Chapter Text
Okay, so maybe Mimzy only reads half the article before she scrambles for the phone, dropping the magazine off the end of her couch in the process. So what? She don’t need to read the whole thing to know it’s about Alastor.
The first time she visited the hotel, she pocketed one of the princess’s glittery business cards with the place’s phone number. Didn’t cross Al’s mind ta just give it to her back then, the heartless son of a bitch. That didn’t come til later, when they made up properly for him walking out on her seven years ago, and that little issue with the loan sharks, and she took great pleasure in telling him she already knew his phone number, what kinda friend did he take her for.
She dials the number, then waits impatiently as her call connects. “What?” a voice demands on the fifth ring.
“For fuck’s sake, Husker! Is that how ya answer the phone? I could have been some poor sap seeking redemption!”
“Well you ain’t. What do you want, Mimzy?”
“Is Alastor there?”
There is a disgruntled grumble on the other end which Mimzy takes for confirmation. She says “Put him on the line! I found it! I found the word for him!”
“...asshole?”
“No! Just – Husker! Get him on the phone can’t ya?”
Husk grumbles again but it’s not like he wants to stay chatting with her. Mimzy hears blurred voices and a brief rustle as he complies.
Then Alastor asks, “Mimzy?”
It still feels kinda strange hearing his voice after seven years of thinking he was dead. Good strange but also weirdly frustrating. Mimzy still kinda wants to yell at him or hug him and has to take a second to suppress both impulses before she tells him, “Alastor, I found the word for ya!”
“Ah. Well, Mimzy, I’ve already been acquainted with the term psychopath and while I admit I do see some parallels…”
“No! The other word!”
There is a confused pause on the other end of the line before Al asks, “And that is?”
“Asexual!”
Distorted feedback bounces down the line. Mimzy flinches. When Alastor speaks again, he’s dropped the filter and taken his tone up a notch. “Mimzy!” he blusters, “You of all people should know I have no interest in that kind of sordid behaviour!”
“Exactly! That’s what this is about!”
“Then why are you accusing me of being sexual?” Somewhere in the background, Mimzy hears a muffled splutter, like Husk just spat out his beer. She takes a breath and replies, “Asexual, Al! Asexual.”
“I am most certainly not a sexual!”
“Asexual – one word!”
There is a pause. Then Alastor asks, “Like an atheist but for intercourse?”
“Sure!”
Another pause, long enough this time that Mimzy gets to wondering if maybe this ain’t the sort of thing a fella should learn about himself over the telephone. Grabbing the magazine, she offers, “Magic me over there and I can show ya.”
More silence, then a sigh. Alastor asks, “Are you decent?”
“Hold on a sec.” Mimzy puts the receiver aside, slips some shoes on, selects a string of pearls and grabs her handbag. Picking the phone up again she tells him, “Ready when you are, dollface.” Next thing she knows, she’s in the hotel lobby.
And so is maybe half of Hell. When Mimzy pops up from the shadows, some gal with a tree on her head jerks back with a curse, spilling her drink. “Watch it!” she snaps, and Mimzy automatically snaps, “Aw, watch it yourself, leaf head!” She pushes her way through the unexpected crowd and finds more crowd. What gives? She heads in what she thinks is the right direction for the bar, noticing the journalists clustered at one end of the room, as well as all the regular folk milling about. Plenty of them with drinks, which means her morning’s looking promising, especially if Husker’s serving. Mimzy has to hand it to the cat, he makes a mean Mary Pickford.
As she gets closer to the bar, the crowd starts ta skew male. Sleazes specifically. Being in Hell as long as she has, she can sense them a mile of. All of them ignore her, thank fuck, and, staring around, she spots why: Angel Dust is stood on a table, chatting to the crowd, making a show of stretching, downing a shot someone hands him like drinking’s an art form now. Mimzy sidesteps and pushes her way to a thinner patch of crowd, still looking for the bar. She’s only been here a couple of times since the updates, and, well, she might have been a bit zozzled one of them times.
“Mimzy, dear, this way!”
Turning to locate his voice, Mimzy spots the bar at last, and Alastor sat at it. He waves and Husk glares. Beside them is… “Shit” mutters Mimzy. Stepping forward, she addresses the familiar figure. “What, are ya stalking me now?”
“Mimzy!” Rooster almost squawks.
Alastor looks from the sinner to Mimzy. “You’re acquainted with one of our new guests, I see.”
Mimzy ignores him, asking Rooster, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I just checked in.”
“Why?”
Rooster opens his mouth, but Alastor answers for him: “On a fruitless quest for redemption, like all these other fools.”
Rooster looks at his feet.
“Pentious made it” Husk mutters. Alastor responds with a roll of his eyes and says, “Only by being blown up.” Turning to Rooster he asks, with a sneer, “Would you like to be blown up, pal?”
Rooster shuffles. “Not really” he mumbles.
“There” says Alastor to Husk, “He’s no more committed than any of these pills.”
“Yeah” says Mimzy, “What gives? How come ya have half of Hell here?”
“Open day” Husk growls, like the it’s some sorta curse. When someone from the crowd round Angel Dust shuffles over and asks for some fancy wine, he grumbles under his breath and wanders around back there looking for it.
Mimzy asks Rooster, “You’re buying the redemption crap? Really?”
Rooster glances up and says, “You left me” like that explains everything.
“What?” asks Mimzy, “So ya thought you’d try your luck with the dames up in Heaven?”
“I thought I’d better myself.”
“Wait” Husk pauses, bottle in hand, to stare at Rooster. “Mimzy is the broad you’ve been whining about half the morning?”
Rooster blushes. Mimzy blinks in surprise. “Whining? Sure I knew you were a clingy sap but checking inta this crappy hotel over a little break up is low even for you, honey.”
Rooster seems to shrink in on himself and Mimzy feels a little pang. When Husk cracks up behind the bar she turns to glare. He don’t see on account of how he’s laughing too hard. “You dated this bitch? You’re a bigger smooth brain than I thought!”
“Careful, Husker” Alastor turns his neck unnaturally to face the cat. “Mimzy is a charming woman and, unless you’re applying to guest star in my next broadcast, I can’t see what you’re hoping to achieve with this display of poor manners.”
Husk glances his way, does a double take at the broken-necked angle and swallows his giggles. “Right. Sorry, boss.” He steps away, grabbing a wine glass. The poor sap that picked this moment to want a drink glances nervously at Alastor.
Mimzy folds her arms, crumpling the magazine in the process and staring at the retreating cat. “Laugh all ya want, Husker! You’re just jealous you’ll never have a chance with me.”
“Like Hell I am” Husk shoots back before getting real interested in pouring just so and not catching Al’s eye.
“So…” Rooster begins, glancing nervously from Mimzy to Alastor, “You’re here to see the Radio Demon?”
“Sure am.”
“Not...not to talk?”
“With you? What’s there ta say?” When Rooster opens his mouth, Mimzy quickly adds, “Rhetorical question, honey.”
Rooster lowers his gaze again. Mimzy refuses to feel bad about that. Where’d they all be if folk had to go around worrying about their exes?
“Well” says Alastor, “I think the lady has made her intentions for this visit quite clear, my good man.”
Rooster jumps a little like he’s catching himself out, nods at Al and then, more tenderly, at Mimzy. Then he fucks off. Mimzy shrugs and takes a seat at the bar.
“Apologies for bringing you to such a crass event” Alastor tells her, “But our dear princess had her heart set on this open day and I thought I should at least be present.”
“That’s about all he’s done” adds Husk, coming back over and snatching up a wash cloth.
“Well good” says Mimzy. Glancing around at the crowd, she leans closer to add in a whisper, “What with you still recovering and all.”
Alastor’s ears flatten. Correcting them he says, “I assure you, I’m quite healed from my little tussle with Adam.”
“Tussle my ass” snaps Mimzy. “Anyway, sweetie, I got something to show ya.” She slaps the magazine onto the bar between them. Alastor raises an eyebrow, then turns to Husk. “Husker, a drink for the lady.”
Husk glowers but asks Mimzy, “What’ll it be?”
Mimzy is about ta order that Mary Pickford she had her heart set on, but then a jar of cherries on the shelves behind the bar catch her eye. “Get me an Aviation.” She softens the request with a flutter of her eyebrows which of course is wasted on Husk, the miserable sap. Turning to Alastor, she flicks through the pages of the magazine, telling him, “It’s in here.”
“Oh?” Alastor tilts his head to study the glossy pages. “And this is a reputable publication, is it?”
“Well sure it is! Best fashion advice in Hell!” Mimzy turns a few more pages, adding, “Whatever that bitch Velvette says.”
Husk pauses with cocktail shaker in hand and says, “Looks like a load of shit to me.”
“Well what do you know about fashion?” Mimzy retorts. “Hey Alastor, did ya know this fleabag went around without pants for seven years while you were gone?”
Husk and Alastor exchange equally hostile looks. Alastor says, “Yes. Words were had upon my return.”
“Acted like it’s some big fucking deal” Husk mutters, “Not like there’s a law against it.”
“There isn’t a law against anything.”
“So do pants really matter? So I got into the nudist scene, so what!”
Alastor crackles static. “Husker, we’ve been over this…”
“Alright already!” Mimzy cuts in, “I didn’t realise it was a sensitive topic!” She finds the right page with a flourish and adds, “Now let’s get to it.”
Alastor frowns down at the article. When one of the journalists wandering around the place tries to get a photo of him, he melts their camera without looking up.
Husk leans over the bar to read upside down: “Meet the Secret Fourth Sexuality.” He rolls his eyes. “Like there’s only four.”
Alastor sing songs, “Husker, I don’t hear shaking!”
Husk grumbles and curses, picking up the cocktail shaker again and going to work with it, noisily enough that Mimzy has to wordlessly slide the article closer to Alastor instead of trying to be heard over the racket. He reads in silence.
As Husk strains the cocktail into a waiting glass, Alastor sits back. “Well” he says.
Mimzy waits for more. When he don’t say anything else, prompts him with, “See? Little to no sexual attraction! That’s you!” And that was kinda loud, she realises. Oops. She coughs, but it don’t exactly cover sound that’s out there already.
Luckily, no one seems to be paying them any mind. Which is kinda weird considering Alastor’s here: Time was, they’d be running away. But maybe that’s why the bar area’s a little emptier than ya’d think. Empty enough that no one’s listening in.
That and Angel Dust’s showing off his legs and the princess...well, the princess looks ta be panicking for the most part.
Alastor casts a glance at the sinners around the room, and moves the magazine just a little closer to his body. Mimzy repeats in a whisper, “That’s you, sweetie. Asexual.”
Husk glances up. “Well that explains a lot.” He drops a cherry into Mimzy’s drink, slides it over and asks, “Boss? What do you want?”
Alastor is still staring at the magazine. “For someone to explain how it is I’ve never encountered this term before!”
“...I meant to drink.”
“Whiskey” says Alastor absently. Turning to Mimzy he adds, “Really, dear, are we quite sure this concept is real?”
“Well why not? It is you, ain’t it? And we know you’re real.”
“She’s got a point, boss.” Husk sets the whiskey in front of Al. “I mean, define real.”
“Proven by science?” Alastor suggests.
“Uh huh. And how much notice of black folk and queers did science take back in the day?”
“Or women” Mimzy puts in. But she points to the article and says, “Anyway, keep readin’! It talks about some studies and shit from after we died.”
“You’re on the Kinsey Scale” Husk adds. Then he frowns and adds, “Or, I guess you ain’t. But he knew you weren’t.”
“He’s in there!” Mimzy laughs. “Aw, Husk, and ya acted like ya don’t read fashion magazines!”
“I don’t read that shit! Kinsey was around on earth same time as me.”
Mimzy ignores him and turns back to Alastor. “See? I told ya I’d found the word for ya!”
Alastor sighs. “My mama always told me I just needed to find the right woman.”
“Well where is she already?” demands Mimzy, “It’s been a hundred years, Al!”
“Perhaps we never met on earth and now she’s in Heaven.”
Yep, thinks Mimzy, his mama sure is up there, and she’s the only woman she can picture Al living with one on one.
“Boss.” Husk leans on the bar, “Think about it. When you picture the only broad for you living up in Heaven where you’ll never be, how’s that make you feel?”
Alastor frowns. “Why would it make me feel anything?” When Husk simply looks at him he says, slowly, as if talking to a dumb kid, “I’ve never met her, Husker.”
Husk nods. “See? If you had romantic feelings you’d be upset about this dame being out of reach.” He straightens up and picks up a cloth. “The dame don’t exist.” He wipes idly at the bar top.
Mimzy adds, “And then there’s the sex!”
Alastor’s smile twists into more of a grimace. “What sex?”
“Exactly! In all the time I’ve known ya, ya ain’t walked a single gal home who actually managed ta get ya inside for coffee.” Holding up a finger as Alastor opens his mouth, she adds, “And Myrtle don’t count. It don’t count if ya actually just drank coffee, dollface.” She sits back. She and Husk both look expectantly at Alastor. Alastor bristles and says, “Perhaps there simply wasn’t anyone around that caught my fancy.”
“In a hundred years?” Mimzy retorts.
Alastor seems to have no answer to that. After a moment, Husk grunts, “Think about it, boss, has anyone ever done it for you?”
“Done what for me?”
“You know” says Husk.
“No, he don’t” says Mimzy. Alastor looks between them with narrowed eyes which ain’t a denial. Mimzy adds, “Anyway, what’s with all this maybe no one took my fancy shit? You ain’t never denied you ain’t interested in courting, Al, not once. Always said it weren’t your thing. I don’t see why you gotta deny it now, just because there’s a modern word for it.”
Alastor seems to have nothing to say to this, either.
“Huh” says Husk after a while. Then he shrugs. “Figures. You know, I used to think maybe you and Rosie…”
“Ugh!” snaps Alastor, “Husker, don’t be disgusting!”
Mimzy giggles. “Oh I wish she was here for that!”
“Mimzy! Rosie and I are simply friendly acquaintances.”
“And so was literally every gal we passed the time with in New Orleans!”
“What about the men?” Husk asks.
“Oh, he mostly just killed them.”
Husk gestures between her and Al. “And the two of you never…?”
Mimzy bursts out laughing, then registers the horrified noise Alastor is making and jabs him in the ribs. “Hey!” she snaps, “I’m a catch, Al, and you know it!”
“I do, dear. It’s just, I never was very keen on fishing.”
“See?” says Mimzy, “That just proves it! I mean, if ya aren’t attracted to me, no one else is gonna do it for ya are they?”
“...sure” mutters Husk. Mimzy glares at him. Beside her, Alastor muses, “I suppose not” which goes a long way towards making up for the noise. Settling back in her seat, she tells Al, “So what’s the problem? You’re asexual!”
“Oh, come now, dear, do we really need to psychoanalyse my lack of courtship?” Alastor indicates the magazine. “This is just a made up word.”
“All words are made up” says Husk. When Alastor glares at him he says, “What? You think people crawled out the caves or Adam and Eve wandered outta Eden or whatever and there were all the words growing out the ground?”
“And Adam went straight for the C word” Mimzy muses.
A big, walrus-like fella rumbles up to the bar and orders a beer. While Husk serves him, Al tactfully closes the magazine. Once the sinner has wandered off with his drink, Alastor continues, “No word coined after the nineteen thirties has any value.”
“Bullshit” says Husk.
“We already had that one.”
Husk waves a hand impatiently. “You want your own sexuality to be proven with science but you don’t want any words from before nineteen thirty? You don’t think science has come up with new words since then?”
Alastor points at the article. “This isn’t a scientific term” he says, “This was made up by” His ears flatten in distaste “the internet.”
“Not Velvette’s part of it” Husk tells him, “From what Angel said, that bitch don’t have no time for anyone past the T in the acronym.”
“What acronym?” asks Alastor.
Husk shrugs. “How long you got?”
“We’re getting off topic” Mimzy puts in. “Point is, Al, this word is you. Ya can’t deny that.”
Alastor lets out a buzz of static. “I think I’d have preferred psychopath.”
Husk shrugs. “Two things can be true.”
“See” says Mimzy, “Time was I’da figured you being...the way you are…”
“A cannibalistic serial killer?” Husk suggests.
“...that” says Mimzy, “I’d have thought that’s why don’t wanna to date anyone. But you’ve always said it weren’t that.”
“Well it isn’t” Alastor tells her, “My not being interested in sordid nonsense is quite separate from my appetites and lifestyle.”
“Lifestyle, huh?” Husk rubs hard at an imaginary mark on the bar. “That what we’re calling serial killing now?”
Mimzy shushes Husk and tells Al, “That’s what this says too!” Mimzy taps the article. “See? It don’t make you a some kinda monster! That’s just coincidence!”
Alastor raises an eyebrow. “And it took reading it in a magazine for you to believe me?”
“No! But, well. It does make it more official, sweetie.”
Husk grunts a humourless laugh. “Nothing more official than…” He glances at the front cover “Pretty Dead But Dead Pretty Magazine” he finishes.
“Exactly” says Mimzy.
Alastor opens the magazine and reads in silence some more. Mimzy sips her drink and Husk fucks about behind the bar like he does. Over the other side of the room, the princess has started up a musical number. Mimzy half listens, rolling her eyes at all the reckoning, guidance, no-violence crap that’s being pushed on folks here. What’s Al even see in the place? Even with whatever it is he’s got planned.
Time was, he’d have told her.
Seems she ain’t the only one not impressed by redemption, because people start to leave. A few at first, then a steady stream of them. Soon the only folk left in the lobby who don’t live here and her and some newt fella. Frog fella? Fish? Something watery anyway. The princess fusses over him, at least, and doesn’t come over to where Al’s still reading. Good. Mimzy wouldn’t wanna be mistaken for someone trying ta change her ways. Her ways are just fine.
Finally Alastor sets the magazine aside with a noise of disgust. Mimzy know he ain’t read the whole thing because there’s more on the other side. She opens her mouth to point this out, then closes it when she catches how tightly he’s gripping his whiskey. Then she asks, “What’s with the sulk? This is good, ain’t it? Now you know there’s a word for it, you’ve got a whole new way of turning folk down!”
“Very amusing, I’m sure.”
“I ain’t kidding! Ya got a way ta explain yourself now. You always used to complain about how folk would ruin a perfectly good evening by flirting with ya!” Turning to Husk she adds, “Men too. He was a catch.”
Husk rolls his eyes. “I’ll have to take your word on that.”
Turning back to Al, Mimzy says, “And it didn’t help that half the time you didn’t even realise it was flirting until it was so super obvious that the poor gal felt strung along or her fella took offence. But hey, now you know the word for it you can find other folks like you! You can party with them and they won’t come on to ya!” When Alastor doesn’t look convinced, Mimzy adds, “You didn’t think you were the only one did ya?” Then, “Shit, you thought you were the only one.”
So did she, she’s got to admit to herself. Wouldn’t have crossed her mind that Al’s weirdness was anyone else’s weirdness. It was the twenties, in her defence. They didn’t know about this stuff.
Now, the shadows deepen around the bar and Alastor’s static reaches a painful pitch. Husk tops up his whiskey. Mimzy winces at the feedback but places her hand on Alastor’s shoulder. Al shrugs her off but gets shadows and static back under control. He sips the whiskey.
Mimzy tries, “I’m sorry, kitten.”
“It’s quite alright, cher.” Alastor takes another bracing sip of whiskey. “It’s simply that this is rather a lot to take in.”
“Why? Ya already knew ya weren’t into all that.”
“Yes, but why does there need to be a word for it?”
“Well why not?” Mimzy sips her cocktail. Honestly she’s starting to wish she never said anything. Here she thought she was doing a good deed for her friend and he has to turn it into this big deal? It just goes to show it don’t pay to be nice.
Alastor says, “I simply don’t appreciate that after managing perfectly well without a word for what I am all the years of my life and afterlife I’m now expected to embrace modern terminology just because these” Alastor waves a dismissive hand at the magazine “young people feel the need to categorise everything.”
Husk shrugs. “Some people like labels. Helps them find their community.”
“I don’t want a community!”
Husk rolls his eyes. “Boss, just ignore the word if you don’t wanna use it.”
Mimzy puts her drink down. “What? He has to use it! It’s about him.”
“Not unless he wants it to be” Husk replies.
Alastor gives him a scathing look. “And you’re the expert, are you, Husker?”
Husk shrugs. “I’m a pansexual born in the early twentieth century. I’ve done some processing in my time.”
Alastor seems to have no come back to that.
Mimzy says, “I still think it’s stupid to not use the word when it’s about you.”
Alastor wrinkles his nose. “I didn’t ask anyone to make up words about me.”
“Who’s making up words?” Angel Dust has joined them.
Mimzy tells him, “Alastor’s just pissed about…” Then she falls silent and glances at Alastor. Years in a more open minded afterlife have made her less cautious about up and outing a fella, but she still remembers a time when it’d ruin a person’s life if anyone outside of a few discreet clubs knew the truth about them.
And Angel Dust is Valentino’s soul. On the list of who she don’t want knowing anything this personal about her friend, that bastard and Vox are pretty much tied for first place.
Angel looks from her, to Alastor’s tense smile, to Husk, who tells him, “Just these fuckers’ usual bullshit. I’ll catch you later.”
Angel Dust glances at Alastor again, cautious this time. “...okay” he says, and slinks off again.
Alastor’s smile relaxes a little. “Well done, Husker. And when you speak to your paramour later, I trust you won’t go sharing any confidences.”
“Like I would! I got some standards, boss.”
“And now you have orders too: Under no circumstances are you to divulge anything about this conversation to anyone. Not even a certain amorous spider.”
Husk holds up his hands. “Fine, I get it!”
“Lovely.”
“So like I was saying…” Mimzy begins.
“Ah yes” says Alastor sarcastically, “Please let’s dredge this up again.”
“What? All I’m saying is, if there’s a word for ya, use it!”
“I lived quite contentedly not adhering to society’s debauchery for a century, and now modern people feel the need to invent nonsense terms about it?”
Husk is looking through the article now and he glances up to say, “While we’re on the subject of labels you’re not gonna use, it sounds to me like you’re aro too.”
“I’m what now?” Static fizzes around Al.
“Arrow?” Mimzy asks.
“Aroace.” Husk taps the article.
Mimzy pulls the magazine towards her and reads, “Some people are also aromatic.”
Alastor blinks. “Only after they’ve been cooked, surely?”
Mimzy shudders reflexively but powers past it. Being friends with a cannibal has these tricky moments a gal’s gotta learn how to navigate. She tells him, “It’s what it says” and points to the relevant part of the text.
Alastor leans over to look. “Aromantic” he reads.
“Oh. Well that makes more sense.” Mimzy studies the magazine a moment, then waves it in his face, “Oh my stars! There’s two words for ya!”
“Wonderful” Alastor deadpans, gently lowering her hand.
Mimzy reads the part that has caught Husk’s attention again. “It says aromantics aren’t interested in forming a traditional romantic bond.” She pauses and adds, “Ain’t that just common sense?”
Alastor sips his whiskey. “I would say so.”
“Well of course you would. I mean for other folk. I’m telling ya, Alastor, the modern generation is real confusing. Why’d you need a separate word for people who’ve worked out that romance is stupid?”
“Why would you need new music when you have jazz?” Alastor shrugs. “People do have a tendency towards stupidity.” He snags the magazine on a claw and pulls it towards him. After a moment’s silent reading he comments, “It doesn’t define romance.”
Mimzy waves a hand dismissively. “Romance don’t need a definition. We all know what that shit is.” Seeing Alastor frown above the smile she explains, “Candles, flowers. That and the whole” She effects a sappy voice “I can’t do without you my love, you define me as a person, I want you ta be in my life forever and ever. You know, all that shit.”
“Ugh.”
“Exactly.”
Alastor reads on, his brow crinkling. “Surely these two terms are interchangeable?”
“Well ya’d think!” Mimzy sips her drink.
Husk shrugs. “Not necessarily” he says. “There’s gotta be people who want romance without the sex.”
“Why?” asks Mimzy, “That’s the fun part!”
Husk gives her a disparaging look. “That makes sense coming from a broad who thinks commitment is for losers.”
“Well it is!”
“Call me a loser then, ’cause I like being there to care for the person in my life.” Husk busies himself putting glasses away, most of them clean. After a while he muses, “If there’s two different words, it’s gotta be two different things.”
Mimzy considers this. “Folk who’re asexual but not aromantic? Makes things quiet on the dating front I’m sure.” She pauses. “Or ya just find someone the same way and pass the time with them.”
Alastor glances up from the magazine to ask, “And that’s different from friendship how exactly?”
Mimzy feels herself floundering. It’s got ta be different, right? Everyone knows that! “Flowers and chocolate?” she suggests.
“I give flowers and chocolates to my friends.”
“You know what I mean! Romance, candles, all that jazz.”
“Mimzy, this is the second time you’ve defined romance as candles. There must be more to it than that.”
“Not really.”
Alastor turns to Husk. “What say you, Husker? You’re a sentimental fool at heart.”
“What, you want me to explain romance to you freaks?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
Husk rolls his eyes. “It’s the exclusivity” he explains, sliding Mimzy her drink, “Being up someone’s go-to person. Making them feel cherished. Being up front about how you’re always gonna prioritise that particular person. Or people.”
Alastor makes a scratched record sound.
“You never heard of polyamory?” Husk asks.
“I think we have quite enough modern terms to be contending with” replies Alastor primly.
Husk shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
“Well” says Mimzy, “Whether it’s with one person or fuck knows how many – it ain’t my business what ya get up to in your free time, Husker – romance is mostly just candles. Ya can’t argue about that.”
Husk glares. “What about love?”
“Oh don’t give me that!”
“It’s what matters when it comes down to, ain’t it?” Husk picks up his cloth again and starts wiping down the bar. “Sex gets pretty empty without it.”
Mimzy laughs and it comes out kinda cold. “You’re just like all the old men back when I was alive who acted like I don’t have a heart just because I don’t give it away ta them!”
Husk snarls. “I don’t want your fucking heart, Mimzy. I’m just questioning if you have one!”
“Alastor, are ya gonna let him talk ta me like this?” But Mimzy turns to find Alastor occupied with the article again. Sighing, she turns back to Husk and asks, “Why’s everyone so fixed on romance being the only type of love? We all know it ain’t! Or Al here would be a heartless freak!”
Husk eyes Alastor doubtfully. Mimzy says, “Okay, bad example. But even he loves his friends. Right, Al?”
“Hm?” Alastor glances up with a blank smile.
“Ugh!” Mimzy rolls her eyes. Alastor’s smile turns confused.
“Fine” Husk grumbles, “You got a point there. Not about this bastard but in general.”
“You said it, Furball. I always make a good point.”
Husk glowers. “My own point” he says, “Is that romance is a type of love. Not just candles and shit.”
“Oh please. Ya can’t tell me you’d date some penniless loser who can’t buy ya nice things.”
“I’ve dated plenty of penniless losers who didn’t buy me jack!”
“And how’d that work out? Anyway, it’s different for men. You do the buying. It’s us ladies who get the presents.”
“Bullshit.”
“What? It’s true. That’s the tradition, leastways it was when I was alive. And that’s all romance is, kitty, it’s just a bunch of traditions. Like candles.”
Beside her, Alastor looks up from the magazine at last. “So” he asks, “Am I correcting in thinking a person can be aromantic but not asexual?”
“I guess” says Husk.
“And that works how, exactly?”
Mimzy shrugs. “I guess ya put up with romance being pushed on ya because it’s what ya need to smile and nod through to get to the sex. Fuck knows we’ve all been there.”
“Not all of us, cher.”
“Well it’s okay for you! You get to side step the whole thing!” Mimzy frowns down at the article. “Anyway, I ain’t sure about this aromantic thing. Kinda seems like that don’t need a word.”
“And why not?”
“Hey, you were the one who didn’t want any new words!”
Alastor shrugs daintily. “But if we’re going to allow this whacky asexual nonsense into the lexicon – if, mind – then we may as well accept aromantic as well.”
Mimzy pushes the article away. “But that’s what I’m saying: That don’t need a separate word for it, that’s just most people.” Mimzy pauses, then adds in a quieter voice, “That’s just me.”