The echoing sound of footsteps against the pavement is the only sound in the night as the chatter of celebration dies, the Radio Demon's dead air as abrasive as the static he so often transmitted to the trained ear. His shoes feel heavy, resisting his movement as he puts space between himself and the soft curves of the curse that had been set upon him. Instinct screams against intuition, filling his head with an unwelcome noise like thunder as blood pools beneath his skin, fighting against the stuttered pumping of his heart to gather where it is not welcome. Vision is blurred by his intoxication, twisting the lights of the hotel's distant glow into the wavering flicker of a candle on the water, calling him back to safety from his internal storm. Alastor curses his consumption, knowing too well that he'd overstepped his limit for liquor and lost himself in her once again. It was foolish, reckless even, to have let his guard down tonight; But how could one resist the feeling of home when it's presented to them?
Still, he should have known better; These things, this ailment was unpredictable by nature, and he should have had the foresight to take refuge earlier in the season now that he was afflicted by affections. It is all so clear in hindsight, unhindered by the rose-colored glow she cast over him. He should never have placed himself in such a position, should have never placed her in such a position, but he was a selfish man and hadn't thought beyond the pleasure of her presence.
Alastor growls as the sharp sting of brick meets the bare skin of his arms, pressing deeper into the grit of it as he drags them down, hoping to focus on something- Anything, other than her.
Her.
Why must he always think of her?
She, who continues to surprise him at every turn, she who speaks to him as if they were old friends and seems to look right through him, cutting through his cultivated exterior to see the truth of the man he is; Raw, bloodied, broken, she knows him in all ways except those that are carnal, -Not yet his subconscious screams against his better judgment- and yet she is unafraid. When had she molded herself to him so exquisitely? This scared, shaking rabbit that had fallen at his feet and foolishly taken his hand was no longer just that, for she had grown into a demon he would dare to call an equal if he did not think it might damage her chance at a life beyond. This had always been what she was beneath the tragedy that befell her he supposed, she'd just been allowed to properly blossom now that the rot of her mortality had been unceremoniously cut away. Alastor's heart clenches at the thought, the new feeling knocking the breath from his lungs as he finds purchase against darkened windows. Death was truly a fickle being, and while he could never quite understand how someone such as her had found herself among the leeches that lay below the earth, the gratitude he held toward the poor judgment of the holy towers stung with a selfishness he revels in. He could not take the blame for the beauty of her, but he couldn't help but hope that he'd had something to do with the creation of her conviction.
But the physicality of her- Well, only the Devil himself could be blamed for that. None other could curse such beauty with a brittle sense of self, and none other would dare to set such sin upon him. Alastor had never been a man of the flesh; That was, not until he'd been presented with the beauty of hers.
Lust was not a common word in Alastor's vocabulary; He'd never really understood the obsession with carnal desire or the philandering of his colleagues, never found the body of another particularly arousing. The nightlife of Louisiana had served as a welcome distraction from his loneliness before his heart had truly blackened, and thereafter each den of debauchery he entered acted only as either a hunting ground or a means of passing the time. The ailment that now afflicted him rarely reared its ugly head during his life, perhaps only as a sign of a healthy reproductive system in his youth, and had served only as a form of suffering thereafter, just another low blow from the higher powers to taunt him with fragility. As decades passed it became nothing more but an annoyance to him, a disruption to his afterlife that would send him scurrying to the edges of the ring to take out his more primal urges on the unsuspecting demons who dared to wander too close to the swamp, surrounded by the kinship of bellowing beasts and the sweet silence of solitude.
It was an interesting turn of events for a modern woman to be the one to tear apart his chastity, but he supposed it was a fitting downfall. She'd toppled his walls with the sweet sounds of her voice and that damned persistence that he so admired, seducing him to let down his guard. He would say he'd made a mistake, but that was an insult he dare not attribute to her. There was absolutely nothing to be mistaken about her, for it was all really quite simple; It seemed that he'd finally met his match.
Oh, what a match she was.
Their synchronicity didn't end with their shared wit and fondness for the color crimson, it extended into the forgotten tenderness of his soul and twisted into his eye for aesthetics. Her outlook never ceased to interest him, unburdened by the arrogant assumption that technology was far beyond him now as she weaved their conversations through the unyielding maze he'd laid out for her and found the heart of him, speaking about things that he'd long forgotten the glory of with a spark that ignited him once again. Where others scoffed at his sensibilities, she smiled and sought out greater knowledge, seeming to find no greater thrill than to hear of the most mundane aspects of his life before. Her modernity wasn't one of the many distasteful traits he found in young sinners, it was a fresh lens, a new take on the world he'd long grown tired of. She was an enigma, a puzzle he couldn't quite put together- And how badly he wanted to take her apart instead.
Alastor's groan echoed across the skyline, teeth gnashing as the images that had recently come to plague his senses rose to the surface once again. Distasteful, animalistic thoughts he cannot help but return to now that the feeling of her skin against his is fresh and the sound of her laughter echoes through his mind, ringing like a bell calling him home. He doesn't dare to offer himself an auditory distraction, worried that opening his frequencies would give way for the racing of his thoughts to speak themselves into truth; The silence would benefit him tonight, as there was only one way to find clarity at a time such as this.
The Radio Demon's head is lifted from his senseless moping by a rustle of movement a few yards ahead of him, and the drunkard stumbling towards the more populated city center finds himself as tonight's prey. There is no chase to satisfy the hunting instinct in him, the damned soul too far gone with drink to latch onto its flight instincts, and Alastor's claws sink in before it has a chance to scream. The flesh tears open like fresh bread, too easy to satisfy his tension, but it shall have to do for now. He recognizes, shortly, that the demon beneath him is a brute of a man with skin like wilting violets, and the color begs to be bled dry.
Her scent clung to him, filling his lungs with that sweetness that he'd begun to crave despite the sharp burn of it on his throat. Not even the foul smell of the carnage before him could overcome it, Alastor's claws ripping the demon's throat to ribbons in an attempt to wash his hands of her; It's no use, the metallic sting that fills the air serves only to remind him of how she had tasted on his tongue. She was a sweeter fruit than the rotten flesh before him; The essence of her had been warm against his lips, smelling of damp earth after summer rain and the bitterness of dark chocolate, and her blood was a far more brilliant shade of scarlet than the sickened purple sludge that poured onto the concrete and stained his trousers.
A static-laced growl slips from between his teeth, echoing off the high glass towers that loomed over the scene. He cursed how his stomach twisted at the thought of her, perched there on his countertop slick with her blood; It tormented his latest nights, Alastor unable to bring himself to think of what might have happened if he'd not been near and equally disgusted at how her fragility had thrilled him. It was not an odd occasion that such a scene would enthrall him, would push his blood to race beneath his skin and entice the beast that lay within, but this- Well, there had never been anything quite like it.
How pretty she looked painted in blood, but death to any who spoiled the canvas of her pale skin.
Alastor's lip curled in distaste as the scattered remains of the demon below him gave its last, rattling breath. It was a pathetic display, he thought. He'd barely just begun to pick the pig apart and it had already given into the release of death; Next time, Alastor would be more careful, he would take his time, for this was not enough to satisfy the primal ache still sitting heavily in his stomach. Removing his claws from the carcass with a wet squelch that laid his ears flat, The Radio Demon stood and took in the scene before him.
Pathetic, he thought, the words heaving from his chest as he smears blood across his knees, his palms heavy against them as he stands. He is tempted to taste it, hoping it would quench the thirst that drives him to salivate as his thoughts return to her once again, but he is unwilling to wash away what little flavor of her scent remained on his tongue.
That taste of her had lingered for days to come, mixed with the lingering sweetness of her lips against his. Their short attempt at affection had been so soft, so patient as her lips coaxed him from his shock to kiss her properly, her hands gentle against the thin skin on his pulse despite the harsh happenings of the evening. Her question replayed in his mind, so sweet yet so sure of what she wanted from him, and a sigh spills from Alastor's lips. -Such a brilliant, greedy little thing she was. Her body had trembled so deliciously beneath his touch, tempting him to press against her further, to blur their barriers until there was no ending or beginning to their bliss, no space for those that sought to take her from him to worm their way in-between ever again. They'd crossed the line they'd so carefully drawn between them long ago, and he couldn't bring himself to care. It was entirely against his nature as a dealmaker to let such a thing go, but he couldn't help the small pride he held for her ability to find the only loophole he'd not accounted for. The parameters of their decision had specified that he was free to touch her as he pleased and that she would only do the same with ample permission; How could she have ever expected that she'd so easily have been allowed to gift him with her touch, that her failure to ask in moments of tender tension would not unleash his ire upon him, for he explicitly sought out the pleasant warmth of her skin and the weight of her body against his?
Alastor's eyes fall to his hands, slick with that grotesque gray ichor that he'd spilled onto the street in his lust, and he cannot help but be disgusted at his clumsiness.
Such a tender thing could never be tainted by hands such as his, the listless wandering of her soul did not deserve such a punishment. Even through the sickness that coated his fingers, he could feel the weight of her against him, trembling in his grasp, the weight of her pressing back against his palm as her pulse raced to keep up with quickened breath. No silk could compare to the softness of her skin, nor satin, nor anything else as far as Alastor was concerned. Her flesh gave into his touch with an ease that tempted his thoughts, and in his current state, he was helpless to stop his restless mind. Would her porcelain crack beneath his grip if he dared to press deeper into her skin, or would they simply sink together, wrapping each other in that damned warmth she'd infected him with? Cool flesh boiled beneath the heat of his vest, begging to be released from the bindings of his attire- To feel her hands peel past his layers, to soothe over the knots in the muscle and press her own flesh to his- Sweat trickled down his spine as his shoulders rolled to release their tension, sinking into the patch of fur that spread up the small of his back and Alastor cringed at the feeling, his fingers biting into the flesh of his palm as he fought to leave the dangerous path he finds himself on -Perhaps she would bruise, like a peach. The thought tightened in his pelvis, pulling the muscles impossibly taught as that image pushed itself into his mind, muddled paintings of ivory beneath blackened fingers, her flushed skin holding onto the shape of him, his hands, his teeth-
Another rivet, this time rolling down the length of his pulse, was enough to draw him back into the den of sin that had begun to fester, his mind riddled with a desire he had no strength to resist. What had become of him? The madness in him had been driven to new heights, his core values twisted, his boundaries broken by this woman, this breathtaking, darling thing that had been set upon him. He wanted nothing more than to know the feeling of having her eternally,- to devour her whole and let the essence of her drip down his chin- if only just to ensure that none other could take her from him. He nearly ripped his collar apart as her touch took the place of the cool moisture on his skin, gentle fingers tracing the lines of his throat and chasing the hands that smeared blood down the front of his shirt.
For all the painful seasons of debauchery he'd been forced to endure, none of them compared to the sweet torment of her touch.
Alastor wished he could bring himself to hate her; It would be a far easier thing to understand. But, it was a useless thought, for no amount of irritation or complication she inserted into his quiet afterlife could darken his opinion of her. She was the exception to the rule; He, a man repulsed by the touch of any other, craved the warmth of her skin. It had taken time, of course, to come to terms with this; He had not been converted into a raving beast at first sight of her, it had been born from her brilliance and nurtured by her. Alastor had long since become accustomed to the cold sink of his stomach and the hot rush of bile that came hand in hand with human contact, pun intended, so the lack of such where she was involved had taken him by surprise.
What had followed in the wake of his intrigue was a beautiful, disastrous turn of events that he wasn't entirely sure she deserved to be the center of.
She deserved nothing less than an utterance of a word he'd never thought to say again, it's death as foreboding as the grave he'd last whispered it to. Its meaning may be changed now, its romanticism far removed from the familiar phrase he'd spoken before, but it was foreign to his tongue either way. In her presence he felt like nothing more than a man, a fumbling fool untrained in the ways of courtship; And she saw him as such, had captured his image with her keen eye and locked it away in her bedside table, an indecently romantic gesture that he'd found himself mirroring in her absence. Those damned photos of hers had made their way into his breast pocket to be cherished in the early morning light, tucked safely away into his desk drawer until he'd found an appropriate excuse to return them to her; The small spark that had brightened the dashing dusky rose of her eyes had been enough to fend off any resentment he had for the loss of them.
Those eyes, truly they must be to blame for all of this. Now they shone brighter than before without the shadow of her hair hiding them away, free to look out into the world with all their wide-eyed wonder. They were truly the window to her soul, sweetly earnest and devoted to drawing him in- Those damned eyes of hers that seemed to see the truth of him as plainly as she saw her flickering picture shows. They were the center of her growing power, the coveted jewel that had caught the eye of men more devious than he; How could one set of eyes hold so much power, yet express such emotion that he nearly crumbled at her gaze? In the small glimpse of her lively portrait those eyes had been as dark as his own, heavy with a profound sadness that he knew all too well yet glistening with a yearning for something more she was not sure she could obtain.
Alastor almost laughed at his poeticism until he was reminded of the glassiness she wore too often, the welling of tears that threatened to spill from her eyes that she tried her best to keep hidden from him. He wondered how often he had made her weep for him- Dammit, he cursed, fighting back the aching in his chest, unwilling to blend his newfound sentimentalism for her with the sin that stirred in his stomach. As immoral as he may be, he would not allow himself to find release in her sorrow, even that was too much for a man like him. He would taint her enough with his want for her- her screams, his name broken on her lips- but his standards had not been so lowered by his lust that he would find himself in likeness to the snakes that sold sin and found pleasure in the feebleness of their victims.
Teeth grind against his want for her, his stomach churning at the debauchery that plays out in portraits painted on the backs of eyelids that try their best to squeeze shut against them.
The thought pulled him deeper into the city, far away from where she would dare follow him. He would not, could not let her see him this way, it had been enough that he'd had to leave her once again to save himself from the embarrassment of being reduced to this- This mess caused by the cursed changing of seasons forcing the biological need to breed upon him. It was an abhorrent affront to his personhood, and he would not let himself be lost to the thrall of his rut in her presence; There was no precedent for how he would react were he to throw himself upon her, and her eagerness would surely sentence her to a fate worse than any other by his hand.
She would be willing, wouldn't she? Was the thought that slowed his gait as he spied another beast ripe for the taking, this one boxing in some other poor creature against the filthy door of a modern vehicle.
Alastor was not a stupid man, he'd watched enough women fall victim to the charms of his appearance to know when he'd captivated the attention of either sex, but that knowledge had been nothing more than an irritation before her; A hurdle to jump before gaining greater friendship, a chance to crush the pesky hopefulness of another. Her attraction to him might have been instant but her intrigue grew with every encounter, and despite all warnings against attempting to romance him, she'd done just that. It was bold, but not overbearing, the smallest straightening of her spine when he walked in the room, that hopeful warmth that bled into every being who drew near to her, and the simplest of utterances to keep his attention.
"Just let me get to know you."
There had been no strings attached, none but the one she'd wrapped around her finger and used to drag him along, stumbling over his own two feet and falling for her at every turn. He wasn't quite sure when he'd come to recognize her physical form in the same way he'd come to view her mind, but he found himself letting his gaze linger on her during their time together, taking in the softness of her features and the curvature of the legs she insisted on reminding him of.
People had thought that the length of a lady's skirts had edged towards indecency in his day, but it was nothing compared to the brazen display of bare skin that the modern woman dared to show now.
Alastor's laugh at the ridiculousness of his own mental monologuing is ash on his tongue, lacking its normal humor in the face of his own anguish. As reluctant as he was to admit it, the ease at which she'd done this to him had shaken him to the very core. The impossibility of her had sent him into the arms of his dearest confidants in search of confirmation, or compassion for his confusion, for them to be worried for the brittle state of his heart now that it had begun to beat again. Yet he'd only garnered amusement and the occasional sympathetic smile, none of them took any heed to his raving concerns of sickness- It had all been so clear to them, and that perhaps made the revelation of what had befallen him all the more earth-shattering. In a way, he began to fear her, unsure of how to walk through this unknown territory without committing an error or making missteps that would bring consequences he was unable to comprehend. It wasn't until he found himself shepherded down that path by her gentle guiding light that he found the only satisfying explanation as to why,
She was the most terrifying creature he'd ever encountered, simply because she'd unknowingly accomplished the one thing he'd thought impossible; She'd made him love her.
Tonight's injury to his propriety had been self-inflicted, but he could not help himself, not when she so brazenly beckoned him to attend to her and thrown herself into their dancing like it was her second chance to prove herself a worthy partner; An unneeded gesture, but a charming one nonetheless. It was impossible to not fall victim to her, this sweet, good little doe with eyes so befitting of such a title. The burden of his instinct was not hers to bear, the fault was his. He had given in to that craving for closeness, tempted her with tender moments, and done his damnedest to make sure she remained tightly wrapped around his finger.
Perhaps he was to be the manifestation of her eternal suffering, he thought. His musing pulls a dark chuckle from somewhere deep in the pit of him, and the fairer of the two demons before him bristles with terror.
It was selfish of him to lead her on this way when he knew she viewed human physicality in much a similar way as he did, and even more arrogant to assume that this curse of carnal desire would be enough for her. He did not know whether this insatiable feeling would subside once the season passed, so to give this- Dishonesty, without thinking of the greater consequences was yet another unfair expectation of her. But she would take it all so well- It takes little more than a sharp tug of his next victim's jacket to pull him from the poor woman he'd set himself upon, and Alastor uses the time spent waiting for her to disappear down the dark street to analyze his next kill; He would not let this one go to waste.
In the eyes of his prey, he sees the putrid faces of the souls that he'd not yet scourged from existence mortal and immortal alike, their crimes far too dire to be left unpunished. They had all been so arrogant to assume she'd bend to their wills, that she would be so easily bought with something as fickle as fame or fortune- That they could take what was his. Ignorant men that did not deserve to stand in her presence, who did not understand the perceptive dagger that is her wit or the strength that lay beneath those lithe limbs. It was astonishing to Alastor that so many before him had turned a blind eye to the spectacle to her, that her time had been stolen by those who were not worth the dirt beneath their feet- One day, he would put his hands in all the places she'd been touched before and burn out any feeling of hands that were not his.
The demon struggles against him, swinging its shoulders into his stomach and spouting expletives in a clumsy attempt to gain the upper hand; Its fingers snap like brittle wood, simply tinder to start a greater fire burning within. Limp digits slip against blood-soaked leather, clumsy feet press off from the sidewalk to scatter, and the chase begins. It is a dangerous game to combine the most primal of his instincts, but dire circumstances call for equal solutions.
There is no poeticism to his thoughts of her now, there is nothing but a risque rotoscope flashing across his vision as he takes what he wants- What he needs from the demon below him. Exhausted nerves give in to the urge to kill, seeking to curb their overstimulation through slaughter. The predator tries his best to avoid becoming prey, foolishly attempting to outrun him by darting down a dirty side street; But there is no outrunning the Radio Demon. Shadows swallow the world around him as Alastor gives chase, catching the beast by its throat before it has the chance to scream and tossing it carelessly to the pavement- How easy it would be to toss her onto his rarely used bed, the curves of her body weighing nothing to a man like him.
The familiar glow of gas soothes the concern that she had followed him here, and in the sanctuary of his territory, where the sounds of slaughter are as commonplace as cobblestone, he loses the last grasp he had on his control.
Among the sound of flesh and blood being shed is the warm hum of electricity as the Radio comes to life, flickering through the empty airwaves until it finds a proper tune to set his work to. Claws catch his cheek as his static shimmers across the night air, slicing into his skin to spill pitch onto the dirty white of his prey's shirt. The pain is nothing but a pleasant reminder of his being, the throb of it traveling down the tenseness of his spine to join pace with the pulsing of instinct between his legs. It is almost addicting, the hot flash of agony against his arousal, and it pulls a groan that rattles window panes from deep beneath his ribcage. There is no need for the quick cut of a knife's edge or the finality of a hatchet here as Alastor's teeth rip into the thick muscle of its shoulder, tearing into the tendons and ripping arteries from their place beneath the skin with a single bite. The fog of bloodlust softens his view, allowing the darkness in him to surge forward with its desire-The soft skin of her shoulders, her throat, begging to be bitten, to be marked with his mouth. The thing struggles beneath his weight, attempting to knock his knees from under him, and its presence pricks against the more particular portion of his nerves; It does not belong here, not when someone else fits against him so perfectly-There was heaven between her thighs, felt when they'd clung to him as he offered her to the world, shown them all who she truly was. Bones shatter beneath his palms as he twists, rendering the arms that clawed at his own useless as screams and static filled the air. It is too easy to rip the hair from its head, the strands slipping in his grip as its skull cracks against the ground beneath them. Its withering carcass opens like a flower beneath his fingers, its cries bubbling with blood as the Radio Demon digs his claws into the unprotected mess of meat. The sounds of slick are a pitiful mockery of what warmth he wishes would curl around his fingers, sucking him into its depth- She would feel like fire against him, liquid gold encasing the heaviest of him to the hilt.
Alastor's chest heaves with every breath, his glasses fogging as the heat of him steams in the cool night air as he finds his fingers clutching the weakness of humanity; It beats weakly against his palm, this mass of muscle and vein that taunts him so. -Her heart raced so easily at his touch, flushing the neck she so submissively bared for him. Would the rest of her flush the same shade? The organ sputters and dies as he rips it from its home, the deed now done;
And Alastor is not satisfied.
The momentary release is nothing but raindrops on hot stones sizzling against the unending burn that resides beneath his skin. It does nothing to sate his need, his body is still thick with temptation, electricity bristling in the dark clouds of his skin waiting to strike. Sitting back on his haunches, Alastor turns the detached heart between his palms. Ridiculous, how something so small held such importance to the whole of humanity that it had become the beacon of an idea much grander than its functionality. There is nothing beautiful about the bloodied thing in his hands, yet it was attributed as the sole benefactor for why humanity is held in higher regard than the beasts they walk beside. Not the mind, not the ability for complicated thought or invention, simply the idea that their widened range of emotions separates them all from animals; Yet here he was, a beast wallowing in blood due to the depths of his affections, the very thing this muscle was meant to represent. Alastor doesn't know when he began to laugh but the cracked edge of the echo mocks him, the sound almost somber, pitiful as it leaves unseen speakers. Perhaps he understands better now, the profound need to simplify something that so easily tortured him; But he finds it just as distasteful. There is greater respect to be given to all things, whether spiritual or material, when involving matters of the heart.
It slips from between his fingers as he rises to his feet, falling back into the vacant place in the corpse's chest with a moist thud that brings forth the urge to retch.
Alastor's journey home is short, but it is one caked with a shame he cannot find words to truly convey. Each wet squeak of dampened socks against the fine leather of his shoes sets his teeth on edge, the offending articles of clothing kicked into the depths of his entryway before the rattling of the door he'd slammed into its hinge had subsided behind him. Her smell still lingers here, light and clean where she'd stood dripping in his hallway, and Alastor closes his door to it. The fire ignites a sickly green in its hearth as he enters the room, casting long shadows that reach out across the dark hardwood of his most private quarters to whisper their sinful thoughts into his drooping ears. They scatter with a wave of his hands, his bloodied claws fumbling for the nearly empty bottle of bourbon atop the bar cart and overflowing his glass in his haste. While he'd blamed many of his missteps on liquor it was one of the few things he found still helped to silence the chaos of his thoughts at moments like these, and its familiar flavor helped to wash down the bitter aftertaste of spoiled meat.
Alastor collapses against his desk a husk of the man who had stood here just hours before, scattering the stacks of papers to his feet as his hands find the scribbled remains of a proposition he would have to postpone. It flutters across the floor as he shifts to retrieve his lighter from the desk drawer, sliding a cigarette from its holder and setting it aflame with a deft flick of his thumb. Smoke singes his throat as he draws a deep breath, trading one vice for another as it settles into his bloodstream and seeks to calm his frayed nerves for now. For a moment, the copies of the contract he's so carefully constructed call for the same treatment as the paper that burns between his teeth, its parameters now feeling unfitting in these unfortunate turn of events, but he tries not to get ahead of himself; Rationality runs thin in moments such as these.
Alastor sighs heavily as he drops into the leather of the chair behind him, uncaring for the blood that pools beneath his feet and drips from his fingers to soil the carpet as he draws in deep the dry, toasted taste of the tobacco. Curling smoke catches his attention, drawing his eye to where it flutters across the lone picture frame that sits atop his desk, its tarnished gold a dark complement to the vivid white border that surrounds the small square self-portrait. Its subject seeps guilt into the overworked valves of his heart, and Alastor finds himself muttering the closest approximation to a prayer he'd ever come to before;
He hopes that she will find it in her heart, as much as he has toyed with it, to forgive him one last time.