Masochism Tango | Alastor & Lucifer & Vox

chapter 11

Alastor needed a way out. He knew he could never break the deal with conditions like that.

Alastor had already tested the limits of his pain tolerance, how much he could take before he didn't like hurting himself — he had burned himself, cut himself, choked himself, hit himself, even broken his own bones. What could you possibly do to him he hadn't already done to himself?

There's no way he couldn't enjoy it.

Some say masochism is a disease of the mind, a disorder than some are cursed to live with. Sometimes, Alastor agreed. And this was one of the instances where he did.

Alastor sighed into his palm, running his gloved hand down his face as strands of his red and black tresses fell over his eyes, disrupting his vision. He sat at a desk in his room, surrounded by books all about infamous torture methods and how they were executed.

Psychological torture? He had read about that. Alastor was far too smart to be manipulated with torture. Isolation? Not a bother. Alastor can do well to entertain himself. Cold or hot temperatures? Fuck, it was Hell. Heat wouldn't bother him, and when he was alive in Louisiana, he spent a lot of time outside in the woods hunting rabbits or burying bodies in the biting cold when he wasn't being a famous radio show host.

Alastor was at a loss. You had wondered how far you could push him until he breaks, inquired about how much you could hurt him until he no longer enjoyed it — but he had always been this way, since a child, hurting himself for pleasure and relief.

Alastor's eyes fell over the stacks of books and papers on his desk all about torture methods, already having gone through and scanned and studied all of them. Nothing. There was nothing you could do to him he wouldn't enjoy in some twisted, psychotic way.

So he had to find another way out of this deal. If he really wanted full power that badly, if he truly wanted to be rid of his leash you held over his head so he could step all over the Overlords and higher-ups of Hell that always dismissed him when he first came here, if he really wanted to prove himself, he had to resort to desperate measures.

Desperate measures meaning the King of Hell.

He didn't want to do this, but he saw no other way. Alastor was an analytical, observant man — he saw the way Lucifer reacted when he swept you away to dance to the tango, the way his expression contorted into one of bitter resentment and jealousy. Lucifer cared about you, maybe even more than a friend, and although Alastor is not one to completely understand romantics, he saw it clear as day. Maybe Lucifer doesn't even know it.

Does Lucifer know about your deal with Alastor? Assuming he does, he could use that against you with just a sprinkle of situational manipulation. Lucifer wants something more from you than you already have given in your thousands-of-years-long companionship, and Alastor noticed it from the very beginning of his reunion of you. Alastor could play on those strong feelings and use them to his advantage...

Think. He thought ceaselessly to himself, burying his hands in his hair and pulling out strands of it in frustration and stress. He needed a plan, some way to convince Lucifer to help him. He didn't like Lucifer at all, in fact, he despised him, found him insufferable not only for his mere personality, but also because of his sheer incompetence as a father and King. Seeing him interact with Charlie at the ball angered Alastor, threatened his ability to get out of his deal — he had planned to use her, originally, to get to you and then somehow weasel his way in to make a deal with the Princess of Hell to relieve him of his deal with you, but that idea had to be temporarily scrapped, for the situation presented him with a better one. Lucifer, and his curious relationship with you.