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Rosie slammed the door to the dark and empty sex shop shut behind her after she and Alastor had entered in a rush to get away from the exorcist, who was currently attempting to shatter the glass to get inside and kill them both. The sound of metal scraping against glass rang loudly throughout the store, a horrible sound that foretold imminent demise should the angel succeed in breaking through. She held the door closed, pressing her entire weight against it as Alastor summoned several shadowy tendrils to block the entrance of the shop so that even if the exorcist did break the glass, she would still need to get through his tentacles to get to the two of them.
It was only after Rosie felt relatively safe that she stepped away from the door and further into the store. She hadn’t noticed what the shop was when she dragged Alastor inside, too busy trying to escape death, and it still didn’t matter. This would prove a decent enough place to huddle down and hide until the extermination ended. That was all she cared about now, their safety. That was what was most important to her at the moment. Despite that, whether because of her anger over the events that led them to find themselves here, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, or the lingering worry when she discovered what Alastor had gotten himself into, she turned her attention on him, needing to know why he had done what he did.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” Rosie shouted, panic and indignation lacing her tone.
Rosie had been in her emporium, hunkering down during this dangerous time for all sinners, when she received a tidbit of information that the great and powerful Radio Demon was supposedly battling an angel only a little ways away from Cannibal Town. This was the very initial extermination, and Alastor was already getting himself into trouble. The angels weren’t here to make peace or come to an agreement about the future of Heaven and Hell; they were here to kill, to slay as many sinners as they possibly could in the span of only a few hours. They had been warned about this, and even so, he had still gone out during the extermination, likely for this very reason.
Rosie had only debated going out in all of this for a mere moment, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to simply leave this alone. She trusted Alastor, or at least she had, not to get himself into a situation where he could end up seriously injured or possibly even dead, but he had proved her wrong, and as hesitant as she was to leave the safety of her emporium, Alastor was important to her. Nobody else was going to come to his rescue either because they wouldn’t want to get involved or because they weren’t powerful enough to. It was up to her to do something, and so she did.
Rosie left her shop and made her way through the streets lined with corpses and toward the commotion that was Alastor battling an exorcist. Luckily, she had been able to draw his attention and take him away from a situation that would lead to his certain death, much to his annoyance. In time, though, he would thank her, or, at the very least, come to understand why she had to do this. He had forced her hand. If he had only stayed hidden and stayed safe rather than running out at the earliest opportunity he got to risk his life in a battle that he couldn’t win, she wouldn’t have had to do anything. She could stay out of his life for the most part on the condition that he continued to do as she asked, and he didn’t need her assistance. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy spending time with her pet, but she knew he didn’t like it when she forced him to do anything, especially when said things went against what he desired to do.
So, here they found themselves, hiding away in a store that Alastor would never normally enter, fear and irritation warring inside of her as she stared Alastor down, trying to figure out what had been running through his mind when he made the conscious decision to try and get himself killed. It didn’t make any sense to her. Even if he thought he was going to win against the angel he was fighting against, there was no reason for him to do such a thing in the first place. She needed to understand so that she could persuade him, whether with pretty words or through a command as the one who owned his soul, to never do such a thing again.
“I was thinking I was the most powerful sinner in Hell,” Alastor retorted, annoyance dripping from his voice despite his ever-present smile.
“You are,” Rosie reminded him. She had upheld her end of the deal. She hadn’t lied when the two of them met. She was an honest woman, after all. “But that doesn’t mean you can or should go out and fight against an angel. I know you don’t need to be reminded of this, but they are here to kill sinners. They won’t hesitate to eradicate you.”
“You don’t think I don’t know that? I-” Alastor began, but she quickly cut him off, having none of it. She didn’t want to hear his excuses. She needed to understand why he could possibly think this was even remotely a good idea.
“No, you don’t know!” Rosie continued, taking a step toward Alastor, drawing his attention toward her even more. She would get him to take her and her feelings seriously. Most of the time, she was alright letting him do as he pleased. Contingent on the fact that he continued to work toward fulfilling what she had requested of him several decades prior, she didn’t care what he got up to, but this was reckless, even for him. Clearly, she had been giving him too much freedom. He couldn’t uphold his end of the deal if he were dead. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have done this. We don’t even know whether killing an angel is even possible, or how to do so if it is, but that’s besides the point. There’s no reason for you to be the one to figure that out. So tell me why. Why did you do this? Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
Rosie could hardly contain her rage. It wasn’t often that she lost control over her emotions like this. She tried to constantly maintain an air of pleasantness. It took something significant occurring to truly tick her off, and Alastor had easily crossed that line with this little stunt of his. She wasn’t going to brush it off and pretend that everything was fine when it wasn’t. What he did today could have jeopardized everything, and for what? To prove his strength? To show everyone what a powerful demon he was?
No matter the reason, it didn’t excuse what he had done today. She needed him for her future goals, something he very well knew. It had taken her years to find someone like him. When their worlds collided, she wasn’t exaggerating when she had labeled him as ‘the one,’ and he had still risked his life irrelevantly. There was no reason he could give her that would make her feel any positive sentiments about his irresponsible behavior, not a thing that would quell the beast inside her threatening to be unleashed. The storm would only calm once she was able to let loose her feelings and figure out a way to prevent this from ever happening again, and she would regardless of what she might have to do to get her way.
“Of course not, that would be simply idiotic of me,” Alastor replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Call me what you will: cruel, ruthless, temperamental, even aggravating, but I am not, nor have I ever been an idiot.”
“Then why?” Rosie questioned once more, her fiery gaze never leaving Alastor’s own sardonic one. It only infuriated her even more to see him acting so aloof when he was the one who created a scene by intentionally setting out to put himself in harm's way.
When Alastor began to explain his reasoning, it was far from what Rosie had expected. Nothing would justify his actions, but still, a part of her wanted to be proven wrong. She had hoped he would have an answer that would appease her, but his logic did anything but.
“I had hoped that through killing an angel, I would be able to prove to those down here that they didn’t need to cower in fear, as I know many are currently fearing for their lives. We can fight back, we can stop ourselves from being mindlessly slaughtered because, as much as I enjoy bloodshed and carnage, if everyone in Hell were to die but me, I wouldn’t be able to have nearly as much fun as I do presently. That was the whole reason I had come to you asking for power in the first place. It’s entertaining to watch others suffer, but I prefer it to be at my hands.”
“That’s it?” Rosie asked dumbly, her anger being replaced with an overwhelming amount of confusion. She could hardly wrap her mind around it, the idea that the only reason he almost ruined everything she had been working for was because he didn’t want his so-called ‘fun’ to end. Her goals, her hopes, her everything, could’ve been stripped away from her in an instant, all because of his selfishness. This was the only time she had felt such a disconnect with him. Typically, they were on the same page, two sides of the same coin, but it seemed that it ended here and now.
“That’s it,” Alastor repeated back at her, solidifying her standpoint.
Rosie wanted to yell at Alastor. She wanted to lash out and tell him off because how dare he risk his life like that; however, that would not make the circumstances any better. There had to be a better, more rational way to go about preventing him from doing something like this in the future. If she left things as they were now, she was sure he would merely try to fight against those who wished to cause sinners harm once more. While she could appreciate the sentiment, this wasn’t what she needed from him.
What Rosie desired from Alastor was for him to stay safe because, without him, her plans would take much longer to put into motion. It could ruin all of the progress she had made so far and would set her back decades. She didn’t have that kind of time to rebuild everything she might lose because of her pet’s ego and thirst for blood. There had to be a way to protect him not only from himself but also to stop him from becoming yet another victim of this extermination and any future ones that may occur, even if she had to take drastic measures to ensure such a thing.
Alastor, most certainly, wouldn’t like the preventative steps that were necessary for her to take, but he had forced her hand, and so he would deal with them all the same. It was he who had backed her into this corner, after all, so that she wouldn’t hear of any complaints about her actions resulting from this. Given that he stayed hidden and secure, her other desires could fall to the wayside for the time being. Everything else could be moved down her list of priorities, at least for a short while, at least until she found a better way to circumnavigate the exterminations. Her schemes can be placed on hold because eventually, she will turn them into a reality. Even if it takes her a bit longer than originally planned, so long as he was here with her, she would fulfill the dreams that had originally led to her making a deal with him.