In this chapter, you'll be introduced to another facet of the rollercoaster that this story is: the text group chat.

You'll also be reunited with an old friend from the first story: Grace's abject humiliation (because I just love her so).

Recommended listening will return in later chapters. I'm always open to recommendations if you happen to have a song you think fits with the content!

Chapter 1: Deer, Hunting

Grace blinked, her unfocused gaze falling upon a red, tufted, high-backed accent chair set before a fire crackling away in a hearth. There was a plush rug—or carpet—beneath her smooth, bare legs.

And a red-sleeved arm draped across her waist.

Wha—

Her head rested upon a sturdy shoulder.

And her hair was being stroked by a hand with a gentle touch, every now and then stopping in favor of running a single fingertip along one of her horns lightly.

Grace was in the Radio Demon’s embrace. On the floor. In front of the fireplace in his bedroom.

Not in his mystical marsh.

In Alastor’s free hand was a book he held open with his thumb.

He’s been like this how long?

While I was unconscious?

That implied that he was behaving that way for no reason other than his own desire. For his own benefit.

Which would mean he just … likes to touch me?

Grace said slowly, her voice tired and weak, “You—you … put … alligators.”

“Mmm?” he replied, as if he’d scarcely noticed she roused.

“You deliberately put … alligators … in your—your bayou.”

“Just the one. And just for this morning.”

“So—then—it’s gone?”

She felt his body shift with a nod. “Yes.”

“And—and the cottonmouth?”

“Also gone.” Alastor resumed stroking her hair.

“Why?”

The Radio Demon turned a page in his book but didn’t answer.

He scared the shit out of me with the note knowing I’d go hide in his room. Threw in some dangerous animals and then—suspended me by my ankles to eat me out? 

I—I lost consciousness.

Grace had fainted before but there had to be something special about this occasion that she was this confused so long afterward.

And then he brought me back here to do whatever this is that he’s doing to me now.

With a deep breath, she whispered, “You know … if you wanted to go down on me, you didn’t have to orchestrate all that. I’m sure you would have preferred it if I hadn’t been all scared and sweaty and … boggy … by the time you got to me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alastor drawled. “I think those things made you taste even better.”

She repositioned herself, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment when the room spun a bit too much for her preference. Grace reopened them, craning her neck to meet Alastor’s gaze.  “I’ll never say no if you wanna eat me out. All you have to do is ask.” She paused. “I mean, honestly? You don’t even have to ask. Just … knock yourself out, go right on to town. Consent not required.” Non-con maybe even preferred, I don’t even know anymore.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“What?” she replied defensively.

“I was bored, Little Fawn, and you make for such a delightful playmate.”

She knew the words and yet none of them made sense to her. “That was a game?”

He chuckled. “You sound surprised.”

“I thought—” Of course that was Alastor’s note. Like Vox would know a word like ‘cuncative.’ Fuck, I don’t even know that word! “—never mind, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Can I have a kiss, at least, for all my troubles?”

Alastor dragged the tip of a claw up along the center of Grace’s neck, tilting her face toward himself more and moving in, his lips just a hairbreadth from hers. With an absolutely feral grin, he replied, “No.”

“Excuse me?” Grace did a double-take, tears springing to her eyes. “No?!”

He shook his head, pulling away. “No.”

Don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that just gutted you. But on her next blink, the tears fell, regardless.

“Heh. Lovely.” Alastor gently wiped the tears from her cheeks, licking them from his fingertips. “You are delicious in every possible way, my dear.”

That’s right: sadistic bastard.

Why do I love him so much?

There would never be a sane answer to that, and she knew it.

“If … if no kiss, then would you at least get me to my room in a way that I don’t have to walk through the hotel looking like this?”

His eyes twinkled with mischief. “I don’t wish to sound like a broken record, but: No.”

That response pushed Grace over the edge. She shoved him away and stood swiftly, teetering for a few moments as everything flashed white briefly. Once sight returned to her, she stormed out of Alastor’s room without another word or so much as a glance back at him.

She slammed the door behind herself hard enough to rattle the sconces on the walls on either side of it, but then stood there, trying to quell her fury.

Once more, Grace found herself in the middle of the Hazbin Hotel wearing nothing more than a nightgown. A barely-there nightgown with no bra and even less-there undies.

I’ve had some awful walks of shame but I think this one beats all. Praying she wouldn’t encounter anyone else in the space between their rooms, Grace tiptoed down the hall.

She sneaked to the staircase, hearing boisterous chatter from the common area. Everyone was awake already. 

Perhaps they’d be loud enough they wouldn’t hear or notice her creeping by.

Her hopes were dashed the moment she put a hoof on the bottom step of the staircase; the step creaked loudly as if Alastor somehow made it do that for no other reason than to draw everyone’s attention to her presence.

“Grace!” Angel Dust called.

Fuck fuck, shitty-fuck, fuckity-shit! She took a deep breath and thought it again while ruing her dik dik form and its associated deer-in-headlights nature. She couldn’t move no matter how much she wanted to. Grace pivoted in her spot finally, gritting her teeth into as much of a smile as she could. “Good morning, all,” she greeted them cordially.

Angel Dust watched her, grinning ear to ear and waving enthusiastically. Kofax dragged her focus from her tablet, mouth falling open as she pushed her smart glasses up onto her forehead. And everyone else? They just stared in gape-mouthed silence. 

Including Lucifer. Because of course this was when he’d pay his daughter a visit; he’d been around lately altogether too much for Grace’s liking.

Grace was fully Alastor’s in every possible way and yet merely being in Lucifer’s presence still embarrassed her.

Something in their expressions told Grace they’d heard her all the way from the bayou in Alastor’s room.

Her cheeks went hot enough to spark a wildfire even amid the flames of Hell. Thus concludes the epitome of all walks of shame. And she was suddenly all too aware of her sheer nighties, and extra sheer panties. What they must have thought of her! 

Grace was willing to bet that if she’d been screwing any other sinner, they’d all have been celebrating for her. For them. But because it was Alastor … This was incomprehensible. Reprehensible. Insensible and utterly indefensible.

“I’m uh—” What exactly does one say under such circumstances, anyway? She gestured silently up the stairs. “Gonna—”

Charlie glanced around the group. “We’re doing an exercise later, if you want to join us. It’s for—um —”

“Practicing self-compassion,” Kofax supplied in Charlie’s silence. “Which I suspect Grace could use in heaps right now.”

“I’ll—I’ll think about it. But I should really go—” Grace glanced down at herself and finished wryly, “—find my self-respect first.”

Husk snorted.

“Hey,” Grace snapped, with an accusatory pointed finger at the bartender. “Alastor knows where you sleep.”

“Just so long as he doesn’t do to me what he did to you!” Husk replied, likely without thinking it through first.

Everyone else burst into laughter.

Why? Afraid you might like it? Somehow, she kept that rejoinder to herself. Humiliated anew, however, Grace high-tailed it up the hotel stairs.

Grace let herself back into her room and slammed the door shut, leaning against it with a loud exhalation.

Then she glanced over only to discover Alastor sitting on her bed.

“Took you long enough to get here. Did you take a detour through Philadelphia?”

“What in the subtropical fuck!” Grace cried, flailing at him, her already hot cheeks finding a way to blaze hotter yet.

He stood, taking a few casual, long-legged strides over to her. He caressed her cheek tenderly. “I love seeing this color in your face.”

The color of which he’d referred darkened considerably.

“Stop that—” Grace told him with as much conviction as she could muster, which wasn’t any at all. She did want him to stop, but she also didn’t.

Alastor closed what little distance remained between them and whispered, “No,” before pressing his lips to hers.

Charming asshole. She let him kiss her, only because such things were too few and much too far between for her preferences, but finally leaned back just enough to say against his lips, “I need to go clean up. I still have swamp between my toes.”

“I’ll have you know, that’s bayou, not a swamp.” He smiled, as always, but said ‘swamp’ with such adorable distaste. 

Grace was not about to give him the pleasure of knowing she couldn’t differentiate between the two, so instead, she pushed him away. “I’m gonna go wash this swamp shit off me.” She headed for her bathroom, forcing herself to wave him off flippantly. “I couldn’t care less whether or not you’re here when I’m done.”

Of course, that was a load of total swamp shit; she cared very much whether or not he was there after her shower, but hoped in saying what she did, she’d convince herself to be a little less disappointed when she came back out to find him long gone. 

Just like always.

Spending what little time she got with him intoxicated her. She wanted more of him all the time but felt like he was becoming less available to her by the hour; it had to be by his devilish design.

She shed her nightgown and undies, considering just throwing them out altogether for a number of reasons, but instead left them on the countertop by the sink to ponder disposing of them later.

The shower proved extra soothing today. As Grace soaped herself down, she came upon numerous small, itchy and bleeding Y-shaped wounds around both ankles. She stooped to take a closer look; they were nothing like the marks Alastor left behind either by fang or claw. And it was highly abnormal for her to still be bleeding after this much time — however much time it had been since she stomped through swamp water.

What the fuck— Grace gasped, plopping on her ass with a wet smack on the shower tile. Leech bites?!

Yuck ew ick gross blech puke bleh barf yech yucky ugh grody icky gaaaaag! She followed the thought with an actual dry heave.

“Why, Alastor?! Why would you put leeches in there?” Grace retched again. Nothing came up, but a hard coughing fit followed. I’m gonna kill him!

She soaped the wounds down thoroughly, suppressing more urge to vomit. Who am I kidding? I won’t do any such thing, even if I had the power to do so.

Grace watched her blood trickle along her hooves and meander down the drain along with the shower water. “Oh, shit. What have I done?” she asked herself quietly. “I got myself into … I can’t call it a relationship. I’m not even sure about the true terms of our agreement. This isn’t love, at least not on his part. And even if it feels like love on mine, I think it’s too sick and twisted to actually be that. Not like he’d marry. Not like I’d marry him.”

She scoffed at herself. “Who’m I kidding? If I had the chance, I’d wife that Overlord up so fast, our wedding bells would shatter the sound barrier.”

Angel Dust told her not so long ago, There’s no happy ending there.

Grace had been well aware of that at the time, well aware there wasn’t a happy ending in store for her, either. And now with whatever-this-is actually happening in real time, she felt an obnoxious sense of foreboding.

If marriage in Hell was a thing, certainly Alastor would have no interest in the institution. He already owned her soul and could take what he pleased from her whenever he damn well wished it. That’s really probably not all that different from what marriage was like in his time, come to think of it.

Besides: the Radio Demon was incapable of love. Or anything even remotely akin to it, at least according to Husk. The more time she spent around Alastor, the more she believed Husk’s assessment. It certainly didn’t help anything that even after months, she still knew next to nothing about Alastor. And what she did know, she couldn’t trust to be true.

I know more about his rival than I do, him.

Grace blinked.

The only way this association can feasibly conclude is with me and a broken heart. And now that this chain of events has started, there’s no way to stop that from coming to pass.

Well. Fucking awesome.

There was a terrifying vulnerability in predicting an awful future and being entirely powerless against changing its outcome.

The leech bites were still bleeding. Who would have guessed leech denticle wounds were as difficult to heal as those created by Angelic Steel?

After considering her options to get her own therapeutic saliva on them, Grace found the easiest and least disgusting way would be to spit in her palms and cover the bites.

But so much as the thought of touching them made her stomach lurch in threat.

“Bandaids, it is, then,” decided Grace.

She turned off the faucet and exited the shower, wrapping herself in a towel before hunting down a few adhesive bandages. 

Grace opened all the drawers in her bathroom vanity, then all the cabinet doors. The standard hotel amenities were readily available but lacked a first aid kit or anything to dress wounds of any size. She glanced around, seeing spots of blood on the floor from all the steps she’d taken outside the shower.

She cried, “My fucking soul for bandaids!” and smacked her hand onto the countertop in frustration. A poof of green magic wafted out from that contact and Grace recoiled in terror, only to find several bandaids where her palm had just been.

Immediately assuming that was a small token of apology from Alastor, Grace sprinted out of the bathroom, believing he actually didn’t bail on her for the first time ever.

But she was all alone.

What

the

fuck!

Chills raced down her body as she pivoted on her heel to see the bandaids on the countertop. She shivered violently.

“No. No, those had to be there and I … I just somehow didn’t see them?”

Maybe that was just unbelievably good timing and Alastor made those materialize for her, again, as a token of apology for what he’d done.

Grace should have known better; for as little as she had learned about the Radio Demon, apologetic gestures were not exactly in his wheelhouse.

Well, okay, he had apologized to her that one time before, but he’d also been drunk off his asexual ass enough at that moment to initiate and successfully have intercourse.

But she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that was the first—and last—time the words ‘I’m sorry’ ever escaped his lips.

Steeling her nerves, Grace went back into the bathroom to put the mystery bandages on her legs, hoping they wouldn’t somehow make things worse. Why would they do such things?

Who knows?

And also, why wouldn’t they do such things? That was as reasonable a question as the former.

She took a few moments to mop up the bathroom floor, frowning at the little trail of blood she’d left on the carpet where she’d stepped outside, realizing only then that she must have left spots of her blood through the hotel from Alastor’s room.

A trail of breadcrumbs fit for a cannibal.

If Niffty hadn’t gotten around to cleaning it up yet, Grace resolved to do so, herself. 

I can ask Husk for a club soda on ice. We’ll call it Grace-Lets-Alastor-Get-Away-with-Murder-and-Subsequently-Bleeds-All-Over-the-Hazbin-Hotel. Or Alastor-is-a-Manipulative-Ass for short. AIAMA for even shorter. 

Letting her anger smolder through the shower, now Grace hoped her glib dismissal of him had pissed him off sufficiently enough to give her a brief respite from the minimal amount of attention he already spared her. 

Not a lengthy break. Just, like … a week, maybe.

At least a few days.

She smiled despite herself, pausing at her bedside table to check her phone. Okay, like a couple hours. He can still pop up in my bed to spoon me tonight. Pop up and do me tonight.

“Oh, fuck you all,” Grace whispered with a smile as she set the phone back down in favor of rooting through her closet for a good outfit, realizing she had very little red in her wardrobe and wondering why Charlie had made her so few garments in that color. Maybe she thought it wouldn’t suit Grace’s lilac skin and cornflower blue hair. She selected a skimpy pink sundress to wear.

God, I’m pathetic. 

I’m so mad at that Overlord. I don’t want to see him for at least a week. 

Well, okay, a couple hours. 

Alright okay I miss him already and wish he was here with me now. I don’t want him to ever not be with me. She smacked her forehead with her palm.

I must be the most down bad soul that’s ever been down badly.

She slipped the sundress on with a sigh. I just wish he was down for me even a fraction as badly as I am for him.

Chapter 3: One Helluva Demonic Library

Stay patient, deer friends!