narrowed and clearly trying to make sure she executed every step perfectly. “A tango is about passion! Feeling, rather than thinking.” He squeezed her hand gently, and she exhaled, nodding like a soldier readying herself for another battle while Lucifer suppressed a small sigh. He heard Alastor’s brief, derisive bark of laughter, but it was easy enough to ignore, part of him surprised Alastor was bothering to linger at all.
“Out for love,” Vaggie said, almost to herself. Lucifer cocked his head inquisitively, but she just shook her head. “Something someone said to me once.”
“Carmilla, by chance?” Lucifer asked, smiling and shrugging at the way she snapped her head up as he lead her in a very careful turn, showing her how to alternate her weight from foot-to-foot, and how Charlie, as the leader, would move in turn. “I do have friends, you know,” Lucifer chided gently. “We’ve spent several Exterminations together. Carmilla’s a wonderful dance partner. It sounds like something she’d say.”
“Really?” came a silky voice to his left, and when Lucifer glanced over, it was to see Alastor watching with narrowed eyes.
“Yes?” Lucifer replied, baffled by the dark shift in tone. “I’ve known Zestial longer than you, you know, and so I met her fairly early on, too. I know several Overlords. You know this.”
“Do I? They’ve neglected to mention.”
“Well, that’s not—ah, remember to transfer your weight, Vaggie—yes, exactly. There’s a very improvisational aspect to this dance, once you know the basics, so you’ll want to—yes, that’s it!”
He glanced back to Alastor, helping Vaggie through the eight-step again slowly. Repetition was best, he thought, but he knew it by heart, so it was easy enough to carry on a conversation.
“Anyway, like I said, that’s not really my problem. I like my privacy, and I try not to advertise my connections to any of the Overlords. Don’t want to create targets. They know that, and Carmilla’s pretty private too.”
“Are the Von Eldritchs the exception?” Alastor purred, but the dark undertone remained, and there was something heavier in his gaze now; a sordid, sullen edge.
“Charlie dated their son Seviathan,” Lucifer said flatly. “Frederick’s an all right sort, besides; we were close, sort of.” Close enough to have several pictures of the Von Eldritch family in his study. “It was sort of inevitable. He’s Hellborn, at any rate. He can take care of himself if you try anything.”
Vaggie stumbled, and Lucifer caught her weight easily. She looked troubled, and Lucifer blinked, before scrambling.
“Not that you have anything to worry about with Seviathan,” Lucifer hastened to assure her. “They broke up long ago. Haven’t seen much of them, in, uh. Awhile.”
“Oh. It’s fine,” Vaggie mumbled. “Charlie told me about him. I just suck at dancing, apparently.”
Lucifer chuckled, refocusing on her, and doing his best to ignore Alastor as the Radio Demon watched them, displeasure written in the fine lines by his eyes. In the interim Lucifer did his best to tailor his approach to Vaggie, speaking through the steps and counting with her, but the stiffness prevailed, and he could practically see the thoughts swirling in her mind, tripping her up.
“Again,” Lucifer said. “Side step, towards the centre of the dance floor—yes! Now, I’ll step to your outside, and you—yes, good, ah, just like that, now—“
Her face scrunched in concentration and determination, but after a few more fumbles Lucifer was smiling as they executed a series of perfect eight-steps, Lucifer’s lead gentle but firm, doing his best not to give her room to overthink once they fell into the rhythm of the tango, and eventually, when he experimented with a small turn and she stumbled, he was relieved to see she was at least laughing.
“Oh, fuck,” Vaggie moaned then, head snapping up. “If these steps are that hard… I’m going to eat marble the moment I have to start throwing in hip movements.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t fall,” Lucifer told her, shaking his head. “That’s what the leader does. Remember what I said about trust? Think of it like a trust-building exercise! You have to let yourself fall and trust your partner to catch you, right?”
Vaggie’s face did something odd at that, and Lucifer heard a low peal of laughter from Alastor. He blinked, uncertain what was so funny about that statement, and then, carefully, he offered to switch and let her lead.
The results were… less promising. If she’d been overthinking as the follower, then as the leader it was even worse, but it was only the first lesson. There was time, if they worked on it, before she would have to present anything to anyone; time to ingrain the basics and make it so that, while she wouldn’t be able to dance like a professional, she’d be able to surprise Charlie and the other onlookers, should it come to that.
She tripped, overthinking once more, and Lucifer made sure he caught her again even as she huffed at herself with annoyance, her hands braced on his chest where she’d tried to catch herself, too.
“Damn,” she muttered. “Maybe we should have just gone with the waltz.”
“There’s still time for it,” Lucifer reminded her kindly. “We don’t have to be ready by tomorrow.”
“Do we not?” Alastor asked, flicking his wrist insouciantly to play at inspecting the nails on one hand. “I always found it best to be prepared. Perhaps she should ask Carmilla, too.”
“No, we do not,” Lucifer said firmly, “and why are you so touchy about Carmilla? Thought you liked her.” Alastor made a low tch sound, a condescending edge to his smile, but he didn’t say anything else on the matter.
“It’s just… hard to envision,” Vaggie confessed, shooting a glare at Alastor. “I know I’m overthinking it, and sometimes I think I remember…”
“Remember?” Lucifer asked.
“Flashes. Bits and pieces from… before. Someone else dancing.”
“Ah,” Lucifer said, blinking gormlessly, hiding a grimace, never sure how to respond. She’d said the same earlier, but it wasn’t something he could relate to—he’d been created, shimmering to life in a blaze of Heavenly light; there were no memories of a time before that, a death or preceding life, and while he could break up chunks of memory, separating them into before the Fall and after, there was no grand change; no metamorphosis or reverse-apotheosis.
Apombrotosis, Lilith had teased him once, a word Lucifer had never heard before and never since, one of her own making: the stripping of divinity; the making of a mortal.
But he wasn’t mortal, and his divinity had never been stripped from him. Even after everything, they hadn’t done that, as Adam had learnt when he faced Lucifer head-on, Lucifer’s body aglow with the holy blood that pumped through his veins.
“Well!” Lucifer said, trying to cheer her up, “well, you are getting the steps, and it is easier when your partner is someone you, em. Well, someone you know. You know?”
“I know you,” Vaggie told him, arching a brow. Lucifer smiled, even as something in him hissed, liar. Curiously, he saw Alastor shift at her words, eyes narrowing over his smile before his expression smoothed out, flattened. Still, his fingers drummed almost impatiently on the top of his microphone, and there was displeasure to still be read in his face, if one knew where to look.
“Well, yes, but—“ Lucifer stuttered, trying to come up with the right words. “You aren’t exactly in love with me, are you?”
Vaggie balked, and Lucifer stumbled forward, his words containing none of the grace of his dance steps.
“The thing with the tango is a lot of it is in the mind, right? You can learn the technical steps, but you have to feel the dance with your partner, and I’m—well, I’m, ah. Well, I—I can’t pretend to understand what meeting the parents is like, really, but…” He floundered, and found, to his own mortification, that he was glancing to Alastor for assistance, scowling when Alastor only raised an eyebrow. “You said you met Carmilla? And she taught you?”
“To fight, not to dance!”
Lucifer shrugged. “There’s a surprising amount of overlap. If you learned from Carmilla, you’d have seen that. Carmilla loves dance, and she loves deeply. She probably told you to draw on that, right? Right. It’s hard to do that when you’re dancing with me, because you don’t feel some grand passion for me. Uh. I hope not, anyway.”
“You’re safe,” came Vaggie’s dry reply. “Though maybe if you turned into a woman again…”
A beat of silence followed, Vaggie looking momentarily horrified at her own joke before Lucifer tilted his head back and laughed, loud and startled but still genuine, until tears of mirth pricked at his eyes and he was forced to open them again.
“I’m glad Charlie has you, Vaggie,” Lucifer said through wheezing chuckles as he recovered himself, noticing only then that Alastor had slunk closer, gaze unflinching.
“Perhaps it would be easier to see a proper exhibition from a more competent team again,” Alastor drawled. “After all, for all Carmilla’s many charms, even she cannot dance a tango alone.” Lucifer frowned at the black tone, unable to decide if Alastor was taking pity or stirring up trouble, or if, perhaps, it was another dig at Lucifer’s leadership skills. Judging by the expression flickering over Vaggie’s face, she wasn’t sure either, but Lucifer was more baffled by the edge to Alastor’s tone, and the assessing, almost proprietary way he looked at Lucifer now.
Still, he was probably right, Lucifer grudgingly allowed. Vaggie, too, and with the same grudging edge, agreed it would likely be best, and that was how Lucifer found himself being lead across the floor again, easy as breathing, no hesitation in Alastor’s movements as he guided them in a basic eight-step.
“See,” Lucifer tried to tell her as they moved, “it will be more like this for you, one day,” he told her. Alastor was taller than Charlie, and Lucifer just the slightest bit taller than Vaggie—it was more akin to a mirror of what one day could be. “And, like I said, it will work better for you with Charlie anyway,” he added, Alastor guiding him through another series of steps, Lucifer’s hips rotating, snappy, but with a sensual edge that built the more they continued to move.
“Because we care for each other?”
“Because you trust each other and care for each other,” Lucifer replied, feeling Alastor’s hand tightening around his own in response. Lucifer flicked an inquisitive frown, but Alastor merely responded by adding in a few more complicated steps, seeming satisfied when Lucifer adapted well—testing him, the way Lucifer was testing Alastor in turn. What will you do? Where will you take us?
“You mentioned that before. About trust.” Vaggie’s eyes followed them both. “I do trust Charlie.”
“And you will trust her with everything you have when you dance. Because at the end of the day,” Lucifer murmured, pressing closer to Alastor, holding his gaze as Alastor leaned back in a lunge, taking Lucifer’s weight, hand steady and unwavering at Lucifer’s back, “it is about trust. Passion, sure, of course, but it’s a question of whether trust your partner to hold you. To guide you. To lead you.”
Vaggie’s eyebrows were sky-high. “Are you saying you trust this shitlord not to let you fall?”
Lucifer huffed a laugh even as Alastor scoffed, his leg briefly hooking over Alastor’s for a bit of flair before they shifted back to the eight-step.
“I trust his pride,” Lucifer said, hoping it came out more blasé than he felt. “As he trusts mine, I imagine.”
“Hm. You presume much,” Alastor murmured.
“Do I?” Lucifer asked, shifting his right leg forward and back from his hip for a bit more swivel, just as Alastor swept and placed Lucifer’s leg with his own, carrying them both into the next step. “Funny, but I don’t think so.” He was pushing it. They’d never talked about this, but now, Lucifer couldn’t stop the words. “It’s why you keep asking. You know what they say about three. It’s a charm.”
“And is it why you keep saying yes? Because you’re so charmed?” The response was silky-smooth, but before Lucifer could respond Alastor’s smile shifted, more smirk now, something dark pulling at the corners of his eyes. “How about a more… thorough demonstration?” Alastor purred, hand tightening around Lucifer’s even as the music shifted, going from something simple to something with the promise of intensity.
For a moment Lucifer merely paused, watching Alastor through narrowed eyes. They’d both stopped by then, eyeing each other. Their steps had been fluid so far, but simple—the sort of thing anyone could do without practice with a new partner, when one had as much experience as the both of them evidently did. What Alastor was asking, Lucifer instinctively knew, would call for much more. The Charleston was one thing, a waltz another—to dance a tango, to put on a true show, would require far more from both of them than had previously been given.
Yet even as Lucifer thought that, he realised the decision was already made.
Yes, he thought, shifting, listening to the new beat of the music; the new interplay of the instruments.
“If you drop me on this floor,” Lucifer murmured, harkening back to that night under the false moon of a false bayou as he let Alastor move him to a new starting position, one that echoed their first, “I swear on my eternal soul I will vanish every spice jar you have in that cabinet, and you’ll subsist on nothing but sweets for a month.”
Alastor’s chuckle, when it came, was far closer to Lucifer’s ear than expected. Never turn your back on a sinner, Lucifer’s instincts whispered, but it was far too late for that, wasn’t it? How many times had he done it already, today alone? Now he let Alastor slip behind him again, let that hand slip around him from behind to settle against his ribcage; let that body bracket his own, a play at power on an increasingly-familiar field.
“Nice try, Your Majesty,” Alastor crooned, so low Lucifer doubted Vaggie could truly hear him as Lucifer placed a hand back in his, and Lucifer nearly shivered at the lack of radio static in his voice, his body twisting and following when Alastor quickly spun him so that they were face-to-face, his hand sliding up Lucifer’s back, as they began to dance, “but that is rather an empty threat, is it not?”
Their hands joined again, Lucifer looking up at him as the strings trilled and they moved, truly moved, without the need to stop and explain. Even with Alastor’s cryptic words hanging over him, it was hard to think about why that mattered as they fed off each other, Lucifer’s expression melting into a challenging grin, one that was matched by the smirk on Alastor’s face.
“An empty threat? How do you figure that?” Lucifer asked as their feet slid across the floor, forward where the other went back, before they turned to face the same direction, legs snapping out in a quick kick. “I’ve meant every threat I’ve ever uttered.”
Alastor’s mouth twitched. He moved them in a half turn, Lucifer’s right leg sliding back as Alastor’s left slid forward, then immediately swivelled them both left, Lucifer’s leg moving back and forth like a pendulum—a perfect boleo. “As have I. It is good we are on the same page. But while the intent behind the threat may have been true, the words themselves were a lie, were they not?”
Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, though he kept his own smile in place, Alastor’s hand sliding up to nestle more against the side of Lucifer’s ribs, always leading, always guiding, and Lucifer, understanding, let himself be lead, let Alastor take his weight, turning even as his body remained in one place, weight on his right leg as Alastor softened the steps, rotating around Lucifer’s axis.
“Explain,” Lucifer breathed as they joined again, but he almost forgot to say it at all, losing himself to the music as they rocked and rotated, feeding off each other, balancing each other. The tango, for all of Lucifer’s bravado earlier, was not one of the dances he had often done with Lilith, though they had performed their fair share, and he’d almost forgotten it could feel like this—like a heartbeat; a steady thrum under his skin, keeping his body moving with the beat of the music, the matching strike of the drums and the strings.
Alastor’s hand gripped his, his hand pushing at Lucifer’s back in a moment’s warning, and when Alastor flipped Lucifer over his arm, there was no hesitation at all, his grip steady as he brought Lucifer back down, gathering him close again, their heads bent towards each other, and there was a patience as he guided Lucifer too, allowing time for every snap of Lucifer’s legs; every technical step, every sweep and kick, every hinge and crook. Never once did he falter either, hand remaining Lucifer’s back like it belonged there, like it had always been there.
He had never tangoed like this with Lilith. Not truly. Never had it felt like he was the natural extension of someone else’s body in this way, his every move preordained and predetermined, trusting in the solidity of Alastor’s form as one of Alastor’s legs moved between his, allowing Lucifer’s own to dart around it in a series of quick movements before he curled his leg entirely around Alastor’s, allowing Alastor to take the entirety of his weight and trusting him to hold Lucifer there, to keep that unwavering form.
And when Alastor lifted his arm, twirling Lucifer underneath it only to press himself to Lucifer’s back, it took no thought at all for Lucifer to arch his back and allow Alastor to slide a hand under his thigh, taking the entirety of his weight and spinning them over and over as the strings built, taking Lucifer out of the turns as quickly as they entered.
It was a blur, almost. All instinct, no thought, steps melting into each other as they moved with the music, with each other, all thought melting away as they sank to that deep place of instinct, the one Lucifer had ignored for such an achingly long time. Alastor’s steps did not have the same flair Lucifer’s did, but at every step he was there, meeting Lucifer, supporting him, moving him, guiding him, and Lucifer—
All he had to do was fly.
Sink deeper.
Let go.
It was why, when Alastor spoke again, Lucifer almost didn’t hear him, delirious with the ease of their movements, the unerring connection stretching between them.
“Do you still wish an explanation, Your Majesty?” Alastor breathed as the music simmered down—the eye before the storm.
“What?” Lucifer breathed, feet gliding across the floor as Alastor lifted him briefly. He could see the smirk on Alastor’s face, but that, too, seemed far away, and Lucifer let the hand on Alastor’s shoulder lift to his face briefly before Alastor carefully spun him out.
“Your threat. Swearing on your eternal soul. Such an empty thing,” Alastor purred as he drew Lucifer back in, spun him, pulled and guided him this way and that until they were close, Lucifer’s leg hooked around Alastor’s hip in a lean that made the golden blood pump deep in his veins. Then Alastor leaned in again, mouth against his ear. “You cannot swear on something you don’t have… can you, Highness?”
Lucifer sucked in a breath, his hand tightening in Alastor’s, eyes snapping to his face even as they continued to glide around the floor with serpentine steps. The strings sang, intensified by the addition of other instruments, a crescendo of sound that culminated in a sharp flash of movement from the both of them, Alastor spinning Lucifer out, their hands briefly separating before firmly joining once more, Alastor pulling Lucifer back to him and not even flinching when Lucifer’s leg wrapped around his waist for a brief moment, only to detach as they took a series of sharp, deliberate steps back with one another, hands joined at the front, faster and faster and faster.
“How do you know that?” Lucifer asked when Alastor dragged him back in, almost unable to form the words at all, Alastor’s legs moving in a series of intricate kicks and twists, always with that sinuous edge, ones echoed by Lucifer only a moment later.
Alastor’s smile flashed again, their mouths close, their movements in sync even as Alastor turned Lucifer out and began to guide him in a series of quick, sweeping steps—the unmistakable leader. Yet even as he led, embracing his role, Lucifer, too, threw himself into his own, matching Alastor’s ambitions with his own—following, yes, but not meek, or docile, or servile; not subservient. He followed Alastor here, he let him guide them, embracing his role as thoroughly as Alastor did, but he was equal in the way he moved with Alastor, equal in the way he matched him, for all that it seemed one held all the power.
This dance works because I choose to heed, and because we want the same things, Lucifer thought. It takes two to tango. Do not forget that.
“Tell me,” Lucifer demanded when their faces were close once more, not wavering when he felt Alastor’s hand slip under his legs, manoeuvring Lucifer’s body like it was something familiar, something he knew, and lifting him into the air. Strange: even knowing how they fought there was never any true doubt in his mind over whether Alastor would let him fall.
On the floor one more, hands clasped, Lucifer slid his foot back as Alastor dragged his forward, continuing their intricate interplay of leader and follower, gazes intent on one another.
“Tell me,” Lucifer said again, more force behind the words as some of the haze broke. Alastor smiled at him, as he always did, leading them into a turning step, but Lucifer didn’t miss a beat, sliding into the next series of movements, stepping side-back-side-forward as Alastor pivoted—beautiful, he couldn’t help but think, even as Alastor’s hands kept him close.
“Did you think,” Alastor purred, moving then, his hand pulling Lucifer forward until Lucifer could almost feel Alastor’s heart beating against his own, “when you forced that magic through my system, that you were the only one to learn something? No. How sloppy for you to not notice I was looking back. That I was seeing as much as you were. That while you were seeing what was there, I was seeing what wasn’t.” Lucifer’s eyes widened, his breath catching, but there was no time to panic, no time to even think, not when as the music swelled again, their movements coming sharper now, turning over and over, and god, it shouldn’t be this easy, should it? It shouldn’t have been this easy with anyone who wasn’t her.
You’ve don’t have one? Lilith had asked, soon after the fall. But you are the Morning Star, are you not? I’d have thought...
Lucifer had looked back at her, wings still healing, broken, cast down, and shaken his head.
Alastor turned them again, sharply, and Lucifer’s mind flashed back to the hours following Charlie’s birth, when she was flushed and new and so small in Lucifer’s arms, her eyes closed and her tiny hands scrunched into fists. Lilith, standing beside him on the bed, one finger gently gripped by their daughter, had asked another form of the same question.
Does she...?
And Lucifer had looked at her again, and this time he’d nodded, expression impossibly soft as he’d felt the tiny, brilliant light at the centre of his daughter’s being latching onto the light Lucifer himself had leeched into her; the same light that had helped cradle her, nurture her, given her strength.
The light of the Morning Star, as much a part of her as the very thing that marked her as more than him; better.
Not even Charlie knew what Lucifer lacked, that he and others like him—the firsts, the Princes among their kind, hand-crafted by their Father, shaped with His spirit to do His bidding—did not share this fundamental thing that made the rest of them so human in their way.
None, until now, had seen the truth.
“And what did you see?” Lucifer asked, just to test, to be certain, turning with Alastor, hips rotating, faces close, voice low and intimate, ensuring no one but the intended audience could hear. Another turn, another swivel. Tell me, Lucifer thought, even as his skin started to glow, a dazzling light countered only by the shadows that started slithering around them.
Another swell of strings, and then Lucifer bent back, Alastor’s hand steady at his back even as he leaned down and said, against the shell of Lucifer’s ear: “I gazed back and saw nothing. No black, corrupted thing, stained with sin; no single, focal point on which to lay claim. All this talk of redeeming souls, of rehabilitation, and there is nothing in you to redeem, is there? Nothing to own. Nothing but that wretched light. ” His eyes flashed, the shadows smothering the red of his irises, teeth impossibly sharp, each word forced out deliberately like a lover’s bite. Still he held on, pulling Lucifer up, walking him backwards, hands tighter on Lucifer now, movements more intense.
“I wanted to destroy it,” Alastor seethed, the momentum building with the anger, the darkness, the shadow. “Every last trace of it. I wanted to smother it, to consume it, to claim it, to blacken it until there was nothing left, until there was no light to speak of, and I wanted everyone to know it was I who did it. I wanted you to stand there, as ruined as the rest of us, Your Majesty, and know what it is to truly fall the way sinners fall; the way only creatures with a soul can fall. The way only a creature with a soul can be claimed. I wanted it so that I could be the one to bring you so low, to brand the soul you did not have with my mark. The prize of my collection. Does she know, Lucifer? Does your precious daughter know that her absent father cannot redeem what he does not have?”
The strings trilled, screeched, a building crescendo. They spun, moving in intricate steps, hands on each other, too close. Do it, something in Lucifer almost seemed to beg. Do it. Ruin me. Take the weight of it all. Challenge me. Tell her. Tell everyone. I dare you. I dare you!
His mind flashed back to that night, after their return from the Embassy: I cannot imagine Heaven would chance letting you back among their ranks.
And he was right, of course. They’d spun a tale of corruption, of an angel marked by the sin of pride and cast down—and all the while they’d known that it hadn’t been the blackening of Lucifer’s soul that had cast him out of Heaven, but rather their judgement, their fear.
Their pride, as sure as his.
My sin, Lucifer had called it. Hyperephania. Pride. He’d claimed it as such for millennia, and had claimed it again to Alastor himself. It was as much a part of him as anything now, but not the way so many understood it—not as a corrupting force that tarnished something Lucifer had never possessed to begin with.
“What do you want?” Lucifer breathed, their bodies pressed together in a singular line, moving as one before Alastor lifted him briefly, holding tight even as he placed him back down, Lucifer back leg dragging back on the marble before Alastor’s hand on his back brought him back up, never leaving each other’s orbit. It made it so easy for Lucifer to move his hand from Alastor’s back to the base of his neck, fingers tangling in the hair there. The music continued to build, hurling them towards an inevitable end.
“Tell me,” Lucifer hushed, the softest ask to date, so close to Alastor’s mouth that he could feel the ghost of the other’s lips.
“I want,” Alastor bit out, “to hate you. I want to kill you. I want,” Alastor hissed, holding tight Lucifer’s hand, their movements precise, speeding up, building in momentum towards finale, “to devour you, until there is nothing. Left.”
A sound, like a gunshot, the smashing of drums and the culmination of strings, and then Alastor was pulling Lucifer forward, and it was instinct to wrap one leg again around Alastor’s hip as they stopped at last, chest-to-chest, Lucifer’s hand curled at the base of Alastor’s skull once more, mouths close enough to kiss, light and shadow fusing together where their bodies touched, Alastor’s arm a possessive weight around Lucifer’s waist, simply staying there, locked together, until a voice cut through the reverie and the silence that had fallen.
“Holy shit.”
Blinking, Lucifer turned his head to see Vaggie standing at the edge of ballroom with wide eyes, her hand curled tightly into a fist that she pressed against her chest. Yet even as he watched her, registered her, it was almost as though she wasn’t there at all, her presence unable to cut through the words ringing in his head.
His hand, where it still gripped the back of Alastor’s neck, glowed with an unmistakable light.
I want to destroy it. Consume it. Claim it.
I want to devour you.
And God above, if Lucifer hadn’t wanted the same in that moment.
“I—“ Lucifer whispered before faltering, the words abandoning him. Alastor held himself with an unnatural stillness, like he’d only just realised what he’d said; like it had been something that wasn’t supposed to be spoken at all, ripped out of him in the heat of the moment, an unforgivable lapse of control.
“Wow, okay,” Vaggie said, clearing her throat. “When you said ‘feeling rather than thinking’, I didn’t think…” She shook her head, seemingly deciding against whatever it was she’d been about to say. “Wow.”
Lucifer’s eyed remained glued to Alastor’s. I want to devour you, he’d said, and Lucifer could see it there, lurking—that inalienable, inescapable hunger.
Slowly, Lucifer removed his hand, his leg unhooking from around the Alastor’s hips, something lurching in him at the break in contact, even as part of him thrilled at the way Alastor’s eyes tracked his every movement—craved it, as he had craved the way it made him feel radiant, more than just a husk.
The same as it had the first time.
The same as it had the second.
Why are you the only one who can do this? he thought to demand, even as his tongue remained stubbornly tied. You, of all beings in creation? Is this another punishment? Have I not fallen enough?
It was more than simply feeling alive, though, he thought as he clumsily straightened his vest, Alastor’s words tumbling through his mind. The problem was everything. It was the way they’d fallen into their predictable patterns, squabbling and pushing buttons, yes, but also drifting together when they both simply needed some quiet; an escape. It was evenings spent tucked in the sitting room griping before they fell silent, distracted by their respective tasks; it was the way Lucifer forgot to be self-conscious around him most of the time, too busy engaging in whatever disagreement to worry about the how or the why. It was telling Alastor things he hadn’t spoken of to anyone; letting him live when he found out more than Lucifer had intended to share, because even as he justified Alastor’s continued existence with the knowledge that Charlie would be upset were he to die, he knew that wasn’t the real reason he continued to let Alastor speak to him in a way no one else could.
It was the way his heart had raced when Alastor said he wanted to devour him, and the fact that the statement hadn’t horrified him at all. The touches Lucifer frequently allowed. Had come to crave.
Oh, Lucifer thought, stilling. Oh, no.
“—more practice,” Vaggie was saying as Lucifer stood there with a blank stare, his breathing shallow. “Sure, I won’t be able to do that, but…”
“I have to go!” Lucifer blurted, his heart racing beneath his clothes, and he could see the faint glow his own skin still maintained as the blood continued to pump. “It’s—the gumbo! I’ll check on it, right, it’s probably time, and I have to start on the invites for Charlie, so don’t wait up for me, great job Maggie, we can continue this tomorrow, I’ll just—“
He didn’t give them time to respond. With a swirl of gold, he was gone, reappearing somewhere he hadn’t been since they rebuilt the hotel: his own study in the old tower, its pictures hanging on the wall: family, friends, all the people his life had once revolved around staring down at him with happy smiles.
What am I doing? Lucifer thought as a peal of hysterical laughter left him, his hands sliding into his own hair as he paced. What have I done?
He looked up, beseeching, at the portraits; at his wife’s face, creased in a smile, her eyes closed in joy. Forgive me, he thought. Please.
Her expression in the painting remained, unchanged. For countless millennia he’d loved her: the first woman, lovingly crafted and created; one of the first creatures to ever boast a beautiful soul of her own. He’d seen her unhappiness, her sorrow, her desire for more, her dreams, and he’d met them with his own, and together they’d flourished, soared, until they were cast down together.
From that moment on, it had been the two of them against the rest of the universe, Lilith flourishing in her role, and Lucifer behind her always, using the power at his disposal to ensure she had the support she needed—smothering the guilt that had festered inside him for his role in her being in Hell at all, when she should have been far above, enjoying all the beauty Heaven had to offer.
He had loved her. He did love her. For so long she’d been his one, his only, and it had been so long he’d forgotten how it had been at the beginning: like opening one’s eyes for the first time; like taking one’s first breath every time she spoke to him.
Like feeling alive for the first time. Beautiful, wonderful, divine.
Forgive me, he thought again, even though she had left him first. Even then, he could hardly blame her, could he? For years he’d been no better than a husk, content to dwell out of the spotlight, to wallow and live a half-life. He wondered when he’d stopped feeling alive around her. When they’d stopped feeling alive around each other. When the guilt for the Fall became too much for either of them to bear.
No wonder she’d left.
Lucifer exhaled—a shuddering, weak sound—and scrubbed a hand over his face, pausing when the glint of his ring caught his eye. Seven years, and he’d never taken it off. He’d been with Lilith for countless millennia—what was seven years, he tried telling himself, in the face of that? What was seven years to him, to them—they who could blink and realise a dozen had already passed, one hundred, one thousand? What was time at all to a being like Lucifer, who had been created at the dawn of everything, seen civilisations rise and fall between one heartbeat and the next? Sometimes it felt as though Charlie had been born only yesterday, small and tiny and perfect in his arms, then he’d exhale and there she’d be in front of him, past her second century, having accomplished so much more good in that short flash of time than Lucifer ever had.
He supposed part of him had thought that if he closed his eyes for long enough those seven years would disappear just as quickly, and Lilith be back. Like she’d never left at all. But it hadn’t worked, had it? Instead he’d felt every creeping minute of those seven years. He didn’t think he’d ever been so aware of time before, and now—
Now here he was, working himself into a panic in the shadow of all he’d once held, Lilith’s benign smile almost seeming to mock him from one of the more official portraits. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He didn’t—it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t. Not with him. Not with someone who wasn’t her. It shouldn’t be.
(But it could be, something insidious whispered. And here you are, running away, because you know that. Coward.)
Lucifer pressed a hand to his chest, sitting on the floor next to his desk. The photos—several lifetimes of them—continued to stare down at him as he did his best to control his breathing, which, God, he didn’t even need to breathe, so why the Hell was he struggling so hard? He laughed—bitter, hysterical, pitiful—and rested his head against the back of the wooden desk.
Seven years, Lucifer thought. In another language, a palimpsest of the old and new and enduring, seven took the form of completeness in his mouth, the consonants resonating, echoing, creating that sense of fullness; of totality. Perfection, they whispered. That was what was supposed to come on the seventh day, just as seven things had come before the creation of Heaven, of Earth; just as there were seven heavenly spheres.
Just as there had been seven angels, at the beginning of it all, and how everything had fallen apart when the seventh was cast down, the totality of that perfect, complete number broken, bringing ruination upon them all, and damning countless millions in turn.
Charlie thought her people could be saved, redeemed, cleansed. Could choose to be better. She had been right, in a sense, Lucifer knew that now, but she’d also been wrong. Charlie’s redemption hinged on the idea of the saving of souls, the redemption of souls, the cleansing of souls.
One could not cleanse what was not there. One could not save what did not exist to be saved. And so there was nothing to be done for Lucifer—not now, not ever. Sooner, rather than later, Charlie would realise that, as she would realise Lucifer’s other failings, if she hadn’t already. This abominable attachment Lucifer had managed to form while her mother’s side of the bed was still warm would only prove it further to her.
Maybe I should have expected this, Lucifer thought, but there was a strange numbness to the thought as he sat there, staring at the ring on his hand. One year, he thought. Two. Three, four. Five. Six…
Seven.
The ring slid off with surprising ease, glinting in the palm of his hand. Innocent.
He set it down next to him on the floor, cold, and when, hours later, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, he couldn’t even summon the energy to be surprised.
“Dad?” Charlie whispered, and Lucifer—
Lucifer wept.