Chapter Text
Alastor tilts his head in confusion, his ever-present smile not wavering. “What… what is happening?” He asks, eyes glancing at Husk, who gives him nothing more than a half-assed shrug, before looking back at the scene before him.
Angel Dust is in the corner of the kitchen, cackling madly. One of his four arms is holding up his phone, high out of Charlie’s reach, who is trying in vain to jump up to grab it. Angel is using the other three hands to keep Charlie back, laughing harder every time she jumps. After all, Angel has about two feet on her.
“He took an awful picture of me and won’t delete it! ANGEL!” Charlie explains to Alastor without turning to look at him.
Angel continues laughing, physically holding himself back from doubling over. Alastor rolls his eyes, using some shadow magic to knock Angel’s phone out of his hand and into Charlie’s. Angel stops laughing, lunging for his phone.
Thankfully, Charlie is quick to delete the picture before Angel snatches his phone back. She smiles, walking past Alastor. “Thanks.” She mutters on her way out.
“Ugh, Smiles you’re no fun.” Angel pouts, sticking his tongue out at Alastor who rolls his eyes in response and walks out of the kitchen.
“So, dear Charlie, what are the plans for today?” Alastor asks, standing next to Charlie much to Vaggie’s annoyance.
“Um,” Charlie fidgets with her ponytail idly. “There isn’t one. I thought we would just relax today.”
“More like, I distracted ya enough to fuck up ya plans,” Angel smirks, coming out of the kitchen to lay on the couch. He sprawls himself out, one of his legs hanging off the end of the couch. “Success!”
“Perra,” Vaggie growls at the spider from beside her girlfriend. Angel responds with three middle fingers, his other hand busy tapping away on his phone.
Alastor clicks his claws against his microphone. He came here specifically for entertainment. But, he’s not an idiot. He knows Charlie can’t find something to do every single day. “Hm. All right.” He hums, melting into the shadows before anyone can say anything to stop him.
He reappears in his room. Well, it isn’t really a room. It’s more of an illusion of sorts. Alastor has very powerful magic. Powerful enough to bend minds. Both his and others. So, he ‘built’ an exact replica of the bayou he grew up in, complete with his old house.
He walks into the house, settling himself on the red couch. Anyone looking at him knows he likes red, but it extends past his clothing choices. Almost every single thing Alastor owns is red. A lot easier to hide blood that way, he found out very early on in his life, and he just came to associate it with himself.
He takes his overcoat off, draping it over the back of the couch. He cracks open a book, soft jazz playing from the radio in the corner. Just as he starts to get into the book, there’s a knock at the door.
The door to his ‘room’ that is, not the door to the ‘house’ he’s currently settled in. After all, anyone who tries to break into his ‘room’ is immediately killed without mercy, if they can even get that far. With a twitch of his ear, the music’s volume lowers enough for Alastor to hear whoever is trying to intrude upon his alone time.
“Smiles!” Of course. “Are ya in there? I’m bored!”
Alastor’s eye twitches. Just his luck that the one demon he’s been avoiding the most is the one that shows up at his doorstep. Alstor half-hopes the spider will go away if he waits long enough. “C’mon Bambi!” Alastor’s static grows louder. “Aren’t ya all about entertainment?! Come entertain me.” Alastor didn’t miss the double entendre, but he got up anyway.
He knows all too well how stubborn Angel is. He walks through the house, into the bayou, and to the door. Opening it, he glares up at Angel who smiles brightly at him. “Don’t call me Bambi.”
Angel rolls his eyes, his attention immediately caught by the lack of a proper room behind the Radio Demon. “Woah!” He breathes, easily looking past Alastor. “What the fuck? How’d ya sneak a whole swamp in here?!”
Alastor breathes deeply to avoid murdering Angel on the spot. “It’s a bayou. And it isn’t real.”
Angel’s eyes move back down to look at Alastor. “Whaddya mean?”
“It’s a trick,” Alastor explains. “I use magic to trick your mind into thinking you’re in a bayou. But I can make it be anything.”
To prove his point, he made his ‘room’ look like a movie theatre, library, Heaven, Earth, and then back to the bayou again. Angel’s eyes widen. “Wow. That’s sick!” Another thought seems to occur to him as he takes in the details behind Alastor. “Why a bayou?”
“It’s where I grew up.”
Somehow Angel was more shocked by this than by the magical changing room. “Ya don’t sound like it.”
“’S called a performance.” Alastor rolls his eyes, temporarily removing the radio effect. “Ya should know all ‘bout actin’.”
Something about Alastor talking in his real voice seemed to have… broken something in Angel. His eyes are wider than ever and he looks like he’s having a hard time breathing. “But,” Alastor says, putting the radio effect back on quickly. “That’s beside the point. The point is why exactly you are bothering me.”
Angel shakes his head, coming back to himself. “Right! Uh, I’m bored. Ya should hang out with me.”
Alastor rolls his eyes again. “No.”
The spider pouts, rather dramatically. “Why not?” He whines.
“Several reasons. Leave.”
“No.”
“Okay.” And with that, Alastor shuts the door in Angel’s face. As he walks back towards the house he can faintly hear Angel cursing at him in Italian from behind the door.
Two days pass before Alastor even hears anything about Angel. A rather peaceful two days if he’s being honest. And even then, it’s a passing comment made by the princess as she walks by the bar where Alastor is spending his time.
“I mean, it can’t be that bad if he can text, right? I just don’t like that I haven’t seen him for two days.” Charlie says anxiously.
“He’ll be fine, babe. As much of an asshole as he is, he’s tough.” The couple walks by the bar, Charlie’s nervous comments soon fading away.
Alastor turns back towards Husk, lightly pushing his empty glass towards him. Husk rolls his eyes but pours another old-fashioned for him.
By the time Angel gets back to the hotel, everyone is asleep. Well, almost everyone.
Alastor decided to spend some time in the general public, despite there being no public there at all, and sit by the fire. He flips through his book, singing along to the song playing on the radio next to him. Since he’s at least a floor away from all the other residents, the volume is a bit louder than normal.
“I don’t want to set the world on fire,” He sings to himself, eyes skimming the book.
A small sound causes him to look up and around to see Angel walking towards him. Alastor resists the urge to groan in annoyance. He was having such a nice night, too.
“I doubt that,” Angel says, sitting down in an armchair next to the Radio Demon.
“Doubt what?” Alastor asks, looking up at him. He hadn’t noticed when Angel had first walked in, but the other demon looked a little worse for wear.
“Ya singin’ that song.” He explains, shifting in his seat and barely hiding the flinch that comes with moving. “Sayin’ ya don’t wanna set the world on fire. I doubt that.”
Alastor can’t help but laugh lightly. “Well, you have a point.”
‘I’ve lost all ambitions, of worldly acclaim. I just want to be the one you love.’ The song continues despite Alastor’s attention being divided.
“As always,” Angel says, trying to be snarky but falling short. As Alastor looks at him more, he notices more things about him. He looks tired, and not his usual amount of tired. He looks straight-up exhausted. Like he could fall asleep on the floor right then and sleep for hours.
His dress, purple and flowing almost all the way down to his ankles, is torn in some places. His fur is matted in some places and even ripped out in others.
“Angel,” Alastor starts, too focused on Angel’s disheveled appearance than how oddly soft his voice is. But Angel catches it and his eyes widen. “What happened?”
“Huh?” Angel follows his eyeline and looks down at himself. “Oh! ’S nothin’. Just a rough shoot.”
Alastor feels like he should pry more, knowing full well Angel isn’t telling the truth, but decides to leave the topic alone. “Alright, well I’m off for the night.”
“Night,” Angel says, his eyes already drooping.
Alastor walks upstairs and into his room.
The shadows that carefully carry Angel to his room and put him gently beneath the covers are none of Alastor’s business.
Neither is the odd feeling in his gut when Angel smiles and hugs a pillow to his chest, sighing contently.
Nope.
None of his business.
‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.’
Alastor controls all of the radios around the hotel. Unsurprising, given his name. What is surprising, to Husk at least, is the obscene amount of 40’s and 50’s love songs floating out of any speaker in Alastor’s general vicinity.
‘Keep smiling through, just like you, always do. ‘Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds, far away.’
“Boss?”
Alastor looks up from where his gaze is stuck, staring intensely at the bar top, paying no attention to anyone around him. “Yes, my friend?”
“What’s with…” Husk gestures vaguely to the speakers, the song turning slightly eerie.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my friend.”
Husk narrows his eyes at his boss, suspicious. “You never play shit like this.”
‘But I know we’ll meet again, some sunnnnyyyyy dayyyyyyy~’
“Switching it up,” Alastor answers simply, rapping his fingers on the counter of the bar. He is sure he has Husk convinced until Angel walks by and the song abruptly skips tracks.
‘I’ll never smile again, until I smile at you. I’ll never laugh again, what good would it do?’
Husk chokes on his drink, Alastor’s grip tightening on his glass so hard it cracks, while Angel is on his phone, none the wiser.
‘I’ll never love again, I’m so in love wi-‘
The music is abruptly cut off as all the speakers short-circuit. Angel looks up in the sudden silence, glancing at the bar. Alastor’s eyes are radio dials, despite nothing happening and Husk is coughing, a huge smile on his face.
“Hey, boys,” Angel says, cautiously walking over to join them. “You good, Husky?”
“Fantastic.” Husk chokes out.
‘Within my heart, I know I will never start, to smile again, until I smile at you.’ Angel’s phone starts spitting out the same song that was interrupted on the speakers. He looks at it curiously as the song ends before a new one begins. ‘You are my special An-‘ Before Angel can react, Alastor grabs his phone and chucks it across the room.
It shatters on the opposite wall, effectively stopping the music. “AL!” Angel yells, looking at his hand and then the remains of his phone in disbelief. “What the fuck?!”
“I’ll get you a new one,” Alastor says through gritted teeth.
Angel has no idea what the hell is going on, but Husk seems to think it’s hilarious if his howls of laughter are anything to go by.