Chapter Text
Alastor exhaled heavily as he stepped out of the passenger seat, eager to stretch his legs after the infuriatingly long journey. After a moment, he turned and reached into the back of the car to grab his bag, shifting the strap comfortably over his shoulder. Then he smiled at the driver.
“Thank you for the lift. Though I could have taken a cab. You didn’t have to drive all this way on my account.”
His mother smiled softly as she turned in her seat toward him, draping an arm over the back of the chair. “Of course, mon cher, I know you could. But there was no chance I was going to miss dropping you off on your first day back. After all, I won’t get to see you again until winter break.”
Adjusting the strap of his bag, Alastor felt his features soften slightly, one hand absently nudging his glasses up his nose. “I know, maman. I promise I’ll call you more this year so you don’t have to worry about me.”
“You better,” his mother said, almost sounding scolding, though that softness never left her smile. Then her expression sharpened as she studied his face more closely. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right? You took a whole year off. Being the eldest in your year isn’t going to be easy on you.”
Alastor huffed out an unconcerned sound, airily waving a hand. “I’ll be fine. I doubt anyone even noticed I was gone.”
A small lie. He knew people had likely noticed his absence all year, but he didn’t want to drag his mother into any of that. Instead, he kept smiling, gentle, reassuring, trying to ease any worry she might have about leaving.
“Now go on,” he added softly. “You’ve got a long drive back home.”
“Trying to get rid of me, are we?” her voice came back, teasing. Then she sighed, turning forward again and settling her hands on the wheel. “All right, I’ll be off then. I know you usually do, but stay out of trouble and have a good year. Tu le sais, je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime aussi,” Alastor replied softly as he finally straightened, nudging the car door shut with his hip.
He lingered on the pavement, watching as the car pulled away. Only once it had completely disappeared from view did he turn toward the open gates behind him, large and foreboding, cursive text woven into the iron bars overhead.
Hazbin High School.
Some might call it literal Hell on Earth.
A pit of rampant cliques, unwanted school uniform policies, a drug problem he was fairly certain the staff were actively ignoring, and constant power struggles among the older students. It was all an absolute headache to navigate, and with full room and board he didn’t even get a chance to step away from it all at the end of the day. But Alastor had managed to carve out a small, comfortable space for himself here.
Well. He had.
He’d been gone an entire year, slipping away at the end of sophomore year without bothering to explain himself to anyone. Now he was back, stepping into the same halls a year older, while all his former classmates were now seniors.
He also hadn’t mentioned that he was coming back to anyone.
Which would certainly surprise more than one person, he was sure.
Taking just a moment to linger outside the gates, Alastor adjusted his grip on the strap of his bag. And then, with a long breath, he lifted his chin and confidently strode down the familiar path like he owned the place.
The building ahead of him hadn’t changed in the slightest. Crumbling around the edges, paint flaking, vines crawling up the left-hand side, threatening to completely black out the ground-floor windows. It looked one bad sneeze away from collapsing around everyone’s ears. The whole place screamed underfunded.
Students milled about in the courtyard, catching up with old friends and trading stories about summer break. Alastor ignored it all, fixing his gaze straight ahead as he headed for the main doors. Principal Morningstar wanted to see him that morning, and Alastor had no intention of being late for that meeting.
He was never late for anything.
“Anthony, angel, cariño. You don’t want to ruin this good thing we’ve got, do you?”
The gravel beneath Alastor’s shoes crunched as he came to a sudden stop, knuckles instinctively tightening around his bag strap as the familiar voice sliced through the courtyard noise like a knife.
He turned just in time to see the tall eleventh-grader drape a long arm comfortably over the shoulders of a much shorter blond, who was desperately trying to pull away. “No, Val. I don’t- it’s just-”
Valentino chuckled loudly as Anthony squirmed beneath his grip, taking another long drag from his cigarette as he leaned down closer to the boy’s face. Alastor couldn’t help the slight wrinkle of his nose at the sight of him. His shirt was untucked, no school tie in sight, the top three buttons popped open to display his tanned chest. His fingers were heavy with thick gold rings, an equally gaudy chain resting at his collarbone.
He was an eyesore. Every time Alastor saw him, he felt a near-primal urge to bleach his eyeballs.
Valentino was king-in-chief of the school’s drug problem, taking after his father, rumored to be the kingpin of an entire drug ring back in Florida. If the rumors were to be believed.
Which they usually were.
If you ever managed to get your hands on something, chances were it had come onto campus through Val. He was what one might consider one of the popular kids, and it was said that being invited to one of his after school parties was a status symbol.
Alastor had never been invited to any of them.
Not that he’d ever wanted to be.
“I can’t help but feel you’re trying to avoid me,” Valentino purred, puffing out a mouthful of smoke directly into Anthony’s face.
The blond spluttered, once again trying to wriggle free of Val’s arm, but it didn’t budge from his shoulders. “I’m not trying to avoid you, Val, I promise. It’s just-” He sucked in a shaky breath. “I can’t get into serious trouble again. They’ve already suspended me twice, and my mom said-”
“I don’t care what your madre perra said, Anthony,” the eleventh-grader growled, hauling him closer. The arm around his shoulders tightened, turning more into a headlock than a casual slouch. “Or have you forgotten that little deal we made last year?”
Even from this distance, the panic on the blond’s face was obvious, blue eyes wide, breath shallow. “I haven’t forgotten. Val, please. I can’t get expelled.”
That was enough for Alastor.
If there was one thing he particularly despised, it was a bully. And Valentino was very much one of those.
Among many other things.
“Valentino, old pal!” Alastor called across the courtyard. “If you’re going to smoke in broad daylight, at least do it off school grounds. Or I may be compelled to do something about it.”
There was a brief moment of silence before Valentino looked up, his gaze lazily dragging from his victim’s face and across the courtyard.
“You must be un idiota sin cerebro if you think you can talk to me like that,” he drawled, before he’d even registered who was speaking. But the instant his eyes locked on Alastor, he spluttered on a mouthful of smoke. “Alastor?! You- but you left. You weren’t supposed to come back.”
Alastor donned a mock frown, tilting his head just slightly. “Was I not? Well, I’m terribly sorry to disappoint everyone.”
For a second, Valentino looked genuinely baffled, his arm still holding Anthony taut at his side. Then, without a second thought, he shoved his favorite victim away and strode across the courtyard. His long strides ate up the distance in seconds, until he was standing barely a foot away, close enough that Alastor had to crane his neck to meet his gaze.
A beat passed between them. Valentino folded his arms, ringed fingers tapping against his forearm. Then he let out a soft laugh. “Ay, you must be a fool to come back here and think you’re still in control. Things have changed in the year you’ve been gone.”
“Oh, of course things have changed,” Alastor replied easily, lips curving into something almost innocent. “That is the way of the world, is it not? But I can’t imagine what you mean. I’m simply here to finish my schooling in peace.”
The taller eleventh-grader chuckled again, taking another long drag from his cigarette before flicking it carelessly somewhere behind him. “Always the smooth talker, weren’t you? Guess that’s why your little radio show was so popular.”
The was in that sentence annoyed Alastor more than he cared to admit, but he forced the innocent smile to linger a moment longer. Then he sidestepped around the taller student. “Well, you don’t have to worry. I fully intend to give my listeners exactly what they’ve been missing this past year. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment to keep.”
With that, he started to walk away.
He only paused when Valentino’s voice called after him. “You know Voxxy isn’t going to be very pleased to see you.”
Alastor felt his shoulders stiffen at the very mention of the name. He smoothed the reaction away just as quickly, turning his head only long enough to flash Valentino another smile. “I suppose he’ll just have to live with it.”
Then he adjusted his bag and kept walking, finally pushing through the doors to the main building.
The same hallways. The same classrooms. The same lockers, lining the familiar route to the principal’s office on the top floor.
It felt as though he’d never left at all.
Stickers he recognized from his freshman year were slapped haphazardly across the walls; crude, offensive little messages were scrawled across the fronts of certain lockers; familiar cracked windows and dents marred the bottoms of old plywood doors where students had lazily kicked them open instead of using their hands.
Honestly, the inside of the building looked even worse than the outside.
The principal’s office was about the only decent-looking part of the entire school. The walls were clean here, the floors giving way to carpet instead of rough tile as he approached the door. By the time Alastor reached it, it felt like he was standing in a completely different building altogether.
But the school still couldn’t afford to hire a secretary, so Alastor had to knock himself.
“Come in!” Came the voice from inside the office.
Alastor took that as his invitation, pushing the door open with his shoulder. Almost immediately, he was greeted by the same horrendous décor he remembered. A lone bookshelf was shoved against one wall, while far too many potted plants crowded every available corner of the room. Multiple paintings hung unevenly along the walls, each one, inexplicably, depicting ducks.
There were so many ducks.
Even more appeared in figurine form, lining every windowsill and serving as bookends wherever books could be found.
And, behind the large desk in front of the window, sat the principal himself.
Lucifer Morningstar was a rather unassuming-looking man, with a personality to match. He was short enough that his expensive leather chair seemed determined to swallow him whole. He favored bright white suits at all times, paired, inevitably, with a truly ridiculous white top hat. Alastor had attempted to comment on this clear fashion disaster before, but it had fallen on deaf ears.
The principal glanced up from a stack of paperwork as the door opened, his brows knitting into a brief frown as he stared at Alastor for just long enough for it to become uncomfortable. “Wait, who are you again?”
Alastor felt his jaw strain beneath the weight of the polite smile he forced into place. “It’s Alastor, sir. You asked to see me when I arrived on campus.”
“I did?”
If he were less restrained, Alastor might have rolled his eyes at the sheer display of incompetence. Instead, he simply kept it polite. “Yes, sir. You did.”
The principal frowned, mumbling to himself as he shuffled through the papers scattered across his desk. Then he seemed to find what he was looking for, recognition flashing across his face as he nodded. “Oh! Yes, I did. I did!” He laughed, unconvincingly, and attempted to straighten in his chair. “Please, take a seat. This shouldn’t take very long.”
Keeping his smile in place, Alastor moved further into the room and silently slipped into the uncomfortable plastic chair across the desk, setting his bag on the floor next to his feet. Almost immediately, his eyes were drawn to the little drinking bird perched on the desk, though somehow, it was also a duck.
It also had its own matching little top hat to match the principal’s.
Alastor watched its relentless back-and-forth motion for a moment, though there wasn’t much else to fixate on. It wasn’t until the principal cleared his throat that he finally tore his gaze away. Even then, the duck continued dipping in and out of his peripheral vision, irritating him beyond reason.
He wanted to pick the stupid thing up and chuck it out of the window. Instead, he simply flattened his hands against his knees and patiently waited to see why he had been summoned.
“So, I’ve, of course, been made aware of your situation,” principal Morningstar began, cupping his hands on the desk. “You’ll be starting this year in the eleventh grade due to your year-long absence. That’s all fine, we’ve sorted that, so don’t worry about it. The reason I’ve asked you here is that there’s just a tiny, little, ever-so-slight problem with your dorm arrangements.”
There was a beat of stretched silence as Lucifer unfurled his hands, reaching for a sheet of paper and scrunching his nose at the words on it. “We received your request for your old dorm room. Unfortunately, due to a minor administration error, there aren’t any single rooms available. So, we’ve had to assign you to a joint dorm with... um,” the principal paused, squinting at the page, “Vincent Whittman. He’s an eleventh grader, like yourself.”
Alastor’s jaw clenched instantly, his nails digging into his kneecaps as he stared across the desk. “I’m sorry, did you say Vincent Whittman?”
Lucifer blinked, glancing back at the sheet in his hand before nodding. “Yep. Vincent Whittman. That’s what it says here.”
The smile forced onto Alastor’s face nearly wavered, but it held on by a thread. He had to do something about this. There had to be literally anyone else.
He would rather room with Valentino than Vincent.
…All right. Perhaps not Valentino either. Alastor had heard the rumors about what he got up to.
“Principal Morningstar, look, there has to be some way of changing this,” Alastor said, carefully keeping his voice level as he dug his nails harder into his knees, to the point it almost started to hurt. “Vincent and I have a rather… spotty history. He’s much more sensitive to it than I am, the poor chap, but I truly don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest for us to share a room. It would be better for everyone if he were paired with someone else. I know how he gets about these sorts of things.”
Bratty, for starters.
Completely insufferable, for another.
The school’s dear principal, however, appeared wholly unconcerned and simply waved a hand, as though dismissing the matter entirely. “Sorry. It’s already all in writing. We had to give your old room to someone else, and there just isn’t anywhere else to put you. Mister Whittman is the only other eleventh-grader with a spare bed since, well…” Lucifer paused, his nose crinkling slightly. “Let’s just say he’s very good at turning a double room into single occupancy.”
Somehow, that didn’t surprise Alastor in the slightest.
He couldn’t imagine Vincent willingly sharing a room with anyone, much less giving up his private space. In that regard, they were unfortunately similar. Alastor himself preferred his own sanctuary rather than having to share with anyone else. Back in his freshman year, he’d pulled some strings and made a few carefully chosen deals to secure a single room for himself.
Perhaps he could try the same again.
Though, knowing Vincent, he doubted he’d have much luck.
“So,” the principal said, clapping his hands loudly and sending several sheets of paper fluttering off his desk in the process, “now that that’s all sorted, I’ll let you get on your way. You’re in the Pride Dorm, so you can pick up your room key from Charlie. Have you met Charlie? She’s my wonderful daughter. She even started her own anti-bullying campaign this year! I’m so proud of her for taking on so much responsibility. She takes after her mother so much.”
Alastor’s smile strained slightly as he realized he had somehow signed up to listen to this ridiculous man wax lyrical about his daughter. He was fairly certain he’d overheard the principal excitedly talking about her starting high school before his year-long absence. Which, if his math was correct, meant she would only just be entering tenth grade.
So there was no reason he would have met her.
For a moment, he considered whether it was worth arguing his dorm arrangements further. But Lucifer had already moved on, poking the drinking-bird-duck on his desk with a finger and tipping it back and forth. Alastor decided it wasn’t worth the effort, he’d likely be ignored anyway. He was simply a man who knew when to choose his battles. And this just wasn’t a battle he thought he could win right now.
Adjusting the glasses on his nose, he pushed himself to his feet and bent to retrieve his bag from where he’d set it by the chair. “If that’s everything, sir, I’ll leave you to your… work. If you’ll excuse me.” Then, with a short and polite smile, Alastor turned on his heel and strode back towards the door.
Only once he was outside and the door creaked shut behind him did his smile finally slip into something far more irritated. “Ridiculous, useless man,” he muttered under his breath, slinging his bag back over his shoulder as he stalked down the hallway. By the time he descended the stairs to the first floor, he was almost completely failing to maintain his usual composure. Still, he forced his shoulders to smooth and the smile back into place.
He had a reputation to uphold, after all.
As he wandered the halls, he detoured toward his old locker before heading to the dorms - perhaps because he was trying to delay his inevitable reunion with Vincent for as long as possible. But who could really say?
When he reached the familiar patch of chipped blue paint, he felt a flicker of satisfaction. No one else had claimed it. His old padlock was still looped through the latch, apparently untouched for the entire year he’d been gone.
He still remembered the combination, his fingers dialing it in easily before he kicked the metal door open with his heel. Memories flooded him almost immediately. Everything was still there. Old and dusty textbooks he no longer needed, a spare bag with emergency clothes, notes for future broadcast ideas pinned to the inside of the door and crowded by reminders to himself.
He’d never bothered to clear it out when he left, having decided none of it was important enough to worry about.
He regretted that now.
Wrinkling his nose, Alastor leaned in and pulled out the old textbooks, shifting them aside to make room for his new ones. Perhaps he could drop them off at the library, see if they needed extra copies. It wasn’t as though he had any use for them anymore. Or he could look to see if any ill-prepared sophomores wanted to buy them off him for cheap for a little bit of extra cash.
Balancing the books against his chest, he straightened and shouldered the locker door closed. It took a moment of fumbling to get the lock secured again, but he managed it.
Wrapping his arm a little tighter around the books clutched to his chest, Alastor shifted his shoulder, trying to get his bag to sit more comfortably at his side. He was just about to head for the library at the end of the hall to drop off his old textbooks when he spotted a familiar figure hunched against the wall beside the stairs.
He was holding his phone close to his face, tongue poked out in concentration as he occasionally tapped the screen with a finger.
It seemed the library would have to wait.
Alastor approached silently, almost casually leaning a shoulder against the wall as he peered over the twelfth-grader’s shoulder to see what was on the screen. The moment he caught sight of the digital poker table, he felt an almost immeasurable sense of disappointment.
“You know, Husker,” he said mildly, “remind me, what were the conditions for that financial aid I helped you apply for a few years ago?”
Husk spluttered, very nearly dropping his phone in surprise before hastily pressing it to his chest to hide the screen. He looked up, eyes narrowing as he took in Alastor looming beside him. “What the fuck - Alastor? When did you get back?”
Hank, more commonly known as Husk, or Husker to his friends, was one of the few people in this hellhole Alastor could almost call a friend. They’d been civil with one another, at least. Alastor had even helped him secure financial aid after his online gambling habit had wiped out his bank accounts. One of the conditions of that aid, however, was that Husk stay far away from online gambling sites.
“Just this morning, actually,” Alastor replied smoothly. “But I believe I asked you a question, Hank. I’d hate to have to report that you’re violating the conditions of your aid.”
Husk hesitated, clearly weighing whether the threat was an empty one.
It wasn’t.
With a low grumble, the twelfth-grader promptly closed the site and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his navy blazer.
“It wasn’t even for actual money,” he tried to reason as he folded his arms across his chest. “It was all digital currency.”
“I don’t believe that matters,” Alastor replied calmly. “The condition was to stay away from all gambling sites. It didn’t specify whether there was actual monetary gain involved.”
Husk snorted slightly, “I don’t even see why you care so much.”
Alastor’s smile flashed, predatory, all teeth, as he leaned in closer. “Because I so enjoy having someone in my pocket.”
Hank looked like he wanted to say something, then thought better of it and pressed his lips tightly together instead. For a moment, a heavy silence settled between the two former classmates. It was finally broken when the twelfth-grader huffed out a breath. “So,” he said, “are you going to explain where you were for a whole year?”
“No, I don’t believe I am,” Alastor answered without hesitation. It wasn’t anyone’s business, and he preferred to keep his affairs to himself, especially in a school where rumors spread like wildfire. “Besides,” he added with an amused smirk, “I think it adds to my whole air of mystery.”
Husker snorted outright, shaking his head as he let his arms drop. “You don’t have an air of mystery. Everyone knows you’re a smooth-talking jerk hiding behind a fake smile and forced politeness.”
For just a moment, Alastor’s gaze darkened. “Careful, Hank,” he said evenly. “Or you might actually insult me.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Husk responded, unbothered, as he pushed himself away from the wall. Then, his gaze dropped, staring at the bag hanging at Alastor’s side for a moment. “Take it you haven’t dropped your things off at the dorm yet. Well, don’t let me keep you.”
The twelfth-grader stepped around him, and Alastor simply let him go. He watched Husk shove his hands into his pockets as he weaved through the growing crowd of other students. Only once he was finally out of sight did Alastor straighten up again himself, sighing slightly as once more he adjusted where his bag was starting to slip.
It appeared as though getting back into the flow of things around here was going to be a little more challenging than he thought. Still, it was a challenge he was willing to rise to. But first, he needed to drop off these incredibly heavy textbooks.
Then he could worry about heading to the dorm and trying to get his key off this Charlie Morningstar.
It was not as though he could avoid Vincent forever.