"I never thought it would come to this."

The air is warm now, but not the kind of warm that makes you want to sink into a dark envelope made of that same warmth and fall asleep for a month. It was just plain old warm, nothing special.

"Me neither," you croaked.

In fact, you were quite uncomfortable. Not because of the temperature, though. Because of Alastor. And because of what had happened—because of what was still happening.

He had sent you away. He really had.

"I'm sorry."

Maybe you understood why he did. Maybe you knew, deep down, that Alastor wasn't being selfish at all—that he was only trying to save you. Maybe Dr. Goldberg was right; Alastor wasn't giving up on your love, he was giving in.

Maybe.

"You should be."

The arm did not detatch from your shoulders when you looked up. You blinked away your tears, then wiped the back of your wrists along your cheeks. Your eyes stung, even though they weren't dry. The sensation confused you, but you tried not to think about it. Thinking made your head hurt even worse than it already did.

"Let me take you home."

Alastor. The man—no, the demon—you had foolishly fallen in love with. The demon you had kissed, cuddled, and cried with—the demon you had poured your heart out to... the demon who had promised never to leave your side.

He made a promise, and he broke it.

Stop thinking about it, you told yourself. Pangs of misery were shooting through your body, and with each pang came another set of tears.

"Okay," you mumbled.

Alastor helped you to your feet.

Vaggie, Charlie and Angel Dust had already left. To where, you had no idea, but if you had to guess, you would probably say the hotel. It wasn't like you cared, though.

Alastor took his time walking you back to his cabin. Seeing the trees pass leisurely by as you walked on made you feel tired. It was all so familiar and mundane—almost nostalgic. The air felt dryer than usual, making the burning in your eyes worsen and causing a tightness to form in the back of your throat. It was irritating.

Alastor glanced down at you, an unsure look on his face, but you ignored it, keeping your eyes transfixed on the grass under foot.

After a few more minutes, you yawned and blinked hard. For some reason, you still felt tears pushing on the backs of your eyes, even though the worst of your emotional burst was over. It felt like a faucet had been turned on behind your eyes and couldn't be stopped.

Strangely enough, you didn't exactly mind. You were too sleepy to try and stop the steady trickle of frustrated and sad tears.

Just then, Alastor slid his arm around your waist and pulled you closer. Maybe he had noticed your crying, or maybe he just wanted to touch you. He didn't stop walking, and neither did you, but it felt strange to let him touch you. Weren't you mad at him? Or... were you just mad at yourself? Were you even mad at all?

You mentally cursed yourself for trying to think again.

With another yawn, you leaned into Alastor, wrapping your arms around your stomach. You wanted to fall asleep, right then and there.

Eventually, you got to Alastor's ginormous house, but rather than sitting down to talk to him about what happened, you went straight upstairs, stumbled into his bedroom, crawled onto the bed, and slid underneath his covers.

In no time at all, you were asleep.

The scalpel was still in your waistband.

☆

For a slow moment, you were in such a cozy state of mind that you actually smiled to yourself.

You were oblivious to where you were, what time it was, and what had happened as of recent. It was the blissful feeling that always came after waking up from a nap—the peaceful heedlessness.

Although it was nice, the quiet, surreal feeling of peace didn't last for very long. Once you had rubbed your eyes, yawned, and sat up, reality hit you hard.

As you pulled your fists away from your eyelids, you saw the room around you, and the crippling feeling of grief slammed into your chest like a hammer.

You groaned out loud and flopped back down on the bed. Maybe if you fell back asleep, you wouldn't wake up for another century.

Just then, the bedroom door opened. You didn't even bother to look up, because you already knew who it was. You could practically see his vivacious smile and hear his crackling laughter in your head.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Silence.

You stared at the ceiling, waiting for him to say something—anything, because you sure is hell weren't going to talk first.

"Are you awake?" Alastor finally asked, his voice gentle.

Rather than responding, you rolled over so that your back faced him.

He sighed, audibly.

Then he sat down on the foot of his bed, near your legs. As much as you wanted to, you didn't turn to look at him. You couldn't bear to see his face; you were scared of how you would react when you did.

Oh, how desperately you wanted to go back to sleep.

"I want to talk to you," he said. "I want to explain myself."

You balled up a handful of blanket within your hands and tucked it under your cheek. "Fine."

"Fine," he repeated slowly, like he was tasting the word. "Fine what?"

"Fine, I'll listen to your explanation."

He paused then. You let your eyes flutter shut, then imagined Lilith's face, for whatever reason.

"When I was alive, my father treated me like I was an object. He was... abusive, to say the least."

You bit your lip and clenched your eyelids harder together. Fucking emotions.

"My mom... died... when I was ten years old. Before then, she was just your average mother from the 1910's: a family woman who spent most of her time cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. She was very kind to me, mostly because I saw her so often. I never really saw my dad—he was always out working. We were nearing a pretty rough economic time, after all."

He paused then, and you opened your eyes. This was the first time he was talking about his past. You remembered the time at dinner when you had asked about his mom, then realized that you shouldn't have. That felt like so long ago... but why was he telling you his backstory now, of all times?

I thought you were going to explain yourself, you thought about saying, but you quickly denied the idea.

"But when I did see him, he was usually angrily drunk. Or just angry. Or just drunk. Either way, he was never kind, to me or my mother. And, eventually, my mom couldn't take it anymore."

He took a deep breath.

"She killed herself."

You bit the inside of your lower lip. The sodden, dreary drip in his words made your chest clench. He sounded so... heartbroken. He probably was.

"After that, I... well, let's just say that's when my life took a bitter turn for the worse. I killed my father, out of rage and sorrow, and I found that I enjoyed it. So I killed more people." He shifted on the bed. "I think I did all of it because I was angry with him. I thought that in some sick sort of way that I was getting revenge on him by killing the people around me."

You sat up and looked at him. He wasn't looking back at you, though. He was staring at the wall.

"My point is that... it wasn't exactly my fault that I went to hell. I mean, yes, it technically was, but if my father hadn't been the wretched beast that he was... maybe I could have made it to heaven."

"I'm sorry," you breathed.

He looked at you then. The weakest, saddest smile he had ever worn graced his features. "It's okay, my love."

For a moment, the two of you just gazed at eachother. There was nothing between you and Alastor but air, yet you felt like there was more. There was a connection; a shared string of emotion between both of your hearts.

Then he blinked, as if remembering something. Just like that, the string was cut. "Anyways, my point. What I'm trying to say is that I know it would be better for you to be in heaven. It's a better place up there. It's better for you to be up there, with all of the other angels and Purebloods, rather than down here with... with me."

"But that's the thing," you began. "It's not. When I was up there, I felt lost. And angry. For Christ's sake, I think I killed someone with a fucking scalpel!"

"You did what?"

"Nevermind that." You brushed the topic away. "It's just that... I didn't belong up there. They were so, I dunno, condescending, almost. It was like being the only peasant in a room of royals," you explained.

You didn't mention the little girl you saw. The striking image of her innocence was seared into your mind.

"You didn't know where you were sending me," you continued. "You said it yourself. All you've known is hell. What gave you the authority to make such a misinformed decision for me?"

Alastor didn't reply at first. He looked like he was thinking hard about something.

"I'm not sure," he said slowly. "But... I know that I made a mistake."

"Good," you replied quietly.

Then there was another chunk of silence, but it ended quickly, because you had more to say. "You promised me."

"I—"

"You promised me that you wouldn't leave me. You promised me that you wouldn't let me get put in that fucking psych-ward of a place!"

"My love—"

"You broke your god-damned promise! Why? Why would you do that? Zero amount of childhood trauma can explain why you let me feel so stranded and hurt and hated!"

You knew you had pushed it too far the second you stopped talking. Alastor looked hurt—no, more than that. He looked wounded, like you hadn't just stabbed him in the chest, but had stabbed him with a butcher's knife and twisted it all around.

But you didn't apologize. For some reason, you continued talking, even though your point had been made more than clear. "I thought you were dead! And the worst part is: you let me think it!"

Alastor pressed his lips together.

He shook his head.

"You don't understand."

"No, I understand," you hissed, "that you're a fucking asshole."

Why am I being so mean? you thought. What's happening to me?

He blinked.

"Maybe it would have been better if you stayed up there."

Your heart skipped a beat.

Then he stood up and vanished, right into thin air.

☆

[ oof. ]