Chapter Text
Alastor had never really given much thought to children before he came to Hell.
Oh, he had certainly paid attention to any who he thought might be being hurt, but that wasn’t hard – half the time, men (and the occasional woman) who hit their children didn’t bother to hide it, knowing no-one would comment or care what a man did with his property.
But generally, his circles didn’t run in the same circles as those who had children – his compatriots at various radio stations, Mimzy and her girls, his various victims…
The closest he’d been to a child since he was one when he was alive had been when the alligators in the bayou had spawned! The little creatures were adorably bloodthirsty, in a way that reminded him of the children in Cannibal Town.
Cannibal Town. The place with the highest proportion of child sinners in hell.
The place he considered his second home.
It was Cannibal Town that had had him giving second thoughts to children. The little ones were so delightful, he found himself imagining what it would be like to have one of his own. Not to adopt, as many of the children already were, but to have a little one to raise and hold and teach and – and love. Like his mother had loved him.
There were a few issues with that, of course. If he wanted a baby that would grow, that would become an adult, it would need to be a Hellborn – and Hellborn lived the way humans do, and would, unless he perished in an Extermination or someone got a lucky shot with some Angelic Steel, die before him, which – no. Just no.
Moreover, he didn’t want to father the child, he wanted to mother it – he wanted the baby to grow inside him, to be born through his blood and sweat and tears. He wanted to be like his mother, not his father.
Also, as a sinner, he was sterile.
There was, as far as he knew, no way of doing that – except it had been done. By the King and Queen. He’d asked Zestial, who had confirmed Charlotte Morningstar was their first child, and he’d seen how slowly she aged, going from a teenager to a young adult over the century he’d been in Hell.
So Alastor did what he always did when he knew something was possible but had no idea how to do it.
He invented a spell.
A summoning spell, specifically.
Magic was based on belief, willpower and intent. As such, while you could dip your toes in the water by using someone else’s spell, you would never get as good results blindly reading out incantations and copying down lines from a dusty old spellbook as you would by inventing your own spell. Most sinners were content with using the powers granted to them by their new demonic forms, and those few who did reach out into magic often did rely on others spells, but Alastor had learned magic and Voodoo at his mothers knee, and so he built this spell as he had built many others.
The base was a chalk circle, with various symbols around it, and a few offerings around those. A gentle offer, a whisper, a request to the cosmos for one who was able to grant Alastor’s wish, not a binding. Any being able to give Alastor what he wanted would be powerful enough that trying to bind them would be a mistake, and Alastor wanted them to do their best, not trick him in payback.
The spell was simple. It would summon to him a being who would be able to help him, who would be able to get him pregnant and give him a child despite being a male sinner. Getting them to actually do that would be up to him, but Alastor was a dealmaker, and he felt up to the challenge.
He lit a candle with a match, rather than his powers, and cast the spell.
The small room darkened, shadows elongating, as red eyes opened up along the walls, floor and ceiling.
Alastor laughed, cackling madly as exhilaration rushed through him as black shadowy tendrils like the ones he summoned reached up and twisted together in the middle of the circle, before fading apart and revealing a woman standing there.
She had inky black hair that moved like she was underwater, grey skin with black veins throughout it, and eyes that were rather typical of hell, yellow on red, with lines through them. She wore a coat over a cropped shirt and black pants, and a large brimmed black hat with checkerboard markings under the brim that matched her top and the lining of her coat.
“That was a good spell,” she said, stepping over the chalk line casually. “Your own?”
“Indeed!” Alastor preened at the compliment. “Alastor, pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure! And you are?”
“Call me Roo. The spell was based on me being able to help you with something, so theq is – do you want the Root of All Evil, or the Mother of Humanity?” She grinned at him, and the shadows moved.
Well, that was an interesting little tidbit, but not really relevant to the subject at hand.
“I would like a baby, so I’m guessing the mother of humanity,” he answered, waving her over to the small table set with the meal he’d prepared. “I do hope you’re not vegetarian?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Roo, looking at him with scrutinising eyes. She sat down and looked at the fine meal Alastor had prepared for whatever he summoned, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “This isn’t how people normally treat me when they summon me. I don’t think I’ve ever been offered a meal – much less one this good!” she exclaimed with honest enjoyment as she took a bite of her steak. Alastor preened.
“Well, those people clearly had no idea what they were doing. I am here to ask a favor, even if I will also be trading something for it. It behooves me to be polite!”
Roo grinned at him, the rare steak leaving streaks of bloody juice over her mouth.
“Ah yes. The favor. You want me to bear you a child.”
“Oh no!” Alastor corrected, making the woman shaped being in front of him blink at him discombobulated. “I want you to make me bear a child. You can father it, if two people are necessary, but I want to be the one to carry it in my body and give birth to it and nurse it. I will be its mother – you can be the father, if you wish. I certainly won’t say no to you choosing not to be a deadbeat and help raise the child you fathered!”
Roo sat back in her chair, expression slightly lost. “A…father? You want me to…father a child?”
“Yes. Is this not possible?” Alastor couldn’t help the slight anciety rising in his stomach. It should be. He’d made the spell and it had brought her to him, it should be possible –
Her hair writhed around her, the veins darkening, and as he looked he noticed that they appeared to be like roots, yes – but also chains.
“This child – why do you want it? Power, status, to carry on your lineage if those amusing Exterminations take you out?” she asked, eyes burning as they met his and smile as sharp as a cannibal’s.
Alastor hesitated, thinking about lying, about using one of the excuses she had given him. Then he thought of his mother, her smile, her hair tied in a bun as she laboured over their stove, the warmth of her arms.
“I want to love it,” Alastor said quietly. Nobody but possibly Rosie would believe him, but it was the truth.
Roo looked at him, and seemed to make up her mind.
“Alright. I’ll help you have a child – I’ll take you to my realm for the pregnancy and birth, to make sure there’s no issues, and I’d...like some time with them, as they grow up.” Her eyes grew distant. “I’ve been used to make many children over the years, all of humanity came from my womb, but I was never given a choice, bar that once that I was punished for. I was only there to be a broodmare, a garden for him to plant his seed in, and over the millenia it’s always been the same. I’ve never been the father before, I – I want to participate in raising this one.”
Alastor smiled at her. “As I said, I will never prevent someone from not being a deadbeat. And the price?”
If she asked for his soul…he might give it to her.
She cocked her head to one side. “For something like this…we’ll say, along with you coming to my realm for the conception, pregnancy and birth, and maybe a month or two post partum so I can make sure everything is fine, you give me your soul – but I can’t use it against you. I can’t order you, and you can take it back at any time.”
Alastor stared at her in honest shock. She smirked at him. “Well, I can’t have my baby mama on a leash, now can I? This will stop anyone else from getting you if need be, you can draw power from it, and it’ll help me know if you need help.”
This was insane. Alastor held his hand out immediately. She grinned, and shook it and he gasped as more power then he’d ever felt flowed through him as eldritch green light and black tendrils and red eyes whipped around the room.
“Shall we go?” Roo bowed and offered her hand to him gentlemanly.
“Indeed!” he nodded and took it, and allowed the darkness to rise up and whisk him away.
If he’d known the pregnancy would take seven years, he might have put his affairs in order.