• 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 • Alastor x Reader

𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞.

Of course, you agreed; Alastor's mess being disposed of when he snapped his fingers. He was tired after the tousle with Gabriel and the impulsive thoughts that infected his mind. He inhaled shakily. Why was he like this? Why were they like this? Yes, he understood that he did something wrong. He understood that he messed up. He understood his mistakes. Yet they still provoked him into harm.

"Would it be alright if I used your shower? I need to clean up." His voice was soft against your ears, lacking the usual static that dripped from it. His outfit was most likely bloodied and tattered after the murder he had committed. "Yes, there's no need to ask. Just come to bed when you're finished, okay? You seem a little tired." A warm smile graced his lips, and he nodded his agreement, silently stepping into the bathroom.

He flicked the switch. The lights flickered to life, glaring at him, almost as if they knew what he did. That they, too, were angered with him. Mocking him. You deserve it. He wanted it to stop. Just for everything to go back to normal. At one point, he would have taken a great pleasure in the pain, but when the wounds burrowed so deep, it became unbearably painful. Zandor tried to stop him, more often than not, but he didn't manage.

His reflection was dour, heavy eye bags pooling like purple puddles beneath his crimson gaze. Tears were dried against his reddened cheeks and his hair stuck up wildly. There was dried and crusted blood on the right side of his lip from where Gabriel's knuckles had made contact. Two of his fingers grazed over the swollen, blue knob on his flesh. He shuddered in delight. That was the pain that brought him comfort. Just enough for it to hurt, but not enough sear his flesh.

He dragged a hand down his face, the hum-buzz of the white fluorescent lights suddenly seeming deafening to his sensitive ears. Alastor shrugged his coat off and threw it to the side. His gloves were pulled off and set on the counter beside the sink, the knobs of the shower being turned while a hand was held beneath the head to feel the water temperature. He drew it back after a short moment, steam rising like smoke from the scalding hot water.

"Alastor, you don't have to. What they say isn't true," Zandor reasoned lowly, but Alastor didn't listen and continued undressing himself, quickly stepping into the shower's glass casing with a few gentle clicks if his hoofed feet. The water sizzled against his back, almost immediately dotting his skin with a sickly red until his entire back was covered, the trail of fur leading from between his shoulder blades down to the small tail on his backside becoming soaked.

As much as he wanted to hiss and turn the heat down though, he just stood there silently, the steaming water soon feeling as if it were ice cold before returning to its boiling temperature. Silent tears welled in his eyes. Not from the pain but from what he did to deserve such a punishment. He was going to hurt her again.

Leaning up against the wall of the shower, he slid down to the floor and pulled his knees tightly to his chest. He remembered hiding like this in his room when he was young. The screams of his mother downstairs that he so desperately wished he could bring to a stop. He felt guilty everyday; though his mother told him not to be. Told him that he was only a child, that he shouldn't need to worry about her; but he still did.

He met Zandor for the first time when he was twelve while he was hiding under the bed. Instinctively, the primary initial thought that had come to his mind had been that this was the monster under the bed that so many children feared. This was the thing that would snatch your feet if you left them out of the covers at night. This was the thing that feasted on children who refused to go to sleep.

"Friend?" Those were the first words Zandor had spoken to him. Hazy and distorted. The red eyes that looked at him from the darkness of the area beneath his bed. That was all he had been able see. Naturally, Alastor had yelled and scurried out from the camped space, his hands grabbing the first thing they could (the lamp on his bedside table) and holding the object defensively in front of him.