Chapter Text
“We can stop whenever you want.”
Alastor’s eyes snap open. He hadn’t been aware of closing them.
He looks at Lucifer’s face, at his dark brows curled into a little ‘V’ of concern over bright cornflower eyes. He feels his gut twist uncomfortably. He looks down at the pale hand resting on his thigh, those fingers frozen where they had been stroking along the inseam of his trousers.
“Are you bored?” He finds himself asking flippantly.
The corner’s of Lucifer’s mouth dip down in irritation, and his fingertips dig in lightly, briefly. Alastor keeps himself carefully still.
“I should be asking you that, you’re stiff as a board,” Lucifer sighs, retreating just a little, his hand slipping down somewhere in the vicinity of Alastor’s knee. The weight in the center of Alastor’s chest seems to dissipate, just a little.
“Is that not the idea?” Alastor smiles. His teeth feel too big for his mouth and his palms are sweating.
Lucifer just presses his lips together until they turn white, unimpressed.
“It’s not that I’m not..enjoying it,” Alastor lies through his teeth, sitting up on his elbows to roll his eyes in the shorter man’s general direction,” I’m just figuring out how to.”
“How to enjoy it?” Lucifer blinks at him, sitting back on his haunches.
Alastor shrugs, picks at a stray thread coming loose from the sheets.
“That’s not..” Lucifer starts, and the gentleness in his tone is like a cheese grater down the edge of Alastor’s nerves.
“I warned you,” Alastor reminds him, pouring every ounce of venom he can summon past the knot of his throat into the words. Lucifer meets his eyes at that, holding them both suspended there for a moment. The sun is beginning to set now, and fingers of light as orange as a dying fire spread out across the wall behind the shorter man and begin to drip down as the silence stretches between them.
“Again,” Alastor says, and it comes out as more of a demand, but that’s fine. He won’t be caught pleading with this imbecile.
“No,” Lucifer huffs, pushing his hair back with one hand.
“No?” The brunette parrots, unable to hide his surprise. Just like that? “We had a deal-” he narrows his eyes, and Lucifer just waves a hand, which only serves to irritate him further.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Lucifer says, and Alastor clenches his hands in the sheet to keep from wrapping them around the other man’s throat. It’s looking particularly wringable. Lucifer shifts his legs underneath him so that he can turn bodily to face Alastor.
“I’m not backing out- but we do need to back up for a second.” He reaches out a hand. Alastor refuses to take it, but he does sit up, bracing himself for whatever nonsense Lucifer is going to spew next.
“We're going to go slow,” Lucifer says, holding his palms face up between them, like he actually expects Alastor to take them.
“I’m not your blushing prom date, you ass-”
“Do you want to tell me the truth?”
Alastor’s brain screeches to a resounding halt. All of the teasing has suddenly fled from the blond man’s expression. He looks up at Alastor through too long lashes that seem to glow in the late sunlight that has slid even lower, threatening to leak into his piercing gaze.
“I can’t imagine what you mean,” Alastor grins loftily, even though he feels suddenly cold.
Lucifer just looks at him a moment longer before he shrugs, breaking eye contact and sitting up a little straighter as he shuffles awkwardly closer.
“I’ll take that as a no,” he mutters, obviously to himself, but it’s impossible for Alastor not to hear him this close. His breath still smells like apple cider: that overly sweet seasonal sangria that he’s serving at the bar.
“Give me your hand,” Lucifer instructs, and Alastor makes a face. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, but it almost makes Lucifer laugh- he can see it in the way the man’s slighter frame shakes at the shoulders.
Reluctantly, Alastor reaches out and settles his hand on top of Lucifer’s, palm to palm. Instantly, those pale fingers wrap around his, pulling it closer.
“Jesus, you’re skittish,” Lucifer grins, but it comes out more gentle than mean. It doesn’t seem as if the man notices, but Alastor does. His cheeks heat, and he resists the urge to clear his throat, directing his gaze to their clasped hands, to where a strong thumb swipes over his knuckles, pushing the blood over his bones, warming his skin. Then his hand is turned over, and those fingers dig into the center of his palm and swipe outward, dispelling the tension that he hadn’t even been aware of carrying. Two of his knuckles pop.
“Is this some tantric thing?” Alastor snipes, unable to help himself.
Lucifer just shrugs, refusing to bite,”Sure.”
Alastor frowns. This is..not what he had in mind, when he had approached Lucifer Morningstar with this proposition. It’s difficult to say that he truly hates it, as he finds his body slowly relaxing into the slide of Lucifer’s touch. Gentle fingers press at the inside of his wrist and then stroke teasingly over the center of his palm, making him flinch even as it sends delightful tingles racing up the insides of his arms.
“Can I kiss you?”
Alastor swallows, feeling some of his earlier dread creep back in, a slowly encroaching rot, a fallen tree decaying in the summer heat. He nods, and Lucifer leans up on his knees to close the distance between them. He pauses when he’s but a hair's breadth away, and Alastor holds himself very still. He knows what comes next, he's not an idiot, and he’s kissed people before, but he sort of expects more, somehow. He waits for Lucifer to say something, his eyes fixed on the thin skin beneath Lucifer’s left eye. It’s a little bit sunken, like someone has dug their fingers in until the blood vessels popped, until the skin purpled and bruised. Does this man not sleep?
“Close your eyes,” Lucifer says, low, a hint of exasperation in his tone. Alastor does instantly, as if he’s been caught at something, and only berates himself once the world goes dark.
The first touch of Lucifer’s lips is not a revelation. They’re too warm, a bit chapped, which in hindsight doesn’t surprise Alastor. Lucifer bites his lips a lot- when he’s playing, when he’s making drinks, when he’s listening to Charlie prattle on about her day. For a moment Lucifer just pauses there, his mouth pressing Alastor’s, and Alastor breathes shakily through his nose and tries to decide if the pressure is too much or not enough.
Is a kiss supposed to feel like anything at all?
Then, Lucifer begins to move, just a little bit, parting his lips and closing them again, tilting his head, and this, at least, Alastor recognizes. He responds readily, swiping a tongue across Lucifer’s bottom lip, shuddering at the ridges of skin. Lucifer lays a hand on his jaw, and it’s strangely grounding - gives him something to lean into.
Alastor presses closer, grasping at Lucifer’s sides with the intention of drawing him closer and getting to the whole point of this. The smaller man resists, and Alastor fists his hands in his shirt, detests the sensation of his nails scraping against the fabric.
Alastor hates the vague ache that’s already seeping into his jaw from his mouth opening to accept the wet slide of Lucifer’s tongue. He tastes too sweet, but Alastor finds himself chasing after the faintest sting of bourbon underneath. He pulls at Lucifer’s shirt again, but the man is stronger than his diminutive form would suggest - even half bent over their laps to reach Alastor’s mouth, he is immovable. Alastor huffs out a breath of annoyance, and pulls away from Lucifer’s lips with a hint of disgust at the coolness of saliva on his chin.
Alastor plants his hands on Lucifer’s chest and pushes him instead, so that the other man topples backwards. He follows him down, planting his elbows on either side of Lucifer’s head and leans back to his mouth. It’s not the most comfortable of positions, and Alastor fails to see the appeal. He’s not entirely shocked. He has been anticipating this, to be fair, so the faint trace of disappointment that laces through his chest is disarming.
“Trust me?” Lucifer asks in between his kisses.
“As if,” Alastor snorts, and Lucifer only smiles up at him. His face is a bit flushed, and his wide blue eyes are slowly being taken over by the void of his pupils.
Something like jealousy makes Alstor nip at his bottom lip before he pulls back to see what Lucifer wants. Was it really so easy for him? A bit of awkward grinding and some kisses and this man would really do this with him? Strip himself bare and let Alastor touch him? In the vulnerable hollow of this throat? The delicate skin behind his knees?
Lucifer guides him to lay back, and then hovers over him, blue eyes darting between each of Alastor’s, searching for something. His hand brushes down across Alastor’s hip again and the brunette keeps his breath steady, lets Lucifer maneuver himself in between his legs, and this alignment is much better. At least Lucifer’s hip bones aren’t scraping into the soft flesh of his thighs anymore.
“I thought you wanted to learn how this can be good?” Lucifer asks, a little out of breath, one hand playing with an errant lock of Alastors hair against the pillow- twirling it around his fingers.
“I said I wanted to find out if I could do this,” Alastor corrects him, stretching his arms overhead. He knows this will push his chest out, accentuate the cinch of his waist. He’s seen men and women alike looking at it before, the dip of his ribs. He’s always wondered what it is that they see and he can’t. He has spent collective hours examining his own flesh in the mirror, his gangly legs and too-thin wrists. He can only imagine that what they see is weakness, opportunity, something that they can take. It’s never put him in the mindset to ask.
Predictably, Lucifer’s eyes rake down the vulnerable dip of his belly button in much the same way as everyone else’s before him, and an ugly satisfaction takes root in Alastor’s chest.
Lucifer shuffles up his torso a little bit. Just significant enough is their height difference that Lucifer needs the help to reach. His fingers alight on Alastors wrists and fiddle with the cuffs of his shirt.
“Can we take this all the way off?”
Finally, Alastor thinks, even as his stomach sinks.
“Thought you’d never ask,” he snips, turning his head up to watch Lucifer slide the buttons apart at his wrists. He does little to assist him and intends on pretending it’s out of spite.
“Have I told you how ridiculous these are?” Lucifer says, pulling a little too hard on one side of Alastor suspenders and then letting it slap back against his chest. Alastor glares at him as he slips a hand beneath the band to rub at the skin before he shrugs it all off of his shoulders.
“You tell me nearly every day, but someone in this establishment has to have style.”
He can almost hear Lucifer rolling his eyes, but it’s true. Why have a uniform that you aren’t willing to enforce? Image matters.
“You don’t even work at this establishment,” Lucifer snipes without nearly enough heat as he smooths his hands down Alastor’s arms, peeling his shirt off as he goes. Goose pimples rise along Alastor's skin in his wake. The sensation is strange, the feeling of being scrutinized unbearable. Lucifer’s sapphire eyes trace over his shoulders, to the inside of his arms where Alastor can feel them pressing at the veins close to his skin. Every time he has to get blood drawn the nurses will inevitably remark on “what nice veins he has” like something from a Grimm fairytale.
Abruptly he tosses his shirt off the edge of the bed. The movement lets him twist away for just a moment and when he looks back Lucifer is unbuttoning his own shirt, his deft fingers working down his chest. The skin revealed is pale, so much so that Alastor can see the vague suggestion of his own veins in the hollow of his collarbone, but his muscles are surprisingly defined.
“Ok?” The smaller man checks, glancing up as his hands pause. Alastor wishes that he would stop fucking asking that. Alastor is the one who suggested this, that this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Lucifer gets to let off his steam, his daughter gets free piano lessons, and Alastor gets to learn whether sex is something that he can muscle through to get what he really wants.
He doesn’t answer Lucifer’s question, just drags him into another kiss, even as his hands help free Lucifer of his button-down. The smaller man’s skin is warm when his chest presses to Alastor’s, warm enough to make the taller man squirm. Alastor’s hands are perpetually cold - even Rosie has remarked upon them in the past, but Lucifer doesn’t so much as shiver.
This sensation, of Lucifer’s weight over him, isn’t entirely detestable, at least. He loses track of time like that, letting Lucifer nuzzle at his neck, and press little dry kisses along the knife edge of his collar bones. It’s nice, and if he could just stay here, he thinks that this might be alright after all. But staying here is not the point of all of this, and he lets his fingers tangle in the wispy, translucent hairs at Lucifer’s nape.
“Touch me,”
“Bossy now?” Lucifer laughs, but he does, though he takes his time- petting down the V of Alastor’s hips until the brunette's skin is tingling with it. Lucifer unzips his fly and Alastor helps shimmy himself mostly out of his trousers. He curls up to yank them off, but Lucifer is in the way, still stroking over the skin of his hips and watching the way his muscles clench and unclench unthinkingly- cataloging his reactions. When Alastor starts yanking impatiently at the waistband of his briefs, however, Lucifer relents, and helps pull the fabric away.
He’s only half hard, but Lucifer doesn’t seem to mind- merely takes him gently in his hand. His grip is careful, testing, and it sends a feeling unlike electricity leaping across Alastor’s nerves. His thighs seem to tremble with it and his fingers curl tightly around Lucifer’s other wrist- braced on the mattress next to him. Lucifer strokes him slowly, and soon Alastor can feel the way his blood throbs against his palm.
“Does this feel good?” He asks, feathering his fingertips along the underside of Alastor’s cock, now mostly hard against the jut of his pelvis.
“Or this?” The blond’s fingers trail down further, to tease at his balls, roll them in his palm and Alastor’s breath catches.
But Alastor’s brain fizzles out like so much static. He can't focus on answering the questions with his words because he doesn’t know. His body is obviously enjoying itself- the way it has any time that he’s indulged in this practice alone- albeit with more ruthless efficiency. His mind, however, can’t seem to decide. It tells him that it feels good somewhere in the base of his spine so it must be good but mostly it just feels strange. It’s like he can’t help but notice every other sensation as well. There are calluses on the edges of Lucifer’s fingers, he can feel them on the upstroke. Lucifer’s breath stutters, like he’s the one being pleasured, which just sets Alastor’s brain whirring, even as these haphazard little sounds punch their way out of his throat. The entire experience is mortifying, but he inclines his chin a little further, to watch the way Lucifer thumbs over the head of his cock and then begins stroking him again- watches the way the head disappears into the ring of Lucifer’s fingers and reappears.
“What about this?” Lucifer’s hand tightens just a little bit, and Alastor loses his balance on his elbows as his back arches.
Lucifer leans closer, his hips stuttering seemingly involuntarily against Alastor’s thigh. He can feel how hard Lucifer is through the layers of fabric still separating them. He kisses messily at the soft skin of Alastor’s neck. Alastor’s turns his head to encourage him, trying to decide whether or not the slimy drag of Lucifer’s tongue disgusts or excites him, but it’s difficult to think at all, with the way Lucifer’s hand works faster, now- the way he grinds down against Alastor’s leg, denim scraping the soft skin of Alastor’s thigh deliciously. Except now the brunette can’t help but wonder if this is enough for him- is his hand tired? Will he resent the way Alastor is just laying here, helpless? Sex is a mutual endeavor, Alastor knows at least that much, and he’s too far in it now to get up and go home. His breath is coming too short and high, and his vision swims, but this is what he wanted, isn’t it? Why can’t he just stop thinking? It must be so nice to be able to stop thinking.
But it’s finally starting to feel nice - Alastor’s hips buck without his permission as Lucifer twists his hand just so. His grip feels wet, and Alastor doesn’t know if it's coming from him or the sweat of Lucifer’s hand, but suddenly the slide of their flesh is smoother.
It’s like there’s a cliff that rises out of the shaking ground of Alastor’s mind- and Lucifer is dragging him towards it and it’s too much and his leg is cramping and Lucifer nibbles at the edge of his jugular and the sharp points of his teeth, like flickers of starlight, dig into his skin as he throws his head back. The heat of Lucifer’s body sinks into Alastor’s skin like a bonfire, like summers in the woods, like-
“Wait - I don’t want this- stop“ He gasps out the words before he’s thought of them. His heart hammers away in his chest, making his ribs rattle.
To his credit, Lucifer stops immediately, except he pulls away completely, and Alastor feels suddenly far too cold - the sweat beginning to seep through his pores meets the cool air of the room instead of Lucifer’s warm hands, and it makes his gut coil uncomfortably, strangely bereft. He tries to take a deep breath, imagines that he looks like a landed fish, hopes that Lucifer isn’t looking.
“I didn’t mean-” Alastor starts, frustrated. He sits up, the movement strangled by his pants and underwear still caught around his ankles. He yanks them both back up to his hips but doesn’t bother to close them.
Lucifer regards him warily- there’s a shine if spit at the corner of his mouth where he’s been biting his lip again, and the front of his own trousers bulge obscenely. Alastor swallows, his eyes darting back up to the other man’s eyes before he can notice how Alastor’s attention has wandered.
“I said that we can stop-”
Alastor shakes his head and bites at the inside of his cheek until the tang of copper oozes around his tongue. He is not so pathetic that he’s going to quit now, overwhelmed by, what is it the kids were calling it these days, a “handy”?
“No, I just want to touch you instead - can I -?” Alastor explains, haltingly. He doesn’t have the words for how overwhelming it had begun to feel under the stroke of Lucifer’s hand, under his eyes, under the scrape of his lips. Lucifer frowns, but moves back as his hands go to his waist. He stands to kick his shoes off- gross, how had Alastor not noticed that he’d been wearing his shoes in his bed?- and begins unbuttoning his high trousers.
Before he can think too deeply about what he’s going to do, Alastor is up and over the side of the bed to help the other man step out of his underwear. The human body is a ridiculous machination, Alastor is reminded, his eyes catching on the thin trail of hair leading down from Lucifer’s naval, closer to the dark color of his eyebrows than the bright golden hair on his head. His waist is pretty, and his legs lightly muscled - all of these things Alastor can appreciate from an aesthetic viewpoint - same with his cock. It’s pale like the rest of him, Alastor imagines, although right now it's flushed pink like the man's cheeks and hanging heavy between his legs. Looking at it, Alastor feels nothing in particular.
Alastor takes him in his hand to lap curiously at the head, intrigued by the burst of bitterness over his taste buds and Lucifer hisses in surprise. The angle is awkward, Lucifer really is too short for this. Alastor retreats just enough to turn them around, getting Lucifer sitting back on the edge of the bed before he shuffles over the carpet and in between his spread knees.
Alastor can be good at this, he knows it, it's just mind over matter. Alastor is careful to breathe through his nose as he sinks further down, flattening his tongue over the underside of Lucifer’s cock as it pokes torturously at his soft palate. His eyes sting and he pulls back, trying to remember to close his lips and suck. It’s not anything special, really, he decides. The struggle for oxygen is less than pleasant, but the skin under his tongue just tastes like..skin. As he bobs his head, the glide gets easier, and the appendage seems to grow in his mouth, but his cheeks quickly feel strangely sore. He brings his hand to wrap around the base as he sinks down, just to see how far he can go before his throat constricts in protest. Hmm, not far at all - his lips barely brush the curl of his fingers. Maybe he can work on that - colloquially, guys seem to like when their partners can do the whole deepthroating thing, right?
“Fuck,” Lucifer groans above Alastor, startling him from his wandering thoughts. Alastor bobs his head again and sucks at the heated flesh. The sound it makes is an obscene sort of slurp that has him wincing in disgust.
“You’re perfect,” Lucifer breathes out on a groan that sends a bolt of calefaction through his ribs and down to his groin.
Absolutely not.
“Don’t,” Alastor pulls away to hiss at him.
Lucifer pauses, blue eyes half lidded in pleasure and a blush high on his delicate cheekbones. He meets Alastor's gaze just briefly before nodding. He lifts a hand and smooths Alastor’s fringe back from his face. Alastor makes himself stay still through the petting, even though it feels odd with the other man's wet dick in his face. Lucifer doesn’t seem able to help it- barely seems conscious of his own gentleness half of the time. It is irritating on the best of days, but here, with Alastor on his knees, it is unconscionable. They are not lovers.
Alastor leans forward, unable to hide his annoyance as he smashes his nose against the dip of Lucifer’s pelvis and scrapes his teeth over the softest roll of flesh before biting down viciously.
Above him, Lucifer yelps, which has the beginnings of a smile tugging back at Alastor’s lips. The yelp trails into a moan as Alastor opens his mouth against his skin to flick his tongue against the bright red welt that will surely darken into a violet blue bruise by tomorrow, and Alastor rolls his eyes.
“What the fuck,” Lucifer rasps, but does not push Alastor away when the brunette reaches for his hips again to pull his cock back between his lips.
This seems a bit overrated, but Lucifer seems to be enjoying it, if his breathless little moans are anything to go by. Or the aborted little bucks of his hips that push his cock deeper into Alastor’s mouth. The brunette tries to keep his jaw relaxed but the sensation makes him gag a little, which Lucifer apologizes for breathlessly. He keeps his hands fully at his sides, and Alastor feels a twinge of regret. They hadn’t felt all that bad in his hair - he’d just been irritated by the attention.
”Alastor-” Lucifer whines, and okay, Alastor won’t hate it if the other man keeps saying his name like that from now on. Like Alastor is in a position to give him something that he cannot reach for himself, like he needs Alastor’s help, like he needs Alastor to-
He doesn’t even realize that his free hand is wrapped around Lucifer’s waist, his thumb notched into the dip of bone, until the man squirms again, his chest heaving.
“Alastor- we didn’t talk about-hah”
“What is it NOW?” Alastor frees his mouth to demand, his lips feeling overly raw as they twist into a frown.
“It’s just- I’m close-"
What?
Lucifer’s cock throbs in his grip.
Oh.
Alastor makes a face, a little wigged out by the idea, but that’s something else that guys like isn’t it? He ignores the inner voice reminding him that the only guys he knows about are the ones he’s observed in his brief forays into online adult entertainment. Eh, but the thought of that on his skin seems worse somehow, the slippery stickiness of it between his fingers..no. He supposes it’s nice of Lucifer to ask, seeing as how it’s not something that he’d planned for, either.
“Just cum in my mouth,” He shrugs.
Lucifer’s eyes widen, the twin black holes of his pupils enticing shadows in the otherwise bright expanse of his features.
“Um, okay,” he gulps, but there is no hesitancy in the push of his hips towards Alastor's face. Alastor has to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
Its all over rather quickly after that- in a burst of heat across his tongue. Now that is a strange taste, Alastor decides quickly. Umami, almost, but salty, heavy against his teeth. The thought of getting up and making his way to the small bathroom he’d glimpsed earlier, with his pants undone and his shirt still missing makes his skin crawl. He swallows.
Lucifer’s head shoots up, like he’s heard.
Lucifer’s face is suddenly back before him, leaning far too close. He’s tapping his pale fingers against his lips. Alastor has a brief moment to note that it’s with the same hand that touched him earlier.
“Open up,” Lucifer requests, gaze glassy and intent.
Alastor squints. Does Lucifer not believe him?
Alastor opens his mouth obligingly, feels the whorls of Lucifer’s fingertips pressing his tongue down against the edge of his bottom teeth. Somehow this feels more invasive than having the man’s cock in his mouth, but Lucifer is looking at him with a sort of quiet wonder that has the muscles of Alastor’s shoulders going taut for some other reason that the taller man refuses to investigate.
“You’re -“ Lucifer starts, but then seems to think better of it, withdrawing his fingers. Alastor watches them fall back to rest against the sheets, shiny with his saliva.
There is a tingle of satisfaction, he must admit, deep in his chest at how utterly wrecked the blond man looks, sweat at his hairline and making its way down the center of his chest,plastering the sparse hairs there to his skin.
“Come up here?” Lucifer asks, his voice oddly small- maybe Alastor isn’t the only one left feeling oddly exposed by the act. He lifts himself off of his knees and plants his palms on either side of Lucifer’s hips to lean in. The other man draws him by the hinge of his jaw into another kiss, giving no indication that he gives a damn about where Alastor’s mouth has just been. Lucifer pries his lips apart carefully with his own, swiping his tongue leisurely along the inside of his gums. The other man makes a tiny questioning groan at the lingering taste of blood in the salt.
Lucifer’s hands sweep down his back and Alastor briefly yearns for them to push in harder, to ease the tension he can feel pressing in on either side of his spine.
When Lucifer’s hands reach his flanks and swipe around to his front to begin pulling at his underwear again he pulls back quickly, oblivious to Lucifer’s disappointed groan.
“What are you doing?”
“You didn’t come,” Lucifer says, like it should be obvious.
“That’s quite alright,” Alastor huffs, reaching to zip up his fly again.
“Is that not what you wanted?” Lucifer asks, genuine befuddlement in his voice.
Truthfully, it was what Alastor had wanted- originally, to know that he could do this and not fall apart- that he could let go the way everyone else seems to be able to and then get up again and go about his life. But he finds now, with the strange texture of the inside of his mouth and the tackiness of sweat behind his ears and at his nape, that his determination has ebbed away like the noon tide.
“This was more than enough for tonight,” He says primly, getting to his feet and turning to locate his shirt, his skin suddenly feeling filmy and too-thin.
“Thoughts, reactions, constructive criticism?” Lucifer asks after a tense moment of silence. He’s pulling himself to plop back against the pillows, utterly unashamed of his nakedness, at the way his softening cock glistens against his belly.
Alastor picks up his shirt before straightening to glare at him, but the teasing smirk that he has come to associate with this man’s peculiar habit of flirting is nowhere to be found. Lucifer's head is cocked to the side, his face genuine and open. Naive, Alastor thinks.
Alastor is not some whore and the viciousness of the word reminds the brunette darkly of an extension of his blood that he refuses to acknowledge. This is an…exchange of skills, is all.
When he starts to feel a little bit skeevy about the arrangement, he reminds himself that Lucifer isn’t actually his boss. Alastor just plays piano at the bar he owns downtown a few times a week. Mostly in exchange for tips, and the chance to play the gorgeous Rococo crafted grand that is otherwise being absolutely wasted in that dive bar on drunk karaoke participants and music majors from the community college who come in for happy hours and plunk rigidly at its ivory.
There had been a single night - the first time that Alastor had brought Husker along and he had drunk Lucifer satisfyingly under the table - in all of their acquaintanceship where Alastor had thought that Lucifer felt anything besides contempt for him. A drunken Lucifer had declared that Alastor was “actually really pretty” when he “wasn’t trying to steal” his daughter away from him. First of all, Alastor had been doing no such thing- he had only encouraged Charlie to apply to out of state schools as well as the local university. Second, Lucifer appears to have no memory of that night after the fifth round of Sazeracs.
Good - Alastor remembers enough for both of them.
Most of their relationship consists of Lucifer bitching at him that that piano is made for Bach and not ”that jazz shit”, but the regulars come for Alastor, including Lucifer’s precious daughter, Charlie, who loves to ask him invasive questions like “where did he learn to play like that?” and “Where did you grow up?” which are often irritating and flattering in equal measure.
Two weeks ago, Lucifer had approached him, eyes cast down and face red and Alastor’s stomach had sunk straight through the floor. He was going to need a new bar and how many bars had a piano that guests could play, much less a piano like that. He’d thought Lucifer had remembered that night after all, maybe after being hit on the head by a falling tequila bottle, and was about to either ask him out or ask him not to return.
Actually, he had just been asking if Alastor might be willing to give Charlie a few lessons, because in spite of his effort to “raise her with good taste” she still hasn’t shut up about the other man’s playing.
He would pay Alastor, obviously-
No.
..No?
Counter offer.
Alastor remembers the slight wheezing sound of the barstool underneath him as he shifted his weight more clearly than he remembers his offer, exactly. He does recall Lucifer’s reaction.
There had been a hilariously scandalized look and a dropped glass.
A “I thought you didn’t swing that way.”
A “I don’t really swing any way - but I’m interested in finding out.”
Interested in me?
Interested in myself.
Figures.
And now here Alastor is, buttoning up his shirt in this man’s bedroom, feeling neither entirely disgusted nor pleasantly surprised. It’s all rather anticlimactic (heh).
“Do you..want to do something like this again sometime?” Lucifer asks, tentatively, drawing Alastor’s gaze back to him as the brunette flattens out his collar and pulls his suspenders back over his shoulders. With his clothes back on, Alastor feels slightly less seen, more comfortable in his second skin, his carapace, even though the fabric sticks uncomfortably under his arms.
“I should think so- “ Alastor can feel his nose wrinkling, “ Unless you mean to tell me that this menial performance is what it's ‘all about’,” Lucifer’s eyes narrow at the brunette’s charming use of air quotes. Alastor grins, looking for the tell tale twitch in the blonde’s left eyebrow that will tell him he’s struck a nerve.
Lucifer merely pushes a hand through his hair as he takes a deep breath, holds it,and then releases it all at once in one drawn out, exasperated groan. He flops back against the pillows again.
The sun has completely set now, and Alastor can’t find his shoes. He needs to be rid of this room and this apartment, and of Lucifer. He wants to be home, and clean, so he can process the last hour properly, preferably with a finger or two of whatever cheap booze Husk has forgotten in his apartment this week.
Alastor stalks over to the door, hand reaching for the light switch.
“Don’t turn on the big light- ! “ Lucifer begs with surprising fervor, flopping across the bed to reach for the small lamp on the nightstand, but Alastor is faster.
Lucifer squeaks in a way totally unbecoming of a grown man and ducks under flimsy sheets, looking wrinkled and slightly damp from their activities. Alastor’s lip curls.
Ah, yes, there are his shoes.