Snow Angel (Alastor x OC)

•{Chapter 19}•

The Love of an Angel

For dinner, the group of demons from the Happy Hotel ate pizzas, each having been specially requested. Both Charlie and Alastor had pineapple pizza, but Alastor's portion was smaller as he generally didn't eat anything besides venison. Vaggie had one in the New York style and Harlene had a margarita. To Harlene, the strangest pizza was Angel Dust's, as it was squared rather than round. He'd told her it was a Sicilian pizza, but she was still perplexed.
Thankfully for Harlene, no one drank any alcoholic beverages. Harlene figured that Angel Dust was trying to stay sober that night for her sake and inwardly thanked him for his thoughtfulness.

After everyone had finished eating, the karaoke began. Although Alastor remained at the booth where they'd been eating, he observed from where he was sat as Charlie attempted to keep up with an extremely fast-paced song, amazingly hitting every note and staying in tune with the beat. However, his gaze was mostly glued to Harlene, as she sat beside Angel Dust on one of the chairs they'd dragged over from the tables to sit around the stage. Her back was turned to him, but since her hair was up, Harlene could feel Alastor's stare like the sun bathing her skin on a summer's day. She began to wonder if she would get burnt by the intensity of it. Yet, Harlene ignored Alastor as she focussed on her rowdy friends.
The couple, Charlie and Vaggie, tried to do a rap song together, where Vaggie was struggling to keep up although the glimmer in her only eye told those watching that she was having a blast. Unsurprisingly, whenever it was Angel Dust's turn, he would choose a song that was littered in slurs and sexual references. It always made Harlene laugh, but Vaggie, Mimzy and Alastor were all equally disturbed every time. Charlie, on the other hand, tried to be supportive.
As they were nearing the end of their time at the club, every demon had sung besides Harlene and Alastor. No one tried to encourage Alastor to sing, as everyone had a feeling that now wasn't the best time to pester him considering how silent he'd been ever since he found out from Mimzy that Harlene had risked being killed. To be fair, Harlene hadn't realised at the time that Alastor was in love with her, so she had no reason in her mind to be careful. Plus, Harlene couldn't truly die anyway; sure, she may have ended up dead for a couple of hours, but she would've recovered because dying was impossible for demons in Hell unless they were slaughtered by the exterminators.
But, seeming as it was Harlene's birthday, her friends wanted her to have a go too.

"Please? Pretty please?" Charlie whimpered like a puppy. "Your voice is so sweet already, so I have no doubt that your singing voice is awesome!"

"Charlie's right about that," Vaggie put in.

"Heck, even Vaggie sang! Are ya more of a downer than Vaggie?" Angel Dust teased, then gasped in pain as Vaggie kicked one of his shins in annoyance.

"You said you wanted to try to boost your confidence, remember?" Charlie added.

Mimzy then inputted, "Doll, if you're too scared to stand on the stage in the spotlight, ya could just sit on the edge."

"Yes, that's a great idea, Mimzy!" Charlie agreed energetically.

Indecisively, Harlene cast her gaze over each of her friends who were enthusiastic to hear her sing. She knew that Alastor had heard her sing before, as had Angel Dust that time he walked in on her singing a lullaby to Fat Nuggets, but the rest of her friends hadn't. Perhaps it was only fair that they did, even though Harlene was convinced that she was a terrible singer due to her lack of self-worth. But maybe facing her fears of judgement would help with quenching her anxiety in the long run. And maybe, just maybe, Harlene could be convinced that she was able to sing.
With a sigh, Harlene stood from the chair and approached the karaoke machine where Mimzy stood with one of the microphones in hand, causing Charlie to squeal with delight. Mimzy handed the microphone to Harlene, who smiled gratefully, then uttered the name of the song to the demoness who gave her a surprised look but typed it in anyway; it was a song that required good vocals, so Mimzy's surprise was understandable. On the other side of the room, Alastor summoned his cane with the sentient, vintage-style microphone at the top, which stared at Harlene with interest. Then Harlene sat at the front of the stage, on the edge, as Mimzy had recommended. After taking a deep breath to calm her pounding heart, Harlene switched on the microphone and lifted it to her dark lips and closed her eyes.