Chapter Text
Charlie was more ecstatic for the date than Alastor was sure he'd ever be.
He did suppose she was technically the one who set him up for it in the first place. She also was the one who suggested he go to the bar in the first place, something about "mending relationships". But Alastor was the one who'd agreed to the overall date admittedly, so the princess of hell being unfathomably giddy was inevitable.
He still wasn't very sure himself why he'd agreed. Alastor did suppose Vox was mildly entertaining, in that strange pathetic way most of his admirers were. But Vox's pitiable displays were fuelled by more of that nonsensical rivalry Alastor wasn't even aware they had until a mere few weeks ago.
Perhaps thats why Alastor himself had accepted, because Vox was entertaining in a differing way... there was some vague interesting underlying purpose to it that Alastor couldn't quite pinpoint. Something strange, something Alastor had never felt before.
Oh well! Alastor supposed he'd never know! With the deal Charlie was making of it, he knew he'd never be participating in another trivial date again.
"I'm so excited you're putting yourself out there more, Alastor!" Charlie cheered. "I'm happy you decided to give Vox a chance too! Oh- if you ever wanted to, after your date, you could bring him back to the hotel!"
Ha, ha! Alastor certainly would not.
"Splendid idea!" Alastor agreed nevertheless.
It was always best to agree with what others said, so he could simply refute it later by not doing it. Always gave him time to conjure a proper excuse.
Vaggie and Husk were more dubious about the date, but Niffty (similar to Charlie but in her much more fanatical manner) couldn't be more enthused. And Alastor hadn't dared to inform Angel Dust yet because he was certain it would be followed up with rounds of insufferable sex inquiries.
Which was half the reason why Alastor was so hasty to get it all over with. So the news of it didn't hit Angel Dust's ears.
"Okay, okay! I know I'm holding you here now! Just know that I am super proud of you!" Charlie gushed. "You know, letting yourself love others is one of the biggest steps to redemption!"
Hm. Now Alastor definitely wanted to get it all over with.
Charlie's consistent talks of redemption were unavoidable but still managed to be vaguely confounding whenever they were directed towards Alastor and not just to him.
"I see." Alastor hummed. "Well! I should be off then!"
"Right! Good luck Alastor! Have fun!" Charlie cheered.
Alastor spared her a wider smile as his shadows wrapped around him and he melted back into the darkness.
𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪
"Would you quit pacing already?" Velvette groaned.
"I don't think you've quite grasped the urgency of this situation yet, Velvette." Vox protested, not halting his continuous walk around the room.
He paused to circle around the couch Velvette was lounging on, arms splayed out in the air, her phone lazily gripped between her fingers as she scrolled.
"Maybe I have, maybe I just don't care."
"Uh you should. This is the most important thing thats ever happened to me in my life." Vox pointed out, halting at a mirror to subconsciously survey his appearance.
"Really? Not the billion dollar company you run being implemented?" Velvette huffed.
"Not in comparison to this."
"Uh-huh."
"Don't judge me! You're the one who set the date up in the first place!" Vox protested.
"I didn't set it up. I mildly participated in the initiating of it." Velvette corrected him, still browsing through her phone as she spoke, boredom layering her tone.
"That's the exact same thing."
"No it isn't."
"Yes it is!"
"You know what, why don't you just leave already? Your dates going to start in like ten minutes." Velvette reminded him.
Vox sighed under the realization that she was right. He couldn't stall himself for any longer... as extremely tempting as it was.
"Okay fine, how do I look?" Vox questioned, pivoting in a small circle to face Velvette.
She raised her brows at him, looking unimpressed.
"Like you always do... Because you're literally wearing... what you always do."
"Yeah? So how do I look?"
"Is that outfit the only thing you have in your wardrobe?" Velvette pressed.
"NO!" Vox lied, offended by Velvette's mistrust in his closet.
"Okay, well, you look... fine. I guess. But you'd look even better if you weren't spazzing out, quit shaking." Velvette ordered, before looking back to her phone. "Then leave, I don't think I can handle you being in this room for any longer."
"I'm going." Vox huffed, rolling his eyes and pivoting to face the camera pinned to the corner of the room.
Alastor had managed to be very mildly vague about the location of said date. Vox wasn't even sure if Alastor would even be able to deliver it (considering his insistent refusal on using phones), but on Thursday a letter had been delivered to his tower. The location of sending addressed as the Hazbin Hotel with a series of coordinates scrawled over the paper.
Velvette had verbally suspected that Alastor was just going to murder him in a mysterious abandoned shack or something, but when they voogled it, the location was revealed to be somewhere along the main square in Cannibal Town... which Vox wasn't sure was worse or better.
Nevertheless, they sent one of their drones to the coordinates so Vox could teleport through the cameras when it was time... and apparently, it was time.
Vox nervously slicked imaginary hair back and inhaled air that he didn't really need before grasping the electricity of the cameras and pulling himself forward.
And suddenly Vox was upon cobblestone. A joyous jazz tune drifting over the town that Vox had found himself in. Various cannibal demons passed by, a few glanced over with their sharp toothed grins splitting their face when Vox appeared, but immediately looked away.
Which Vox was ultimately pretty relieved about because he kind of suspected all of the Cannibal Town civilians to simultaneously leap on him and start devouring him as soon as he arrived (Velvette had scoffed when Vox had reiterated that concern back to her but Vox really didn't think it was that invalid of a worry).
Vox also assumed the town would be more of a bloodbath. Guts smeared over the buildings, cannibals rushing each other and tearing the meat from each others bones, entrails flying around... but it seemed surprisingly... pleasant? Certainly not Vox's taste but he could see how Alastor would like it, it was almost like he travelled back in time but everyone's a vicious man-eating demon, so it likely was right up the radio demons alley.
"Speaking" of the radio demon, Vox couldn't spot him at first, that was until Vox turned around to see him standing right behind him.
Vox lurched backwards, startled.
"Where did you come from?!"
"I've been standing here for three minutes now." Alastor replied.
Three minutes? Vox checked his watch. The date started in seven more minutes.
"You're early." Vox pointed out.
"It's always good to be!" Alastor exclaimed. "... And so are you. I suppose I was just earlier."
Fuck. Alastor was still somehow outdoing him, but this time in chivalry.
FINE. Two of them could play that game.
"So where are we going?" Vox questioned.
"To a restaurant." Alastor informed him vaguely, before promptly turning around and walking away.
Vox rolled his eyes again. Only Vox could do that- that thing people did where they walked ahead and just expected the others to keep up. But Vox followed after him anyway, quickening his pace so he could walk side by side with the radio demon.
After five minutes of traversing through the town, Alastor eventually came to a halt at a building.
Vox stared at it for a few moments. It was a one story building, the roof rimmed red, a few umbrellas sprung up outside. It looked decently fancy but in that strangely old-fashioned, family-owned business way. It looked like a place Vox would've ate at before he died, or before he became rich and started to go to all of these sleek, five story, modernized restaurants that sold shark meat (which Vox was too horrified to eat, because whenever he looked at it, he envisioned Vark).
As Alastor started towards the front door, Vox remembered that he was supposed to be outdoing Alastor in chivalry further, so he took the door and abruptly flung it open, holding it open unceremoniously for Alastor.
A few demons inside of the restaurants craned their heads around to stare, startled by the noise, but they looked away pretty quickly again. Thankfully the cannibal demons seemed to have a knack for minding their own business.
Alastor stared at him for a few moments with mild amusement before ducking inside of the building, Vox heading inside after him. More jazz music wafting through the air.
After being guided to a booth, Vox sat opposite of Alastor, staring down at the menus set with suppressed disdain. Everything mainly consisted of demon guts and gore which didn't quite meet Vox's list of acquired tastes. But he ordered something anyway, just so he wouldn't have to watch Alastor eat awkwardly.
After five minutes of straight silence, it occurred to Vox that Alastor wasn't planning to speak to him anytime soon, so Vox decided to be the chivalrous one and strike up conversation.
Days earlier, Velvette had taken it to herself to teach Vox on what he should and shouldn't say over the date. Vox had pretty much ignored all of it, but sitting there now, Vox was beginning to realize he should've probably spared a little bit of attention to the scolding.
All he could really remember was Velvette advising him to try and be nice. Which seemed like an impossible task because for fucks sake, it was the radio demon sitting in front of him, the demon Vox spent hours in the shower conjuring insults for.
But he figured he might as well try.
"So... hows that shitty hotel of yours going?"
Yikes.
"Minus the 'shitty'." Vox hurriedly corrected himself.
"It's not my hotel." Alastor reminded him. "I just provide some minor assistance to it."
"I still don't get the point of it." Vox admitted, falling back against the booths chair with a huff.
"Me neither. But it is certainly entertaining."
"Entertaining?" Vox echoed, unable to restrain a scoff.
He still found it slightly disbelieving that Alastor decided to work at some run-down redemption hotel rather than with the V's but whatever...
"Certainly more entertaining than whatever plays on those unsavoury picture boxes of yours!" Alastor hummed.
Vox barely had registered that he was lunging across the table until was halfway through doing it. Seizing Alastor by the lapels and throwing a bunch of clumsy punches at him. It was likely the first fight in Hell that Vox hadn't used his abilities in, which likely just made the attack all the more pathetic to Vox's dismay.
Side plates slid over the table and smashed against the ground, utensils cluttering after the glass as Vox knocked the tablecloth aside.
He managed to find Alastor's wrists in the midst of his one-sided brawl and practically dragged him off of the booth, slamming him unceremoniously against the wall and holding him there. Claws digging against Alastor's sleeves as he managed a glare through his attacking haze.
Vox was slightly startled by his own actions somehow. He'd been insulted in far worse ways by Alastor before... but something about THAT time just seemed far too personal for comfort.
Vox wasn't just being attacked himself in that damned insult. His company was too. The company Alastor ever so insistently refused to stand beside. It always made Vox bitter thinking about it, but it clearly being mentioned by Alastor himself was his breaking point considering he had the radio demon pinned up against the wall at that moment.
Vox half-expected Alastor to tear Vox's face off (because Vox knew he really could and would), but he didn't seem that fazed by the attack, not even hitting him back. Vox only loosened his grip when he heard Alastor faintly laughing and realized that the entire restaurant had fallen quiet.
Cannibal demons from every table were watching the scene, some were gawking but most of them just looked curious. They only looked away when Vox glared at them in turn, before swivelling back around to face Alastor.
It took him a split second to really digest how close he was to Alastor. That he'd probably envisioned this exact scene in a million (I need to go to sleep but let me fantasize really quick) scenarios before.
Vox blinked for a few moments, struggling for breath as he stared at Alastor, momentarily mesmerized.
The fantasies usually differed in place, cause and genre... but they always certainly ended in one thing.
Vox began to subconsciously lean in.
This gesture was interrupted when Alastor freed his left wrist with ease and promptly smacked Vox away by the front of his screen.
Vox jumped, his mind snapping back into place. The realization of what he was just doing managing to catch up with him, causing him to frantically scramble back. Releasing Alastor fully and coughing hastily to himself in terrified embarrassment.
FUCK. Vox could practically feel Velvette hitting him over the back of his head with her phonewhile screaming; "in the middle of a restaurant Vox?!"
Most of the cannibal demons had already looked away, but it did nothing to ease the embarrassment Vox felt as he watched Alastor brush himself off, re-approaching the booth and settling back down in his seat like nothing had happened at all.
When Vox didn't follow, Alastor shook his head in amusement and snapped his fingers. The tablecloth shifting back over the table fully and the utensils returning to the table alongside it. The plates popping atop of it again in a small burst of green.
"Are you returning to the table anytime soon, Vox?" Alastor called over once Vox remained rooted to the same place on the restaurants floor for an additional three minutes.
Vox had half the mind to just run from the restaurant. Or better yet, burst into the kitchen and chuck himself into one of the air fryers or ovens until he became a bunch of recycled TV putty. But he numbly managed to drag himself back over to the table instead, far too abashed to muster words.
"Well, that was quite the reaction, wasn't it, Vox?" Alastor wondered.
From the grin crossing over Alastor's face, Vox suspected he already knew the answer and he slouched back in his seat, glowering.
"Don't pout now, it was certainly entertaining and thats all that matters." Alastor's smile widened and his head tilted forward slightly as he picked at his claws.
"Entertaining for you, maybe." Vox grumbled.
Alastor's movements suddenly paused, his smile straining slightly. Claw-tips freezing as Alastor's eyes flitted over to Vox briefly before he returned to his normal demeanour. The shift was so subtle, so quick, Vox nearly missed it.
"Ah well, I doubt anyone here will spare much mind to it." Alastor said simply. "The lovely demons of cannibal town are all very reserved. They're quite used to theatrics so they just ignore them."
Vox squinted at Alastor, having a difficult time believing what he was seeing... and hearing. Was the radio demon reassuring him?
Nah. Vox had to be overthinking it.
Suddenly Alastor rose from his seat, collecting his spectre from its leaning position against the table and gesturing for Vox to rise with him.
"Let's go on a walk, shall we?"
"Didn't we just order?" Vox questioned.
"You weren't going to eat any of that food anyway." Alastor mused.
And suddenly, Alastor had slipped out the door again.
Once again, doing that dumb thing Vox hated where he just expected Vox to catch up.
Vox followed him anyway... again.
𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪
The town had become mostly deserted as the sky slipped into a deep maroon, signifying nightfall in Hell.
Alastor walked briskly so Vox had to continuously remind himself to quicken his pace so he didn't stray behind. It was during those fateful moments when Vox walked alongside him when he realized that Alastor liked to talk. A lot.
Vox knew he should have suspected such, radio show and all (a radio show in which he'd rewatched thirty nine entire consecutive times), but still it was strange to witness Alastor actually holding some resemblance of a conversation with him. Especially sense whenever Vox spoke to him before, he'd usually ignore him or give him another amused grin.
Vox supposed that was maybe because Vox was usually just insulting him whenever he spoke to him before but that was BEYOND the point.
Vox didn't know how long they talked for, circling around the town, over and over again, but he knew it must've been awhile because the sky was only growing darker.
At first, Vox half expected himself to slip up the entire conversation and cause Alastor to flee and hide away for seven years again, but over the hours he began to grow surprisingly relaxed... SOMEHOW. Relaxed around the radio demon? Velvette really must've slipped some calming drug in his coffee or something before leaving, that was the only probable reason for Vox's ease.
Him and Alastor also shared an unnerving amount of things in common (beyond Velvette pointing out the fact that they wore the same suits, both had sharp teeth, claws and WHATEVER). The only thing Vox found himself strongly despising was the fact that Alastor was a cat person because CATS? The monstrous Satan's spawn that plagued peoples lives and knocked shit over?
When he voiced these concerns to Alastor, he just had stared at Vox like he was stupid and continued talking. That was when Vox figured that Velvette and Alastor would certainly get along... they both shared those "shut up" looks they kept on sending Vox.
Of course, all things must come to an end and eventually Alastor halted at a bench and pivoted to face Vox with a widened smile.
"Well! I must be leaving now!" Alastor declared. "The hotel occupants must be expecting me!"
Vox tried not to drop to his knees and beg him to stay.
"Oh RIGHT! I should probably also leave now... VoxTek stuff... y'know." Vox agreed reluctantly, pretty sure he hadn't done a lick of VoxTek work in weeks now.
"Hmm... right." Alastor hummed.
Just as Alastor turned to leave, he suddenly stopped right in his tracks. Turning around yet again and advancing on Vox again.
Before Vox could react, Alastor seized his arm, tugging him closer almost experimentally and leaning forward to whisper to him.
"I'll be anticipating our next encounter, Vox." Alastor rasped, leaning forward further and lifting his arm so he could run a claw over Vox's screen.
The effect on Vox and his poor circuits was immediate and as all of Pentagram city blacked out, Alastor walked away with only the sound of eerie laughter in his wake.
𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪
Alastor hummed a joyous tune as he set off through the newfound darkness of Pentragram City, only pausing at a trashcan to fiddle with the device clinging to his furred deer ear.
"See? I had it handled, smaller Vee." Alastor reminded her delightfully.
Velvette just scoffed through the earpiece as Alastor deposited it into the trash can and slipped away.