Sold Your Life For A Thrust | RADIOSTATIC | Previously titled 'An Exception'

The Deal

Alastor could have said with complete honesty that he had zero interest in sex.

Up until recently.

Of course, he still had no desire for the act. The idea of being so close and vulnerable with another person disgusted him. Even the thought of 'pleasure' alone made him sick.

After all, he was the Radio Demon. Willingly submitting to such carnal desires was an open show of weakness, to himself if not anybody else. Which was exactly why, even in the safety of his own room, late at night, when those inevitable perturbing thoughts invaded the plane of his mind, he simply ignored them.

But now, the extermination was over, Adam was dead, and the newly built hotel was completely asleep. Except for Alastor, of course. He was wide awake in his radio tower, pacing around in circles as he muttered nonsense to himself, his ever present smile contorted into an even wider grin than normal.

He needed power. He needed more power, which meant more souls. And Alastor was never one to settle for commoners' souls, instead preferring to go straight to the top: Overlords.

And who better a target than his long time rival? Alastor was sure that owning Vox's soul would give him a certain satisfaction that nothing else could cause.

And he knew exactly how he was going to get it.

—•—•—

"Vox, my dear man!" Alastor burst through the door, his voice echoing around the hall. The chair at the other end of the cavern, surrounded by so many screens he couldn't count them all, quickly swivelled around.

And of course, in it, sat Vox, his posture upright and his claws gripping onto the armrest so hard that Alastor could see the leather tearing. His expression was beautiful, pure shock giving way to anger, then flashing through multiple error screens before he finally composed himself with a forced smile. "Alastor! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Well, I think that the better way to phrase it is to whom you owe the pleasure." Alastor tried not to cringe at his own words as he continued to walk, growing closer to Vox with every second.

His plan was simple. Vox was hardly secret about his sexual endeavours. He also did a terrible job of concealing his obsession with Alastor. So, Alastor's plan was to mix those two pieces of intelligence together, and then, ideally, he will put Vox in the position where he will want to sign his soul away.

Vox began to speak, but barely got a noise out before Alastor cut him off, finally drawing to a stop only a metre away from the chair. "I want to make a deal."

"Okay..." Vox laughed, drawing out the word. "Let me start off with this. What the fuck, Alastor?"

"What?" Alastor asked with mock innocence, grinning wider. "I think it will be mutually beneficial. You know that I wouldn't settle for anything less."

"Yeah right." Vox said disbelievingly, staring straight at Alastor. After a moment, he looked away with a sigh. "Okay, fine, what do you want?"

"What do I want? How considerate of you!" With a small cackle, Alastor sat down on an empty spot on the large desk that surrounded Vox. "It's simple. All I want is protection of the Hazbin Hotel."

Vox seemed stunned for a moment, swivelling his chair around again to face Alastor's new location. Then, he burst out laughing. "Protection? From what? Your crazy crackhouse already killed the fucking Adam."

"Well, unfortunately, I happen to have a handful of enemies which I would rather stay out of the way. And so do some of our residents, believe it or not!" That was only half true. In all honesty, Alastor didn't need Vox's goons to protect the hotel. What he did need, though, was to be able to get close enough to Vox so he would lower his guard. And that was where the other side of the deal came in.