Chapter Text
For weeks now, Alastor had been acting… off.
It was nothing huge. Nothing entirely suspicious. Just little things, like the fact he wasn’t swinging his staff around all the time—Charlie wasn’t entirely sure when she’d last seen it, actually—or the fact that he hadn’t smiled nicely since reappearing in the rebuilt hotel—she missed the way his softest smile made her heart ache—or the fact that none of his violent jokes had been lame puns. They weren’t even funny, really, so much as just horrible statements. And he wasn’t showing off as much. He didn’t click things into existence or summon instruments or bring out his weird little puppet demons. In fact, aside from zipping around in shadow form more than ever, he didn’t seem to be using much magic at all. And he was barely leaving the hotel.
Which was understandable. While he seemed fine, he did lose his fight with Adam. Or at least, they assumed he had – not even Husk believed Alastor would have just abandoned it without a reason, and had instead theorised that Alastor “got his tail handed to him and had to run for it. Don’t imagine he’s taking it well.” Everyone was quietly assuming he was a lot more injured than he was letting on.
But even so, it was all just a tiny bit weird.
And then, one night, when Charlie was visiting the kitchen for a midnight glass of milk, she opened the door to find Alastor standing in the darkness, hunched over a single apple lit only by a red-yellow glow from his face.
“It’s a question, just a question, and it’s been haunting my mind,” he sang, so softly that she could barely hear it over the beating of her heart. There was no music to go with it, just soft, almost shaky vocals, and it froze her more than anything else he could have done. “Can an angel that’s fallen truly be defined by their actions or intentions, or is it a lie? Just divine comedy or a trick of the mind?”
Her mother had built Hell on song, so sometimes people did find themselves singing whether they meant to or not, but this… Alastor almost never sang on his own. It was always a response to someone else – he would pick up the tune and take it over, usually tearing away control from the original vocalist and making them look stupid in the same breath. This song was strange on so many levels.
“All these questions, all these questions, by what right do I ask?” he continued, gaining strength and volume as his hands tightened on the bench top. “When I can’t even know what’s my choice or a task? Do I act by my hand or by what they demand? Is that pride or just envy that defines you, voodoo man?”
And then, as she watched, his shadow reared up behind him, bigger and even darker than usual, and then dove down over him, crushing him down into the shadows and out of the kitchen like a tidal wave.
Charlie stared at the place he’d been, wondering what she’d just witnessed.
And then, when she woke up in the morning, it was to discover neither she nor Vaggie could say a single word. There were glowing green stitches etched across their mouths.
“Alright, you tacky piece of shit, fix my daughter now or so fucking help me I will roast your –”
Lucifer’s (embarrassingly gleeful) promise of retribution died out as they looked around Alastor’s room, Charlie’s eyes going wide with horror while everyone else just tensed up.
It looked like a bomb had gone off.
All his furniture was tossed around, the sitting chairs literally bobbing in the swamp, his books strewn across the floor. There were huge gouges in the walls, and the air was thick with the acrid scent of Alastor’s magic, but the demon himself was nowhere to be found.
“Ho-ly shit,” Angel said, pushing his way in to get a better look. “I mean, puttin’ aside the whole swamp thing… no, actually, fuck that. Is that a whole-ass swamp?”
“That’s nothin’ new,” Husk said. He leaned against the doorframe, arms folded defensively over his chest and every inch of him signalling he wasn’t planning to take a single step further into the room. “He’s always liked that little touch of home.”
“The trash is new!” Niffty said, darting in to pick up a splinter of his overturned bookshelf. “Alastor is usually much tidier than this!”
“And the uh…” Angel gestured to the claw marks on the wall, and Husk’s jaw tensed.
“Yeah, that’s unusual.”
Lucifer hummed pleasantly as he joined Angel Dust in the room proper, looking around in interest. “Looks like the clown got his ass handed to him! I wonder who it was! Would love to shake their hand!”
Charlie and Vaggie both frowned at him, but they couldn’t really object right now. As much as Charlie kind of enjoyed how jealous her dad was of her relationship with Alastor, this was so incredibly not the time. Even ignoring the fact that apparently someone dangerous had snuck into the hotel without anyone but Alastor knowing, he was obviously in trouble, and that trouble was leaking on to the rest of them. Now was not a good time to be heckling his existence.
“Well, he’s clearly not licking his wounds here,” Lucifer continued lazily. “I suppose we should check that horrendous tower of his. If not, I’ll have to waste a little magic on finding the fuck. Come on, then.”
But Charlie thumped her foot, impatiently gesturing to the room. They needed to check it. Look for clues about what had happened.
“Oh, don’t you worry about it, sweetheart,” Lucifer laughed, waving it off. “We can figure all that out after I find him and tear him apart for what he’s done to you, obviously!”
God dammit, and her father still wondered why she sometimes preferred Alastor’s acerbic company to his? At least he fucking listened to her, even when he didn’t agree or give the slightest fucking damn about what she was saying! But no, her dad was always so fucking right, and –
A gentle touch on her arm made her look back to find Vaggie staring at her, her gaze soft but serious, and they exchanged quiet nods. They were going to stay and check things out.
Everyone else, however, trooped out, Angel Dust snickering with mischievous interest about being able to see the mysterious radio tower. That left the two girls to glance around again and then exchange blank stares. They didn’t really even know where to start.
With nothing else to do, Charlie went to the edge of the river, where she could start hauling the chairs up and out. Aside from the water damage, they didn’t seem broken at all, which implied they’d just been thrown or swept aside. Not like the bookshelf, which had the marks from oversized talons gouging into its sides. Someone had definitely intended for that to fall over. But mess and damage aside, there didn’t seem to be anything specific to give them ideas about what had happened.
“Oh, dear! Well, isn’t this a state!”
They looked up, hope and worry fluttering in Charlie’s chest as she recognised none other than the Cannibal Overlord Rosie sashaying through the door. She hadn’t seen Rosie since before the final battle – she’d almost worried that the lovely demoness had been killed. For her to show up now, of all times…
“Oh, my, look at the two of you!” Rosie cried, hurrying over to take Vaggie’s jaw, tilting it up for a better look at the stitching. “How bad is it? Any pain?”
She shook her head, and Charlie trotted over to join them. Rosie switched her grip to Charlie’s chin instead, tilting her head back and forth the better to see the stitching. “Yeah, that’s a tough one, alright. Ooh, boy, he must’ve really done it this time. Any sign of him yet?”
Charlie shook her head, and gestured for the same kind of answer from Rosie.
“Honestly, sweetie, you think I’d have come here if I had?” she asked. “No offence, but ever since I heard your daddy moved in, I’d frankly rather be anyplace else! But I heard word that something was going on with my boy—” Rosie didn’t have visible eyes, but Charlie could swear she was looking up and around the room as she said it. “—so of course I had to come up and see what the story was.”
Vaggie was blinking, wide-eyed and confused, and Rosie laughed daintily, fluttering her hands.
“Oh, sorry, darling, how rude of me! I’m so used to having my boy around to do the introductions!”
This time, Charlie noticed something prickling on her skin. The radiant magic was rumbling.
“I’m Rosie, leader of Cannibal Town. And you, of course, must be Vaggie, our darling princess’s true love!” Rosie giggled as Vaggie blushed. “My, you are a cute one! No wonder you caught our girl’s eye, such a doll! Really, sweetheart,” she added to Charlie, “I thought we had an understanding after everything that happened! You should’a brought this one downtown, let me meet her! I want to know all about you,” she shot at Vaggie. “Alastor tells me bits and pieces but I’m sure you can understand that you weren’t really the focus of our conversations last time we were together, what with the angelic army on the way! Ha-ha, oh, such a time that was! Anyways. We will have to have tea, that’s obvious, but for now, today, it’s bad timing.” She paused, and then stepped past Charlie and Vaggie, twirling her umbrella down to brace against the ground in a move eerily similar to Alastor’s cane. She smiled thinly at the room around them. “Now, it’s time you give him back.”
Magic rippled through the air, and Alastor’s creepy red Cheshire grin split the darkness deep within the bayou. Rosie’s eyes narrowed.
“I said now, bitch.”
“Say what you like,” Alastor’s voice was smooth and confident, coming not from the direction of his smile but rather echoing around the room. “It doesn’t change what is.”
“But actions do, and actions made him mine eighty fucking years ago,” she said. “So you can give him back or I’ll be forced to make this an issue.”
“Oh, I think we’re long past that.” Shadows licked up out of the floor, tentacles writhing up and around until they formed Alastor’s general shape, and he slipped into existence. His eyes were glowing even more than usual. “You’re calling me yours? I don’t recall making any deals with you, Rosie.”
“I ain’t calling you anything but an envious little bitch,” she snapped. “It’s been ten thousand years and you’re still trying to steal everything I build.”
Alastor laughed, his antlers growing up and out into jagged points. “Big words from you. First my rightful gifts, and now you’re trying to claim my soul?”
“He ain’t fucking yours,” Rosie said, but Alastor’s grin only widened, the red of his sclera flooding with black as his pupils flared a brighter red.
“We’ve been over this a dozen times. Surely you aren’t still quibbling over fine print?”
Unable to hold back anymore, and sensing the impending switch to battle, Charlie burst past Rosie to grab at Alastor’s arm. He flinched, the red returning to his eyes as he stared down at her, and she stared back wildly, searching his face for clues.
There didn’t seem to be anything different about him. He was still smiling, and there weren’t any wounds or cracks in his visible skin. After a moment, something did flicker in his gaze, his eyes focussing on the stitches over her mouth for a split second before snapping away, his grin widening. He gently plucked her hand off his sleeve and dropped it, taking a pointed step back.
Maybe she was just too focussed on Alastor, but Charlie still jerked back with a silent shriek as Rosie’s umbrella suddenly lashed out, slamming into the side of Alastor’s head and sending him flying off to the side. Too shocked for anything else, Charlie stumbled back, hands clapped over her mouth as the only person Alastor seemed to have a genuine friendship with stalked after him, radiating violence.
“I ain’t telling you again, bitch!” she snapped. “Get the fuck out of my boy!”
“Fuck you, you self-important whore!” Alastor yelled back, six tentacles lashing out of his back to slam against the ground around him. “It’s my right!”
“It was never right!”
Movement made Charlie look around, and she had to jump to grab Vaggie, pulling her back from trying to intervene. She had no idea what was going on, but it was obvious there was something very wrong, and Charlie had the horrible feeling that stopping Rosie wasn’t going to help Alastor, and stopping Alastor wouldn’t help them regain their voices. They could only watch as Rosie advanced on the radio demon, who was growing larger, his limbs and antlers extending, glowing red stitches making themselves known on his ragged clothing as his eyes flickered into radio dials.
“Neither contract was valid,” Rosie said coldly. “Neither one was given with consent.”
“And yet they hold!” he growled. “So valid they are!”
“No, you just claim ownership when there is none! I picked him up, I raised him from the depths you abandoned him to! I gave him direction and purpose, and now you’re going to tear him apart to fuel your insane plans!”
“A fair exchange, I’d say!”
Rosie’s umbrella lashed out again, and Alastor roared, tentacles shooting forward in retaliation only to rebound off some kind of invisible shield with a clang of discordant notes. They did, however, snag Rosie’s umbrella, forcing her to yank it back, and the two overlords jumped apart, weapons at the ready.
“Burn in Hell!” Rosie suddenly sang, and Alastor stiffened, falling back a step. She swung out her umbrella like a toreador with a cape. “Burn in the depths! Find no forgiveness, you miserable wretch!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Alastor snapped, casting out four little shadow puppets, but Rosie spun away from them with a flare of her arms and legs, quick sweeps of power knocking them aside.
“Rise from perdition, rise out of sin! He’ll protect and he’ll serve you, if you’ll let us in!” she continued, and thrust her umbrella again like a lance, making Alastor stumble back again, a tentacle just barely batting it aside.
“You’re only proving my point!” he insisted. “Those were the deals!”
“With conflicting contracts, the boy is enslaved! But by choice and action, he’ll break free his chains!” she sang, and Alastor grabbed at one of his ears, twisting it in his fist.
“Stop it!”
“He’ll burn fire to ashes, his future’s not set. The phoenix will rise up, there’s strength in him, yet!”
“Be silent!” he shrieked, but Rosie only continued advancing.
“A boy sold so unjustly, bought like a crime, but now the young girl is watching, and still believes your lies,” she hissed as she stepped past the writhing shadows, glaring fearlessly up at his towering form, “So you’ll unhand my boy now, the last warning I’ll give, before I give up on Alastor, and start brand new, bitch.”
Alastor stared down at her for several seconds, glowing eyes wild, before he growled and then abruptly shrank back down to his normal size. If they didn’t know better, they might have thought it was the sudden shift in weight that made him stumble, but Rosie didn’t bother keeping her guard up, just grabbed him by the biceps to keep him upright. Charlie’s arms wrapped tighter around Vaggie as they caught sight of his face, the golden, glowing stitches from his true form binding his smile even tighter than before.
But then he blinked twice, his eyes flickering with static before he seemed to settle, and he pulled himself upright. Despite the whole situation, Charlie and Vaggie still gasped as the stitching on their faces snapped apart at the same time as Alastor’s own.
“Alastor?” Rosie prompted. “You back with us, dollface?”
“You know I hate it when you call me that,” he replied calmly, as if the entire last five minutes hadn’t happened, and she barked with laughter.
“Well, then stop making it the most apt name I got!”
He rolled his eyes, and Rosie’s smile faded as she looked at him for a few seconds, tilting her head as if that might help her see past his ever-present smile. “Don’t suppose you can talk about it?”
He chuckled and moved past her. “Rosie, darling, you know I adore you, but sometimes you really do ask the most inane questions. Charlie! Vaggie!” He spread his arms and trotted toward them, bright-eyed and charming as ever. “I really am so sorry for the inconvenience this morning! A minor mishap, unfortunate side-effect of a spell I got caught up in, I –”
Charlie cut him off by throwing her arms around his chest, hugging him tightly despite how she could feel him stiffening up like a board. “Jesus Christ, Alastor, you scared me! What the fuck!”
He didn’t move until she pulled away, and even then it was just a soft chuckle and to take several steps back. He folded his hands behind himself and took another breath before continuing, “The issue caused all of my recent deals to be silenced. Something of a needless failsafe, in my opinion. But I have corrected my mistake and you should now be fine. It won’t happen again.”
“Your mistake?” Vaggie asked. “That’s what you’re calling it?”
“Yes,” he replied shortly, and Vaggie scowled at him before looking to Rosie.
“What the fuck is going on? What was that?”
“Nothing we can talk about, I’m afraid!” Rosie said as she walked over to join them. “Not unless we want a repeat performance. Or at least, that’s what I’m guessin’?” she added with a sideways glance at Alastor, and he closed his eyes with a particularly smug smile.
“That is for me to know.”
“And no one else to find out, am I right?”
“Ah-hah,” was his only response, static rising up before he opened his eyes with a pop that cleared the air completely.
Rosie frowned at him warily for a few moments, then pointed at Charlie. “Sweetie, let’s step outside. I have to get going, but I’d really like a word before I do.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Alastor said sharply, but Rosie’s eyes only narrowed, and she leaned in close to his face.
“I thought I told you to back down, bitch. The threat’s still standin’.”
He blinked and then settled, eyelids falling to half-mast with his smile.
“I just want a quick word, and then I’ll be leaving. It’s nothing you need to get all worked up about,” she said, taking Charlie by the elbow and leading her toward the door. “And Alastor, sweetie, I’ll be expecting you for tea some time this week! I won’t have you avoiding me!”
“I would never do so intentionally!” he called back cheerfully, and Charlie watched Rosie’s lips curl in annoyance as they walked out the door.
“That I know.”
A million questions charged through Charlie’s mind, but she followed Rosie’s implied warning to stay quiet as they walked down the long, empty hall to the elevator. Only once the door had closed and they’d begun descending did Rosie speak.
“He really can’t talk about it. Whatever happened, it’s covered by his original contract,” she explained. “I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that he’s bound to silence.”
“So he is under contract,” Charlie whispered, touching her lips. “I… I wondered, when I saw his true face. All that thread –”
“Ehhh, that’s not entirely related,” she said. “Alastor was a mess of stitched up parts long before that bitch started digging her claws in. No one smiles that much without some good ole’ Glasgow helpin’! It’s just… worse than it should’a been.”
Charlie looked up at her curiously, but Rosie tilted her head down and to the side, frowning. “I wish I could tell you what I know, sweetheart, but right now I don’t think either of us has power enough to deal with the actual problem. And she’s had almost nine years chewin’ on him now. He ain’t gettin’ out of this without more power than either of us’ve got to hand these days.” She sighed, shaking her head. “Never should’ve let him go. But done is done, and at least I can still call him back when I need to. You ever get worried, you just find a way to bring him down to Cannibal Town. She can’t get at him there.”
“Sure,” she said slowly. “But… what just happened – it sounded like you were talking to someone –”
“Did something happen last night?” she asked, over Charlie’s question. “Anyone nosin’ around? Asking questions?”
Questions… Charlie frowned as the memory surfaced. The lift doors opened onto the lobby, and they walked out, heading swiftly for the front doors so no one would catch their conversation. “No, but I did see something weird. Alastor was singing to himself last night. I don’t think he knew I was there, but it was something about… um… oh wow, I don’t even really remember, but he was definitely talking about how can you know when someone’s doing something because they want to, or if –”
“Or if someone’s forcing them? Yeah, that’d probably be enough to tick her off,” she said, and sighed again. “He’s got no way of knowing, and neither does anyone else. Only reason I can tell the difference is because I got fucked over by the bitch first, and then I spent three decades getting to know Alastor before she decided to take him from me.”
“You made a deal with Alastor too?” she asked, but Rosie laughed.
“Oh, Heavens, no! No, we worked together, darling, it was all quid pro quo, favours for favours, didn’t even keep score!” Her smile faded, eyes lowering off to the side. “But that was all before I told him she was looking for him.”
“And uh… who is ‘she’?”
“Can’t tell you that,” she said apologetically, and then glanced back over her shoulder. “Wish I’d never told him. Screwed us all, it did.”
Charlie looked up at her, trying to figure out what Rosie couldn’t say. Who could ‘she’ be? Who would be powerful enough to have done… whatever was going on with Alastor?
“You still seem like friends though,” she said quietly. “Whatever’s going on, I don’t think he blames you.”
Rosie hummed, twirling her umbrella as they walked out the doors to the courtyard. Once they were on the garden path, she stabbed it into the ground and spun around it to face Charlie directly, her smile sad and sympathetic. “Word of advice, sweetheart, free of charge. My Alastor’s puttin’ an awful lot of faith in you, but her Alastor’s probably hopin’ you’re putting all your trust in him. I wouldn’t.”
For fuck’s sake, Charlie was getting sick of people pointing out the obvious. “Of course I don’t trust Alastor. I’m not an idiot, I know he’s dangerous.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, I don’t think you do. Not really,” she said. “God and I love the boy, but the fact is, Alastor’s a manipulative sociopath who does what he needs to get what he wants. And he wants things from you that you can’t even fathom right now.”
It wasn’t surprising, but the reminder was a little daunting. She lived in quiet fear of the favour she owed him. But still, the fact that Rosie was supposed to be his friend, and would still talk about him like he was some kind of monster, right after… whatever that had been upstairs… She scowled, clenching her fists. “I wonder what he’d say about you.”
“Oh, much the same, if he’s bein’ honest!” she said with a laugh. “You’re in Hell, sweetie! None of us got here by bein’ good! But seriously,” she added, suddenly sobering. “Remember what I said about Cannibal Town. She’s not gonna forgive him quick.”
And with that, she raised her umbrella again, extended it, and then closed it with a snap. She was gone before it shut.