An Alastor RP Catchall

[nomoreroom]

For when you just can't get enough bullshit in your day

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[archraphael]

The angel remained silent and did nothing. Clearly this line of questioning had backfired. In all honesty he had asked only as a curiosity; to see what chance Charlie had with the hotel.

Maybe Raphael had written the contract wrong. Maybe Alastor had found his own loophole or had some ulterior motives. There were rumors of his connection with Vox and a 'Rosie' woman who looked like she came out of 'Hello Dolly!'.

On the other hand maybe Alastor was innocent of Raphael's suspicions. Maybe he really was that desperate to escape Hell. Maybe he found the place as repugnant as the angel did and the sort of nonchalance he held for it was a survival mechanism of sorts.

Still it wouldn't hurt to get a second opinion. His other hand under the table made a quick sketch of the mark he left on Alastor's hand with energy before sending it to his brother, Gabriel.

[nomoreroom]

Eighty five years living with people who'd stab you in the back for a cold beer and a crisp high five did tend to leave one a bit suspicious of the motives of others. Throw in the fact that the being before him was his utter antithesis and Alastor frankly, honestly, only trusted Raphael as far as he could overhand huck him. In the end, the fault wasn't truly Raphael's. The angel was in an extremely difficult position; Alastor didn't trust anyone.

The angel was also, however, an excellent means to an end, and Alastor didn't need to trust someone to use them.

The rest of the beignet vanished down that fanged gullet, the former pressure and air of threat vanishing like a brief afternoon storm.

"I'm more than willing to work for Heaven up until that one hundred year mark rolls around. I don't want to hurt anyone I don't have to." While up here. He'll hurt anyone he likes in Hell.

"Nothing to worry about, friend, my word's my bond! Good as gold."

[archraphael]

Raphael nodded willing to play along for now.

"How was the beignet? Better than Hell's?" He asked.

What is even this? Raphael heard the almost laughing voice of his brother Gabriel in his head. You should leave the writing of contracts to me, brother dear.

Raphael could only send back a ? in response. He didn't have the gift of communication that Gabriel had.

Well for starters you don't even have the nontransferable mark here. Who knows in whose hands this deal could end up with. Who the hell is this Alastor guy anyway? Let me all the details when you come up!

[nomoreroom]

"Easily! No one outside of Louisiana can make a better one, that's just a fact. They have some New York native crankin' them out in the Pentegram, of course they're going to taste like deep fried garbage!"

Finished, he didn't seem like he had any intention of helping to clean up. Why would he? Not his job, they paid people here to do that crap, moving to stand up and stretch.

"Still interested in that walk?"

[archraphael]

It almost seemed like Raphael spaced out for a moment but then Alastor spoke and he was back again.

"Yes! Yes, a walk would be nice."

He stood up, grabbed the box, and tossed it in the trash without even thinking.

"I've seen this all before so you lead. We've got a bit of time until the sun comes up. You're quite proud of your state, aren't you?"

[nomoreroom]

It was a good thing he snapped back to, Alastor had actually raised a clawed hand to snap it in front of his face, none too keen on feeling ignored.

And lead he would, the streets only vaguely familiar from what he'd seen over eighty five years ago. A shame the night was only so long.

"'Course I am! Anyone who lives down here is proud to be here. Should be anyway, if they don't like it, they can move!" Which was very easy for a formerly stinking rich, now dead man to say, naturally.

"I wouldn't expect an angel to understand a lick of state pride of course."

[archraphael]

"We don't exactly have a heritage the way humans do." He imagined it might be nice to though. To have something cherished handed down throughout generations. Suddenly it clicked in him.

"You miss this don't you?" Raphael replied like he was finally getting it, "Being here, being alive. You miss Earth."

To a human it might seem the most obvious observation in the world but for the angel it was a new concept. Earth was seen as a means, not a destination for them.

[nomoreroom]

"I suspect even folks in heaven might just miss being alive too, if you're dead and you know it, you got the ability to miss what you lost!" Such a cheerful tone while stating it, inspecting a nearby magazine kiosk.

"Goes double for the assholes in Hell though." Himself included, he'd concede to that point.

[archraphael]

He guessed it as the affirmation to the question. Alastor was all walls, so much that it was hard to see the real him peaking out. Yet at least now those walls seemed more protective and not just manipulative.

Maybe, just this once because he wasn't unnecessarily cruel, he wanted to see the real Alastor inside.

"You know, I'm pretty tired." He told the demon, "I think we'll call it a night."

He raised his fingers, drawing those primal energies to him so the demon could feel it, ready to snap Alastor back into Hell even though it was still dark.

[nomoreroom]

He'd snagged a magazine by this point, thumbing through it, intently looking for the article advertised on the front. Some trashy bit of gossip about a celebrity, it'd seem. Raphael had been given the demons back, right up until the angel suggested it was time to go back.

Both ears swiveled sharply around, before Alastor himself would jerk his head to follow, watching Raphael just out of the corner of one brilliant, scarlet eye.

"Now I had thought we were staying here till sunup. Seemed to be what we settled on before." That warning tone was back, the demon holding on to the magazine just barely tight enough to allow a claw tip or two to begin to pierce the papers.

"We still have a couple hours."

[archraphael]

Raphael cocked his head in faux innocence. He didn't miss the way those claws were digging into the paper.

"Now there's no need to torture you here. I'm sure someone as important as you wouldn't care about this." He replied back smoothly, "I got wanting to please Charlie ahead of what was right. I'll just send you back to Hell where you'll be more comfortable. I'll even get Gabriel set on breaking that deal for you. You'll be free and I won't bother you again."

[nomoreroom]

"We had an agreement, feathers. I know I made my opinion very, very clear back at the restaurant.

Don't you play stupid with me." The magazine was set down, lightly punctured, the demon rounding on the angel.

"We made a deal, there's rules that go with those. We agreed we'd stay until sunup, and we agreed one hundred years of service. You just start pulling back on your end of the deal, and I can't promise heaven won't be getting you back in a cardboard box.

Isn't just for my sake there's rules, my dear."

[archraphael]

Now that last sentence was an interesting one.

Raphael took a step forward into Alastor's space not afraid of what he was seeing.

"I thought all of this was for your sake?" He asked him raising a brow, "What do you care? Isn't Hell above such rules?"

[nomoreroom]

A painful sounding, bone deep creak sounded from the demon as the angel dared to step into his space, the twig-like, reedy antlers visibly thickening as the haze of static began to dimly sound, still seeming distant, like a storm brewing just over the horizon.

"Oh no, don't misunderstand me. The rules of a deal ensure the safety of a transaction." Light, casual, instructional, that tone, and oh so gently condescending, like a mildly annoyed college professor, rather than a very, very offended demon. "Allow me to explain.

I uphold my end of the bargain, and you uphold yours. Your side of the deal of course, is to extend absolution, a second chance. I serve my one hundred years in your quaint little heavenly work release program. That is the agreement, those are the rules of this deal.

Unspoken of course, is the assumption that I won't, say, lose my temper, and find out what angel tastes like a la tartare. That's a part of the deal too. If you're going to start ignoring rules, then why the hell shouldn't I?"

[archraphael]

Raphael wondered if that hurt him as much as it sounded. His face looked up at those rather sharp looking antlers that were growing.

He listened very carefully. The angel wasn't looking to push the demon to the point of snapping and breaking the deal. Only to make him admit, even subconsciously, that he care about anything besides himself. Someone, a virtue, a speck of morality of any kind.

The problem was that he couldn't tell him that outright. That never got him the response he was looking for.

He gave a shrug, "Why should anyone? What's so important about absolution? Who needs trust or loyalty or stupid quaint work release program? Why should anyone make any choice that wouldn't be made in the pit?"

[nomoreroom]

An uphill battle to be sure. Alastor wouldn't be so easily probed, and the gears in his head were already cranking at full speed to suss out just why the angel would even bother to ask anything like this.

There was something more at play here than just idle ribbing or a display of power from probation officer to felon. Angels didn't poke the bear for fun after all, this he was positive of.

"Now you know I can't tell you that like this. Can't see the answer under eight and a half decades of mess. Can't ask me that and expect an unbiased answer, what makes you think I wouldn't lie to get you off my tail about it?" A laugh, a bark more like it, static snapping in the outburst.

"Maybe I don't even know for sure myself! Do you want an honest answer or a lie, feathers? You're only bound for bullshit right now.

Why are you asking? Why do you care?"

[archraphael]

"I'd settle for a biased honest answer." The angel leaned against his staff. The game was over.

"Maybe I'm curious to the true nature of the damned. Maybe I want to see why you put up walls around yourself if you're such an unrepentant braggart of a sinner. Maybe I need to convince Gabriel and Michael not to find a way to ruin this. Maybe I suspect, somewhere deep in there, you care about something other than your own skin."

He gave a shrug, "Maybe it's just my job to care about finding out those sorts of things, silly as you might find them.'

[nomoreroom]

Oh, so now there were more players involved in this? He'd originally assumed that this deal was between him, Raphael and The Lord but now... it's a bit more complicated.

Now he could begin to think of explanations as to why the talk of reneging on the deal kept popping up. Outside parties with an investment in keeping what Hell had in Hell.

No wonder no other Alastor had managed to complete their sentence.

"Folks don't set up walls for no reason." Time to try a slightly different approach.

"What I got up is there because it has to be, no other way around it."

[archraphael]

For Raphael it was merely a test but he was no mind reader. He couldn't confirm or reject what Alastor was thinking.

At the sinner's words he frowned slightly. He moved to sit on a bench. His wings wrapped protectively around his body.

"That sounds like a very lonely existence." He replied honestly.

[nomoreroom]

"Trust me, friend." Ah, his tone sounded slightly, just faintly softer there, though the smile lost none of it's sharpness.

Quite the contrary, there seemed to be a hint of bitterness to the expression.

"It's for the best. Better not to ask questions about it, isn't anything a soul can do about them now."

[archraphael]

Perhaps so. Raphael decided it would be best to let the real Alastor hide behind his walls again. So he turned the conversation on himself.

"Did I ever tell you about when we stopped the alastor program?" He asked the sinner switching the subject.

[nomoreroom]

Definitely for the best, he'd certainly not be revealing any deep secrets so soon, especially not to an angel, of all things. Whatever chipper energy had been lost previously though, was back as if it never left as the topic changed.

"Not even the cliffnotes, feathers." The tone had again shifted, losing that bitter edge and indeed, the mocking nature he'd originally used when addressing the angel with that nickname.

Seemed somewhat more amicable now, maybe he just liked the nickname.

[archraphael]

"It was somewhere around the mid 1500s. 1550 something or other. I suppose it doesn't matter exactly when." Raphael explained looking at the ground and poking at it with his staff.

"All three of us ran the program at that time: Michael, Gabriel, and me. I won't lie we were getting shit results. Getting any demon to cooperate is hard but getting them to cooperate on earth was even harder. Most of them used their chance on earth to kill someone that they didn't get the chance to during their life. That's another way you're different. We waited only about five years before offering the deal not eighty."


Here Raphael picked up his head and looked at Alastor. "We had one near success and because of him he was also our last before you. Also a serial killer. Had a thirty year sentence. Well, for fifteen years he seemed to be working great. Don't get me wrong he was an arrogant little shit but he kept in the rules."

"One day we trusted him enough to take out a particularly hellish sinner that had been hanging around a market. We'd gotten rather comfortable with Matthias and gave him free reign to take care of things as he needed to while we took care of other business elsewhere.

So we come to collect him right? The entire marketplace was slaughtered. Men, women, children, even the animals. Just to rub salt in the wound the only living creature he spared was the target. He'd let him escape.

We just stood there in total shock. When Gabriel asked why, why would he do this? Throw all fifteen years he worked for away? Matthias laughed and said it was worth it to see the look on our stupid faces. You see before when an alastor failed we just sent then back to Hell. That's where Mathias heard that any angel would offer you a plea bargain if you pulled some sad sob story out of your ass.

He laughed at us and he was still laughing when Michael went over and killed him. The three of us decided to leave Hell to their own devices since we couldn't understand them anyway. If they were so happy down there then we should just leave them. We had enough on our hands tending the faithful, why should we pursue people who hated everything we held dear?"

Raphael took another deep sigh at the end of the story. He was fully expecting Alastor to mock him for being to trusting or make some other smart ass comment. He raised his head heavenward to look at what stars that could be seen through the light pollution of the city.

"Michael and Gabriel don't even know about you. When they find out I made a deal behind their back they're gonna be pissed."

[nomoreroom]

Throughout the story, Alastor's face and body language would remain entirely neutral. A murderer, a psychopath and a monster he might be, and he'd not argue with that assertion, but perhaps predictably, he was an excellent listener. Not a hint of any privately held thoughts appeared on his face, not a glimmer of judgement nor of agreement, hooded hellfire stare just watching Raphael as the angel recounted the last failed attempt at this project.

Very, very interesting.

The story did close on an ominous note too, didn't it? A deal was a deal, and he wasn't about to relinquish his grip on it now, sad story or not.

"... Sounds like you picked a real genius, feathers." Ah, so he wasn't going to needle the angel?

"Clean route out, and he threw it all in the garbage for a cheap laugh? Now I don't think the issue is you, or your brothers.

I can blame you for being a bunch of suckers! Can't blame you for picking out an idiot though. Finding anything better than a dim bulb down there is like looking for a straw in a needle stack, not like you had much to work with, right?"

[archraphael]

"Well you don't end up in Hell because you were smart." Raph agreed while at the same time throwing shade at Alastor for the suckers insult.

His head turned to the demon with a lazy smile. Like it or not, Raph supposed he was stuck with Alastor...until he fucked him over that is.

"But you're the one who's gonna be different." Raphael didn't believe it but it wouldn't hurt just to play along, "We still have eight hours until sunrise if you want."