The thought of decorating a Christmas tree with your f/o!
Do they like Christmas? Or are they a bit of a grinch? Or maybe it’s you who doesn’t like Christmas time and they’re obsessed! Or you’re both obsessed !
Sitting on their shoulders to place the topper on the tree as their hands caress your thighs either side of their head, or vice versa.
Making Christmas cookies afterwards to eat under the twinkle of the fairy lights.
Them bringing out fake mistletoe just to snag a kiss from you after you finish decorating. <3
Jonathan sims, staring at the state of the world season 5: I am a monster. I should be dead, i am, the cause of so much pain and suffering and my whole life was a setup to bring forth all that is fear-
Helen distortion, sippin a pina colada: Do a flip.
I think on friday the 13th (next friday), we should all go to our favourite fanfic(s) and comment something, even if it's just "this is one of my favourite fics ever" or an emoji or whatever because it's free and kind and wouldn't that be a cool thing to do?
tell the author of a brand new fic that you're excited about it
reblog this post so other fandoms find it and join in
It doesn't have to be high effort! Just something small to spread the encouragement around. We all want to see more great art out there in the world and a few kind words can go a long way :)
anyway hoping that the generative AI bubble pops so disastrously that the tech industry becomes allergic to anything involving it for the next 1,000 years
Minor Hazbin Hotel S2 spoilers, and honestly this could just be read as a oneshot of Lucifer comforting an anxious reader if you don’t want to read the whole series.
Genre; Hurt/Comfort
Word Count; 4.4k (shocking I know)
Warnings; Reader’s anxiety!! Mentions of alcohol, possibly other minor things which are not coming to mind.
Pairings; Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) x Reader
Wooo part 5! Life got in the way of my semi regular update schedule I apologise 😭 Loads of you guys want to be added to the taglist, that’s so cool! Anyone else who wants to be tagged let me know. This is just a huge amount of hurt/comfort for our anxious reader, yes there’s more cuddling I hope you’re not sick of it yet. I hope you enjoy and thank you for all the lovely comments on the previous parts!
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
Masterlist
-
Things had started out okay. You returned to your room, ignoring Lucifer’s gaze on the back of your head as you walked down the corridor. It took more willpower than you were willing to admit not to turn back, to agree to either offer to stay with him. He consumed your every thought as you got ready for bed. You ran back through how much he’d appreciated you giving him his favourite breakfast meal versus how little his belongings had meant to him, how he’d balanced the duck on his head. You thought about how down to Earth – or Hell, you supposed – he was, how unlike anything you would have expected royalty to be.
And that was where things started going downhill.
You thought next about Lucifer – Lucifer as the rest of Hell saw him. King, a deadly sin, the most powerful being in the entire realm bar none. And you were what? Trying to be his friend? His confident? Becoming interested in dating him even?
Who the hell did you think you were?
The answer was nobody. You were nobody in Hell. Zero claims to fame, no titles in the hierarchy of sinners, nothing. You were at least in full possession of your soul and free of any deals – you had suffered your way through working to find a place to live down here, not dealt your way to it. You had known it would pay off in the long run and you were proven right every day you were free to do whatever you wanted.
But that aside, what right did you have to behave the way you had been around Lucifer? To think about him the way you were? He might have been very different from how you would have expected him to be, but that didn’t change who he was.
You were a very, very long way out of your depth.
The way he had watched you when you left him in the corridor, eyes glowing and gaze attentive, only confirmed it. And on top of that, you had only really known him for a grand total of two days. Things were moving way too fast, and the reality of how he might now be thinking about you, having spent the majority of those two days cuddling with you for one reason or another, came crashing down so violently that panic seized your chest and you were hit with a dizzying wave of nausea.
“Enough,” you snarled, vicious, at your reflection in the bathroom mirror once the initial shock passed. “Nothing is wrong. Nothing bad has happened. Lucifer was not upset in any way when you left him. It’s okay.”
The mantra was a variation on the same one you always said to yourself when you started feeling the anxiety spiking like this, but the trick was getting your body to believe it. Far easier said than done. You splashed cold water on your face and went through a series of breathing exercises you had compiled until you felt calm enough that you were confident you wouldn’t start to spiral again. Then it was just a case of distraction and thinking about anything that wasn’t Lucifer as you got into bed, so that you could get some rest and not have to be conscious to deal with your state of mind any longer.
The downside of that method was that you awoke the next day with a ball of anxiety already hovering in your stomach. You groaned aloud, still blinking sleep from your eyes. You had literally just woken up. There should be some sort of a rule where the stupid complaint had to leave you alone until something had actually happened to trigger it. Or maybe not even then!
When you’d first gotten your ticket downstairs, you had actually thought silly things from life like mental health disorders would simply be gone, on their own.
You scoffed. As if Hell would come with any silver linings.
There were the people though, you considered. You had made friends down here after all. But your closest friend was a serial killing, cannibalistic deer-man who was the cause of more sinners’ suffering than you cared to count, so maybe that wasn’t always the plus side you considered it to be.
Sadly, waking up worried was so commonplace you knew what to look out for. This was a day you were likely to get overstimulated by less than normal, so you would take a few precautions. You chose soft, loose clothing to avoid any overwhelming sensations. The clothes were also lightweight, so you could wear a couple of layers and easily remove them if you overheated – that was also more likely to happen. You forced yourself to drink water before you even left your room, and difficult though it would be, you would make sure you ate three healthy meals today. And no caffeine or alcohol for you!
Your endeavours to get breakfast were both successful and uneventful, which was an excellent combination. You decided there were too many guests milling around the lobby for you to be in there as well, so you went to the private lounge you shared with Charlie and the others. Thankfully, it was empty. You picked up the book you had left on one of the coffee tables a few days earlier and curled up on one end of a sofa to read. You kicked your shoes off and tucked your feet underneath you, your fluffy socks keeping you comfortable. You fully intended to stay in there until lunchtime, then find another, quieter place to read once others started to use the space. That would be nothing unusual, everyone knew you liked your own company.
Maybe you would even get to talk to Lucifer again at some point, but you weren’t going to think deeply on that at all.
The door to the lounge opened a few hours later to reveal Alastor, with a coffee and the paper. You had a routine together at least some of the time, where you would sit and read in each other’s company without the need to talk. Violent though Alastor was, he wasn’t as unpredictable as people who didn’t know him tended to believe. His presence was calming to you, somehow, in an old timey two people sitting next to each other reading the paper without acknowledging one another way.
He was even quiet in how he turned the pages, as if he was intentionally avoiding crackling the thin paper. But maybe that was just wishful thinking.
The next time the door opened, in walked Lucifer.
“Oh, uh – hey! Hi,” he said quickly once he saw you, giving you a broad grin.
He closed the door behind him as you smiled back. You had a moment to be happy he was there, then your safe, quiet bubble was shattered before you could so much as say hello back.
Alastor’s ears flicked up and forwards, his grin tightening.
“Why, good morning, your majesty,” he drawled, timing the moment he leaned forward so that he would move past you and come into Lucifer’s eyeline exactly as he finished speaking. “Your speech is eloquent as always.”
Lucifer’s gaze switched from you to Alastor and his attitude changed in an instant.
“Well, if it isn’t the bellhop. I see you’re in here slacking instead of helping out with the hotel,” he shot back, mimicking Alastor’s trans-Atlantic accent.
You felt on edge immediately. You straightened your posture and slipped your feet back into your shoes, consciously deepening your breathing as you felt a weight begin to settle on your chest.
“That’s funny, because I don’t see you contributing to anything meaningful. In fact, I seem to recall a dear friend of mine fetching a meal for you yesterday, you were doing so little.”
Alastor could, on occasion, be considerate. When it best served him, he could say or do anything at all with utter disregard and no remorse for how it may affect anyone. He reached an arm across your shoulders and pulled you sharply into his side, grin turning vicious. Lucifer’s regal posture vanished. The Devil strode up to Alastor, leaning forward and raising a threatening finger towards the demon’s face. Alastor stared back unflinchingly.
“Yes, I heard you’d been having a lot to say about your dear friend. I can hardly say I’m surprised that you are equally incapable of purveying a healthy relationship as you are everything else-”
Alastor stood and pulled you up to standing with him, his grip turning oppressive. You wished he would dig the tips of his claws into your shoulder, so that the shock of pain might give you some clarity. Lucifer was pushing close into Alastor’s space, and since Alastor was quite successfully holding you still, you were trapped between their argument with a sofa preventing you from backing away. Their voices raised louder and louder, tension mounting and your chest tightened until breathing was laborious and all you could hear was their screaming and everything was too much and too loud and you couldn’t get out - -
You ripped free of Alastor’s grasp, shoving him away from you and making for the door as quickly as you could. Alastor’s claws had torn the shoulder of your shirt, but you barely noticed. The silence you left in your wake didn’t register, nor did the fact that Alastor hadn’t retaliated in any way. You just needed to get out.
You practically fled through the hotel, feeling like there was an anvil crushing your chest with every step. It took slipping through a side corridor leading to a back exit for you to avoid the noise and presence of the other sinners. When you flew through the final door, the face full of Hell’s fresh air on the other side felt like a blessing. The pressure on your lungs lessened a little, but more importantly, it was quiet.
You found a nice secluded spot, a ledge hidden within some shrubbery which looked out across the city, and sat down. Stone bit into your palms, a light breeze shifting your hair. You incorporated diaphragmatic breathing into your calming methods this time, then used a few grounding techniques and the blessed escape of closing your eyes and hearing little more than far off traffic.
You were a bit better by the time your phone rang, Charlie’s name on the caller ID. It was a mean thought, but she was the last person you wanted to have to deal with. Her overenthusiasm for everything was overstimulating at the best of times, but you also couldn’t not answer her. The next thing, she’d think you’d died for a second time and would be emptying out the hotel searching for you.
“Hey, Charlie. Look I’m sorry, but now isn’t the best-”
The voice which said your name was low, and rich, and worried.
Lucifer.
He would want an explanation. Something concrete, something solid to justify what was going on with you. If he had even correctly identified your reaction as blind panic rather than frustration or anger. People sometimes couldn’t tell the difference, for some reason.
“Um, it’s me. Lucifer. I’m uh. I’m sorry I’m using Charlie’s phone, I don’t… have your number.”
That was okay. You nodded, not that Lucifer could see it.
“I – look. I just wanted to say, I...” Lucifer sighed heavily, muttering under his breath for a moment. “Can we talk?”
A bolt of dread shot down your spine at that awful three word question. Invariably during life, you’d had no concept of whether the news to be imparted was death of your closest kin or a discussion of what to have for dinner, and you’d never been able to shake your reaction to it.
“As in, now?” You asked tentatively, trying to swallow your fear. You roughly threw your unoccupied hand about to rid it of its shaking.
“Please.” He sounded almost desperate. “Uh, I mean if you want. Or not. Whenever – whenever’s best. For you. Of course.”
You stood and made your way back towards the door you had come out from.
“I’m just outside the back entrance of the hotel, to the south of the-”
Lucifer materialised in front of you, quite literally out of thin air. He had clearly just dropped Charlie’s phone wherever he had been previously, so you hung up the call and slipped your own into your pocket.
“Hey. Um, is this okay?” He asked immediately, “’Cause if it’s not I can always leave, we can talk later-”
“What’s wrong?”
Even you heard the slightly frantic edge to your tone, but you couldn’t tamp it down. Lucifer’s own somewhat erratic behaviour calmed in response, confusion taking over.
“What’s wrong?” His voice was steadier, lower. It was far more of a comfort to you than his uncertain rambling. “I – you, whatever happened with you is what’s wrong. I upset you enough to make you leave, and I wasn’t even talking to you. Of course, if that deer had just left you out of it, maybe you wouldn’t have been so upset in the first place, but I never meant for any of that to happen. Would you talk to me? Please?”
Oh no.
Your eyes started to burn with the telltale sign of tears. Lucifer’s expression morphed into something far more concerned as you blinked rapidly and turned away from him, taking a few steps to put some distance between you. You tried desperately not to focus on his sincerity, on his god damned care for you, some random sinner he wasn’t even supposed to know the name of. Tears rimmed your eyes more rapidly than you could blink them away at the realisation that he knew no one’s name at the hotel, even his own daughter’s girlfriend’s. But he knew yours. You sniffed, loud and entirely inexcusable. Your cheeks began to heat as you dug your nails into your palms and clung to an internal mantra of I will not cry I will not cry.
Then there was a gentle pressure on your back. Lucifer had placed a careful hand directly over your spine, between your shoulder blades, and your shoulders drew high in a defence response. You stayed stubbornly turned away from him. He made no attempts to get you to move.
“I would never mean to upset you. I’m so sorry.”
Each word was clear, definite. He meant every last one. And he pulled his hand away from your back as quickly as he’d put it there.
You spun around the second you realised what he was going to do, all but launching yourself at him before he could disappear. You flung your trembling arms around his waist and buried your head between his neck and shoulder, so you wouldn’t have to see his face and he couldn’t see yours. The tears were running freely down your cheeks now and there was nothing you could do about it.
Your chest jumped with a sob as the emotion behind your words hit you full force, at the fear of what would happen now you had said them, and to whom.
But Lucifer’s arms slid around you after only a short pause, one hand coming to rest along the side of your ribs and the other cupping the back of your head.
He would never tell you, but Lucifer’s chest warmed through pleasantly with pride. You came to him, you wanted comfort from him, even though he was the one who had upset you. His three pairs of wings wrapped around you on another plane of existence where he kept them tucked away for sake of convenience. He’d wrap them around you for real one day, he knew it.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Lucifer murmured, “it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have anything to apologise for.” He let you stand there for a moment, trying to stifle your tears with little success and your nails lightly digging into his back in your efforts to keep him close to you. “You maybe wanna head back inside?”
You shook your head vehemently into his shoulder. The thought of running into anyone you knew was unbearable. You tried to press yourself tighter against him, your grip harsher now. He didn’t care in the slightest.
His thumbs traced soothing paths along your shirt where he held you.
“I meant upstairs, sweetheart. We can go somewhere quiet, just the two of us.”
You tried your best to calm yourself, but you just couldn’t manage it.
“’Kay,” you croaked, voice breaking over the one syllable.
Lucifer snapped his fingers, no showmanship in the gesture whatsoever, and transported you instantly to his living space. You sobbed against him silently, now safe at least from everyone’s opinion but Lucifer’s own. Everything was just too much. Too much stimulation from everything around you, too much needless worry conjured in your own mind, too much raw care from Hell’s king.
Lucifer tried to move back a fraction and you matched him, gripping him like he was your only lifeline in a bottomless ocean.
“Honey,” he breathed, the sympathy astounding. He rested his head against yours. “I was only going to try and get your shoes off. You think you can do that?”
God you must have looked pathetic.
But you kicked your shoes off without comment.
“That’s it, good,” he murmured.
He snapped his fingers again and whatever you had been wearing was replaced by the softest oversized set of pyjamas you had ever worn. Lucifer’s clothing changed from his suit to his own set beneath your hands. How he managed it with your death grip on him you didn’t know, but he lifted you up into his arms like you weighed nothing. Your own shifted to loop around his neck as he carried you over to his bed, your tears finally starting to wane. He pulled back the corners on more layers of blankets than you could count without ever putting you down, then somehow manoeuvred both you and himself underneath them. He situated you in his hold easily, more than happy to let you curl around him however you wanted.
What you really wanted was pressure on your lower back. You caught Lucifer’s elbow to shift his arm accordingly, relaxing into him a bit more when he got the gist.
“Do weighted blankets help?” He asked quietly, his voice rumbling pleasantly through his chest where you laid on him.
He conjured one as soon as you nodded, laying it over you perfectly without ever lifting a finger. He was pleased by the more content sound you made. The tears had stopped and your nose was blocked, your eyes sore. Every ounce of energy had dissipated from your body.
Now though, of course, as your previous distress subsided, you were able to think more clearly about what exactly you had just let Lucifer see. Your body must have tensed as your mind began to race, or your hands must have twitched where you were holding onto him.
“Hey, no. We’re not doing that,” he told you, landing a firm enough tap on the side of your head that you jolted in surprise. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it. I just want you to focus on being here, right now, with me. Think about what’s physically around you, nothing else, alright? Promise me.”
He was right. You needed to calm down for now. You could overanalyse later.
“Promise.”
You sounded horrendous.
“Good.”
He sounded like the decision had never been yours to begin with.
Under Lucifer’s instruction, you began to pay attention to what you could physically feel. Lucifer’s chest slowly rose and fell beneath you. Your nose occasionally brushed against his neck. There was the gentle pressure of his cheek against your forehead, then his chin on top of your head. You held the soft fabric of his sweater between your fingers, lightly passing your thumb over it. Your legs were tangled comfortably with his, one of his arms curving around your back as his hand rested across your waist and lower ribs. The other alternated between gently rubbing your shoulders and cradling the back of your head. He didn’t seem to care that he also had to be under your weighted blanket. The pressure was a comfort across your whole back, going a long way to releasing some of the tension held in your head and neck.
You timed your breathing to match Lucifer’s, his own growing slower and deeper as soon as he realised. He praised you, tone achingly affectionate, as your weight fell heavier against him. He murmured the occasional sweet nothing, little reassurances that you were okay, you were with him, you were safe. He’d got you. With his voice catching on a lower register, soft and smooth and all-encompassing, you’d believe anything he said.
You didn’t really realise when he dimmed the lights to a soft glow, just that the light became kinder and your eyes hurt less.
“I gotcha sweetheart, okay? You’re safe with me. I’m not gonna let anything happen to ya,” he murmured.
You pressed yourself a little closer to him – not that you really could – and tucked your face into his neck. He gave a soft huff of laughter.
“Okay, I know. Never had anyone hold ya like this before when you needed it?”
You shook your head. You’d never known anyone who would have done just this with you, and certainly no one who would have gone to the trouble of making you feel like you were being held inside some impenetrable bubble of safety. Lucifer hummed, saddened that help hadn’t been there for you in the past when you’d needed it, but proud that wasn’t true any longer.
“A travesty,” he told you in all seriousness, “but I’m here now. I’m gonna be here now.”
You felt brave enough, or, more likely, safe enough, to finally seek out his gaze. He was already looking at you when you pulled back a fraction, his eyes glowing softly. His expression said you were something he cared about, something he wanted to protect. But it didn’t scare you this time; maybe you were just too relaxed. Or maybe you were beginning to trust that he might feel the same way about you as you thought you might about him.
“Why’re you doing all this for me?” You asked, resting your head on his shoulder so you didn’t have to sit up.
Lucifer squeezed you for a moment, smiling at you gently.
“You really gotta ask?”
You swallowed, a bit of tension returning to your brow. Had you missed something?
“Okay, you do. That’s alright. You – you were there for me. After that whole thing with the TV guy. You brought me back here, you insisted on treating wounds that were already half healed. Then you came looking for me when I – when the depression was… And you saw me like that and you stayed. And the best I can do in return is make you feel like this?” He nodded towards you, since his hands were trapped beneath the weighted blanket. “Absolutely not. No way am I leaving you like this because of me.”
The sound you made was between a huff and a scoff. Definitely self-deprecating.
“Thought you hated sinners,” you mumbled, less of a statement and more of a question.
Lucifer tilted his head a little, fixing you with a teasing smile.
“Honey, I’m ten thousand years old. You really gonna tell me I’m not allowed to make an exception? ‘Specially one as pretty as you.”
That, finally, made you laugh, because you had to have looked absolutely horrendous in that moment. It struck such a chord of humour within you that you wheezed, gasping incapably for air as you curled your fingers into Lucifer’s sides. Unintentionally, you made him jolt then join in your laughter – clearly, he was ticklish. That would have to be a fact you filed away for later, you thought as you quieted.
“Lu… you didn’t upset me, okay?”
“Think I did,” he muttered, not giving you a chance to explain. “Sweetheart, I made you cry.”
You grit your teeth at the unwelcome reminder, but took a deep, steadying breath. You just needed him to understand.
“No, you didn’t. I woke up overwhelmed, and something is always going to happen on a day like that. That’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not,” he answered, all signs of his previous humour gone, “but I shouldn’t have been what tipped you over. I should’ve been there to help on a bad day, not make things worse. I should’ve realised-”
“Lucifer.”
You rolled to lay flat on top of him, arms on his shoulders and face above his so he would have to pay attention. That was the first time you had used his full name since he’d told you not to.
“I want you to listen to me,” you told him, both of your hands moving up to cup his face. “And I want you to believe me when I say what I’m about to say, because I promise I know me better than you do and I am not about to let you go down a spiral because of something you didn’t do to me.” You took a deep breath, preparing. “You did not do anything wrong. You and Alastor argue like that all the time, it’s fine. If you’re not complaining to me about him, he’s complaining to me about you.”
Lucifer quirked a brow at that, amused.
“You’re really friends with him?” He asked.
You laughed a little.
“I don’t think that’s what he’d call it, but yes. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The point is, you didn’t upset me. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? And I don’t want you sitting there worrying about me because none of it’s your fault, I’m just like this and I really wish I wasn’t but am I and-”
Lucifer rested a single clawed finger over your lips, silencing your rambling. He smiled warmly at the way your eyes widened.
“Okay.”
You waited a beat.
“Promise?”
Lucifer laughed, moving his hand to cup your cheek.
“Promise.”
You could accept that.
You shifted onto your side a little to lay back down, your head returning to Lucifer’s shoulder. He positioned the weighted blanket square on top of you once again then wrapped his arms around you, holding you tightly to him. You closed your eyes in content when he stroked a hand over your hair, finally feeling like you could just indulge in how safe you felt with him.
addition: I understand wanting to wait until things feel Right to write. but as someone who also contends with adhd and The Situations there is not going to be a time where it magically feels perfect to write. "I'll do it someday / later / when..." is an endless delay. you've gotta crack open a document and write something even if it sucks ass because if you don't get your brain used to the habit it's not gonna stick. the time you can start is Now.
Warnings; Lucifer’s depression, probably hints of reader’s anxiety, nothing else I can think of?
Pairings; Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) x Reader
Thank you for yet another round of fantastic comments on the previous part, you guys really are inspiring me to want to write. I’ve started the tag list as well so lemme know if you want in. Hope you enjoy!
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Masterlist
-
It had gotten late. Lucifer was still curled around you, dropping in and out of consciousness but never letting go of you. You would stay with him as long as he needed, but when your stomach growled, loud and inexcusably, that you knew you would have to address the fact that you hadn’t eaten anything yet.
“Lu,” you mumbled, gently squeezing his shoulder. You received a half-hearted grumble in response. “You didn’t eat anything today.”
The next noise he made was dismissive. You thought for a moment; you would need to devise a way to get him to eat. Maybe a bit of good old fashioned manipulation would do the trick.
“..I didn’t eat anything today,” you hedged, pleased when he propped himself up on you to pin you with a narrow eyed stare.
“You need to eat.”
He said it as an immovable fact, an inevitability.
“True, but so do you.”
Lucifer waved a hand, trying to dispel the sentiment entirely.
“Not hungry. What do you want? I’ll order.”
The circles beneath his eyes were a deep purple, his weight on you heavy. You wondered if his vision was even clear at that moment, or if you looked a little blurry to him. A smile curled your lips.
“You even know where your phone is?”
To your surprise, he shifted just enough to reach over to his nightstand with a light groan. He was quite clearly doing his best to stay under all the blankets. He opened a drawer and pulled out his cell phone, which was not only there, but charged. The light glared up onto his face, revealing tired, dull eyes. After tapping the screen a few times, he held it between two fingers to pass it back to you, focus still on the drawer.
You took his phone wordlessly and with some amount of awe. It felt heavy and foreign in a way only someone else’s phone could feel, and you couldn’t believe he’d just given it to you like that. Drawer closed, he laid back down on top of you and pressed his face into your neck, then held up something else for you to take. He waved it at you silently when you didn’t do so immediately. Eyes wide, you gently slid the sleek, black, unimaginably valuable, doesn’t come with an upper limit credit card out of his grasp. His hand flopped back down onto the bed dramatically and you were left gaping at what he’d just done.
“There’s a good ramen place I saved,” he said, as if he hadn’t just given you access to untold millions.
You blinked yourself out of your stupor. The fast food app. He was talking about the fast food app. On his phone, which he had also just given you free reign over. Was he just out of it, or was this normal behaviour for him? There was no way to tell.
You found the ramen place, trying to figure out if he’d eat anything you bought from there. There was every fast food joint imaginable to choose from, including, shockingly enough, some extremely high end restaurants you’d only ever heard of which were willing to deliver meals to anyone who could afford the service. Lucifer was clearly one such client. You scrolled through his saved options, pausing when you found the perfect one.
It was a 24 hour breakfast place, the headliner meal being the biggest stack of pancakes you had ever laid your eyes on. That was something he would eat, but you hesitated to buy it.
“Uh, do you want me to get mine?”
You sensed Lucifer’s frown rather than seeing it.
“Yeah,” he replied, confused by how obvious a question that was. “I just gave you my card.”
You paused, rephrasing.
“Would you like me to buy my own food?” You tried again, this time graced by the angel lifting his head long enough to shoot his frown at you directly.
“No, I just gave – what, did you think I just gave you that for fun?”
You mouthed at him silently for a moment while he stared right back.
“I – you… you don’t need to pay for my food,” you told him, because the last thing you wanted was for him to think he somehow owed you something.
Lucifer tilted his head a little, lips pulling into a smirk.
“You know, I never thought I’d meet someone down here who’d try to insist on buying dinner,” he murmured, just a hint of suggestion in his tone. His eyes flashed a little brighter as your own widened further. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
His head dropped back down with a sense of finality.
You pressed your lips together. Okay, then.
You got all the trimmings on the stack of pancakes, figuring the more sugar he consumed the better; and the more likely he was to eat. That was based on something Charlie had said once, at least, about him having a big sweet tooth. You also got your favourite breakfast option from the menu.
“It says it’ll be here in five minutes?” You said uncertainly after you’d paid. That was partly to tell Lucifer, and partly because you were convinced the app was wrong. These things usually took twenty minutes, at least.
Lucifer just hummed.
As this was clearly not news to him, you concluded that it must have been a perk of being the king.
You locked his phone and went to give that and the rarer-than-gold dust card back to him, but he didn’t move. He told you that you could put them anywhere – they didn’t matter. You laid them on the covers next to you like they were some one of a kind artifact. While you waited for the food, you went back to gently combing your hands through Lucifer’s hair. He curled closer to you, quite content.
His phone did indeed buzz exactly five minutes later to announce that the food really had arrived. The only issue was you had to leave Lucifer to go and get it.
“Lu, you gotta let me out,” you tried for the third time in a row, failing to extricate yourself from him once more. His arms were wound tight around your waist, his head resting on your shoulder. You thought his eyes were closed. “The food’s down in the lobby.”
“Why didn’t you just get it delivered up here?” He complained, again.
“They won’t do that, you have to collect it in the lobby-”
“Noo you don’t! I get stuff delivered up here all the time.”
You turned in order to stare at him more effectively.
“You do? They won’t let me do that.”
You guessed that was another perk of being royalty. In all honesty, the fast food service almost made it seem worth the trouble. Lucifer pulled back a fraction to fix you with his own stare.
“They won’t?” When you confirmed that was the case, he freed his arm from the blankets. You tried to take the opportunity to get away, but his fingers dug into your ribs to keep you still. You didn’t stand a chance against him, really. “Give me my phone?”
It was only after you’d done that it turned out he was calling the breakfast chain’s owner, whose number he apparently had access to. In all of a minute, your name was made a note of next to Lucifer Morningstar’s so that you too could have breakfast delivered to your hotel door at all hours of the day and night. He dropped his phone down and gave you a satisfied little smile, and you didn’t know whether to thank him or laugh.
“What? I am king, after all,” he reminded you, dropping you a wink.
You agreed as sagely as you could manage. You had really rather forgotten that little fact in the hours you had spent resting with him, and it really would benefit you to put in more effort to keep it at the forefront of your mind. So far, you were doing a terrible job.
“Thanks Lu, I really appreciate that. The only thing is that the uh, the food’s still downstairs.”
Lucifer groaned theatrically, his other arm winding back around you once again. You huffed in exasperation, pushing against him to absolutely no avail.
“Just get the bellhop to bring it up.”
You snorted at the mental image of more than a century old Alastor playing delivery boy, but you shook your head hotly.
“I’m not doing that.”
Lucifer gave you the first grin you’d seen on him all day, his eyes brighter still. It was enough to make you stop struggling, just to see him looking a bit more like his usual self.
“No? I could make him you know.”
Your laughter bubbled up from your chest uncontrollably.
“Please don’t,” you grinned, “just lemme out. I’ll be two minutes.” He went to complain yet again, but you cut him off, still laughing, before he could get started. “No! Just let me go! We could be eating by now if you’d just let go!”
He flopped back down, making a comment about how it was you who was going to be eating, not him. You didn’t correct him. As unwillingly as you’d ever seen anyone do anything, he loosened his grip and let you slide out, keeping his hands on you as long as possible.
“Right, I’ll be five-”
He snapped his fingers and a golden, glowing portal materialised in front of you. The lobby was on the other side.
“Oh my god,” you muttered. “Okay, I’ll be back.”
You stepped through with some amount of trepidation, but nothing happened. Your skin just felt a little tingly. The good news was that you found the delivery sinner with no issues and successfully acquired the food. The bad news was that a staticky laugh echoed out from the direction of the bar before you made it back to the portal.
“My dear, you look horrendous,” Alastor crowed, his laughter loud and genuine.
You stopped long enough to take stock of how you looked and shrivelled up internally. No shoes, cartoon characters in big bright colours on your socks. Rumpled clothes, tangled hair, and, yep – a rubber duck stuck on your shoulder. The very clearly angelic magic portal hovered proudly in the centre of the lobby, and only one person in the hotel could have been responsible for it.
You rushed over to Alastor, waving a threatening finger at the side of your giant takeaway box.
“I see someone’s having a good evening,” Husk muttered as you arrived, and you turned the same gesture on him.
“Look,” you hissed at Alastor, who had dissolved into a painful sounding wheezing. There were tears in the corners of his eyes and it took your every ounce of effort not to start laughing with him, though you knew your amusement was clear on your face. “I am having a day, okay?”
Alastor clapped a hand down on your shoulder, jostling the pancakes you were clinging to for emotional support.
“Or someone is, sweetheart,” he cackled.
He plucked the rubber duck from your shoulder and squeaked it at you, elegant in a way only Alastor could have managed, then placed it on top of your takeaway box.
“Do say hello to His Royal Highness for me.”
You pulled a face at him, muttered shut up, and turned away, making for the portal as fast as you could. The last thing you wanted was to run into Charlie.
The portal snapped closed the second you stepped through it, and Lucifer lay on his back scrolling through his phone. His upper half was out of the blankets and propped up on the pillows instead, which you took to be a win. He dropped his phone as soon as you came back.
“What took ya so long?” He asked, making no comment on the enormous size of your box. “Oh hey, I was looking for him!”
He leaned over to grab the duck, then balanced it perfectly on his head.
The display had the desired effect of making you laugh. You sat next to him, then opened up the box and presented his pancakes to him with a flourish.
“Oh, sweetheart I…” He took them from you reverently, holding the little paper plate they came on with both hands. His soft gaze was almost too much for you to bear. The pancakes clearly meant much more to him than you had thought they would. “They’re my favourite, how’d you know?”
God his voice was so gentle. You waved a hand, grinning to cover the pull in your chest. It was Alastor’s voice singing in the back of your head, listing off the many merits of wearing a smile. You would never give him the satisfaction of telling him he was right.
“Good guess.” You pulled out your own order and shared the disposable cutlery between you. “I know you said you weren’t hungry, but you really have to eat something, okay?”
Somehow, Lucifer’s expression grew even more affectionate and it took real effort not to duck your head and avoid it entirely.
“As if I wouldn’t eat something you got for me,” he murmured.
You laughed again, as if what he’d said was a joke and not the most achingly sincere thing anyone had said to you for a long time. You hadn’t even bought the damn pancakes.
You ate in companiable silence, enjoying some of the best junk food you’d ever tasted. By the time Lucifer set his plate aside, you were incredibly happy to find he was full of a lot more energy than he had been earlier. You could see beneath it that he was still tired, but his bright, loud will to live was back.
He stood up smoothly and collected his plate once you were done, walking to your side of the bed to take yours – and offering you a showman’s bow and an I’ll take that for you, my dear – before disappearing both with a flourish.
“Now, what do you say we take a walk downstairs and find out what’s been going on, hm?”
A coil of flame engulfed him with a snap of his fingers, and he was dressed in his usual suit and hat by the time it dissipated. You smiled at his enthusiasm, but then thought back to your last interaction with Alastor and groaned playfully.
“You know, I don’t think I can deal with them all again quite so soon,” you told him. “But you go! Charlie will be thrilled to see you.”
Lucifer tilted his head down at you.
“Again? What happened?”
“Ohh, nothing,” you said, your voice just a little too high. “I just… went down there. Looking like this.” You gestured to yourself expansively, Lucifer tracking the movement of your hand.
“Yeah? And?”’
You pursed your lips.
“Aaand, Alastor might have made a comment or two-”
“That god damned deer!”
Right. The whole don’t-mention-Alastor thing. Forgotten yet again.
Lucifer raised a hand to snap his fingers and presumably teleport himself downstairs to start another fight, so you launched yourself out of bed and grabbed his wrist before he could, fighting not to laugh. His free arm slid around you immediately and he stretched the other one out to the side, leading you in a couple of steps and a gentle spin as if you were dancing together.
“He was joking, I promise. Don’t say anything to him, okay?”
Lucifer drew you close as your grip on his wrist relented, gently cupping your face.
“If you’re sure,” he said softly. “But you don’t want to come down?”
You explained to him that somehow, despite having done literally nothing all day, it had gotten late and you were tired. You needed to get some sleep.
“You wanna stay here?” He offered, no pressure in the words whatsoever.
You declined anyway, thinking a little space would be a good thing, and he walked you as far as the main elevator downstairs, your room being on the other side of the hotel. Lucifer left you with a regal bow and a light kiss on the back of your knuckles, his eyes glinting in the half dark of the hallway as you turned away.
Tag list; @bizzardvark @violescent-scrolls @yourlocalcryptidbee @kittenlover614
Warnings; briefest mentions of murder, and Vox’s suicide attempt.
Pairings; Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) x Reader
Okay. This is just a hell of a lot of fluff. What can I say. Enjoy, and thank you to the commenters who asked for a part two!
Part one | Part three
Masterlist
-
The Great Quacksby faded back into your consciousness slowly. The ducks on screen were going through a flight sequence, dramatic violins in the accompaniment. You came to realise that you were laying comfortably on your side, your head supported by a pillow. You sighed and pressed your face into it a little further, closing your eyes once again.
Only for the pillow to shift under you and for a low chuckle to emanate from above your head.
You drew back blearily to find the fluff you were resting on was attached to Lucifer’s extravagant bathrobe. He was slouched a very long way down on the sofa, almost laying down himself, and you were curled around his middle with your head resting on his chest. He was leaning towards you too, but that wasn’t really the point.
You went to straighten, an apology on your lips, but a weight across your upper back held you quite firmly in place.
“Hey, no, no. You’re okay,” Lucifer murmured.
The weight was the arm he had resting on you. He pulled you closer into him, thumb stroking along your shoulder a few times. Then his hand shifted upwards, his fingers threading into your hair to gently massage the back of your head. You hadn’t realised that was what he had planned to do, so you had no time to prepare.
It was like he’d hit a switch.
You relaxed instantly, your bodyweight falling heavier against him. You pressed your face against his chest, knowingly this time, and let out a content breath which stirred the embellishments on the bathrobe. Lucifer laughed again, his tone rich.
“Yeah? That feel good?”
You knew you were being mocked, however good naturedly. But there was nothing you could do. Even the concerns flitting around the back of your mind – he was a king, a literal king and one of the seven deadly sins and you were sprawled out half on top of him and now you were the one acting like a cat but you just couldn’t help it – weren’t enough to get you to move.
Lucifer pressed his fingertips into one particular spot on the back of your neck, finding a knot of muscle which had been giving you headaches for weeks. He proceeded to dig at it with unparalleled concentration until it released. The small sound you made at the relief you felt was involuntary and completely unlike you, and it made heat race to your cheeks. But Lucifer just slid his other arm around your waist to hold you tighter.
“Ohh-kay, I know. I’m here,” he said, his voice unbelievably soft.
God – or somebody – help you, but you believed him. Even if he was still lightly making fun of you. You weren’t sure how much tempting he actually did, but you could see why he was so good at it.
Lucifer laid back against the veritable wall of pillows he had stacked up on his end of the sofa, taking you with him. You considered that, in addition to the issue of who exactly you were cuddling with, this was also somebody who you had only really spoken two words to up until a few hours ago. You did think about it. But then, you also thought that this was somebody who you had practically carried from one side of Pentagram City to the other after he had been tortured by an overlord willing to kill himself if it meant taking Alastor with him. So maybe this situation was already strange enough that you could stop overthinking it.
Decision made, you gave up. You looped your arms around Lucifer’s waist, missing the glow in his eyes when he smiled down at you.
“There you go,” he told you.
His hands ran slowly up and down your back, gently comforting. He wasn’t paying all that much attention to one of his favourite movies.
“Are you okay?” You asked, shifting a little to meet Lucifer’s gaze.
“Me? Oh yeah, I’m great.” He gave you a genuine smile. “Uh, how are you?”
That too was openly genuine. You started laughing before you could help yourself, fingers curling around the oversized sleeve of the sweater he had given you. His smile broadened to match yours as he tilted his head down towards you.
“What’s funny?”
You shook your head in amusement at the sincerity. You thought you had known so much about the Devil, but he was proving you wrong at every turn.
“How long was I asleep?”
He went with the change of direction in conversation immediately, without question.
“Just over an hour.”
You glanced down at his chest, just now realising that you were laying on top of the wounds you had so carefully bandaged just a short while earlier. You went to move off of him only for Lucifer’s grip to tighten around you immovably. You felt his fingers splay over your ribs, his forearms press down over your spine. He looked almost comically betrayed.
“Where’re you goin’?”
This time, your huff of laughter bordered on exasperation.
“Lu, it’s been what – three hours since you were tortured so badly you could hardly walk? And here I am laying on your injuries. Wouldn’t not doing that be better for you?”
He made a show of thinking about it.
“Hmm. Nope!”
“Lu-”
“Sweetheart, you’re adorable. But I am technically an angel. Still. You can’t hurt me.”
Except, clearly he could be hurt. That said, he was letting you make zero headway in your attempts to get away from him for his own benefit.
“Look,” you said as you struggled to get a strategic elbow beneath yourself to push your weight up and off of him.” I just think-”
“Ah.”
The sound was sharp, accompanied by a click of his tongue and the sweeping of that hard won elbow out from under you. He pressed you down in a way that had to be aggravating his wounds, but he showed no signs of discomfort. In fact, when you conceded to do what he wanted and stopped fighting him, he looked incredibly self-satisfied.
“There. Was that so hard? No it was not. Now stop worrying about me and watch the movie.”
You narrowed your eyes at him and received a bright smile in response, before he turned back to the television screen. Which he had not been paying the slightest bit of attention to since you woke up. And which he had probably stopped watching at some point between you falling asleep and ending up using him as a pillow.
His apparent fondness for physical touch betrayed him, however. His hands ran soothingly up and down your back without pause, one occasionally coming to cup the back of your neck before returning to join the other. He also let you watch him without comment, perfectly at ease. Concern twisted in your gut.
All you really knew about Lucifer was that he had secluded himself from just about everyone, ranging from the other sins to his only daughter. He didn’t really do anything to rule Hell, presumably aside from behind-the-scenes work which no one knew about. Even at the hotel, he made sure to keep himself separate from everyone a lot of the time. For someone who was so obviously enjoying your proximity – a sinner at that, all of whom he supposedly hated, and someone who he hardly knew – to act in such a way made your heart ache. You were in no position to ask about it, but you could at least check in on him after the events of the day.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” you tried again, finding his attention locked onto you as soon as you spoke. “After everything that happened.”
His gaze softened, and he looked at you like he thought you were the cutest thing he’d ever seen. You supposed you could see why. A low level sinner like you worrying about the wellbeing of the King of Hell probably was funny from his side.
“I already told you I’m fine,” he said gently.
Lucifer’s hand slid up to cup your jaw, his thumb lightly caressing your cheek. The touch was softer than you ever would have expected and you leaned into it without hesitation.
“I know you did, Lu.”
His gaze seemed to bore straight through into whatever was left of your soul. It made choosing your words that much more difficult.
“I just… I don’t know if you have anyone you can talk to about anything, but I’m here, okay? Whatever it is.”
His thumb stilled, his expression unreadable. In the moment of silence which followed, you began to worry you had somehow said the wrong thing. Offended him in some way.
Then, in one swift movement, Lucifer’s hand moved to the back of your head and pulled you back down to him. He trapped your head beneath his chin so that you could neither look at him nor move away, and returned to wrapping his arms around your back. You stayed tense for a minute or two, not knowing what that meant. But you let yourself relax after deciding that if he was upset, he would have just said something. He rewarded you by running his hands up and down your back once again.
-
Lucifer’s mind was reeling. He had wanted desperately to gloss over your serious, genuinely kind offer with humour, like he always did. Something loud and funny enough that you would forget what you had said, or at least not realise the weight your words carried for him. But as he looked down at you and you stared right back, he had found he couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t just accept the offer either. You clearly had no place in Hell, but he had grown dangerously fond of you over the last few hours. When did something like that ever work out well for him? And when did something like that in so short a time ever work out well for anybody?
He couldn’t even bring himself to offer you a simple thank you. Physical touch he was good at. Deep and meaningful conversations, and Heaven forbid, feelings? Less so. He was beginning to get the impression you might have been the same. It wasn’t enough, but the touch was just going to have to do for now. He really hoped you would understand.
