Chapter Text
An idea had been rooting around in Angel Dust's head ever since Mimzy had barged into the Hazbin Hotel a few weeks ago. She had mentioned so off handedly tales about Alastor's drinking days topside. It was hard to believe, the man hardly had more than a single whisky every now and again, but the idea wouldn't leave Angel Dust alone. He had to test it.
"Hey Husk, what do you think it would take to get the Radio Demon drunk?" He quietly asked one night, shooting glances at the demon in question, who was listening to yet another one of Charlie's animated speeches.
Husk stopped his wiping down of the bar, glaring at Angel. "We are not getting Alastor drunk under any circumstance."
"Why not?" Angel draped himself across the bar even though he knew his body did nothing for Husk. "You ever seen him drunk?"
"No, and I don't want to find out," Husk grunted, resuming cleaning his station.
"C'mon, wouldn't it be funny?" Angel continued. "Would he be a happy drunk or a sad drunk, you think?"
"Angry."
Angel pouted. While Husk was often fun to talk to and up for a few minor shenanigans, when he started getting short, he meant business. This meant that he'd have to go about things in a different way. After all, the best way to get someone drunk was to have the bartender on your side.
"What if we make a friendly little bet?" Angel purred. Husk couldn't stop the way his ears immediately perked up, something he constantly complained about.
"What kind of bet?" He replied cautiously, looking at Angel with suspicion.
"If I'm right and he's a happy drunk, you help me convince Charlie into hosting an adult movie night. If you're right, and he's any other kind of drunk, I'll convince Charlie into letting us have a gambling night and get you whatever kind of expensive booze you want," Angel explained.
Husk's ears twitched again, giving away his answer before he said it.
"I'm in."
---
It was surprisingly easy to get Alastor to sit down and have a drink more than he would normally have. All they had to do was lure him to the bar and keep topping off his glass when he was looking away, engaged in conversation with whoever walked past.
By the third drink, he began to be suspicious though.
"Why Husker, you wouldn't happen to have given me an enchanted cup did you?" Alastor wagged his finger at the cat. "It seems no matter how much I drink, the glass is always full!"
Husk shrugged, "you never said stop."
Alastor's frequency buzzing around them increased in pitch. Angel slowly started inching away from the overlord. Perhaps he had misjudged the whole situation. Maybe Alastor had a rather good reason for why he didn't drink so much anymore and now he was angry with them for breaking his streak. Angel looked at Husk, who was staring nervous with Alastor's reaction if the increased flicking of his tail was anything to go by.
But then the buzzing lowered once more as Alastor's grin widened, raising his glass, "Indeed I didn't! Another round!"
The more he drank, the more the Radio Demon seemed to settle into his favorite element: talking. Satan, Angel knew the other man was chatty, but drunk Alastor was a whole other ballgame. At one point he tried to speak so fast his words slurred into each other without needing alcohol, so he switched off using his mouth entirely, switching on the speaker in his throat and snapping his teeth shut to form the speaker grill of a radio.
Then by the sixth drink, Alastor's demeanor changed. He slowed his words until he was no longer speaking at all, head resting on his cheek as he stared contemplatively at his drink. For a moment, Angel mourned his lost victory and cursed Mimzy's lies, convinced that Alastor was actually a sleepy drunk. But then he suddenly spoke up in a hushed tone.
"How does one know if they're a man?" He asked, looking at Angel now with deep focus.
Angel blinked. Not exactly the line of conversation he'd ever expect out of the Radio Demon. Husk clearly didn't either, also staring at Alastor with puzzlement.
Well, if Alastor was going through a gender identity crisis, no one could say Angel wasn't the best person at the hotel for the job. Sure, he wasn't trans himself, but with all the cross dressing he did, he was rather involved in the community. Charlie, bless her bisexual heart, knew everything definition and flag in existence and would likely terrify Alastor with her spiels, so it was a good thing she wasn't around for this conversation.
"Well it's just a feeling, you know?" Angel started, wracking his brain for trans coworkers he could contact if Alastor needed a more personal explanation. "Do you feel like a woman? Do you wanna be a woman?"
Alastor hummed, continuing to think, "No I don't think so. I did try being a woman once, it was quite fun until I got arrested."
Angel...didn't know exactly what to do with that information. Was Alastor truly a transwoman but had been traumatized by the criminal system into repressing himself (herself? Themself?)? Or had he just been experimenting and truly decided that being trans wasn't for him? Was he agender, maybe? And wait a minute, since when had Alastor gone to jail?!
"Do you like being a man, then?" Husk spoke up while the gears turned in Angel's head.
Alastor sighed, putting his head on the table and nearly catching Husk with his antlers. He mumbled something unintelligible into the wood.
"What was that Al? You gotta speak up, we won't judge ya," Angel tried to encourage the other. It was hard enough for him to come to terms with liking crossdressing, he couldn't imagine what the deer demon was going through, having a gender identity crisis after more than a century in Hell.
"I wish I were intersexed," Al sighed again. "No breasts, those would make sleeping on my stomach quite impossible, but a cunt? I would rather like one of those."
Angel couldn't help but stifle laughter at Alastor's unusual language choice. Husk was far more unsuccessful, trying to excuse his away as a cough. He was not succeeding.
"Husker don't tell me you are misogynistic, you don't want me to be happy with a cunt?" Alastor poked Husk, not helping with the cat's laughter.
"I'd rather not think about your genitals current or wanted at all actually," Husk finally groused.
Alastor sat back with a pout, "this is so misogynistic."
"I don't think misogyny is the word you're looking for buddy," Angel said, finally getting his laughter under control enough for what should be a serious conversation. "I think transphobia is more accurate here."
Alastor looked at him with wide eyes as he turned the new phrase over in his head. Then, he slowly turned to Husk, raising an accusing finger.
"You are transphobic Husker," He declared.
Of course it was then that Charlie decided to pop up to check on them. She ran over with a gasp at Alastor's accusation.
"Husk is being transphobic?!" She practically shrieked, now drawing Vaggie's attention.
Angel fell off his seat with laughter while Alastor nodded solemnly. Husk simply turned around to pull another bottle off the shelf to chug.
"He doesn't want me to have a cunt," Alastor explained with utmost seriousness.
Charlie's expression faltered for a moment, clearly uncertain on how to respond to such an unusual sentence from her hotelier. Luckily, where Charlie failed, Vaggie was there to cover the difference.
"And why doesn't Husk want you to be, uh, happier with your below the belt situation?" She asked, already uncomfortable where the conversation was going, eyeballing the several empty bottles surrounding the bar.
"He's transphobic," Alastor declared once more, a more noticeable slur to his words, belaying the fact that he was no longer sober.
"Yes, Al, we established that," Vaggie sighed. "Why though?"
Husk threw his hands up, "I just told him that I don't care what configuration he has nor do I wanna know!"
Charlie rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, clearly out of her depth but trying to steel herself enough to help anyway. "Well, maybe that wasn't the nicest response to Al coming out, but also Al, maybe don't talk so blatantly about your genitals? It can make people uncomfortable."
Alastor responded by smacking his head back onto the bar top, murmuring under his breath in something that definitely wasn't identifiable English. Charlie looked pleadingly at Vaggie.
"Is he drunk?" Vaggie accused, glaring between Husk and Angel, an impressive feat given she only had one eye.
"Very," Angel reassured with a cackle.
Charlie tried to sympathetically pat Alastor on the back as he let out strange sounds. They weren't exactly sobs, but it wasn't laughter either.
He popped up suddenly once more, yet another blazing look in his eyes that was now a pattern for him. He gripped Charlie's face.
"Do you think I'd be a good mother?" he asked.
"Uh," was all Charlie could manage.
That was answer enough for Alastor, as he threw himself so far back he fell off the stool. Now on the floor, he recreated the image of a dramatic damsel in distress. Angel wondered if he had ever been a theatre kid. It would explain a lot.
"If only I were not cursed by biology! I could have been a mother to many children! But no, here I stand cursed by God himself!" He wailed.
Husk took out another bottle to chug.
"Do you even want kids? I thought you hated them?" Vaggie asked, more and more done with the deer demon's shenanigans by the minute, eye twitching.
"That's hardly the point here," Alastor grumbled, pausing his wailing to glare at her.
"Oookay Al," Charlie began, desperately trying to steer the conversation into familiar territory. "Since we've established you're not exactly a man anymore, would you like to go by a different name? Different pronouns?"
Alastor looked at her confused, head tilting so far to the side that he broke his neck. "Whyever would I do that?"
Charlie shrank back slightly, "well, it's pretty common for trans people to change their names and pronouns when they come out...?"
"What's a trans person?"
A mixture of groans and laughter came from the group. Of course Alastor wouldn't know what being trans was, despite definitely being somewhere not on the cis side of things. That was the first thing they should have discussed.
Charlie breathed in deeply, prepared to go into an entire spiel before Angel shushed her.
"It's when someone tells you you're a man or a woman, but you're not. That disagreement is being trans," Angel punctuated his statement with four jazz hands for good measure.
Alastor was silent for so long, they began to worry once more. Had they broken the old time-y demon? Was his crisis now internal instead of external?
"Am I a train then?" he finally asked.
Vaggie gaped, first to speak, "why the Hell would you be a train? How does that relate?!"
"Because," Alastor enunciated slowly, as best as he could anyway given how drunk he was. "Trains are transnational. You have declared me a trans person. It makes perfect sense does it not?"
Angel rubbed four of his eyes, "I think you lost us somewhere smiles."
"I'm a radio demon, why can't I be a trans train demon as well?" Alastor argued, finally figuring out that he didn't have to stay on the floor. Up he went, crawling back onto a barstool and invading as much of everyone's space as he physically could.
"I mean, whatever makes you happy," Angel replied with a confused shrug. He figured this was the best they were going to get out of Alastor understanding modern terminology.
Alastor beamed in response, flitting through multiple sounds until he finally landed on a train horn. He looked around expectantly until Charlie gave him tentative applause.
"I think that's enough philosophy for one night," He declared, attempting to stand only to sway so far to one side he fell onto the floor.
"Al-" Charlie groaned, giving a half-hearted glare at Husk and Angel for getting him this drunk in the first place.
Face down on the floor, Alastor muttered, "well I suppose this is as good a place as any to sleep."
"Get him to bed, and no more funny business," Vaggie ordered, pointing at both Husk and Angel.
Alastor was surprisingly light and compliant, although him being over seven feet tall made moving him a true two man effort. Nonetheless, they managed to get him tucked into bed without another word.
"So, who won the bet?" Angel asked after he had closed Alastor's bedroom door behind them.
Husk banged his head against the wall, refusing to answer.