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fanby-fckry · 9 months ago

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What’s the Deal With the Five Foot Rule?

Day 2 of Ace Alastor Week: No Touch Tuesday

Word Count: 1,868

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Warnings: Threats of Violence, References to Alastor-Typical Cannibalism/Violence, Implied/Referenced Abuse

Relationships: Alastor & Angel Dust & Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor & Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor & Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust & Husk (Hazbin Hotel)

Characters: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Mentioned Mimzy (Hazbin Hotel), Mentioned Hazbin Hotel Ensemble, Mentioned Valentino (Hazbin Hotel)

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant (mostly), Post-Episode: s01e05 Dad Beat Dad, Humor, Attempt at Humor, Light Angst, Developing Friendships, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Aromantic Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Touch-Averse Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Touch-Starved Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), (both tags are relevant trust me), Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor Being a Jerk (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor Being Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust Being Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Protective Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Husk is So Done (Hazbin Hotel), Drinking, Drinking & Talking, The Five Foot Rule (Hazbin Hotel), Hunicast References, you can pry the hunicast platonic radiodust dynamic from my cold dead hands

Series: Part 2 of Fanby’s Ace Alastor Week 2024 ( <- Prev || Next -> )

Summary:

“So, smiles,” Angel said, leaning against the bar and nursing a drink. “What’s your deal?”

Radio feedback crackled in the air while Husk frantically made ‘cut it out’ gestures from over Alastor’s shoulder.

“My Deal?” Alastor repeated in a tone that made Angel suspect he’d touched a nerve in a way he hadn’t even been trying to.

“Uh yeah, the whole ‘five foot rule’ thing,” Angel clarified, and watched as Alastor and Husk both visibly relaxed. “What’s up with that?”

A cat, a deer, and a spider walk into a hotel bar, get drunk, and discuss the finer points of Alastor’s famous ‘five foot rule’.

Better on AO3

“So, smiles,” Angel said, leaning against the bar and nursing a drink. “What’s your deal?”

Radio feedback crackled in the air while Husk frantically made ‘cut it out’ gestures from over Alastor’s shoulder.

“My Deal?” Alastor repeated in a tone that made Angel suspect he’d touched a nerve in a way he hadn’t even been trying to.

“Uh yeah, the whole ‘five foot rule’ thing,” Angel clarified, and watched as Alastor and Husk both visibly relaxed. “What’s up with that?”

“Oh, it’s quite simple, really!” Alastor said, brightly. “Don’t touch me, and you keep your hands!”

“Right, but…” Angel hesitated. For a split second, he wondered if maybe he should just leave well enough alone.

But between the liquid courage and Angel’s already small threshold when it came to regard for his own safety, he decided to just fucking go for it.

“You’re always all up in everyone else’s personal space,” he said.

Alastor tilted his head in that cute, deer-like way of his. “I don’t follow.”

“Well, take Husky, for instance-”

“Uh-uh,” Husk interrupted. “Leave me outta this, legs.”

“Nonsense!” Alastor said, interrupting Husk’s interruption by physically covering his mouth. “Let the man speak!”

“The five foot rule applies to Husk, right?” Angel asked.

“Why, of course!” Alastor answered. “And dear Husker knows better than to break it!”

Alastor wrapped his arm around a very disgruntled Husk’s shoulders, tugging him half-way over the bar. Husk hissed and squirmed, but Alastor’s grip was evidently a vice.

Which was exactly Angel’s point.

“But you’re all over him right now!” Angel said, gesturing to Alastor’s obvious breach of both his own rule and Husk’s comfort zone.

“Hmm,” Alastor hummed. Alastor pushed Husk down onto the bar and used him as an armrest as he tucked a fist under his chin. “I suppose I am!”

“And it ain’t just Husk, neither!” Angel said. “I mean, Charlie, Vaggie, fuckin’ Lucifer,” he listed. “Me, on occasion…” Although that’d mostly stopped since Angel had a panic attack that one time. Small mercies.

“I’m not countin’ Niffty and Mimzy, ‘cause it kinda seems like they’re exceptions to whatever the fuck this rule actually is, anyway,” Angel continued. “But that’s still a whole lotta people you’re gettin’ handsy with on a regular basis, Al.”

“You do have a point there, my friend,” Alastor mused, while Angel silently noted the upgrade from ‘fellow’ to ‘friend.’ He had no idea whether or not it actually indicated friendship – Alastor called Husk ‘friend’ too – but it was good to keep track of all the same.

Alastor released Husk in favor of polishing off the rest of his rye. Husk’s fur and feathers both stood on end, and he flipped Alastor off on the way to get him a refill. Angel mouthed an apology, which earned him a middle finger as well – but one that had less venom to it than the one Husk had given his boss.

“I suppose the difference lies in who’s doing the touching,” Alastor said, drawing Angel’s attention back to him.

For a moment, the Alastor looked… contemplative. That was the word. Not ‘mischievous’ or ‘vengeful.’ Not like he was plotting the downfall of Lucifer or imagining tearing apart Sinners with his teeth or whatever the fuck Alastor normally thought about that gave his resting face that inherent creep factor.

It reminded Angel of what Mimzy had said. He wouldn’t exactly call Alastor a kitten, but like this, the fucking Radio Demon seemed almost human.

“You were right about Niffty and Mimzy,” Alastor admitted. “They, along with Rosie, are very much exceptions to the rule. But the thought of anyone else touching me makes my skin crawl.”

Angel knew the feeling. It wasn’t one he had 24/7 the way Alastor seemed to, but when it hit, it hit hard.

“It doesn’t affect me if I’m the one doing the touching,” Alastor said, staring into the glass Husk had wordlessly refilled. “In fact, I think it helps… It helps to be in control of things.”

“And you get that control by pushin’ everybody else’s boundaries about touch.” Angel took a drink. “Do you ever think about how that makes them feel?” he asked.

Alastor laughed. And not a showman’s laugh or an awkward chuckle either; full-force, uproarious laughter. Like it was the funniest shit he’d heard in years.

Alastor placed a hand on Angel’s shoulder. “My dear, empathy is not an affliction I suffer from.”

“So you’re a hypocrite,” Angel said without thinking.

Three things happened in such quick succession that it took Angel getting sobered up the next morning to finally puzzle out the order of events.

One: Alastor let his hand drop from Angel’s shoulder.

Two: Husk vaulted over the bar with speed Angel hadn’t known he was capable of and wedged himself in between Alastor and Angel, wings flared in a protective stance.

Three: Alastor started laughing again.

That third thing threw both Husk and Angel for a loop.

“Calm down, Husker!” Alastor said, half breathless with laughter. “He’s right!”

“I’m right?” Angel echoed. Because, yeah, he was. But insulting an Overlord to his face was a stupid thing to do regardless of how accurate said insult was. If he’d said that to Valentino…

“Oh, don’t give in, now!” Alastor said. His radio tinned voice was a welcome interruption to a train of thought Angel really didn’t want to go down tonight. “You were onto something there!”

“Rules for thee, not for me, as they say!” Alastor threw his head back with enough force to break his own neck and fell into a fit of laughter once again.

Angel froze, barely breathing as his mind went a mile a minute trying to make sense of the absolute madness in front of him.

“Oh, stop looking at me like I’m going to bite your head off!” said Alastor, the Overlord famous for eating demons alive.

“You too, Husker.” Alastor punched Husk in the arm in a way that would probably register as playful under different circumstances. “Your attempt at playing white knight is very amusing, but we all know that if I truly wanted to harm Angel, there would be nothing you could do to stop me.”

“I’d die trying,” Husk said so softly that Angel thought he might’ve imagined it until Alastor responded.

“And you would!” Alastor agreed, far too enthusiastically. “You’d make for a delightfully tragic martyr, but there’s no need because this whole thing is hilarious!”

“It is?” Angel asked. Honestly, he didn’t feel like he was in on the joke.

“Of course it is!” Alastor insisted. “Reality has an entertainment value like no other medium! And this” – Alastor gestured to Angel and Husk – “is reality in its purest form!”

“In a drunken bout of honesty and complete disregard for the risk of a painful second death, you’ve given me insight that I never would’ve bothered to seek on my own – and you’ve done it in the funniest way imaginable!”

Angel forced a laugh. “Ya know, I gotta say, smiles, you’re givin’ off some real mixed messages on the whole ‘bitin’ my head off’ front.”

Husk huffed out what appeared to be a genuine laugh. His stance had also gotten more relaxed, and his fur and feathers were no longer puffed up.

“Yeah,” Husk said. “He does that.”

“I do!” Alastor chipped in. “And that bit is on purpose!”

Alastor downed his drink. “It’s been great chatting with you, pals!” he announced, and wrapped Angel and Husk in a disproportionate group hug.

For the first time since meeting Alastor, Angel noticed the way he pinned their arms in place so that neither of them could hug him back.

Alastor released Angel and Husk from his iron grip and immediately darted out of reach – something Angel also hadn’t taken note of before now.

“If either of you foolishly attempt to use this information against me, I’ll flay the skin from your hands, cut out your tongues, and eat your livers!” Alastor said in the same cheery tone you might use to tell a friend to enjoy their weekend plans.

And then he was gone.

“What.” Angel paused for dramatic effect. “The fuck.”

Husk – who hadn’t moved from his spot as the barrier between Angel and Alastor – took a seat in the next barstool over.

Husk shook his head. “Forty-odd years of that crazy bastard holding my leash and I still don’t know what the fuck he’s talkin’ about half the damn time.”

Husk leaned over the bar and reached blindly underneath it. He came back out with a bottle of something strong, so either he found what he was looking for from memory and touch alone, or he got stupidly lucky. Knowing Husk, either seemed likely.

“So,” Angel said, fidgeting with his lower set of hands and talking with his upper ones. “Should I be worried about him changin’ his tune about this little heart-to-heart once he sobers up tomorrow?”

Husk took a swig from the bottle he’d found. “Nah,” he said. “Just stick to his hypocritical five foot rule and act like tonight never happened.”

“Ya know, I meant to ask about that too,” Angel said. “Why does he call it the ‘five foot rule’ if he barely ever enforces the distance part? Why not the ‘hands off rule’ or the ‘no touch rule’?”

“Legs, I just told you I don’t always know what’s goin’ on in that fucked up head of his.”

“Aww,” Angel cooed. “Has the wise old bartender finally met his match?”

Husk scoffed. “I know more about Alastor than I ever wanted to. And it’s still just the tip” – Angel snickered at the phrasing. Husk rolled his eyes before reiterating – “the tip of the iceberg.”

“Honestly, I don’t know if he even knows what’s goin’ on in his own head sometimes,” Husk said quietly. “Until tonight, I thought he liked it better that way.”

Alastor made his way back to his room the old fashioned way – by physically walking there – humming along to a jaunty tune he’d plucked from the airwaves.

He’d learned something about himself! What an interesting turn of events!

You learn something new every day, but after over a century of combined life and Afterlife, Alastor had begun to believe he knew all there was to know about himself.

And this particular insight came with the added benefit of a rather dramatic reveal! Husker – the old has-been – could still put on a show when given the right motivation, and Angel Dust had been a wonderful wildcard to add into the mix!

Alastor wondered if he should examine the information they’d brought to light any further. If he should be asking questions about why he felt so comfortable in his hypocrisy. Why he both craved and despised touch. Why he was more than willing to put others’ comfort aside in order to maintain his own.

But the very existence of those questions brought an itch under his skin. That same crawling feeling that struck him when he felt someone else’s hands on him, like maggots wriggling inside a corpse.

Alastor melted into the shadows, the lack of physical form easing the feeling somewhat.

No, he decided. I think that’s quite enough self-discovery for one day.

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