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doublekanble · 20 days

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Ghost in your home.

Alastor/reader (gnc)

romantic-platonic

word count: 8.5k

or, ever since you came back into his life, you came back wrong. And every attempt to understand or to fix you only ever serves to widen the distance. (have you ever love someone who died and came back so much you try to forced them into the mold of who they used to be without considering the fact they're no longer the same person? instead of learning to love them again? well have i got good news for you.) tw: toxic relationship (what's new). 2-4 have a progression of injuries and gorish talk. semi unreliable narrator alastor

1. His house is always at a pleasant 20 degree Celsius, but it always feels like 0.

“Now, I’m sure this is a bit upsetting, yes. But I assured you it’s for the better— “

Sharp yellow teeth grinded against each other, Alastor do his best to keep his own temper in check when another pillow hit his chest. The sounds of radio dials going haywire blares out for a second before evening itself out and turn to a low frequency hum. He picked these because he knows you would’ve love them, seems your tantrum triumph your love for the colors, after all. Standing a respectable distance away from you, at the door, he simply tries to focus on the positive.

“Shut the fuck up!” you roared, whipping your head around to stare into his eyes from where you’re hunching over, he would try chiding you for your nasty mouth, but that can wait until he’s sure you won’t rip the carpet apart. “What are you even trying to do?! Was killing me before not enough for you? You just have to hunt me down and make me lose my job— “

“—An extremely unnecessary and useless job that you’ll never have to bother with ever again!” when he starts to walk towards you, arms open and still trying to put you above himself, your snarled at him and lowered yourself, as if ready to lung at any minute. It wasn’t until you bring your hands up that he realized what you were doing, your fingers clutching the duvet below you tightly. Almost like a wounded animal retreating into its hiding spot before choosing to fight, you sat on your knee with sharp fingers, and in a single tug, you tear it into two.

“I wanted that job, Alastor! That was my job!” bellowing out at him with a fury he have never seen in you while bunching however much of the useless cotton that can fit in your hand, you tried to throw it at him again. It fell just below his feet and bloom open instead. Alastor doesn’t bother kicking it off to the side, opting to step over it and the other mess you made in your room. “You go and get yourself one that can guarantee you decent rooming and livable wage in this hellhole without selling your soul you dog!”

His shadow covers your figure as he look down at you with what he hoped is a more than amicable smile. That duvet and the torn books, the lamp and the drawers, everything, was picked out just for you. Now it’s all on the floor, even before he got to your room. He laughs.

“That’s absurd, love! Are you really trying to justify working in that pigsty for nickels and dimes? And even so,” Judging from the way you cowered and the interference in his voice, Alastor made a wild guess that he failed, but there’s no need to dwell on the specific. Light escaped to the corners when statics runs through the air before cutting off completely and red stares back at him from the bottom of your irises, you grow just a tad smaller in his eyes. “There is absolutely no need throwing such fits over minor disagreements. We’re both decent folks raised right, aren’t we?” you winced visibly when he cranks his neck to a sharp ninety-degree, he almost feels bad for you.

“It’s not ‘minor’, everything I worked for is gone. You scorched them like they’re nothing…” You grumble out and break the eye contact, tone spiteful but small. There’s a tinge of cautions in it now, like a dog with tail in between it legs, still growling from it belly but caution of the fight.

“I wouldn’t have burn anything that meant something to you, love,” Cooing at you, he can feel his bones shifting back into place as Alastor reaches out a hand to smooth out your hair, finally able to frets over your messy and unkept state from the morning outburst. You keep absolutely still under his hold. “All those frivolous rubbish you kept in that tiny living quarter of yours combine won’t worth half as much as a single item in this room! And look at where they all ended up…”

“They meant something to me, Alastor.” He glances down at his hand, your sudden grip on it was tight, with the nail on your thumb pressing right at his vein as a warning. He can tell when someone’s doing something to scared him, this isn’t that at all. You seem to almost be unaware of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Alastor finds the notion of you needing to know how to do this —or the fact you’re even doing it out of habit— wholly annoying and unpleasant. “I like them, and I worked to buy them with my own means.”

At that, he smiles, such a messy little thing, you always are. Awfully sentimental and always get caught up on the wrong thing. Alastor gets it, he really does. He gets sentimental over stupid, silly little objects and items too. The rock he picked up somewhere when he was five, placed in the corner of the drawer that he threw out once he found it again as an adult. His first tailored suit that he worked day and night for, collecting dust in his closet by the time he looked back. That letter of acceptance kept in a box, the one he burns the day that lousy owner of the radio station was discovered at a bottom of a creek and got replaced with someone much more pleasant.

Alastor has things he treasured too, and unlike you, he knows when to let something go and when to take a hold of it. That’s why your old place stand as nothing more than ashes blowing in the wind. You always have a knack for frantically holding onto your romanticism and the nonsensical. He honestly would rather be giving you more time to adapt, but not only are you horribly fussy about it, Alastor now has his good grace thrown in his face.

“Well then, if you’re so hung up on them, then you’ll feel more than at home to work for everything you’ve wrecked today, yes? Afterwards, we can get talking about getting you something else.”

You’re a terribly lucky thing, still able to even breathe where Alastor maimed so many for much less. He thinks you know you are, that’s only why you’re so insistent on being so difficult, glaring up at him with hate in your eyes and a such a rotten attitude.

“Get out,” your voice was small, but far from scared. With fingers curling around his wrist uselessly, you all but snarled, “Get. Out.”

“They’re awfully expensive, as you already know. They’ll do good to motivate you too. One stone two bird, as they’d say~” ignoring your silly attempt to provoke him into losing his temper again, Alastor wrapped his free hand around yours, and with what he thought was a gentle tug, pulls it from his wrist. He releases it when you winced, almost caught surprise by the change in the way you sit. Slightly hunching over, you held your hand close to you. His index nicked your wrist, and a bead of red ran from it.

Although it was no more than an accident, he knows you’re more than familiar with the ensembles of screams and cries running from the radio he placed in your room. You don’t need to know he will never let you join in with the harmony, but it’s nice to keep you on your toes sometimes.

“Stay good for me. Will you, darling?”

2. He gives you everything you could’ve ever wanted and more than you could ever need. He remembers your rapidly cooling body underneath him.

“Dearest,” sweetly, he calls out for you, gripping onto your shoulder, “Why are all the books in your bathtub?” he can tell it’s hurting you, but you keep your gaze far beyond the window and into the cityscape.

It wasn’t only the books, all of your lovely stationaries and art supplies and music sheets and what-else swims in that damned bathtub like a bloated corpse. Your room, although not as clean as it was before your little fit, it’s still a substantial improvement. It also gives you little to nothing in terms of fun aside from the lonely cacti sitting silently on a table with scratch marks, you’d refuses to step foot outside unless he needs you at the dinner table. Say whatever you want, Alastor is everything but heartless when it came to you, so he starts coming up with ways to give you some fun in your life.

He thought it’ll be the right thing to do, gifting you something for you to spent your times on and make a home out of your room. Which, in turns, might be the first push he needs for his home to become yours, too. He couldn’t really give himself too much credit, though. If anyone were to pay attention, they would all come to the same conclusion about you. Terribly restless and honest little thing, always on the move, always doing something. That’s what he loves so much about you, you can’t hide a single thought from him with how you can barely keep yourself together at times. Anything you feel always came up to your face. And if you were to dislike someone, he will know.

Even by the end, where you eventually grew quieter and more muted, looking behind your shoulders and fretful over invisible shadows hiding in the dark; your heart still stays so comically beautiful and kind. So lovingly, you still use the same fountain pen he gifted you. You were still you. So when he got you those things, Alastor was somewhat hoping to see just what you can come up with to further antagonized him. He’s not delusional as to hot-blooded and petty you are. You can hate him in this moment, but he knows you well enough to know you’ll never be like him. Always the kinder of the pair; you were never one for outright belligerent.

“I don’t know,” your voice was airy and light, then, “I don’t like any of them.”

But now, without him noticing, your eyes somehow carried the same glint as he does.

Down here in Hell, the day always been just a little bit brighter than the night. Obnoxious red always painted the sky, it’s really the furthest thing from the scenery back on Earth. Even then, the evening shade reflected in your eyes almost reminded him of the lovely days of being alive. With his red thumb practically piercing your collarbone with how hard he’s pressing down on you, sitting on the only chair in the room that’s still intact, by your half clawed-up desk, face sitting all neatly in the palm of one hand; you can almost be considered graceful like this, body lax and a wistful gaze. Alastor can almost be taken by the sight. Almost.

Although Alastor was only trying to turn you towards him for yet another scolding, for a second, he’d forgotten just how easy it is for his claws to tear. One moment, you were on the only chair left in the room, staring out a window and paying no mind to his growing ire. Another, you crumbled on the floor, hand replaced his. Slightly dazed from what just happened, he stands and watches on while you clutch at the bits of tendon and bones showing through skin, trying to squeeze the opening together with shaking hands. Red streams through between your fingers without a care as the familiar smell of metallic fills the room. You now faced towards the floor, frozen stiff like a scared little fawn. Alastor couldn’t bring himself from the sight. Right, you’re made of flesh, too.

He clenched the hand that touched you once to get rid of the ache soaking itself in his bone marrow, opens it, then twice, as if testing out the way your blood settles on his blackened palm. Shaking himself awake, he can almost feel the hunger clawing through his throat and molding itself into the will to bite. You really are lucky, if you were any old Joe, you wouldn’t even have a shoulder to rest that stupidly stubborn head of yours on.

“Darling,” a knee touching the floor, he kneels at his spot and reach a bloody hand out, moving the tip-over chair out of the way with another. An apology on the tip of his tongue, he bites and swallowed it when you inched yourself back just a bit with eyes still glued to the stained carpet. You wouldn’t really deserve one anyway. Long, heavy breath seeps through your bared teeth, your hold on that obnoxious gash tightened while the floor beneath you catches the blood that fell in droves. He sighs. “Come now, I’ll help clean you up.”

He can hear the sound of your heart, still frantically beating as you refused to answer or take his hand. Through the curtains of your bangs, he spots wild eyes darting to the door, before settling on his patiently waiting red claws. The moment you looked as if ready to bolt away, Alastor decides that he have been more than patient with you – seizing you by the elbow and dragging you up, he took you to his room for the day. You made a weak attempt at fighting out of his grip before giving up entirely. When your footstep slowly catches up to him, he thanked Lucifer.

In his well-decorated and tidy bathroom, over your humiliated protest and pitiful whine, Alastor forced a proper apology from your mouth while he scrubbed away the urge to sink his teeth into something and the crusted brown clinging to your flesh with a sponge and a grip too tight. You couldn’t complaint, too focused on what must be one of the worst pain you’ve felt since the day you were reborn. There’s nothing he can do for you, he thought to himself – you can handle a little more pain, you were so insisted about being so unfairly difficult despite his multiple humbling attempts at a peace offering or at least a truce. A brat until the end of time, no matter the length he’d go through for you.

Alastor would’ve wondered over and over to himself about just what was it that makes you so incredibly indispensable to him, but he knows why already. Standing by his window after patching you up and sending you back to your room with a “gentle” warning, leaving the bathtub ordeal to be dealt with tomorrow and having nothing else to do, he let a familiar tune plays from the neglected microphone leaning on his bed.

As a person, Alastor knows not of regrets. Everything he does since the day he buried his bastard of a father below the soil of the earth have been mark and marred with several distinct goals in mind. So that his mother can finally live the life God owed her, so that he can live the life he deserves, Alastor cheated and lied his way through life and climb up the social rank. With bloody hands and a silver tongue, he bought a house in a nice neighborhood and became well known amongst the community for his charm. And somewhere along the way, with dirt caked under his nails, he finds you in his life and you stayed until the day you died.

Life in New Orleans was always colorful, even when he was surfing through the night alone. But with you, it’s like getting to live through the good part twice. The day you died, a part of him died with you on the forest floor. Blooming under rotting leaves and buried below the rocks is the one other person that Alastor dare entrusted with his heart. It rots too, along with you, but he never really minded it all. Alastor knows you; he knows why you’re utterly indispensable to him.

As a person, Alastor knows not of regrets. But as Alastor, he finds that thoughts and daydreams can never talk and laugh like you do. In your absence, his thoroughly decayed heart only grows fonder of the you he remembers. When he came down here, he wasn’t able to bring a single thing of you with him. When he finds his way back up there, everything of yours was burnt and destroyed. So for the longest time, Alastor lives on with the thought of you in his mind and your warmth in his heart.

It's awfully painful, he quietly admitted to himself, it’s awfully painful how, even though you’re just a walk away now, room set right next to his, divided by thick wood; Alastor has never felt so much further away from the life he envisioned. His claws, clean of your blood, dance on the windowsill as he hummed along to a tune from the older days, the better days. He’s willing to wait, however. You surely will come around, you have to, and when you do, you’ll laugh about your stubborn streaks and poke fun at his willingness to let you trampled all over his ego like this. Surely.

For now, for the rest of the night, Alastor sat and stare out the window with nothing in mind. He hopes this feeling of fulfilled emptiness can leave before it takes roots in his heart.

3. The AM radio frequency only read white noise. He can’t hear your voice.

Your miserable sobs don’t get any quieter, even when he slammed the door closed.

Leaning against it with a huff, Alastor brushes off the familiar and unwelcome fatigue settling in his mind and adjusted the collar of his vest with one hand. There’s no use in going in there again for the night. If there’s one thing he can ever be sure of, it’s that you would throw yourself out the window the moment you see him again and made an even bigger mess for him to clean up. It’s shameful to admit he ever lose control over himself like that. In a perfect world, nobody should know the exact buttons to push like you do, no word should ever get to him like yours does. But Alastor long since accepted that if you were to ask for his heart, you’ll have it on a silver platter. You’re very firm on taking the stand of martyrdom before you ever ask him for anything, but he likes to think that he’s working towards that.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Alastor started towards the kitchen. He hasn’t cook anything for the day yet, and he’s sure that the first-aid kit was still in there from your last tantrum. All this trouble, and he can’t even make a roast out of this. He knows you’re not too fond of meatloaf – or anything he made for you nowadays – but it’ll have to do, since you’re so keen on wrecking his schedule with your childish attempt at a spat and your nonsensical sentimental for that useless life you kept insisting you want back. Despite all of it, he does feel just a tad bit of pity for you. You, and your right arm, the one sitting silently in his left, bleeding all over his carpet floor. Hopefully this will teach you to stop moving around so much next time, you’re not unfamiliar with a broken wrist, but you just kept writhing and clawing at his hands, and his slipped.

Quite frankly, this is still a much better life than for you to be in the same room and so close to those revolting roughnecks and floors stained with Satan-knows-what. He can’t even fathom just why you’re still clinging onto it so tightly when there’s so much for you here. When he’s here.

He stills remember the sinking feeling in his chest when he makes his way to a figure quickly retreating behind the counter, under the dim lights and the rowdiness of a dingy café that barely qualifies as one. He wasn’t sure at first – Hell has a way of masking one’s appearance with a roulette game, and despite his growing contracts and connections, information might just be wrong. You could’ve been exorcised, or even worse, managed to wrangled your way into Heaven somehow and left him down here alone. But he placed his confident in a good friend, who promised him that if this isn’t you, then nobody else can be.

Bless the Christian God himself for his mercy, the moment he let that familiar name fell from his lips again after so many years of living without it, Alastor find himself staring into the same gaze that haunted his waking days and sleepless night. Holding onto you with a bruising grip, when you finally bring yourself to stare back at him like a deer in front of head light, his rotting heart comes alive with a fervor and he knew you’ll never be separated from him ever again. Back in his arms and under his wings.

Despite the time it took and your less-than-ideal reunion, he was more than thrilled to show you he finally made good of himself down here, just like he said he would. As Alastor lead you back with a smile splitting his face open, he tells you all about what he’s been doing. In his house is a room prepared just for you with everything you’ve ever love that he can get his claws on. It used to sit there and taunt him in the night where the silence stretches on and on and nothing in the underworld can distract him from the idea of your separation lasting until the end of time and the end of his life, that for all his preparations to make sure you two will never parted, he managed to miss the one chance he had with you in life. His halls echoed a voice that he barely able to recalled while he chased a shadow he desperately tries to remembers in whatever he can remember of you. The passage of time and his work might take your lovely voice and visage from him, but it will never let him forget how you feel about dark coffee or your favorite composer.

The time he lost being far away from you, the time you both lost being away from each other, Alastor was ready to make up for all of it. With good food, good wine, a good home and a good life. Finally, nobody will ever be able to turn their nose up at you both. If they do, he has more than enough means to fix it. His broadcast station no longer stays dependent on some white hotshot he needs to keep in a good mood at all time, it now plays only the things Alastor wants it to, forever. And now that you’re back, it’ll plays whatever it is you want too. All of it, just for yours and his sake alone. And then you turn your nose up at him, demanding for your old pathetic life back.

Ever since Alastor found you and took you home, you’ve been nothing but ungrateful, unpredictable, and downright hazardous to yourself and his furniture. Nothing like the darling he cared for from way back then. All bites and no barks, that’s what your silly threats and your mischief used to be in life. It’s nothing here, too, but he can only get so far restraining you to your bed until you learn how to break your own hands and slip it through the cuffs. You were always a lot of things, but this vindictive side of you still are so incredibly off-putting to him.

And yet, even with all of this, Alastor’s eroding heart breaks for you. Recently, he discovered an old book, one he took with him from the burning pile of your apartment and kept in his overcoat for a long time. It was a book that you shared with him when you both were alive, he was more than elated once reminded of the fact. Stained with black on the cover and slightly misshapen, the book must’ve gone through so much, considering your occupation at the time. Alastor remembers just how hard it is to get used to the disrespectful crowd down here, even for someone like him who can simply waved his hand and turn them into red paste on the filthy streets. You must’ve been so confused and scared, having to re-familiarized yourself to a new and much more unwelcoming world, making your way through an utterly horrific landscape without him there to help you with.

Naive, kind hearted and gentle you, even when you’ve killed before, you’re an easy prey in an awful, awful world. Mother always reminded him that wounded animal takes time to trust and they bite and clawed their way out of hands that moves too fast, so he need to make good by her words and keep on giving you just that, time. No matter the fact you barely improve, no matter how much time he gave you, or the fact it was him who clawed off your arm in the first place.

So, with a bright attitude, Alastor strides to your shut door with the sounds of your hysteria long gone. He knocks three times and calls out to you, then leave you alone with the first-aid kit. He’ll give you until midnight to do it yourself.

4. Love and hate are a hair away, he realized he hates loving you at times.

You’ve been improving, day by day. You stop biting back so much and starts to listen more, you sit when he asked you to and learned not to talk so brazenly while you’re at it, too. You don’t ever smile, yes, and his hallways still feel so cold at times. You walked as if you’re on eggshells, and you sleep with your body huddled under the blanket, as if there’s something hiding in the dark that will take you away if you dare peak out from it. You stacked books and boxes underneath your bed, too.

At times, Alastor felt like he’s having a guest staying over, maybe it’s because you’re acting more and more like one. Someone whom he knows well enough to accommodate their every need, but there’s an air of unfamiliarity, of the fact they’re not a close enough friend to stay over for so long, and their every decision needed checking. The thought itself is beyond ridiculous, he knew you for years before you died. He’s the closest friend you have, alive or death. He knows how you like your eggs; he memorized your voice; he knows when you need to sleep and when you like to wake up. But he digressed. Progress is progress, you’re getting better day by day, and he only ever have to threatened you a bit at times.

Which must’ve been why it felt so wrong, holding you like this.

He can only hope you won’t be able to discern his heavy panting over your own growing panic. Alastor could’ve sworn that he’s a better man than this, that he has more patience and more tact, already lived through a childhood with his head down and a smile stitched neatly on his lips. But he rationalized the way his pointer and thumb pinch together with the same compassion he have for a stray dog, separate only by your tongue, slowed and unmoving only by his own desire to give you another chance to explain yourself and take back your word and let him returns to his days of thinking you’re getting better, never minded the fact he’s not hearing anything out of his good ear right now. It’s not that he’s drawn to the way your pupils dilating and turned pinprick as your near incoherent pleading slowly cut itself off, realizing this might not end well. It’s not that he’s intently observing the trickle of blood running into the back of your throat, or the way your hot breath hit his hand, unable to close your jaw from the grip he has on you.

From the first dawn of this day until mere minutes ago, things were just lovely. Alastor managed to hold a ten-minute conversation with you in the morning, and by noon, able to coaxed you out of your hiding spot and onto your seat at the table with the promises of getting you whatever else you requested, as long as you keep your manner in check. You raised an eyebrow at the unusual and grand display of dishes for what you must’ve thought was a normal meal, but you stay silent. The four walls in your room had to be decorated by his own hands, and anything you refuses to keep, you throw into the toilet or buried under your growing number of plants out in the garden he’s not allowed to step foot in; thusly, there’s no longer a calendar in your room for you to keep tracks on dates.

When he pulls out a bottle of wine – full bodied, his favorite from when he was alive, it feels like blood sliding down his throats at times – you look at him, your eyes tells a world of distrust as he smile at you and pour it into two glass and hand you one. Alastor could’ve cried true tears of joy when you accepted it without making a fuss and simply placed it by your left, picking up a fork with your dominant hand. You waited for him to say something, before quietly thank him for the food and starts to eat.

For most of the meal, you work away at your own plate while he talks for the both of you. Alastor doesn’t mind, the fact you bothered to pay attention is good enough, occasionally nodding along or giving him a small huff or two. You’ve been doing a great job at staying in line ever since a year ago, especially once you learned you’re also made of flesh, just like the rest of the voices stuck in his broadcast. Alastor would’ve gladly taken this, if not for how you’re glancing off every now and then, contemplating something.

Particularly, you’ve been holding onto your glass for an awfully long time now, drifting off in the middle of him relaying an encounter he had the day before. Alastor pauses when you take it near your face and cleared your throat.

“…It’s not your birthday today.” You said, nonchalantly staring into the bottom of the glass, spinning it to and fro between the middle of your pointer and thumb.

“I’m glad you still remember my birthday, dear. But yes, it’s not! It’s surprising you can even tell what day it is!” he laughs.

You only glance up, before letting out a deep sigh, “You’re way more eager on your birthday.”

“Well then love, would you care to enlighten me on how I am today?” Alastor leans over the table with a smile, mood light and hoping you stop with the implications. You look angsty, however, gently lifting the glass up to your lips and take a small gulp. When you finally look at him again, Alastor felt his smile strains, he knows what that look means.

“What day is it?” with a clink, the glass landed on the table and stay there, “It’s not my birthday, nor is it yours. It’s not a holiday, too, far as I know. “

The corner of his lips pulls taut, his half-lidded eyes stare straight into yours. The sounds of something sharp pulls through the radio, but you refuse to back down. Alastor caved and took his own glass into his right hand.

“I was going to keep it a secret until we finished with our meal, but if you’re so insistent on spoiling the surprise—“ taking a long sip before continuing, if this goes south, he might need something stronger, “—It’s been a year since the day we reunited, right on the dot. I figured we should do something to celebrate, but you’ve always been such a stick in the mud about your past. So, I was going to have us finishing the meal first— “

The clanking of silverwares being drop onto porcelain plate was the first thing he catch, the ear-grating sound of your chair scrapping harshly against the kitchen floor’s the second. With both hand bracing against the table, you look half ready to launch yourself over it and kill him with your bare hands, but you breathe in, back straight, and simply look at him.

“Your mother would be livid if this is the you she knows.”

You looked as if you still have something else to say, but in a second, he have your face in his hand, grinning down at you while the base of his horns itch and creaks.

“Apologies, dear. I think I’ve heard something wrong,” the lights in the room flickered, in between the burning bright and the cold dark, he can only see red, “Do you want to try and repeat that for me?”

“Your fucking mother would’ve hated you.” Over the radio static bursting his own eardrums and your lovely voice spewing utter putrid, he tucked a thumb in before you can properly close your mouth, you clamped down onto it and grinded your teeth. He laughs.

“Oh~ you think you’re so incredibly brave, aren’t you?” sticking in another thumb, Alastor slowly pried your mouth open, the more he does, the quicker your attitude change, “So strong and so special. You can handle yourself just fine without me, can’t you? nothing I do will ever be enough for you.”

“Al—waih—“ you choked out, desperate. But he’s not having it today.

His pointer and thumb pull on your tongue.

Alastor swore up and down, he was raised a tactful and patient man. He followed his mother‘s word very carefully and tries his best to be charitable with you.

With eyes glued onto the trail of his blood, quickly drying on your chin, then to your tongue, with increasing pressure, he can feel his smile splitting open his own face, but there’s no joy to be found in his woeful, heavy heart.

It feels so wrong, holding you like this. He feels so wrong, looking into your eyes. You almost certainly accepted your fate by now, he feels a bit bad for you. So utterly helpless in his hold, realizing just how little power you truly have without his generous love, giving into you and letting you plays out your fantasy, even after everything you did. He knows you’re still getting used to this, he knows you needed more time. Alastor would almost consider this a lesson learned, but the statics blinds him to your pain, and for a moment, all he knew was that he wanted you to feel the same pain as he does.

So, because he loves you so much, because you want to hate him so badly, he ignored your hysterical cries as he pinches down on your tongue, then in one motion, he rips it from your nasty, bitter mouth.

5. Before he realized it, you weighted 21 grams.

It’s almost like he’s haunted, at times. The thought would’ve been amusing.

Humming a tune and walking up the three steps leading to the front door, Alastor eyed the Ficus sitting on either side of him, a brown leaf fell from the lulling branch while he fetching the keys from his pocket with one hand. They’re wilting faster than he can water them. What a shame it really is, not only have you lost your will for everything, you also lost the mood to take care of tacky house plant decor. Maybe he should try for some Begonia next?

“I’m home, love!”

Alastor is greeted with an empty corridor and a faint melody dancing through the air. He can only sigh and step further into his home, heading for the kitchen. Every day he hoped something would magically change, and every day Lucifer laughed at him from the top of his luxurious throne.

You can hear him, he knows you do. You managed to crawl all the way into the studies just to put on a song the moment he steps foot outside the house, after all. It’s a blessing, how you haven’t bolt right back into your room the moment you hear the door opened, you must’ve been in a good mood. He hopes you can stay that way until tomorrow, but it’s fine if you don’t, as long as you’re willing to eat whatever he puts in front of you. He peaked into the spotless kitchen, and with nothing out of place, he stepped inside.

Setting the groceries down, he pulled out everything he needs for dinner. Already with a dish in mind, Alastor whisked out an iron cast pot and set it on the stove. He shooed his shadows off and away, he can prepare for this recipe himself, and he want to be alone for a while anyway. He prepares all the ingredients before getting to the rice. The music flows from upstairs as he works in silence, mindful of his own microphone and keeping it off.

He doesn’t remember this song, it must’ve been one of the newer ones Rosie gave him to give back to you, assuring him you “just need more fun things in your life, then you’ll get to talking again”. Alastor wasn’t sure if you would’ve like it enough for him to keep it, but he wasn’t going to bother fighting with Rosie.

Turning the fire down, he closed the lid and set the kitchen timer to twenty-two on the dot. It should be enough time for him to make the roux, but he can check the rice early. Pouring oil into a pot to his right, he turned the fire up to max and began whisking the flour into it, when it turned brown, he drops the onion in and lower the heat to medium.

If not for him constantly reminding you, you would’ve ignored the needle-like pain in your stomach. Granted, you ignore it even when he did remind you, so he took to just make things and leave it in your room until you’re in the mood to eat. It’s been going on for two years now, enough time for him to regret playing into your hands and losing his temper. Alastor had hope that if he were to deprived you of everything he’s willing to give you for some times, you would finally get it through your thick skull that he only ever wanted good for you. Only, the you that greeted him after three long month was silent and still, lying on your bed with close eyes. The only sign you’re still alive in the first place was your breathing, almost invisible to the common eye.

He remembers hovering over you, a finger set on your chin and pulls it down. With an odd lump in his throat and a heaviness he rarely knows of, Alastor let out a weak chuckled, watching as a reformed lump of meat pulsates and weakly twitching in place of your tongue. Turns out, without the correct nutrients, the citizen of hell could only pray that whatever injury they obtained will kill them faster than they can heal it. And just as fate would have it, you’ve been holding onto such a thing ever since he locked you in.

Maybe that’s why your eyes haven’t change since, maybe that’s why you refuse to talk, maybe it still hurts, and maybe you afraid of getting used to the comfort he provides you. Or maybe you hated him for it, he wouldn’t know, you never really made yourself clear since that day. It’s the longest you’ve ever gone without anything that he gave you, and he’s trying his best now to make sure it’ll stay the longest you will ever go without anything ever again.

The roux turned a dark, shiny brown. He added almost everything else and stirs it for five minutes sharp. Quickly checking the rice once the timer calls for his attention, Alastor turned off the fire and reaches for the tomatoes and stocks. The music from upstairs come to a halt.

It’s became synonymous with you now, silent and stillness. Somewhere in the middle of an evening, Alastor came to the oddly upsetting realization that you just as well never return to the same you that he was trying so hard to recover.

Throwing in the two ingredients, he raises the heat back to high. When it began to boils, he puts it to medium and let it simmers for six minutes. A shadow came by and whispered winds and chimes into his flickering left ear, you’re back in your room with the gramophone.

When he was alive, every moment spent with you was bright and different. You were a wild spark of fire in the cold city, silently chasing after dreams with a caring and delicate heart. Your shared mirth used to fill the room as you talk over jazz and the constant chattering from loudmouth patrons. Those days became the only thing he held onto in the midst of his busy life down here.

Then one day, within his first few years of working his way up the ladder, still without your shadow haunting the empty room in his house; Alastor looked back on those days, the better days, and realized he can’t remember the exact note of your voice, he can only recall that you were happy. So he hunts down every corner of hell in a rush, afraid that the rest of you will slip away again. He laughs silently to himself; a meaningless thought crosses his mind. Is there even any of you left to fall through his fingers?

Putting the heat to low and adding in butter, he stirs until it blends and throws the shrimps and scallions in and something else hit him. He hasn’t been able to pin down the exact note and tone you tend to laugh in yet, nor have he able to watch any of your painting comes to life. He kept on stirring, after three minutes, he added seasoning. He catches a faraway song, barely making out the notes, he thinks that’s your favorite.

For weeks now, he kept going over everything he could’ve done wrong. Although he tries to ignore it, the animosity you shown since the second you saw him in Hell, maybe even before you’re dead, it might’ve stemmed from before he chased you down in the woods. But you know what he can do even in life, and you should’ve known Alastor would never hunt you down just to lock you inside the cacophonies he broadcasts on the daily. Alastor can at least understand that he struggled between giving into you and maintaining control. Perhaps that’s where your path diverts, perhaps you’re not meant to be by his side after all, ever since the day you die. Maybe you died before he even got to buried you, but Alastor can no longer pinpoint since when you died because he doesn’t know since when you started to play along with him. All he knows is that if he were to stops your breathing today, you’ll wake up tomorrow with no faith lost in him. The thought sits in his stomach and made itself home. But that’s alright.

Alastor rather stomached the idea of breaking you, the alternative was worse. If a life time of chasing your shadow only resulted in endless hate, that’s alright to him. As long as you’re still breathing and by his side, there’s surely a place for him in your heart. Surely.

His microphone sudden sparks up to life and died again. Right, the food, dinner. He gets to setting up your plate.

Having lived for this long, Alastor’s used to playing along and getting along with the oddest of crooks. He’s unsure of how to ever get along with you, though. You have been nothing but nasty and callous before, but at least you talk and react. Now, you walk at a slowed pace, no longer making any sort of distinguishable noise as you do. Less of a guest, and more of a transparent image of someone he barely able to call himself an acquaintance to.

Or more precisely, it’s as if he’s fostering a ghost in his own home, and now he’s going through all the troubles that came with one. At first, the ghost thrashed and trashed everything, confused and in pain and determined to hurt. Then, the ghost calmed and it starts making compromises to try and look for a way out. What he have now, Alastor muses as he plated your meal and ready his heart, is the melancholy of the ghost. When the grieving and the anger and the bargaining and the hurt passes on and left the shell behind, there’s only ever the emptiness lingering.

The stairs creaks under his shoes, shadows hanging around the corner and slowly melts back under Alastor as he walks by. One in particular waits on your door and chirps when he stepped towards it, seemingly in a good mood, its laughter akin to windchime as it reconnects itself to him. He ignores it and knock three times to give you time and hide away whatever it was you’re working on. The music kept on playing, a vulgar but joyous song burst through the door the instant he opens it, Alastor swallowed his disdain and step inside with a smile.

“Lovely tune, dear. Is it one of Rosie’s discs?” facing out the window, you sit at your desk, long void of the marks from your first tantrum. From here, he can see your index finger tapping gently to the beat, you must’ve memorized it. “Certainly interesting taste you both shared…but I’ll make sure to ask her for more.”

Living with the melancholy of the ghost means you know there’s something there, behind the peeling wallpaper and below the hollowed floorboards. You talk to it every day. You tell it about the dreams you abandoned on the sidewalk since you were a child in favor of carving out a path for yourself, you tell it about your day. You whispered words heavy with affection in the morning and practice your apology to it in the night. You do all of it, knowing it doesn’t have the vocal cord to formulate words, knowing even if it does, it won’t talk to you anymore. But you have hope.

Akin to whispering into an empty seashell, he supposed, there’s always the sounds of the waves hiding deep inside, but there’s no voice. He should get you some seashells, maybe that can give you some joy.

“I figured you’d like something a bit more filling, so shrimp étouffée it is! I met sir Vox on the way to the grocer, and we have a rather pleasant chat. He mentioned some talkies I think you’d quite enjoy, too.” he laugh, standing behind you. Alastor catches the charcoal line on white paper, knitting together to create a familiar figure that he just can’t quite put together yet, more taken aback by the fact you haven’t bothered to cover it up at all. He divert his eyes and place the plate down, right by your left hand. “But you wouldn’t ever be in the mood for it, and it sounds far from my taste, so I turn down the offer to go with him.”

Living with a ghost means you see shadows in the corners of your eyes and hear your familiar home echoes a thousand scream at night, but living with its melancholy means plunging deep under the ocean floor and hearing nothing but the silent of the water. Where there’s supposed to be sound, there’s only the slight echoes of one, barely reaching your ears under the blue. You learn to embrace the silence and linger in its weightlessness.

His ears flickered twice when a sigh escaped your lips, barely audible under the belting of a jazz singer. Alastor let his right hand lingered by your shoulder, you shrink a bit under his touch, he doesn’t move.

“The Ficus died. I was hoping they last longer than the roses would, but you were right,” Leaning in just a bit closer, Alastor laugh, “I never really have a talent for cultivating plants, it seems.”

And then one day, you look back, and maybe you’ll finally see that there was no ghost. And you’re all alone in a house that used to be a home, with dirt under your fingernails and blood leaking under your door. And while you drag a corpse to its final resting place, you hear dogs barking and feel rows of sharp teeth bit into your arms, there’s a familiar clicking sound. When you look up, the world embraces you in a white and burning pain for a single tick of a second. And then you came back to life, just as new. In a new house, in a new world, you do it all over again, you go and look for the ghost.

But a ghost is see-through and rigid cold and it held onto regrets it can never fulfill with cold hands and misty eyes. You’re warm and tangible and alive under his hands even after everything but he’s not sure if you still have any regrets you haven’t given up on, other than meeting him. Having a ghost haunts him would’ve bring less heartache, too.

Ever since you came back into his life, you came back wrong. And every attempt to understand you, to bring back the old you, the you he adores, the you he longed for, only ever serves to buried that you six more feet under the ground. He hates to admit defeat, but he thinks you won’t ever be the same anymore.

“I’ll think I’ll get some Gardenia and Begonia tomorrow for the front porch, but you should keep some in here. It must be boring only seeing the same five things a day, love.” With that, he slinks back out the hallway. Taking a final look of you, he closed the door without a goodbye, he never felt well saying such a thing to you anymore. As Alastor walks back down to the kitchen, another song plays out from your room.

Like the rest of the plants Alastor inevitably rots but refusing to stop holding onto, you also rot. His dinner table is set for two, and one of them is for a corpse. For the rest of the night, like every night, he drowned out the sound from your room with a bottle of whiskey and the thought of a you he can barely recalled. Without knowing what he’s holding onto, Alastor came to an oddly hallowing realization that he might've never know you at all.

He hoped you won't know, but maybe that's why you let him see your sketchbook.

(if he’s a ghost, will you let him hold you again)

#alastor #hazbin hotel x reader #x reader #alastor x reader #hazbin alastor x reader #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin hotel oneshot #hazbin hotel oneshots

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doublekanble · 1 month

Text

dead meat

Alastor/reader (gnc)

romantic-platonic

word count: 11.1k

Or, the progress of going down and deeper. (please treat this as if theyre a bunch of drafts coupled together (they are) this read so much funnier if you keep in mind the fact alastor have genuine feelings/genuinely cares for you but he’s just batshit insane) its 13min til 2am if theres an error no theres not tw: gorish talks and imagery littered thru specifically 1, 5 and 7. alastor chased you down in 7.

1. Because you listen.

When you finally came back — frayed at the seams, run-through you with a headache and a rock in hand. You looked down, the warm wetness oozing from him and seeping into your pants quickly turn cold. You couldn’t tell what you’re looking at for a minute, adrenaline still running through you and your head ache just a tad. When you finally see the pink bits and the leaking blood, your breath runs ragged and your thought run miles. You try to remember all the warning your mother gave you about getting involved with a man like Alastor, you don’t know how you’ll tell mom she never gave you any advice or warning about this.

“God… Oh my God what did I—What—“

Not a single book warned you about the way you physically feel ill touching a body growing cold. So with guts churning and the prickling on your skins, you scrambled to throw yourself off and backing away from the body on all four. Desperately, you called out to whatever is there and beg in your head to wake you up from this nightmare of a show. And when you hit something distinctly warm and alive from behind, you call out to it, thinking it’s your mother, coming to save you from this, to tell you that it’s alright and that everyone make mistakes and this is nothing more than a bad dream. You’ll wake up from this soon, in your childhood bed, in your childhood room, in your childhood house and you’ll be anywhere else and not here.

But when the warmth embraces you, and you feel a warmer breath by your right ear, pressing a soft smile and a bliss-filled chuckle into it, it hit you that your mother would’ve hated you if she sees this. If she sees him.

“Oh, mon Chéri, I knew you’d have it in you” You hate the way the voice swallowed and a take a breath, as if mesmerized by the sight, like you but so wholly unlike you, it whispered in your ear, “What a show. What a show.”

Your eyes is focused on him, but not on him, not a person. That couldn’t be a person at all. Saliva tasting bitter, the bile rising in your throat hurts as you desperately tries and tear your eyes away from it. But enraptured by the intricacies inside his head, you only do so much before finding yourself looking closer for something you couldn’t understand.

“Don’t worry,” setting his lips on your temple, he sigh into your skin, one hand held onto yours and gently rubbing the red from your fingers onto his, as if helping you clean up, “It’s your first time, everything will be so much better once you’re used to it.”

Your eyes flickered between the thing and whatever of yourself visible to you. It’s all red, so much red. Its head, his head was caved in, you can see the front of his skull, everything else is everywhere. How could this ever get any better if it’s going to be this red? Was it going to be this red every other time too? You can feel your fingers going numb from the grip you have on that rock, you can feel the dent from where it dug into your palm, you can feel clearly the traces of well-kept nails running down your left arm from where he tries to pull you away. And every bit of it is red. And suddenly your clothes and his grip and the night air and your skin felt just a bit too tight, too suffocating. Your brain pulses and compressed against your skull. It hurts to think, it hurts way much more to speak.

“I—I don’t want to – I can’t-“

“I thought I couldn’t too, until I did it again, and then again. And then I realized that this,” raising the hand he held onto so kindly, almost like guiding your eyes to the sight. While the pain in your stomach is almost unbearable, he couldn’t sound any more ecstatic. “This, is freedom. Our freedom”

You were sure that the freedom that you’ve been yearning for wasn’t supposed to be associate with a corpse. No type of freedom will ever be going to drive someone to cracked open a skull in the middle of the night. There’s nothing but pure malice that will drive someone to bring a rock onto another man’s head and refuses to stop even when his ears bleed and he stop fighting and started begging. Your mother hated Alastor, and she never break his skull open. You hated your mother, and you never break her skull open.

You want to open your mouth and tell him to shut up. You want to say your mother was right, you shouldn’t have gotten involved with him, no matter how inviting his offer is. You shouldn’t have run off night after night chasing the daylight with him. He is a scoundrel, he is disgusting, he’s the worst type of delusional criminal there is, the most pretentious man in all of Louisiana. But you can’t, because you just maimed a good man and refused to hear his pleas. With nothing left to you, you all but break down into his arms.

“There, there~” he coos into your hair as your wailing get swallowed up by the cold night air, “I’m right here, aren’t I?” if only he’s anywhere else but here with you, mouth spewing reassurances one after the other.

(It’s alright, he’ll take care of it today. It’s ok, he’ll teach you about some other day. From now on, you’re going with him, whether liking it or not.)

2. Because you wouldn’t

“Isn’t he one of those highbrows you like to rub shoulders with?” her tone accusing and upset, you almost choked on your tea when she slapped the papers down in front of your food and walk out the living room. Even though you have an idea about what she talk about – the news came out just in time for it to be covered on the radio first, you still pick it up and scanned your eyes along.

“So I’m supposed to remember every face I came by now?” you glowered to yourself, “How do you know who I’m ‘rubbing shoulders’ with anyway?”

Over the sounds of your heart beating wildly in your ears, over the humming in your head, you hear her mumbled something about “that boy” as she starts to vacuumed the carpet. It’s a ridiculous thought, but for a brief second, you were sure she’s going to ask you about your numb fingers.

‘SON OF FAMOUS MUSICIAN, REPORTED MISSING AFTER NIGHT OUT-’

It’s so odd to you, how much he worth, yet how little people care. Name printed in bold font atop news about the fast declined of the economy and crashing stock markets a full week after he disappeared. He never told you his full name, nor does anyone around him ever make mention of it despite their occasional jeering and jokes. You didn’t bother with it at the time, you two weren’t the most talkative person in the room, let alone together.

Then again, it does make sense. He told you before that he’s not proud of what he came from or what he became, under drowsy lights and forced to sit side-by-side like all the other night. You still can’t drink, he still can’t dance while being miserably drunk, and nobody else wants to babysit a miserable drunk. You don’t get why anyone needs you to look after him, despite being so out of his head, he seems perfectly well with handling himself.

Your lift the tea cup to your dry lips and take a sip, the tea tasted bitter.

A voice loudly called for you, irritation written clear in it. You swallowed the lump in your throat and all but jump to her spot in the small hall, unwilling to let the two talks for more than necessary. Your mother stand with a huff to her posture.

“It’s him again.”

You laugh dryly, “It’s always him, mom.” tugging the receiver from her hand, you bring it up to your ears. The moment you do, a chuckle rang out. You shivers.

“There’s the lad of the hour! Why, I almost thought your mother was trying to stringed me along before shutting the line off again!” the mother in question grunt and grumble about how annoyingly persistent he is, you agree. Last time she did so, the phone kept ringing until she relented. “In any case, I hoped you’re all up and ready today!”

“We have nothing planned today.” Your reply was immediate and flat, hoping he would leave you alone, but Alastor only laughs in an almost affectionate tone.

“And I’m here to changed that!” he exclaimed, you run a hand down your face and try to keep your calm.

“Alastor, John’s missing. This is not the time.” you whispered sharply into the receiver, hoping to whatever’s true he’ll shut his trap for once. You’re not interested in getting caught by the neighbours over the phone of all thing.

“John? Now that sounds familiar…” he pauses, you can almost see the way he turn a brow up and pretends like he’s lost in thought, it’s almost endearing, “Why, isn’t that the lad I named on the radio yesterday?! What a horrible case! Some people are saying he finally throw himself onto a train and-“

“Alastor!” at the sound of your own voice scrapping in your ears, you pauses. You relax your grip and lower your voice, doing your best not to pay attention to the figure peeking out from your kitchen, “Listen, I don’t have the time to play around. Get to the point.”

“Clearly, you’ve the time for nothing, you and your mother…” sighing heavily, he dropped the act. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop kidding. We’ll talk once I get there. Be ready in twenty.”

“Wh— Alastor!“ The phone turn dead in your hand and you’re left standing in the hallway.

You stare at the receiver in shock, then, you grip it. Holding back the urge to break it open over the table it sits on, grinding your teeth, you place the receiver back. You clutched at the end of the table and count to ten, jaws aching and head spinning from anger. Even with your head hanging low, you can hear footsteps falling along the hallway. Your mother red house slippers stand in view from the side, you wondered if you can burn it and buy another pair.

“You’re going out with that creepy radio host again.” she’s standing with her hand crossed and an exasperated look, you just know it.

“Mom, please,” heaving a sigh of your own, you don’t want her to rub it in your face, even if she doesn’t know it, “Alastor’s not creepy. He’s a good man, I promise.” you have to believe he’s a good man, after everything. If you don’t, you’ll lose the rest of your mind. You prayed that she leave you alone, but she kept pressing.

“You keep saying that, but I know he’s nothing but trouble. I mean- look at you!? You looked so exhausted every day. Every time you leave with that scurf, you came back looking more lost than before!”

Turning to her, you have a retort at the tip of your tongue, you always do. But the looks on her face was nowhere near what you thought it was, so you stumbled. For a second, your vision blurs and your head spins. When it cleared up, your eyes met.

“That good for nothing man, dragging you out every night! Have he ever asked what you want before?!”

Standing like a cornered rat, you try to find your voice.

“I-“ you swallowed again, “I don’t mind it, mom. I like going out.”

Have your mother always looked this tired and worn beyond her age? It almost as if she’s been holding the world alone. She said your name, and you feel all lost again. Like a small child with bare knees stripped red and wailing for her to come and save you.

“You don’t even like parties.”

You remember how much she always scolded you when you got yourself into troubles, but your mom always patches you up while she does so. In the time frame before your home became more of a house and your front door is a front door without any sort of implications. And then it hit you just how old mom looked now. She used to be so tall compared to you, but now you’re over her slightly hunching figure, a little bit or a lot, it’s just enough to look down on her. Suddenly, the world feels too constricting and your skin feels too tight.

All this time, she wasn’t angry at all, was she? Your mom haven’t been angry for a long time now. But it doesn’t change you, it doesn’t change anything else. You closed your eyes and push a breath through your nose.

“Maybe I’ve changed, mom,” you walk past her into the living and tug on your overcoat with fingers stained red, fighting against the waver in your voice and hoping she won’t hear it, “maybe you should be happy for me.”

Alastor always take less than twenty to show up, but you didn’t know how long he was watching you for before clearing his throat. You didn’t bother to respond, only lifted your head up to make sure it wasn’t some random prude before shifting aside. He have the decency to stay silent and sit down with you on your front porch, offering a sympathetic smile at your sorry state and gently wiped away your tears with his red handkerchief when you refused to move and take it yourself. It wasn’t the first time you sit out and wait for him on the porch instead of listening to her outburst, but it was the first time you ever cry over it.

You wanted so desperately to turn back and tell her that you haven’t change, that you’re still her little kid. The same one that want to sit out the parties and the smokes and the dancing and the jazz just to spent the days working on something with her nearby, in the kitchen working on something or sleeping in the armchair, always in the old set of red house slippers. You want to show her something you make, only for her to not get a single part about it. You want to fall at her feet and begged her to tell you you’re still the same kid. You want her to go back to closing the front door and locking you away from the world again.

But you’re nothing but a rat, fresh off from a murder. You’d soon throw yourself in front a running train than to ever let mom know her child will ever do anything wrong. So you swallowed everything back, stand up, and walked away from her porch with Alastor hot on your trail, smiling all the while.

(you want to tell her you haven’t changed at all, but you know better than anyone else. you thought you know better.)

3. Loosely, you’ll fall.

The show was an utter bore, you’ve concluded. The allure of watching history made quickly died out when it pertains to dancing, something you’ve been watching people do with much more grace. It might’ve been much more interesting too, if the dull drums in your head invites itself out. But even when you step outside into open air outside the theater, it remains.

“Well, that certainly was… something.” Walking after you in a leisured pace with one hand behind his back, another going back and forth on brushing off his coat or adjusting his glasses, to anyone else, he looked completely normal. But you know him long enough. “I could’ve sworn it’s a musical show.”

Usually, it’s fairly hard to catch Alastor in a flustered state, facial or demeanour wise. You supposed years of practice couldn’t really stamp out personal discomfort. You would’ve felt bad, but you don’t have enough strength to bother.

“There is musical, alright,” you grumbled, a hand to your temple as you walk on without waiting for him, “I’d say it’s too much even.”

Obediently, silently, Alastor traces your footstep as you seethe to yourself. You were supposed to be back in bed and sleep away this headache and your free day at this hour. It’s a shame you just can’t help from talking back to your mom and chased yourself out of the house, onto the street, and right into his games.

You wish you could rub those kissing scenes into his face and mocked his offbeat timid nature and tell him to go shove it. For once, the mere thought of intimacy itself reminds you of that night and forced you to think about how Alastor always stands just a bit too close to you, always just behind you. It takes everything in you to not scratch at your wrist and tears your skin open, so you opted for patience and sympathy, no matter how much the image haunted your eyelids said otherwise.

Before you know it, the voices and the hollers and bumping shoulders traded itself for a single bell chiming, then hushed murmurs and echoing clinks of porcelains and glasses filled the space. You invited yourself to a small spot off in the corner with a lone seat and hunched over with your left hand over your face, while Alastor comes up to the counter. When he came back, he pulls another chair from the table right next to yours and all but covered you from everyone else’s sight. You stare at him in between the webs of your fingers while Alastor rest his chin in his right hand and hums all softly at you.

“You should’ve told me it’s still there, dear. I wouldn’t have bother dragging you out.” His free hand brush against yours in a gesture you can blindly guess as benign and kind. Unlike the Alastor from this morning, unlike him in the theater. Unlike Alastor from the broadcast and unlike the man holding onto you that night. You’ve seen this so many times before in so many people, it’s just make-believe for adults and you’ve already seen this in him. You thought you have, anyway, so you take your hand away from him and look at the approaching waitress. It must’ve been a trick of the light, the way his eyes grows just a bit darker. But you still think hard about what you would’ve said back then.

“I need to get out anyway, better here than there right now.” You would’ve been fine with the idea of going back in, but by the time you do, Alastor was standing in front of you, and you would rather let him think whatever he wants than to pissed him off even further somehow.

“Better with me~” When push comes to shove, he is a bitter man with a silver tongue, you’ve seen him pour drinks onto people and getting away scot-free. It’s always funny to everyone else in the group, until they’re at the direct end of his bitter temper.

Alastor have never even so much as raising his voice at you in anger, but you also thought he would never kill anyone, so you refuse to take any chances. As long as you stay cordial and don’t step past your line, Alastor won’t ever have a reason to. So long as you keep to your leash, he’ll be pleasant and let you go home soon. It leave a nasty taste on your tongue, how you know exactly what to do with him.

“Whatever you say, Alastor.” Gently nursing your headache, you sits a bit straighter. You really couldn’t tell what’s worse, the oddly plastic smell of the café, or the light from the bulbs burning your retinas. “You never told me why we’re out here in the first place.”

Clapping his hand together, he grins. “Oh, yes! Terribly sorry my dear, I figured we shouldn’t talk about it over the party line. Who knows what else is lurking, yeah?” you stay seated despite your instinct telling you to run. You know this was coming anyway, “See, we didn’t get to celebrate the other day. You got so sick, after all-”

He kept on talking, seemingly perfectly fine with you tuning him out. Even if he’s not fine with it, he can’t do anything to stop the almost freakish way statics filled your head and washes your entire body in a cold and numbing wave of sweat, electrics ran through your head while you grips your hair. And it’s almost like he knows what’s going through you, because he wiped away a drop of sweat running from your forehead with a knowing smile.

“Be careful now, if you get sick, I’ll have to take care of you.”

“As if you can take a step into my house.” As if she’s ever going to let him take a single step inside after today. But he kept that irritating look on him, if only the thought of tearing it off his face doesn’t hurt you so badly.

“Who said it’ll be at your house~”

His chuckle right after shuts you up. Right, you forgot. Of course you did. He have a lodge somewhere near a bayou. You weren’t sure whether Alastor meant it as a tease or a threat, you don’t really want to think about it. So you forced a laugh when he grows just a tad silent. Tilting his head, he looked at you with something you couldn’t tell, and like aways, he switch topics without a bat of an eye while you sat there with sweats running down your back in the middle of winter.

You reach for your cup and bring it to your lips without bothering to know what’s in it, trying to follow along while Alastor rattled off a to-do list he made without your consent for today’s hangout. A visit to a confectionary shop, a trip to the tailor, quick stop at a small dinner he discovered recently and, if there’s still time, he can take you to your book shop. As your vision blurred for a second, the bitter taste of coffee hit your tongue, and it took everything in you to bite back a swear and to hold your mask of politeness. Accidentally flitting your eyes up, you catch him smiles. But it isn’t the kind of smile friend gives to one another, it isn’t the type where two people love and care for each other. So you keep your gaze low and keep drinking the coffee he ordered, at least they do a decent enough job at taking your mind off of John.

(somehow, it felt so familiar, it wasn’t until the moment you crawl back into your warm bed after a cold dinner that it hit you. it wasn’t against your ear this time, but it was the same smile. you swallowed the acid in your throat and thought about how many people saw it just before they lay six-feet under.)

4. And when you finally fall,

John wasn’t that much of an asshole, but he lives like he’s the most wretched man in all of Louisiana. A shadow of a person, beyond that of a ghost. Alastor told you that the only reason anyone ever stuck around is because John have more money than anyone could ever understand, and as long as you can withstand the awkward silent and the sneers, you can count your worries for the night’s drinks goodbye.

Coming from a long and well-known line of gifted artist, John was set for life, even with his less-than-responsible lifestyle. His great grandfather wrote plays, his grandfather paint, his father plays the piano and John drink himself blind. He stop touching anything that even insinuate the idea of creating art on his twenty birthday. Ever since, he wanders the night, going from place to place to emptied his family’s wealth into pretty floozies and drink away his own shame.

With an eerily out of place grin, just close enough to his normal happy demeanour to count, just a bit too wide to be normal, Alastor show you off to John like an exotic pet while his friends already dash off to dance.

“Oh! And how could I forget, this one might not be able to play it, but they have a fantastic taste in music!” then, he turns to you with a friendly hand on your shoulder and a sympathetic look, “If only you ever have the means to pick it up, you’ll be the talk of the town for sure!””

“Surely.” John reply with an odd laugh and look you up and down, suddenly the idea of sitting back with him and watching the others felt just a bit too much for you. But you only brushed their comment off with a wave of your hand. Acting like you didn’t pick up on how John down his drink with just a bit more fervour and Alastor smiles breached the border of normalcy before he pats your back gently, as if encouraging a shy dog to socialize, before inviting himself out and leaving you alone with a man you’re not sure was all there.

You tell yourself you just won’t go with Alastor to his night parties next time, but you pick up the phone every time. And every night you have to sit right by John’s side in complete silent when everyone spreads across the bar.

At first, it was somewhat scary and unpleasant. Then, it was awkward and uncomfortable. Every time you sit right next to him, he would scoff and chuff at you under his breath. Refusing to ever talk or look at you. Unless it was time to leave, John will never do anything more than call for a drink and then sip on it until he needs another one. Every time Alastor came to check up on you, he would smile at you sweetly and make a jab or two at John. You figured by now it’s a show of sort to him, but sometimes you still make a small effort to shut Alastor up and direct him back to whatever he was doing before. It became your new normal for half a year at least.

And then one night, completely worn out and tired with the day and the loud jazz inside a loud room with lousy lights and lousy companion, you stand up without a word to anyone and went out the back door. Outside in the cold air of October, you huddled by a wall inside the back-alley and pulled your knees to your chest. Staring at your hands, you can only sigh and ruffled your hair, digging the palm of your hand into the base of your skulls and wishing you can break it open.

“If you’re so tired, then why not haul yourself back home?”

Jumping up with a yelp, you clutched at your heart, completely missing the door creaking open the first time. You forgot how John even sounded like for a minute, voice low and gruff, completely contrasting everyone else in the group.

“…” halfway peeking through the door and staring impassively, you wondered why he even bother when he seems so done with you. Words right on the tip of your tongue, you him a passing glance, debating whether this worth an excuse out of your pocket. He cut you off before you even begin to open your mouth.

“What? You’re deaf now?” John shouldered the door and step outside fully, standing in front of you.

“…And if I am?” You frown, this feels too much like being scolded. At least his voice is kinder to your ears . “Better off if you are.” He chuckled, “…So?” You would be upset, but you’re too tired and he’s not leaving you alone, so you shrugs your shoulder apathetically.

“Horrible day at work, fight with my mom, then got dragged out here again.”

“Heh, figured.” You glare up at him, he raises his hands up in defence, whiskey with a single ice cube in its glass clinking as he does so, “You seems miserable whenever the lot isn’t around to see.”

You want to spat at him, what would he know about you? But you know he’s right. It really does feel miserable, going all the way out here just to sit and having nothing to do. So you dropped your head into your palm and groan.

“Ugh-…Is it that obvious?”

He cackle, you take it as a yes and sink your head a bit lower at the sound.

“Why not just—not come?” taking a sip from his whiskey, he sat next to you without invitation, “You can just say no to him, y’know.”

“As if I haven’t tried.” You grumbled, but stop when he raised a brow at you, motion for you to keep on. A bit clueless, you shrugs again, “What? You know him for longer than me. You should know that.”

John looks at you as if you’re stupid, and you’re beginning to think you are. Pointing a finger at you, he asked you about your job. Then with a nod, he stated outright.

“But you don’t do anything for him.”

You sputtered, the irony of a drunkard basically calling you useless and being right about it doesn’t escape you at all.

“What does that have to do with anything? He’s a persistent guy, that’s it.”

“That bastard doesn’t bother hanging around anything that isn’t useful. He’s not that type of guy.”

“Then what type of guy is he?” you ask. He looks at you, licked the top row of his teeth, then heave a heavy sigh.

Dowing the rest of his whiskey, John stand up and offers you a hand. You hesitate before slowly taking hold of it and nearly fell over when he pulled you up. He mumbled a half-hearted sorry with a look.

“Not whatever you’re thinking of him, that’s for sure,” he drag you inside by the shoulder, snickering when you try to keep up and failing miserably before slowing down for you, “Now common, I need another drink.”

It’s all John ever told you about Alastor, it’s all you ever need, but you never listen.

John didn’t change fully after that night, but he still change somewhat. The John that was so drained and empty was still there, but he sits up a bit straighter, as if managed to confirmed whatever else he have in his head. For three months, you two never talked about what happened in the back alley, nor do you talk at all. He still down enough drink to kill an elephant and lost his balance to the point someone needs to take him home. But he nodded his head whenever he’s not tipsy enough that the ceiling spins like a globe and you catches eyes, and sitting beside him felt a bit less draining and off-putting.

You told Alastor about it later, the conversation you two have in the back alley, because of course you do, telling everything to your good friend. Alastor would then look over whenever John’s acting friendlier to you, because of course he does, and joked about it. You saved him five years of his life, he laugh. You laugh along because his tone seems just a bit off. You sometimes think about who Alastor is, whenever you have a moment to sit back and contemplates everything between you two. But not for long, because like clockwork, Alastor would pull you away to do whatever he wants for the day, and like always, you would follow along with little to no complains.

Sometime before John went “missing”, you break the thinning layer of ice between you two and tell him out of the blue that you never actually touch an instrument in your life, but you wished you have the chance to. You thought he would’ve laugh at you, but he sat through your recount of younger you being enthralled by a street musician, seeing it as a form of liberty you can only hope to capture through any other art you made. He asked why, you said there was no space in your life for making music. Not then, not now. He asked if it’s ever a regret, you stay silent.

You asked him to play you something, he huff a laugh behind his glass, but shut up when you didn’t laugh along. A false police alarm got the place empty enough for your group early that night, and the owner was desperate enough for extra cash, enough for him to mousey up and play a song you remember by heart. He played really well, you told him. His playing is the bare minimum, it lacks the souls his father have, he sneers at you. He doesn’t need to have a soul in it, just get used to being mediocre while having fun instead, you reply, leaning against the piano and staring at the group chatting away from you two. He didn’t bother with a counter, but he kept playing, this time it’s a melody you’ve never heard before. You saw Alastor turning his head to you two, but you pay him no mind and turn back to John. He looked so calm playing something like this.

John trips over his fingers and curses a lot, you tell him to keep playing. Until the song’s finished and you left standing in silence for just a bit, waiting for the other to say something. Turning the word over in your mouth, you’re a bit speechless, like you’re face-to-face with a kindred soul. But there’s no real comfort in telling a drowning man he can breathe, so you say his melody felt like home.

Worn beyond his age and exhausted in a way that’s so out of place for someone who have the world in his hand, his smile was genuine, facing towards you, like an old friend and a warm meal. The bar dives and the social circles Alastor loved pulling you along have always made you feel so out of place. Their grin’s too perfect and their voices too pleasant, all with an oddly rotten attitude. It’s like watching a picture show, it’s not how people genuinely act, it’s the semblance of one.

Maybe that’s why you and John never got along too well, he was too busy hiding his face behind glasses of gin and whiskeys, you’re too busy hiding in Alastor shadows. But you both never play along, and you both never faced each other fully before that night. You hope John never have that realization, the fact you’ve never faced him at all.

Then before you knew it, his face to the ground, all red, turned from you. That’s all you knew about John Holloway, that’s all he ever get to tells you.

(deep inside, you want to say that it wasn’t your fault. but the difference between getting swept along with life and standing in a back alley with blood on your hands is that somewhere in your empty head, you did register his scream. there’s a reason you can’t see his face and there’s a reason the rock was in your red hand, sitting in your red palm.)

5. so far down, you won’t know the way home

The forest floor was red, by the time you realized it.

It wasn’t by your hand, but it’s enough for you to step back and breathe. It always so odd to you, just how easy it really is to see in the dark, even when the moon hides away behind strips of clouds. In the dark, at the dead of night, your eyes should’ve been blind to the red that’s bleeding all over, but it never does. It took you a second to remember what you’re supposed to be looking at, and you turn the light towards the main figure, standing so proudly in the middle of this. In through nose, out the mouth. Don’t focus on the thing below, look at him and smile. He smiles back, genuine joy stiches itself on every corner of his face. If only this flashlight is weaker.

“Sorry darlin’. This one have more fight in him than I thought he would,” he strides towards you, the familiar metallic stench overwhelms your senses when his red hand came up to tuck a strand of loose hair behind your ear, “Good thing we got it done before he find his way out, huh?”

Good thing he got it done at all, you thought. You can only bother to hide your exhaustion with a mute nod and a grim grin. Knowing exactly how this will plays out again, you remind yourself to be ready. Alastor laughs and pat your cheek affectionately before pulling you by your hand towards the corpse quickly growing cold amongst the grass. As he does, you try to ignore the echoing in your eardrums.

It was gut wrenching at first. The panting, the gasping, frantic steps that echoes through the empty woods, devoid of bird calls, devoid of life. Just a hound, chasing its prey, and a vulture perched on a tree waiting, watching. The choked exhale when they fall, eventually tired out and tripped over themselves or getting a bullet to the thigh. The way they all looked so confused, then they bargain, then they get mad and calls him every name under the sun before shutting up and look at him in the eye. You weren’t sure just how he looked to them, but perversely, you’re glad you never get to see it.

They scream and yell and beg for someone to please come and save them until they can’t anymore, but it felt like they never stop at all.

“Come here.”

He sits you down by the body, open and ready, still holding onto your wrist while you fight every bone in your body to keep your hand still and keep your foot nailed down. His face, flushed with excitement and sweat running down his forehead as he rattled on about how soon, you’ll have enough guts to do this with him instead of only ever following after and picking up the scraps.

“Remember that feeling? Remember the rush?” lifting your clenching fist up to his lips, he smiles and chases your gaze, you stare back, “Etch it into your brain, don’t ever forget it.”

With that, he plunges your fist into the open cavern of flesh and red and it feels so incredibly blasphemous and wrong. While Alastor knitted his fingers atop yours and guide your hand through the process, you feel your senses grows fuzzy around the edge. Half of you wish that headache didn’t die after the 3rd time, at least then you have something else to focus on other than the sopping wet red mush slipping in and out between your frozen fingers. The idea that someone’s inside would immediately cool off after their death is a farce to you, their warmth still so tangible and so fragile it takes everything in you to stop the burning acid from bursting in your throat. He told you on your fifth time that if you vomit on the body, he’ll have you cleaning it with him, sounding just a tad bit considerate, as if the idea of forcing you into doing something you dislike hurts him.

It's almost too much to think about, how you’re becoming something so different, something that’s just enough to his liking, to the point where all you have left are instincts and the alarms in your head. It felt like years ago when your weekdays are filled with nothing but sitting inside your cozy home and looking out the window, hoping one day you’ll be able to experience that high life and being cared for by someone who love you with everything they have, even if it’s the worst experience of your life. It’s almost like decades ago when your thoughtcrimes are no more than passerby on a long day and your smile is a sham but it’s ok because everyone bought into it and you do too. Now you spent your days looking behind your shoulders for excuses while pinprick runs up your neck, waiting for the day you’ll be buried with the people he hate.

You hope when, not if, you do have to, you’ll manage to come up with an excuse to mom for the body in that alley way. You clenched your fist, only the red squelching and spongy inside of a man you barely know respond.

(the hound stare up at the vulture and leave with a red maw, it watches the vulture from the shadow of the trees. the vulture learned to ignore the hound and feast away at leftovers.)

6. I hope you’ll call out for my name.

Unconsciously, you tap your index finger to a rhythm a man showed you some years ago. One you called beautiful, and one that made him smile. Like always, your weary and sunken eye catches red painting your left hand, but you only sigh and return to penning out your letter. A ringing echoes throughout your bleak and empty house, but no voice call out for you. There’s no point in picking up, you simply let the call die on its own. If it’s him, he’ll crawl his way to the front door with or without that call either way.

When the noise abruptly ended and didn’t pick up again, you put down your pen and hold the letter in hands that never lost its stain. Staring down at the words you’ve painstakingly poured over since her funeral, you crumbled the page and held your head. Over and over again, you write and write, hoping that some way, somehow, something can change.

But like always, nothing is enough, so you throw the paper into the small bin next to your seat, holding back the urge to throw everything else on the table with it too; your mom raise a murderer, not an ill-manner rodent. There’s no longer a point in lamenting things that can never be change in your lifetime. You can do this tomorrow, or the next day, or the day next to that, you’re considering how to go out still. As long as he’s not here, that is. You check the clock, eleven and a half, you have around fifteen minutes before he’s here.

Alastor was always suffocating, you thought, dragging yourself to a wardrobe that haven’t felt familiar for more than half a year now. Nosy and meddlesome, it’s something you picked up on even when you were a doe-eye little rat running across the night without realizing you were walking with a hunting hound, but you always thought it was simply how Alastor cares about people. Your mom was right, you were so naïve about him, thinking he can care for anyone else aside from his mother and himself.

He was always suffocating, but ever since the funeral, he all but latch onto you.

The pure black outfit he gave you was something you would wear to mom’s funeral. But coming from him, it makes you feel like a stranger was staring back from the mirror’s view, out of your own skin. So you boxed it and hid it under the sofa after the whole thing.

And of course, Alastor knows this. So whenever he browse through your wardrobe on his own accord, he would always make sure to make a comment about how these plain and boring clothes never look right on you with a good-nature smile. You no longer have the mind to bother with a reply, so you let him do whatever he wants. As long as he get his digs in, you get your peace of mind. The things in here means the world to you, but what use is there to defend something you’ll soon have no use for.

Clicking your tongue, you pulled out something that looks decent for the street and locked the door to your room. You fixed your clothes until it fits right on you and sat on your bed, wondering if you should just stay inside and make him take some couple extra steps. But decidedly, being in your own room with him will always be so much more unnerving of an experience rather than just letting him shuffling through your stuff on his own. So, the door to your room open with a click, and you step out into long familiar but distant hallways. You wish you can unlearn the concept of loving something that isn’t tangible anymore. It’ll make the hallways a bit brighter.

Like usual, you peek into the empty, almost sterile kitchen and walk up to her armchair. After confirming that you’re alone today also, you found yourself back on the sofa with nothing else to do, simply waiting for Alastor. Checking the time again, it’s exactly mid-day now, so his mother must’ve needed help with something, you’ll have to wait for a bit. Gulping down the uncomfortable heavy weight that settled over your heart since a year and a half ago, refusing to ever die, you lie down and close your eyes.

A year, a half, two week and three days, it’s really a wonder how you work. Maybe that’s what Alastor sees in you, a walking list of contradictions, or maybe this is how everyone works, and you were just cruelly kept out of the loop. Even though you never bother to consider her in your own life, ever since a year and a half ago, you wake up staring at the ceiling with bleary eyes wondering what’s she’s doing every day and why you can’t hear her. Then, remembering that she won’t be doing anything from now on, you get up and make yourself breakfast. Sometimes you would still hear someone calling for you, along with the constant ringing from the phone, but then one day, you forgot how she sounded like, so you starts to ignore the calls.

The day you realized you can no longer hear her voice, calling out to you from the door to your house, you’d tried to trace her footstep by opening her cookbook and making the dish she love. One moment, you were staring down into the pages, the next, you’re seated at the counter, surrounded by Alastor’s companions. You’d call for a whiskey. Everyone find it absolutely hilarious and jokes about your new life while you held the glass in your hand and stare down into the amber-colour liquid. Just as Alastor laugh and reach out for your hand to take it away, talking about how you simply won’t be able to handle the aftermath, you knock your head back and the glass ran clear in one gulp. His friends all cheered for you and shoving another glass into your hand, assuring you’ll get used to this soon, but you don’t know how much you can trust them.

Quite frankly, the whiskey was beyond repulsive. As if you just swallowed flaming charcoal, your throat burns so badly, it’s stopping you from forming a single coherent sentence. You can’t stop yourself from tearing up over it, either, vision blurred and unsteady while a beginning of a headache started creeping up on you, so you down whatever’s in your hand again in the hope of becoming familiar with it fast enough to never have to think twice about it. Before a pretty dame in the group can pass you a third drink, you were hauled up by the shoulder and drag out the door, Alastor hissing a goodbye to the group through his teeth.

Storming off ahead and ranting about how utterly irresponsible you are while you stumbled behind him like a fawn, Alastor would slow down and stare when he can’t hear your soft footstep anymore. You remember walking by a closed tailor shop and flopping yourself down, back against the glass window and weeping without a word. He walked back and sit next to you after a while. You know he’s waiting for you to say something on your own, but you only shrink into yourself. You don’t know what was worse in that moment, the burning in your throat, the head splitting ache slowly brewing or the fact you never know your mother favorite food. How are you supposed to grief someone you don’t know anymore?

In the midst of it all is Alastor, who seemingly lost all of his previous anger. You’ve seen a lot of him over the years, you know he sees all of you. But this is the first time you break down without a word or a reason and you wondered if he feels just as lost and confused as you are. It as if he doesn’t know what to do with you once you actually breaks in a way that doesn’t serve his vision of you, in a way he never have to fix before.

“…Tough day?” with an oddly shy tone, he nudge you from the side, “Didn’t know you’re this much of a sad drunk, honey. Guess I was right to keep you off the bottle after all.” He chuckled, then trail off when you stay silent and stare off into nothing.

It must’ve been no more than ten minutes, but it felt like years before you gave up and open your mouth, voice breaking and quiet. “He made it look so easy.”

“He? Michael?”

He perks up the moment you speak, mouthing off the names of all his associates in hope of finding the one that raises your ire. You would’ve found him endearing if things were different, but you cut him off.

“John,” Then as if it’s not enough, as if Alastor never remembers anyone else, you try to keep your voice even while rubbing your eyes “John Holloway. He made drinking look so easy.” Even without looking, you can see his lips pulled into a taut line.

“Ah, right, John Holloway,” rolling his eyes and shuffling that much closer to you and pulling out his handkerchief, he sneers, holding your wrist still while wiping your face, “No doubt he does. If you didn’t take him out, that chump would’ve drink himself to Hell on his own.”

“At least then he gets to pick his own way out…” You huff.

“It’s been years, honey!” done with cleaning you up, he stuff the handkerchief in his left pocket, “I can’t believe you’re still hung up on him!”

With every word out of his mouth, Alastor’s fake and chipper accent gets just a bit firmer, as if finally knowing what to do. Sitting up straight and pulling his glasses off, he wiped it on his vest and ask dismissively.

“When did he die again? Was it 1928?”

“1929,” you breathe and lean your head against the glass, “Remember that musical you called innovative and new?”

“If only I can forget.” He blanch at the thought of it, you smile wistfully.

“The music was nice, it’ll be nice to watch it again.” From the corner of your eyes, you catches his. You hated how he look so content with this.

“That makes one of us…”

After that, a blanket of silence fell onto you two. With a headache in full swing, you recalled asking whether he ever remembers how they look. Chuckling, he only leans close until your nose almost touch and say that he does. You ask if he’ll ever remember you, he froze and stare into your eyes with an almost incomprehensible look. Standing up, he brushes himself from dust and give you a hand, you take it.

Before you two departed in front of a door that no longer lead to a home, he tells you in an almost too quiet voice that he hope he never have to remember you. You hate his everything in that moment. From how his stands was just a tad bit different from his usual tall and confident poised self to the way he looks so abnormal with the corner of his lips dipped down. You hate how you’ve grown fond of his smile, so you turn and closed the door with a good night.

In the morning, sounding like you just dragged yourself from hell back up, you asked him for a clipped picture from the old newspaper and leave it under your pillow. And ever since, you’ve been rewriting the same letter. To everyone that you ever have a hand on, and to John and your mom. But specifically to John and mom.

John was a good man. It’s a shame he drank too much and care too much in one night. It’s a bigger shame that you can’t keep your thoughtcrime as exactly that, a thoughtcrime. He was right, too. You never knew the man you called Alastor, you don’t think you’ll ever do and you’re happy for it. You only ever find the cowardice to take another man’s life with his help, and you’ll only ever find yourself in more trap than being free from it.

You still bought yarns and cookbooks that you think your mother would’ve love. You come back with enough groceries for two people and the kitchen table are always set for two. You check every day in the kitchen for her still. You still crept up behind the armchair just in case she’s sleeping. Her red slippers still sat patiently just in front of her door. You know she never will be there, but it’s a nice thought. And since mom won’t ever going to be there again, you’ll take a nap. Alastor can have fun dealing with half-asleep you once he’s here.

(you’re woken up by the sounds from your kitchen, the smell familiar. as if finally escaping a bad nightmare, you sprang up on your feet and peek in like a child. Alastor stood at the stove, smiling at you. for the first time in years, his smile didn’t reach his eyes.)

7. we’re going to hell together, after all.

Left, right, right, left.

The silent always puts you on edge, as if there’s something out here, biding for it’s time. If only it’s a beast you can take down with a shotgun. You try to recall the forest trail that you know is somewhere out here as shadows of trees covered you from the moon. But you know Alastor, and you know for a fact that if he wanted to, he could herd you out of New Orleans with just a couple of words and a smile. So you uselessly try to focus past the thundering in your ears, you can’t hear a trace of him anymore. So on the count of three…

Throwing yourself to the right, you almost slammed into a tree as a bullet lodge into the trunk of another just right ahead. A soft chuckle rang out from behind, you kept running. Left hand clutching your right wrist, a sob bubbling up from your aching throat, it’s between running like this and letting the hand ram itself into whatever’s there in the forest. Even if you’re blessed with the chance to get out of this alive, you’ll never have use for your right hand ever again. Bones doesn’t heal right when they sit past five days, but you’re not sure you can even hold a pen with a mangled thumb and a pinkie barely hanging on. You lost a bit of your will at that, but the silence of the woods draws you from your thought. You want to die by your own hands.

Right, left, right.

But you know you won’t be able to. The moment you let him take you here, you already lost. Alastor knows the woods better than you. He knows hunting better than you. And you’re sure he knows he can outrun you at any time. You refuse to dwell on the meaning of it and push your left hand against a tree.

Another shot rang out, this time hurling right by your head and nicked the tip of your right ear and went into the night. You don’t know where it goes, but you staggered just a bit and nearly launch yourself forward when a small bush snatches the end of your clothes.

“Sorry honey!” his voice gets further and further away while he stand still and yell out to you with a casual tone, as casual as he can keep it, “Frayed nerves and all~” he laughs, the rest of his words intelligible, and then suddenly, the forest went silent again. You can’t afford to stop and think anything through, so you push on ahead.

When you’re stuck with only the breaking and crushing of leaves under foot and your own winded breaths filling your ears, you cursed. Your throat starch, your lungs burns. With every step you take, your visions blackened around the edge and breathing alone hurts so horribly. It’s a blessing you even lasted for this long, you never have to chase anyone like he did. You wishes you burn that letter instead of dropping it in the bin, you wish you burn that house down instead of living with a ghost you can’t see. You wish you burn him. You know something was off with him that day, Alastor couldn’t shut up to save his life ever since he gets the key to the house. But he didn’t so much as uttered a word to you while staring down at the cutting board, but you didn’t care enough to ask him. Biting back a curse when a stinging pain shot up from your ankle, you feel your head spin as a short and pained chuckle escape your dry lips, he was thinking about how he wants you dead, surely.

Left, left? Right. L-

You can’t help but cry out the moment the bullet sink into your right upper thigh and sent you down. You crashed sideway onto the forest floor and black out for just half a second when a rock dig into your left temple. Clutching at your thigh with a broken hand, your laugh sounds unfamiliar to your own ears, almost choking as it drags nails and spikes through your throat, like that of an animal, like you’re an animal. The loss of oxygen is getting to you, the irony doesn’t escape you.

While your body winds down and the pain and exhaustion settles in, you go into the most horrible aftermath you’ve ever have to endure. Your head pulsating with every beat of your heart and your limbs grew heavy and cold. Vividly, you pick up on leaves breaking and sticks crushed under heavy footstep and you abandoned all sort of dignity to scrambled and try to drag yourself away from him, fingernails dug into dirt and grass to pull your lead like body away. But another clink, another shot hit your lower torso from behind as your choke scream got swallowed up by the earth, left to clutch at your wounds with face buried into the earth and tears streaming from your eyes.

“Oh honey, why so sad?” a heel sit on your bullet wound, dancing in circle before he slowly press his whole weight onto it. Your suffocating wail isn’t enough to amused him, but he still laugh with such gentleness in his tone. “I thought this is what you want? Weren’t you writing to dear old John about leaving? Well, here it is!”

The relief he granted you last for all but half a second before he bring his foot down. Stinging, numbing pain spread through your entire body and you’re left gasping for air while he held your shoulder and set you to face him. Hunching over your shivering body with a hand on your face, he smiles. Or at least you think he is, there’s not a point trying to make out a single thing over the agonizing pain that’s making a home in your body. You wanted so badly to just black out and die right here, you pretty sure you did black out at some point, but Alastor slap your cheek lightly and calls your name with almost a whine to his tone. The warmth from his hand stand out amongst the incomprehensible burning of your flesh and the blood rushing through your head, why are you here again?

“Oh come on, don’t leave me hanging like this. You know I hate it when you ignore me.”

You’re not, you want to scream. If there’s anything you can ever say for him to get off of you and leave you alone, you would. You don’t know if it’s the blood lost or the pain getting to you, but your already waning visions of him blurs beyond recognition while he coos at you.

“I guess it really do hurts that badly?” he laughs, “One question solves then!”

At the mention of it, your blood ran cold and the forest felt just a bit more freezing than it already was. Right, he did say something about John, didn’t he? Almost like it was yesterday, when you’re sitting alone in your room at eleven in the morning. Although barely able to remember the exact wording of every letter, you know by heart the concepts and questions in all the letters you’ve written and rephrased a thousand times and over. But the question wasn’t in that one, it was at least several drafts before it, dropped because it was too presumptuous to ask your first and closest victim such a horribly him question. All of it, sitting neatly in the bin right by your writing desk. All of it, he could’ve read in the hours it took you to wake up.

You want to stick to what’s left of you and die raising your head just a bit higher than when you live by not letting him hear a word out of you, either the fact your throat still hurts so badly just swallowing or the fact you know it’s all but useless talking now that’s keeping you. But from the corner of your eye, you saw his right, red hand gripping tightly onto something that you can’t properly make out, and then you remember the reason you never anticipated any of this occurring within your lifetime.

“Th-the letters…” you groaned, “it’s not-you-“

Right, the reason you were caught off guard by him breaking your fingers while pinning you to his car, the reason you couldn’t even begin to make head from tail when he pressed you for the name of whoever it was that makes you do this. The letters that is, for all its intended purposes, your suicide note.

“Yes, yes,” with a draws to his voice, as if he’s tired of this, “Your lovely letters, to dear old ma and John. We both know I read all about them.”

“No-“ you cough, it’s hurts just to breathe, “I wasn’t going to- tell them-“

“Oh, that. I know.”

For just a moment, you’re void of anything. All the pain and the blistering heat and the cold night air leave your body for just a second and left you with nothing at his words. You’re aware of his every movement, even through the darkness of the night. Suddenly, everything is too much, too loud.

“I thought you’re smarter than this, love.” you can’t see him properly at all, but you can’t see him smiling and it scares you, “It never was just about the letters.”

“Then what-“

Shushing you, he leans down until your forehead nearly touched, you try to focus and find his eyes at this awkward angle but it only worsen the unbearable pounding in your head.

“This, is what you want,” he pauses, you can see the outline of his jaw shifting, like rolling words on his tongue. You want to call him a madman, but you don’t even know if this is him anymore. This isn’t the Alastor you know for years. He would’ve never talk to you without that stupid accent that’s everywhere on the radio. The Alastor you know doesn’t need to considers his words talking to anyone, always with an excuse on his sleeve. And that Alastor would never gotten so close, wouldn’t have sounded so personal. “You said you want to leave. To get to that ‘freedom’, right?”

He sounded so hurt, as if it’s him that’s being crushed under weight with bullets in him and two broken fingers, as if it’s not you writhing on the forest floor, as if he’s the one dying tonight.

“You can’t bear to live anymore, right? You can’t do this with me anymore, can you?” you’re painstakingly reminded of the fact he still have his right hand on you, casually moving it down to your neck while he raises his left. You aren’t sure why, but you still try to claw at the hand clasping gently around you. You think this happened before, but you weren’t sure where the idea came from, the loss of oxygen getting to you quicker than you thought it would. Somewhere in the back of your mind, your fingers, two broken and eight dirtied with dirt and your own blood, it lost the red that have been clinging onto you like a disease.

“Al-“ in that moment, your vision suddenly cleared, like a last-ditch attempt at life. The grip he have around you is like that of a snake, too. Coiling gently and kindly, with a thumb digging into your skin while the inners of your ears felt like bursting open.

“It’s alright, mon Chéri, I’ll help you. I always have, haven’t I?” he always have been helping you, but that was Alastor, your friend and the demon on your shoulder. Not the man that’s staring down at you with such a look and speaking to you with such tenderness and love you can’t begin to dissect.

Desperately, you stare up at the image of an unfamiliar man with voices you’ve never heard before. He smiles a smile so painful, as if losing his mind too, but you can’t tell who he is anymore. Your mom was right, John was right, you’re right, but none of it matters when you’re running out of breath and the rock in his left hand fits so well into his palm.

“I’ll come see you when I’m down there, wait for me.”

Your vision bloomed and blurred away. You stay awake for long enough to hear the first crack of skull, reverberating through your eardrums. You’d stay awake for the second hit, and the third. And you stay awake for just long enough to grow envy of John for never having to faced you that night.

(the hound leaps, sharp fangs breaking tough skin and tearing veins, the vulture, without a mind to think of god, only knows how to cries out.)

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