divinetree | Mom says it's my turn with the Alastor

The floor was cool and soft under his cheek spot, helping to mitigate the terrible ache that grew behind his eyes. It only grew as his vision fogged, and he struggled to keep everything back.

Cancel everything. Cancel everything. He didn't deserve it. He only just got back in his kid's life when he could have done it all years ago, he could have fought harder for Lily...

...All he wanted was to dream and have people respect him. He was rash, he was impulsive, and yeah, he soooort of put a curse on everything and damned humanity, but...

...

There wasn't any 'but', was there? No... of course not.

There was a knock, but he could hardly hear it. He had nothing to say, letting his eyes run as he looked over the feathers on the floor. Too many feathers.

At least his wings were even now. It's why he finally stopped. Any more, and it'd all be uneven, and he'd have to keep going, and his wings felt sore. Only pins. No relief. They thrummed with that ache to his pulse.

He couldn't even hear the door open. His arms curled inward, wrapped around his middle. His knees pulled in, and those terribly aching wings bunched inward as well.

Nobody here. Get bored and go, whoever you are.

Well, well... feathers all around, even the faintest hint of blood? It looked quite messy, but these feathers were unmistakably Lucifer's and not a hapless hell fowl. Walking in silently, Alastor bent at the hip to pluck a long flight feather off the floor, rolling the pin in his fingers, watching the feather flash between white and red on each side.

It was his shadow that slunk under the bed, beaming and curious at first but the smile faltered, looking up at the distraught man hiding under the bed.

"There we are. I didn't wager you could fit under here," Alastor's voice chimed in abruptly - he had laid down on his side, resting his head on his arm casually as he peered under the bed.

If he laid here long enough, perhaps he'd fall asleep. He wasn't tired, but maybe he could sleep through it all and feel better tomorrow. Send... send a message to apologize to everybody. Apologize to Alastor-

But even when he spoke, very real and very much there, all he could do was stare from between two wings that had covered him.

His jaw tightened, and he tried to keep a stiff upper lip. Instead he faltered, and lowered one of those wings to obscure his face completely.

"Bullshit," he managed, voice thick.

"You think I'd 'fit' anywhere..." Go ahead. Just get it out of your system.

"With your wings out? Though the scramble doesn't seem to have done many favors," Alastor pondered, lifting the flight feather and rolling it in his fingers. "I think I'll keep this one. It's long and quite nice, it'll make a superb quill. And a few of these can be used to stuff a voodoo doll of you. Quite handy, if you ask me."

They're just... feathers... who cared? There were countless better ones on creatures like geese or ducks, and they wouldn't be bloodied like his.

"...Why...?" He swallowed.

"Why don't you just say what you want to say...?"

He raised his hands to his face.

"I'm... ruining... the evening. I made a mess. I made a mess of everything."

"Oh, you do look a wreck. Much like Charlie in her fit after Heaven and nearly dooming everyone she loved," Alastor chuckled, rolling onto his belly and kicking his legs in amusement.

"Sniveling, crying - well, she'd been tugging her hair for lack of feathers. But for however much she'd made a mess of things, a little trip to Cannibal Town got her right back on course," he explained, fiddling with the pin end of the feather he'd picked, working it open carefully so it could have an ink tip placed inside later.

"You Morningstars just need someone to pull them to their feet to make another attempt with a new plan."

Well. He did ask. Even if talk of sniveling and crying had him puff his cheeks and more of the tears fall, this was something he requested.

But he propped himself on an elbow and twitched a wing aside. His face was a mess, as was his hair, but it was nothing on how his currently-red eyes seemed to cause the freshly-brewing tears to steam and mildly evaporate.

"Well that's- that's Charlie! She's got everybody around her! She always... always had somebody, at least. And everybody can help her up and say 'it's okay, we've got this', and won't bat an eyelash! They like her SO much and I'm so proud of her! I'm happy- ecstatic, even- that she's got her system in place and has all the people she does!"

He turned his gaze to the floor. "...But I've... I've got nothing. Nothing. Nothing but all of these awful memories, these... these voices, and even if I have good weeks- really, REALLY good weeks, like the ones I've spent with you- I'm..."

He grit his teeth and grabbed a fistful of plucked feathers. "Still. I'm still like this! I should be happy! I want to be happy! But I've instead stuck myself under this fucking bed and... my wings are fucked... ..."

His jaw relaxed. He looked miserable again. "...And you dressed so nice. You... look good, but... I ruined it..."

Whatever that burst was, it was gone. He quietly wept and put his face back in his hands.

"Oh, tut, what a sad sight indeed," Alastor huffed in amusement through his nose. Though he was smiling, his shadow betrayed his feelings - not that Lucifer was looking, at the moment, was he?

"I was the one who picked that girl up with a little poking and prodding. Now come on, old sport, let's see your plucked chicken wings and tidy them up," he said simply, offering his hand under the bed to Lucifer after poking him in the side a bit childishly. "Come on, out you come."

There were many people around for Charlie, so much was true. But Lucifer still had a demon haunting him here, invading his life, invading the sacred space of his room, and he was always happy to meddle and provoke.

Edited 2024-07-21 04:17 (UTC)

The plucked chicken remark was enough to have him open two fingers to narrow a red eye at him.

But the eye slid and followed the hand. It lingered on it. His true eyes slowly opened on his coat and briefly followed suit before peering at the demon. Two fluttered their confusion and found that shadow rather odd.

...He ruined tonight...

He hesitated, before he slowly reached out and took that hand.

...He still ruined tonight...

Lucifer would... humor him, at least, by crawling out from under the bed. But he ceased looking at him. Not when he looked like this...

"There we are," Alastor stood with Lucifer as he crawled out from his hiding hole. The shame on the man's face... one would think he'd been caught having committed a murder. No, even then, the prey Alastor sought for that reason always looked far less ashamed.

Peculiar man. But if this was his madness, he was at least in the company of another madman. Alastor grabbed the shorter man by the armpits the way one would a child, sitting him on the bed before sitting down, himself. Perhaps a little annoyance would do the man good.

Not asking permission, Alastor grabbed a wing and tugged it with his fingers, spreading it out instead of it being tucked against its owner. Tsk, bald spots... not unlike the bald spots Alastor gave himself when he pulled his hair in distress. Carefully, the man ran his thumb over the skin, looking for anything left behind in the follicles that would make regeneration difficult or painful.

He got what he wanted with a flustered squawk at being picked up- even a little shove against the chest with a foot for good measure- before he was set down. What shame he was showing was replaced by something bordering on offended.

Was that necessary??

It was enough that he hadn't realized Alastor had taken a wing. It twitched when he centered in, but he hesitated on withdrawing it completely.

But his eyes swept in momentary worry. Though there was considerable disparity in power here, an angel's wings were a very sensitive and private set of appendages. To have another handle them, risking potential harm or an embarrassing response, was something that demanded a certain level of trust.

"Erh- wh- what... what're you...?"

However regeneration worked for angels, it was clear that- despite bits of blood in the shafts of many of the shed feathers- the places he'd plucked had minimal damage. They were 'clean' removals, rather than haphazard rips.

...They were the marks of a man who's likely been doing this his entire life.

Well well! Certainly less heinous than his scalp after a panic attack - this was quite different indeed. Funny little fallen angel.

"Well well. I'll task you with plucking the duck when I cook for us next - you've done quite the clean job here, you'll spare all the tedium of the work," he praised in some bemusement, snapping to summon a small container. It looked like a salve? When he opened it, the salve had a rather heavy herbal smell - no sting at all as Alastor started to rub a bit of it on the bare skin of the wing. Just cool salve that felt like a simple moisturizer, rubbing into skin and soothing irritation.

"Ha ha," was his reply, flipping him the bird despite the smirk.

But curiosity took him sooner as Alastor set to work with a weird little container. He could identify some of the herbs by smell, but it was... complicated. Herbology wasn't his wheelhouse, though.

...Feels really nice, though...

...

Lucifer sniffled quietly, and reached into a pocket for a handkerchief. He set to work cleaning his face, his eyes cooling to gold again.

"I... still have the place set up, and the food catered. I can... make up for this."

"When you're clearly distraught, and not in the mood? I'm a cannibal and a serial killer, I'm not a monster! Hah hah!" Alastor laughed, carefully carding his fingers through the remaining feathers to ease the skin there too, moving to the next wing.

"If this gumbo needs more time to simmer then so be it. Put the lid back on and we'll come to it again later," he replied simply, rolling his eyes at Lucifer's tear-sodden face. "You won't find happiness with half-hearted efforts when your mind is at its sickest."

Edited 2024-07-21 07:05 (UTC)

"I'm NOT sick." The snarl was out before he could swallow it back, voice straight from the depths.

He'd heard something like this before. Many times.

He pulled the handkerchief from his face and slapped away at the small flame that had caught against a corner, smothering it.

"I'm just... Having a bad day." He reached up and smoothed back his hair as best as he could, 'push' the horns back in.

Oh, that outburst... Alastor's hackles had risen from it, his pupils faintly radio dials.

But the power, the anger... dangerous or not, Alastor liked it. It made his inner beast growl in intrigue, made him want to bite, to lock horns.

Instead, Alastor merely smirked, scooping another dollop of salve onto his fingers as he peered scrutinizingly at the king.

"You are sick. Mad, deranged, even! Made sick by your Fall and your eons in The Pit. You're insane, just like I am."

A brow twitched, and he turned with a snarl. The more Alastor spoke, the more he bared his teeth. This motherfucker...

Lucifer reached for and snatched the wrist that bore the salve-wielding hand. Held it. Pride had been torn open, wept like a wound, and this man was licking away at it.

Foolish. ...Admirable. Many mocked him, but very few actually outright challenged him.

"...You sure like to talk, don't you? But I suppose if you didn't, you wouldn't be a very good 'Radio Demon'..." Eyes had begun to open on his wings, all dialed in and focused on the very chatty Sinner to which he had a firm grip.

He drew a claw across the other man's cheek, ended beneath the chin. "Are these the contents of your final broadcast, an insult upon your King...? Shame, shame, shame... I prefer the music~"

Every angle of Alastor sharpened as he started to glow, the static crackling around them noisily as veves floated around the darkness Alastor cast.

"You don't frighten me, Lucifer," the Radio Demon's voice crackled, his teeth interlocked like a radio face as his voice projected from him without his jaw moving, "Do you truly see yourself so above other madmen? The embodiment of Pride indeed."

His heart was hammering, instincts beckoning him to either lash out or flee - and he did neither, fighting the adrenaline warning him and riding the high of it instead. Lucifer could completely obliterate him. And should. Yet there wasn't an ounce of him that could tear his eyes away from Lucifer's furious gaze in this moment, it drew him in and stoked a fire deep in his bones.

He laughed openly, riotously. "I penned the god-damned BOOK on madness! Where the fuck else would I be!?"

Ooh, would you look at him now...? Alastor changed and the eyes widened, a mingling of intrigue and enthrallment, but lower lids tightened... amusement. Sooo much amusement.

This Sinner was a riot. So ballsy! In his prime, Lucifer had ended Sinners for far, far less.

"How funny. How quaint that you declare your distinct lack of fear... when I can hear your heart right now. It all but screams for you to run, Bambi... But you and I both know you can't. No... you won't. Pride, pride, pride. You drip with it."

He leaned, eased to one of those ears. "...I can taste it each time. And it tastes so. Fucking. Good."

Edited 2024-07-22 03:49 (UTC)

Don't let your eye get poked out by Alastor's antlers growing and branching out like weeds defying concrete, Lucifer. Alastor's free hand grabbed at Lucifer's thigh, claws sinking in and gripping as his heart raced.

With fear, yes, of course. But if it was just fear, he'd flee or fight. There was a sick excitement in Alastor at all of this, at the display of power from Lucifer, the pride and anger of the devil himself bearing down on him. It made him excited.

"Pride is what causes the fall of every mortal man. Hubris!"

Hah. He really was a broken man, when no amount of flirtations or attractive bodies made his body stir the way this threat did to him right now.

"If it tastes good, then take a bite."

"Sinner..." He hissed.

"You dare make demands of your King?"

His claws closed against Alastor's vest. The material groaned, fiber by fiber, under the pressure.

"What a fool you are..." His voice was a harsh whisper now, and it seemed five- six?- other keys of it joined in.

"I've been feasting from the very beginning... the blood of sacrifice- the sweetness of it, tinged with the desperate fear of so many lambs- and of the pride of countless humans cursed to the Pit. Dropped upon my fucking doorstep."

But with his other hand he took his time running a claw along an impressive antler. "But it is as you say... the gumbo needs more time. No, I don't think I'll be having my bite of you. Not tonight. Goad me all you like."

His wings grew, curled inward, cocooned them. All eyes opened wide, gleamed red, the pupils of them of them quivering with a hardly-suppressed glee.

"No, I will watch. I will wait. When desire takes me, or you all but beg for it... Then, I will have my bite."

Watched, perceived, from every possible angle... Be Not Afraid, angels would always declare in scripture, and with the endless span of eyes upon him Alastor realized the terror a mortal could feel with the scrutiny and judgment of Heaven swallowing them whole.

But this gaze, these eyes, belonged to the devil. Not Heaven. And Alastor's fear of judgment from Lucifer vanished only a few hours after he finished cooking the meat of his first kill. The power and presence threatening him could tear him apart. And if this anger was legitimate, he would.

Still. Something in Alastor's twisted mind felt like singing. Wanted the violence of those claws, wanted to be bitten and claimed and overpowered. He wanted to be the one to make Lucifer give in and bite.

Alastor let go of Lucifer's thigh and instead tugged loose his bowtie. In a calm voice, devoid of any of his usual static, the Radio Demon spoke in a slitheringly smooth tone, "All bark and no bite, Cher."

And yet, despite everything and in his attempt to- gently, he would conclude later- warn him that he absolutely was still king of the realm and demanded respect...

There was a single, solid prod right in the diaphragm of his Pride, one that licked past what had been an exceptionally terrible day that had ripped all good mood from him. Countless thousands of years every last comments, tabloid, remark and foul memory, all overflowed by five of six words that broke the surface tension.

The sound the fallen angel gave was nothing human. His sound was that of a beast as the lights in the room were snuffed out, yet battled and flickered to remain on, a momentary loss of complete control. Two sets of claws set in the torso of the shifting deer cryptid, while a spiny tail was like a vice around a calf.

That scream gave way to a light in the back of that maw that had opened impossibly wide, jaws that closed at a shoulder, past cotton, past velvet, past flesh.

Too soon.

He didn't beg.

Fuck you.

Pride
d e m a n d e d
it

The sound that tore from Alastor's throat was feral. Instinct won over just enough that he reflexively felt himself thin and stretch out, and he twisted his claws into Lucifer's shirt and shredded it. But he didn't bite back, he didn't give in there - a laugh slipped out of him instead and he bared his throat, taunting Lucifer even more.

This was visceral, this was painful and potent and he felt alive - blood spilled and soaked new clothes, Alastor himself was flustered and a mess, and he was almost deliriously dizzy and painfully aroused.

"Cher..." Alastor breathlessly laughed, his breath too occupied as he panted and almost keened. "Sick. Like. Me."

Always talking... always TALKING, like he didn't know exactly what he was getting himself into...!

He hadn't done anything like this in a long time. With a neck bared, taunting him, he withdrew bloodied teeth-

"SHUT. UP." His grip rounded, one claw clutched at his back as he set to Alastor's neck, let fresh blood pour between fangs. Like a constrictor finding its prey, everything tightened against him- an almost covetous embrace- as he let the blood run along his forked tongue.

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