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Lucifer isn’t in the habit of taking the good things in his life for granted—there’s too few of them for him to have that luxury—so when Alastor materializes out of the shadows of his bedroom, he doesn’t make assumptions as to why.
He does wish that he had put away all the ducks though.
It says enough about his mood that he can’t even be bothered to throw up a hand to make them disappear temporarily. His arms feel heavy. Everything feels fucking heavy. It doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing Alastor says about them can make him feel worse about himself than he already does.
He feels strangely underdressed without his coat and hat as Alastor approaches him by the fireplace, but unless Lucifer is in his full royal ensemble, Alastor often inspires that feeling. Alastor had removed his jacket only once around him; weeks ago, when they’d danced a Lindy Hop so energetic that they’d gotten tangled up in each other's coattails.
Lucifer had laughed back then, lit up from the inside with a joy so palpable that he’d been physically glowing. That feeling seems so far away now; a light that he’s unable to reach.
“Hey, Al,” he greets dully as Alastor comes to stand over his shoulder. Lucifer doesn’t look at him, unable to pull his eyes away from the flames licking the hearth.
“Good evening,” Alastor says, breezing past Lucifer’s dejected tone the same way he breezes past the rubber ducks. “You were absent at dinner. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but I didn’t realize that you would cancel our regular plans as well.” A pause, pointed. “I would have appreciated some forewarning.”
Lucifer hadn’t thought Alastor would notice, much less care enough to search him out. Their nightly discussions over music and coffee have become a well-worn routine, one that he usually looks forward to with anticipation burning low in his gut, but the thought of leaving his room today had felt like trying to scale his way back to heaven.
Impossible. Pointless.
The only reason he’d clawed his way out of bed was because Charlie had knocked on his door earlier, tentatively asking if he was going to make it to dinner. He’d hated telling her no.
Lucifer hadn’t been able to get back into bed either, body stuck in a paralyzing limbo so fierce that he hasn’t moved in hours, so here he is now, standing in front of the crackling fire, trying to feel anything other than the blank numbness filling his limbs with cotton.
These moods drown him less and less ever since he’d moved into the hotel, but they still happen often enough that they feel familiar. They should. He’s spent most of the last thousand years feeling this way.
“Not really in a talking mood, I guess,” Lucifer says, belatedly realizing that Alastor expects a response.
Alastor makes a crackling noise of acknowledgement, more static than words, and then he moves closer, enough that Lucifer can feel the bracing press of Alastor’s chest behind his shoulder. He nearly jumps at the feeling, so disconnected from his own body that the touch is like a rubber band snapping him back into place.
Alastor rarely touches him outside of when they’re dancing.
And, like every time they do touch, Lucifer’s heart starts to race at the proximity, but his voice is still familiarly flat as he asks, “Aren’t you going to leave?”
“Would you like me to?” Alastor asks lightly, unmoving, like it’s a script and he’s already aware of the answer.
“No.” A rush of gratitude rushes through him and Lucifer slumps, letting his weight rest on Alastor’s chest. “No, I want you to stay.”
“Then I will,” Alastor says, turning on the radio on the other side of the room with a wave of his microphone, the smooth notes of a blues song filling the room.
It’s comfortable. Intimate. They rarely listen to music so sultry, not when they both skew towards more lively genres, but it soothes the uneasy feeling that had been tearing at him all day. Alastor’s warmth against his back seeps into bones long gone cold. Lucifer tries not to enjoy the proximity; not when it’s bound to be gone any day now.
Alastor isn’t going to stay at the hotel forever and Lucifer still isn’t exactly sure why he’s here in the first place. For how shrewd Alastor is, Lucifer can’t imagine that he’s really only here because he’s bored, but if that honestly is the case, it’s only a matter of time until he disappears, off towards the next thing that catches his fancy.
The grimy chill that had started to fade starts to creep back in. Alone. That’s all he’s destined to be. Forever and for all eternity. Alo—
“Why do you still wear it?”
Lucifer jumps, only now realizing that he had been frantically twisting the wedding ring on his finger. Alastor watches him with a strange mix of apathetic curiosity, almost as if he doesn’t really care about Lucifer’s answer at all.
“I don’t know,” he says distractedly, looking down at the gold band that sits as familiar on his hand as his own skin. Once, the sight of it would have filled him with warmth. Now, all he feels is that same vague sense of unease. “I don’t really remember what it’s like to not wear it.”
Alastor lets out a noncommittal noise and Lucifer thinks that will be the end of it, but then Alastor trails a hand slowly up the underside of his arm, eliciting a shiver that Lucifer can’t quite hide. Alastor joins their hands, his index and thumb tracing gently around the ring.
Lucifer can barely breathe.
“I’ll admit,” Alastor says, his voice loud in Lucifer’s ear even as he keeps it hushed in deference to the soft strains of music filling the room. “I’m not fond of the reminder of her.”
”I don’t really think of her that often,” Lucifer lies, heart pounding with every brush of Alastor’s nimble fingers. Of course he thinks about Lilith. She’s his greatest reminder of how worthless he is.
”I’ll rephrase,” Alastor says, his fingers stilling as they grip the metal. When he speaks next, the music stops and his voice echoes with radio interference. “I don’t like how much power she has over you. I don’t like how you flinch at her name. I don’t like her. You are separated. Your marriage is an empty cage because she abandoned you and her only child and she should be punished for it.”
Lucifer never really forgets that Alastor is a sinner. A murderer. A serial killer. But he’s reminded of it in ways like this, when the bloodlust in Alastor’s voice is so palpable, when the shadows in the room grow deeper and start to close in, when his ears ring with unrelenting static.
It doesn’t bother Lucifer like he knows it should, not when Alastor still holds his hand with such care.
“She’s allowed to not love me anymore,” Lucifer says breathlessly, eyes fixed on where Alastor still has his ring in his grasp. “I don’t love her anymore either.”
Because he had to. Because she fell in love with an optimistic, hopeful angel, and then he fell, and Lucifer wasn’t worth that love anymore.
He still isn’t. How could he be? When he had given up on the very people she had been able to lead? When she’d had to shoulder the emotional burden of raising a child that she hadn’t known they could have?
It's not Lilith’s fault that she left. It’s his.
And here he is, unable to bring himself to have dinner with his own daughter.
“Then she’s a fool,” Alastor says, the radio fizzing for just a moment. “And you don’t need this.”
Then he plucks the ring off Lucifer’s finger, just like that, so simple, so quick. Like it’s nothing more than an old piece of metal.
Immediately, Lucifer feels the weight that had been pressing him down all day lift off his shoulders.
Alastor waits long enough for him to protest, and when Lucifer doesn’t, he flicks the ring into the fireplace where it turns bright red within seconds. The fires of Hell burn hot; in a matter of minutes, it will start to melt.
“There,” Alastor says, patting Lucifer’s hip as his voice returns to its normal jaunty tone and the shadows retreat like they were never there. “That’s much better, don’t you agree?”
Lucifer can’t take his eyes off of his own hand, still cradled in Alastor’s own. It somehow looks completely foreign and more familiar than it has been in years. “Yeah. It is. Thank you.”
He links their fingers together; the place where his ring had been tingles as the newly bare skin brushes against the fabric of Alastor’s glove. He’s half-afraid that Alastor will pull away, but Alastor allows it with only a small twitch of his fingers before he winds his other arm around Lucifer’s waist like it’s something he does all the time.
When he looks up, Alastor is already watching him, gaze inscrutable, and a rush of want hits him so intensely that he almost stumbles. He had felt so numb all day that feeling anything at all nearly brings tears to his eyes.
His breath catches as Alastor’s hand moves from his waist to curl around his chin. Lucifer’s free hand moves to grab Alastor’s forearm to keep him from moving away.
“Do you know how you look at me?”
He means to say something disarming back like, I can guess, but Alastor has always had a way of making him lose his train of thought. Lucifer leans in, expecting nothing and getting Alastor’s raised eyebrows in response.
The ever-present static around Alastor cuts out as he tilts his head curiously. “You truly aren’t in love with her anymore, are you?”
Before he can answer—because Alastor knows, because if tonight has taught him anything, he doesn’t ask questions unless he’s certain they’ll benefit him—Alastor meets his lips in a kiss that makes Lucifer’s half-dead heart bloom in his chest.
It’s been so long since anyone has touched him like this. Even longer since someone has held him like they want him.
And Alastor must want him, with how his fingers are a vice that keep their lips together, with how he envelopes him with his larger frame, other hand still clasped within Lucifer’s own.
Lucifer clings to that thought even as he feels Alastor’s ever-present smile, a reminder of who exactly is kissing him.
When Alastor pulls back, Lucifer doesn’t try to push his luck, even though he wants to kiss him again and again until the cobwebs leave his brain.
“Was that just because I wanted you to?” Lucifer asks, searching Alastor’s face for the truth.
The radio turns back on, a lively swing number filling the room as Alastor scoffs.
“Surely you’ve found out by now that I’m much more interested in doing things that you dislike. Our interests just happened to be aligned this time.” His hand finally releases its hold on Lucifer’s chin to gesture exuberantly above the still crackling fire. “Now, onto more pressing matters. These walls would benefit from some display shelves.”
“I—display shelves?” Lucifer repeats, dizzy from the tonal whiplash.
Alastor nods and conjures a set of three shelves above the mantle before levitating the nearest pile of rubber ducks onto them. He lines them up neatly and then nods, pleased by his own work. His eyes, when they meet again, are fond. “It’s important that you show off the things that you put so much effort into.”
And Lucifer nearly cries, he’s so, so grateful. For the first time in a long time, he feels seen.
“Although, I quite like this one,” Alastor continues, reaching out to grab a duck that Lucifer had made as an attempt at a demonic self-portrait. “I think I’ll keep it.”
Lucifer had nearly lit that duck up in flames, unsettled at the reminders of his eternal punishment; the ruby-red of his cheeks, the angry horns, the tail.
For Alastor to hold it now, like it’s something divine, something to keep close, it’s—
The last of the shadows fade from his mind and Lucifer gently squeezes their still joined hands with a smile.
“It’s yours.”