Work Text:
You must take a lady at some point, Alastor. It’ll keep you cosy.
Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but you must.
He tips his head to those who pass him by. The streets are hung with lines of bleeding hearts, some still beating. A man and a woman share their teeth in a quiet cafe, hands hovering lazily over glasses of blood and plates brimming with intestines that leak precious pink ooze. For every cannibal on the road, another accompanies. All but Alastor, who finds his arms linked with the jingle of his radio and his step in line with each note of his haunting hums. A large bag tails behind him.
Not all of Hell celebrates Valentine’s Day; in fact, Cannibal Town finds itself one of the rare few to give their hearts to it (often more literally than the average sinner can withstand). Tradition is the core, the dance on the floor and the quiet laugh in a diner, and in that sentimental lens Alastor finds it to be the most charming place to spend this poignant day. There are no lines on a neon flashing table, and no brows raised at one who’d refuse a hand offered. Cannibal Town celebrates love but, most importantly, Cannibal Town celebrates Alastor.
When he passes shoulders with couple after couple, they’ll smile.
New Orleans had no place for those smiles. Having a lady in your life was pertinent. If a map were to be made, this lady would be on every square inch; try as he might, the path always led there. When Alastor refused to take a companion, the men fast whipped him into shape. He’d looked, honestly and fairly, but no lady caught his eye, and he’d spent too many loveless nights nursing a headache to bother with those charades in Hell.
It’s been almost a century. He’s still not found the one, but what’s another hundred years?
Alastor spills through the Emporium’s doors like a shadow unbound, weaving through murky conversation and the aroma of freshly stirred soup. The wriggling fabric behind him isn’t minded by a soul, free reign for steel-cap boots and pointed heels. He grins and nods to those who want it, waves a hand and grins at any unsavoury questions, all up until he finds the true source of his visit.
“My dear Rosie!” He hoists the bag onto the counter. Part of the fabric rips, and a furry leg kicks out. “I’ve got a gift for you.”
Alastor loves Rosie like he loves old-fashioned billboards and phones with long cords. Rosie is, without a doubt, the bee’s knees; the cat’s pajamas; the height of any insect appendage or feline clothing. On a dreary day in this now blooming town, a fawn sprung in the boiler had poked his nose where it hadn’t belonged. On this day of sentiment, a deer offers the head of a wolf to the reason he’d learned how to bite.
She sends off her newest client and faces him fully, fingers clasped together in delight. “Oh, Alastor, I was hopin’ you’d pop in! Some of the ladies at the lawn bowlers’ have been askin’ about you. What’s this about a gift?” She bends to examine the writhing bag closer, hands now pressed to her hips.
Alastor’s grin is giddy as he picks loose the bag’s drawstrings, pulling it back to reveal a large, slightly bloodied buck. It’s missing an antler, and its hooves are curled with overgrowth. Its back leg shoots through the hole in the bag, knocking over a watching cannibal that Alastor politely holds out a palm to.
Once they’ve wandered off, he turns back to Rosie. He breaks her silence with a cheery, “A deer!” Maybe she’s forgotten what a real one looks like.
“I can see that,” Rosie says, tapping a lithe finger to her chin. “And you’re wantin’ to…?”
The buck kicks again. Antlers shoot up past Alastor’s ears as he snaps at it, quieting the beast into a shaking mess. When Rosie’s back in his vision, the antlers retract and he smiles without teeth. “It’s not for the freezer, if that’s what you’re thinking! Consider this a departing gift. I’m going on sabbatical for a couple months and I’d like you to have a fresh snack ready for me when I come back.”
Rosie scans the room. “Alastor, darling, where would I keep it?”
“Away from the children, preferably, unless there’s a particular child you don’t like.”
Some minutes pass for the cannibals to awe the unfortunate buck, and Alastor doesn’t have to do more than blink thrice before Rosie clears out the Emporium for him. He ensures the lobby’s television is flicked off. The buck is tied to the post of a circle table, and they share a seat on a frilly beige couch that holds them like friends. He pinches her wide-brimmed hat and she brushes down his ears for it to fit on his head; he tells her about the Vees, each dark and dirty secret.
There is no one else like Rosie. Not in New Orleans, not in Hell. Several hundred centuries may pass, and he may find no lady at all. He may walk every street without a kissed cheek. That’s fine, he decides, as long as he still knows Rosie. Rosie, who doesn’t ask for a bed or a ring, a bouquet or a label. Rosie, who smiles when he denies a lady. Rosie, who knows much more than he ever will.
The day settles down to draw its curtains, and Alastor leads her onto the festive streets, walking past each and every rose-tinted window.
“You’re a sentimental thing, mister.” Rosie watches him through the corner of her dark eye, wrinkled up so dearly.
“You’ve made a fine thing of this town,” Alastor says, both eyes studying her like a painting. “It’s hard not to grow fond.”
The dance of their steps stops at the sign marking the town’s start. Rosie faces him fully, and he takes her hands into his. Alastor loves Rosie like he loves old-fashioned billboards and phones with long cords. Now, billboards are mindless picture-box drawl and the phones lack a cord at all. On this day of uncertainty, he brings her a deer and hopes that it might keep her eyes from those screens.
Rosie embraces him, and he pats down her hair to fit her hat on her head.
He calls out, “Farewell, beloved! Don’t starve without me!”
I haven’t found a lady, but I found myself a rose.
I like her thorns. I think you’d like them too.