Chapter Text
Sweet potato biscuits and tea. A lovely morning ritual of Alastor's, now that he had a whole apartment to himself in the newly remodeled Hazbin Hotel. He'd spent yesterday evening baking the biscuits to have with dinner, and with a quick stint in the toaster, they were just as good now as they were the night before. A bit of butter, a bit of jam, and he was enjoying himself with the morning paper in his overstuffed easy chair. He had a low fire going in the fireplace, the radio was tuned to a morning talk show, and his slippered hooves were up on the footrest. A slow, lazy morning to be sure. Just how he liked them. The city far beyond the lawn of the hotel was already alive and kicking, but behind his one-way windows and detached air, there was very little that could actually bother him, here. He was at peace with himself, the world, and nothing needed his immediate, Overlord-level attention. He could relax, enjoy his breakfast, and-
"Uh, Al?"
Spoke too soon. With an affable sigh, Alastor pretended he didn't hear Charlie calling for him over that dreadful machine, turning a page in the newspaper and taking a small sip of his tea. The PA system built into his damned wall crackled again, and he cringed. He wished he'd been here to oversee construction of the hotel and most especially his living spaces, he would've never allowed such drastic, impersonal access to his quarters if he'd had a say in the matter. While it was useful, yes, he could see that, there was nothing achieved by the intercom that wasn't doable with a phone. The only 'advantage' offered was immediacy. He rose from the chair, slowly, giving his bones some time to get used to moving again after he promised them a sedentary hour or two, and padded over to the the wall-mounted speaker.
"Yes?" He asked, pushing down the little red button on the panel to send his voice through the last line. He'd brought his teacup with him, and only barely remembered to take his finger off to stop transmitting before he took another sip.
"Good morning!" Charlie chirruped, a fringe of nerves adorning her greeting like a rather fashionable feather boa.
God damn it. That meant she had a problem she needed him to solve. Alastor got his grumbling out while she couldn't hear him, then re-applied his persona. "What can I do for you, my dear?" Another gulp of tea as he walked away to get his biscuit from the plate on his coffee table. At this point, he was tempted to just bring the paper too. This promised to be a long conversation about nothing in particular that would end in him needing to leave his living room. His robe was still heavy over his body, and his bedding sang a siren's song up the stairs. He kind of wanted to lay back down. Sinners didn't age, but after the Adam debacle, he was beginning to feel a bit like he was nearly a century old. Maybe all the years of beatings were beginning to take a toll. He was a bit stiff in the mornings now.
The PA system coughed with static, but the devil's daughter came back over the line as he meandered back to the box. "Hiiii! Sorry to bug you so early, but there's somebody down here who I think could use your help."
His help? Alastor took a bite of biscuit, chewed thoroughly, and washed it down with the dregs of his cuppa before he deigned to give something that insane a response. Charlie did not retract the statement, so she must've truly believed it, to not have backed down during the silence. His condescending lack of answer did, most of the time, root out the worst of her plans. "I am not a counselor, Miss Morningstar."
"No, I know! I know, that's not what you're here for. But, uh..." A shuffling sound, a muffled snatch of a conversation in the background. Laughter. "I really think you should just come down to the parlor and see for yourself? This lady is very confused, I think, and you could probably help clear things up!"
Alastor rubbed his eye with the back of his hand, finished his biscuit, and resigned himself to a lifetime of early mornings as long as he was here at the hotel. He had thrown the alarm clock over the railing when it popped off at six in the morning the first day he'd returned, but the message still seemed to be muddy for the Princess of Hell. He would keep the hours he pleased to keep, and if he was unwilling to play ball, he wouldn't. Ah well. He'd already revealed himself to be awake, so there was no getting out of this. "I'll be along in a minute! Let me freshen up."
"Oh, no, did I wake you?!"
"Barely not, Charlie. I'll be down soon!"
He broke the speaker after that, because he was quite done having people call for him like a dog. If they needed him, they could knock on his door, or call the phone in his room and then he could make the executive decision on if he was currently in or not. This PA system nonsense was spoiling them! Constant access to his attentions whenever they asked. It took away their ability to simply wait for things! Including him! As revenge, Alastor took his time getting ready. He had another half-cup of tea as he did the dishes, folded up the paper for later reading, put out his fire and killed his radio. He even spent the time to physically get ready rather than just wave his hand and magic on some clothes, manually brushing out his hair and teeth and plucking his suit out of his wardrobe. He finished off this round of pettiness by fluffing his collar in the mirror before he deemed himself 'presentable.'
If he were truly peevish, he'd apply a little makeup just to drive it home, but he'd made his point clear enough with the thirty minute routine. He summoned his staff to his hand, gave it a little spin around his pointer finger for nobody by himself, and made his way out of his apartment and down the hall. Alastor whistled a little tune as he did, wondering exactly which persona he would need to put on to get this new guest on their way. The murderous, marauding Overlord with all the sharp teeth? The witch doctor that bent poppets and eldritch growth to his will? Or perhaps the charming radio host, who could make jumping off a cliff sound like a weekend getaway? A Rolodex worth of approaches to consider!
As he stepped into the elevator, his finger hovered over the button for the very bottom floor, but he reconsidered. No, no. Walking out of the elevator was no grand entrance, not at all! He would take the stairs down from the second floor so he could prance down to the lobby, just for the added dramatics of the whole affair! First impressions were everything, and even if this was a Sinner who knew him, it was all the more important to keep up his image. He tapped the button to set the elevator in motion and waited as the doors slid closed, fingers drumming a little beat across the top of his cane. Alastor had to admit to himself, he was curious about the type of person that would come asking after him, specifically. Mimzy knew better than to come back without a damned good reason, and had proven it too. Not one month after he'd returned to the hotel, she'd called him about being swept up in a phishing scheme and out twenty thousand in debt. He'd bailed her out, in the way that offered him the most violence, and then she had flaked on tea at Cannibal Colony the next week. That was how their relationship worked, and he didn't quite mind it. She'd done quite a lot for him in life.
So who was left? Husker and Niffty were here. He had no other friends, save Rosie, who had no qualms about sending him a letter or calling the hotel to get a message to him if they needed to talk before their monthly get-together. So who in their right mind would go fucking asking for him? For a brief, savagely delighted moment, he imagined if it was Vox, and he would get to rip his stupid LCD head off his shoulders. Likely not, but a man could dream.
The elevator dinged, and Alastor stepped out, faintly hoping to hear static. No, none. A shame. Vox wasn't here to bully. With a final pull of his lapels to straighten them, and a fluff of his ears to ensure they stood properly, he jogged down the final flight of stairs that dumped him into the first floor's main hall. He tucked his staff into the crook of his arm and wandered across the hall of rooms, a spring in his step. This morning was far too fine to be pulling the 'evil Overlord' routine, despite being bothered far too early for his own liking. His smile was still too genuine, too real to make it skew jagged and predatory. He'd just have to play the role of gracious, kindly facility manager, and then play it further by ear. If this mystery guest was someone he needed to scare, well, the happiness would just make it all the more terrifying when the switch flipped!
As he got closer to the parlor, where the rug turned from an inch thick of basically brand new fabric to a fine layer of yarn underfoot, he heard voices. Charlie's flutey soprano, Husker's grit and gruff, Angel's drawling Jersey. Even Vaggie was here, the drill sergeant nature borne of her angelic origins unable to be fully beaten out of her by her girlfriend's exuberance. Then, there was the stranger, though Alastor couldn't pick out their voice. Snippets of conversation buried what they sounded like under layers of too-familiar chatter. Nobody he could recognize, not through all the din. Well, they knew him, apparently, so it was showtime.
Alastor waltzed onto the upper deck of the foyer, grinning away, shoulders back and spine straight. Good posture was everything! "Good morning, you ungovernable miscreants, whatever can I do for you today?" He called, stopping at the top of the stairs and lording himself, ever so slightly, over the gathered audience. Five heads turned to him from the bar, perking up around the newcomer. Niffty wasn't here, must've been elsewhere, likely sweeping soot from his hearth. He squinted, melted down the stairs in shadow form, a little party trick this early in the morning to showcase his power. He was aware he was throwing the kitchen sink's worth of social approaches out right now, a veritable shotgun of schmoozing tactics, but he was dragged out of his armchair for this. Away from his paper, his radio, and hot biscuits. He deserved to have fun with it.
"Over here! Come and meet Suzanne!"
Charlie waved at him, exuberantly as always, but his eyes focused in on the newcomer sat in the center of the bar, flanked on one side by Angel, on the other, Charlie and Vaggie, with Husker at her back. This was another deer sinner, like him, though she was half his size and a little on the plump side. Her hair was a gentle turquoise color, like a bluebottle fly, with teeny tiny antlers like his own, though hers were rounded. She wore a deeply green dress with a Bateau neckline and white trimmings that accentuated her brown skin rather well, along with a little hat and overcoat, both beige. There were cattails stuck into her hatband, a smattering of sedge grass and a magnolia accentuating the look. Her little hooves were bare. One could almost call her cute, if not bordering on elegant. She blinked at him with big doe eyes as she looked him up and down, tongue caught between her teeth. Scrutinizing.
Ever the performer, he gave her a deep, sweeping bow, delighting in the lack of pain over his chest. His wound had healed quite well, despite nearly shaving off one of his ribs. The perks of divine healing. "Welcome to the Hazbin Hotel, madam! I am your host,-"
"Mon bijou?"
Alastor's radio screamed with feedback, like someone had just thrown it out of the window. There it went, sailing away, taking with it the sound of the fuzz that always colored his words. A ringing in his ears replaced it, bent in half, staring at the ticket-printed carpet under his boots. He straightened up again, so quickly his back snapped out of and instantly back into place. Exactly one person ever, ever, had the right to call him bijou and keep all their appendages.
"M. Maman?"
The hotel condensed around him as his vision tunneled. Her eyes. They were a deep, chocolate brown, just like his own had been in life. Alastor's eyes had been that way, before the dogs, before the hunter, before everything went so wrong and he went flying down to Hell long before his mother had ever worried about dying herself. He stopped breathing. There was no way in Hell. He'd been dead a century, and this woman reeked. Not of the living, but she certainly didn't smell like she'd been here long. No, his mother would've died long ago, not recently. And even if she did die today, she wouldn't have ended up here. The name had to be a coincidence. His mother was too kind. Too loving. Too... Many things that he was not.
The doe popped off her barstool, as the rest of the Hotel's residents watched on in stunned silence. She threw her arms open and sprinted for him, hooves thumping over the floor. "Alastor! Mon enfant, cher, chouchou, come here!"
Alastor didn't need to be told twice. He threw his staff aside, along with his airs, and met her halfway across the lobby in a few long bounds, using the strength his deer parts gave him to cross the chasm. He swept his mother up in his arms, as a good son rightly should, and spun around in the parlor for all to see. He didn't care what he looked like right now. He could disembowel someone in public fashion later, this was far more important. His mother showered him with platitudes and kissy noises, like a little puppy, but he hooked his chin over her shoulder and just basked in the moment. She was warm and soft and held him just the way he remembered she did, arms around his ribs because he'd far outgrown her even as a young teen. She had nothing but love for him no matter what it was he did or what trouble he'd gotten into, inside of home or out. She smelled like chicory and still water, peat and a spike of herbs. Like home. Like the cabin in the bayou. It had been a century since Alastor had last seen his mother, and his face hurt from how widely he was grinning. He almost thought the corners of his mouth might bleed. He stifled down a hiccup, unused to such strong emotions.
Charlie was loudly and openly sobbing. He found he didn't care, because he was just about there with her, he just had a bit more self respect than to cry like a bitch in front of Lucifer and everybody. Lucifer's lack of actual presence notwithstanding. Maybe later he would, maybe in the privacy of his own bedroom he'd weep with naught but his shadow to hold a box of tissues for him, but not now. A breakdown and a proper examination of all his thankfulness could wait.
He stopped spinning, as he'd gotten dizzy from all the whirling and knew his mother couldn't be far off, but hugged her a moment longer. He was squeezing tight, trying to be mindful of his claws, and mother gave as good as she got, but, eventually, she wheezed a tad. "Chouchou, my ribs?"
Alastor set her down, gently, but she didn't let go. Unwilling to release the moment either, he dropped heavily down to a knee and ignored the bark of pain that shattered its way up his leg, let her take his face in two hands. His mother pressed a kiss to his forehead and rumpled his ears, offenses anyone else would've died for. He shrank in on himself to look up into her eyes, found them just as watery as his own. She pursed her lips, fussily, ran her thumbs over the bridges of his cheekbones. He couldn't muster up the will to care what he looked like right now, getting doted over like this. Suzanne could do whatever she wanted, and he would deal with the aftershocks later. "You're still so handsome, bijou. And so tall!" She exclaimed, looking him over a second time, twisting his head so far as to maybe break his neck, if he had to worry about such things now. "Whyever did you end up even taller? You was already tall enough when we were livin'!"
"Désolé, maman, je m'excuse, maman. I didn't exactly get to pick," he warbled, trying to keep his smile joyful and not waterlogged.
"Oh, maman this, maman that, up you get!"
His mother pulled him back to his feet by his shoulders. Alastor took the moment to sneakily wipe his eyes across his sleeve, earning him a disapproving scowl without a hint of actual disappointment. He canted a glance at the crew at the bar, who were all honking into napkins at varying degrees of severity. Charlie had a box of tissues all to herself. Her mascara was demolished. Angel Dust was fanning his face with two hands to try and avoid a similar fate, while Husker and Vaggie tried and failed for poker faced. Alastor cleared his throat, made a valiant effort to swallow down the frog that was threatening to unleash the waterworks on his end, and pivoted towards his only fallback: aggressive manners.
"Maman, wherever have you been? Here, let me take your coat," he said, already helping her shrug out of it. He snapped his finger, and the coatrack at the door came sliding over at top speed, ready to accept the jacket and hat he removed. His mother nodded her approval, subtly of course, and he chased that high as well as he could. "Why, nobody took it the moment you stepped inside?!" He growled, glaring at the peanut gallery in their ocean of tears, for play of course. They were too absorbed in the moment to care. "Raised in a barn, the lot of them, here, sit, sit." Another wave of his wrist, and he snatched a pair of chairs from the sitting room to plop them straight into the center of the parlor, pressed his mother down into one, gently. He slid into the other, snapping off his overcoat to fit in with the state of dress. He continued to work his magic out of nerves, practically vibrating in place. A little teatable, the rest of the sweet potato biscuits from this morning, a pot of Orange Pekoe, he was fishing for attention in the most obvious of ways by producing a full tea out of nothing, but maybe he wanted her attention. Maybe that was all he wanted, even if he was making a mess in the lobby.
His mother picked up a cup, gave it a taste to be polite, and smiled. It was so nice and sunny and mellow, the heat of a sluggish Louisiana afternoon condensed into teeth that were only minorly sharpened for Hell. "Oh, well, chouchou, I was in Heaven, of course!"
The collective stopped crying, or trying not to cry. Charlie had to be physically restrained from ruining the moment by darting over. Angel grabbed her around the waist and ribs with three arms, holding a tissue to his eyes with his fourth one. Vaggie put a hand over her mouth, and they held her like a feral cat getting a vaccination. Alastor almost exploded the teapot.
Almost.
"Heaven?" His radio filter seeped back in. He couldn't help but wonder how she'd looked upstairs, where she belonged. Suzanne didn't look much like a sinner, apart from the teeth. No red eyes. No monstrous features. She was beautiful. His mother had always been beautiful. "How nice!"
"It was! Boy, more borin' than a tea party fulla Yanks, but nice! Never a bad day, up in Heaven. And everybody's got such stories, chouchou!"
She reached over and pinched his cheek. Alastor allowed it. He had missed this kind of diminutive behavior, had missed allowing it. His image didn't ordinarily allow for such displays of vulnerability. It still didn't allow for it, he could feel the eyes of the Hotel burning into him even now. He'd have to take this somewhere more private, but later. Later. As of now he leaned forward, arms on his knees, let her ruffle his hair. Encouraged it, even, tilted his head into her hand. "Yes, I imagine they do. But what happened for you to come here?"
"Bijou, drop that accent, willya? Ain't nothin' wrong with the one you were raised with. And what the hell you been doin' to your hair?"
Alastor would not be doing that. In no universe did he drop his Mid-Atlantic mien. His mother kept talking, didn't press the issue, though he felt Angel's thickly accented expression burning into the side of his skull. They would most certainly be coming back around to this, and sooner than he'd like. He wished so badly to take his mother upstairs, to his own home, but Charlie was circling like a shark already and would want to come with, and that just wouldn't do. So it would have to be here.
"Well, anyway, some snakey fellow came up, Sir Repentious?"
Husker now had to help restrain Charlie. His mother sipped her tea, added a tiny teaspoon of sugar and gave it a little stir, either oblivious or completely without sympathy. "Nice little man! He was tellin' us all about Hell, how it was down here. Awful, he said there are fights all the time, angelic legions comin' down to clear y'all out, said it was a right shithole! Pardon me, bijou."
"Pardoned."
"Thankya. Are those biscuits? You make 'em yourself? You always were such a fine chef!"
He might die of embarrassment before the day was out, but he was a good son, and he really was starved for her attention now that he had it again. Alastor let her tweak his ear between her fingers, trying to ignore how good it felt. He didn't let anybody touch his ears. "Maman, the story?" He prompted gently.
"Right, right, sorry. Broad strokes. I heard him talkin' about this hotel, all the people in it, and he was talking about you, bijou! Ain't nobody else it coulda been, I told myself. Tall, radioin', fine cook and dancer and singer and all them ten thousand things you can do? I knew that was my boy down here, helpin' people get up to Heaven!"
That was not at all what was fucking happening. He ate up the praise regardless, grinning and puffing himself up like a prize rooster. That was the farthest thing from the truth, but if that's what she wanted to believe, he wouldn't dissuade her of the notion. "Well, what can I say? I'm just generous like that, maman."
Husker coughed 'liar!' into his fist. Alastor ignored it. His image was already in tatters.
"I know you are, chouchou! That's what my trouble is."
Trouble? No, no, his mother was never meant to have trouble. Alastor had written out his will to ensure that, if anything did befall him, she would get everything. His townhouse, his hunting shack, his wealth, everything he ever owned would go right to her. He'd gone through so much legal trouble to find a lawyer willing to write something like that back then, the 1920s were not a kind time for men like him, no matter how much his community loved his radio show. He leaned over the little tea table and took her hand in both of his, eyes wide, ears tilting forward. "Whatever is the problem, maman? Let me help you. I can help you now."
His mother put her cup down gently, grabbed his ear with her other hand less than gently, and scolded the life out of him as he cringed, other ear pinning back.
"Alastor Guérin Foucher, why in the Sam Hill are you down here in Hell?! I raised you with upstanding morals and a good head on your shoulders, you were taught not to so much as jaywalk! You were raised Catholic! I came on down here to get your tail, so what did you do that got you stuck in this pit so bad you can't work on yourself hard enough to crest those stairs, boy?!"
He was a serial killer. His mother didn't know that. Alastor had taken painstaking measures to ensure that, too. He was smart. He was meticulous. He wore gloves. He soaked his clothes after messy kills. His blades were always wiped clean, his poisons were never purchased from the same place twice, and he never left a witness as long as he was active. Nobody would ever know that forty seven people died at his hand until they passed on themselves and got the answers from something beyond. He was anonymous, a serial killer who wasn't after the fame, he was only ever out to clean up the town, wherever he lived.
Alastor's grin froze on his face, eyes sliding left and right, looking for an escape. His mother stared him down, looking for a suitable answer. Something to explain his shifty behavior, his odd friends and odder hours, why he traveled so much and never settled in one place longer than a few years. Why he left New Orleans for New York, for Hollywood, only to come back home to roost when, inevitably, the glitz and glamor lost their sheen.
I've got it! Said his brain, foisting an explanation upon him without much time left for examination. Say this!
"I was a homosexual," he lied.
And the rest of the Hotel erupted into a riot.