Chapter 6: Dreams Laid Bare
Alastor woke with a jolt, the phantom sensation of hands on his hips and a breath against his neck evaporating into the cool, incense-thick air of the bedroom. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, living thing trapped in a cage of bone. The dream—vivid, visceral, and entirely too quiet—clung to him like a second skin.
He was alone in the vast bed. The space beside him was still warm.
Turning his head, he saw Lucifer. The King was sitting up against the headboard, silhouetted by the faint, hellish glow that seeped around the heavy curtains. He held a glass of water, the condensation beading on the crystal. He was already looking at Alastor, his red eyes luminous in the dimness.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Lucifer said, his voice a low, sleep-roughened rasp. He took a sip of water. “You were talking in your sleep.”
Every muscle in Alastor’s body locked. A cold dread, sharper than any blade, poured down his spine. He schooled his features into a neutral mask, the familiar, sharp-edged smile threatening to reappear as a defense. “Was I?” His own voice was a dry crackle. “I rarely dream. Must have been indigestion.”
Lucifer’s smile was a slow, dangerous curve. He set the glass on the nightstand with a soft click. “Uh-huh. Funny, it didn’t sound like indigestion.” He picked a piece of invisible lint from the black silk sheets. “It sounded like my name. A lot. With some… interesting punctuation.”
Alastor sat up, the covers pooling around his waist. The movement was too quick, betraying his panic. His shadow, which had been a puddle on the floor, recoiled and slithered under the bed.Traitor.
“The subconscious is a strange landscape,” Alastor countered, his broadcaster’s cadence returning, smooth and dismissive. “I’m sure it was meaningless. Perhaps a commentary on your monopolistic tendencies regarding the realm’s bandwidth.”
Lucifer laughed, a single, bright sound that felt alien in the tense room. “Nice try.” He shifted, turning to face Alastor more fully. The candlelight caught the gold threads in his robe. “But I’m curious.You were moaning. So, I’ve got to ask.” He leaned forward, just a little, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that vibrated in the space between them. “Did I fuck you in your dream, Alastor? Or did you fuck me?”
The air evaporated from the room.
Alastor’s breath hitched. The crude, direct question hung there, naked and unavoidable. It stripped away all pretense, all plausible deniability. It was a verbal gauntlet thrown onto the rumpled sheets between them. He could see the genuine curiosity in Lucifer’s eyes, but beneath it, a spark of something hotter. A challenge.
He opened his mouth. A defensive retort, a witty deflection, a threat—anything. Nothing came out. Just a faint, hollow static.
His silence was all the answer Lucifer needed. The King’s expression softened, not into pity, but into something profoundly knowing. “Ah,” he murmured. “The first one. Got it.”
“It was just a dream,” Alastor forced out, the words brittle. “It signifies nothing.”
“Dreams are never just dreams down here,” Lucifer said, his gaze tracing the line of Alastor’s shoulder. “They’re desires.Fears. Truths we swallow during the day that come back up at night.” He paused. “You asked me to claim you.”
The memory of his own sleep-slurred whisper echoed in Alastor’s skull. I’m yours, Lucifer.Claim me. Humiliation, hot and sour, flooded his mouth. He moved to get up, to flee, to dissolve into static and reform somewhere far from this piercing scrutiny.
A strong, warm hand closed around his wrist.
“Don’t,” Lucifer said, and the command was gentle but absolute. “Don’t run from it. Not this time.”
Alastor tried to wrench his arm free. Lucifer’s grip tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to anchor. “Let go of me.”
“Why? So you can go brood in your tower and pretend last night didn’t happen? So you can convince yourself this is all some temporary madness?” Lucifer’s thumb stroked the rapid pulse point on his wrist. “The cat’s out of the bag, Al. It’s been fed, it’s purring, and it’s sitting in your lap.”
“I don’t have a cat,” Alastor snarled, his composure fracturing. His shadow emerged from under the bed not as a retreat, but as an attack—a sharp, spiked tendril that lashed out towards Lucifer’s face.
Lucifer didn’t flinch. He caught the shadowy appendage in his other hand as easily as catching a thrown rope. It squirmed in his grip, then went limp, curling around his fingers like an affectionate vine. “And now it’s defecting,” Lucifer observed, a genuine amusement in his voice. “Your own shadow likes me better.”
The utter betrayal of it was the final straw. Alastor felt a raw, crackling power surge within him, the radio dials in his eyes spinning wildly. The air filled with the smell of ozone and overloading frequencies. “Enough!”
Lucifer’s eyes flashed, not with anger, but with a sudden, fierce joy. “There he is,” he breathed. “There’s the demon I’m obsessed with. Not the smirking puppet on the radio, but this. All this glorious, frustrated fire.”
He used his hold on Alastor’s wrist and his shadow to pull him closer. Alastor resisted, a statue of defiant tension, until their faces were inches apart.
“It was just a dream,” Alastor repeated, but it was a weak protest, a last stand.
“Okay,” Lucifer said, simply. “Then let’s make it real.”
He closed the distance.
The kiss wasn’t like the gentle one from the night before. This was a conquest. Lucifer kissed him with a blazing certainty that melted Alastor’s resistance like wax. It was all tongue and teeth and the faint, sweet-herbal taste of absinthe. Alastor made a sound against his mouth—a surrender—and suddenly he was kissing back, hands flying up to tangle in Lucifer’s hair, pulling him closer with a desperation that shattered his own myth.
When they broke apart, gasping, Lucifer rested his forehead against Alastor’s. His breathing was uneven. “So,” he panted, a grin stretching his lips. “About that dream. Any specifics I should know? For accuracy’s sake, of course.”
Alastor stared at him, his mind blank of everything but the man in front of him. The pride, the fear, the centuries of careful isolation, all crumbled into dust. A shaky, disbelieving laugh escaped him. It sounded foreign to his own ears.
“You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re into it.” Lucifer chased his mouth again for a softer, quicker kiss. “Now, details. I’m a artist. I need a reference.”
Alastor looked at Lucifer’s smiling face, at the eager, loving light in his hellfire eyes, and felt the last of his defenses abandon their post.