Chapter Text
He could still hear the gunshot ringing in his head. Feel the magma boiling inside his skull. What he presumed was left of it, anyhow. A woman’s voice cackled.
Had she known?
Is this why she’d only answered his calls now?
Bit by bit, the world solidified around him. His body sank into something soft, plush. Not the cold, damp earth of the Louisiana swamps, but warm bedding. His fingers tangled in the sheets. Silk. He thought it was silk. Certainly something much more fine and expensive than he’d ever owned. He peeled his eyelids open, vision swimming with reds and golds, the ceiling too high above for him to make out the details without his eyeglasses. Even so, it was very clearly not the rough-hewn wood roof of his hunting shack, nor the textured stucco of his townhome. The dim lights flickered. They were like needles hammered into his eyes.
A terrible ache burned his throat. He swallowed what little saliva his mouth was able to produce, managing only to exacerbate the raw pain. His head continued to throb in time with the roaring of his pulse. Nausea rolled in his stomach, creeping up the back of his throat and threatening to come pouring out of his mouth. Clumsily, he struggled to push himself upright only for his stomach to heave and the entire world to spin on its axis. With a groan, he fell back against the bedding.
He fought to arrange his thoughts into something coherent but they continued to slip away from him like water through a sieve. He knew something was wrong. What, exactly, he could not find the words for.
A dog howled somewhere. Was there a dog? He… He needed to get away…
Get away from what?
He was safe in bed.
He was dying in the bayou…
It wasn’t his bed…
She shook his hand…
‘Dad, I thi… stor? Alastor!’
A woman’s voice… Her voice?
Voices. No words, just noise fighting through the cotton in his ears. He felt himself sinking and even the starbursts behind his eyelids were swallowed by the dark.
Alastor’s next return to the waking world came much more peacefully than the first. His head still ached, but it was no longer the all-encompassing, blinding pain from before. His eyes fluttered open and again he found himself staring at the reds and golds of an unknown ceiling.
Hushed voices nearby. One male, one female. He turned his head to find the blurry silhouettes of his… visitors? Captors? One all in white, small and petite, the other long and lean and dressed in hues of reddish-pink or pinkish-red. At first Alastor assumed the red-pink-red one was the man, given the sheer difference in height. Then he caught the sway of long, white-gold hair behind the taller figure. They were engaged in a heated conversation held in hushed tones. Every so often he caught a flash of coherent speech, but one word above all was unmistakable; his name. These people knew him.
Not a rescue then, but a kidnapping?
How much did they know..?
The whispers grew more heated, too frantic for Alastor to actually parse. Well, if they weren’t going to allow him to conveniently eavesdrop on them, he may as well give up the charade. With a soft groan, and more effort than it should have taken, Alastor began to push himself upright. He was rewarded with a soft gasp.
“Alastor!”
The woman in pink-red ran forward, bringing a full face of makeup into focus. That was Alastor’s initial assumption, anyhow.
“Thank god you’re alright! I found you in the kitchen a-a-and you were bleeding an- a-and- and y-you-”
Alastor was so focused on the sharpness of her canines, the brilliant crimson hue of her catlike irises, that he did not immediately register the words she was flinging at him. Nor the decline into inelegant blubbering. At least, not until she seized the front of the loose garment hanging off his shoulders and pulled him into a very wet, very snotty, very tight hug. The white-clad man made some kind of protest but Alastor wasn’t paying attention. Body moving before his mind could catch up, Alastor shoved the strange woman away. She released him, stumbling backwards away from the bed with wide eyes. Alastor imagined his own must have been just as wide.
Clearing his throat, he schooled his expression into a disarming smile.
“Apologies, my dear.” His voice sounded unbelievably hoarse. He’d need to take care of that before his next show. “Are- Have we met?”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Alastor kept his eyes fixed on the white blur of her face, a beacon amid the red wallpaper and decor. His fingers tightened in the blankets draped around his lower body while cool air caressed his exposed neck and chest. He could feel a spot of dampness on his cheek and soaking through the fabric over his shoulder.
“Alastor?” Her voice wavered with raw emotions. Painful ones. “I-it’s me… Do you… Don’t you remember..?”
Could she be? Alastor wet his lips
“Are you… the demon from the radio?”
Her silence was his answer. It stretched on, covering them like a shroud. Suddenly the white-clad figure was right there in his face and- Oh! What a curious face it was. Noseless and earless, but with the same harlequin-complexion as the woman. And this close Alastor came to the startling realization that the man was not, in fact, small. He was quite average as far as height went, if still incredibly fine-boned. It was the woman who was unusually tall.
“What’s that supposed to mean, bellhop?” the man growled in a tone that instantly soured Alastor’s stomach. Suddenly the front of his shirt was again grabbed, this time in a balled fist and he was yanked harshly forward so those now blood-red eyes filled his vision. “What demon? Did you make a deal with a demo-”
“O-kay, that’s enough!”
The grip on Alastor’s shirt disappeared as the woman wrapped her deceptively thin arms around the man’s midsection and lifted him straight up into the air. The man continued to kick and shout obscenities as the woman carried him straight out the door, deposited him in the hallway, and reentered, slamming the door behind her.
Perhaps this wasn’t the situation for it, but Alastor laughed. He was lost, achy, and deeply, deeply confused, but at the very least he could have a laugh at the odd little man’s expense.
“Your companion is certainly… lively?”
“My dad. Sorry about him, he can be a little…” She made a sort of squealing-choking noise that explained nothing and everything at once. “You, uh, really don’t remember us?”
“I.. take it you weren’t the demon from the radio?”
“No.”
“Then no, I can’t say that I do.”
She said nothing for a moment. Alastor resisted the urge to squint to better read her face, focusing instead on maintaining his expression.
“Alastor… Did you, uh, make a deal with this demon?”
Alastor didn’t move. Kept his face static.
The woman sucked in a deep breath.
“Okay, that’s… Uh, wow. Okay. You made a deal. While you were alive. Fuck.”
While he was alive. Unthinking, he brought his fingers to his forehead, where the skin was smooth and unmarred. He hadn’t dreamt the fiery pain of having his skull blasted apart. That much he was sure of. Fuck, he thought he could even feel the bits of his brain that had splattered against the trees.
Nausea clawed its way up his throat once more. Alastor swallowed thickly. Focused on his smile. Never let them see you frown...
“I see… I’m dead then? And this is Hell?”
“...Yes. It’s okay though! You’re safe here. I promise, Alastor, we’ll find a way to fix this.”
Curious young woman. She seemed young, anyhow. Who knew what constituted ‘young’ for a demon.
“Well, you have the advantage over me. In multiple ways,” Alastor commented with a lighthearted chuckle. In some ways he was grateful for his lack of vision. At least he could remain blissfully unaware of what a mess he must be. Still holding the blanket with one hand, he extended the other. “May I ask the name of my protector, miss..?”
“Oh! Right! Charlie Morningstar, er, Princess of Hell!”
Her fingers looked so dainty, in proportion to the rest of her. But that slender hand enveloped his. Somehow, Alastor had been expecting her alabaster skin would be cool to the touch, but it ran hot. ‘Like the fires of Hell,’ his brain supplied helpfully.
Did she bleed red? Black? Perhaps liquid fire.
“Wow, you’re so…” The woman, Charlie, heaved a breath. “S-sorry, I know this is a lot, it’s just… Hah. You don’t have claws anymore…”
“Anymore?”
She didn’t release his hand. Held it like it was something precious. Alastor watched her like an extremely-nearsighted hawk as she took a seat on the edge of the bed, head tilted downwards.
“I’m sorry, this is going to be a lot to take in, but… You didn’t die. I mean, you didn’t just die, today. It’s, um… Been a few decades? I think almost a hundred years.”
Dying, he could accept.
Landing himself in Hell, he could accept.
But this-
“A- A hundred years!?”
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” She squeezed his hand in both of hers. “W-we’re gonna fix this.”
Abruptly, she released his hand and leaped to her feet. Alastor watched, bemused, as the self-proclaimed Princess of Hell summoned forth a show of golden lights and created…
Alastor squinted.
A chalkboard? Covered in… children’s drawings?
“Okay, from the top; you died, like, ninety-something years ago and came down here. And you were powerful! Like, almost demon-royalty-level powerful. And you started hunting down all the old Overlords and broadcasting their screams over the radio until you just stopped out of nowhere, and then seven years ago you disappeared from Hell—around the same time the exterminations started, now that I think about it, huh—and then you just showed back up at my old hotel and offered to help me redeem Sinners! Except you didn’t really want to redeem Sinners, you just wanted to watch and laugh while we all struggled. But! You did actually help out for real. And then the extermination date got moved up and Adam and his exorcist army attacked the hotel and you fought Adam but you disappeared halfway through the fight. I thought you died at first but then you came back later—YAY—and then I thought you were fine! Except you weren’t fine, you actually had a huge fucking gash in your chest that was slowly killing you and no one knew until you fainted in the kitchen so I got my dad to heal you only he made an itty-bitty little mistake and kind of sort of… turned you human again.”
...This woman would make an incredible singer.
“Alastor?”
Her lung capacity was rather impressive.
“Alastor, are you, uh, okay?”
Perhaps he could convince Mimzy to sing duet with her… Assuming Mimzy was… Where would she…
“A-Alastor, your hands are...”
They were shaking. He hadn’t even realized until Charlie pointed it out. At some point he’d fisted both hands in the bed covers so fiercely his knuckles turned white. Slowly, mechanically, he uncurled his fingers. Tremors continued to race down his arms as he reached up to touch his chest. Oh. Now that she’d pointed it out, he did feel the dried blood crusted in the dark fabric. A breathy laugh slipped past his lips. What a silly thing to overlook.
Smile fixed in place, he raised his eyes to meet Charlie’s.
“I don’t suppose that Hell at least has alcohol, does it?”
She brought him some alcohol. A rather nice whiskey which he gulped down within moments of her pressing the glass into his hands. As well as a change of clothes because the bloodstained garments he had woken in were quite obviously meant for a body larger than his. In the back of his mind it occurred to Alastor that he had demon royalty running and fetching things on his behalf, and perhaps that should have made him feel powerful.
He was not.
The power he’d been promised was gone. He’d held it for nearly a century that he could no longer remember. And he was bereft. Surrounded by demons and powerless. It was exactly the fate he’d wished to avoid. Exactly the reason he sold his soul in the first place.
In the end, his deal amounted to nothing. A hundred year reign of terror he couldn’t remember.
And his soul…
Did he ever accomplish the task the demon from the radio had for him?
A knock at the door pulled him out of his head.
“Alastor?” Charlie’s voice called. “Are you dressed?”
“I’m decent,” he called back, voice chipper.
The door creaked open and Charlie stepped in. Alastor smoothed down the front of the scarlet vest she’d provided. Remarkably similar to his favorite in appearance, though the golden buttons and cuff-links were conspicuously apple-shaped and the fabric was… richer. Nicer. He wondered if the materials were the same as the ones found on Earth, or if they were unique to Hell.
“Oh! Wow, you look… different.” A beat. “Good different! You look really nice, Al!”
“Thank you, my dear. I do try.”
A scoff. Not from her, but from the fuzzy white blob nearly blending into the gold wallpaper in the hallway. Now that he thought about it, if Miss Morningstar was the Princess of Hell, then this man…
Alastor bit back a chuckle. Oh, if only the pastor could see this.
For that matter, if only he could.
“Okay, everyone’s gathered in the lounge for reintroductions. Uh, just… brace yourself? Uh, they may look a little… different than what you’re used to, but I promise we’re all friends.”
“Oh, no need to worry! The speakeasies I haunt were frequented by folk from all walks of life. I’m sure your clique won’t be able to shock me.”
Charlie released a nervous little laugh. Light and airy, so unlike anything one might expect from a Princess of Hell.
Now, how long for the other shoe to drop..?
“Ah!”
A lump under the rug upset his footing. Alastor barely had time to process the shift in balance or the floor rushing up at him before strong arms caught him.
“Can’t you watch where you’re going, Bambi?” the man Alastor presumed to be Lucifer spat as he helped Alastor regain his balance. A familiar roiling heat flooded Alastor’s stomach. He beat back the urge to snarl, forcing his smile to remain friendly as he turned to his ‘savior.’
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
This close, Alastor could see the stupefied look on the devil’s pompous, doll-like face. It was almost worth the moment’s embarassment.
“I- You… D-di-d-did you just call me ‘sir!?’”
Oh. Now this was interesting. Alastor raised a brow, easing into that soft, almost unsure tone he knew his producers liked when he was off the air.
“Should I not?”
“W-well, you don’t- I-I mean yes! Definitely! Uh, ‘bout time you showed some respect-”
“Sir?”
That motor mouth snapped shut with an audible click. Alastor smirked.
“I can stand on my own.”
Lucifer stared. Then he looked down, as though only just realizing his arms were still wrapped around Alastor’s.
Then all at once, he was pressed flat against the wall like a cat threatened with the garden hose. This time there was no suppressing the laughter. Alastor cackled while the princess sighed.
“Dad, c’mon,” she chided. Then, to Alastor, “Are the lights hurting your eyes? You keep squinting.”
“No no, not in the least,” Alastor corrected through his tapering laughter. “I’m afraid I can’t see much at all without my eyeglasses.”
“Oh!” Charlie smacked her forehead. “Duh, you used to wear a monocle. Dad, can you..?”
It took a moment, but the silly little king managed to peel himself from the wall. Lucifer cleared his throat, straightening the front of his coat. Then with the snap of his fingers a cloud of red smoke enveloped Alastor’s face. The moment it cleared, so did his vision.
He blinked. Reached up to touch the thin metal arms of the eyeglasses that had been conjured directly onto his face. Curious, Alastor gingerly removed the new eye-wear to inspect it. Thin metal frames, pale gold just like his new buttons and cuff-links. With a delicate gold chain that ended in the heads of snakes biting onto embossed apples where the chain connected to the arms.
“...You certainly stick to your motifs,” Alastor commented as he replaced the glasses and- Oh.
He thought he had a clear enough picture of his escorts, but it was still startling to see their clearly inhuman faces in all their glory. Especially Charlie. And—perhaps it was an odd detail to fixate on—he was taken for a loop to realize she was not wearing a long skirt like he’d first assumed but a full on tuxedo.
“Yeah yeah, I get it, you wouldn’t know what good taste is if it bit you,” Lucifer scoffed. Childish.
“Oh, not at all. I find it endearing,” Alastor said, earning himself a look of open-mouthed surprise. “And I’m impressed you were able to guess my prescription so precisely.”
A full body shiver raced up the devil’s spine.
“Y-yeah, well, no. Uh, no guesswork. I’m just, y’know, the all-powerful motherfuckin’ King of Hell. Ahaha. A-and you don’t hafta worry about them ever breaking or getting scratched or even dusty. You’re welcome!”
Charlie’s palm seemed glued to her forehead. Poor dear. How did she put up with this on a daily basis?
Placing a hand over his chest, Alastor offered the ‘king’ a little half-bow.
“Well then, thank you very much, your majesty.”
Huh.
His entire face turned gold.
Neat.
“I-I-I’m- Um, I g-gotta… duck… situation! Bye!”
And off he went, scrambling down the hallway so quickly that he ended up stumbling over that exact same lump in the carpet. Wait, did that lump just twitch? Never mind that. Alastor snickered at the king’s graceless exit.
“Is he usually like this?” he asked, turning his attention back to Charlie the moment Lucifer scrambled around a corner.
“No, that was pretty calm for him, actually,” she replied. A sigh. “You and Dad didn’t really get along when you were a demon. He probably… Well, I think he just doesn’t know how to handle you not being… yourself.”
Ridiculous. He was as much himself as he’d ever been.
“I see…”
He managed much better down the hallway with his new eyeglasses. Charlie continued to make idle chit-chat, but Alastor found himself quickly distracted by the occasional strange guest to pass them by. Before his apparent death he’d had a particular image of demons in Hell. After seeing Charlie and her father, that image shifted to human faces with some inhuman features added or some human features subtracted.
Not a woman with leafy branches sprouting from her skull, ripe fruits swaying with each step she took.
Or a skeletal snake still wrapped in its old skin.
Or some sort of… long-nosed rooster man?
Each form was stranger than the last, some he couldn’t even begin to guess at what they were meant to resemble, if anything at all. Most towered well over him and he realized that as tall as he’d thought Charlie was, she was probably what passed for average by this realm’s standards. The single exception seemed to be a little grey-blue fellow with an anglerfish’s lure sprouting from his head who ran past them with his face buried in a notebook. Despite the manners his mother had instilled, Alastor knew he was gawking.
Stranger still than the bizarre faces and forms was how utterly… normal it all seemed.
“Was that ant wearing a fedora?”
“Huh?” Charlie paused with her hand on the door handle. “Oh, yeah, Antoine. Don’t worry, we had a talk with him about it and he promises it’s not an incel thing. He just likes the hat.”
“...Okay?”
She pushed the door open and abruptly Alastor became aware of voices falling quiet. He hung back, awaiting the moment to make his entrance as Charlie prepped their audience. Again, he smoothed down the front of his vest. Adjusted the sleeves of the white dress shirt. Charlie began to speak.
“Okay guys,” he heard her say. “The reason I called you all here is because of Alastor-”
“What did he do?” a gruff, feminine voice cut her off. Rude.
“No no no, he didn’t do anything,” Charlie corrected. “He, ah, well… I found out what happened to him during the last extermination an-”
“Oh, you mean how Adam chopped him and he almost died?” Another feminine voice, this one small and giggly, moreso than was appropriate for her words.
“W-wa-wa-wait, Niffty, you knew!?” Charlie cried.
“Wait, Smiles what?” Ah, a New Yorker? He wasn’t the only human soul in the princess’s care then?
“Yeah, he lets me clean it up sometimes,” the bubbly speaker he now knew was called Niffty said. “But he mostly just sews it up with magic.”
“Ese idiota,” the first strange voice grumbled. “Can’t your dad take care of it?”
“That’s the thing. He did. But there was… a complication.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” a new voice demanded, this one pleasantly deep and gravelly. He’d be a hit on the radio.
“Well, Dad kinda went a liiiiiitle overboard and… ‘healed’ all the demon-stuff out of Alastor too.”
“...What?” British accent? It sounded a bit off, maybe if she spoke more he’d be able to place it-
“Uh, maybe it’d be easier to just show you. Al, come on in.”
Welp, that was his cue. Steeling himself, Alastor pushed the door open and followed Charlie inside.
Instantly, he was met with gawking faces. Not a human form among them. Yet they were the ones frozen in a stupor, as though he were the monster. Perhaps he was. Whispers and stares, these were nothing new to him. Yet, this wasn’t quite the same sort of elitist disdain, as though he were dirtying their air by daring to breathe it. There was shock, and there was also something akin to fear. Alastor cleared his throat.
“Well, I believe you already know who I am, but no reason to throw manners by the wayside.” He extended a hand to the crowd. “Alastor. Pleasure to be meeting you lovely folks, quite a pleasure!”
No one said anything.
Then the winged cat collapsed right over the side of the couch, his beer bottle trailing brown liquid as it rolled across the carpet. Nobody moved to pick it up.