Archive of Our Own ^beta

In the interest of being honest, as per the advice of his daughter’s curriculum, Lucifer can now admit he was nervous about the prospect of having a son over another daughter. Not least because he had never raised a boy before.

His lack of experience was daunting—he only recently found his legs as a “girl dad” after several centuries of Charlie being alive, and now he’s been handed a completely different challenge? Fuck him—but it wasn’t the most preoccupying thing on his mind during the pregnancy. Far from it. Lucifer had never really been a child, had been birthed from divine light looking more or less exactly as he does now (with a few notable exceptions, obviously), but his daughter surrounds herself with all different varieties of sinner, all of whom were children once, and many of them male.

He had no doubt her inner circle would be all too happy to assist him, which, maybe because of postpartum hormones or maybe just because he’s turning into an old sap, still makes him a little misty-eyed to think about.

What Lucifer was really nervous about was Alastor.

Because, well—

It’s not exactly a secret that the Radio Demon doesn’t tend to play nice with other men, is it?

When he met Lucifer he definitely didn’t. Which results in everyone around them being utterly baffled by their being an item to this day, and while Lucifer can’t fault them for it, he does find it a little hilarious. Sue him.

Lucifer finally discovered why Alastor had this seemingly endless vitriol, the reason confessed to him following days and days of painful silence after he told the demon the news and then, apparently, a conversation with Rosie Lucifer still has yet to thank the overlord for having with him. But still, he has to admit he was terrified. Imagining Alastor as a father to a child of any sex was difficult, but a boy? Lucifer’s mind, which is already programmed to feed him worst case scenarios on a good day, was in a fucking frenzy for most of those long and strenuous months.

Now, about two weeks after the delivery, Lucifer will concede that maybe he was being a little uncharitable.

But could anyone blame him for that? Alastor has a very carefully cultivated reputation which, while in some cases utter bullshit and bluster, was mostly entirely earned, and doesn’t exactly mesh well with raising a little boy.

However, Alastor does so love to keep the mystery surrounding him alive, so maybe Lucifer should learn to stop being so shocked every time he’s met with a new surprise.

Shock aside, watching Alastor flit about the swamp-themed nursery, adjusting lights and room temperature and bringing Lucifer and the cold-ridden newborn on his chest food and other amenities from downstairs via his shadow has something warm and fuzzy spreading in Lucifer’s chest, like he’s swallowed down a gulpful of scalding hot tea.

Or maybe that’s just the scalding hot tea Alastor’s shadow brought him. But he digresses.

Every little shuddering sneeze the baby lets out has the demon getting up from his armchair to bring Lucifer a tissue. While sweet, Lucifer can’t resist making fun of him a little for it. Lucifer is what he is, and what he is is a goddamn headache.

“I can’t believe you’re actually hovering,” he laughs, as he uses the tissue to wipe Clyde’s face.

Despite the permanent smile he wears, Alastor’s face morphs into an expression of such comical revulsion at the idea that Lucifer can only laugh harder. The demon sniffs and turns away. “Should I not be interested in the survival of my spawn?”

Lucifer rolls his eyes. “It’s a cold, Al. He’s not going to die.” Without jostling the baby, he wiggles to show that his palms are glowing with an ethereal light where they make contact with Clyde’s deep skin. “He’ll be feeling all better in no time.”

Alastor hums unhappily at the insinuation that he might be overreacting, but he does turn back around to loom over the two of them, slender frame silhouetted by the red light pouring in from the blinds. He murmurs, “Truthfully I don’t understand why it’s possible for the boy to fall ill at all. You and I are invulnerable to such plights, sire.”

“He’s still hellborn,” replies Lucifer, shrugging. “You’re dead and I’m an angel, but he has a functioning immune system. Once he’s older it’ll be stronger than most. Right now, though, he’s kind of a sitting duckling. Charlie was the same way.”

The demon ponders this, then nods. “I don’t recall ever having seen the princess under the weather in the time I have known her, which I suppose is reassuring.”

Lucifer smiles at him. “Good. There’s no reason to worry.”

“Oh for God’s sake, don’t start. I’m not worrying, you contemptible little man, I’m!—on the qui vive. For good reason, might I add.” Alastor turns his nose up and returns to his seat under the mural on the wall, pointedly burying his face in this morning’s newspaper. Lucifer just chuckles and returns his attention to funneling his energy towards healing Clyde’s infection. The poor thing wriggles with discomfort in his arms, little cheeks flushed an even brighter shade of red in sickness.

“It’s almost over, baby, it’s okay,” Lucifer whispers, hushing the fussy noises starting up again from that pout of a mouth, as well as pretending not to notice the way Alastor’s eyes have already migrated back to them. “Daddy has you.”

It isn’t just that Alastor has a burning hatred for all members of the male species, Lucifer is beginning to realize, although perhaps an inherent distrust—the sort Lilith had developed after Adam—might be fair. It’s a hatred for what he knows they can become. A hatred for shitty men like his father, the crux of the reason for Alastor’s initial running away from Lucifer’s pregnancy, who took advantage of the weak and vulnerable or instead outright abandoned them.

Looking back on Alastor’s human life, the relatively short scope of which is easily accessible to Lucifer by the nature of his role in Hell and which Alastor willingly permitted him to view shortly after their reunion, he now clearly sees the pattern in the man’s choice of targets. How Alastor fancied himself the one to pass final judgments.

That said, Alastor did earn his reputation. Undoubtedly. He finds catharsis in the suffering of others and entertainment in their pleading for mercy, and once he died he was no longer quite as choosy with who he counted among his victims, especially during his rise to power. Lucifer knows from his own surprisingly frank discussions with the man that more than a couple of the voices he broadcast back in the day did not even belong to men. They’d simply been obstacles in the way of his becoming an overlord, becoming the Radio Demon. To say that he’s been ethical in his murders or that he is a protector of the opposite sex would be a severe enough stretch to make a contortionist wince.

Whatever Alastor gets out of killing his enemies is entirely selfish and hardly chivalrous, for all the effort he puts into being the perfect gentleman. There’s a reason (several, actually) why he has not been made Lucifer’s co-ruler.

Yet.

Still, there’s always been a noticeable difference in Alastor’s bloodlust when it came to other men.

Before that first night in Lucifer’s then cold and lonely living quarters, where they’d formed a hard-won truce through drinking and dancing the Lindy Hop until the room didn’t feel quite so chilly anymore, Lucifer had probably—no, he had definitely been one of those detestable men. Lucifer’s sure that Alastor first looked at Lucifer and saw an absent father with no regard for how his behavior affected his daughter’s feelings or safety, and in some measure, the king felt he was right to think so. His condition, he’d thought wretchedly, was no excuse.

As it turns out, though, swing dancing pulls all manner of confessions out of people. Can forge even the most unlikely connections.

It wasn’t until three or four months later, at the tail end of a foxtrot, when Alastor looked down at him, throat bobbing, and choked out the words 'kiss me' like they burned something awful in his throat that Lucifer realized the demon’s opinion of him had changed quite so significantly.

Kiss him, he had. And several more months later, after an admission that Alastor was experiencing a variation in his desire for another kind of intimacy for the first time ever, he’d done…a lot more than that.

The point was, Alastor’s distaste for his sex did not materialize from nothing. And it was not the indiscriminate rancor Lucifer originally judged it to be.

If his behavior since the moment Clyde first started sniffling tells Lucifer anything, it’s that Alastor would never go out of his way to intentionally hurt him. Is much more interested in keeping him from experiencing that hurt, and in turn from becoming the kind of man Alastor loathes and, inevitably, destroys.

Lucifer thinks about the day Alastor finally came back after fleeing their relationship, quieter and more thoughtful than the king had ever seen him. Confessed to him in the silence of Lucifer’s en suite—

I believe I owe it to both of us to be a better man than the sad excuse who pretended he raised me.

Cradling the baby to his chest, Lucifer breathes out a soft sigh. If only he’d believed Alastor from the goddamn start, he would have saved himself so much pointless anxiety and prevented many an argument that, in all honesty, mostly consisted of the two of them talking around each other in circles. Alastor might be fully capable of being a monster, but the bastard at least takes honesty and commitment to it seriously. Would have to, with his penchant for deals.

No one could say he wasn’t thorough.

Shaking himself from his reverie, Lucifer looks up. He smiles when he meets Alastor’s gaze, already on him. Those vermillion eyes soften fractionally in response, scrunching as much as his monocle will allow.

“Helicopter parent,” teases Lucifer, after a beat, and the way Alastor’s smile nearly drops off his face completely is enough to make his entire day.

When Lucifer pulls Alastor into his bedroom by the sleeve of his coat, it’s with what is maybe an excessive amount of urgency for what he has on his mind.

It doesn’t feel excessive, though. Their little dalliances were already few and far between when they didn’t have a small child to dote on, simply because of the fluctuating nature of Alastor’s interest in such activities. 99% of the time, Lucifer has no qualms with how frequently or infrequently they fool around, even though it’s almost the exact opposite of how things were with Lilith. He’s flexible.

But with the added stress of a demonic toddler who eats and plays like an apex predator, he’s kind of sort of maybe definitely losing his mind. A little time to unwind is just what the monarch ordered.

Alastor doesn’t seem opposed at least, given how pliant he becomes at Lucifer’s insistent tug. And when Lucifer is on him after the split-second it takes him to shut the door, he’s uncharacteristically eager to kiss him back, even allowing himself to be pushed not so gently against the nearest surface. Which happens to be an antique bureau.

“You have no idea,” pants Lucifer in between hot, wet kisses, “how bad I’ve been needing this.”

The demon hums into his mouth. His gloved hands settle around Lucifer’s waist and squeeze.

“Awfully presumptuous of you, my dear,” he murmurs, the rumble of his unfiltered voice vibrating where they’re chest to chest. “I find I rather feel the same way.”

Lucifer pulls back a couple inches, blinking slowly. “Really?”

In lieu of a proper response, Alastor undoes both his necktie and collar in one swift, effortless motion. Lucifer all but swoons towards him, pressing his mouth to the bared flesh. His forked tongue flickers out to scent the strange combination of damp earth and vetiver beneath the Radio Demon’s jawline. The same scent that permeates their bedsheets, only leaps and bounds more potent this close to the source. Breathing him in, Lucifer mutters a heartfelt “Fuck.”

Above him, Alastor chuckles like he knows exactly what he’s doing to him. “Yes?”

“Just—you. Fuck.” Lucifer pulls away from his throat to make a helpless, exasperated gesture with his hands that, for all its fervor, doesn’t actually communicate anything.

Alastor raises a mocking eyebrow. “Yes, that is the plan, as far as I know.”

“Shut—” The king cuts himself off with a pleased sigh as a clothed knee slips between his legs, pressing up, “Oh. I—sh—Alastor.”

That golden grin glints with satisfaction. Nimble hands remove Lucifer’s own tie before taking to the buttons of his waistcoat, all with an agonizing amount of patience. Lucifer leans into the touch, lazily rolling his hips down on the perch he’s made of Alastor’s leg.

“Are you—ooh—are you wanting to participate this time, big guy? I left the young’un with Char, so we have a little time to ourselves.” Lucifer wriggles to help the other man slip his vest and dress shirt off. The air is a touch too cool against his bare skin, but the activities to come will no doubt regulate his temperature plenty.

“Yes, I believe I will,” replies Alastor—baldly, businesslike, like they’re talking about some formal dinner. But then his eyes rake over Lucifer’s exposed alabaster skin, unblemished from a lack of time alone, and his expression becomes hungry. His claws bite into Lucifer’s flesh where they trail across his chest and down his arms. “This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”

“No? Gonna do something about it?” A smirk tugs at Lucifer’s mouth, trembling when Alastor’s eyes flash with interest and he bears down on the king, static hissing in the air.

“Oh, mon cher, I intend to.”

Alastor bites down where Lucifer’s neck meets his shoulder, abrupt and without the mercy of a warning. The king’s mouth drops open in a choked-off gasp even as he tilts his head back to offer better access. A sinfully dexterous tongue laves at the broken skin as Alastor refuses to let a single drop of golden blood go to waste, consuming it all with single-minded greed. The demon groans with such satisfaction at the taste that Lucifer might think they were already well past foreplay were it not for the pleasant burn of jagged teeth sunk into his skin, of the easy give of angelic essence under Alastor’s eager maw. The sound sends an electric jolt through Lucifer’s entire body and he feels as though he could melt into a puddle of goo.

The thought occurs to him that Alastor might just devour him twice as quickly and it’s so strangely arousing that Lucifer shuts his eyes with an answering sigh of pleasure as Alastor continues to drink from him.

Alastor loses himself easily when Lucifer’s blood is involved. His eyes still shut, Lucifer feels those teeth on his chest, his bicep, trailing down his ribs, and the sting is so good the king never wants it to end—

An abrupt screech of microphone feedback startles him into opening his eyes.

He blinks to see Alastor straightening up and buttoning his shirt at breakneck speed. Ears twitching. Licking gold off his lips. Staring at the door, his smile strained at the edges.

Lucifer starts, “Al, wh—”

“Hey, Dad? You in there?”

Charlie’s voice. And he didn’t lock the door. Did he?

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit—

“Get dressed, Lucifer,” Alastor hisses under his breath, propelling him into action.

Lucifer snatches up his own shirt from the floor and opens his mouth to tell her to just wait a second, but—well—Charlie never really had to learn the lesson of knocking when she was little, and it seems like it’s a little late for that foundational advice to be absorbed because the doorknob is already turning.

“Charlie—” Lucifer squeaks, but it’s too late. At the very least, the princess’ head pokes in after he barely manages to button his shirt up to his collarbone, so he’s half-decent when she spies them.

But she’s not an idiot. She’s something like two and a half centuries old, and she has a girlfriend so she’s probably not a virgin and oh God why would Lucifer’s brain make him think about that right now or ever—

“Oh!” Charlie’s eyes immediately zero in on the blood oozing from the king’s neck and the disheveled state of their clothes before darting away. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry—um—this is definitely a bad time, I’ll just—I’ll just—”

“Charlie, my dear, it’s no trouble at all,” Alastor grinds out through clenched teeth, his voice dripping with irritation. He winds his tie around his neck before folding his arms behind his back and facing the princess, all stoicism. “What is it we can do for you?”

Charlie stares at him, mouth open, until her brain seems to catch up.

“Oh, right! Well, it’s just that Clyde—he, um—listen, it might be best if you come look for a second?” In a mimicry of one of Lucifer’s own habits, Charlie rubs the back of her neck. “When you…have a second. Obviously.”

“Of course, Char-Char! We’ll be right there!” Lucifer tries to force some chipperness into his voice and winces when he fails spectacularly. “Just, uh, give us a moment. We’ll be there in, umm, let’s say—”

“Quicker than you can say Jack Robinson,” Alastor cuts in smoothly.

Charlie nods and leaves wordlessly, her lips a taut line as she closes the door behind her. As her footsteps fade down the corridor, Lucifer groans and slumps forward into Alastor’s chest with a solid thump. “Ugh please throw me to the hellhounds. My life is one eternal humiliating nightmare.”

“Quite,” drawls Alastor. His hands come up to grip Lucifer’s upper arms. “Well. Mortification aside. Duty calls, I’m afraid. Shall we go see what the fuss is about together?”

Lucifer lifts his head reluctantly. “Fine,” he sighs, and slips on his waistcoat to start buttoning. “But once we are done, we are coming back here and so help me we are locking that fucking door. And warding the room.”

The demon smirks as he makes to help Lucifer with his bowtie. “Your wish is my command, your Majesty.”

They get themselves presentable again and head to find Charlie in the nursery, which is soon to be an actual bedroom; a fact which Lucifer is decidedly not ready to think about in the least. When did Clyde get old enough to require a bed and not a crib? That just can’t be right. Shouldn’t be allowed, really.

As they duck through the doorway, though—well, Alastor is actually the one who ducks, the lanky freak—it becomes clear they may be having to reaccomodate Clyde’s sleeping arrangements sooner than anticipated.

“What the fuck,” Lucifer blurts eloquently, ignoring the unimpressed glance he gets from Alastor.

There really is no other appropriate reaction. It looks like a tornado ripped through one specific corner of the nursery. The prince’s crib, made of polished cherry-red wood, is in shambles on the ground. The pillows and stuffed animals inside have all been liberated and lie strewn across the carpet.

Most alarming, though, are the goddamn bite marks in the shiny wood, perfectly spaced indents exposing the fibers inside, suggesting the bars of the crib had been completely chewed through on one side.

The little one supposed to be napping in the crib is, at least, safe. Still dressed in his pajamas, Clyde sits criss-cross applesauce under the far window, preoccupied with a stuffed mallard freed from the confines of the little bed. When he hears Lucifer’s voice he looks up, and his smile is, very tellingly, decorated with tiny splinters of wood.

Charlie stands against the wall with the mural on it, her hands behind her back as she rocks back and forth on her heels. With a wan smile, she squeaks, “Yeah, um, I don’t know either to be honest.”

Alastor, outwardly unbothered but giving away his own bafflement with the crease of his forehead, is quick to retort, “I find that hard to believe, considering you were supposed to be supervising him, your Highness.”

“I only left for a minute!” Charlie insists. “A guest needed help finding their room number, and I just—”

“It’s fine, Charlie,” Lucifer reassures her, and she falls silent with a grateful sigh. The king spares Alastor a glance and then crosses the sea of toys to crouch in front of the little prince. He’s relieved to see that even at this distance, he’s not obviously injured, but still, he has to ask, “Er. Hey, buddy. You okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” As happy as he was to see Lucifer at first, Clyde now looks rather annoyed at having his conversation with Louis the mallard interrupted. He pushes up the brand-new pair of scarlet-framed glasses he’s wearing in order to look at Lucifer properly.

“Good! Good.” Lucifer’s voice cracks a little at the toddler’s nonchalance. “Um. So…what happened to your bed, huh?”

Clyde gives him a funny look. “Wanted to play,” he articulates slowly, like it should be obvious.

Alastor’s hooves pad across the carpet behind Lucifer. His voice from above, sounding vaguely exasperated, “So you chewed through it?”

“Mm-hmm. The walls is too tall. I couldn’t get out.”

“Why couldn’t you just ask your sister?”

In response, Clyde simply shrugs. Lucifer and Alastor look at one another for guidance and find that they are both, predictably, equally lost. Their bafflement does nothing to trouble their little prince, however, who upon deciding that this line of questioning has been concluded, promptly goes back to exchanging a series of “quacks” with Louis the mallard.

“Would it be inappropriate, Luci,” begins Alastor, his voice hushed when Lucifer rises to meet him. “To suggest the next bed be made of something other than wood? Perhaps titanium alloy?”

“No, yeah, I think that’s the move,” replies Lucifer absently.

The next year or so is spotted with events that are just as if not more perplexing. Where the hottest, humidest days in Hell are too much for most everyone living in the Hotel, Clyde spends plenty of time basking in the terrible heat in shorts with his shirtsleeves rolled up, even preferring to sleep for hours out in the gardens by the magically installed infinity pool.

Afterwards, even Clyde can’t explain the reason for the odd, oval-shaped holes Niffty sometimes finds around the raised beds during her rounds. Not to mention the dead hell-crows with entire chunks of flesh bitten off, bloody feathers sprayed across the grounds.

The odd eating habits persist until his parents finally get a grasp of when to expect him to be in the mood for a meal, which is, absurdly, as infrequently as once a week. Fortunately, he isn’t picky, and when he does eat he swallows down dishes that the others love and hate all with the same amount of enthusiasm.

He remains shy and skittish as ever when in unfamiliar company no matter how much socialization he gets, and Lucifer’s had to apologize to more than a couple of the less austere members of the Goetia family at this or that private event after Clyde snapped at their digits when they went in for a handshake or a pat on the head.

Alastor was displeased by Lucifer’s decision to apologize, and while the king does agree that nobody has business touching anyone, much less his son, without that person’s permission, keeping peaceful relations with the family is hardly optional if Lucifer wants to conduct a stable empire. Which feels prudent after his centuries of inaction and Lilith skipping town. Making up for lost time was rarely ever fun, but it was necessary.

Time goes on, and they’re both about ready to accept that they may never understand Clyde Morningstar’s strange habits when the source reveals itself on one otherwise completely ordinary hellish afternoon.

It’s a little after lunch when the door to the study in Lucifer’s en suite bangs open, hard enough that the hinges cry out in protest. There are only two people it could be: Niffty, coming in to dust and sweep and mop until everything Lucifer owns is all but sparkling, or Alastor. The former is out on a field trip with Charlie and the others, so Lucifer acknowledges the Radio Demon without looking up from the mind-numbing legalese he’s in the middle of wading through, “Some partner you are, breaking my shit. What did that door ever do to you?”

Alastor’s voice is rigidly serious. “Come here. Right now.”

Lucifer is briefly thrown back to their encounter being cut short a year ago. Although, Lucifer isn’t exactly having fun this time, so he doesn’t mind.

Either way, the urgency in the other man’s voice has him vertical and following him in seconds. “Woah, okay. What’s happening?”

Rather than answering, Alastor takes his arm and transports them both to—his own bedroom? Neither of them come in here often anymore. Lucifer blinks at the drastic change in lighting, the expanse of gaudy red, and the sound of crickets chirping as he tries to find his bearings.

Impatient, Alastor grips Lucifer by the shoulders and steers him towards where the bedroom gives way to swampland. The same pocket dimension he used to keep in his room before the renovation, moved here in case he ‘needed it’.

Lucifer had long since mastered the art of not asking questions he didn’t want answers to, so he didn’t bother.

“Look,” says the demon tersely, pointing at a pond half-concealed by the thick gloom. Lucifer squints at it. Sees nothing.

Then, a voice from the direction of the water, “Papa? T’es là? Is Daddy with you?”

Clyde’s head peeks out from the rocks. He rises, splashing the brackish water as he goes, and Lucifer falters when his lower body becomes visible.

A tail. Clyde has a tail. It’s bumpy and ridged and a deep, iridescent red. His claws have lengthened and sharpened where they grip the rocks to help keep his small body steady. Clyde’s eyes, always crimson, glow spectacularly in the dim, permanent dawn of the bayou.

“Oh!” Lucifer exclaims. He takes an aborted step back. “You—you can—shapeshift. Like your Papa. Is that…a crocodile tail?”

Alastor clears his throat. “Or an alligator’s, perhaps. I encountered many an American gator during my time on the surface. The bayou was crawling with them.” He laughs without humor. “Though, who’s to say for sure anymore? Silly, to expect anything down here to make sense.”

The end of the demon’s sentence has his voice pitching up into borderline hysteria. Lucifer lifts a hand, waits for Alastor to lean into the touch, and then squeezes. “An alligator, huh? I guess that explains all the—everything.”

“A allygator? Like the one on my wall? Really?” Clyde meanders towards them, looking askance over his own shoulder to swish the scaled muscle back and forth. His soft, childlike voice has doubled itself, reverberating weirdly off the moss-draped trees. “I was scared ‘cause I didn’ know what was happening.”

Dripping water and shaking, the prince stops in front of the two men. At this distance, it’s clear the previously unexplainable patches of red scales on his arms and legs have expanded—Lucifer suspects—across his chest. They peek above his collar and dot his jawline, shimmering where the water touched them. Looking at the way his features have morphed, now more reptilian than humanoid, Lucifer’s reminded of Earth tales of mermaids and other sorts of fish-people.

How Lucifer and Alastor managed to make that from their coupling is…a spiral for another day.

The king crouches in front of the small boy, heart aching at the fear in his slitted eyes. “Did something happen, baby? Did you get startled? Angry? You can tell me.”

Clyde hums, fidgeting with his hands nervously. Lucifer can’t help but watch the way the scales shift with his muscles. It’s mesmerizing, like the rippling of water.

“I saw the man with the picture box head again,” the boy admits, and for the first time in at least a full minute, Alastor speaks.

“Did you now?”

Lucifer glances at him, wary. “Al,” he mumbles, not quite a warning.

The demon ignores him (go figure). His voice dark and dangerous, and all previous shakenness gone, Alastor continues, “Tell me, little one, where precisely did you see him? Spare no details.”

Of course, Clyde is all too eager to be of help. The reply pours from his mouth. “He was in Charlie’s picture box! He said he was checkin’ on things, but I said he was spyin’ because he looked like I wasn’t s’posed to be there, like how when Vaggie caught Angie with that white stuff you won’t tell me about, an’ then he got scary an’ yelled an’ I got like this an’ I yelled at him to go away an’ then I ran here to hide.”

A beat of silence while they digest this information. Clyde is, after all, a very fast talker, and there’s only so much a parent’s intuitive understanding of their child’s unique language can do.

Then—

“He yelled? At you? I see.” Alastor straightens suddenly with steely eyes. “Well then. If you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to make—”

He turns to vanish into his shadow, but the king is not having it. Is certainly not taking care of this new predicament on his own, either.

“Hold it, jackass. I told you already, you can’t just do that,” Lucifer gripes, keeping the demon stationary by gripping the raggedy tail of his coat. “Killing random mid-level bureaucrats whenever they piss you off has consequences.”

“Oh, please, cher! I made my career by toppling overlords, and Hell remained just as awful as it had been. I made it very clear when I saw him at Carmilla’s little soirée what the consequences would be were he to cross me again. He’s a threat to the hotel, and anyway,” Alastor looms over Lucifer, grin splitting his face. “No one will miss him.”

Lucifer springs to his feet, ready to argue with him again about what should be done for the good of Hell and his daughter’s passion project, but before he can Clyde pipes up with, “You’re…leaving?”

And Lucifer thinks he melts a little on the inside.

The heartbreak in Clyde’s tone at the very idea that Alastor might be going for even a moment is borderline painful to listen to. His gaze is cast downward, so Lucifer shoots Alastor a meaningful glare. In response, the demon looks—well—kind of like a deer in headlights, his smiling mouth ajar and vermillion eyes darting back and forth between the two Morningstars.

Pinning him under his expectant stare, Lucifer watches Alastor scramble for excuses before his expression crumbles, finally starting to relax into one of begrudging resignation.

“I suppose I could postpone my errand for now,” mutters the Radio Demon, grimacing.

The Radio Demon, not choosing violence. And they said it couldn’t be done!

Clyde quickly brightens, all vestiges of disappointment eradicated, and latches on tightly to one of his father’s pant legs. The new tail has noticeably shrunk into nonexistence, along with the other variations in his appearance. Alastor heaves an irritable sigh, but his melodrama is largely undermined by the shadowy clawed hand that threads its fingers through Clyde’s head of curls after only a moment of hesitation.

Lucifer allows himself a smug smile, as a treat.

“Daddy,” says Clyde, half-swallowed by Alastor’s corporeal body and his shadow as he peeks up at Lucifer. He very deliberately sweeps his eyes along the damp, shadowy landscape that takes up the back half of Alastor’s bedroom and announces, “I wish my room looked like this.”

By the following day, the bayou pocket dimension has again moved places.

Alastor probably won’t be needing it, anyway.

Lucifer knows he and Charlie are a lot alike in that they both cannot stand being embarrassed. Now, hardly anyone does, to be fair, but the mild, brief discomfort others might experience when embarrassed is nothing compared to the bone-deep physical and mental agony the Morningstars feel after a humiliating slip-up. It’s a phenomenon, to be sure, riddled with irony. They’re both natural performers with debilitating stage fright.

He is a dad, though, so he asks that she cut him some slack. But by and large, Lucifer doesn’t want to embarrass Charlie, so he does not under any circumstances, out of respect for his daughter, bring up awkward stories from her childhood.

Especially not her moodier phase during her adolescent years.

Look, he really doesn’t hold anything against her for it. The backtalk, the slammed doors, the silent treatment—the whole package was just a hallmark of teenagehood, made even worse by his split from Lilith. He was more than happy to move on from that era when Charlie did, and even now he is not especially keen to look back on it.

He did keep it in mind though, as Clyde’s own teenagehood started to creep up on all of them. Learning from his mistakes and coming out of it a better person, and all that.

But that’s—

That’s not what this is.

In large part, that period of Charlie’s growing years was a performance, a way of lashing out after the divorce. She desperately needed to let off steam, and that was why Lucifer was content to just—let her have it her way. Even more so to just move on—without asking questions—when she eventually came to terms with all those big, ugly feelings.

The guilt, too, the perpetual guilt he’ll never stop feeling—that was also a part of it. In a way, Lucifer felt he deserved to be her punching bag. But Charlie doesn’t need to know that.

All that aside, though, Lucifer knows in his bones that what’s happening to Clyde—it’s not the same.

Something is wrong. Something different.

And worst of all, he thinks he’s responsible for it in some way.

It starts with the occasional absence at the dinner table or skipping a trip to Cannibaltown every now and again. Hardly noteworthy. But before long, there are entire days where Clyde is more like a ghost than a living creature, spotted once or twice in passing before disappearing into his room with the door locking behind him. His already infrequent meals become even more sparse, and where there was once experimental music wafting through the halls every evening, there is now stone cold silence. No distant hum of bass guitar, his favorite instrument, not so much as a single discordant note on the piano. And, well, it sounds dramatic, but the hotel feels less lively without the noise.

Charlie eventually tries to talk to him, only to come out of his room in tears not 10 minutes later. Over a cup of tea courtesy of Vaggie, she tearfully relays their dead-end discussion and the snarling remarks Clyde had made when she pushed too hard for answers.

Needless to say, it doesn’t go down well.

“You do not speak to a lady that way,” Alastor roars through the prince’s bedroom door not long after. “You should know better than that, boy. Where are your manners?”

The quiet but no less acidic ‘screw off’ from behind the door doesn’t go down well, either. Things escalate into a screaming match that is audible from across the hotel and which has the Radio Demon walking away with his eyes stuck as swinging dials and his antlers as barbed pokers.

The next day, Clyde doesn’t even answer the door for Angel Dust. So Lucifer finally decides it’s his turn.

He waits until after dinnertime, on the off chance the gator will show up, but as usual, there is one empty seat next to Charlie’s. At the table, Lucifer confesses his intentions around a mouthful of (delicious) chicken étouffée.

The others are…unconvinced.

“I dunno, Luce. He ain’t gonna listen to ya’.” Angel perches his chin on one palm, gesturing with his fork. “I’d just leave him alone.”

There is a murmur of agreement from everyone except for Alastor, already briefed on Lucifer’s plan and more than happy to stay uninvolved unless needed. Lucifer thinks he might feel a little regretful about yesterday, not that he’ll admit it. The demon’s attention stays resolutely locked on his own cooking.

“Just trust me on this one,” says Lucifer.

He takes deep, deliberate breaths on his way up the stairs, which he climbs in lieu of teleporting to the correct floor in order to get himself somewhat ready for a difficult discussion. As with Angel, no one answers the door when Lucifer knocks, but he can feel the prince’s presence behind it, that lavender and blue-green something that smells like swamp and fragrant water lilies.

The king frowns, knocks again. “Clyde. I know you’re in there, hatchling. Can you open the door, please?”

There’s no response for a second. Then, a hoarse voice that sounds worryingly waterlogged, muffled by the barrier between them, “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know. You have to talk to somebody, though.” Lucifer places a hand on the door, painted lilac. “Please?”

“No.”

Lucifer sighs. He hates to invade the boy’s privacy like this, but…what other choice is there? So he grabs the doorknob and wills it to unlock for him with a click. He twists and opens the door, entering the bedroom without further preamble, before he can be kicked out with force.

What strikes him first is how messy it is. Much like himself, Clyde is prone to a bit of a sprawl when he works on creative projects, his utensils migrating across the floor, across desktops made of tree stumps and benches made of overturned logs—over any available surface, really. But unlike Lucifer, he is also a bit of a neat freak. Alastor made sure of that. Ever since the incident with the crib, he insisted Clyde tidied up after himself. Back then, it was toys. Now, it’s instruments, sheet music, notebooks, pens and pencils. And they’re everywhere, in disorganized piles; Lucifer winces in particular at the golden bow halfway across the room from its matching fiddle, simply floating amongst all the other detritus. In the half of the bedroom that is part of the actual hotel, other instruments which usually hang on the wall lean against it or simply lie on the ground. The drumset’s cover is in a wrinkled lump.

The immense clutter is—telling.

“Oh, buddy,” exhales Lucifer, his suspicions confirmed.

“Wh—hey!” In the swampy half of the room, Clyde himself is little more than a heap in the olefin hammock strung up between two cypress trees. Angry red eyes peer out from beneath a mound of extra blankets. “Dad, I told you I don’t want to talk to you!”

“And I told you you have to talk to someone,” retorts Lucifer. “It might as well be me.” Because he can’t stand the sight of the room in such disarray, he starts to pick up the mess, taking the saxophone back to its stand and the bass guitar back to its hook on the wall. He feels Clyde’s eyes on him, tracking his movements. “You hurt your sister a lot yesterday. Your Papa, too.”

Clyde says nothing. Lucifer can work with that. He searches for the right drawer to dump a wayward pair of drumsticks into, then does the same for the small handful of guitar picks scattered across every other surface.

“Where does this go?” Lucifer asks as he walks over to lift the electric guitar he got the boy for his last birthday.

“Next to the bass,” mutters Clyde, extracting a hand from the mound of blankets to indicate the correct hook. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing what?” Lucifer asks lightly as he hangs up the guitar.

“You know what.” The boy sounds equal parts tired and accusatory. But he finally sits up, shedding the blanket he has draped over him. The king tries not to react too openly to the bags under his eyes, obvious without his glasses on, or the gauntness of his arms poking out of the short sleeves of his night shirt. “Trying to help after yesterday. I don’t need help. I’m fine.”

Lucifer scoffs, and there’s not an ounce of humor in it. “Oh yeah, sure. This?” He gestures at the room. “This is the living space of someone who’s fine, for sure. Come on, bud, I know you’re not. It’s been months. Why won’t you talk about it?”

“Because I don’t fucking want to!” Clyde snaps. And it’s strangely chilling, to hear his little gentleman who always refuses to swear curse him out. “Do you think I’m doing this on purpose? I can’t even get out of bed—I—I don’t even know what’s happening to me!”

The king looks at him.

The two consider each other from across the room, charged with tension.

Then Lucifer crosses to the tipped-over log not five feet from the hammock and takes a seat. He crosses his legs in front of him, the heels of his boots digging into the earth while blades of wet grass lick at the patent leather.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Lucifer asks. Clyde stares at him blankly, so he goes on, “Because it looks to me like you’re depressed. And if that’s the case, I have more than several thousand years of experience in that department. Actually, that might be why you feel this way. So yeah, kid. You do need to talk about it. We’re all worried about you.”

The gator blinks once, twice, and then he sinks down into his hammock, burying his face in his arms.

“That’s stupid. I don’t have any reason to be depressed,” he mumbles.

Lucifer smiles wanly. “Yeah, that’s kinda how it is, I’m afraid.”

“Well, make it go away.” Clyde sits up again. “I don’t want it.”

As it turns out, laughing in disbelief is not the correct response to this, because the prince’s expression contorts in outrage. Lucifer shakes his head. “Clyde, what are you talking about?”

“You made me like this!” The boy suddenly stumbles from the hammock to stand in front of Lucifer, disheveled, barefoot and trembling. His eyes are brimming with tears and Lucifer realizes now that he hasn’t seen his son cry since he was below his waist in height. “If I’m like this because of you, make it go away. Take it out of me. You can do anything.”

The King of Hell feels his heart leap into his throat. He swallows. “That’s—that’s not how it works, baby.”

“What do you mean?” Clyde throws his hands up. “You decide how it works.”

“No, I don’t. I can change reality, sure, but the laws of it aren’t for me to bend. What do you want me to do? Change your genetic code?” Lucifer mirrors his gesture, tossing his hands. “If I did that, hatchling, you wouldn’t be you anymore.”

Clyde inhales. His next admission is soft, even defeated.

“Yeah, well. Maybe I don’t want to be.”

And Lucifer’s heart shatters in his chest.

Because how in the world is he supposed to cope with that?

He can’t even hide his reaction. The prince watches him for a moment, weariness written clearly across his slim face. Slowly, he shuffles to Lucifer’s left and drops heavily onto the log beside him, his hands resting on his knees. Lucifer looks at him out of the corner of his eye, at the tightness of his jaw.

Without a word, he extends an arm. Clyde shifts a little closer, and he crushes the boy to his side, where he deflates easily until his head is tucked under Lucifer’s chin.

“I’m sorry,” mumbles Clyde. He just sounds so tired.

“Don’t be,” Lucifer dismisses. “You’re hurting.” He pauses. “Maybe apologize to your family, though?”

Clyde winces, burrows harder into the king’s chest. “Okay. I—I do feel bad. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

“Correct. You’re our little diplomat, remember? Keep that temper in check.” Lucifer drops a kiss into those black-and-blond curls. “But you know Charlie will forgive you if you just talk to her, don’t you? And so will your Papa.”

Another wince. “I don’t know about that.”

The king snorts. “I know, he sure read you the riot act, didn’t he? But trust me. You don’t know the half of what he’d do for you.”

A deep sigh, followed by a reluctant nod. “Okay. I’ll—I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.” Lucifer gives him one last warm squeeze before letting him go. He takes a look around the room. Marginally better looking than how he found it, at least. “Tell you what. Let’s clean up in here. We can have a chat about what we can do about all of this stuff. And then…pancakes for the hotel staff?”

At that, Clyde finally cracks a smile, like sunshine peeking through the clouds on a gloomy day. “Sure, Dad. That sounds fine.”

Lucifer is absolutely biased, but everyone with a working set of ears in the whole of the seven rings would have to agree: Clyde Morningstar is a vision onstage.

It’s a small venue to start with. Lucifer easily could have booked the prince a stadium, could just as easily have filled it with sinners in no time flat, but Clyde has always insisted that he be the one to make his music career take off, using his talent and nothing or no one else. It was a conviction no doubt caused by the deluge of articles distributed by VoxTek over the years, smearing the young man as little more than a nepo baby with an ounce of musical talent. It seems to have worked out for him, though, that determination to prove 666 News wrong which only helped his art rather than hindered it.

The young man’s title is a definitive draw, but the music is what gets the sinners to stay, and that specifically is what Clyde wants to prove.

Lucifer and Alastor sit kitty corner to one another at the back of the venue, their table just behind the rest of the hotel staff’s, which conveniently also obscures them from the view of other attendees. Not that any would be watching them anyway. Looking at the floor of the Choral Coffin, the crowd seems utterly enraptured by the performance. Clyde and his friends, a smattering of young people from Cannibaltown whose names Lucifer can never quite remember, are enchanting.

As the prince launches into the third and final chorus of “Cannibaltown Brats”, Lucifer smirks into his appletini at how Alastor’s claws have begun to tap on their tabletop.

“You’re really coming around on that electric guitar, huh?” Lucifer teases.

Cast half in shadow by the dim lighting, Alastor rolls his eyes, but genuine smile playing at his lips reveals the theatre in the gesture. “I admit, the damned thing has some appeal when utilized correctly. It’s still much too noisy, mind you.”

“Uh-huh.” The king drains his appletini. He enjoys the way those eyes follow the movement in the column of his throat before nodding at the stage. “Rosie did a great job on that suit.”

Alastor turns to appreciate his friend’s work. Clyde’s tux is tailored to perfection, lilac with kudzu, Louisiana irises, and crepe myrtles embroidered on the lapels and crawling down from the waist to the hem of the pants. The jewelry Rosie picked out gleams fiercely under the bright lights, hanging from the prince’s septum, lower lip, and eyebrows. Were they any closer, they would be able to see the way the cufflinks match perfectly.

“Cannibaltown Brats” comes to an end, and the Coffin erupts. Lucifer watches Charlie leap from her seat to applaud and shout “Holy shit, that’s my brother!” with a fond smile. Husk brings a paw to his mouth and whistles loud enough to pierce the eardrums, laughing a staccato laugh when Angel and Vaggie curse him out. Niffty scurries around underneath the table, having been chasing and stabbing at bugs to the beat of the music.

As the applause dies down, Clyde chuckles into the microphone. “Thanks, everyone. It means the world, it really does.”

The crowd relapses into cheers, pulling another fanged grin from the young man.

“This next song I wrote with the help of my family. Well, they don’t know that,” Clyde laughs. “Big round of applause for my biggest inspiration: the Hazbin Hotel, everybody. Yeah, give them a hand.”

As ever, the Coffin is more than happy to oblige. Charlie turns around in her seat to shoot Lucifer an incredulous smile, which he returns. They each lean in as the opening notes of a song they’ve never heard before ring out through the venue. Smooth, mellow cornet mingles with jaunty piano and a soft, easygoing drumbeat. When Lucifer looks to his left, Alastor is trying and failing to suppress a self-satisfied grin at the jazzy tune.

Before long, the new song crescendos, bringing with it Clyde’s polished tenor and his signature bass guitar. It’s far more lowkey than the last song, so the noise in the venue tempers to a dull roar. Full to bursting with pride, Lucifer enjoys the sight of the prince in his element.

“Lucifer.” Alastor’s voice pulls him abruptly out of the moment. “Look.”

Lucifer follows the direction of the demon’s outstretched claw, his gaze eventually landing on a pair of sinners standing in the corner opposite theirs. A feminine sinner in a sharp blouse and pencil skirt with a video camera for a head, scribbling in a notepad, flanked by an imp holding a boom mic. Emblazoned on the former’s blouse is a familiar “V” logo.

“Ha! Look at that,” snorts Lucifer. “They just couldn’t resist, huh?”

Alastor places his chin on the backs of his hands. “Shall I speak to them?”

“Nah. Any publicity is good publicity. And besides,” Lucifer grins, swelling with the sin he is most known for and leaning into Alastor’s space to nod at their little nuisance gator as he executes a flawless high note, “I want everyone to see this, don’t you?”