Work Text:
“Hey, Alastor, what do you think of art therapy?”
“Hm?” replied the demon from the other room, clearly distracted. “You mean the activity Charlie asked you to organise? I have no opinion on that.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes. What had he expected, really, Alastor being who he was. He kept chewing on the end of his pencil, as he had been doing for a while, trying to gather the courage to carry out his idea. It was silly, but he was curious about what might happen.
“I meant,” he pressed, getting up from his desk and leaving his apple-shaped room, searching the deer with his eyes, “whether you think you would stand to do a session.”
Alastor was lying on his stomach on Lucifer's recently acquired couch, his boots off and hooves in the air. Lucifer could see his coat hanging on a rack he didn't remember owning before, which left the sinner in an indecent state of undress - at least for what he usually allowed himself, Lucifer wasn't seeing any more skin than usual.
His words had made him stop writing, and Alastor turned his head so that he could shoot Lucifer an incredulous look. “Ha! Are you implying that the Radio Demon should go to therapy?”
“Hilarious, I know,” he replied, rolling his eyes at the other's tone. “Especially since I don't think any good psychologists end up here, or anyone prepared to deal with you and your wicked mind.”
“Thank you, but compliments won't get you very far,‘’ he said, losing interest in the conversation and resuming his writing. Lucifer moved closer, and even without managing to read its contents he knew it was for his radio program.
“Since you've invaded my space today to work here, could you help me with mine?”
“If I'm bothering you, I'll leave.”
“It's not that and you know it. Is it that hard to say yes,” he complained, plopping down on the small space left free on the couch.
Alastor stood still for a moment, before trapping the king by lowering his legs and resting them in the other's lap.
“Why do you need assistance with your art therapy sessions? I thought you were done with the activity. People cried and hugged each other pathetically, you brought to life the creative projects they came up with to express their emotions, Charlie was happy with what you did. What more do you need?”
“First of all,” Lucifer held up a finger, ”the activity went well, but it could have gone better. Second, if new sinners come to the hotel Charlie may ask me to repeat it. There are things I don't know how to handle, for example what you said. If they cry, I leave them to their own thing? Do I comfort them? I have no idea. And lastly,” he patted Alastor's leg, taking advantage of the fact that the other had initiated contact, ”you weren't there.”
Alastor hummed. “And? I'm flattered you think of me for missing out the suffering triggered by your makeshift and clearly unqualified therapy, too bad, but I'm still not interested in participating myself.”
“Could you... at least pretend to do it, even if you don't believe in its effect? Tell me your honest opinion about the activities and if there is anything I shouldn't try or do? I value your opinion more than I should.”
That made Alastor turn so he could look at him, a huge shit-eating grin on his face. “Is that true? What a great honour!”
“Whatever!” Lucifer cleared his throat. “Are you going to help me or not?”
The sinner tortured him pondering it some more, but finally pulled his legs aside and sat up facing Lucifer. “All right. In exchange for a later talk where I can complain about one little thing that is bothering me and you will tell me if it's worth talking about it in my program. Is that a deal?”
“Yes, yes, a promise, you know how I do that,” he replied, ignoring the hand Alastor had extended to him. It was clear that he wasn't going to give up on trying to make any formal deals, but Lucifer intended to get away whenever possible.
Mentally going over the materials he was going to need, he snapped his fingers to manifest a table next to the couch so they could work there. He passed a few sheets of paper to Alastor and left pencils of different colours on the table. The other raised an eyebrow at the sight of them.
“I don't know, you tell me. I know you doodle from time to time, or do you prefer some other artistic way to express yourself?”
“I guess this will have to do. Unless I'm allowed to abuse your ducks for the love of art.” He pulled out one of the rubber ducklings, Lucifer wasn't even sure from where. Had he snatched it before, had he found it on the couch? But Lucifer made a gesture of slapping Alastor's hand and the other one dropped it on the table, even if they never touched. His ducks didn't deserve to be mistreated like that. “Now what?”
“Let's see... I can skip the introductions, can't I?” Alastor shrugged, but he didn't look like he was in the mood for the whole thing, so Lucifer decided to cut to the point. “Okay, for the first exercise, I'd like you to draw yourself. How you see yourself, or how you identify yourself.”
“That's easy. And boring, you should already know the answer to that.”
“Well, if it's so easy, draw it! I'm just... asking you to think about the answer a little bit, because that's what you're supposed to do in the activity. Look, I'll do it too.”
Lucifer picked up another sheet of paper and the red pencil, ignoring the scribbling Alastor had started to do to give him some privacy. He looked at the white space, feeling the millions of possibilities that existed to fill it; and to think that he had to ruin it by drawing himself. Well, there was no turning back.
They worked in silence for a few minutes. Finally, it was Alastor who cleared his throat to get his attention. “What now?”
“Can I see it?” Before Alastor answered, he snatched the sheet of paper from him and studied the drawing in front of him.
For what it was worth, Alastor wasn't that bad at drawing. He had made a sorta detailed representation of himself, his jacket, his microphone –which was still absent in his real self, what had he done with it? Although, it had a different air with the absence of the red that identified him, as he seemed to have picked up the first pencil within reach, purple. But what caught his attention was the detail in drawing his face, or rather, the absence of it.
He pointed a finger at the silhouette of the hair and his ears, the interior empty. “I thought you'd finished it.”
“And it is!” he replied, resting his head on his hand. “You asked how I identify myself. The Radio Demon. Radio only needs a voice, the rest is just a distracting extra.”
“I don't know if by that you're trying to say that you hide behind the radio so you don't distract people with your pretty face. But that would surely inflate your ego, so I feel like you're not going that way.”
“I'm not going to comment any further, that is just for me to know.”
Lucifer frowned, sensing there was a story behind that. Wasn't that the whole deal with everything Alastor said?
“But I'm supposed to be here to help you untangle the feelings that surface with the drawings.”
That was what Charlie had implied, wasn't it? Though when he had done it with the others he hadn't been able to devote his full attention to a specific person, so he didn't know if insisting would be overwhelming. At least Alastor was going to be the hardest case he was going to encounter, a constant no to everything; no other sinner was going to be as private as he was, right? After that session, it could only get easier with the rest. If Lucifer survived that without angering him, he might be able to deal with all the sinners Charlie put in front of him to perform that art therapy.
Alastor waved his hand, chuckling lightly.
“I don't need help with that! I'm good at introspection. It would be impossible to control my smile if I didn't.” Which was still in place, just as insufferable as ever, conveying nothing of what he was actually thinking in his pretty head. But the eyes were what mattered with Alastor, and now they had wandered to Lucifer's papel. “What did you draw?”
His claws grabbed the drawing from him, but Lucifer had read his intentions and simply let him do it without resistance. Alastor stared at his prize, adjusting his monocle to get a better view of the drawing in front of him, before meeting his gaze again. His brow was furrowed in silent confusion.
“What is this?”
It was Lucifer's turn to grin insufferably. “A rough representation of my real form. I don't expect you to comprehend it, because it's not something for mortal eyes and the drawing wasn't supposed to be seen by anyone else.”
“Ah, but you can see mine?” he complained, while trailing a finger along the lines. “This must be your angelic form - you have obviously forgotten how low you have fallen and what gifts that has bestowed you!”
He set the sheet of paper down on the table and began to draw over Lucifer's drawing, the purple against the original red. Lucifer looked at him open-mouthed as he added horns and his tail to the shape he had drawn.
That wasn't how that was done!
Two could play the same game. He picked up his pencil as well. “What about you? You've clearly forgotten to depict your ominous grin and your silly antlers when you let them grow – otherwise they are too small to be seen. And what would you say is the best way to draw your insufferable personality?”
“Not so insufferable when the king of Hell himself keeps seeking my company time and time again,” he casually commented as he drew a small crown between the horns of Lucifer's drawing.
“Yeah, well, it was the fact that you work as the hotelier that obliged me to learn to tolerate your presence, so...’’ He added to Alastor's drawing a rectangle which he transformed as best he could into a representation of the hotel. He didn't realise until he was finished that the proportion made it look like Alastor was in his larger demonic form. Well, that just added more information about the sinner, didn't it? He was also an overlord with too much power... who at least spent his energy protecting the hotel.
“Speaking of the princess project, we can't forget that a large part of the core of your being is being a father.” Alastor gave him a mischievous grin. The deer thought carefully and finally drew a circle with lines around it, as if radiating something, next to the shape Lucifer had used to represent himself. “Your little ball of light and bearer of happiness, that you try to protect as the duckling that she is.”
“Well... Even if you don't want to admit it, you're good to the people you care about, in your own way. You are loyal to your friends and offer them protection.” Lucifer didn't look at him as he said all that, unsure if he was going to accept such a compliment.
He made a little doodle representing Rosie's head and another of that dancer girl... the one who had been his friend when they were alive? He debated whether or not to add Husk and Niffty, but in his own way he was looking after his own property, wasn't he? And, finally, he added Charlie.
Alastor took the paper from him. Lucifer tried to study his expression, but he seemed to be making a great effort not to show anything... Which went against the activity itself!
“Perhaps I should record you saying that,” Alastor finally replied, his tone distracted. “What high praise from the king himself when it comes to getting more deals, isn't it? The Radio Demon never breaks what he has promised and for a small price you have protection!”
Lucifer rolled his eyes. “If that's the way you want to take it... I'm not particularly amused, but I'm no one to complain about other people's means of making deals.”
“Splendid!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands together. But his eyes drifted back to what Lucifer had added to the drawing. After making a thoughtful noise, he picked up his pencil. “You forgot to add yourself.”
Lucifer tried to hide his big grin behind one hand, feeling flattered - and offended at the same time when he saw the deer draw a tiny little winged figure next to the drawing of himself.
Whatever!
Alastor made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I don't like repeating myself. Now what?” His voice had a slightly annoyed tone to it, but not as much as when they started. Lucifer wanted to believe that part of him was having a good time. “I understand this wasn't part of the exercise. It doesn't sound like the therapist should be painting over the drawing of myself.”
“Nope, I shouldn't, but you started it! With the others... I asked them here if they could represent to me how they were feeling in the moment, to explore that emotion.”
Alastor leaned his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hands again and stretching his smile to an inhuman level. “My dear, about that, you're only going to get what you can see.”
“Oh, come on! It's just you and me here! The activity is about that! Exploring your emotions!”
Alastor sighed. He pointed a hand at the wall behind the sofa, where Lucifer could see both of their shadows. As he watched, Alastor's took on its most vivid state, flickering to reveal its eyes and its smile taking on a maniacal tinge. It reached out a hand and patted the head of Lucifer's shadow a couple of times, the latter feeling a shiver as his head conjured up the sensation that he was being touched when nothing was really happening.
“What does that mean?”
“’Oh, my! Clearly it means that I am in a good mood, even to the point of feeling inclined to indulge this little critter who keeps pestering me. My shadows don't fit into your creative way of expressing oneself? Too abstract for you?”
“Okay, okay, all right! I'm... glad you're in a good mood.”
“Can we skip the petty stuff? What were you asking the others in order to make them cry? Show me how you would try to get me to talk about my traumas and fears, if I had any.”
Now he felt less inclined to go on. The other sinners had channelled some very negative emotions, and Lucifer didn't want to spoil Alastor's day in the unlikely event that it happened. Very unlikely. It was Alastor they were talking about.
But everyone had issues that struck at their core. Even a ruthless serial killer like him, right?
“Uuh, do you want to draw what you feel when you think about your death?”
“No.”
Lucifer winced at that; he hadn't even thought about it. Well, all right, it was all good for him to practise. There were more people who would refuse that. And it showed that none of that was going to affect him, since Alastor knew how to set his limits.
“About your first days in Hell? How was your adjustment?”
“Not much to explore there. I made a name for myself here, you know that.”
“It doesn't matter that they're things I know, this is about how you feel about those questions.” Alastor simply twitched one of his ears. Lucifer decided to try something else. “And about you when you were alive? Would you mind... I don't know, could we draw your family? You've mentioned your mother on other occasions, surely... surely that's not a problematic subject, is it?”
Lucifer feared he would refuse as well. If he wasn't willing to talk about anything on his list, they would be done quickly.
Alastor's expression was blank at that, but he blinked several times and shrugged. “All right,” he finally conceded and accepted a new sheet of paper.
Lucifer settled back on the couch, fiddling with his fingers. With that topic he didn't plan to draw anything at the same time, as they had done in the first exercise, but that left him at a loss for what to do in the meantime. Although, where did it leave him to ask others to do something he wouldn't do in his own situation?
There was no one qualified to give therapy to the Devil.
Used to the sounds Alastor normally emitted, he did not notice the increase in his static noise until it reached an annoying threshold to his ear. Concerned, he moved quickly beside the deer, but this only caused him to react negatively to the unexpected movement, emitting a growl and shooting him a murderous glare with blackened eyes.
Lucifer raised his hands in an attempt to placate him, but before they could say anything, Alastor crumpled the paper and threw it across the room.
They both gasped for a few minutes, their bodies tense. But, unsurprisingly, it didn't take Alastor long to regain his usual mask, relaxing his expression as best he could and placing his hands on the table to push himself and put some distance between himself and Lucifer. The latter backed away as well, giving him all the space he needed.
“My apologies,” the deer finally told him, sounding just as controlled as ever, as if nothing had happened. “A moment of frustration. I don't want to draw about that either. Anything else, or are we done here?”
He was clearly looking for an excuse to escape without drawing attention to himself, but Lucifer didn't want to allow that; not when he was so on edge. With a simple ploof, Lucifer reappeared in the other part of his room and bent down to pick up the paper ball. Alastor immediately jumped to his feet, making a very non-human sound, but when Lucifer looked at him he could see that he looked resigned rather than angry. He knew he would not be able to snatch the paper from the king.
Carefully, he opened the paper until the drawing came into view. The figure was in an old-fashioned dress and was adorned with small wings at its sides. He could make out the lines where Alastor had tried to make the head, but, while the drawing of himself had been blank, all the lines he had made on that occasion were covered by a scratch that he had made rather violently.
When he approached the sofa again, Alastor had sat down again. He had his arms crossed and was not looking at him.
“Don't you…” began Lucifer, but he paused to think about how he wanted to phrase it. With himself, Alastor hadn't tried; with that drawing, there was a face underneath the lines. But something had gone wrong to make him react that way. He decided to voice his suspicion: “You don't remember her face, do you?”
That he didn't answer was enough.
Lucifer settled back down, leaving space between them so as not to overwhelm Alastor any more than he was already doing by insisting on such a thing. “It's been a long time, I guess it's normal to…”
“A century since I've been here, so it's normal to have hazy memories of something from so far ago, yes,” Alastor confirmed, trying not to sound affected, but Lucifer could see small fractures in his mask: a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, his eyes studying the room as if he was looking for a way to escape the conversation.
He could understand what it was like not to see someone you held so dear.
“If she's in Heaven, maybe Charlie can arrange for you two to see each other. Things aren't quite right, but she's already made first contact with the Seraphim, maybe that young one can find her and…”
“Cease that thought. That's not what I want.”
“What do you want then?”
“That we don't talk about this.”
“What's the worst that could happen if Charlie does you this favour?”
That made him laugh, but it was too forced. Alastor brought his hands to his face, massaging his forehead. Lucifer could spy a grimace between the strands of hair he was using to hide his face.
“I don't even know if my mother is up there,” he confessed quietly, his filter dropping and his tone becoming more vulnerable. He clearly noticed, pinning his ears back at his slip, and cleared his throat to regain it. “I mean! Most people grow up idealising their parents, but we don't really know what their lives are like. She thought I was a saint, and she couldn't have been more wrong!” He accompanied that with a flourish of his hand, pointing to himself.
“Yeah, well, I don't think many people think about the possibility of their offspring becoming serial killers…” conceded Lucifer. “But what could she have done to end up here?”
“Have me. Enlighten me, oh, your majesty!” he said suddenly, turning to Lucifer with a feral grin and stiff ears pointed upwards. “You who reign over sinners, what are the rules that condemn us down here? Because in my day, everyone was very vocal about what was right and wrong. Things that could stain your soul no matter how small they were. To have a child without being married was to ruin yourself. My skin being lighter than hers could be a betrayal of her community.”
Unable to give an answer to that, Lucifer held the paper with the drawing of the woman he didn't even know to his chest, as if it would protect her from the accusations. He shook his head. “I don't know. Before me, Hell didn't exist, and after my Fall they weren't very eager to tell me about their decisions. ...Did you try to look for her here?”
“Of course not! I haven't changed my name and when I came here I continued with my radio show; if she were here, she would have come looking for me. Even though my appearance has changed, she would have known it's me. So she is not here! She can't be, because the other option…”
He didn't continue and Lucifer frowned, piecing the pieces together more slowly, but as he did, a gasp escaped him.
“How long did it take you to die after she...?”
“Decades. I didn't exactly die young, and she was gone too soon.’”
He didn't elaborate any further. And he didn't need to. If his mother had been there, but had fallen to some Extermination before he arrived and they could be reunited... Lucifer sighed and tried to connect his gaze with Alastor's, but his eyes were glued to the table and was refusing to cooperate.
He had confessed enough, Lucifer thought. He hadn't expected such a level of vulnerability from him.
“I'm sure she's Up there,” Lucifer told him firmly. He understood not wanting to check; as long as she existed in an unconfirmed limbo, his mother would always be in Heaven. “I mean, if your cooking is half as good as hers, obviously her dishes are divine. Heavenly treasure. They'd be fools not to let her have her restaurant up there.”
“Heaven sounds too boring and dull to appreciate her cooking,” he chuckled.
That last comment seemed to have lowered his discomfort somewhat, his posture less stiff and the smile with a less exaggerated, strained tinge. So the therapy was working, expressing feelings was going to help him feel better!
Or it would if Lucifer didn't have a very big mouth and was able to control his tongue.
“Your family was just the two of you then? You haven't drawn anything that represents your father,” he observed as he laid the paper on the table.
He felt Alastor tense again. He turned his head towards Lucifer sharply, eliciting one of those cracks in his neck that made Lucifer grimace.
“On the contrary! I have depicted him perfectly. He has the same presence as his involvement in our day to day life: none!”
“Oh… I'm sorry.”
“Don't be!” The tone seemed friendly, but Lucifer knew that underneath Alastor was deadly serious. If he detected any pity for him, Lucifer would have fucked up big time. “I am the person I am because of him, and I'm quite content with how I am and the place I have made my home.”
“Do you... do you want to talk about it?” he asked him, tentatively.
It seemed to convey a completely different emotion from the one that talking about his mother had emitted, and if he had been even slightly liberated by talking about her with Lucifer, could the same be true about his father?
Lucifer was fully aware that Alastor had been making decisions and pulling small strings that had helped the king improve his relationship with his daughter, no matter how antagonistic the deer had been when they had first met. Something had made him want to help Lucifer be a better father for her. He had never expected to receive an explanation about that behaviour, but if it ever came, it looked like it would have to be then or never. He'd already opened the wound; Alastor wasn't going to allow himself to be caught vulnerable like that again, Lucifer knew him.
Alastor was studying him intently, eyes wide and head tilted slightly. He held out a hand, emitting a green energy around it and letting his form exaggerate a little towards the more demonic.
“I agree to talk about this in exchange for nothing we have talked about and will talk next during this afternoon leaving these four walls without permission. Deal?”
It was a fair precaution, and, whether he had realised it or not, it also protected anything Lucifer said. “ Deal,” and he grabbed Alastor's hand, his own energy engulfing the sinner's and generating a small burst of power.
Alastor mumbled something under his breath, going back to his usual form, and shook his hand as if it had been burned. Maybe it had. That would teach him to stop asking for deals for the silliest things.
“Well,” Lucifer began after a small pause in the conversation, catching the other's attention again as he watched Alastor massage the hand affected by the king's power, “I think you owe me the backstory of the Radio Demon. Who was the poor bastard who brought him into the world?”
Alastor sighed. He reached out to the table, picking up the rubber duck he had left there earlier, squeezing it lightly a couple of times as if it were an anti-stress toy. Lucifer made a startling noise, but if it was going to help him talk it would be worth the fall of one of his soldiers, so he folded his arms so he wouldn't try to take it away.
The deer gave him his best smile before starting. “The bastard was a white brat with money who had it all. You know how they are, they fuck around until they screw up and mum and dad have to sort it out.” Lucifer blinked in surprise at the crudeness of his vocabulary, though he figured there was some time to do that, it was then. Besides, the conversation was off the record; he wasn't even using the radio filter. It might be the most sincere he'd ever heard him speak, without his usual theatricality. “A pretty girl, a couple of dances, a slip-up. But only one of them pays for it! Because obviously his parents weren't going to accept a bastard, and taking a black girl into their house was an even worse option.”
“So they paid her for her silence?”
“Oh, no, not at all! My mother and I lived a humble life as best as we could. No help from his family.”
“He never tried to... help you? He was your father.”
“No,” he said firmly. “He participated in my conception, but that doesn't make you a father if you're not around. He never was. I was just a mistake from his youth that he didn't have to think about, other more important concerns on his mind!”
And that... It wasn't exactly the same, but he imagined how his absence in Charlie's life had seemed to the sinner. How he would have taken it all.
“You hated me when we first met, before we even spoke.”
“Well, I had a century to hear things about you. And I could see the effects you had on Charlie.” For an instant, Alastor's attitude became aggressive, leaning towards Lucifer and his antlers extending, as if his imposing figure was going to intimidate him. But he blinked and returned to normal, dropping back into his spot. “But it's not the same. You're trying. You've been a crappy father, partly caused by... “ he gestured vaguely towards Lucifer's head, “your melancholy. But we're in Hell, and yet you really care about your daughter.”
“Of course I care about Charlie! More than anything. And that's how all parents should be.” He sneered, disgusted at the thought of Alastor's father and his utter disregard for a child he'd brought into the world. If he lost a little control of his form, none of them commented on it. “What happened to him?”
“Ah, and why should I know?”
“Because I can't believe that, being the way you are, you weren't there when he stopped breathing.”
Alastor looked satisfied at hearing that. “It may be dangerous for me that you know me so well,” he remarked, before continuing in a more serious tone. “My mother became ill. I took the trouble to track him down and call for help. We weren't enough. He didn't kill her, at least not with his hands, but she died because of him. By doing nothing. So. I decided to help him instead!”
He raised the duck above his head so that the light formed its shadow on the wall. Alastor's shadow was already prepared, the silhouette of something sharp in its hand. Lucifer watched as it repeatedly stabbed the duck, fully engaged in the activity with its frantic expression.
He was startled when Alastor laughed and threw the duck at him, catching it instinctively as it slammed into his chest.
“I get an idea of the help you gave him, okay. And then? Did you find him here?”
“Hm? Oh, no, that would have been splendid! To be able to repeat the experience again and again, after he was the first to show me the beauty of painting a scene in blood! But no, I have not had the pleasure of meeting him.”
“Maybe his soul was lost before you arrived.”
It was the end of many, many sinners.
“Or he was never here at all,” Alastor muttered, speaking to himself, and Lucifer stared at him, surprised by his words. When the deer realised he was watching him so intently, Alastor shrugged. “How much does it weigh to have a bastard? What if it turns out that he was a real goody-two-shoes in everything else? I didn't bother to find out, and you don't know what makes a human soul ascend or fall to Hell.”
That made him pause, unsure about how to respond to Alastor.
“You can't tell me that having you might have doomed your mother and minutes later tell me it's not enough for him to be here. It's not fair.”
“Ah, but Lucifer. Nothing is fair. Not when we're alive, let alone once we die.”
Lucifer let out a groan and sank onto the couch, dropping his arms to his sides limply and staring at the ceiling. Beside him, Alastor pulled his legs up onto the couch, using them to support his arms, and there his head.
They shared a heavy silence as they both thought about what had been said. Lucifer hated it; he didn't want to end the conversation like that, without closure. So he opened his mouth, still unsure what to say.
“I'm not sure there is a God,” he confessed, surprising them both.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Alastor had moved so that he could observe him while maintaining his posture, but Lucifer continued to stare at the ceiling. Up.
“I mean!” he continued, trying to save the abrupt change of subject. “If you're having trouble remembering details after a century, imagine putting in a few extra millennia. Poof, holes in your memories all over the place. Impossible to keep it all here.” He tapped his head with his knuckles. “So, I'm not sure what's real and what my brain has formed from the stories the humans tell.”
Alastor made a noise to indicate that he was listening to him, but did not intervene. Which made Lucifer nervous; it wasn't easy to get the sinner to shut up.
“I vaguely remember my siblings and that we had a plan for Eden. Which I apparently destroyed so magnificently that Lilith and I earned a one-way ticket down here, and were forced to rule the souls of the sinners who had been influenced by our decision with Eve.” For a while it had been going well, the three of them being able to talk and share ideas, but clearly that had been wrong in the eyes of their siblings. “Anyway! What I'm getting at is, if this all-powerful figure who technically created us all, celestial and human, exists, I think they'd take the prize for absentee progenitor and mostly disinterested in their creations, because in all this time they haven't said anything about what we were doing in Hell. So…”
He fell silent. It had been a long time since he had thought about all this. He had discussed it with Lilith, especially when he had tried to express some of the things that triggered his depressive episodes, looking for ways to control them and feel more present for his family, but she hadn't been there for him for a long time.
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Alastor in a whisper.
Lucifer considered his answer. “Because I want you to know that I understand. Our experiences were never going to be the same, but I get it. Besides!” He looked away from the ceiling to regard the other. “The world isn't fair, and that makes you look for situations that are, so that you have some control about your world. Your relationship with your father in exchange for mine.”
He couldn't make out Alastor's expression. He had half his face hidden under his arms and the strands of hair weren't helping to discern the rest.
“I feel like I have done a lot more talking than you have,” he said, his filter reappearing at last.
“Ah, but it's just that you've received information that spans a much longer period of time than I have!”
That made Alastor let out a chuckle and he finally relaxed his posture, freeing his long limbs. He ran a hand through his hair to push it away from his face, careful not to entangle it with his antlers.
“You put a lot of trust in me telling me something like that without thinking about whether I would use it against you.”
Lucifer shrugged. “You can't. You said that nothing would leave the room.” He wiggled his fingers in the air, a bit of energy leaping between them. Alastor's eyes widened slightly at that, before relaxing his expression again. Oh, so he hadn't realised that the deal included all parties. Lucifer was the one who laughed then. “You now have a piece of my personal tale inside you, bound to keep the secret forever, just as I have a piece of yours,” he said, holding a hand to his chest.
“I must say that is a fair trade,” he conceded.
The deer leaned against the back of the couch, fixing his gaze on the drawings that had been left forgotten on the table. Lucifer bit the inside of his cheek, thinking, feeling the metallic taste of blood as he broke the skin with his teeth.
Sighing, he sat up and opened his arms, catching Alastor's eye. He didn't move at the offer.
“I don't need a hug.”
“Ah, but I do.”
It was a trick Rosie herself used, and Lucifer had been quick to copy it since he first saw her use it. He didn't know if Alastor was aware of the little manipulation, or if he was just playing along so he could hide the fact that he did need those hugs. Either way, after a moment of hesitation, Alastor wrapped his arms around Lucifer.
If the deer let out a relieved breath when Lucifer wrapped his arms around him, it wouldn't leave the room either.
It didn't take long for them to separate. Clearly the whole thing had drained them both, and Alastor wasn't about to endure physical contact for too long. Lucifer let him out of his embrace and rose from the couch, seeking to give him all the space he needed and to gather up the papers and dismantle the table. He headed for his tower, but Alastor cleared his throat and as he turned he saw that he had risen and was following him, his hooves making a clicking sound as he walked hurriedly towards Lucifer.
“I'd like to keep the...’’ His fingers danced in the air and fished out the drawing he had made of himself, purple and red lines mixed in with what Lucifer had added.
He smiled at that. “Sure, go ahead.”
Alastor stood leaning against the door of Lucifer's tower as he manoeuvred across the room to his desk.
“I understand that this is not how the activity should have been done. Too much... personal chatter and not enough artistic production.”
“Hm? Ah, no, you are right! It all went off the rails a long time ago. ”
“So, it's been a waste of time. You haven't learned anything.”
“Haven't I?” he asked back, without looking at him. “About running these art activities? To be a better... therapist? No. But about the insufferable deer that invades my room every now and then? I guess I know him a little better now, and that's a big thing, isn't it?”
Alastor made an unconvinced noise, but Lucifer wasn't paying attention to him. He had left the other sheets of paper on his desk, the drawing of Alastor's mother on top of it. He rested a hand on the paper, unsure whether to carry out what he was thinking.
Everyone had taken a memento, to do with it as they wished. Keep it, tear it up, that was their choice.
He quickly constructed his idea, regretting that he didn't have time to perfect it and make sure it was as good as he had done with the others. But he knew Alastor was going to put up his walls when he left the room, that they were going to pretend nothing had happened. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a vulnerable side of him and he knew what to expect. These were their secret moments. Giving him that in a different moment would mean acknowledging that they had talked about it and Alastor wasn't going to accept it.
He trotted back to him, Alastor's ears perking up with interest as he offered him something.
Alastor had not finished the drawing, but the small figure Lucifer held out wore an exact replica of the dress he had drawn. Her hands were clasped in front of her chest and wings stretched out at her back with the colouring of the plumage reminiscent of Alastor's reds, seeking familiarity where neither of them had an answer.
And, finally, the face.
“Have you turned my mother into a... lamp?” asked Alastor, his voice filled with disbelief.
“She's not a..!” Lucifer huffed, placing one of his hands on his hip. “It's a representation of the divinity of your mother's soul, glowing in the dark for you. Just like you can't look directly at the sun, it's hard to make out her features, but it's okay because you know it's her. Or something like that, I'm not the one who has to make sense of any of this, I'm just the errand boy who makes your projects come true. You haven't given me much to work with.”
“My, my, was my father's story not inspiring? You could have made me something to commemorate my first kill, a real milestone in my life that started everything else and the reason we know each other.”
Lucifer looked at him blankly. “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it with me.”
“No, it's fine, ” replied Alastor, accepting the figurine. Lucifer's expression softened as he saw the care with which he held it, protecting it against his chest. “Thank you,” he finally murmured.
They looked at each other in silence for a while, until Alastor dissolved into his shadows and disappeared from the room.
Well, it could have gone a hell of a lot worse. Somehow they had survived such a talk.
He returned to his desk and picked up the drawing Alastor had vandalised. With a smile, he placed it on his wall next to the ones he had of Charlie from when she was little. And not so little.
Little treasures to remind him that it was worth getting up in the morning.
-----
