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Vox finished his call and hung up the phone, his eyes reverting back to their normal shape. Frankly, Charlie’s innocent eyes on Vox’s horrible screen was downright creepy, and Alastor considered himself an expert on creepy. He hoped with everything in him that Lucifer was smart enough to recognize that the voice on the phone wasn’t Charlie, that the princess would’ve just told him where she was rather than ‘sending her location.’ Even so, he didn’t have very high hopes.
Those hopes were dashed when Lucifer stepped through a portal and Vox immediately tied him to a chair. The king struggled for a minute and Vox cackled. He patted Lucifer on the shoulder. “Don’t bother. You’ll need your energy,” Vox mocked, then leapt into one of his cameras in a flash of electricity.
The room was dark, but between the dim glow of Alastor’s eyes and his sinner form’s advanced night-vision — one of the only good things about his form — he could make out Lucifer’s silhouette as he slumped in the chair, hanging his head forward.
Useless. Apparently it was going to be up to Alastor to solve this problem, as usual.
“Moping, Lucifer?” he asked.
Lucifer flinched. Had he seriously not noticed Alastor at all?
Lucifer kicked his feet, pointing his toes and managing to spin himself to actually face Alastor. “You-!”
He cut himself off, staring. Alastor tried to keep his head high, but the king just kept staring. Surely he knew already that Alastor would be here, didn’t he? His ears drooped against his will, as they’d been doing so often as of late.
“I'd tell you to take a picture, but I'm sure such things are already plastered over every billboard available. Or have you simply grown so stupid that you've lost the power of speech?” he snapped.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Bambi! What in the unholy Hell are you doing here, anyway? How long have – is this where you've been since you left the hotel?” Lucifer snarled at him. “Seriously? You got captured by these assholes?”
As if he didn’t know. Just twist the knife, why didn’t he. Well two could play at that game.
“I'm here by choice – I didn't get tricked here because I couldn't recognise my own kin's voice properly!”
Lucifer’s eyes changed color. Excellent, Alastor’s barbs had landed. The king wriggled in his chair, scooting closer in the most pathetic way possible, unlike Alastor, who’d quickly mastered kicking himself around the room in his spinny chair, until Vox had planted him here and locked the wheels
“Sure, you look like you've got a lot of choice! Unless you're secretly into being tied to a chair, you look just as fucked as I do! What makes you think he didn't trick you, huh? What makes you think you're so clever? Why do you think–”
“Because he was supposed to be two steps behind!” Alastor shouted. He leaned forward without meaning to and the wound on his chest sent a stab of pain lancing through him. He bit his tongue before he could snap something else, give Lucifer more ammunition.
“Supposed to?” Lucifer asked softly. He kept wiggling, shuffling even closer. Too close. “What went wrong?”
Alastor glared at him, willing him to back the fuck off. “You and I aren't the only prisoners in this room, Lucifer,” he said lowly.
He saw the moment Lucifer realized that the lump of fabric in the corner was in fact a demon, immediately followed by a flash of confusion. Of course the all mighty king of hell couldn’t be bothered to learn the names of Charlie’s -
of Charlie’s friends. He knew Alastor’s name, that much was certain, considering the tacky plaque he’d plastered outside his door.
“Angel Dust,” he muttered, leaning closer so that the king would hear, but the mostly unconscious porn star wouldn’t hear his own name and try to get up again. Alastor liked watching people suffer, and even he hadn’t enjoyed watching Vox drag Angel in, watching Angel stagger and try and fail to stand on his own feet, and Vox drop him like a bag of trash.
“It seems he's been keeping Vox informed, more's the pity. And now that he's got you here to power his war machine–” Alastor continued, until Lucifer interrupted him, far too loudly.
“Wait, hold on, slow down – his what? I'm doing – what?”
Alastor raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to process that.
“I'm not powering any war machine,” Lucifer declared, full of misplaced authority.
Alastor couldn’t help the way his smile twisted. “I shall be fascinated to know how long such determination lasts. Trust me, Your Majesty – Vox seemingly has ways of getting what he wants that even I couldn't predict. Why did you have to go and fall for – for – for a scam phone call?”
Honestly! He’d known the man was a dolt, the ducks were proof of that, but to fall for something so obvious. Was he truly that desperate for his daughter’s attention that he didn’t stop to think twice about what he was doing?
“You don't even know what a scam phone call is!” Lucifer snipped at him.
Alastor rolled his eyes. Just because he embraced his reputation of being stuck in the past didn’t mean he was actually oblivious. He lived in the same century as everyone else, thank you very much.
He opened his mouth to retort, with something much more clever, but apparently Vox had seen them conversing via the cameras, as a jolt of electricity surged through the cables binding him. He let out an involuntary screech of feedback as his wound, which had reopened after the last time Vox flung him around, sent another stab of pain through him. He could feel the blood soaking into his shirt.
The cables holding Lucifer sparked, and the king glanced down, unbothered. Of course! Of course the king was impervious to Vox’s electricity! Alastor was sitting here slowly bleeding through his shirt and Lucifer was having a nice little massage, courtesy of the VoxTek electrical grid.
“Of course. Nobody ever said that just because you can't hurt sinners, that means sinners can hurt you. How positively...” Ugh, he didn’t even have a good word for how irritating that was, especially with more and more of his focus being drawn to his damn wound.
Lucifer scooted even closer, and with the wheels of his chair locked in place, Alastor couldn’t escape.
“Alastor. Does that happen... often?” Lucifer asked, far too gently. Alastor looked away. “Are you hurt?” Lucifer insisted.
Alastor rolled his eyes again. Lucifer’s eyes glowed in the dark too, Alastor was sure he could see the damn blood on his shirt. Well, if he was going to ask…
“I'm sure you'd like such a thing to be true. With me out of the picture, you can finally win Charlie's affection back, so–”
“She kicked me out,” Lucifer interrupted, his face immediately changing and telling Alastor that he did not mean to tell him that. “She hates me, she told me to leave – because I'm a fuck up. I fucked things up for her, alright?” Lucifer ranted, more to himself than Alastor. “She would have been better off if I'd never shown up – you're more use to her than I ever was! All I'm good for is being a power source, Vox is right, but... but...” Lucifer finally ran out of steam, and even in the dim light, Alastor could see his cheeks flush gold.
He let the king sit on his outburst for a long moment, weighing his reply. Lucifer’s shoulders pulled inward, trying to make himself even smaller than he already was.
Alright, Alastor could play nice. “She doesn't hate you.” Lucifer’s face jerked up to meet Alastor’s eyes, looking for the lie. And though Alastor had no doubts that he could absolutely lie to the king of hell without issue — unless having a built in lie detector was another yet unrevealed power — this time he spoke the truth. “Oh, it's true, you're a terrible father–” he continued. Truth, yes. Coddling, no.
“What the fuck?” Lucifer yelped, but Alastor ignored him.
“But that's because you keep trying to be her friend. She has enough of those, Lucifer. Stop worrying so much about how she sees you and start acting like a parent, for your sake. She needs guidance – not coddling.”
And Alastor needed less heart to hearts, emotionally, and, at the rate things were going with his damned wound, physically.
Lucifer scooted his chair even closer, knocking his knee against Alastor’s and shoving his leg in between his. Alastor glared. He says one thing that’s not outright mean and now the man is trying to seduce him? “What are you doing?”
Lucifer leaned forward, and Alastor pressed himself as far back into the chair as his skinny frame would allow. Lucifer’s forehead came to rest against Alastor’s chest, and Alastor held himself as still as he could.
“Helping,” Lucifer replied, turning to rest his cheek against Alastor’s chest instead. “I know it's probably a foreign concept to you, but since we're both currently prisoners of this TV asshole, I figured it's probably better for you to be at your best. Enemy of my enemy, and all that,”
Alastor bit his lip, hard, as the pain in his chest lessened a bit. For the first time in quite a while, he felt like he could take a full, deep breath, though with Lucifer still pressed against him, he didn’t. Well, at least he hadn’t been reduced to asking Lucifer to heal him.
“An angel powerful enough to bring Heaven to its knees, and a sinner capable of destroying each and every other sinner in Hell. Quite the pair we make, hm?”
Lucifer laughed softly. “And both prisoners of a warmonger. Look, you don't like me and I don't like you, but I think we need to call a truce. For now, just while we sort this out. Allies?”
Well at least the man wasn’t trying to be friends. “A disgraced king and a hypnotised porn star? How could I ever hope for a better team?” he muttered, as he felt Lucifer relax against him, falling asleep.
Well, being a failure must take a lot out of a person. Alastor sighed. At least the sleeping king was still healing him, however that worked. Alastor shifted, allowing Lucifer to settle a little more firmly against him, and set his mind to plotting. He may not have the most effective allies, but he was clever. By the time the other two woke, he would have a plan.