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The air on the balcony was, by Hell’s pitiful standards, almost fresh. It still reeked faintly of rot and ash, that sour tang that clung to everything down here, but Angel would take it over the current air conditions inside the hotel.
Vox’s smear campaign had, in a twisted way, done him a favor. The avalanche of lies and half-truths gave Hell’s fickle masses all the excuses they needed to abandon the place, leaving the hotel’s halls mostly hollow and still. Nevertheless, Angel could still feel the phantom press of the crowd. He could still picture the faces of a few particular morons who thought it would be a great idea to try and pick the lock on his bedroom door, thinking they could sneak a peek or worse. Playing bouncer for the few square feet he called his own had been an evening he didn’t care to repeat.
His history with Vox had always been one of distant indifference, a sort of cold, professional tolerance. The overlord had been just another power in the background, someone who never meddled in Angel’s affairs. But over time, that distant shadow had spread into something far more intrusive. Angel was certain Vox had a hand in the sudden spikes in his workload, and ever since he’d taken refuge at the hotel, the damn TV demon hadn’t stopped pestering him about Alastor.
Frankly, Angel had hoped that Vox’s dramatic arrival at the hotel would redirect that obsessive nature to its rightful target. Unfortunately, that had not happened, especially with Alastor gone for the time being.
One overlord's attention was more than enough for Angel. He had no desire to invite the wrath of two more, especially when he had to share a roof with one of them.
Soon enough, he figured, the hotel’s population would shrink even further. Even more sinners would slink back to their old haunts once the novelty of redemption wore off and the work began to feel too much like effort.
At least, Angel hoped that’s how it would go.
Then maybe he could finally breathe, or at least stop pretending that the constant nagging from strangers didn’t make his skin crawl. He got enough of that at work. A quiet hotel was the only kind he could stand.
Angel plucked a cigarette from its case and held it between his teeth, patting his pockets until his fingers brushed the familiar metal of his lighter. A flick of his finger produced a small, steady flame. He lit the cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs and holding it for a long, quiet moment before exhaling. This was the peace and quiet he had wanted, a rare luxury he could finally savor. But like all good things in Hell, it was a luxury that was, as always, short-lived.
A familiar prickle of static raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck. He didn't need to turn around to know who it was, nor was he planning to.
“Can’t a guy smoke in peace?” Angel sighed, not bothering to look back as he rested his arms on the railing. He took another long drag before flicking the cigarette’s ash over the edge.
Alastor stood near the entrance of the balcony, his fingers resting neatly on the top of his staff. “Why are you here?” was all he asked. He didn't sound particularly ecstatic to see Angel, either.
Angel finally turned, leaning back against the railing. A slow, deliberate smile spread across his face, all sharp edges and practiced charm that didn't quite reach his eyes. “This is a public place, Smiles.” He gestures vaguely with his cigarette. “Last I checked, this whole rehabilitation thing means we all get to share the space.”
The static sharpened to a frequency that made Angel’s teeth itch. Alastor simply blinked at him, “A logical assumption, but an incorrect one. This,” he says, his head tilting to a predatory angle, “is my balcony.”
Angel rolled his eyes, the gesture exaggerated for maximum effect. “Oh, really?” he chuckled lightly, pausing to take a long, deliberate drag from his cigarette yet again. Then tilting his head to the side, exhaling a plume of smoke away from the two of them. “Well, I don't see your name on it, Smiles.”
Alastor’s grin didn’t waver. If anything, it seemed to widen, the corners of his mouth straining. “Is that so? Look down, then.”
Angel tilted his body a bit, his gaze dropping to the metal railing where his left elbow rested. He moved his arm aside, and there, where he could have sworn there was only smooth metal moments before, was an elegantly engraved text.
It simply read: ‘Property of The Radio Demon.’
Angel’s head snapped toward Alastor. He snatched his arm back as if the metal had burned him. “The fuck?! That wasn’t there a second ago!” He glared, but Alastor merely offered a shallow, mocking chuckle in return.
“A mere formality,” Alastor purred, taking a single, silent step forward. “I find it’s best to label one’s possessions. It avoids… messy misunderstandings.”
Angel crossed his lower arms over his stomach. “So, what? You gonna chase me off your precious little balcony now?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of being a poor host!” Alastor’s voice boomed with a theatrical, hollow geniality, the static around him rising like a swell of canned applause before receding to a faint, bearable hum. He closed the distance between them with a few long, deliberate strides, stopping an arm's length from Angel and the railing. “You may stay. For now. Consider it a… temporary lease.”
Alastor’s gaze fixed on the horizon as he leaned his weight against the railing. Angel mirrored the motion a moment later. “I am merely curious,” Alastor began. “What brings you out here, all alone, when the evening’s debauchery is just beginning downstairs? Seeking a moment of quiet reflection? Or perhaps… running from something?”
Angel breathed in a lungful of smoke, letting the silence stretch. “Maybe I just like the view. It’s got a certain… hellish charm.” He took a final, defiant drag before flicking the butt over the railing. “What’s your excuse? Scoutin’ for new territory to put your name on? Gonna brand the whole hotel next?”
“Hardly,” Alastor dismissed. His eyes narrowed as he glanced downward, and Angel followed his gaze to see the familiar, sleek car belonging to Vox still idling outside the hotel. It pulled away a moment later, and Angel felt a tension he hadn't acknowledged ease from his shoulders. “You’ve been rather absent from my vicinity these past weeks,” Alastor stated, his tone casual yet precise. The observation was so unexpected, so utterly personal, that for a single second, Angel forgot who he was talking to.
Angel barked a short, incredulous laugh that felt brittle even to him. “Me? Avoidin’ you? For what? If anyone’s been avoidin’ anyone, it’s you.” As the words left his mouth, he felt a defensive heat prickle up his spine. He pushed on anyway, the words sharpening into a jab. “But then again, I guess you’ve been lickin’ your wounds in private ever since that dust-up with Adam.”
A flicker of static, sharp and violent, cracked in the air. “That is an… incorrect assessment,” Alastor stated, his smile so rigid it looked like it might fracture his face. “My business is my own.”
“Yeah, sure,” Angel exhaled. He wasn’t even sure why he was taking jabs at Alastor. Maybe he was just tired, frayed from the entire charade with Vox and Charlie from earlier. “Look, if somethin’ is wrong, you could just say so. Charlie’s always happy to help, you know. She’d probably throw you a Get Well Soon parade or somethin’.”
“Everything is perfectly fine,” Alastor insisted.
Angel moved without thinking, a hand lifting as if to rest on Alastor’s shoulder. He barely inched forward before Alastor tensed. The reaction was so immediate that Angel aborted the gesture, raising his hands in a theatrical surrender that couldn't quite mask the weary slump of his shoulders.
“Alright, alright. Listen, if you don’t wanna talk about it, you don’t gotta. Who am I to ask, anyway?” Angel sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides.
The words dissolved into the air, and what followed was more than just an absence of sound. It was a heavy, suffocating presence that rushed in to fill the void, pressing down on them both. This unnerved Angel more than any sharp retort ever could. He was a creature of noise and motion, built to fill empty spaces with distractions. Given the silent treatment, his instinct was to flood the void with the loudest, most vibrant version of himself.
But now, he was stunned into stillness.
Alastor and Angel didn't do this. They have exchanged barbs in crowded rooms, they performed their respective roles, but they did not share solitude. Their pattern was well-established, proximity led to friction, which led to a swift and mutual parting of ways. Angel never sought him out, and the radio demon certainly never sought him. Angel had always assumed his brand of vulgar, effeminate charm was something to be tolerated for the hotel’s sake, not enjoyed. Especially by someone like Alastor.
It was a comfortable, understood distance.
Which was why, standing side-by-side in a peace that wasn't hostile, a solitude that wasn't empty, felt so profoundly wrong. The hellish panorama before them was a familiar sight, but the figure standing silently beside Angel was an unsettling mystery he didn’t want to solve in the first place.
“You’re quiet.”
The directness of the comment made Angel flinch internally. He was the one who was supposed to be noticed, not the one being observed. Alastor didn’t turn, his gaze still fixed on the simmering horizon as if he could feel the weight of Angel’s stare burning into his profile. Angel had been studying him for a while now, searching the rigid smile for a crack, the composed posture for a tell.
“Just enjoyin’ the view, Smiles. A guy can appreciate a little atmosphere,” he finally said, stretching his arms before letting his own gaze drift out to join Alastor’s. The horizon wasn't particularly pretty, but the view from a high place always held a certain fascination. “Besides, I didn’t think my commentary was your thing. Usually makes you… vanish.” Angel tapped the railing with his fingers. “What’s the matter? Miss the sound of my voice for once?”
Alastor’s head tilted a fraction of a degree. “I find the silence far more telling than a torrent of meaningless words. You are typically a font of the latter. So the absence is… notable.” Alastor was right, since when did Angel back off after a little jab. “What has stolen the words from the hotel’s most prolific chatterbox?” Alastor pressed.
“Just don't have much to say, that's all.” It was the simple truth, and it felt strange to admit. “Got any small talk ideas, Smiles?”
“I do, as a matter of fact.” Alastor’s self-satisfied nod sent a familiar dread coiling in Angel’s gut. Of course he had an agenda. He would never seek out Angel for nothing. “I’ve always been curious,” Alastor purred, the static around his voice thickening with interest. “What is your personal take on this little project? On this grand pursuit of redemption?”
Angel crossed his four arms, two over his chest and two on his hips. “Don’t tell me you came all the way up here just to ask little old me that.” Angel asked despite already suspecting the answer. He just couldn't puzzle out Alastor's motive. Angel’s opinion had never mattered before, and he saw no reason why that would change now.
“I didn’t,” Alastor shook his head lightly. “Of course I didn’t.”
“But that’s such a broad question, Smiles.” Angel pointed out. “Weren’t you the one who always said broad questions lead to … what was it again? Unsatisfactory answers?”
Alastor finally gave up on the horizon and tilted his head towards Angel, meeting his eyes. “I was,” he conceded. “But humor me.”
Angel let out a short, considering hum. “Redemption?” He tapped a finger against the railing. “Well, it could mean bein’ free from Val. And that, obviously, sounds real nice. But,” He paused, watching as Alastor’s focus sharpened, the overlord’s gaze now fixed on him with unnerving intensity. “I like Hell. Grew kind of fond of it, believe it or not. I feel like I’d… miss it, you know?” He gestured toward the hotel. “But obviously, if redemption was a guaranteed ticket to freedom, I’d take the shot in a heartbeat.”
Then, a heavy sigh escaped Angel as the brief flash of hope in his voice receded, replaced by the grim reality he lived with every day. “But we don’t really know, do we? The real question is… can you even be redeemed if some asshole’s got your soul in a contract?”
Alastor's grin widened, “And that, my dear, is what will make you the ideal test subject for our dear Charlotte. The results will be simply… fascinating.”
“Huh,” Angel muttered, a newfound, cynical understanding evident in his voice. He wouldn't be opposed to finding out, but the reality was they had nowhere near enough information to even begin testing the theory, and a deeper, more practical part of him whispered that he might not survive the highly probable disappointment. “Alright, what about you, then?”
“Pardon?” Alastor’s head tilted.
“Your opinion. On redemption.” Angel clarified.
“Ha! Please,” Alastor scoffed, the static around him pitching into a sharp, dismissive whine. “Why would I ever trouble myself with something so pedestrian?”
“Right. An Overlord like you must be plenty comfy down here.”
“Precisely.”
“But what if you weren't one?” Angel dared to ask, and for a fleeting second, a crack appeared in Alastor's facade, a genuine, unscripted confusion. “Let's imagine you're no big-shot Overlord. Just another sinner, like me. Would you consider it then, Smiles?”
“But there is simply nothing to imagine, my dear! Such a scenario is a logical impossibility.”
Angel, who had spent a lifetime learning to read people in minutes, found Alastor was no different. He could map the tells of pride and paranoia as clearly as a familiar street. His own smile grew thin. “I know the answer,” he said, and if Alastor wasn’t going to entertain him, he would happily entertain himself. The demon was practically asking for it.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Alastor’s fingers twitch against the railing. “Do you now?” The voice was dangerously calm.
Angel nodded, “I bet you think of your life on Earth as... neutral. Whatever actions got you here weren't entirely wrong in your own eyes. But deep down, you know it ain’t exactly saint material. So you wouldn't even try. Why bother?”
The low crackle of Alastor’s static sharpened into a high-frequency screech, so piercing it was almost painful to hear, before it cut out entirely into a dead, vacuum-like silence. The ever-present smile on his face remained, but it was now a rigid, painted-on thing, utterly divorced from any feeling, like the fixed grin of a taxidermied animal.
“What a fascinating little theory you’ve spun,” Alastor said, his voice dangerously soft, stripped of its usual broadcast flair. “You presume to know the inner workings of my mind based on your own… mundane guilt it seems.”
He took a single, deliberate step closer, not enough to breach personal space, but enough to make his presence feel even more inescapable. “You are laboring under a fundamental misapprehension, my dear. I do not measure my past against some celestial scale of good or bad. Such concepts are for the feeble-minded who require external validation. I measure my life by one metric alone. Amusement.”
Angel held his ground, meeting that hollow smile head on, “So that’s a ‘no’, then. Got it.”
A subtle tension coiled through Alastor’s frame. It was only then that his shadow finally detached itself, stretching across the hotel’s wall behind him. Its eyes sharp and fixed directly on Angel. The spider demon had always suspected that the shadow operated with a will of its own, and in that moment, he wondered if it was somehow more composed than its master.
Only the sound of Alastor’s voice pulled Angel’s attention back to him. “Tell me, then,” the overlord began. “If you believe you know my answer so well, what does that reveal about your own? Are you merely holding up a mirror, trying to see if your own reflection has the nerve to even try?”
Angel scoffed, “You know nothing about me.”
“Then why, pray tell, do you assume such intimate things about me?” Alastor’s eyes glinted, sharp and knowing. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Unless, of course, you see a familiar shadow. One simply has to wonder whose.”
“I think this conversation has gone too far.”
“On the contrary,” Alastor murmured, the static around him swelling, soft at first, then building like laughter behind glass. “I believe we’re just getting to the heart of the matter.”
Alastor's shadow twitched, mirroring Angel’s own subtle shift in posture. A cold dread trickled down Angel’s spine. The balcony suddenly felt smaller, the walls too close, the air too still.
Angel forced himself not to step back. “Back off, Smiles,” he said, voice stripped of its usual sugar. “I’m not one of your radio show guests.”
“Everyone is a guest on my show, eventually.” Alastor didn’t move. He never needed to. His shadow did it for him, stretching thin even more, the edges dissolving into the dark. Angel caught himself watching it instead of Alastor, because somehow that felt safer.
The thing moved like it had a mind of its own, alive, but not quite. The longer he looked, the less it resembled a shadow and more like something wearing the idea of one. Limbs bent wrong, too long, too fluid, swaying with a rhythm that didn’t match the body it belonged to. Every so often, it moved, small, sharp motions, like it was testing the limits of its leash.
Angel’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off it. He’d seen Alastor’s tricks before, seen what those shadows could do, but it was different being this close. There was a pulse to it, soft, steady. It wasn’t loud, but it was there, thrumming somewhere deep in his bones.
After a bit, Angel finally spoke, eyes not leaving the shadow which had begun to stare at him with a palpable, predatory focus, despite having no eyes to speak of, “I think I’ve had more than enough philosophy for one night.”
He tried to sound casual, but it came out too steady, controlled, rehearsed. His arms crossed tight over his chest, not out of confidence but containment. He’d stood his ground plenty of times, but there was a difference between defiance and survival, and right now he wasn’t sure which one this was.
The silence between them thickened yet again. Not empty, but humming, like the air between radio frequencies. Alastor studied him with the cool detachment of a surgeon mid-dissection. His eyes traced the line of Angel’s stance, the tension in his shoulders, the way his gaze lingered too long on that restless patch of darkness. The faintest flicker of amusement tugged at his grin, sharp and knowing.
Angel could feel himself being catalogued, measured, weighed. The shadow still pulsed faintly, coiling and uncoiling, almost expectant. For a moment, he thought it might move again, that the radio demon might push a little further just to see what would happen if Angel broke first.
But instead, Alastor exhaled softly. The static that had been clinging to the air eased with it, thinning like fog under sunlight. His shadow followed suit, its edges retracting with slow, reluctant grace until it settled neatly beneath him once more, as though the whole display had been nothing more than a passing thought.
“As you wish then,” Alastor said at last. “But do sleep well, Angel Dust.”
A beat of quiet, and then.
“I hope to continue this one day.”