Chapter Text
Everything was black. Pure darkness.
Something more than darkness. Deeper, somehow.
Lucifer moved his hand in front of his face, but couldn’t see it. He knew it was there, he could feel it. Touch it to his eyelids and over his cheeks. Just not see it.
The weightlessness was what he noticed next.
It wasn’t like flying, or like falling. He felt suspended in the darkness, able to move but not able to travel. In no way was he restricted, but he was trapped.
“I’ll never forgive you if you die.”
The words echoed all around him, voices he didn’t recognise, voices he did.
“Dad!”
More echoes, louder. Like a billion voices all speaking at once, all saying something different. The noise became deafening, all-consuming until all he could do was curl up on himself, hands clasped over his ears with his wings shielding him the best they could.
It was too much.
He wasn’t made for this. He wasn’t made to handle this. Any of it.
“Love.”
All of the noise stopped all at once, and Lucifer’s eyes snapped open.
His heart sang, and his heart wept.
“Morning Star. Lightbringer.”
His tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he uncurled. There was light, finally, though he was surprised at its source.
Somehow he could see himself, lying in his four-poster bed, bandaged and unconscious.
There was another figure there too. He couldn’t quite make out who, a blur of familiar red.
“You were made to be loved.”
That aching voice was back again, and this time he recognised it. His creator.
“While there is love for you, you will live. You will breathe. You will cry. You will hurt. You will love back.”
He didn’t understand. That isn’t what was said to him. Those weren’t the words. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound left him.
“I’ll never forgive you if you die.”
He looked back to the image. To the blurry red. He remembered.
Alastor.
His sweet demon, his love, his light.
The thump in his chest was heavy. Jarring.
“You were made to be loved.” Echoed again, and again, and again.
The darkness left, and with each passing second he grew brighter. This is what he was.
The Morning Star.
The Lightbringer.
There was no darkness anymore, just a blinding white light.
Lucifer blinked open his heavy eyes, the ceiling of his bedroom coming into focus. His breathing sounded rough even to his own ears, though his gaze shifted to the other noise in the room. The whine.
Alastor.
“Hey Red.”
The fury that had consumed Alastor at those two simple words was unmatched. Red was certainly the colour of the day, because that was all he could see, snarling with his hands wrapped around Lucifer's pretty white throat.
Rot was pulling at him, screeching loudly in horror as Alastor decided he would be the one to take the life of the King of Hell.
The noise had been his downfall. How ironic for a radio demon.
While Lucifer stared up at him with his gorgeous golden gaze, unblinking, he allowed Alastor to harm him.
Charlie and Vaggie had been the ones to pull Alastor away. It was no small task.
If Alastor hadn’t been so angry he wanted to kill Lucifer, he would have been just as angry that Lucifer hadn’t fought back. Acting as if he were quite content for Alastor to be his destruction.
Alastor had been banished from the bedroom after that, leaving him to pace the hallway, rage only building the longer he was kept away.
What a fool he’d been.
A laughing stock.
The city's most perverse gossip.
The Great Radio Demon, tricked by The King of Hell himself.
Feeling anger was so much easier now that Lucifer was awake. So much more fulfilling now that Alastor didn’t have to wonder if he would ever hear that enchanting laugh again. If he would ever see that pretty smile again.
Anger fueled him. Anger made it hurt less.
By chance he found himself in Lou’s room. His body had obviously moved of its own accord, seeking comfort from the being that had cradled his heart.
The same one he had just strangled. The one he had promised he would never lay hands on, unless he deserved it.
Did he deserve it? The lies had been terribly large, yes, but had he deserved to die for them? To be hurt for them?
There was no comfort to be found in this room, all it did was remind Alastor of the affection he thought they’d shared.
The baseball bat, a reminder of the first night he had laid eyes on Lou, covered in blood and bone. The game he had convinced the residents to play, a test of power. The hotel in rubble, Lou clutching the bat, triumphant against Vox.
The gloves, custom-made for Lou, lay discarded on his dresser. The first of many courting gifts. An apology in its own right, for pushing Lou past his breaking point.
The watch. Silently ticking as time continued on, the inscription of ‘Dear Heart’ striking on its insides.
As striking as Lou, and as hurtful too.
He’d been played like a fiddle.
Anger rose again inside of him, his body morphing and growing, antlers scraping the ceiling as he thrashed inside the room of a liar. His claws tore through everything that reminded him of Lou. The contents of the wardrobe scattered and shredded, each gift bag mangled by his teeth, gold crushed under his claws.
It was the soft whimper of Rot that had him turning, eyes wild.
Rot was curled over torn sheets of paper, trying to piece them back together once more, his black claws shaking as he silently cried.
Alastor watched, anger deflating.
Lou may have been a lie, but his actions hadn’t been.
The paper Rot had been trying to save, it was art, made by the hands of his lover. The sketch that Lou had done that night, after crying in Alastor’s arms. It was of him. Sleeping. Peaceful. They were barely courting at that stage, early in their relationship and still tender to the touch. Yet the portrait… it held love. Alastor could see it plain as day. Each gentle line held it, sang of it.
There were more.
Moments he recognised, and moments he didn’t. All drawn in Lou’s- no, in Lucifer’s hand. Some of them had little notes of love next to them, others had the crude imitation of hearts usually found next to a teenage crush. All of them were of him.
Months of affection, ruined in seconds.
Anger was no longer his friend.
Now it was grief.
What he had lost. What he had thrown away by attacking Lucifer in his weakest moment.
It was no longer a question of whether Alastor could forgive Lucifer’s lies. It was clear to him that he had fallen in love, hard and fast, messy but willing.
Now the question became: could Lucifer forgive him?
Forgive him for laying hands on him.
For attacking him.
Alastor wept.