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Alastor walks inside his own home, and all he wants to do is collapse on his bed and sleep for a decade.
Alastor’s home in hell is no manor or anything of the sort, like most people expect it to be. It is buried in the middle of a street with houses similar to his own, in the edges of the city. Close enough to the hotel, but not to anything else. It is full of things he has made or collected throughout his decades in hell.
There’s a needlework kit next to his favorite chair in the living room. A stack of dolls he has made from scratch, dolls of the people who worked with him at the hotel and, of course, Vox. On the nearest shelf, there’s automated toys Vox has built out of wood, a spark of electricity and determination while he was waiting for Alastor to come back home. The living room shelves are cluttered with books and manuals he has read, and, yes, he does own a television set, thank you very much .
Near the entrance, there’s a telephone, which he rarely uses, but it is always very useful to own one. Vox usually calls through the radio, which Alastor has many spread out through the house. Husker, despite himself, sends letters to Alastor, sometimes, wanting to know if the other demon is okay or not, especially after exterminations. These days, the only one who calls him is Charlie.
He locks the door and removes his coat and bow tie, hanging them up on the coat hanger. Alastor undresses himself of his smile, too, because there’s no one to see him like this. There’s no reason for him to do it, and he doesn’t want to do it. Usually, as soon as he’s inside, the radios in his house turn on, tuning in to one of the many stations there are available, but not tonight.
On the living room’s walls, there are pictures Alastor has conjured of memories. There are pictures of him and his mother, as well as he remembers them. He has no pictures of his father, the man doesn’t deserve a place in his wall. There are pictures of him and the other demons of the hotel, pictures of Husker and Nifty and Vox. There is even one of him and Vox, close together, intimate enough but not denouncing anything.
Alastor walks inside the kitchen, wanting to make himself something to eat, and sees a cold cup of coffee on the kitchen table. He had abandoned it there when Charlie had called him and asked for his immediate presence at the hotel. Apparently, Husker and Angel had gotten themselves into a fight, and Alastor was left to bandage them both.
He looks at the offending cup for a long, sour moment, before throwing it away in the sink. He’s not hungry anymore.
Alastor crosses a hallway and an automated dog made by Vox barks at him. It scares him, how sudden everything is, and the Radio Demon hates Vox, hates the TV Overlord, hates him with all he has. He’s unreasonably angry all of a sudden, and it takes a while until he reminds himself of the truth.
You don’t hate him, not really.
Alastor goes upstairs and, as soon as he reaches his bedroom, he removes his clothes. A bath for relaxation is in order, he does have to admit he overworked himself. He removes the rest of his clothes, depositing them inside the hamper in his room. He leaves his gloves on the nightstand and removes his ace ring from them.
Alastor stares, for a moment, at the ace ring. It had been a gift from Vox, a simple black ring. Vox explained that it’s a symbol for the asexual community, a plain black ring worn on the middle finger. The conversation about that had started because of Charlie. They were lying in bed together, talking about the pride day Charlie had managed to coax all of them into — including Vox, of course, he was practically a patron.
Alastor refused to wear a broach, or carry a flag, not wanting to participate of that. Being asexual had always caused him troubles when he was alive — even now that he was dead, he still faced discrimination — so he had not wanted to participate of the pride event. Vox had been the one to convince him.
Alastor had always been fascinated with the Victorian era in England. And one of the most interesting things about that period was that homosexual men would wear green carnations on their pockets to display their homosexuality in a discreet way. So, when Vox gave him the ace ring and told him that it was a symbol of pride, the TV demon told Alastor to think of it as the flower.
The ring was a bit too small for his middle finger — where it was supposed to be worn — so Alastor wore it on his ring finger, on top of his gloves, in his right hand. No one knew the meaning of it anyway (except for Vox and the people at the hotel), so he saw no harm in it.
He sinks into the tub, relishing in the warm water for a few moments, before he finally looks towards the shelf where he keeps his bath supplies.
There are shampoo bottles for his fur, made especially for deer demons. The only soap that doesn’t make his skin rash is nearly gone now, so thin with use as it is, and Alastor does have to check if the demon who makes them didn’t get exterminated.
As soon as he dries himself, Alastor heads inside his bedroom to put on his pajamas. He brushes his hair and his tail, dries them enough with the electric hairdryer Vox has bought him, and lies down on the bed, covering himself with the covers. As he falls asleep, the lights turn off.
He wakes up in the middle of the night to the bed dipping. Alastor has always been a light sleeper, and Vox, knowing he has woken the other demon, apologizes. He lies down face up on the bed, and Alastor moves to cuddle him.
“How was your day?” he asks, in a whisper.
“Busy,” Vox answers, frowning a bit, closing his eyes. His screen is dimmed a lot, to not hurt Alastor’s eyes. “You know how Valentino is. Yours?”
“Busy too. Husker and Angel got into a fight, and Charlie had me running errands,” he sighs. “Just a bad day,” he says. “It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.”
“Oh.”
Vox pulls him closer, as if Alastor wasn’t already plastered against his side. Alastor presses a kiss to the other demon’s neck, and Vox hums.
Together, they fall asleep.