Imitation of an Angel, picture of holiness
Pairing: Alastor x f!reader
Summary: Alastor and the reader were married in life. Then he got killed. They're reunited when the reader gets sent in hell but her appearance as a sinner eerily resembles angels in heaven.
You had loved him without knowing.
That had been the cruelty of it.
In life, he had been a gentleman. Charming, polished, well-spoken. The sort of man neighbors admired and trusted. The sort that old ladies complimented and young couples tried to imitate. He held doors, kissed your knuckles, brought home fresh bread on Sundays, and danced with you in the kitchen when the record player crackled to life.
He never raised his voice at you.
And he never told you what he did when he left the house at night.
You only found out after he died.
They found him in the woods, mistaken for a deer by some drunk hunter, they said. Wrong place, wrong time. A clean shot. He died alone, not in your arms, not in his bed, but in the dirt, with leaves sticking to his blood.
Headlines snarled about him. Serial killer. Missing persons. Decades of unsolved cases suddenly stitched together like a grotesque quilt, and he was the thread running through all of them.
“Did you know?” they asked you.
That question haunted you more than his smile ever had.
Even after courtrooms. Even after stares in the streets. Even after his belongings were torn apart for evidence.
And when you died, long after the world had decided what he was — you didn’t wake to pearly gates.
Alastor had never imagined you would follow him there.
He hadn’t expected Heaven, of course, not for himself. But for you? You had been an angel walking among mortals. You had smiled at strangers, treated him with kindness even when the world had turned on you because of his sins.
You should have been rewarded for that.
But Hell had a twisted sense of humor.
He spent years convinced you were safe somewhere above: untouchable, unreachable, forever beyond his bloody hands.
Sometimes, when the Pentagram City chaos dulled just enough, he imagined you walking through clouds instead of ash. Imagined you laughing again. Imagined you learning peace without him dragging it down.
He told himself that was better.
Even when it felt like rot.
Then one day, Hell buzzed.
Not just with violence, that was constant. No, this buzz was different. Excited. Greedy. Sharp.
Whispers traveled faster than gunfire.
“She’s got wings,” they said.
“Not exterminator wings,” someone muttered. “But close.”
“She looks like Heaven but smells like Hell.”
The Vees heard first, of course.
Vox saw a brand. A spectacle. Something new to broadcast and twist into entertainment.
Valentino saw profit - flesh and fantasy dressed in false holiness.
Velvette saw a trend - something unreal, something dangerous, something that would make Hell click “share.”
They crowded around you like vultures in designer clothes.
And you stood there, confused, shaken, white-feathered wings trembling behind you, still dressed like a soul that hadn’t realized it was damned.
“You wanna be safe?” Vox asked, his screen flashing blue and red. “You stick with us.”
“You’re a walking fetish, sweetheart,” Valentino purred, smoke curling from his fingers. “We’ll make you legendary.”
“We can make you untouchable online,” Velvette added, smiling sharp. “But you gotta play smart.”
They framed it like an offer.
But you could feel the leash already tightening.
And that was when the air changed.
The static came before he did.
A low hum. A familiar crackle.
Like an old radio station sliding back onto a long-lost signal.
They always did when he arrived.
Red eyes. Antlers. Smile too wide to belong to a sane being.
Alastor stepped through the parted crowd like he owned the ground beneath it.
For one terrible second, the world stopped.
His smile flickered, not gone, never gone, but strained, like cracked porcelain trying to hold.
“…Darling?” he said softly.
Because you knew that voice.
You’d heard it across dinner tables. Through laughter. Through lullabies hummed when the world felt too loud. Through radio, most importantly, because now his voice carried static on its own.
His gaze traced you: your face, your hands, your wings.
The irony was cruel, even by Hell’s standards.
“I always knew you had a touch of the divine,” he said lightly. “I didn’t expect Hell to agree.”
Vox recovered first. “Whoa, whoa, whoa...you know her?”
“That,” he said, “is my wife.”
You didn’t have time to react before a cane tipped up, his shadow curling unnaturally, and the space around you bent.
One second, their voices were in your ears.
The next, everything vanished.
You were inside the Hazbin Hotel.
An old couch. The warm colors. The fake hope clinging to its walls.
He had set you down carefully, like you were made of something fragile rather than dead.
“They will not touch you,” he said immediately. “Not while you’re here.”
You stepped back. Your wings rustled.
“Don’t,” you said. Your voice shook now. “Don’t pretend like nothing happened. I know what you were. I know now.”
His smile softened, just slightly.
“I had hoped,” he admitted, “you’d never have to find out.”
“You let me mourn you,” you snapped. “You let me defend you when they called you a monster.”
“And I will let myself burn for that,” he replied calmly. “But not let them have you.”
You laughed bitterly. “You’re not doing this for me. You’re doing it because you want to own me.”
“But you were loved. Are loved. And Hell doesn’t get to take that from me as punishment.”
“You killed people,” you whispered.
“Yes,” he agreed, without flinching.
“No,” he said. “Because I wanted at least one thing in my life to be innocent.”
Your wings stirred behind you, unsure.
“And now look at you,” he added gently. “Hell’s little joke. Giving you feathers when all you ever did was bleed for me.”
Silence wrapped around you.
Just stood there, as he always had, waiting.
“I don’t trust you,” you said finally.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he answered. “But you will stay. The Vees won’t let a creature like you go without trying again.”
His smile regained its edge.
“Then I shall continue fussing over you until you’re tired of fighting it,” he said cheerfully. “Just like I used to with your cold feet in winter.”
Your breath hitched despite yourself.
…He remembered everything.
“Come now,” he added more softly, offering his hand. “Let your monstrous husband keep you safe a little longer.”
And even with all your fear.
Even with the truth clawing at your heart.
You still recognized the way his thumb hovered at your knuckles, just like it always had.
The lobby had gone silent when he led you down the staircase.
You didn’t remember ever walking beside him feeling so much space between your bodies.
Even in life, when you argued, when doors slammed and pride stood tall between you, there had always been something warm tethering you together. A gravity. Something unspoken that kept pulling you back.
Now there was distance laced with danger, curiosity, fear.
Every eye in the Hazbin Hotel followed the two of you.
Charlie froze mid-sentence, smile softening with surprise.
Vaggie’s hand drifted instinctively closer to her spear.
Angel Dust looked you up and down, whistling low.
Husk blinked slowly from the bar like he was trying to decide if you were real or another hallucination from cheap booze.
Niffty had already practically teleported next to you, sparkling-eyed.
Alastor gestured to you with a flourish of his cane.
“Everyone,” he announced, voice carrying through the room like a radio broadcast from an older, more dangerous era, “this is my dear wife.”
“Well, isn’t this just precious,” Angel drawled. “Didn’t know you were the marrying type, spooky.”
“Only once,” Alastor replied pleasantly.
“You’re his what?” Husk muttered.
“Was his wife,” you corrected automatically, voice dry.
“Is,” Alastor returned smoothly. “Death is merely a minor inconvenience in that regard.”
Charlie blinked, then brightened instantly. “Hi! Hi, oh my gosh, hi! It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Charlie. I own the hotel and...and we’re trying to help people get into Heaven. Redemption and all that!”
Something inside you tightened.
Because that…That had struck something painfully human in your chest.
“Yes,” she said warmly. “Some of us believe sinners can be redeemed. It’s not impossible.”
Your fingers curled slightly.
You thought of your life.
Of the people you forgave instead of fighting.
Of the way you stood beside him even after the world collapsed around you.
“I don’t think I belong in hell,” you said quietly.
The room went still again.
And this time, Alastor didn’t interrupt.
“Well,” she said gently, “that’s exactly why you should stay.”
And then Alastor spoke again, far more casually than the moment deserved.
“She will be,” he said, “staying in my room.”
The silence was no longer shock.
“In your...” Charlie started.
“My room,” he repeated. “It is already sufficiently large. And significantly better protected.”
You stiffened beside him.
“And what if I don’t want that?” you asked under your breath.
“You do,” he murmured back. “Even if only temporarily.”
His smile stayed fixed, polished, controlled, but there was something just beneath it that hadn’t existed before. Something desperate.
Charlie hesitated only a second before nodding. “Okay. Yeah. Um. That’s fine. As long as you’re comfortable.”
You weren’t. But you also weren’t about to continue arguing in public. So you just nodded once. And he guided you away.
His room smelled strangely familiar.
Like old paper. Like dust caught in sunlight. Like static after rain.
The same tidy precision he always carried with him extended here, books stacked, cane placed perfectly against the wall, gramophone resting like a relic of another world.
Except now there were claw marks in the furniture.
And shadows that moved when they shouldn’t.
You stood near the door, wings shifting uncertainly behind you.
You tried to fold them, but the unfamiliar weight threw off your balance. You stumbled slightly, catching yourself on the back of a chair.
Alastor was instantly there.
“Careful now,” he said, hands hovering just close enough to catch you without touching.
“I don’t know how to use these,” you muttered.
“Well,” he replied, “I have had to adjust to antlers, hooves, and an infuriatingly expressive tail. You’ll manage feathers.”
Still, his voice softened.
“You never cared much for balance in dancing either,” he added, teasing gently. “Yet you always insisted on leading.”
You huffed a weak laugh despite yourself.
“You complained about that forever.”
“And I survived,” he said. “A small miracle.”
You tried folding them again.
Your hands moved instinctively to smooth them, fingertips brushing along the feathers as if checking if they were real.
“You think I don’t belong here,” you said quietly.
“I think,” he answered, “Hell is inefficient at deciding who deserves what.”
“That’s a very polite way of saying their system is broken.”
He chuckled softly, the sound layered with static.
“I always told you bureaucracy was the greatest evil of all,” he replied.
“You do want their little redemption plan, don’t you?”
“I don’t want to spend eternity surrounded by murderers and…other demons,” you admitted.
“Well,” he drawled, “that ship has regrettably sailed, darling.”
You glared slightly over your shoulder.
You turned more fully toward him. He looked different, monstrous, taller somehow, sharper around the edges.
“You’re trying very hard,” you said.
“To show me you’re the same man.”
His eyes softened just a fraction.
“I merely look closer to the truth now.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Oh, I rather enjoy it,” he replied. “It’s quite liberating, actually. No more polite pretending. No more hiding the mess beneath the suit.”
“You loved me before you ever knew.”
“And now you know everything,” he continued, stepping closer, careful not to crowd you. “And I will not force you to love me now.”
Then, softer, almost hesitant:
“But I will still take care of you. Whether you deserve Hell or Heaven.”
You searched his face, the familiar smile, the unfamiliar monster, the same eyes that once watched you across candlelit dinners.
“…You’ve always been like this,” you said. “Doting, I mean.”
“I prefer the term devoted,” he replied.
And heartbreakingly, horribly yours.
He reached up slowly, giving you all the time in the world to stop him, and gently tucked a stray feather back into place.
Like he was still afraid you might disappear.
“And until Heaven decides it wants you,” he added quietly, “you’ll have me.”
Read part 2 here ! Part 3
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