#spawn of evil

 April 1934 - Alastor’s POV

The last moment he truly remembers before waking up in this unfamiliar place was staring into the face of his Angry ex-coworker as they leveled a pistol towards his face. 

Just a week prior to that event, that ex-coworker was caught by their boss screaming slurs at me for getting a pay raise that they wanted. 

Something that would have been met with a slap on the wrist had Donald not picked up that microphone, chucking it at my head. Luckily I dodged!

Sadly (for Donald) my boss didn’t.

But no one truly knows the fate that will greet them upon their entrance into the afterlife. 

I continue to lay down in a comfortable daze, gazing up at the ceiling painted like the night sky until a dainty hand rubs along my stomach. It’s when something within me kicks back that my chest fills with dread and panic.

. . .why . . . why is my stomach so distended!?!

Despite how tired I feel, I try to scramble away though I don’t get further than sitting up before I’m gently pushed back down as my benefactor Roo is now carefully caressing my shaky limbs. When she finally cups my face to turn my head towards her, I see?

                                                                 What is? Why?

The emotion imbedded deep within her eyes is indescribable.                unsettling

“Ah, the four months tending to you my sweet deer have finally yielded results, welcome back darling” she cooed in a honey sweet tone 

“They are certainly taking a lot out of you, not letting you wake up until they had eaten almost all of your sins.” she says in a increasingly giggly tone before going back to rubbing at my stomach.

 “Who knew that my magic would take our deal so literally. You need to not worry anymore about getting caught for it will be as if your sins shall forevermore be a person separate from you. Ooooh the euphoria of experiencing something pure and new after watching centuries of hellish cruelty is fueling me.” 

she takes a moment to breath as the edges of her body start collapsing into shadow “Once a long time ago I spent centuries doing my duty as the mother of humanity before I became this and now through magic i will get to experience the life of a father.” 

The painful truth of what is happening settles in my bones as the parasite within me squirms. Taking upon a somber disposition she hands me an ornate key that beholds a tree dotted with red eyes for fruit. Wrapped around it is a note. 

Slowly being pulled back into the fabric of Hell absentmindedly as her body is now nothing but shifting shadows and glowing eyes gives him no time to get a word in  

“If existence was fair I could stay by your side so instead i’m leaving you this forest territory. Don’t worry my darling deer should you survive giving birth your soul will return to you.“

All i can do is Watch with a detached numbness. 

Magic: the Gathering - Festive Infernal Spawn of Evil

To add to the mental dissonance of Alastor not recognizing the baby, it's an eldritch mess of eyes and shadowy tendrils.

This is, of course, not at all unusual for angel infants - it takes a while for them to decide what they want to look like and what gender they want to have. Lucifer thinks it's cute how often the eye colors change and how it can't seem to decide how many mouths it wants to have, but he and Vaggie are the only ones who have the instinctive "oh this is a child from my species". Charlie's almost got that gut feeling every now and again, but she doesn't remember her own eyes-and-wings phase, so it's extremely unusual even for the most accustomed to Hell being Hell.

That’s not getting into his relationship with food after months not being able to eat anything but Lucifer’s blood and whatever Bee could find. Not a doctor but pretty sure I’ve heard it takes lots of slow buildup to get someone on food after fasting a fraction of the time Alastor’s pregnancy lasted.

It makes perfect sense for him to put a mental barrier between himself and the kid and consider kid and parasite to be two different things. How else is he supposed to cope with that?

After the scare of what happened if Alastor lost access to the angelic blood and his increasing dependence on it to live, Lucifer and Alastor made the decision to move him from the hotel to the hospital in the Sloth ring for the remaining weeks of the pregnancy. Doctors under the supervision of Belphegor (Sin of Sloth) could use that time to make sure everything was in order, accounting for Alastor’s opioid allergy and running through what his recovery was going to look like. No surprises.

Except for one on the day of the delivery. Alastor was put under anesthesia for the procedure, and the surgery began without a hitch, but a factor no one considered was the child’s own opinion about being delivered so early. Survivable did not mean preferable, and the child fought back against Lucifer and Belphegor’s attempts at early delivery, which if handled wouldn’t impact Alastor’s recovery, but if not handled would cost his life. 

Alastor, of course, didn’t know any of this. He couldn’t hear Lucifer’s panic or pleas to stay with him. He woke up suddenly in a black void, separate from his body and feeling Roo pulling at the chain around his neck. This had happened before, when Roo healed his wounds from the extermination, but it was different this time. 

“Roo?”

“I can’t have you slipping away just yet. Lucifer is healing you as we speak. You will recover with his aid, but I won’t take any chances.”

Alastor made a mental note Lucifer owed him money after this. He made bets something unexpected was going to happen. Regardless of his opinion on the thing growing inside him, there were enough of his genes in the mix that nothing could be simple. Nothing Lucifer couldn’t handle, which made this all the more confusing. 

“Why are you here? You were content to let me rot, and you got what you wanted. That thing of yours should be born by now. What use am I to you if by your terms I am free?”

“You are worth nothing to me anymore, but… you were worth enough to someone else that letting you go has become more than worth my while.” 

Before Alastor could get her to explain, he woke up in the recovery room to Lucifer giving him blood to help him heal and crying with relief to see him wake up. Alastor felt free for the first time in eight years, the chain around his neck was gone, and he could hear the cries of… something in the nearby room.

But any relief or pain or any emotion at all was overpowered by shock. Shock and dread, knowing that if Roo suddenly ensuring his survival was worth her while, someone else had paid the price. This whole ordeal was never just about the 'child,' was it? Roo used him to set a trap for someone, so no matter the outcome, she would have a way to win.