Chapter Text
The higher Alastor climbed, the thinner the air became.
Not physically—Hell didn’t work that way—but something in his chest tightened with every step until he stood alone at the summit of his radio tower, glass walls opening the Pride Ring beneath him like a wound that never healed.
The equipment was dark. Silent. Powered down by his own hand.
He was alone in the hotel. Charlie and Vaggie had gone to Heaven for a meeting to get their support with the hotel. Angel Dust and his explosive Australian friend had taken the guests to somewhere to hang out. Which left Alastor all alone.
His breath hitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then it fractured.
Alastor’s lungs refused to cooperate, pulling in shallow, useless gulps of air as his heart began to slam violently against his ribs. His claws twitched, useless and uncommanded. His knees locked as dizziness washed over him.
“No,” he whispered. “No—this is absurd—”
But panic did not care for pride.
The city blurred. The tower felt too exposed, too high, too small all at once. His power—normally a comforting, omnipresent hum—felt distant, muffled, as if wrapped in thick cloth.
Emily.
The thought struck like a blade between the ribs.
Seven years.
Seven years since it was decided that Emily would be safer in Heaven. Alastor had wandered Hell without purpose since then. Before finding the Hazbin Hotel.
The princess’s hotel promised redemption. And Charlie made it her goal to help him, Angel Dust, and Sir Pentious obtain it.
But she did not know how to redeem sinners like him.
Alastor staggered, one hand slamming against the glass as his breath came sharp and uneven. His grin was nearly gone—the mask he wore for over 100 years was almost gone.
“I can’t—” He sucked in air that wouldn’t settle. “I can’t dismantle myself. I won’t survive it.”
The panic crested, vicious and humiliating. His vision narrowed. For the first time since Hell learned to fear his name, Alastor felt small.
Then—
Light.
A presence so vast the tower itself seemed to bow.
A giant golden hand settled on his shoulder.
Warm. Solid. Impossibly gentle.
“My child,” a voice said—deep, resonant, layered with eternity and kindness.
“Calm yourself.”
The effect was immediate.
Not gone — but grounded.
His breath stuttered, then slowed, as though the hand itself were anchoring him to reality, regulating a heart that had forgotten how to beat properly.
Alastor froze.
He turned.
She stood behind him.
She was immense—far larger than the space should have allowed—yet reality made room for her. Six massive wings unfurled behind her, white and gold plumage shimmering softly, some folded inward, others half-hidden, as though existence itself struggled to perceive her all at once.
Her hair flowed like molten sunlight, blonde strands tipped with plasma-like brilliance, drifting as if suspended in divine current. Her eyelashes were impossibly long, casting gentle shadows over eyes that held no judgment.
Only understanding.
Above her head burned a multi-rayed golden halo, radiant but not blinding.
She wore layered ivory and yellow robes with feather-like hems, long scroll-like attachments trailing behind her—scribe’s ribbons etched with truths too old for language.
Alastor stared, breath finally evening.
“…Who,” he asked hoarsely, “are you?”
The hand on his shoulder remained steady.
“I am known,” she said gently, “as The Speaker of God.”
Something inside Alastor tilted.
Not fear.
Recognition.
She looked at him—not as a sinner, not as a monster—but as something smaller than either.
“My child,” she said softly, and meant it,
“I have heard your cries. Your love for her is fierce. Please… tell me your story.”
The words broke something open.
Alastor inhaled slowly. Deeply. The kind of breath one takes before stepping off a cliff. He didn't know why, but he stepped off anyway.
“I was born,” he began, voice low, “in a broken town.”
The city outside blurred as memory took hold.
“Dirt-poor. The kind of place where hope was something other people talked about.”
A pause. He shouldn't be telling her this. No one knew his entire past. Not even Rosie. But this angel's presence brought some kind of divine comfort. So he continued.
“I was a newspaper boy during the Depression. Ran routes before dawn. Got real good at moving fast.”
His mouth twitched—his smile hiding his true emotions.
“The bullies noticed. Took my money. Beat me bloody. Called me ‘friendly,’ like it was an insult.” His claws curled. “Didn’t help that I was mixed. That made me an easy target.”
The Speaker listened. Truly listened.
“My mother,” he continued quietly, “was the only good thing in that world.”
His voice softened despite himself.
“She told me smiling made you stronger. Said it could turn the world upside down. She’d play music on the radio—jazz, swing—and for a little while…” He swallowed. “For a little while, the world wasn’t so cruel.”
The tower felt very small.
“My father,” Alastor said, colder now, “was cruel enough for all of it.”
The Speaker’s expression did not change — but something in the air tightened.
“He beat her,” Alastor said simply. “Often.”
Silence.
“I got a radio internship when I was a teenager,” he went on. “First real chance I ever had. I could finally take my mother away from that man and we could start a new life. I came home excited. Hopeful.”
His voice cracked — just once.
“I found her impaled on the kitchen floor. Broken bottle. Still breathing when I saw her.”
A breath. Shaking.
“Not for long.”
The golden hand tightened slightly on his shoulder.
“The radio was playing,” Alastor whispered.
“When it feels like the world is wearing a frown, wear a smile and spread it around…”
His eyes burned.
“I took an axe,” he said. “And I killed him.”
No embellishment. No humor.
“Part of me hated it,” he admitted. “And part of me—”
He laughed, brittle.
“Part of me felt satisfied.”
The Speaker did not flinch.
“I remember the look on his face during it all,” Alastor said. “The fear. Knowing he wouldn’t get out of it alive.” His grin twitched into place, reflexive. “And I smiled.”
A long silence followed.
“That was the end of my innocence,” he said. “After that… I only hunted men like him. Never women. Never children.” His voice hardened. “And I never stopped smiling. Not once.”
He looked up at her.
“In her honor.”
The Speaker’s eyes shone—not with judgment, but sorrow.
“You survived,” she said softly.
“I adapted,” Alastor corrected.
She shook her head, gently.
“You endured,” she said. “And you learned the wrong lessons from a broken world.”
Her hand remained on his shoulder.
“You are not damned for surviving,” she told him. “Nor for loving. Nor for longing to lay down armor you forged as a child.”
Alastor’s breath trembled.
“And redemption?” he asked quietly.
The Speaker smiled — compassionate, resolute.
“Redemption,” she said, “is not erasing who you were.”
“It is choosing who you will be… now that you finally know why you became him.”
The pressure lifted.
The tower stilled.
The Speaker’s hand lifted slowly from Alastor’s shoulder. Not in rejection, but in trust.
“You have told me where you came from,” she said softly. “Now the choice ahead of you is yours alone.”
Her wings folded inward, the radiant light dimming to something gentler, almost human. “I cannot absolve you,” she continued. “Nor can I condemn you. That is not my purpose.”
She met his eyes—truly met them. “But I will listen.”
The silence that followed stretched vast and heavy. Alastor’s shoulders trembled once. Then, quietly, brokenly, he began to sing. Not loudly. Not confidently. As if the words were being dragged out of his chest, one at a time.
He sang of confusion and regret: of laughter through screams, of lives shattered in error, of power mistaken for control. He counted the souls he had broken, the pleading he had ignored, the doom he had sealed with a grin.
His voice wavered, thick with fear and memory. The Speaker did not interrupt. She only answered when the words demanded it.
“One seeks an answer that one cannot grant you,” she said, her tone layered with patience. “You are reaching for light. Only you can ignite it. Every transgression must serve as a lesson. Yesterday, you chose sorrow. What will you choose tomorrow?”
Alastor’s hands clenched at his sides. His grin flickered—fragile, impossible to erase despite the punishment that forced it permanent.
“I feel no wiser than when I reveled in terror,” he admitted, “of lives I shattered in error.”
And then, a thought broke through, a light he had never deserved: Emily. Joyful. Unbroken. Kind. She had chosen him—this wretched monster—and for the first time, his voice broke on her name.
The Speaker stepped back, her wings slowly unfurling—not in threat, but in solemn acknowledgment.
“You cannot know as time flows on,”she said.“So you must bear the cross you have chosen upon you.”
Holy light shone through the empty hotel.
“I would burn every crown, lay my power down, if it meant I could stand at her side,” Alastor whispered, his words carrying across the silent tower, through the city, into the depths of Hell itself. “No tricks, no chains, no blood, no games. Just truth in her eyes.”
“You speak of sacrifice, not absolution,”the Speaker replied. “Redemption is earned—through relinquishing illusion.”
Outside, Hell continued as it always had. The sinners below, immersed in their chaos, would never know what had happened above them.
Alastor’s voice dropped lower, fragile and desperate. “If souls from damnation can earn their salvation, and hear Heaven’s choirs cry… then say there is hope, for a monster who loves with his whole wretched life.”
His voice fell to a whisper.
“All I ask…”
The Speaker was already fading, dissolving into light, her voice carrying one last truth as she departed. Not sung. Spoken.
“You will not be answered tonight.”
She vanished, leaving only silence.
Alastor’s sentence never finished.
Outside, the Pride Ring burned in chaos as usual—blood, fire, rubble, and death sprawling across the city like an old wound.
High above it all, Alastor stood alone in his tower, eyes fixed on the storm.
His smile rose—slow, unsteady, fragile.
He had a choice. He could either remain in Hell as the most powerful sinner, guaranteeing his safety and power. Or he could gamble and throw it all away for redemption that might not even be possible.
But despite being afraid for one of the first times since his existence in hell—
He had already made his choice.
“And that’s what happened.”
Alastor sat in Cannibal Town in one of Rosie’s armchairs, his head bowed, his ever-present smile hiding everything it was never allowed to show. Across from him sat Rosie herself—his first ally in Hell, his oldest friend. She was the one who had given him advice when Emily first crashed through his door and into his existence.
Now she stared at him in stunned silence.
A Speaker of God.
An angel powerful enough to descend into Hell itself and wise enough to bring her old friend to this state.
That alone placed the encounter somewhere near Lucifer-level impossibility. And judging by the way Alastor spoke—quiet, deliberate, stripped of theatrics—Rosie had the sinking feeling she already knew where this confession was leading.
"Normally, you’d come here for advice." she said at last. "Or for me to help you make a decision. Or to make it for you." She paused, studying him more closely. "But I can’t help feeling like… you’ve already made your choice."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Alastor lifted his head.
For just a moment, it looked as though tears might spill from his eyes—dark, determined, and dangerously sincere.
“I have to see her, Rosie.”
Rosie nodded slowly.
"I see. You didn’t come here for advice. You came to say goodbye."
She leaned back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. The usual playful sharpness in her expression was gone, replaced with something older. Something careful.
"Leaving Hell isn’t like stepping out for a stroll, Alastor."
She watched him closely—the tension in his shoulders, the faint tremor he failed to hide, the way his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"You’re talking about redemption. About Heaven. There’s no proof it works. Not real proof. Just… stories Charlie likes to believe."
Outside, thunder rolled faintly. Cannibal Town’s ever-red sky darkened by a shade.
“I’m aware.”
Alastor straightened, claws resting against the armrests, posture rigid with resolve.
“But I’m also aware that without her, I am… unmoored.”
Rosie’s eyes widened just slightly. That word cut deeper than any dramatic declaration.
“I have power. Influence. Fear.”
His voice lowered.
“And yet… none of it keeps the silence away.”
The faint storm above Hell deepened. Wind howled through distant streets.
"And if it’s all for nothing?" Rosie leaned forward, her voice firm now. "If you give up everything—your power, your safety, your name—and Heaven shuts its gates in your face… what then?"
Alastor didn’t hesitate.
“Then I know what I signed up for.”
Rosie inhaled sharply through her teeth.
"That’s not an answer, darling. That’s a death wish."
“No.”
For the first time, he met her eyes fully.
“It’s a choice.”
Another crack of thunder echoed closer than before.
“I’ve spent my entire existence taking what I wanted by force. By terror. By cleverness.”
He placed a hand over his chest.
“This—this is the first thing I’m willing to lose everything for.”
Rosie said nothing.
After a long moment, she stood and stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"If you’re serious… truly serious… you’ll need someone to watch your throne."
Alastor’s brow twitched beneath his fixed smile.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Rosie scoffed, though her eyes shone.
"You’re a fool."
She reached out, straightening his lapel with familiar precision.
"But you’ve always been my fool of a friend."
Outside, the storm intensified. Rain began to fall—rare, heavy drops sizzling as they struck Hell’s streets.
"Listen to me carefully." Rosie said.
She held his gaze.
"In order to succeed, you'll have to keep your friends close. And your enemies closer. Hell doesn’t forgive absences easily… and Heaven doesn’t trust sinners at all."
She leaned in, her voice barely above a whisper.
"And remember this—you never truly know who you can trust… until they’re standing beside you when you have nothing left to offer."
Alastor nodded once. Deep. Reverent.
“Then… this is goodbye.”
Rosie smiled—sharp, sad, and proud.
"No."
Thunder boomed directly overhead.
"It’s until we meet again."
The thunder outside Cannibal Town rolled again, lower this time, like something enormous shifting its weight.
Alastor rose from the armchair and began to pace. Once. Twice. His shoes clicked softly against the floor with each step. Rosie watched him without interrupting.
“Tell me something, Rosie.”
He stopped in front of her.
“If Hell turns on me. If Heaven lies. If every deal I’ve ever made comes back to collect—” His voice tightened. “How do you survive a world where no one plays fair?”
For a long moment, Rosie didn’t answer.
Then she laughed.
It was light. Musical. And deeply wrong.
“Ha. Ha.”
She stood and clapped her hands once, sharply.
“Oh, Alastor,” she said, smiling. “You already know the answer.”
From the surrounding streets, small figures began to emerge. Cannibal children—grinning wide, eyes bright—slipped out from alleyways and doorframes, circling him eagerly. Their laughter blended with the low rumble of thunder.
Rosie’s voice rose into song, playful and sharp.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—”
The children chimed in, sing-song and cheerful.
“Never really know who you can trust.”
One grabbed Alastor’s sleeve. Another tugged at his coat. Before he could object, they pulled him forward, spinning him into their circle.
“What?” he asked, startled.
They giggled, dragging him along like a doll in a dance.
Rosie stepped closer, her voice lilting.
“If they wanna get you to sin, you gotta say, ‘No, sir!’”
“Sometimes killing is a must,” the children sang gleefully.
Alastor stumbled once but caught himself. His smile never wavered, though his eyes flicked with happiness.
Above Cannibal Town, thin tendrils of dark cloud began to snake downward from the sky—unnatural, spiraling, heavy with something alien. A few demons noticed.
They looked away, either too high or too drunk to notice.
Rosie circled Alastor now, her steps light.
“’Cause the end always justifies the means—”
“Friends turn into foes and rivalries,” the children echoed.
They spun him again. Faster this time.
Rosie tapped his chest with one finger as she sang,
“So keep your friends close and your enemies closer—”
“Never really know who you can trust,” the children repeated, their voices layering over one another.
Alastor stopped resisting. He let himself be pulled, turned, guided—like a man already halfway gone, as he was pulled outside into the growing crowd of singing cannibals.
Thunder cracked directly overhead.
More figures joined the circle. Cannibal adults now, their voices deeper, heavier, swelling the song until it filled the square.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—” Rosie sang with pride and fun.
“Never really know who you can trust.” the crowd responded as they sang along.
The storm clouds descended further, trailing strands of Heaven’s fury that brushed the edge of Hell itself.
Rosie’s smile sharpened as she sang,
“Now the Princess will wanna get your feelings open, so she can have closure—”
“Sometimes plotting is a must,” the cannibals replied.
Alastor’s gaze lifted again—this time lingering.
Rosie’s voice softened.
“’Cause the end always justifies the means—”
“Everything’s changed since Emily, so—”
Her name struck him like a blade.
Rosie finished the song with a warning wrapped in melody.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—”
“Never really know who you can trust,” the cannibals sang as one.
The music faded.
The children released him all at once.
Alastor stood still in the center of the square, breath steady, eyes fixed on the heavens looming directly overhead as the incoming storm remained unnoticed. Rain had not yet begun to fall, but the air was charged—tight, electric, waiting.
Rosie leaned in close, her voice no longer singing.
“Whatever waits for you up there, darling…”
Thunder boomed.
“Make sure you’re not facing it alone.”
The storm thickened overhead. The clouds no longer merely descended—they coiled, vast and luminous, brushing the highest spires of Cannibal Town as if testing the boundary between worlds.
The music did not stop.
As the children’s grip on him loosened, Alastor slowed. When he sang now, his voice was not loud or theatrical. It slipped into the air honestly, unguarded.
"For nine days, I’ve stayed wide awake, trying to cope with these feelings but they’re like a tidal wave."
Rain began to fall—heavy, cold, deliberate.
"I remain unopposed, my sinful thoughts remain closed, and I hope I’m getting closer to her…"
He swallowed.
"Emily…"
Rosie watched him closely now, her smile gone entirely.
"I can’t wait to make some new memories. Emily… Time for me to be the lover I never was."
Rosie’s voice joined him, quiet, almost pleading.
"Just keep your friends close—"
Thunder rolled directly overhead, close enough to rattle bone as Alastor continued while Rosie pleaded.
"Oh—why are my eyes and my heart and my soul so heavy?"
"Just keep your friends close—"
"I keep on trying to embrace my feelings.
Why won’t they let me?"
"Just keep your friends close—"
"So much has changed but I’m the same. Yes—I’m the same."
"Just keep your friends close—"
The children echoed softly now, uncertainty creeping into their voices.
"Keep your friends close…"
The rain slowed. The air went unnaturally still.
One of the youngest cannibal girls tugged at Rosie’s dress and pointed upward.
“Miss Rosie… what are those clouds doing?”
Rosie looked up.
Her breath caught.
“Oh no.”
Rosie turned to the crowd in horror as she yelled.
"WATCH OUT-"
*BOOM*
The sky split.
A column of golden lightning tore through the square, the impact hurling bodies across the stone. The sound was deafening—like the world itself screaming.
Alastor hit the ground hard. When he forced himself up, the storm, finally here, was not just above them.
It was around them.
Rain lashed sideways. Water surged through the streets. Screams rang out, sharp and panicked.
Alastor’s gaze snapped to where a child had been standing moments before.
There was only scorched stone.
No body.
No sound.
“No—!”
Rosie’s voice cut through the chaos, half-sung, half-shouted, desperate and breaking.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer—
*BOOM*
Another lighting strike.
Never really know who you can trust!”
The children cried it back in terror.
“Never really know who you can trust!”
“Storm!” the cannibals screamed.
“Storm—storm!”
Alastor spotted Rosie on the ground, stunned. He rushed to her side and hauled her up.
“Help me—help me get the children!”
“It’s—” Rosie shook, her voice fracturing. “It’s too late for some of them!”
Alastor gripped her arm fiercely.
“Then we save the ones who aren’t. Come on!”
They ran.
Water surged past Alastor’s ankles, then higher. Doors slammed. Windows shattered. Lightning struck again—closer this time.
They herded as many children as they could into Rosie’s bunker, the same one she used during Exterminations. The doors sealed just as another blast shook the street.
Outside, the storm roared.
Another bolt struck the ground directly in front of them, throwing them both backward.
Alastor scrambled to his feet, reaching for Rosie—
—and froze.
The thunder changed.
It was no longer just sound.
It was a voice.
“ALASTOR HARTFELT!!!”
The rain paused mid-fall.
“Do you know who I am?”