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It's easier this way.
The fact of the matter is that it's easier this way.
He shows up at Rosie's. He brings the kills. She cooks.
They eat together.
It's easier this way.
He's grown accustomed to her. Fond is a difficult word to apply to someone who once owned one's soul, and no-one can make him do anything now, so he doesn't.
But he has grown accustomed to her. So he shows up with the meat, and she breaks out the knives and seasoning, and once the meal is prepared, they eat.
It is… pleasant, yes, pleasant, to have some time away from the hotel.
Rosie speaks his language. There is no expectation of "redemption" from her. They know what they are, they delight in it, they revel in it, and there is no nagging scold about it in her parlor in Cannibal Town.
He is who he is, she is who she is, they are cannibals being cannibals. Meat is rendered from bone. Company is had. He leaves. He comes back. She invites him in every time. It is simple and aside from the blood, it is relatively clean.
He's been killing a lot of people lately.
Charlie is giving him a wide berth. Nag though she may, she seems largely resigned to his nature, and given that she actually needs his services now that more people are checking into the hotel what with "proof" of "redemption" now broadcasted across Hell.
The thought that she pities him after his… time with Vox makes him blister. One can only pity what is beneath one's self. (His lips curl into a snarl whenever the thought passes his mind.) He would know.
If anyone deserves pity, it's Charlie. Naive, sweet Charlie, about to be played for a fool by Heaven. Perhaps Heaven will let some of "the good ones" in, and meanwhile her kingdom will remain infested with people like him, people like Vox, people like Valentino, people like Rosie. People like her father, content to sit atop a pile of plastic ducks without lifting a singular divinely magical finger to change how power flows through Hell.
Alastor doesn't mind. It's a shame for the wretches out on the streets of Hell and the Angels and Husks of Hell, the ones Charlie ostensibly cares about while offering them nothing but trying to change who they are, but he, frankly, could not give a single solitary shit about it.
To whatever extent Rosie pities him, it is cruel. There is no genuine sympathy in it, unlike how it always has to be with Charlie, well-meaing concern positively oozing out of her every pore. No, if Rosie pities him, she pities him as no more than an acknowledgment of weakness. Her performance of pity, should he ever bear witness to it, is indeed a performance.
Charlie, on the other hand, is so unbearably earnest.
Rosie might not be a performer in all the senses he is, but they are still the same kind of animal.
It's been a trying week.
He's hunted a lot about it.
It's been more than a trying week, actually.
There's been so much to do at the hotel, and while it's entertaining to watch sinners struggle, it's often the same kind of struggle he's been watching in Hell for decades. The tasks Charlie sets for him are hardly challenging, just tedious. Of course, when something goes wrong, it's always his fault, and not her lay-about father's. No-one is grateful, not that he needs their approval anyway, but there's hardly a shred of thanks in it for him. More importantly, everyone seems to think he is indeed the bellhop and treat him as such. He's going to hunt or he's going to snap.
He'd rather hunt. For all of the troubles the hotel seems to bring upon him, he still would rather hunt.
It is quite the haul of bodies he's brought Rosie this time, which is probably why he feels close to bursting.
It is actually somewhat uncomfortable. Well-tailored pants shouldn't be loose, but this snug is not "well-tailored."
It irritates him.
It would be a relief to undo the button, but if overindulging to this point of excess is unbecoming, actually undoing the button is so well beyond unbecoming he doesn't even want to think of what word would apply.
Rosie appears to be looking at him intently. How long as he been looking off into the middle distance?
He tries not to think too hard about the feeling of relief when he pops the button privately.
Trying not to think about the tightness only works so long. He makes an appointment at Rosie's emporium for a fitting.
Rosie doesn't say anything, but he could swear she— smirked. Or, something in the vicinity of "smirked."
Rosie doesn't say anything.
Her eyes rake him over hungrily.
She can tell. It's hardly as if he's fat, the man was thin as a stick before. He still is quite slender.
Just a little less emaciated, is all.
He still looks razor sharp, agile, like Alastor.
He could stand to be slightly less breakable looking, actually.
She likes that they've still been spending time together.
Even if a pet is not an equal, one still likes having it around. And, well, if Alastor is no longer her pet in the true sense of ownership, he really is such a doll. So well-mannered, ever the gentleman— that is, except in the moments where he lets the beast out. Those moments, those moments are the ones that led to dead Sinners and denizens of Hell arriving in her shop slung over his shoulder.
He's perfectly polite while they eat. That he was a crazed monster ravaging entire city blocks if it suited him mere hours prior was incongrous with the man who sat across with her at dinner— or, it would have been, to someone who didn't know him like she did.
She did though. He'd been hers for about a century (notwithstanding the moment they first made contact when he was among the living).
For nearly a century, she'd known him.
Not— not intimately. Or, maybe intimately, as being able to quite literally pull someone's strings is, but with that power dynamic comes a certain distance. She can hold his hand in a dance she leads, and he will still remain at arm's length.
She hardly has room to complain.
She grew fond of him, but it certainly isn't out of the ordinary to be fond of a pet. And that was more or less the shape of her fondness for him.
Now he's not a pet. He's a person with agency, with the choice to come to her or not.
And still, he comes to her.
Alastor is no Kashtanka, she thinks. Alastor, despite the ears, does not fawn. He fights. It's what keeps the corpses coming.
She would like to think that it's not like that, that a dog shocked in a cage enough times will not try to escape even when it has the opportunity to do so.
She'd like to think that Alastor is fond of her too. That that's why he keeps choosing to come back.
And why not? He seems happy to be there. In his element. He always has the hotel to scamper off to, or anywhere else in the Pride Ring he desires. And still, he chooses to come here.
She cooks. He provides the meat. Yes, there is a transaction, but it's not as if she's the only one in Hell who knows how to prepare their meat of choice.
It's easier, with that exchange, for him. She knows. She understands. They are the same kind of animal— or, they are in that respect. Or something very close. The only difference between them is the cards they were dealt, not how they played.
He wouldn't have acted any differently in her position. She is sure of it. In fact, she's probably extended him more latitude than he would have extended her, in some respects.
She does not regret it, nor does she feel sorry for it.
She is… pleased with the way things are now, even though she lost ownership of his soul. Pleased that he chooses to return.
Pleased about the time they're spending together, the effect it's having on him.
She hopes… she hopes it can continue.
When she sees that he's booked himself for a fitting at the Emporium, she determines that she will be the one to fit him.
She doesn't usually work the floor on the clothing side of the business. She likes gossiping with customers behind the deli counter better, but she'll take a day on the fashion side. Alastor is a friend, after all.
Or something like one, anyway.
"Rosie!" Alastor exclaims as he comes in for his fitting. "I didn't expect you to be the one to fit me today!"
"Oh, of course! The girls mentioned you'd be coming in today and I thought I'd come in myself, seeing as we know each other personally and all."
"Don't you know most of your Cannibals "personally"? And besides, I'm not so sure owning someone constitutes a personal relationship."
He's not wrong. He's not wrong, and that's why it stings.
She brushes it off. "Touché! Not unfair. But I'm here now, so, shall we get started?"
"Capital."
"Marvelous. Now, should we get started with a fitting, or do you want to tell me what you want first?"
"Oh, the same old, same old. If it isn't broke, don't fix it! Just… a little bigger." Given how loudly Alastor speaks the rest of the time, lowering his voice is conspicuous in and of itself. They both ignore it.
"Understood! Come," she says as she turns to a fitting area near the back of the store, a curtain providing them a layer of privacy.
He looks unhappy. She knows when the smile is simply his default, when it looks a little pained beyond what it must do to the muscles in his face, and besides, his ears give him away whether he wants them to or not.
She wishes he weren't.
Maybe it's her. Maybe it's that she's here. Maybe it's that, instead of general embarrassment.
He looks good like this. Fuller. Like he has more of a presence behind his body without having to turn himself into an Eldritch horror.
She thinks he's handsome.
She hopes he doesn't disagree, but fears he does. He's always had a high opinion of himself, if anything to the point of conceitedness, but he doesn't look it now. Not that she doesn't like being the one to knock him down a peg, but… it's only fun if she's toying with him. And while she'd certainly like to bat around his new figure in her hands, she'd rather not attack this metaphorical (and literal) soft underbelly.
Rosie chatters at him on the way to the fitting area and as they get situated. Gossip from around the Pentagram that he tries to make note of fills the air while obligatory, ultimately meaningless "Mhm"s and a gasp or "No, really?" interjections from him are interjected.
Then it's time. He sheds his pants for the measurements.
This is ridiculous.
This is humiliating.
Alastor is not not excessive: excessive in bloodlust. Excessive in carnage. The color red personified.
He is also restrained when he wants to be. His rampages are deliberate moments of abandon. There is no crazed monster bated into senseless frenzy; there is a man who has decided for a moment to set aside any and all inhibitions before returning to himself. It's simply part of who he is, part of what Alastor the Radio Demon is known for.
This is unbecoming. It is not the result of choosing to yield to a pleasure like violence, but a lack of control. Not a choice not to restrain himself, but simply a failure to do so.
It is repulsive.
Alastor fights the urge to suck in as Rosie pulls the measuring tape around his waist.
Pathetic.
He's so cute like this.
She'd really like to grab at him, but this is professional. Nominally.
Alastor rips into people without a second thought. Of the two of them, she's always been the one more inclined to play with her food.
She could actually squish him a bit now!
She won't though, she's… oh.
Niffty had shooed him off to Rosie's saying that she was an excellent seamstress, thank you very much, but she wasn't a miracle worker, and it was going to be fine, Rosie was a friend and even if they weren't friends, she was a professional, it was going to be fine.
Rosie's fingers are pinching his waist.
This does not feel fine.
She's a professional! How could she possibly let the barrier between her hands and her head sink so low!
Rosie's hands are cold and her nails are sharp.
It could be… not unwelcome, if they had talked about it, but they most certainly had not.
She releases her grip on the bit of his stomach she'd pinched absent-mindedly, clears her throat, and reads out the measurement.
They move on like it hadn't happened.
The only word for how he feels about it is incredulous.
Or, well, rather, there are other words, but first and foremost is incredulous.
There's also angry, and confused about why he's not angrier, and angrier for being confused.
He goes home with an expected date for newly fitted pants, and some he picked up to tide him over till then.
He left the shop in one of them. It was more comfortable.
it is all so incredibly embarrassing.
A delivery of parceled meat wrapped in brown butcher appears at the hotel following the murder spree he went on to relieve the stress of it all. He'd dropped the bodies off at Rosie's doorstep and returned to the hotel.
The delivery includes an invitation to tea.
It's… conciliatory. An olive branch.
He accepts the invitation within the week and arrives laden with parcels of meat wrapped in brown butcher paper.