[CLOSED] The Cleanse That Didn't Happen

[lonelysmiles]

Who: Alastor and Angel Dust
Which: Log, CLOSED
Where: Their treehouse
What: It's the first New Year Angel gets to ring in without the annual Cleanse. For Alastor, it's the second.
Warnings: It's Alastor and Angel Dust. Also discussions of Literal Hell and the annual Cleanse from Hazbin Hotel


This wasn't the first New Year's Alastor spent in Reverein, but it still took some adjusting. All of New Year's Eve there was no holy light piercing blood red skies, no Exorcists descending upon the populous, no screaming. Even if it wasn't his first Reverein New Year's, it still felt unnatural after almost nine decades of the same old routine.

He'd been nursing glasses of whiskey all of New Year's Eve. Just enough to stay relaxed and mellow, staying on the shallow end of tipsy. His instincts for the Cleanse screamed at him to run, to bait the Exorcists towards sinners who truly deserved erasure, using the angels as another weapon. But there were no Exorcists to bait, no sinners to erase, and it made his body positively itchy with the need to do something so he'd kept it calm with the alcohol.

But as the clock ticked over to the new year, he finally fully relaxed, sitting back in his seat in front of the fireplace and blowing out a breath.

His ears twitched. He hadn't heard from Angel all day, so he wondered if now that the "threat" had passed, the spider would make himself known.

Comments

[lonelysmiles]

After a few minutes of waiting, Alastor snapped a second glass over to him, pouring a generous measure into it...and one more for himself. He then picked up both glasses and walked towards the other demon's room.

His shadow knocked on the door for him given his hands were full.

"Angel, would you care to join me in celebrating another year survived?"

[itsytitsyspider]

The sudden noise sent his heart rocketing to the roof of his mouth as all that adrenaline kicked back in. The fur along his neck was standing on end as he braced himself to fight but all he heard was the radio host's voice from the other side. Relaxing back on his bed, he turned his back to the door.

"Yeah... sure... Its unlocked." Angel didn't give much protest on the matter.

[lonelysmiles]

Alastor's shadow opened the door, the Radio Demon himself walking in.

"Not sure if it's your drink of choice, but I brought you a whiskey. Now that that dreadful ordeal's over, I imagined you likely could use it. Waiting for something that's supposed to happen but doesn't can make it difficult to relax."

[itsytitsyspider]

Booze was booze and Angel wasn't going to turn it down. He reached out to take the glass from Alastor, scooting over on his sheets to make room for the other demon if he wanted a place to sit.

"Thanks..." It was so damn strange seeing the mouthy little spider be so.. quiet. Sipping at the whiskey, he stared out the window. "Not going to lie, its strange as hell. I know they ain't coming but I can't shake this feelin', ya know? I don't know what to do about it. My insides are still buzzin'."

[lonelysmiles]

Alastor hesitated for a moment before sitting down. Honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal...so long as the spider didn't make another, ahem, "offer".

Though given over the past several months Angel hadn't done so, Alastor was less inclined to think he would. Alcohol and enchanted mistletoe excluded, of course.

He followed Angel's gaze towards the darkened world outside that lacked the familiar sounds of carnage as Hell came back to life after the angels had left.

"Indeed. We've been in Hell long enough that when late December rolls around, we instinctively begin readying ourselves for the carnage." He paused before admitting, "I should've considered that you'd be climbing the walls as well and invited you to join me."

[itsytitsyspider]

Oh shit, that's right. Alastor has been through this once before, hasn't he? For a moment Angel had forgotten how long the radio host had been here. Oh fuck, how long he's been here. Taking a sip of his drink, the spider pulled a leg up against his chest and rested his cheek upon his knee.

"Yeah, how fucked up is it that normally around this time of year I'm either hiding or out there kickin' angel ass." Well... more like fighting for his afterlife. Flipping to to his other cheek, he looked at the deer. "... How you do it? You look cool as a cucumber, like always. Last year you were all by yourself..."

[lonelysmiles]

Alastor raised his glass with a bemused smile, swirling the contents lazily. "Taking it slow, of course. Just enough to take the edge off the tension. Deer have two reactions to danger: running or freezing in place. I typically run during Extermination Day. Make it a bit of a game to bait the Exorcists and lead them towards targets of my choosing."

He then looked somewhat wistfully around the room.

"And last year I actually wasn't alone. I had a roommate when I first arrived. An angel from another world if you can believe it. You'd think we'd try to kill one another, but we kept each other entertained. Neither of us really needed sleep and back then Reverein had nothing happening at all after dark, so we'd sit and chat when one or both of us wasn't dreamwalking. A good thing, too, because I was just about climbing the walls last year. He helped distract me from the need to run from a threat that wasn't coming."

[itsytitsyspider]

As Alastor retold the story about his year in Reverein, Angel sat uncharacteristically quiet. Simply just... enjoying listening to the deer ramble on. Enjoying not being alone. This has been the first time Alastor had spoken much about his time here. Never mentioned a roommate before him... Though he had his suspicions. This place was a bit too big for one man.

When Alastor finished, Angel gave a little snort. "An angel? You trading one out for the another? Heh... I 'm having a hard time picturing you with one of those stuffy assholes. Especially on a day like today. You weren't worried they wouldn't try and off ya?"

[lonelysmiles]

"Ha! So it would seem!" He hadn't even considered that until Angel had mentioned it. "But, no, Yoshiya was from a world where there aren't any Cleanses. At least not the annual sort. Instead some sort of game to test the dead which determined their final fates. Cruel in its own way."

He took a sip of his drink.

"Honestly, we met while getting into trouble not long after we'd both arrived. We were in that first group, and knowledge of the noctaere wasn't well-known at the time. We ended up trapping one in a cave after we got in over our heads. And, as I said, we found each other entertaining, so there was more or less an unspoken truce."