Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Radio Demon cracked his eyes open and immediately wanted to close them again.

This one-two combo was beginning to become an unpleasant start to his mornings. Waking up and being so unhappy that he was awake, feeling that pull of the dream world that hadn't contained any dreams that weren't nightmares for a century now, wanting to stay there and take what comfort he could, because it was so hard to find in the waking one. Alastor settled further into his bed and sighed, sinking deeper into his mattress and pile of quilts, wondering at the time. He wasn't sure, not off the top of his head. His once-impeccable internal clock hadn't quite come back to speed after the Extermination. He was often an hour ahead or behind, and the morning was always the worst when it came to trying to figure out the time. Sleep made him fuzzy-headed and dull, and he was infuriated he even needed rest at all.

Once upon a time, he could stay awake for weeks on end before he even considered going to lay down. As of late, at the end of day three of no sleep, he found himself more irritable than normal, and on one horrifying afternoon, he'd even hallucinated. He didn't want to discuss what he'd seen, but it had pushed him to take up the habit of keeping up with how much rest he was getting. That had turned into sleeping nightly, which had turned into late mornings, which turned into... This. Laziness. Idleness. Things that made him utterly incensed, burning with self-loathing, causing him to turn sulkily onto his side and curl tighter. The prickling feeling of fury was muted through the haze of dreamless slumber, and Alastor let his eyes slip closed again, the lids heavy and sore. A few more minutes. He'd get moving in a few more minutes.

His shadow ripped away from him with a feeling like shucking a sweat-soaked shirt. Must've been pretty late, then. His shadow only took on a mind of it's own if he was really sluggish to start his day. Alastor turned his face further into his pillow, inhaling the smell of fresh, clean linen and heaving another breath, this one turning to a snore at the corners. The shadow was just going to wait longer, he did want another hour or two of sleep, and was too snug to be really angry about it yet. His every thought was murky, floating and meandering, in the way that being two-thirds asleep always mutated the subconscious. He could be angry later, could call himself pathetic later, right now, he was warm, and he was almost contented, a rare luxury now, when even being upright riddled him with lingering pains and aches.

The wardrobe opened. A shuffling sound. His shadow threw his overcoat over his head. It caught on Alastor's antlers, creating a tent of silk liner and thin wool, which was petulant and childish and exactly how he was feeling about himself, underneath the sleepiness. For a moment it was nice, blocking out what little light came through the blinds and canopy of his four-poster, but it quickly became suffocating and he got the message: up. He pulled the overcoat off and tossed it to the end of his bed, then indulged himself in a languid, but careful stretch. Legs first, straining his calves until his knees clicked, then hips, then a ginger stretch of his back, arms out in front of him. Grotesque and with too many pops, immediately, his chest ached with the motion. Not the incandescent burn that was so sweetly maddening when the angelic wound still bisected his ribcage, just a drowsy thrum of phantom discomfort, like a beehive under his skin. The sprawling made him both cozier and significantly less cozy, and with his shadow looming hard enough to be felt, there wasn't really a choice about getting to stay between the sheets a moment longer. Alastor pushed himself up to sit, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, the joints in his arms creaking.

Mistake. The bees woke up. Alastor spent a few minutes with his eyes closed and breath held, waiting out the worst of the pain as it flared and roiled around his chest. When the insects returned to the nest, and he no longer felt like he was home to a swarm, he slipped his hooves into the slippers his shadow had so nicely procured for him and stood up.

More bees. But, tolerable this time. Alastor didn't bother to thank his shadow for the arm it provided to help him the first dozen steps, and it didn't push to be recognized as he rifled blearily through his closet to pull out his clothes for the day. He could try to snap them on, but the last time he'd done that his shirt had been inside out and he'd not noticed for an hour. It was better to do it himself, even as every stretch and pull of his musculature made him hurt all over again. He had done this to himself, really, and that was what really pissed him off. All this could have been prevented.

Returning to the hotel after his musical mental breakdown in the tower, Alastor had a simple plan: Say nothing. Wait for his wound to heal. He'd waited and he'd waited and he'd waited right up until the angelic steel had eaten a hole in his chest big enough to rot down to something important, and he'd gone gasping to the floor of the foyer as his self-control finally broke and he couldn't take it any longer. Lucifer had been at the hotel then, thank, well, Lucifer, and he'd survived the experience. It didn't mean that he'd escaped without some lingering reminders that, for once, hiding his injuries like an animal didn't signal strength. It ended up sending him into a dying heap in front of the entirety of the hotel's staff, and now everyone in the building knew the Radio Demon could be harmed.

Alastor hated that. He hated how much his image had crumbled in a single afternoon. A century of fear-mongering, of spreading rumors, stories, keeping an ear to the ground and his claws sharp to deliver reminders whenever someone got cocky, it all came to a crashing halt. Lucifer had drawn out the angelic energy that gnawed a tunneling wound throughout his torso, and then fixed the immediate damage that had been killing him at that moment. The hotel had covered for the next several weeks of his recovery, making up believable stories he hadn't bothered to learn as antibiotics and further healing knit him back together, up until he'd had the power to snap, however weakly, at the King of Hell for daring to lay a hand on him.

He'd been left to heal mostly alone after that. The rest of the hotel was wise enough not to question him when he appeared in the kitchen one morning, whipping up pancakes with a cheery smile while he rattled off the day's headlines. Things settled into a new normal. Alastor would pretend not to be hurt, and everyone else would play along. If he happened to run out of breath mid-sentence, if he needed to lean on his cane for a moment as a bout of something he wouldn't name ripped through his body, if he happened to lay a hand to his chest and bow over the counters when he cooked, that was none of their business. They left him to his bravado, and he was all the more thankful for it. But the look Charlotte had given him that first morning, when the smell of caramelized sugar drew her to the dining room...

Alastor never wanted to see it again.

He knew he'd be seeing it today, though, because as he snapped the radio on to play something, anything, as he straightened up to jaunt to the bathroom, the announcer bothered to rattle off the time. Just shy of eleven in the mid-morning, ten forty five. He'd limped to bed at midnight, left off playing the piano in the foyer after a shot or two of rye and bid Husker good night. Nearly eleven hours of sleep. Absolutely miserable behavior.

As he cleaned up in the mirror, pinned his smile in place and fluffed up his hair, Alastor toyed with the idea of abandoning the hotel entirely, just scampering off to his mansion in the woods until he could re-emerge, back at full power, maybe after another decade. It was an enticing fantasy, maybe with a side order of gagging Husker and Niffty about his brush with death in the foyer and extracting vows of silence from the others. But, as soon as it crossed his mind, the Radio Demon forced himself to discount it. He wanted to see this project through. He didn't obtain all of this horrible, dogged pain just to run away empty-handed. Redemption was possible. He wanted to see how possible, wanted to see sinners fail and delight in their myriad of botched attempts, laugh himself hoarse to keep the insanity that came with prolonged boredom away. That, and Charlie would chase him to the very ends of Hell if he dared to run. He was stuck here. But he didn't need to think of it that way.

Alastor summoned his staff to lean on and, yes, that was better, something to take some of the onus of carrying his weight away from him. Perfect. It made being on his own two feet a bit more bearable. It was time to stick his head out of his hole and prove he was still alive, before the Princess came knocking his door down to check on him. He despised the fact that he was now something to be 'checked on' for any reason other than to ensure he wasn't currently eating a resident or plotting something nefarious, but that was his own fucking fault, now wasn't it?

A quick nip upstairs to his kitchentte to brew up some chicory coffee, as the caffeine contained in real coffee only seemed to just make his heart and head hurt after Adam, and he decided against going downstairs. Walking about in those halls now just made him feel as if he was being watched, even when alone, and not in a good way. Not watched for, watched over, like any minute he'd capsize again and they'd need to grab Lucifer to keep him from flatlining, like he was toddling around an assisted living facility and wasn't the hotelier of the entire blimming establishment.

No. He'd be taking his coffee, and a quick serving of grillades that he'd made last night, out on the rooftop gardens, thank you. The smell of fresh plantlife might make him feel a bit better, wake him up a tad. That, and the sun. Circadian rhythms were important, and god knew how whacked out of place his had become during his stint in hell.

The front door of his new radio tower was actually located on the roof, which was nice. It made it hard to get into his private space without a severe undertaking of crossing the entire garden, and made it very easy for Alastor to see if he was about to have uninvited company. If and when his eyes were working, and communicating important information to his brain. Which was most of the time, but not always. Alastor gave his plate to his shadow, which slinked along behind him in silence, and opened his front door to tap his way down the stairs. He almost missed Charlotte Morningstar sitting there, waiting for him at his little umbrella-covered bistro set. She smiled when she saw him, and though he could say the same, she was wearing that expression. The one he hated to see, the one she'd had when he crawled out of his lair to make breakfast for the hotel for the first time in months.

"Hi, Al," she said nervously, steepling her fingers. "So, we need to talk. Is now a good time?"

Hm. Fuck.

"I always have time for you, Miss Morningstar!" His reply fell short of cheer, fell short of intelligible, really, as the exhaustion he felt leaked into his words and skewed them into a rumble. Charlie was a terrible liar, he saw her try and fail to cover up the wince. Alastor put a hand to the banister of his stairs and descended the rest of the way, as his shadow deposited his breakfast to the table. It had also taken it upon itself to produce a second spoon, for the princess, a wordless invitation to partake of Alastor's cooking. He was the best cook in the house, that was without contest, and her eyes did light up, just a touch, at the offer. Success.

Then they darkened, and her mouth twisted into an attempt at a smile. "Nooo, thank you, but no. You should eat that."

"Oh?" Alastor sat in his chair, didn't let the twinging that the motion caused show. Charlie seemed to pick up on it anyway. "It's regular veal, my dear. No 'mystery meat' included!" A burble of laughter from his aura, distended, unclear. It had been difficult to discern anything out of it since the parlor incident.

Charlotte picked at the cuffs of her little red suit jacket, unwilling to meet his eyes. She tried, to be polite, but inevitably her gaze wandered to the flowers that had been planted all around his tower. Alastor couldn't help but think they were meant as a tribute, the first time they'd thought him dead. "Not hungry, that's all! I already ate breakfast."

Now it was Alastor's turn to hide a wince, much more effectively than Charlotte had. Yes, it was near to eleven, breakfast was at eight, and morning circle was at nine. He was far behind the schedule. He ignored his food and sipped his coffee, realizing he wasn't actually hungry to begin with. "If you insist, but the offer remains open. You are always welcome at my table!"

The words touched her, and for a moment, Alastor thought he could 'daddy issues' his way out of the conversation he knew was coming. Sadly, the little nephilim was like a dog with a bone when it came to conversations only she wanted to have. If he wasn't holding both hands to his coffee cup, Alastor could vividly imagine her trying to reach for him, take his hand in hers. Absolutely not today. He was keeping his bubble of personal space today, and woe to any who dared breach it. Annoyed, but annoyingly understanding, Charlie just put her head in a hand and left the other on the table. Flat. Open. He would not be reaching out, himself, but it was so cute of her to think he might.

"Right, um, Alastor. Can we... Talk?"

"About what?" He cut in, trying to dissuade her from the conversation by being overly invested. Charlotte saw through it, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.

"You, Al. We need to talk about you."

Once his favorite subject. Now his worst nightmare. His grin felt so tiring. He wanted so badly to just go back to bed. Alastor hid all of these unpleasant emotions in another sip of his coffee, rolling it in his mouth, before he resigned himself to his fate.

"Well, I don't see why not."

"We're worried about you."

Chapter Text

We're worried about you. Oh, what a delightful sentiment. Alastor snorted and set his cup down on the table with a clank, but kept his hands off the surface, just in case Charlie did something dumb. Like offer physical comfort, the type that never appealed to him. He would take her empty, meaningless platitudes any day over her trying to actually lay a hand on him. His personal space was paramount at all times. He stared past her to signal his disinterest in the conversation, off at the near-acre of flower bushes that were bent over with the weight of the blooms. They were filling the air with a fragrance that was a single floral note away from overpowering. The daylight was nearly centered overhead, putting the shadow of the umbrella over them both. It was a perfect temperature outside, and he was comfortable even through all his layers. An utterly beautiful day. He would have loved to have taken a walk, strolled through Hell and enjoyed it.

And yet here he was, wasting it on this frivolous argument. His gaze cut back to the princess, who was trying hard to keep her shoulders square and back straight. "Why, there is no reason to be worried for me, Miss Morningstar. I am fit, healthy, and eager to resume my role as facilities manager."

Charlie sucked on her cheek, trying so hard to pick words that weren't insulting. She faltered spectacularly anyway. "Are you, though?"

She realized her error too late. Alastor snapped his neck, the vertebrae popping out of place easily, swinging his head at a ninety degree angle. Blood leaked from his gums, dribbling down his lip to complete the effect, eyes becoming spinning dials on black sclera. The fuzzy quality of feedback in his voice became a drone.

"I am nothing less than at my best, Charlotte. Why else would I have slept for eleven hours? Needed the rest! Ha-ha!"

At one point, that kind of display, the rivulets of red down his chin and the unnatural cant of his head, that would have scared her. Now she just fixed him with that look, the 'I want to fix you' look he didn't want to be directed at him, because he wasn't here for redemption. He wasn't guilty of anything other than ridding the world of scum, and had he not been killed, Alastor's kill count would've been far higher. The notation of 'PT' should never be used for him. Ever. There was a disquieting bit of silence as Charlie studied him. It was ruffling against his nerves, an electric current of wrongness. He was ashamed at the desperation he felt to make her stop.

"Stop that," he said, breaking through the lack of noise. "Young lady, I can hear you rifling through your myriad of approaches for your charity cases, and I am begging-" No, Alastor did not beg. "Ordering you to stop that this instant."

There, her expression changed, from the therapist to someone on the back foot. That was better. She'd gotten too comfortable around him, stopped thinking of him as a threat. Charlie put her hands up, sinking a bit in her seat. "I'm sorry! I don't mean to make you uncomfortable-"

"Well you have failed miserably."

Charlie flinched a bit, the words clearly hitting a sore point, that spot inside her that he'd identified long ago as easily whacked with a dismissal for maximum emotional damage. That was mean of him, but he wanted to be mean. Even to Charlotte. If she didn't want to put herself in the firing line of his temper, she should've just left him well enough alone. She didn't, though. Now and only now she chose to employ the only lesson Lucifer had given her that stuck. Don't take shit from other demons. "Alastor, I understand that you're upset."

He scoffed. She pretended not to hear. His chest ached, an easily-ignored scraping against his already fried nerves.

"But we, your friends," not his friends, not even Husker and Niffty, but Alastor didn't bother to correct her. "Are worried that you've taken on too much, and aren't being honest with yourself or us about how you're feeling."

Alastor's ears began to ring with fury as she kept prodding, kept making it worse, kept digging her hole. His jaws ached from how hard he was clenching them, as to not rip off her tiny, blonde little head. His neck rocked back into place, and she took it as a sign to keep going, a smile poking at the corners of her mouth.

"Perhaps you might want to take a vacation? I can pull some strings, get you somewhere calmer, maybe even out of Pride? Where you won't have to exert yourself too much and can focus on the next phase of your recovery!"

Now, Alastor took pride in always having a firm grip on everything pertaining to himself. His emotions, his body, his self-control, his surroundings. Everything was exacting, precisely manipulated and guided into place, so his life was a pinnacle of comfort and entertainment. Nothing happened to him, came from him, or otherwise enacted a force in his direction without his say-so, or his retribution. He did not often let go of this level of command, did not often let go of anything in this sphere of influence. Sadly, for Charlotte, he was already worn so thin. The pain, the exhaustion, the responsibilities the hotel piled on, it all ate at him until he felt fit to split down the center, along that line of the wound that had almost ended his life. It was a burning need, to vent that pressure. So he did something he was not quite proud of.

He blew a fucking gasket.

"Oh, shall I retire to the seaside?" Alastor seethed, hands going from his lap to clench the edge of the table. Charlie opened her mouth, eyes wide, but he didn't allow her to get a word in. "For my health and constitution? You've taken what you can get out of me and now that I've nearly died for you, been reduced to sleeping half the day away, constantly having to catch my breath when I talk and leaning on my cane to walk ten bloody steps, you want me out of sight?"

"Alastor, no, that's not what-"

"Don't touch me," he snarled, ripping his hands away as Charlotte reached for them. Alastor was lashing out, he knew he was, but it felt unbelievably good to put these damnable emotions that had been stewing out there in the open, strike them into someone that wasn't him. Every metaphorical crack of the whip was cathartic, like lancing the wound for a PICC line and seeing all the sludge he'd been keeping inside drip out, staining the tablecloth. "I am so horribly sorry that this is what I am now, believe you me, I don't like it either! But this is what I've become, so sit and stew in it, darling."

The word was soaked in venom. Towards her, towards himself, he didn't know anymore. Now that he'd started, he couldn't seem to stop. It was just gushing out in a river, a waterfall of things he hadn't been able to put to ink before now. "An Overlord, lounging until noon because he can't will himself out of bed. The Radio Demon, needing to lean on the wall to keep himself from going over. Great Alastor, a sinner that fell to Hell with a power scale not seen since Lucifer Morningstar scraped his ass on the brimstone, put down to this!" He slammed his fist on the table, denting it. His shadow had wisely removed his breakfast at some point before the tirade, perhaps sensing that his temper had reached a fever-pitch. The last thing he needed was for grillades to go everywhere.

"Every single thing I could do, everything I took for granted, it's now a struggle! I have to take care in putting on my shirt! I have to take care when I sit in case I move wrong and something in my ribs decides to pop! Nothing is simple any longer! I was feared, Madame Magne, I was respected. I was the strongest thing in Hell! Now I'm- I'm just-"

Alastor couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence, his throat closing around a frog, tightening. Descriptors swirled around his head even if they went unvoiced, each one worse than the last. Worthless. Lousy. Utterly ignominious. Nothing. He was nothing.

His face was hot, and felt wet. Alastor had begun crying. It startled him badly enough that he didn't bother trying to finish his sentence, his smile going from manic to distantly surprised. He brought a hand up, his claws touching his cheek, coming away damp with tears.

"What," he said roughly, mostly to himself. "I'm angry. I am more than angry, I- I am ballistic! Why am I crying?! This is absurd."

But he was crying. His lungs seized, traitorously, hiccuping, making his ribs spark with a hazy, dim agony. Charlie just looked at him, like she was only waiting until he finished. His words had barely phased her, if they mattered to her at all. The expression was back, and worse than before.

"Alastor."

That was... Not great. He needed to leave. The Radio Demon pushed against the table to stand, but couldn't seem to muster the strength to actually do the 'up' part of getting up. His wingtips scrabbled uselessly against the stone of the roof until he sagged into his chair. He was trapped here, his own outburst draining his energy until it entombed him in his patio furniture. He couldn't even find his magic, couldn't get his shadow to drag him off. So he just hit the table again, because senseless property damage was making him feel better even if it was his own property he was damaging, and then buried his face in his hands to cover up all of these horrible emotions that were playing out on his face for anyone to see. His fingers found his hair and pulled at it, grounding.

"... Alastor?"

"Just leave me here," he choked out.

"I'm not going to do that. Can I touch you?"

Alastor didn't bother to respond to that, she should know the answer without asking something so idiotic, but Charlie always had been persistent. "Words, please? Or just, nod, or something."

"If it would please you." Why did he say that. Why did he capitulate to her request. Alastor was above scraping for approval, but at the moment, a tendril of wanting was coiling out of what remained of his soul and he was powerless to stop it. His ears twitched as Charlotte removed herself from her seat, came around to his side. He scrubbed his palms against his cheekbones.

Her hands were gentle, at first, shy, light and dancing over his back. It was... Pleasant enough, even as he shook, biting his tongue to the point of blood to keep any sort of sob from escaping, because the Radio Demon did not cry. Charlotte leaned down, laid her arm over him, hooked her fingers over his upper arm, and that was fine. It was alright. It didn't make him homicidal, which was the line to really be toeing. She didn't try to speak anymore, just did something Alastor refused to define as 'held' him while he muscled through whatever this thick lump in his chest was. When he breathed again, finally drew in air that wasn't siphoned through the spaces between his fangs, she gave him a little pat. Like a whining puppy.

"I think what you're feeling is grief."

"Grief?" His voice sounded hollow, raw. This was why he hated crying, it ruined his throat. The radio aura around him had faded to an indistinct whisper of white noise.

"Yeah, grief."

He didn't know how to respond to that. But it did make sense. Alastor could recognize the emotion now, pin it down with a needle and put it to a corkboard, pressing pushpins through the fluttering bits until he could stand back and get the full picture. It was oddly familiar, even if the scenario was preposterous. Him, sitting on the roof, while the Princess of Hell pet his shoulder through the padding of his suit and coat. "What do I have to grieve? I'm certainly not shedding any tears for Sir Pentious."

Charlie put on the sweet tone, the soft one she used when she was floating an idea that was so patently insane she belonged in a ward with cushy white walls and custom tailored jackets. "Maybe yourself?"

Yes, custom jackets with plenty of buckles and straps. "How can I grieve myself? I'm not dead."

"Well, you said it yourself, Alastor. You feel like you've been 'put down to this'. You aren't as strong as you were, and it's making you unhappy."

"Don't turn the therapy speech on me, Miss Morningstar," he rumbled, but his voice cracked halfway through with a burst of static and ruined the effect. He pressed the heels of his hands harder into his eyes to stop the leakage. Charlie pulled him closer until his head was leaned into her ribs. It was warm. One of his ears was pinned to her side. He could hear her heart. It almost reminded him of his mother, which wasn't a position he ever wanted to put Charlie in, given he was currently locked in a pissing contest with her father over who could parent her harder. He couldn't fight her now, though, so he leaned into it and found he could breathe easier. Strange.

"I'm not! This one is from real life experience. I dealt with it when I first met Vaggie. She had just fallen and was processing those emotions, and she was impatient and angry with everything all the time! We got through it as she got better, adapted to life in Hell. You'll get better, Alastor."

"It doesn't feel like it," he admitted, horrified he'd said such a thing but powerless to take it back, no, there the sentiment was, out in the air. Absolutely unacceptable. None of this should be happening, and yet it was, and to his mounting fear it was helping.

Charlie brought a hand up to rub at his ears. It was crossing a boundary, in a way, but it also felt soothing, so he permitted the overstep, tilting them forward to let her push her nails into the bases. Wisely, she did not comment on the gift. "Well, you just got off the antibiotics," she pointed out. "Now you have to build up strength again. You were almost cut in half, Al! This sort of thing doesn't fix itself overnight. You'll have to work for it. But we're here to help you. You don't have to do it all alone."

"I like being alone."

"Fine. Be that way. Then we won't let you do it alone. You're part of the family, Alastor, even if you're a creepy shitlord half the time. We want you to be back to normal, not because we want to use you, but because we want you to be happy. Even if you aren't here for redemption, you still deserve happiness."

Did he? Maybe he did. It was a foreign thought to occupy himself with, to ponder if he deserved happiness. Most days he didn't think he even deserved Hell, but Heaven didn't appeal, either, and he didn't know of a third option that was still accepted into Biblical canon. Alastor pushed it aside. "I appreciate the idea, Miss Morningstar."

"I'm gonna take that as Alastor-speak for 'thank you, Charlie, you're doing such a good job at handling my emotional breakdown, and now I'm going to say yes when you ask me to go downstairs for lunch'."

"Your dictionary is out of date."

"You wanna come downstairs for lunch?"

"I'm not hungry."

"That's okay."

Alastor let his hands fall, opened his eyes a bit. The flowers waved in the breeze. A singular petal had made it to the table while he was busy having his meltdown.  It was okay. Charlotte had said it was okay. He didn't know why it mattered to hear that, but, oddly, it did.

"... Alright, Miss Morningstar, as long as you promise me this conversation is over."

He imagined she smiled, could hear some of her ever-present bounciness come back into her voice. "Yeah. Don't wanna push your boundaries any further. Come on, I think I can make a sandwich without burning it!"

'Well, now I have to come! I will be massively impressed if you can burn an item that requires no stovetop whatsoever!"

Alastor tried to stand, again. He didn't pull away as Charlie helped to steady him, retrieved his staff from the banister and handed it to him. He took the arm she offered and let her lead the way to the elevator, but not before he swiped one of the camellias from a planter and tucked it behind her ear. He liked the smile he got in return. He mirrored it with his own.