nomoreroom | An Alastor RP Catchall

"Sure do!" And that was the end of that. The less said about Vox, it seemed, the better.

The joke would have gone sailing over his head of course, the very first actual television hadn't even been invented until a scant few years before his death. Had he lived, he'd have still happily coasted along until his retirement years as a radio host to be sure.

Sure would be a lot more dead people though.

"What's the good of having free will if you can't mess it all up and go to Hell for it? Wipe out Hell from the very beginning, may as well not even bother with that free will stuff!"

Seemed like a nerve was touched. Maybe Vox had rubbed Al's fur the wrong way at one point?

"Perhaps." Raphael conceded with a nod of his head, "But now it's just a pain. We had no idea the ammount of sinners this place was to recieve and now we have to deal with the spillover. The majority of sinners on earth don't believe in Hell anyway. It would be more effiencent to just wipe everyone here and have the sinners erased from existence when they die and just keep the blessed."

"Half the reason Hell's even here is to give some of the ungrateful masses a second chance at being less terrible!

Why do you think purgatory exists?" He wasn't among those who would have been so lucky to be considered 'redeemable' but still.

"Where would your niece even go? Are angel's well known for churning out kids, or is that just a demon thing?

Again, no skin off my nose, Hell exists whether you like it or not."

"Purgatory isn't the same as Hell. Those are two separate places." The angel pointed out, "Hell for us is more of storage unit. As for Charlie, we already have a contingency plan in place for her."

It occured to the angel it might not be wise to discuss the state of Charlie's soul with Alastor. Who knows what the deer demon might end up doing with that information.

"So, it wouldn't matter to you then? So long as you were spared you wouldn't care about wiping everything and everyone below you out of exsistence?" He asked dryly already having a good idea what Alastor's answer would be.

"Not the same, but it doesn't stop it from being attached." Mid-ground, sure, but it was still closer.

"Is that so? Makes sense, you don't choose where you're born, now do you? She's still a demon, though, just like everyone else down here."

The smile Raphael got was a lazily confident one. "Now do I really have to answer that question, tiger?"

For once Raphael smiled, a small smile but still a smile, back at Alastor, "Do I have point out the obvious about Charlie's soul?"

"Now I'm not going to assume anything here, hit me." Busy peering upwards at the moment, trying to see how much longer it'd be until they reached the surface.

"You're a smart fawn." Raphael replied as they passed up into the surface, "You'll figure it out."

Phasing through the rock onto the surface of earth took away the smell of sulfur in the air. It was night time on earth and they were near an weathered down house that connected to an old road leading back to a distant city. The gentle warm wind rocked the leave of the spanish moss trees.

"Thanks be to God." Raphael muttered under his breath letting the stink of Hell fade away from his senses.

"I didn't even give you a pet name that time." Uncalled for.

He was eager to step out, the sight before him sparking old, dusty memories of a time long, long since dead.

Also, it'd be just great to get some space between him and Raphael, he'd be thrilled for that.

"Now isn't this a sight for sore eyes? Takes me back, are we near Louisiana? I want to check a few things while I'm up."

Fair enough although he did call him 'tiger' earlier. Raphael gave a slight tap on his staff and the circle dissipated.

"Okay, here are the ground rules." Raphael told him chosing not to tell him the location for now and walking towards an old stone wall, "Go into that house and kill the man inside. Don't open the laundry room door, that's where the dog is. Leave it be, I'll take care of him.

Now you could try to fuck me over on this but keep in mind two things: no matter where you run, where you hide I can snap my fingers and you're back in the pit. The second thing is I'm not too crazy to return to hell too soon so if you keep this short and sweet-"

The angel took a deep sigh as he sat down on the wall. He knew he was going to regret this decision, "then we'll take that beat up old pick up and waste time until the sun comes up. As for me I'm going to wait here for twenty minutes. You see one slaughtered human, you've seen them all."

This was an obvious test. If Alastor fucked with him then Raphael would do everything in his power to keep him on a short leash. That last thing he wanted to do was spend a hundred years playing helicopter boss on him.

Well, Alastor wasn't too keen on having a babysitter the entire time he spent doing this one hundred year day job. Barring anything unforeseen, the angel could at least expect him to listen to the rules.

.... The dog though, he was heavily tempted to just light the whole house on fire from here and call it a night. Just the mention of a dog had his nose wrinkling, the grin becoming just a touch sharper, perhaps a little more uncomfortably rigid in its appearance.

"... Dog's in the laundry room, got it." Don't go near the dog. Fine.

"If you're going to sweeten the pot with a little downtime though, I don't see any reason not to play ball." One dead human, coming right up, the demon promptly appearing to... click out of existence with a sharp snap of static, right dead smack into the house. He's listening, where's his medal.

Earthly metal medals meant little to him but if there was one that Raphael could bestow on the human race it would be one for cooking. Mankind had a beautiful gift for taking ordinary substances and enhancing their flavors in a beautiful arrangement.

That's why the angel was mentally scrying the best places to pick up something to eat near them. He took a silver flask from around his neck and took a quick sip.

It wasn't going to be terribly long. While the promise of an actual death was very tempting, and lord knew it had been over eight decades since he'd gotten to enjoy the genuine emotional climax of a good, bloody murder... The offer of being able to spend the night out on the town, outside of Hell, won out in the end. He could indulge in old, bad habits later, if the angel was just going to offer him a night out now.

It'd be just a few minutes before the screaming would start, and then barely a few seconds after, it'd come to a sharp, if somewhat moist sounding end, the visceral sound of a few wet pops suggesting the violent snapping of several important, deep set, meaty bones.

The stench of blood would follow him out of the house, along with the baying of the dog still trapped in the laundry room, idly and casually picking his teeth with a pearly bone shard with one hand, while the other brushed off a stringy, still quivering line of viscera clinging to his coat like a particularly slimy caterpillar.

Seemed like despite the time limit here, he'd made some time to enjoy himself, at least a little bit.

"Now, I wouldn't expect such a quick job every time, a man's gotta have a little fun on the job every now and again, I don't want this to become totally thankless."

God the screaming. You think after all these centuries Raphael would be used to it but he wasn't like his triplet Michael. He had been made for healing, not battle. Mentally he reminded himself that the victim was a monster. He swallowed a deeper swig of his flask before closing it back around his neck again.

"As you wish." Raphael nodded and the sound of the dog howling gave him the confirmation he needed. The angel got up from his spot on the wall and snapped his fingers although it seemed like nothing happened.

"Do they have beignets in Hell?" He asked him casually as he got up to open the truck door.

Alastor, of course, didn't even act like he heard it, flicking off what looked suspiciously like gray matter from the top of his cane before tossing the used bone splinter off to the side. No he doesn't care about any crime scene investigators, he's already dead. What are they going to do? Dig down to Hell and double execute him?

If they were going into town though, no doubt to be seen by others... it might be a good idea to look a little less like a horrifying deer-man abomination. He's giving his options a good think, as Raphael asked his question.

"Of course they do! It's Hell, so they aren't any good, but they have them! Why do you ask?" There's... a vague threat in that tone, way, way in the back of it.

This road trip better not be ending immediately back in the Pentagram, he followed those rules and he expects proper payment for them.

Raphael climbed into the truck and started its ignition magically. He turned and opened the passenger side door of the car for Alastor.

"Because I'm hungry. We're a good ten minutes drive from Baton Rouge and I know a place opened late that makes them fresh. Don't worry about your form, my aura's cloaking it. As long as you don't wander too far we're just another couple of men in a shitty pick up truck."

"Angels get hungry, huh? Color me surprised, I thought you all lived off sunbeams and happy thoughts." In he went, openly fascinated by the innards of the truck. Hey, died in the 1930s, even a shitty old beater like this was far different than what he was ever used to.

"What's these?" A cheerful tone with a tug on a seat belt.

Oh. Yes. No seat belts in the 1930s either, he'd have no clue, tinkering almost pleasantly with the clip the belt was supposed to lock into.

"It's..." Raphael tried to find the best word for it, "It's not like human hunger. Hmm, give me a minute to describe it." He'd ignore that sunbeams line.

"Oh yes." Raphael turned to him, "I suppose there'll be quite a few things you'll find new. Those are seat belts. They became a staple in cars in the 50's to reduce deaths by car accident. They didn't become a mandatory law until the eighties. Just put the metalic bit into the little plastic bit there with the band over your waist."

"Are you hungry, or just bored?" As a former human, he could definitely personally attest to the fact that sometimes the two got a bit mixed up.

"Well, we don't need the night interrupted by cops, now do we?" If it'd just been 'put your seat belt on or you'll die', he'd have laughed himself sick before removing the whole damn belt from the car just to be contrary.

But unknowing of how the world was now... best not to encounter the police and fuck everything up. With a click, the seat belt was on, the demon then immediately going to fuss with the radio of the car.

"And this is what the radio looks like now, huh? FM? That actually took off, huh? Shame I died, I invested money in that."

"That!" He pointed at Alastor, "That's it! It's like a boredom craving. Humans eat because they need to survive and I just like the way it feels on my tongue." God it was good the radio demon pointed that too. Otherwise it was just gonna be on the tip of Raphael's tongue all night.

"That would be preferable." The angel nodded as he started the drive onto the paved street towards I-10. Car radios were a lot smaller now and built into the car. "Yeah, FM is used more for music and AM for news and more community radio stuff. There's an XM now although this man didn't have it. Gives off a much clearer sound. Go ahead and mess with it. I'm partial to just about anything."

"So if you're bored enough to eat down here, does that make heaven that much more of a gas?" He's curious, okay? Genuinely curious. He's not so simple as to just believe it when a bunch of bitter, rowdy drunks inform him that heaven is for boring squares and nothing interesting happens up there.

There has to be a reason people see it as a reward, after all.

"Sounded just fine on AM." He invested because he wanted to be rich. ... More rich. He wouldn't have dug in his heels about it even if he hadn't, can't stand against progress, but there was something preferable to the old sound. A thought he made obvious as he openly just picked AM. Nothing by way of music that he figured he'd like, he'd heard snippets of what was popular in this current year. No thank you.

"Is...is heaven a what?" He asked confused. Raphael knew some slang but this...he couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

As for the radio choice Raph gave a small smile.

"Let me help you out." He switched back to FM but the radio station he chose played a Big Band oldie song from 1937.

"A hoot! A riot! A blast! Is it fun up there, feathers?" To be fair, not a lot of people used the phrase 'a gas' anymore, but Alastor was, technically, an old man.

He was about to argue about switching back to FM, the crackle and hiss of the static pleasantly nostalgic, but as the beginning's of 'Minnie the Moocher' suddenly blasted brazenly from the speakers, he finally, immediately, shut up, his eyes lighting up.

Perfect.

Normally that would earn Alastor another 'deer' nickname but at an actual positive question about Raphael's side of the tracks he let it pass.

"Well we do have Cab Calloway." He told him as he kept his eyes on the road and drove into Baton Rouge itself.

"Just like there is every kind of blessed person in existence there is every kind of amusement. Since in our case people are mostly good we live in an...well, an almost political anarchy. We don't need laws or regulations because no one can accidentally die and people are pretty good natured."

See, he can ask nice things every now and again.

He'd really gotten into Cab, the last few years of his life. Really a pity, he was going to see him live at some point before the... incident. Though he now appeared to be distracted by the life outside of the windows of the truck, the simple fact that those ears had rotated back were proof enough he was still listening.

"So Hell!" Well, no, but let him elaborate-

"No point in making rules because of the general population."

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