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The threat hadn't been a particularly tough one, though they had been persistent. The nearly feral demon had been causing a fuss, and the only reason Alastor had gotten involved was because it had wandered too close to the Hotel and was causing a ruckus for the guests and posing a threat to any who were in the area. Charlie hadn't particularly liked the outcome – she never did like it when things resorted to violence – but there hadn't been any reasoning with it. The Radio Demon would have thought it as rabid if such things existed in Hell. The only reason that it didn't was that if you had no mind, you couldn't really appreciate the horror, the suffering of your punishment. And that sort of defeated the purpose. It was like being allowed to die by any means other than the annual Cleanse. You can't be punished if you don't have a mind to appreciate the punishment. You can't be hurt if you can't register the pain.
Afterward, he'd noted the strange gunk on his hand, thick and sticky, branching like a crack, or a web, and he'd cleaned it off with the rest of the gore as best he could – according to Charlie, it sent a poor message if he walked around the Hotel covered in others' vital fluids. Besides, it was rather ungentlemanly to look so unkempt.
He didn't think about it for several days.
Alastor always wore his gloves. There were a number of reason for this. For one it completed his look. Another reason was that it helped with his feelings about touch. He didn't have much issue with it when he was the one initiating contact, but ones hands were also one of the most common places for touch. And as a Deal-maker, he needed to shake demon's hands to seal the Deal, and he had to let people shake his hand in those instances. He couldn't be one the to initiate it. Those wasn't so bad: he knew it was coming, and was in fact the one inviting it. But the small extra barrier of the glove helped.
With them and the rest of his outfit, the only skin that was visible was his face and the topmost part of his neck. He didn't prance about half naked – ahem Angel Dust – so it took a while for him to notice the marks on his arm. Starting from his hand, they streaked up his arm, like veins or roots traveling to new areas. It almost looked like blackened scars, and when he looked at it just so he almost thought he could see a faint shimmer.
Maybe it was an infection of some kind – that was fairly common in Hell. Nothing that could end your existence, of course, but it would make you miserable. He'd thought he'd heard about something going around. There was something like a warning in the back of his head, but Alastor dismissed it. If he'd caught something, he'd caught something, it wasn't going to end him, and it wasn't affecting his work. It simply, at this point, was an aesthetic blemish, and do to his conservative – appropriate – manner of dress, one that would be a non-issue.
The marks continued to spread.
Alastor continued to dismiss the idea that anything was wrong. Well, with him.
That thing there had been whispers of going around had a name now. Demons were calling it the Corruption. Made them feral, like that one he'd dealt with over a month ago. Aggressive, with no recall of who they were, no recognition of anything. They would just attack, and keep attacking until they were eliminated. Alastor thought it a bit laughable to call this corruption – weren't all Sinner corrupt already? Wasn't that why they were down here in the first place?
The Radio Demon had been almost feeling like there was a whisper in the back of his mind though. He'd become annoyed more often and easily, even with those whose company he had come to enjoy. He'd heard some serial killers describe their urges to kill as a voice, whispering to them, goading them. Alastor had always been in more control of his violent tenancies, never had that feeling that there was something else driving him to it, something outside his control. If he wanted to kill, he would do it, or sometimes even if he felt like killing he wouldn't. But maybe he was starting to develop such a voice. He wouldn't let it control him though, no more than if someone physically was whispering in his ear.
At the very back of his mind, there was a whisper of a river in Egypt.
A few more Corrupted Sinners wandered close to the Hazbin Hotel, and Alastor went out to deal with them. Charlie told him to be careful, because of course she was concerned. She needn't have worried, of course, he was the Radio Demon.. But the dear worried about everyone she cared about, no matter whether they needed it or not. It still amused and touch him that the too-pure-for-Hell princess of this whole shebang cared as much as she did about a proud, unrepentant murder such as himself. He watched people suffer and laughed in amusement, but she still saw something in him that made her think there was something good. Something worth protecting. She'd confided in him once that he was one of those she cared for the most. Charlie had framed it as how much she would miss him when he was gone – redeemed and in Heaven. He'd laughed at the notion, declaring he enjoyed his sins, Hell, and his power far too much. He wasn't going to be redeemed, not ever, so she was stuck with him. Charlie had confessed that she felt guilty because she selfishly liked the idea that he would be around, that they could still be together. Alastor had told her that there was no reason. She wasn't keeping him here, she wasn't even guilting him. It was alright for her to feel happy that someone she cared for would stick around.
Alastor had dealt with the mindless demons without problem, but his eyes widened slightly when he saw the dark, creeping marks webbing over their skin. He almost thought there was a glint of something bright to them as well.
But no, their eyes were black, not empty as though they had been gouged out, not sunken with demonic power, but as though they were covered with the black. Like the corruption had covered over their eyes, swallowed them.
Someone certainly would have remarked on those.
There was nothing wrong.
He squashed the alarm threatening to rise, that feeling in the back of his mind. No. No.
When he came back inside, Charlie asked him if he was alright, and he assured her that he'd dealt with the issue, that everything was fine. Because it was.
The spidery lines had started to creep up his neck.
He discovered this when Charlie caught a glimpse of it, but when she asked if there was something, he'd brushed it off as a trick of the light and redirected her attention. He was mostly successful, she dropped the line of questioning, but she still looked at him with that touch of concern in her eyes.
It irritated him. He wanted her to stop looking at him with that concern. He was fine.
He wanted to dig his claws into her and pull out that bleeding heart. Give her something to be concerned about. She couldn't look at him like that if he ripped off her face –
Alastor firmly strangled that line of thought and fled with the barest minimum excuse.
He raced to his room and sealed the door. Latch. Lock. Wards.
He went to his connected bathroom and leaned over the sink. Slashed some water on his face.
Alastor was no stranger to dark desires and violent impulses. But never with Charlie. He didn't want to hurt her, the ideas that had flashed through his mind made him sick. Even when he had first come to the Hotel, he hadn't intended to harm anyone there. He hadn't cared back then, would have if it suited his purposes, but it hadn't been his goal. And he'd come to connect with the original residents of the Hotel. Especially Charlie. They'd connected through their shared love of the arts and propensity to break into song and dance. It had been a long time since he had a partner go along with him willingly. Most of the time they were resistant, or simultaneously limp and tense, mechanical, going along because they didn't feel they had any choice or fear of what he would do if offered the slightest resistance.
Madding whispers that sounded foreign swirled in his head.
He swiped a claw through the air, gouging the wall just under the mirror. And his eyes widened in absolute horror. Because in that brief instant he had seen his reflection in the mirror. His eyes had been black. Not sunken with red dials quivering like when his power rose, but covered in that blackness.
No.
No.
No, no no, no , no.
But no matter how much Alastor willed it to be so, he couldn't deny it anymore. It had been staring him in the face for a month, and he was too stubborn and foolish to admit it. Too proud.
Alastor had the Corruption.
It was Charlie who lead the charge coming to see him. Of course it was. But he wasn't going to let her in. The Radio Demon was trying to figure out a plan to deal with this... affliction.
Because now, for once in his existence, there were people – besides his mother – he didn't want to hurt. Or, more accurately, there were people he specifically wanted not to hurt.
The obvious idea was to leave, but that was stupid. Oh, at first glance it solved the problem: he couldn't hurt those close to him if he wasn't near them. But if he just transported himself somewhere else to be consumed by the corruption, eventually he'd wander back. Or worse , Charlie would deliberately go out to find him.
Like she was doing now.
Now that he wasn't in denial, pretending nothing was wrong, ignoring it, Alastor could feel the foreign thing. It hadn't completely taken him over, not yet. He could keep it at bay, for now, as long as nothing set him off.
He knew, down to his bones, that seeing anyone would do so.
Seeing anyone else – victims – would push him over that edge.
“Alastor...”
“Charlie, go. I can't let you in. I won't. If I do I will be taken over completely and I will attack you.” He paused and then said something, a word he'd rarely spoken in his entire existence. “Please, Charlie.”
Behind the door, the Radio Demon, heard a low discussion, followed by the shuffling of the Hotel contingent. He'd moved away from the door to continue to work on the problem at hand while he still had the sense to, but then turned in horror when he heard, felt, Charlie open the door, forcing her way through locks, wards and all.
No no no. Was all he could think as the corruption swallowed him. Run, you fool, before I kill you.
Of course Charlie came to save him even when there was nothing left to be saved That was just how she was.
With a great effort of will Alastor held back the thing that used to be him from attacking the princess. Charlie was the only one in the Hotel with the power to put him down. Maybe that was why she had sent the others away. Maybe.
She's too attached. She never gives up on hopeless causes. She'll try reasoning with me, but she'll fail because I'm gone and I'll kill her.
“Alastor,” Charlie said, stepping forward.
The thing that used to be him opened its gaping, dripping maw to tear into her, and just barely he was able to stop himself from tearing open her throat.
She placed her hand on his chest, and they burned. The corruption bucked and hissed in his mind, and raised a clawed hand to shred her, swat her away, and it took every fiber of Alastor that remained to stop it. Whatever Charlie was doing hurt, so it was damaging him, so she had to continue because that would stop him and keep him from hurting – killing – those he'd come to care fore. Keep him from killing her.
“Alastor, I know you're in there, I know you're fighting. You're stubborn, and never let anymore make you do something you don't want to. You're violent, and sadistic, and you say you're beyond redemption but you're wrong! You're also polite when you want, blunt, but say what needs to be said, you don't sugarcoat things, but you offer help. You have a moral code, and you stick to it, and you go to great lengths to protect those you care about. You're capable of love and are loved.”
Charlie's arms had slipped around him in a hug by this point and the corruption withed in her grasp. Every point of contact burned at he held on with everything left in him to let Charlie finish whatever it was she was doing. She was hurting this thing, whatever it was, so obviously she was exorcising him somehow. Her words were contradictory in that sense, but maybe they were for comfort – hers or his. Holding out hope that it was true and he could fight this with her even as she erased the tainted thing that used to be him.
Well... he supposed he was, sort of. Holding himself back to let her do what needed to be done,
“I am not giving up on you, so don't you dare give up on yourself! Even if you never make it to Heaven, even if no one does, we can still make things better.”
The corruption, which had started to weaken, rallied itself to strike Charlie down, claws poised to strike at her heart through her back.
“NO!”
And with that, between the scorching from where Charlie was in contact with him, and power Alastor pulled from depths of his being that he knew not where it was from, the corruption began to disintegrate with a writhing, failing death wail. Shimmering a bright light that felt foreign to Hell. The two were surrounded by light and when it faded, Alastor was back to his usual form, the corruption gone from him, eyes clear, though the Radio Demon was drained. He had just enough time to realize that he still existed before he passed out.
“No!” a winged being exclaimed, clad in white, blending into the fluffy cloud architecture that surrounded them, looking down at Hell through a scrying bowl. “That's impossible! How in our holy Lord's name did that, that princess of all that is dark and evil and that tainted Sinner free him from our Corruption?!”
The forces of Heaven had taken note of the so-called “Hazbin Hotel” that dared to think it could raise filthy Sinners to their holy gates, and had decided to do something about it. The last Extermination, they had cast down a Corruption, that would eventually inflict one of those within its walls to tear the place to the ground. Teach those lowly Sinners their place and if it managed to destroy that princess all the better.
But it hadn't! Somehow they had managed to banish the Corruption from the so-called “Radio Demon”, as if he wasn't the lowest, most vile scum.
There was no way.
It was not possible that there was anything good down in Hell. That was reserved for those here, who lived in Paradise.
Everyone knew that.
It was a fluke. That was the only explanation.
Because those in Hell were evil. They were in Hell because they were evil and corrupt. To the core. Those that were born there, like that princess, where born there because they were born evil. Evil incarnate.
Obviously.
Heaven was pure, and therefore they were just and right. Hell was nothing but a scourge of evil. As it always had been. Anyone who thought differently was wrong. And needed to be eliminated.
And they were Right to do so, because they were in Heaven which meant they were good and whatever they did was right.
Beyond the vastness of comprehension, a being older than time looked upon all, and wept.