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Alastor made his way through Cannibal Town, walking with a purpose and a cardboard pastry box.
In fact, the box was his purpose for being in Cannibal Town today.
He needed advice. And who better to ask than his dear friend Rosie?
“Alastor!” Rosie dropped everything she was doing to come rushing over to him. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! Things get so gloomy here without you!”
Alastor lifted the box above his head and out of the way as Rosie wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him in for a hug.
The movement drew Rosie’s eyes upwards, and after a moment spent embracing him, Rosie turned her attention to the box.
“What’ve we got here?” she asked.
“My reason for visiting!” Alastor announced. Then, somewhat quieter, “If I could just speak to you in private…”
“Of course, of course!” Rosie ushered Alastor away from the crowd and into one of the more secluded spaces of her emporium – the same room they’d used to discuss Rosie’s potential involvement in defending the hotel.
“Come, sit down, get comfy.” She motioned for Alastor to take the closer chair, then crossed the table to take her own seat.
Alastor did sit, but he felt far from comfortable.
“Well?” Rosie folded her hands in her lap, and Alastor felt distinctly aware of his own hands, still gripping the cardboard box. “Show me what’s in this mysterious box of yours.”
Alastor set the box on the table and opened it to reveal…
“A cake?” Rosie laughed. “Alastor, you charmer, did you bake me a cake?”
Alastor exhaled in a sigh, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Actually, Charlie did!” he said, doing his best to keep his cadence and tone in its typical Transatlantic manner. “Although she baked it for me. I just didn’t want it to go to waste and was hoping you might know of at least one demon around here with a sweet tooth!”
Rosie raised one eyebrow. “There’s more you’re not tellin’ me, dearie,” she said.
Alastor looked down at the cake. Then back up at Rosie. Then at the cake again.
Even with his smile, Rosie could read him like an open book. There was no point in trying to deceive her. And besides, he had come here to ask for her help.
“This isn’t the first cake,” Alastor confessed. “This isn’t even the second or the third! No, no, no, this is the sixth – the sixth – cake she’s given me since I returned to the hotel!”
Alastor broke into manic laughter. “I don’t even like cake!” he said. “I detest sweet things! Can’t stand them! But for some reason she Just. Keeps. Baking them!”
“And then she hands them off to me with that smile of hers and…” Alastor closed his eyes.
He didn’t tell Rosie that he’d grown fond of Charlie. That he genuinely considered her a friend and couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that smile fall. A smile that was so unlike his own: honest and true where his was a weapon, a mask, and – more often than not these days – a lie.
He didn’t need to. Because Rosie already knew.
Alastor opened his eyes and folded his hands on the table. “I just don’t want it to go to waste,” he repeated, and it was half true.
“Why don’t you give it to one of the other guests at that hotel of hers?” Rosie asked.
“Because she would know,” Alastor insisted. “Vaggie and Angel Dust would sell me out in a heartbeat! Even if I gave it to Husker or Niffty and ordered them not to tell, it would only be a matter of time before she figured it out.”
“And besides,” he added. “Niffty really shouldn’t be eating this much sugar.”
Niffty on a sugar rush was a level of chaos even Alastor struggled to endure. At one point, the tiny cyclops had eaten an entire batch of cupcakes and wound up deep cleaning Alastor’s radio tower and stabbing a dozen demons – one of which was Alastor, himself! Non-lethally, of course. Although, the same couldn’t be said for the other eleven.
“Well, what did you do with the other five?” Rosie asked.
“Opened a portal and threw them into the same dimension I summon my tentacles from,” Alastor said with a dismissive hand wave. “They’re probably rotting in there. I’m not entirely sure whether or not those abominations eat, but I’d assume that if they do, they’re carnivorous.”
Rosie shrugged. “Well, I don’t mind sweets myself,” she said. “I prefer when they’ve got a little blood baked in, of course, but I can make do.”
“Thank you,” Alastor said, relief washing over him as Rosie picked up a knife to cut herself a slice.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do if she keeps this up,” he admitted.
Alastor knew what he had to do, and what would happen if he failed to do it. But he didn’t like the looks of either option.
Either Alastor was going to have to tell Charlie to stop and watch her mope around like a kicked puppy, or someone would eventually figure out that he was going out of his way to avoid disappointing her.
His reputation had already taken a massive hit after his battle with Adam – his televised defeat, his failure. He couldn’t afford to let any more evidence of weakness reach the masses.
Alastor’s inner monologue was interrupted by Rosie’s laughter.
“What?” he asked. “What’s so funny?”
Rosie stifled her laughter and put a hand on Alastor’s shoulder. “I think I might just have an answer to your dessert debacle, darling.”
“Oh?” Alastor’s ears perked up at the thought of a solution.
“Tell her you’d rather have garlic bread,” Rosie said, smiling ear to ear. “Bonus points if you use those exact words.”
Alastor tilted his head at a forty five degree angle. Garlic bread? he wondered. What does garlic bread have to do with anything?
But, he did prefer garlic bread to cake. Maybe if he could channel Charlie’s inexplicable urge to bake towards something he might actually eat, then he could have his cake and eat it too, so to speak.
“Well, it’s worth a shot!” Alastor decided. “Thank you for the advice, my dear. I may not grasp the particulars, but I trust your judgment! You always did have such a knack for these things. Why, it’s no wonder you’re Cannibal Town’s go-to gal for guidance.”
“Aww,” Rosie cooed, swatting playfully at his arm. “You’re such a flatterer. You’re gonna make me blush!”
Rosie hummed and took a bite of Alastor’s unwanted cake.
“Guess you’d better get back to that hotel and tell the Princess about the menu change before she fires up the oven again,” she said after swallowing the bite.
Alastor laughed. “Oh, I think I can stay a while,” he said. “Surely she’s gotten it out of her system for the time being.”
“You said this is the sixth cake?” Rosie asked.
“Yes,” Alastor confirmed.
“And would you say the rate she bakes them is consistent?”
“Hm,” Alastor hummed. “The first one was to celebrate my return… Then she baked another later in the month, then one about a week later… Two last week, and now…”
“Shit,” he cursed as it finally hit him. “The cakes are increasing.”
“Mhmm,” Rosie hummed. “How long did you have this one before you managed to sneak it out of the hotel?”
Alastor’s smile widened. “Well, it was great chatting with you, darling!” he said, wrapping Rosie into a hug and preparing to take his leave. “I’ll be seeing you!”
Rosie giggled. “Good to see you too, Alastor.”
She hugged him back, wished him luck, and just like that, Alastor was on his way.
Rosie speared a piece of cake onto her fork, capturing all four distinctly dyed layers – black, gray, white, and purple, in that order.
“Oh, Alastor,” she said to herself with a sigh.
If only he would stop cutting her off every time she tried to actually bring up the concepts of asexuality and aromanticism.
Rosie could make jokes and puns that flew over Alastor’s head – although not over a certain Princess’s head, apparently – day in and day out, but the minute she tried to explain the identities behind them, she was met with, ‘I don’t care for all those modern labels,’ and ‘I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me!’
Too bad, really. Alastor would probably get a kick out of aroace in-jokes. Even if he didn’t like cake.