Chapter Text
Alastor awoke that morning with a jolt, his body betraying him in the most undignified way possible. The Radio Demon lay very still beneath the sheets as if refusing to acknowledge the problem might somehow cause it to resolve itself. Surely this was a temporary inconvenience. A fleeting biological irregularity and nothing more. It simply had to be.
He waited. The sensation did not subside.
The offending appendage throbbed incessantly under the sheets, harder than he'd ever felt it, even in his human days when such impulses had been brief and largely irrelevant. In the entirety of his existence, his body had never once demanded anything so vulgar, so pointless. Desire had always been a foreign language – one he had never bothered to learn. The obnoxious protrusion stood taut, straining against the fabric of his red pinstriped pajamas in a persistent ache that made him shift uncomfortably, an ache he had never even acknowledged as possible until this moment.
He pressed a hand to his forehead, eyes squeezing shut as he mentally sifted through the previous evening’s events. The Overlord mixer and all of its endless posturing. Nothing but cheap drinks and cheaper conversations.
And Vox.
That smug, screen-faced bastard had been unusually attentive, pressing a glass into Alastor’s hand with that insufferably smug smile of his. At the time, Alastor had thought nothing of it, too busy enjoying the way Vox’s eye twitched every time the Radio Demon’s static overwhelmed the venue speakers.
A small pop of static escaped his throat as irritation crept in. Clearly, lying here like a corpse was not going to solve the matter. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The curtains were still drawn against Hell’s perpetual red glow, leaving the room washed in dim amber lamplight. Dust motes drifted lazily through the air, disturbed only by the quiet hum of old broadcast frequencies lingering from the night before. He exhaled, smoothing out the front of his red pinstriped pajamas with meticulous care. Dignity, after all, was paramount. He adjusted his monocle, rolled his shoulders, and took several slow, measured steps across the room.
The motion only worsened things.
The pressure intensified, sending an unwelcome spark of heat up his spine. The spark felt like static on a dead channel, intrusive and utterly meaningless. His ears flattened slightly.
“Preposterous,” he muttered under his breath.
He attempted relief in the form of distraction next. A casual snap of his fingers brought a low hum of radio static to life in the air, the comforting sound of old broadcast frequencies filling the room. Normally, the noise soothed him. The quiet hiss of those frequencies curled through the room like an obedient thing, familiar and entirely under his control. He waited for the calm to follow. It did not.
Alastor stopped pacing and looked down with mounting irritation. This was no fleeting inconvenience. Whatever Vox had slipped into that drink was proving far more persistent than he could have ever anticipated.
He exhaled slowly through his teeth.
Very well.
If sheer willpower would not solve the matter… then alternative measures would have to be considered.
Embarrassment burned in his chest as he weighed his options. Charlie? No, Charlie would turn the entire affair into a heartfelt musical number about self-acceptance. Husk? Contract or not, Husk would absolutely hold this over him forever, and Alastor was not about to give him that sort of leverage. Niffty… Niffty owned an alarming number of knives.
Absolutely not.
That left only one person in this godforsaken hotel who might understand this sort of... predicament without judgment.
Angel Dust.
Alastor stared at a spot on the wall for a long moment, wide smile pulling thin. Asking for help with something so base and so utterly beneath his notice in any other circumstance was almost worse than the malfunction itself.
Yes, regrettable as it was, Angel Dust did possess a certain… professional familiarity with such biological inconveniences.
This need not be anything more than a brief consultation. A practical solution to a highly impractical problem, he thought to himself.
Nothing about this situation required it to become undignified.
Alastor fiddled with the buttons of his shirt, willing his body to calm, but it only pulsed harder in defiance. Decision made, he adjusted his monocle with swift efficiency and turned on his heel, pausing at the door before stepping into the hallway with the absolute poise of someone pretending nothing whatsoever was wrong.
The hallway was thankfully empty, for a mere moment at least.
Alastor had taken precisely three steps before a blur of red and white shot past his legs, accompanied by the metallic jingle of knives and the rapid pitter-patter of tiny feet across the carpet.
“Good morning, Alastor!” Niffty chirped, skidding to a halt in front of him with far too much manic enthusiasm for so early in the morning. “Ooo,” she giggled. “I like your pajamas!”
He froze.
Her wide eye darted up and down his form with unsettling curiosity. One of her many knives gleamed in her hand.
Alastor’s smile stretched a fraction wider. “Good morning, Niffty,” he responded smoothly, remaining perfectly still, his shadow rather inconspicuously obscuring his current… complication from view.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked, leaning closer.
“Walking,” he responded, refusing to indulge her with unnecessary details.
A beat, then he stepped neatly around her and continued down the hallway before she could ask any more questions.
This is profoundly humiliating.
Angel Dust’s room stood at the end of the hallway. Alastor halted before it, staring at the door for a moment as though reconsidering several life choices.
This was fine. In fact, it was perfectly dignified. Entirely practical. Nothing more than a temporary collaboration between professionals.
A clawed hand curled into a fist as he rapped against the door. The sound echoed down the hallway as if it was mocking him.
Angel Dust cracked the door open and leaned against the frame, a loose pink silk robe cascading over his figure, one eyebrow lifting as he took in the sight of the Radio Demon standing stiffly in the hallway.
“…Smiles?” he muttered, half-asleep, as though he hadn’t decided if he was awake yet.
A pause.
“Either I’m still drunk, or the Radio Demon is standin’ outside my bedroom door at eight in the mornin’… in pajamas.”
Angel’s gaze swept over the red pinstriped fabric and he grinned, gold tooth glimmering in the hall lighting. “...Sexy pajamas.”
Another pause.
“What’s next, you gonna tell me you actually sleep?”
Alastor ignored his comment and cleared his throat, his usual charismatic grin faltering into something far more strained. "Angel, I... require your expertise on a rather delicate matter. It's urgent." He glanced left, then right down the hall, ensuring privacy, before leaning in, voice cutting through the quiet. "Something appears to be… amiss.”
Angel stared at him for a moment, then his eyes slid downward again.
They stopped, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“…oh.”
Angel stifled a laugh. “Oh, this is too good,” he chuckled, leaning against the doorframe. “Smiles, I take it ya didn’t come here for fashion advice, huh?”
“Angel, I assure you I did not come here for sartorial consultation. And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t seek your advice. Now kindly step aside before I am forced to abandon courtesy altogether.”
Angel stepped aside, gesturing into the room. “Alright, get your ass in here before somebody else sees.”
Alastor nodded, sweeping past Angel Dust without another word.
Angel’s room was, in a word, chaos. Pink and white silk sheets tangled across his enormous bed, and half-empty booze bottles cluttered the nightstand beside scattered makeup and discarded costume pieces. A feather boa hung from the back of a chair as if it had simply given up halfway through the night and the lingering scent of perfume, smoke, and something distinctly sweeter in the air clung to the velvet curtains and silk sheets like the aftermath of a long night.
Alastor stopped just inside the doorway, his posture still unyielding.
Behind him, the door clicked shut.
Angel leaned back against it with obvious interest, arms folding loosely across his chest as his eyes swept over the Radio Demon again, slowly and deliberately. Neon light from the street below filtered through the curtains, painting the room in washed-out pink and red.
The grin crept back.
Alastor very carefully did not look at him. Instead, he adjusted his monocle with precise irritation, then straightened the front of his red pinstriped pajamas as though the action alone might restore some fragment of dignity to the situation.
It did not.
A soft ripple of radio interference slipped into the air around him, carrying the faint smell of warm circuitry and ozone.
“This,” Alastor said tightly, “is precisely why I requested privacy.”
Angel snorted.
“Oh, relax, Smiles,” he said, pushing himself off the door and sauntering closer. “Ain’t like I never seen a hard-on before.”
Alastor’s eye twitched.
“I am aware,” he replied flatly. “Your professional credentials in that particular field are… well established.”
“Damn right they are. Now let me take a good look at ya. See what we’re dealin’ with.”
Angel stepped closer, stopping at a comfortable distance in front of the Radio Demon. Two of his arms folded loosely across his chest while the other two settled at his hips, posture relaxed in a way that made the scrutiny feel all the more deliberate. His gaze lingered on Alastor’s chest first, taking in the immaculate composure and the red pinstriped pajamas that somehow still managed to look almost formal despite the circumstances.
His gaze traveled lower.
Despite every fiber in his being telling him to move, to cover himself, to do something, Alastor remained still, feet firmly planted beneath him. The pleasant expression held, but the low hum of radio interference in the room grew rougher around the edges, a soft electrical hiss betraying the tension he refused to acknowledge aloud.
Angel leaned forward slightly, squinting as though examining something particularly interesting. Somewhere down the hall a door slammed, followed by Husk’s distant voice barking at someone to keep it down.
“Wow,” he said after a moment, clearly impressed by the view. “Yer really packin’, Smiles.”
“Angel… this is not a spectacle.”
Angel grinned wider.
“What? I’m just assessin’ the situation.”
“Then assess it quickly,” he responded, voice as cool as he could manage given the circumstances. “I did not come here to be… admired.”
Angel snorted, muffling his laugh with the back of one hand. “Trust me, Smiles,” he commented, leaning back again with poorly concealed amusement, “admiration ain’t the problem here.”
The smile that stretched across his face remained immaculate, but only barely.
“This situation,” he continued at last, each syllable deliberate, “is the result of direct sabotage.”
Angel’s brows lifted. The amusement on his face didn’t disappear, but it honed into a more curious expression as he studied Alastor again, this time with a little less mockery and a little more interest. “Oh?” he prompted lightly, voice tinged with a layer of concern. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I don’t like the feel of it!” Alastor snapped, the little composure that had remained already fraying at the ends. His words came out louder than he intended, and a brief hiss of static rippled through the air around him before he forced the composure back into place, smoothing the front of his pajamas with a quick, frustrated motion.
“That insufferable caricature of modern broadcasting,” he continued, voice thinning slightly, “decided to grace last evening’s Overlord gathering with his presence. A gathering which, I might add, was already intolerable before that flickering eyesore began parading about the room like a gaudy carnival attraction.”
Angel slowly lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, clearly settling in for the performance, a motion Alastor had hardly noticed as he continued his rant.
“Cheap drinks, cheaper conversations, and Vox hovering like a malfunctioning advertisement, desperate for attention.” His expression turned dangerous. “Naturally, I assumed his sudden generosity when offering me a drink was merely another transparent attempt to appear relevant.” A soft whine of radio static crept into the room again. “So I accepted it.”
Angel winced slightly. “Yeah,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s usually where things start goin’ wrong.” A crooked grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Rule number one, Smiles: Never trust a free drink from someone who hates yer guts. Trust me, I learned that one the hard way.”
Alastor ignored him entirely. “It did not occur to me,” he continued stiffly, “that the man would stoop to such juvenile theatrics as chemical interference. One expects petty rivalries amongst Overlords, of course, but this?” He gestured downward again. “This is the behavior of a spiteful child with access to pharmaceuticals.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Angel leaned back slightly on the mattress, watching him with a thoughtful tilt of his head. The earlier amusement hadn’t vanished, but something more observant had crept into his expression now, the sort of look someone gave when trying to figure out the mechanics of a problem. He hummed softly under his breath, one claw tapping idly against the bedframe as he considered what he was seeing.
“Well,” he said at last, pushing himself upright again. “If that TV idiot slipped you something, there’s a couple ways this could play out.”
His gaze flicked briefly back to Alastor’s face.
“First question.”
A small pause stretched between them.
“How long’s it been like that?”
The silence that hovered in the air following Angel’s question was immediate and deeply uncomfortable. Alastor shifted slightly, smile tightening. How long? It was such an absurd question. The exact duration of his humiliating biological malfunction was completely irrelevant to the matter of resolving it. Angel Dust, with all of his questionable professional habits, should have understood that perfectly well.
“Well,” Alastor inhaled. “I awoke this morning and discovered the… abnormality.”
Angel nodded. “Uh huh.”
“And naturally,” Alastor continued, voice constricting as the words began to gather momentum, “I attempted to correct the matter through more dignified means before seeking outside consultation.”
“Like what?”
“Distraction,” Alastor said stiffly. “Radio frequencies. Environmental noise. A brief walk about my quarters. Focused breathing.” A brief snap of static punctuated the list. “None of which had any appreciable effect whatsoever. And after several further attempts at distraction proved equally ineffective, I came to the entirely reasonable conclusion that the matter was… externally induced.”
Angel was still staring. “Smiles. How long?”
Alastor exhaled slowly through his teeth. “Several hours,” he admitted at last.
Angel blinked. “Several hours? Holy shit, Smiles, no wonder you’re lookin’ like you’re about to explode! Your blood’s probably screamin’ down there by now. That… that ain’t normal.” He tilted his head, mentally going through Alastor’s list, wondering how in the fresh hells the Radio Demon missed the obvious solution to his problem.
“...Did ya try touchin’ it?”
The reaction was immediate.
Alastor recoiled as though Angel had suggested something profoundly obscene. His posture locked tight, shoulders drawing back while his clawed hand jerked slightly at his side before he caught the motion and forced it still again. A burst of distorted radio noise fizzled through the air around him, irritated and uneven.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Then the corners of his mouth pulled wider.
“I beg your pardon,” he stated at last, words delivered with icy precision.
The very idea was so spectacularly inappropriate that it took a moment for his mind to fully process it. Of course Angel Dust would leap immediately to such crude conclusions. The man’s entire professional existence revolved around the indulgence of the most vulgar impulses imaginable. That did not, however, make such behavior remotely acceptable under civilized circumstances.
“I assure you,” he continued with brittle composure, “that I did not resort to such… undignified measures.”
Across the room, Angel stared at him, the realization settling in slowly as the pieces fell into place.
Several hours.
And the Radio Demon had apparently tried radio frequencies, not even considering the most obvious remedy available to him?
Angel dragged a hand down his face.
“Smiles…” he sighed. “You had that thing for hours and you didn’t even try?”
The hesitation was brief but telling. Alastor’s posture held perfectly straight, his shoulders squared as though the next sentence required an unreasonable amount of dignity to deliver. At last, he cleared his throat and adjusted the front of his pajamas with unnecessary precision. “I will clarify something for the sake of efficiency,” he continued. “The vulgar practice you so casually suggested is not one with which I have ever… engaged.”
Silence settled over the room just long enough to confirm Angel had heard him correctly before Alastor added, with strained dignity, “Not in my present state, nor during my human life.”
The room went radio silent.
Angel stared at him for several long seconds, the confession settling into place piece by improbable piece. Not as a demon, not as a human, not ever? The words hung in the air with the weight of something deeply unreasonable, and for a moment Angel honestly wondered if he’d misheard. But Alastor’s expression remained perfectly composed, that thin, perpetual smile stretched across his face with all the calm certainty of someone delivering an entirely respectable weather report. To Alastor, the admission was no revelation. It was simply fact: sex had never been relevant. Never desirable. Never his.
Angel leaned back slowly against the headboard, dragged a hand down his face, and let out a long, low whistle.
“Holy shit… you been raw-doggin’ existence this whole time?”
Alastor’s eye twitched.
Another glance downward confirmed the situation hadn’t improved in the slightest. Several hours of unrelenting pressure, no relief, and apparently a lifelong refusal to even consider the most obvious solution available to any living (or unliving) creature. That explained quite a lot: the stiff posture, the soft electrical whine that buzzed around him like bad reception, and the way his claws kept flexing against his sleeves as though he could strangle the discomfort into submission.
Angel rubbed the back of his neck, thinking it through before pushing himself upright again with the air of someone reluctantly accepting a very strange assignment.
“Alright,” he said at last. “Alright, Smiles. That explains why you’re in this mess.” He gestured vaguely toward the problem in question, careful not to point directly, because even Angel Dust had some sense of boundaries when the other guy looked like he was ready to broadcast static murder. “What’s goin’ on down there right now is your body buildin’ pressure. Blood rushes in, nerves start screamin’… and if it sits like that long enough without any kind of release, well, it just keeps gettin’ worse. Eventually somethin’s gotta give, or you’re lookin’ at real damage.”
He lifted one hand, beginning to indicate the obvious solution: a simple, clinical motion, fist loosely circled, slow up-and-down demonstration in the air between them.
The gesture alone made Alastor’s stomach turn. The very concept of self-indulgence – of treating this interference as anything other than an error to be corrected – was grotesque.
“You will do no such thing.”
The interruption came immediately. Alastor drew himself up another fraction of an inch, chin lifting as the hiss of radio static returned to the air around him, like feedback from an overdriven amplifier.
“You will not touch me,” he informed Angel with absolute, icy certainty. “I will not permit that level of familiarity under any circumstances. This is a malfunction. A temporary, externally induced malfunction. It requires correction, not… indulgence.”
Angel froze mid-gesture.
Then he slowly lowered his hand and stared.
“…Smiles,” he sighed, the word half-exasperated, half-something softer.
The silence stretched. Alastor’s expression didn’t waver, but the edges of it pulled tighter, and a hiss of radio static lingered. Angel watched the tiny tells: the way the Radio Demon’s ears flicked back a millimeter, the way his claws dug into his own palms… and something clicked.
“If you won’t touch it…” Angel said slowly, ticking off on his fingers, “…and you won’t let me touch it…”
He rubbed his forehead with two hands while the other two folded across his chest.
“…then we got ourselves a serious problem.”