Summary: There's a queer talk Introduction to LGBTQIA+ community happening in the hotel, but Alastor wants nothing to do with whatever Angel is hosting so he goes over to Rosie, who on the other hand is quite interested in the topic and so forces Alastor to tag along knowing exactly what she´s doing.
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It was a day like any other, the brimstone unforgiving and the ever-present eyes of hell watching anyone who comes near.
"Well that was our last song for today's broadcast!"
"Tomorrow we'll have a special star's of New Orleans theme, so please do guess which names will appear!"
"With that I wish you a wonderful day and Stay tuned~!"
Alastor had just finished his daily morning broadcast and was about to take leave to his facility manager duties.
Strange, a bit too quiet.
Usually by this time he'd hear at least somewhat faint ruccus from the hotel's residents, but his keen deer ears haven't picked up a single vulgar remark or sudden scream from Niffty's sudden attack on some bug demon.
Hmm. Let's see what strange shenanigans are our dear residents up to this time.
As he finished the thought his shadow engulfed him and Alastor was now scanning the common rooms to get a grasp on just what has the guests kept busy enough to be somewhat quite.
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"You sure you don't want the big presentation room? It has all the screening equipment." asked unsuringly Charlie yet again.
"No, that's way too formal. I want this to be a comfy friendly introduction, not a boring lecture."
"The living room will work just fine. Just gotta find some more chairs, sitting bags and pillows."
"Speaking of which, have you seen Smiles yet? Usually he's already creeping around here somewhere." said Angel while looking around.
"GOOD MORNING, my effeminate fella!"
Charlie couldn't help but giggle a bit.
"What does require my assistance, may I ask" asked Alastor sheepisly.
"Firstly, fuck you. Secondly, could you please have your puppet band help us move some stuff from the common room?" replied a bit annoyed Angel.
"Consider it done!" he waved his cane and a group of creatures emerged from the shadows.
"Thanks. Anyway I'm gonna go check on the other room, you got it covered here?" he turned to Charlie.
"Yep, all hands on deck!" she thumbed up as Angel left.
"May I ask what occurrence is asking all this interior redecorating, my dear?" he curiously tilted his ears and his smile grew sharper.
"Oh, Angel decided to do a little get together informative meeting as a part of the weekend program! It's called Introduction to LGBTQIA+!" she gleamed with her hands almost summoning a rainbow.
"El-zee-be-ti what?" asked slightly confused Alastor tilting his neck in unnatural angel.
"L-G-B-T.... It's just about the basic or most common sexuali-" Charlie wasn't able to finish her brief explanation due to Alastor's rude cut-off.
"HA! In that case, do forgive my absence, for I am not interested in participating in any sexual delinquencies Angel may be hosting!" he said as he gently silenced her with a non-magical notion of his cane.
"Wha- NO?! It's-" she shockingly blurred out.
But before she could get anywhere, Alastor had already dissolved into his shadow, escaping whatever educational briefing he clearly needed.
"UGH! He seemed fine with it, I didn't think he'd be like that I-"
"Leave it." Vaggie lovingly put a hand on Charlie's shoulder. Overhearing the conversation's end, she came to comfort her girlfriend.
"He's so old fashioned and stuck in his own ways, I doubt he even knows what sexuality means." said annoyed but loving Vaggie.
"Yeah, you're probably right. But he could still use some briefing!."
"Deffinetly." Vaggie giggled.
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Ugh, such delinquencies happening at our dear hotel.
I expect such from Angel Dust, but for Charlie to allow such things!?
Well, it simply can't be helped that I will be a little early for our afternoon tea with Rosie.
He grudgingly monologued while making his was to the Cannibal Town. Through the sinners scramming at the first sight of him in the streets, did up his mood a bit.
At last he arrived at the doorstep of Rosie's Emporium, where he could see her jumping from customer to customer.
He made his presence a bit more clear as Rosie successfully took notice of him.
"Alastor! Sweetheart, what brings you here so early, our tea isn't due for a few hours?" she squeezed him welcomed and asked with a bit of worry.
"Rosie, dear, good to see you!" he bleeted.
"I'm afraid some distasteful events are happening at the hotel which I'd rather not partake in. One of our residents, Angel Dust, is hosting some meeting about sexual delinquencies! Could you believe that!" he visibly annoyed complied to his trustful friend.
"Oh my!" she fake gasped having a slight idea of what is actually happening there.
"Some weird word they're calling it! El-zee-be-ti something!" he threw his hands and rolled eyes as they made it to their usual, more private tea spot.
"Is it perhaps called LGBT?" Rosie smirked as she poured them tooth tea.
"Wha- How come such honorable lady such as yourself knows of this filth?" asked now even more confused Alastor.
"I can assure you, that anything you think it is, is completely wrong!" she giggled.
Now it felt like everyone was talking about a joke he was not in on.
"Well one can't be a matriarch and give out relationship advice for the whole town all these years without keeping up with the slang!" she proudly sipped her tea while watching her deer friend work his little cogs trying to make sense of this information.
"I bet our dear Charlie tried to explain to you that it is about diffrent sexualities, but you cut her off and run here." she ignored Alastor's offended groan, which told her her guess was right.
"A sexuality is a term that defines ones attraction to other people, silly. Not some delinquency you thought off." she motherly scolded him.
"By any chance did you catch, when such event is happening, dear?" she asked, interested in the topic and plotting something.
"As I said, I'm not interested so no. But they did seem to be in a hurry so I'd guess pretty soon, if they didn't start already." he rolled his eyes and took a sip.
"Well you should've led with that! Come we need to hurry! I'm sure we can take the tea with us." she suddenly got up and started wrapping the tea set, making Alastor choke on a bit of tea in shock.
"You.. want to partake in the event?" he annoyingly asked seeing as his recluse is running to the thing he escaped here from.
"Of course I do! Who knows when such a nice coordinated opportunity for information gathering will arise again! I need to keep with the modern slang unlike someone." she poked him with that last one.
"And of course I'm sure a gentleman such as yourself will accompany lady like me there, right?" she laid out her trap.
"I-!" he carefully thought out his choice of words, but in the end gave up trying to talk her out of it.
"Of course my dear, but do not think for a second that I will make my presence known to other participants! And I'm only there for your courtesy!" he haughtily announced as he grabbed Rosie for the shadow travel.
"Alright, but you could use the opportunity to learn something new. Information is power and you never know when it will come in handy!" she sheepisly laughed as the shadows engulfed them.
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They arrived in the entrance hall not far from the living room where the event was already in motion as they overheard someone explaining something called Umbrella term.
"Why are they discussing rain protection equipment?" Squinted Alastor.
"Hush" Rosie said as they sneaked through shadows into far away corner couch of the room to satifly Alastor's wish to remain unnoticed.
Angel Dust noticed something move in the corner of his eyes meeting the glowing pairs of eyes watching him, but didn't let it throw him off as he started to explain each letter of the acronym.
"Well went through some basic term that are often used when discussing sexualities and identities, but now I'll explain each letter in short as they are the most common or basic on top of the umbrella pyramid."
"And now they talk about some pyramid schemes?" Alastor annoyed whispered to Rosie.
"Oh don't be a baby, give it a time and listen." she rolled her eyes as the deer hold no restrictions to show his annoyance to his friend.
"Bla bla Lesbian bla bla bla Gay bla bla Bisexual bla bla Transgender bla bla bla Queer bla bla bla Intersex bla bla bla"
Alastor mostly blocked out whatever Angel was talking about simply out of spite. He took full advantage of their vague shadow silhouette look to grumpishly slauch on the couch they sat on. He was mentally working on his list for tommorow's broadcast until Rosie *accidentally nudged him with her sharp elbow while pouring more tea and he was forced to pay attention to Angel's speech.
"Next is A which stands for Asexuality and Aromanticism. Both have a prefix A- which stands for no or lack of."
Alastor's ears sharpened as his attention was captured by those few words.
Rosie pretented she did not notice deer´s sudden, but expected raise of interest. Her plan was in full motion a working just as she predicted. She really aced it.
Not so cocky now my silly ace in a hole?
Angel continued: "Asexuality stands for lack or little of sexual attraction, so basicaly you don't wanna bang someone on first sight. And Aromanticism stands for lack or little of romantic attraction, so you don't wanna date anyone on first sight."
Alastor's attention was now fully focused on Angel.
"I may have summed it up in these neat short sayings, but as any sexualities, these two ain't that simple either. There is spectrum to them, some folks may be one but not other, or be both. Some may like sex, some may tolare it or hate it. Same with holding hands, kissing, dating ect. Anything you think of with sexual or romantic relationship, it's diffrent for each individual."
I do agree, that sexual relation are distasteful indeed. Alastor thought.
"You must also think, how can they be sure they don't feel something they never felt? And to that, touché. It is hard, and less noticeable, cause of that they are called Invisible sexualities. They are also categorised on conditions when they do feel it, but that's for it's own meet up!"
But Alastor didn't care, for there was way to much on his mind while working through all the information he was presented with.
Oh how she loved watching her little deer's brain cogs work in full rotations trying to figure out his feelings. It was at time like these when he look his most innocent self.
It felt good having finally a way to help her friend with discovering and understanding oneself.
She knew If she tried to present the idea herself, he would wave it off and pay no attention to it. Caught up in his grand idea that he alone is above such mortal needs and desires. But like this, he was forced to finally come to face with it. It may hurt his ego a bit, but he will come to appreciate it later or sooner.
AND BOY DID IT HURT HIS EGO.
So.. I'm not that special?
I'm not sick or missing something?
FRIVOLOUS! I will banish this from my mind!
FOR I AM THE GREAT RADIO DEMON, STRONGEST SINNER, ABOVE SUCH MORTAL NEEDS.
But before he could finish his inner clash of thoughts, the tea run dry and Angel was about to finnish his speech.
"Well that was all for our first meetup introduction. There will be more follow up meetups focused on each umbrella term and other if requested. If you have any questions please do reach out! Let me or Charlie know personally or leave a note in our newly setup Rainbow Club Room!" he cheerfully gestured with all four hands while Charlie blew up confetti.
"This room is located on X floor, room XXX, it will stay open at all times. There you will find many educational materials, noticeboards with bunch of stuff, a schedule of weekly Rainbow meetups and pride merch free to grab for all hotel guests!" he pointed to Vaggie who was holding a basket full of mini flags, bracelets, pins and other things.
"Or you can just chill there with others as the bean bags you're in are from there!" as he said that not even a dozen guests present turned towards said bean bags.
"That is really all! Thank you for joining us here today, we wish that all members of this hotel are here to live comfortably and free to be themselves while pursuing redemption."
Everyone started clapping, including Rosie and also Alastor's slight tap on his cane if it even counts.
"Now time for questions! Yes?...."
The disscution started and as it was nothing of interest to the smiling overlord, Rosie took the opportunity to tease the tiger.
"So, did you learn anything usefull from this dear?"
"I suppose some irrelevant information might come in handy when dealing with residents" he begrudgingly said with a sigh.
"Anything caught your interest in particular by any chance?" She sneaked one last try.
"Not really, but I did use the background noise for working on my tommorow's broadcast" He half-lied to her and himself while not giving anything away.
"Then I suppose there is nothing for us here anymore." she suggested and in shadows they disappeared back into the Emporium. There they said goodbye and Alastor was on his way back to the hotel.
He will confide in me when he's ready, until then I can at least be sure he'll know where to find answers. I gotta thank that spider fella sometimes!
Rosie thought as she waived her friend goodbye.
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When he came back, he wished to leave for his quarters. But as the facility manager it was his job to help set hotel into it's original state after the event.
"Well seems like I came back just in time to help with moving stuff back!" he suddenly let out behind Charlie.
"Alastor!" she said happily suprised, but then she remembered their last conversation, or lack there of.
"Listen about that-!" she started but yet again got cut off by his cane.
"Yes yes. Rosie already scolded me enough about this. I was well informed that this El-zee-be-ti stuff is something about relationships and not sexual delinquencies of Angel's usual getup." he waved any concern of hers away.
"Here you go, they'll move anything you ask them to." he summoned his puppets again.
"Now, how time does fly it is almost time to start making dinner! Excuse me as I have a splendid idea for today's evening meal." he quickly let out as he disappeared into the kitchen successfully avoiding further questions.
"Wait-! Urgh, must he do this again!" Charlie let out in frustration dragging hands across her face.
"Don't worry Tutt's, something tells me he learned his lesson." Angel smirked not far from them.
And something on top. I doubt he´s straight. Angel thought to himself.
Vaggie and Charlie looked confused at each other but shrugged it off.
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Today was full of uninvited revelations and if there is something that he learned from his mother, it's that when on busy mind, have busy hands.
And if there is something to truly let steam off and keep him busy (other than slaughter), it is his passion for cooking.
So he played his favourite jazz and floated into live-through routine of cooking.
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The rest of the day went by without a hitch.
But at night when all the residents were soundly asleep. A shadow breezed by the club room where a purple book and then later a green book gone missing for a while. With nothing left behind but a simple Thank you in the lending booklet.
A few days later same thing happened to two mini flags from the basket.
On a completely diffrent note, the pencil holder in the Radio Demon's tower got two new additions.
Such a meaningless frivolous things.
But they do bring a bit of joy.
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Alastor sat in his tower looking at his new decorations when a memory echoed through his mind.
"I know you're an ACE in a hole"
*echo* ACE ACe Ace ace ace ---
Somewhere on the other side of the Pentagram city, in Cannibal Town, Rosie is dying from laughter.
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Ps: I think I saw someone draw something like this bonus part as a meme but I can't remember.
Edit: Found it, it's the last panel of this pride comic from 2024 by @elsa-fogen, that's excatly what I imagined (also go read that mini-series, it's golden I swear).
Well that was long. I thought since 6th was international Asexuality day, I'm gonna just quickly write this year old idea, but no, I was writing for 5 hours..
From the queer talk I included only things Alastor would actually retain/listen to (and also to not make this any longer), so the agender, + the basic terms talk before ect. are not included.
Maybe next year I'll try to make it a comic, but I highly doubt that.
Anyway I hope someone at least sees this and enjoy it a bit.
Also I hc Alastor as both ace and aro.
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