Chapter Text
♕
Lucifer emerged from a cloud of smoke on Vengeance's street with a shiner over his left eye and his suit in tatters that he decided to leave alone, rather than magick away just for the sake of pretending he took less than he did in that scuffle. Satan was already on his way out, having not so much lost as fought the argument to a proper standstill. As the Strongman of the Sinsational Seven, everything could be solved with a brawl in his mind- including the suffering of his own creations.
He worried a loose molar with his forked tongue and sighed, stalking back to the stupid inn to check in on Alastor and Vox. He made it halfway there before he found them stepping out of the shadows, looking as pleased with themselves as cats who have robbed both the canary cage and the fishtank.
He stopped abruptly, sizing them up, reading the push and pull of their souls as if it would tell him anything. Mischief had a certain scent, even if it was so vague as to be useless. Alastor always had a certain reek of it on top of that sickly sweet human decay mixed with swamp water smell. It was a pungent bouquet that made him wrinkle his nose.
“What did you do?” He demanded with a defeated exhale.
Alastor pressed a hand to his chest and looked at Vox, who, predictably, just shrugged. His sharky grin was a dead giveaway that he was mocking him. “Do? Why, your majesty! I don't know what I've done to deserve such accusations.”
Lucifer blinked his right eye slowly, as the left lid refused to move so much as a millimeter. “End up here?”
“Pfft! Well, you could hardly call it a gated community, given how easy it is to get in.” Alastor waved him off with one hand as he leaned on his microphone. “Vox and I got out of your way, just as you asked.”
Vox, eager for information judging by the curious sine waves of his soul, waved his talons at Lucifer's face. “What happened to you?“
”Satan and I talked it out.“ He pressed his knuckles into the space between his eyes. Ow. ”With fists, mostly, but there were some, uh, some choice words thrown in. He said he'd look into the treatment of the imps, try to figure something out.“
“It's not as if Beezlebub has done anything about the Hellhounds,” he had spat in his low drawl. To which Lucifer had responded that Bee always made sure the Hellhounds were taken care of and had safe places in Gluttony. Satan could at least do the damned bare minimum for his own and take some responsibility for their well-being.
"She's the Beast Tamer. That's what she does.“ And after that, Lucifer had brought his wings out and... well, it was a whole mess after that. He and Satan were never all that close, given how distant and unapproachable the other Sin was, but he'd never bullied him before now, which meant their relationship could at least be congenial. Now he feared they would never get back to that.
But that was a cost of being the king, wasn't it? It was what Alastor insisted he needed to do. Sometimes you had to be, well, mean.
”For real, though, I know you went somewhere,“ Lucifer went on, fighting the memories by grinding his knuckles harder against his sinus cavity. ”Just tell me what other fire I have to put out or make worse or whatever now and save me the grief of it goosing me when I'm not looking.“
Alastor sighed drearily. ”Very well, if you insist. He paused for effect, as if he were gearing up for a new broadcast and then, without preamble, simply said, ”We went to see Aamon.“
Lucifer felt his horns began to creep out of his skull, the molten furnace at the base of his throat catching fire as his eyes turned red. ”You what?” He snarled.
”Stow your horns, your majesty,“ Vox drawled, daring to step over and gently try to prod his horns back into his skull as if they were nothing more than a retractable baton. ”We gave him bad information.“
Lucifer's shift in appearance exploded like a sudden grease fire when it appeared and faded like water washing over a stone when it dissipated. One blink and all that was left was a few errant sparks sliding past his lips as if his tongue and teeth were flint and steel. ”You... what now?“
”Well, I didn't intend to come away from this whole affair empty handed,“ Alastor rocked back on his heels. ”By the time he realizes that he's been had, I am certain that Satan will have made some adjustments to imp welfare in Wrath. A perfectly tied-off happy ending, worthy of a fairy tale. Ha-ha.“
It was so conniving, so utterly bullshit that, of course it was what Alastor chose to do with an opportunity left lying at his feet. How could he have possibly expected anything less? And yet it was still a good thing, which… Wow.
He laughed, wheezy and half-mad, bent double here on the streets of Vengeance. ”You two are such tools.“
”Yeah, but we're your tools,“ Vox chuckled, the irony crackling across his speakers, almost distorting them, as if the words held too much implication for him to speak plainly.
Alastor was not keen on even faking such things. He twitched his jaw once and chuckled, the microphone echoing him with canned laughter. ”Speak for yourself!”
He moved on from this with the casual indifference of someone who wanted to change the subject but in a way that felt natural and not abrupt, spinning his microphone between his fingers like a conductor's baton. “Now then! What do we do now? I'm sure you're dying to know what Aamon told us.“
Yes. Yes, he was. But he had something else to do first. He gestured them closer with a wave of his hand, his sleeve so shredded that you could see where the dark gradient on his arms ended just above his elbow, like a starlet's silk gloves. ”Come on. Now that Satan knows we're here and can't get any more pissed about it, let's take the express.“
He opened a golden portal and the three of them stepped through and back into the hacienda of the White Rose.
♛
Alastor had never given imps much thought before today and likely wouldn't give them all that much thought after, unless they proved themselves worthy of his attention. It was hardly a slight against them, which was how he argued that the sentiment wasn't motivated by a racial superiority. It was simply that Hell operated on a structure that made far more sense- those with power and those without. Yes, there was classism rampant among the Hellborn, but Sinners were beyond that. They were powerful by virtue of their uniqueness, an invasive, colonizing species that mostly governed themselves. They didn't care about the Hellborn masses, because they were just wallpaper in the house that Lucifer had built for their eternal torment or success, depending on how you viewed damnation.
In short, it was different. It couldn't be hypocrisy because the structure of Earth and Hell were too different. Or, at the very least, that was how he framed it in his mind. Impossible to really examine certain biases when you regard everyone with the same contempt and use the chip on your shoulder to justify it. Nothing that happened on Earth mattered in Hell except where it did. Alastor contained multitudes and he would not lessen those contradictory elements to make himself palatable. He was what he was and he had his reasons and the only sure thing in this world was that no one would ever know what they were.
Sometimes he didn't know either, which was annoying. Just because he was contradictory and scattered by the whims of his soul didn't mean that every shard of glass and bolt of cloth and needle and thread that made up his personhood shouldn't be categorized and labeled properly just in case he wanted to examine them.
Because sometimes he did. Right now, standing in the kitchen of Grace's hacienda with a group of imps who were watching him with wide, hungry eyes as he made a stewpot full of jambalaya, he wanted to know what that odd little feeling in the center of his chest was.
Homesickness, perhaps. At a vague glance, imps looked like children and while this hacienda was hardly a little house in the French quarter, a kitchen was a kitchen and he had spent long hours in one just like this alongside his mother, slaving away over a hot stove so some of the local children with empty bellies could come by and have something warm before they went home to their miserable lives. His mother had always firmly believed in kindness for kindness' sake, a lesson that her son had never properly internalized.
Perhaps if she hadn't died so tragically. Perhaps if kindness hadn't allowed her down on his luck white husband to walk all over her. Perhaps if anyone else had rescued her when Alastor, himself, was away at university in Baton Rouge. That same community that she had been seamstress, midwife, and cook for had nothing to say when she drowned in that bog and for that, Alastor left kindness with the college degree he never got- abandoned and forgotten, replaced by only thoughts of becoming the nightmare that stalked the swamp, taking the lives of all the men who swore they were just and fair, while keeping their boots on the necks of the weak, all while becoming someone that the town respected, because two could play that game, thank you.
No, kindness hadn't lived in Alastor's soul for a long time. He was certain it was not among the boxes and trappings locked up behind his walls. And yet... And yet...
Honestly, he was grateful when Vox very nearly kicked down the door to the kitchen. Cooking, even while explaining his every move so the kitchen imps could replicate it later, allowed him too much time to think.
”We need to talk.“
The imps scattered like mice, despite this being their space- no one truly held territory when a shark was in their midst, after all. The second the door clicked closed behind them, Alastor’s ear flicked involuntarily, sensing Vox’s movements on his left side more than seeing them. Against all prey instinct, he kept his back to him, methodically stirring his pot.
“What about?” He asked when Vox seemed to be waiting for the typical response before he moved on. Oh how that ceaseless script got so irritating. He was so good at improv and yet whenever he got serious, he expected everything to follow a certain narrative that he concocted in his head and Hell forbid you didn’t get the new pages memorized on time. You’d think after nearly a year in the company of folk who weren’t concerned with how he ran a business because he had no actual business to run, he’d put a stop to it. Unfortunately, when you committed so hard to the task of upgrading, it was nearly impossible to make yourself backwards compatible again.
“You don’t trust me.” The words came out with a low drone of reverb, the equivalent of Vox speaking through gritted teeth.
Alastor still refused to turn around to face him, but he paused in stirring to gesticulate with the spoon, tone jovially sardonic. “Oh! Shall I alert the papers? That has to be the biggest news in Hell!”
Vox grabbed his shoulders and spun him around, sending the spoon careening to the floor, splattering rice and sauce across the tile where it landed. With one simple movement, Alastor replaced it with a paring knife and drove it into the hollow of the thin tangle of cable he called a throat just enough to spill a droplet of red blood- it never ceased to amaze Alastor how every Sinner, regardless of how they were made bled like a human. He always thought Vox should leak bright blue coolant or something equally fantastical. They stood like that for a held breath, neither of them moving.
“You know better,” Alastor whispered, dangerously, his ears pinned back against his skull.
“Yeah,” Vox responded, flatly, talons still digging into the meat of Alastor’s bony shoulders. “So do you.”
“Do I?” He twisted the paring knife just so. “Enlighten me, Vox. I think it seems to have slipped my mind.”
Another lengthy pause stretched out between them, filled with words they had been avoiding, spoken in subtext because any time it got any deeper, any time it might look like Alastor would have to admit to hurt, he shut it down, brutally, and walked away. Now there was nowhere to run unless he drove that knife straight through, severed every cord that held that stupid, proud flatscreen stable on his neck and left him for the Pit on the floor of someone else’s home. And while he wasn’t above doing that, it would be so terribly rude as a guest.
His nostrils flared. Fine. Vox could finally say his piece, then. “Speak, Vox! You’re usually so keen on it normally!”
“What do you think happened between us?” He said, enunciating each word. “Because I think we remember it differently.”
“I distinctly remember that you kept chasing that frivolously sadistic moth around town like you were addicted to his fumes until he finally agreed to a partnership. And then you tried to drag me into it.”
Vox’s screen glitched, his neck spasming enough to draw another drop of blood. Without wondering why, Alastor pulled the knife away. Slightly. Still a threat, but not a promise. “The worst of it happened before that. I shouldn't have even talked to you again after you laughed me out of the bar that night, but I was willing to try again. I went to Valentino for us, you idiot. I thought maybe if you thought I was interested in him, you'd get jealous and realize you were wrong, and then the three of us could work together. You were floundering!”
“I was not.”
“I thought you would have! And I didn't... want that. It would've been such a fucking waste!” Vox released his shoulders and stepped back until he hit the marble-topped island in the middle of the kitchen, pawing at the edge of his screen. “It’s not like I knew you’d made that deal.”
The urge to throw the paring knife into his screen was so overwhelming that Alastor had to let it drop one finger at a time to keep from doing it on impulse. It clattered to the floor next to the wooden spoon he’d been forced to drop. What a mess they were making. Oh well. “Tread carefully, Vox,” he sing-songed, threateningly.
“I wanted us to have more, to carve a niche for ourselves that wasn’t just a slice of ancient history relegated to a city block like the rest of the losers.”
There was another knife on his left he could use to carve up something else. It would be so easy to grab it. Alastor snatched his microphone instead, gripping it until his knuckles grayed. “I sincerely hope you’re not calling Rosie a loser.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Of course I do!” He laughed, high and mad. “You look down on everyone who doesn’t want to advance, who might be comfortable in those niches. You think everyone should be chasing clout and that, my dear, is why I don’t trust you. There will always be a higher authority you can grovel to in order to get ahead and there will always be some new sucker for you to step on as you tap dance your way to the top.”
Vox pushed himself off the island to encroach on Alastor’s space again, the glitching, rising static more pronounced now. It buzzed against Alastor’s own signal until the radio waves seemed to entangle, until it felt like he could read his mind more than he could hear his voice. “What higher authority is there now? I have Lucifer’s ear. We both do! We made an agreement that we’d follow this to some sort of conclusion. You think you don’t believe in advancing, but you want power, you chucklefuck. His power. I thought that was something we can agree on, but it feels a lot more like you’re going soft on him.”
“I can safely assure you that I have been nothing but rough on him.”
“Phrasing,” Vox spat.
Alastor twisted his lips into a disgusted grimace. “I think you’re jealous.”
“I don’t like feeling left out of the loop.” Vox threw his hands up and stepped back. His temper was flaring- the sparks mingling between his antenna were proof of that- but he was so determined to see this point through without being written off as the emotional ramblings of a desperate fool. “Are we in this together or are we going to keep fighting over him like he’s the prettiest girl at prom? How different are we going to be doing this? Because I can only follow your fucking lead so many times before it feels like I’m being jerked around.”
Alastor thought back to that feeling that he’d labeled homesickness and found it lodged firmly back into his chest once examined. No, not quite homesickness- something else. A yearning, aching emotion that came in waves before being put on a high shelf where he thought it couldn’t be reached. How many times had he labeled it something or other, hoping that by naming it, he could understand and best ignore it? And how many times had it fallen back down into his lap, proving that it had been mislabeled? Love was a complex emotion, tangled in things that he had no interest in or else full of thorns that reminded him of Eve’s rose garden and yet that was what it was- love. Affection. Fondness. Peace.
He’d been fond of Vox, maybe even loved him as he dared to love, uncomplicated and free of expectation, but Vox had expectations. Vox had needs and desires. It wasn’t just clout Vox had been chasing when he ran to Valentino- it was something that he was never going to give him, having been rejected so soundly. And he’d crushed that fondness under his bootheel the second he felt the sting of betrayal, the ache of realizing that fondness like that was only reciprocated through physical consummation and that friendship was only a stepping stone to higher gains. He had been more careful with his feelings after that. That was why his friendship with Husk was so fraught- he made himself a friend who would have no desires towards him, because he hated him just enough to never let any genuine affection take root. It was safer that way, so he kept using that tactic. People could only disappoint you if you didn’t keep them at arm’s length or forced them to owe you something.
Lucifer had been built to only be disappointing to him and he’d turned it around and thus Alastor was still floundering with the realization that he could actually expect and even have the best of people- in Hell, of all places, where the worst of the worst were rewarded for wearing it openly, instead of hiding it behind sweet tea smiles. There was no reward for doing better and yet so many did do better. He’d stumbled into what he’d viewed as a crapshoot and found a side of Hell that was sickeningly addicted to the kindness his mother had strived to teach him.
But Vox was an outlier. Vox profited off misplaced trust and saccharine-flavored poison that ate away at people, bit by bit. Even free of his ivory tower, he was completely at ease with being the worst possible version of himself and no amount of care for Velvette could dissuade Alastor from that belief. For once, Alastor felt himself growing, while Vox stagnated. It would be funny if the growth didn’t feel so completely and utterly shameful. The Great Radio Demon felled by affection.
No, Vox couldn’t know. The world couldn’t know. Alastor would continue as he was, putting those feelings up higher and higher until maybe they wouldn’t fall down on top of him so often. He still, at least, owed Vox something here. He’d done so well at being jerked around.
But there was no reward he could give that wouldn’t come with some kind of teeth to clamp down. Alastor held people at arm’s length, but he wouldn’t tolerate abandonment, especially not twice from the same person.
“I think you work best in trios,” he finally shrugged, his thoughts kept screened in behind his smile. “So perhaps we should consider this less of the two of us jerking the King of Hell in our wake, using him as a pawn in our personal vendetta, and more of an equal opportunity matter for all three of us. What do you say?”
He offered a hand. A handshake was dangerous- he hadn’t even offered a hand to him back at The Verdant Sprite when they first agreed to set aside the worst of their differences in order to use the king and queen of Hell for their own advancement. This was how one knew it was serious even without the wording of a deal to make it binding. Two Overlords knew the value of a handshake, deal or no deal.
Vox stared at his outstretched hand, squinting. “The last time I shook your hand, you took my soul.”
“Who’s to say I’m not doing the same thing now?” Alastor shrugged. “Friendship’s funny like that. Wouldn’t you say, old chum?”
Another lengthy, extended pause, full of secrets and subtext and all the things neither would say even with a knife under their skin. Even the word friendship was a loaded gun spun in a circle, poised to catch one of them in its dangerous roulette, but it was the use of that word that caught Vox under the collar. With an expression Alastor recalled seeing on a different screen seventy odd years ago, he finally snatched his hand in a firm grip, all that angry twitching and muted shock giving way to a tight, sharp-toothed smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’d say it is.”
It wasn’t a full reconciliation. Trust had to be earned. But Alastor worked best in deals and trust was easy to earn back when you felt it was owed to you.
Maybe it could be a start. Maybe it could be enough to push the ache far out of his mind.
♕
“Sorry we don’t have much for a royal welcome. The Harvest Moon Festival’s about the only time we get nobility around here and that’s a whole thing.”
Lucifer, currently so engrossed with petting a beautiful black horse that he’d missed half of what Grace had been babbling about, suddenly froze over being directly addressed, coughed, and tried to reorient himself to the conversation. “It’s, uh… Fine! I don’t really like fancy, y’know, anything. This is nice. You’re nice.” The last bit he cooed at the horse, who snorted a bit and nuzzled at his hat. “Uh-huh! That’s, uh… That’s not for eating, buddy! That’s just decorative. And also you wouldn’t wanna create Original Sin again, wouldja?”
Grace giggled. “That’s Spindle.” She reached up to brush her fingers through his blood red mane. “He’s the one I used to ride into town as the White Rose. Guess those days are over now, huh, old friend?”
He shifted awkwardly, fiddling with his cane as he took in the almost tragic look in Grace’s eyes as she stroked her horse. “Did you, um… like being a vigilante?”
“I liked helpin’, but you’re right. A lot of what I did helped, but it also made a lot of the Goetia crack down even harder on us. If you’d been a lot less kind…”
“Yyyyeah,” he wheezed, coughing into his hand. “I, uh… I could’ve been… couldn’t I?” No sense in burdening her with the reality that he almost was, until he realized there were other ways to go about this, until he saw so much of his daughter in her. Maybe her passion was too zealous, but it wasn’t misplaced.
And Charlie would’ve wanted him to do the right thing and he liked doing the right thing when he could actually get up the courage to do it without worrying about how much worse it would hurt if he failed or if there was retaliation. She and Alastor could both be right.
He swallowed. “There’s, um- uh… There’s still a lot of work to do. You know.” Rocking back on his heels, he stared up at the sky. “I can’t do everything.”
“No, and I wouldn’t want you to. I don’t have to be the White Rose to help. It’s about time Wrath had a little Grace.” She lifted an eyebrow.
Another wheezy laugh burbled out of him like he was a shaken champagne bottle. “That’s a good one. Wordplay. I like it.”
She reached over to touch him, not even hesitating where most imps would have been terrified. She really was a bold little thing, standing up to Goetia, becoming a symbol for justice, and giving it up just as easily when she found another option. Even those born in Hell had good hearts and would that have happened had he not interfered? Did some of that good, angelic light infect everything? Or was that too presumptuous of him? It was difficult to say when so much of Hell was what he and Lilith brought from Heaven and Earth, but maybe there had always been its own kind of grace, choked out by the shadows.
“You might actually have it in you to be a good king. Finally. Doc’s not sure, but I believe it.”
He choked. “Iiiii don’t know about that, but I’m trying. I’m okay!” Charlie was going to be a better queen one day than he’d ever been a king, but the least he could do was not leave her with his mess. “I’m just… trying to fix as much as I can.”
“You want some advice from an itty bitty imp?” Grace shifted away from him to return to her horse. “Things around here need less help than you think. A little bit of influence here and there, a bit of kindness where it’s needed… I think Hell’ll turn out all right in the end. We can take care of ourselves so long as we know someone’s there to watch out for us when we can’t. You don’t have to do everything- you just gotta do something.”
That was the crux of what Alastor- in less kind words- had told him. Do something. Act. Don’t be afraid to stand up to the forces knocking at your door, whether angelic or Hellborn. Maybe his people were awful, but they didn’t have to be. Maybe things just reflected his own derision. What was that story about the king who let his kingdom fall apart because he’d rather fish?
Oh fuck. Was he the damned Fisher King?
He left Grace with her horse so he could chew on that, working it over in his mind like a bit of gristle. He wandered the hacienda without considering where his feet were falling and maybe later he’d wonder why instinct led him to Alastor and Vox, leaning against a fence while a group of children watched them with wide eyes, shoveling spoonfuls of sausage and rice into their little mouths.
They were engaging in one of their little patter things, spinning a tale about Earth as they remembered it, delighted at the chance to show off for an invested audience who couldn’t call bullshit or question whether or not their specific experiences were the norm. Alastor’s stories of stock market crashes and swamps full of alligators definitely appealed to them more than Vox’s tales of white collar crime, but they didn’t seem to be competing. For once.
Alastor caught sight of Lucifer, grinned, and then turned back to the children. “Well, I think we’re out of stories for the moment!”
The children chorused their protests like the final notes of a big musical number, begging for a little more. Alastor tutted. “Now, now, finish your suppers and perhaps I’ll regale you with something that will give you nightmares for weeks to come!”
That seemed to cheer them up. They all dove into their bowls, eagerly, allowing the two Sinners to slip off and link arms with Lucifer.
“Well, my king!” Alastor chirped, twirling his microphone. “We’ve managed to accomplish quite a bit here, haven’t we?”
“You two are… Perky.” He eyed him and Vox, searching for anything to indicate their lack of tension was some sort of new gambit. As usual, they were closed books- even their souls seemed less in tumult than usual.
“We’re just riding high off the success of getting everything and paying nothing for it,” Vox shrugged. “My favorite kind of victory.”
Okay, sure. Fair. “Uh-huh…”
Alastor continued, pushing off Lucifer so he was no longer in bodily contact with him, as if he’d reached his limit of it. “So! The only thing left is figuring out what’s next for us. We’re on quite a roll now and we have such fascinating intel to act upon.”
Right. Yeah. Heaven was behind the weapons that got into the hands of those Goetia, but was it all of Heaven or just someone with a vendetta? And what was the goal- turning Hell back into the dark prison it was until Lucifer brought light to it, broke some unspoken part of his punishment, and made it into a society that mirrored Heaven’s?
Anyone- even the absent Archangels, maybe especially them- would have a reason to want that after what happened with Eve.
He crushed his eyes closed. That was a problem for tomorrow. He’d done enough today and he was tired. “I’ve got an idea.”
He puffed out his cheeks, exhaled, and raised his hands to the sky, opening a glittering gold portal that exposed this little slice of Wrath to a tiny bit of Earth’s starry sky. Spoons thunked into wooden bowls as every child and farmhand milling about and eating Alastor’s cooking gazed up at it in shock- this slice of Earth that they only ever saw once a year during a festival, exposed just for them, just for this one night. For once, there was a different Earth moon just for them to see, crescent and floating in a river of stars.
Lucifer, smugly satisfied at his working, turned to Alastor and Vox and found them both gaping, which only served to make him smugger. “How do you like that? Little Earth sky for ol’ nostalgia’s sake? Huh? Huh? Hold your applause, please.” He waved a hand dismissively.
“It seems I misjudged you, your highness,” Alastor crooned like a songbird when he finally found his voice. He leaned on his head, crushing his hat down over his eyes, just to humble him a bit. “A broken clock is right twice a day, after all.”
Lucifer pushed him off so he could yank his hat back into place. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, asshole.”
Alastor only chuckled. His microphone crackled to life, filling the air with sweet music, as the three of them stared up at the stars, enjoying a moment of peace before the inevitable work began anew.
Moon river, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day
Oh, dream maker, you heartbreaker
Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way