Chapter 3: The First Dream
The kiss ended the way a song ends—not with silence, but with the resonance lingering in the air. Lucifer pulled back just enough for their breath to mingle, their foreheads resting together. His red eyes were wide, pupils blown, searching Alastor’s face like it was a map to a treasure he’d given up hunting.
Alastor couldn’t speak. The hollow where the static had been was now filled with a ringing, high-frequency hum. His lips tingled. He could feel the exact shape of the pressure Lucifer had left behind, a brand more intimate than any contract.
“Okay,” Lucifer breathed, the word feather-light against Alastor’s mouth. He didn’t let go, his hand still a firm, warm weight on the back of Alastor’s neck. “That… clarifies some things.”
Alastor’s survival instincts, battered but not destroyed, sparked feebly. He could still run. He could dematerialize into shadow and static, flee to the farthest, darkest corner of his radio tower. But the muscles required to do so felt detached, non-responsive. He was anchored by that hand, by the dizzying proximity.
“It was a logical progression,” Alastor heard himself say, his voice a thin, reedy version of its usual broadcast. “Given the preceding social interaction.”
Lucifer barked a laugh, the sound startled and joyous. He finally leaned back, putting a precious inch of space between them, though his hand slid down to rest on Alastor’s shoulder. “A logical progression. Right. Of course.” His grin was lopsided, unguarded. “You’re a lunatic.”
“Says the monarch,” Alastor retorted, automatically. The familiar rhythm of their bickering was a life raft. He clung to it.
“I think,” Lucifer said, his tone shifting to something deliberately, painfully casual, “we should probably… stop. For now. Before my logical progression wants to, uh, progress further.” He tapped a finger on Alastor’s shoulder. “And you look like you’re about to have a system failure.”
“I am in perfect operational order.”
“You’re glitching at the edges. It’s cute.” Lucifer sighed, a contented, weary sound, and finally withdrew his touch entirely. The space where his hand had been felt immediately, violently cold. “It’s late. Or early. Time is fake here. But even demons need to reboot.” He stood up, straightening his waistcoat. The King was back, but softer at the seams. “Breakfast. My suite. Noon-ish. We’ll… talk. Or not talk. We’ll see.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a offered truce, a schedule. Structure. Alastor seized it. He gave a sharp, shallow nod. “Very well. I expect an exemplary Eggs Benedict.”
“You’ll get pancakes shaped like ducks and you’ll like them,” Lucifer said, already walking backwards toward the door of his chambers, his smile still dazzling. “Now get out of my sitting room before I change my mind about being a gentleman.”
Alastor stood, his limbs moving with a stiff, marionette-like precision. He didn’t teleport. He walked, each step measured, out of Lucifer’s domain, down the silent, hallways, and into the oppressive familiarity of his own radio tower.
His bedroom was a curated chaos. Dark wood, blood-red walls, vintage microphones turned into morbid art pieces. It was a stage set for a monster. Tonight, it felt like a cage. His shadow, which had slunk back to him sometime during the walk, now rippled uneasily across the floorboards, refusing to settle.
He shed his coat, his fingers fumbling on the buttons. The scent of Lucifer—applewood and celestial ozone—still clung to him. He poured three fingers of whiskey from a bottle on the bedside table, downed it without tasting it, and fell onto the bed without bothering to undress.
Sleep, when it came, was not an escape. It was an ambush.
It began with sensation. The firm, familiar weight of Lucifer astride him, but the context was new, terrifying, electric. Lucifer’s head was thrown back, his long hair a cascade of moonlight against the dark sheets, a silent gasp on his lips. His hips moved in a slow, torturous rhythm, a counterpoint to the frantic beat of Alastor’s own heart. It was overwhelming, a sensory bombardment that short-circuited thought.
Then the dream shifted. Changed keys.
The pressure flipped. Alastor was face-down, the scent of his own pillow suffocating. A hand, strong and sure, tangled in his hair, not yanking, but holding, possessing. The other hand pressed into the small of his back, a point of burning certainty.
Lucifer’s voice was a low growl against the shell of his ear, vaporizing the last of his defenses. “Mine.”
The sound was not a question. It was a fact. A proclamation that vibrated through Alastor’s very bones. The dream provided the visceral, crushing weight of the King’s body covering his, the shuddering breath as Lucifer pushed inside, the unbearable, perfect friction of being unraveled and remade.
Alastor woke with a shattered gasp, body arching off the mattress.
The room was dark and cold. He was alone. The phantom pressure on his back, the echo of that voice, the acute, throbbing ache between his legs—all of it was horrifically, mortifyingly real. He was painfully hard, his own claws digging into his palms hard enough to draw thin lines of black ichor.
He lay there, panting, staring at the ceiling where his shadow now cowered in the corner, mimicking his own stricken posture. The smug, heart-eyed entity from the rooftop was gone, replaced by a mirror of his shame.
“No,” he whispered to the empty room. The word was pathetic.
He didn’t touch himself. The urge was a physical scream, but to give in would be to admit the dream had power. To confirm its victory. He focused instead on the sting in his palms, on the dry ache in his throat, on the relentless tick of an antique clock on the wall. He dissected the dream with clinical, brutal precision. A simple biological response. A processing of unprecedented stimuli. Neurons firing in predictable, mammalian patterns. It meant nothing.
The ache did not subside. The image of Lucifer above him, below him, around him, would not fade.
He rolled from the bed as if fleeing an attacker, stripping off his rumpled clothes with sharp, angry motions. A cold shower in his adjacent washroom did little to help. The water felt like a violation. He dressed with robotic care, selecting a fresh, identical red coat, smoothing every hair into place. He repaired his smile in the mirror—a wide, sharp, empty thing. The eyes beneath it still looked hunted.
When he appeared in the doorway of Lucifer’s breakfast nook at precisely noon, he was the picture of composed, radio-ready nonchalance.
Lucifer was already there, wearing a surprisingly simple silk robe over his usual attire. The table was, indeed, set with a towering stack of golden pancakes. Some were in the vague shape of ducks. Others were hearts.
“You’re punctual,” Lucifer said, not looking up from where he was pouring a ludicrous amount of syrup. “I’m impressed. Coffee’s on the sideboard. It’s actual coffee. Not… soul brew.”
Alastor moved to the sideboard, his movements precise. He poured a cup, the rich, bitter smell a welcome anchor. He took the seat opposite Lucifer, setting his napkin on his lap with a flick.
“I trust you slept… adequately?” Alastor asked, his voice a smooth broadcast baritone.
Lucifer looked up then. His eyes, sharp and knowing, scanned Alastor’s face. He saw the perfect smile, the rigid posture. He saw everything.
“Like a baby angel,” Lucifer said lightly, cutting into a pancake. “You?”
“Adequately,” Alastor repeated. He picked up his fork. The silverware felt alien in his hand. He aimed for a neutral, duck-shaped pancake.
A long, slow minute passed, filled only with the sounds of cutlery on china. The previous night screamed in the silence between them.
Lucifer put his fork down. “So. The kiss.”
Alastor’s fork screeched against his plate. “Must we editorialize? It occurred. It was… acceptable.”
“Acceptable.” Lucifer’s lips twitched. “High praise.” He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. “I’m not going to make you talk about your feelings, Al. I know that’s your personal version of the seventh circle.” He popped a piece of pancake into his mouth. “But I’m also not going to pretend it didn’t happen. So here’s where I’m at: I liked it. I’d like to do it again. Maybe with less… impending system failure on your part.”
Alastor felt the dream-phantom hand on his back again. He carefully set his fork down. “Your candor is, as always, brutish.”
“And your evasion is a work of art.” Lucifer’s gaze was unwavering. “I’m not asking for a sonnet. I’m asking if I can kiss you again sometime. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice. We can even make it a contractual agreement, if that makes your weird little brain feel better.”
The escape hatch was there. No. He could say no. He could retreat, rebuild the walls higher, thicker. He could live another century in the safe, sterile silence of his own pride.
He saw the white stag. He felt the dip on the dance floor. He heard the echo of mine.
His shadow, pooled beneath his chair, slowly formed a single, trembling thumb, pointing upward toward Lucifer.
Alastor looked away, out the panoramic window at the hellscape beyond. The smile on his face felt like it might crack his jaw. “A contractual agreement seems… excessively formal.” He paused, the words like broken glass in his throat. “But your… proposal… is noted. And not… rejected.”
He couldn’t look at Lucifer. He braced for laughter, for triumph, for something that would let him shove the chair back and leave.
What he heard was a soft, gentle clink. He glanced back. Lucifer was simply stirring his coffee, a small, real smile playing on his lips. Not a smirk. A smile.
“Noted,” Lucifer echoed, his voice warm. “Now eat your duck, sweetheart. It’s getting cold.”
Alastor ate the pancake. It tasted of nothing. The sweetness was ash on his tongue, every chew a mechanical effort. Across the table, Lucifer chattered about duck migrations, the new sulfur-rain patterns over the Greed Ring, anything light and inconsequential.
The words flowed around Alastor like a river around a stone. He nodded at appropriate intervals, even managed a thin smile. But his mind was a broken record, the needle stuck in a single, devastating groove.
Pinned. Claimed. His.
He couldn’t lie to himself. Not anymore. The phantom ache in his body was a brand. The ghost of that possessive growl in his ear was a melody he couldn’t stop humming. The evidence was irrefutable, humiliating, and exhilarating.
He had always assumed his machinery simply lacked that particular gear. Asexuality was a neat, logical box that explained a century of utter indifference. Attraction was a foreign, faintly ridiculous concept reported by others, a messy biological glitch he was grateful to have avoided.
The irony was a razor blade. Of course it would take Satan himself to get his motor running. The one being in all existence whose power could match his own defiance, whose smile was just as sharp, whose loneliness mirrored his in a different key. It was perverse. It was perfect.
He would rather be torn apart by angelic steel than ever, ever voice the images that now played behind his eyes. Asking Lucifer to pin him down, to claim him, to make the dream real? The very thought made his static screech with feedback. He wasn’t doing that. He would bury it under layers of sarcasm and radio static until it fossilized.
The rest of the day was a masterclass in painful normalcy. He hosted his broadcast, his voice a flawless, cheerful distortion. He terrorized a minor overlord who was late on his tribute, the violence a familiar, soothing script. He fixed the wiring in the hotel's grand foyer, fingers moving with precise, unfeeling efficiency.
And through it all, he felt Lucifer’s eyes.
Not constantly. Not obviously. A flicker of focus across the lobby as Alastor adjusted a painting that was already straight. A lingering glance from the balcony as Alastor berated a sloth demon for poor customer service. Lucifer was watching him, those crimson eyes missing nothing, seeing the stiffness in his shoulders, the jumpiness he couldn’t quite smother.
Dinner was a quiet, communal affair. Alastor positioned himself at the far end of the table, conducting the conversation like an orchestra, directing attention anywhere but at himself. He felt Lucifer’s gaze like a sunspot on his skin.
Later, a note appeared, materializing from a tiny, dancing apple-sprite that dissolved into glitter on his desk. Two words, in elegant, looping script: My sitting room. 10 PM. Drinks.
No question mark. Just a summons.
At five minutes to ten, Alastor stood outside the familiar door. He could turn around. He could go back to his tower and claim a sudden, pressing need to realign his transmitters. His shadow pooled at his feet, a dark stain of indecision.
He opened the door.
Lucifer was already there, having traded his robe for a simple black shirt, sleeves rolled up. Two glasses of amber liquid sat on the low table. The room was dim, lit by the eternal, low glow of Pentagram City through the windows.
"Right on time," Lucifer said, not turning from where he was staring out at the view. "Pour you a whiskey?"
"You already have." Alastor’s voice was tight. He walked in, his steps measured, and sat rigidly on the far end of the couch. The space between them felt like a canyon.
Lucifer finally turned, picked up the glasses, and handed one to Alastor. Their fingers brushed. Alastor didn’t flinch, but a tiny, telltale crackle of static escaped him. He took a swift, burning gulp.
"So," Lucifer said, sinking into the opposite corner of the couch, swirling his drink. He looked relaxed, but his eyes were lasers. "What's got you so jumpy today? You've been twitchier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs since breakfast."
"I have no idea what you're referring to." Another sip. The whiskey was good, smoky. It did nothing to settle him. "My demeanor has been, as always, impeccable. Perhaps your own perceptions are skewed by an overabundance of syrup."
"Uh-huh." Lucifer took a slow drink, watching him over the rim of the glass. "So it's just a coincidence you nearly launched through the ceiling when Husk dropped a tray this afternoon? And you've recalibrated the lobby portraits four times? And you're sitting so straight I think your spine might be trying to escape out the top of your head?"
"Productive habits and situational awareness are not 'jumpiness'," Alastor deflected, focusing on a minuscule flaw in the crystal of his glass. "Perhaps you should focus your observational skills on the hotel's actual management, rather than my entirely normal postures."
Silence stretched, thick and heavy. Lucifer took another sip, then set his glass down with a soft click. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his gaze softening from an interrogation to something more curious, more tender. It was worse.
"Alright," Lucifer said, his voice dropping to something quieter, more intimate. "Forget I asked."
He let the sentence hang. Then he tilted his head, a faint, hopeful smile touching his lips.
"Can I kiss you again?"
The question landed in the quiet room, simple and devastating. All of Alastor’s intricate deflections, his hours of practiced nonchalance, evaporated. His carefully constructed composure shattered like cheap glass.
He nodded. A little too quickly. A sharp, frantic bob of his head.
His traitorous shadow shot up the wall behind the couch and formed two enormous, sparkly, throbbing hearts.