Escaping to her own room soon after, sharing a soft goodnight to the rest of the demons that stood littered around the bar, Clover thought back over the night. She wasn't entirely sure of what to make of Alastor's continued monitoring of her, she had been hopeful that she'd quelled his unease from her trip to Valentino's club, but something seemed to be bothering him more than usual. Moving quickly to get herself into bed after washing the residue of her day down the drain, Clover half dried her hair while scrolling through her phone, twisting sections of the now only slightly damp locks up and away from her face. Her thoughts continued to wander back to Alastor, her concern for his unsteady state clashing with her annoyed fondness of his antics. It was somewhere in her distracted mindset that she opened her laptop, going through the motions of pulling up whatever film sparked her interest, her attention only further pulled away from the boom of the opening credits when movement from her doorway caught her attention. A familiar swirl of shadows pooled beneath her doorway, slowly shifting further into her room as if unsure of itself.
Ignoring the beginning of whatever film had begun to play, Clover watched with interest before finally speaking up.
"I can see you, you know, you can stop hiding."
The shadow surged suddenly, lifting itself from the floor into the shape she had interacted with scarcely before now, the hazy visage of Alastor's demonic form wavering like the heat of a summer's day. It looked towards her laptop with distaste, narrowing what stood out as eyes against the darkness until only a thin line of teal stared back at her. Following its gaze, Clover rapidly remembered Alastor's warning to stay away from technology a second too late.
The pixels of the film she'd chosen had already begun to rapidly shift, the drastic drop in video quality quickly moving into another image all together. Just as the features of a face began to take shape, Clover was forced into action with the swell of radio static, closing the laptop with a snap and turning it upside down to remove the battery, forcing an immediate shut down. Turning back towards the shadow that had darkened her doorway, she found herself face-to-face with the wispy demon as it loomed over her bedside. It took a moment for her to fully focus on the visage before her. Alastor's shadow wavered, moving back slightly to seemingly give her space as its attention shifted once again.
Clover's cell phone began to vibrate rapidly, the screen lighting up with an onslaught of notifications before it turned white entirely with their rapid succession. A swell of annoyed anxiety itched at her brain, irritation pooling in the hot dampness that began to form in the corners of her eyes before it pushed her forward. Pulling the phone from the charger, Clover moved to give this device the same treatment, before thinking better of it as she cleared the majority of the notifications with a rapid swiping of fingers. She instead simply placed her phone on airplane mode, ignoring the implications of why exactly a hell made device would have such a function, before disconnecting from the internet all together.
Hoping that would be enough to stop the constant barrage of messages while still allowing her to use the alarm function to get to work in the morning, Clover returned her attention to the shadow that she'd allowed to enter her space.
"Oh."
Her neck ached as she craned it back to look up at the specter, its eyes still locked on her now silent mobile phone until it seemed content that whatever she'd done to it had worked. Its attention turned back to her with a soft hiss, Clover instantly feeling frozen under the uncharacteristically cool gaze that peered at her from Alastor's shape. Clearing her throat, Clover tried her best to converse with this more obscure part of her friend.
"Why are you here?"
Silence defaulted her confidence, for only a moment, before a voice seemed to echo out to her from inside her own skull.
"Watching."
"Why?"
It didn't answer her then, only tilting its head at her. She tried another angle.
"Is he watching, can he see through your eyes?"
Its grin widened, the shadow seeming as amused with Clover's characteristic curiosity as Alastor was.
"Not now. Busy."
Something clicked inside Clover's head, her chest nearly colliding with whatever billowing mist the shadow was made out of as she sat up suddenly. If she wasn't on a mission for clarity she might have blushed at how close she was to this extension of her affection, but her nerves couldn't handle approaching that subject at this time.
"Why did you wait to come in? I know you've been in here before."
The short warped chuckle that came with its answer reverberated through her chest.
"You said yes."
She blinked, staring up at the odd creature. The shadowy extension of Alastor had swirled in the dark corners of her bedroom many times before, she was sure of it, why would it seek out her consent now?
"So?"
"That's what we wanted."
"...I don't understand."
"Neither do we."
Reaching out, it drew a shadowed finger down her cheek, it's head tilting in a similar fashion to the way Alastor did as it looked at her. Clover's skin lit up with a chill, the thing chasing the goosebumps that spread down her neck with the cold pressure of its phantom limbs. Then,the touch was gone as suddenly as it had appeared with the knock on the door, Clover jumping as the thing jerked away from her. She tried to ignore the squeak that cracked her voice as she called out.
"Who is it?"
"Me, suga', we're comin' in."
Clover turned back to the shadow just in time to watch it sink into the floor, disappearing into the carpet with a small smile as the door swung open. Angel and Lollie stepped through a second later, neither of them paying much attention to Clover's flustered state as they branched out into her bedroom. Lollie strolled over to her open closet, quickly busying herself with looking through her clothes as Angel draped himself across her bed. Clover bounced back quickly from their brash approach, trying her best not to draw further attention to the area of the floor she kept looking back to as she spoke.
"What's up?"
"We was bored, thought we would 'ave a little sleep ova'."
"In my bedroom?"
"Yea, ya' rooms cleana'."
Unsurprised at Angel's antics as he spread out across her bed, Clover took to watching Lollie shift through her wardrobe, the demoness pulling out a hanger here and there before finally moving to close the closet door entirely. The dress, still hung there from her night at Mimzy's, clinked slightly as it shifted with the motion.
"Damn, you gotta' suga' daddy sweetheart?"
Disregarding Lollie's comment as she ran gentle fingers over the beaded dress that still hung on the back of her closet door, Clover sighed as she attempted to relax.
Attempted, but failed.
"So, what should we do?"
"Why don't we watch a movie or sumth–"
"No!"
Angel froze, hands halfway over the laptop that still sat on her bed, its battery still discarded a few inches away. A heavy silence covered the room, Clover's hands quickly clasping over her mouth at the volume of her outburst as all ten sets of eyes turned towards her. The two demons stared at each other for far longer than Clover could stand, until a single voice broke through the silence.
"Shit."
Lollie moved towards them quickly, snatching Clover's cell phone from the bedside table despite Clover's feeble attempts to keep it from her. All it took was a glance at the device for the mint demoness to seem to find what she was looking for, her shoulders sinking as she returned her gaze to Clover's with uncharacteristic solemnity.
"Has Vox been fuckin' with you?"
The tension in the room came to a head as Angel sat up behind her, leaning over her shoulder in an equal attempt to catch her avoidant gaze. Clover couldn't ignore both of them, finally looking towards the sets of eyes that bored into the side of her skull with a small sigh.
"Angel, do you remember our conversation this morning?"
"Yea, when you got that telema- That motha' fucka'!"
Angel sprung from the bed, turning sharply on his heel to look at her as she winced at his exclamation. His gaze was almost sympathetic, almost, before his ire was unleashed.
"Why didn't ya' fuckin' say it was gettin' worse! Was it actually 'im?"
"...Caller ID said so, eventually."
"Clover I swear tuh' fucki- does Al know?"
"I don't think so?"
The shake in her voice seemed to snap him out of his rage, Angel running a set of hands through his hair before he began to pace the floor in front of her, mumbling to himself in a mix of English and what sounded like Italian. Lollie, being uncharacteristically quiet, drew Clover's attention, the petite demoness chewing thoroughly on her lip as she stared down at the phone in her hand. She seemed to feel her gaze, shocking pink eyes quickly flicking up beneath long lashes to meet her own. Something in that look sent a chill down her spine, Clover feeling the hair on her arms stand on end as her muscles tensed to run. With a calming breath that seemed to shift the air between them, she spoke.
"Lollie, what happened?"
Angel froze behind her, leaning around to look accusingly down at the tiny demon before taking Clover's phone from her hand and scrolling through the notifications himself. Clover barely took her eyes off Lollie, the other girl's stare holding hers in a vice before a short breath was drawn between sharp teeth.
"Val knows about the camera, he put two n' two tuh'getha' afta' ya' left the club, durin' a private party, he was showin' Vox the pictures of Angel. He remembered the camera around ya' neck when he ran into ya'..."
"So? Why the hell does that matter?"
Both women turned to Angel Dust at the outburst, the spider demon holding all sets of hands in front of him when he met Lollie's icy stare, not used to seeing the candy colored demon holding an expression as sour as she did now. It would have been comical, how small she was compared to him as she took him by the wrists and sat him on the bed, if not for the somber tone her voice took on as she continued.
"It matters, because knowin' things about someone's life before can be used as blackmail. Ya' know that if Val started sellin' naughty photos of ya' lookin' like ya' did that they would sell like hotcakes, but imagine if-"
"If there was more to it than that."
Lollie looked at her, her expression finally shifting as her eyes widened ever so slightly before she continued.
"That's what they're thinking, but they don't know if it's the camera that's special or you, so-"
"So Vox is trying to talk to me, why? I want nothing to do with him."
"That doesn't matter sweetheart, if Overlords like that think you can do something for them, they'll try their hardest to get you on their team."
"I don't pick teams, power doesn't appeal to me."
Angel suddenly sat upright, grabbing Clover by the arm and turning her towards him with more force than she assumed he'd meant to use, but her short squeak was overtaken by his shrill exclamation.
"Wait, does Vox know about you n' Al? They're like, rivals or sumthin'."
"How would he, I've never me- Oh."
A quick flash of teal across her memory was all it took for her to remember the face in the television screen across the street when she'd run into Alastor earlier in the day, but why that would matter in this situation alluded her still.
"He might have, there was a face in a television display across the street when Alastor walked me home from work."
"Clover, this is important. Again, does Alastor know Vox is tryin' to contact ya'?"
The breath Clover would have used to answer Angel Dust became lodged in her throat when she sent a fleeting glance towards her closet door. Instead of the warm memories that her glance at the dress would have granted her, Clover found a familiar set of narrowed teal eyes staring back at her from the shadowed depths of the floorboards. It only spared a moment in the gaze before swiftly twisting its way between their feet and disappearing beneath her doorway into the darkened hallway. The three demons starred after the specter for what felt like an eternity, before Clover's worried whisper broke the thickening silence.
"He might."