Chapter Text
All that registers in Alastor’s mind is burning. An agonizing, abhorrent burning sensation that would surely be more than enough to cremate him alive. He must be in hell…he must be in hell. That’s the only possible explanation he can come up with. His throat is abused, covered in cuts and bruises and who knows what else, but it’s his lungs that cause him the most concern. He can’t scream. He can’t speak. He can’t even breathe.
Alastor has long since been rendered mute, had his vocal cords torn out by ravenous beasts. There’s a bullet lodged directly into his skull.
The metallic stench of copper is overpowering, made all the more noticeable as it masks the scent of earth. Alastor had found such things comforting, once upon a time. The ground is uncomfortable against his bare skin, but he’d take this discomfort over…over……
His eyes are glassy, half-lidded. And he’s barely cognizant as he stares out into the expanse of cypress trees, wondering when they’ll tire of him. When even the mere act of torture will prove too be to great a boredom, and they’ll just…leave. Slit his throat, chop off his head, bury him alive, shoot him straight through the forehead, eat him alive.
Anything—please, anything would be more preferable.
He’s going to die. Alastor knows this.
Somehow, it does little to comfort him.
“—Look, the pretty boy’s gone silent.”
Maybe Alastor died. Perhaps he’s staring at this scene from some undisclosed point, watching as they continue to tear and tear and tear into him. Bruises in the shapes of handprints around his throat, around his torso and thighs—rope burns on his wrists and ankles. Alastor had always thought of himself to be a cold-blooded killer. His shirt and trousers are torn, scattered a distance away from him. It’s cold. Alastor’s mind can barely register this. The very best in the business, but he doesn’t know if he should feel relieved or frustrated that even he never thought to go this far.
The thought never crossed his mind.
“The f*cking slu*t must’ve really enjoyed it.”
Everything hurts. If Alastor is dead…if Alastor is dying, then why can he still register all of these conflicting emotions?
“A complete natural; it’s like the whor* was made for this. We didn’t even have to pay him.”
There’s a heavy weight straddling his legs—calloused hands wrapped around his throat. Alastor can barely see, not when his glasses were knocked askew. The frame was completely mangled, the lens shattered underneath the weight of heavy, well-worn leather boots.
“…Too bad he’s XXXXXXXXX.”
Smiling, laughter, shadows standing over him. He can’t see their faces, can’t imprint the contours of their façades in his mind. Maybe that’s a good thing…a blessing in disguise. It hurts to breathe, hurts to think, hurts to exist.
“Damn filly—Broke down too quickly…hey, look—”
Immediately, a sharp burning pain shoots through his stomach, as if he was being stabbed again and again and again with a white-hot serrated knife. Alastor’s teeth are clenched, eyes shut. He can’t even cry, not when his tear ducts have long since dried up. But he’s bleeding. All Alastor can do is bleed and bleed and bleed. His blood makes for nice decoration, painting the ground beneath his tired, broken body in vivid shades of crimson.
“He’s still smiling.”
Is that good…? They said it would all hurt less if he just smiled. Alastor feels stitches binding his smile in-place, sees shadows with lecherous smiles standing over him. There are hands reaching out, painting his flesh in hues of purple, blue, and red. His smile doesn’t fall. If Alastor could, he’d laugh, though he’s not too sure what the joke here is even supposed to be.
There are footsteps. Multiple, noticeable steps amidst the laughter and loud voices and yelling and insults and disgusting, lascivious insults hurled straight at him—casting doubts on his character. Though, Alastor supposes it’s all true, how he’d essentially offered himself up as if he was in Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Ahh…” Alastor bites back a scream as he feels nails and teeth and hands tearing at him, cutting through flesh, gripping onto his thighs enough to bruise…enough to rip through skin, through muscles and veins and bones, until there’s nothing left.
…Nothing left, and he’ll be broken down to his most basic components.
“Hold him down.”
That’s all they’ve been doing, except…that would be a lie. A traitorous, rather delirious part of Alastor’s mind is telling him that they’ve done so much worse. And he can’t help but wonder if none of this would’ve happened if he just accepted Mimzy’s advances all those years ago. She understood him, had back down as soon as Alastor expressed his discomfort, but Mimzy is safe. She’s always felt like home.
Maybe he could’ve learned how to love her back the proper way, instead of being reduced to a broken toy sprawled across the ground—blood leaking out of his bruised, tattered, shredded flesh.
The cold evening air is positively deathly, causing faint whimpers to escape his throat as they prove to be a biting, unrelenting presence against his ruined skin.
Voices and laughter and screaming—
Alastor realizes a second too late that he’s screaming, and that he’s still screaming, as he feels a sharp, cold, metallic bite around his f*cked up, mangled, bruised ankle. But he’s too tired to look down, and there are hands on his shoulders, harshly digging deep cuts into his skin. But it’s absurd, when he can barely move in the first place, when everything…
“Serves him right, the f*cking XXXXXX. Getting what he deserves…”
That’s right, Alastor deserves this. They discovered he was a serial killer.
“AhhhHHHHH—”
Alastor thought he lost his voice, but somehow, it returned. There’s a serrated knife digging into his flesh, past muscles and cutting directly into his bones. It’s horrific, sickening, that unmistakable ‘crack’ that tears through the chilly evening air as they cut and slice and stab into his ankle, and he finds himself being torn apart…being ripped at the seams like a discarded cloth doll.
“Aww, the pretty boy’s crying. Isn’t that cute?”
He can barely focus on anything, except this searing heat radiating through his right ankle, shooting up his leg, until this pain is everywhere. And…it’s indescribable. The pain of being splitted, of being torn and mutilated and kissed—blood bite marks littering his skin, rope burns adorning his flesh…the surreal, unfathomable, excruciating feeling of having his limbs hacked off while he’s still alive. Still here, still breathing…albeit barely.
Alastor has regained the voice that he thought he’d lost.
“Ahh…hahh….ahhhh……” Alastor pitifully whines, eyes glassy, pupils dilated as he can do little more but cry as he can feel cartilage being torn apart, feel them pull away his severed ankle—the last bits of clinging flesh being brutally ripped away, because they couldn’t have even found it in themselves to be merciful enough to just cut through his remaining in-tact skin with a knife.
It…it hurts. Everything f*cking hurts, but it’s to a level that Alastor can barely even comprehend at this point. Distantly, he feels the sensation of hands exploring his exposed, scratched, torn, battered flesh—feels the sharp edge of a silver blade dig right into his leg, just above his kneecap.
He flickers in and out of consciousness, but the next thing Alastor knows—
Pain, white hot agony coursing through him, as a blade is submerged deep inside of his stomach—tearing through skin and muscle—hitting deeper parts of his insides that…somehow feels no less violating than everything they’d subjected him to. He tries to scream, but a hand is clamped over his mouth.
There’s ringing in his ears, a sudden stabbing pain in his left wrist, and everything is cold, cold, cold, and blood continues to spill from him, dripping down his tattered flesh and onto the earth.
It would be so easy to just give in.
To just die here and never wake up. He’d thought to himself once, twice, countless times over the course of his youth that the bayou wouldn’t be such a bad place to die in. He now knows that it was such a f*cking stupid sentiment to have. Merely childish flights of fancy, though…he supposes he’ll never get the chance to fulfill those wishes.
Afterall, Alastor always wanted to die alone.
He’ll never get that wish.
It’s a starry night. The full moon is out, there…there are shadows standing over him, straddling his legs. He barely feels like himself. It hurts to breathe, but…somehow…he can barely register anything, anymore……
He’s dying.
Alastor wonders if he’s still holding onto his smile.
There’s a voice whispering into his ear. He can’t help but think it’s the devil, coming here to claim his soul. But…it’s a damn shame there’s nothing left of Alastor to give.
But…wait, he made a promise, didn’t he?
It was…it was to Maman.
Slowly, Alastor’s eyes close, head lulled to the side. His breathing is so very still, and even his insides no longer feel as if they’re burning. As if they’re being ravaged and mutilated and defiled—
It’s cold. He’s dead. He’s dying.
If only he could have died alone.
---
Nothing happened. Everything happened. He wants to die. He wants to sleep and sleep and sleep and never wakes up. Alastor wants to be buried, wants his flesh to be ripped apart. Wants grave soil to fill his lungs, desires for nothing more than his skin and muscles and anything ‘soft’ to be devoured, until only pristine white bones are left behind. Blood and dirt fill his lungs, and leaves are stuffed into his rib cage. He’s dead. He’s one of the dead now. A mere corpse that is meant to be nothing more than filler decoration for the bayou.
Alastor should be dead.
But…if he’s dead, then why does everything here feel so…so……warm?
It’s an illusion. This is a fever dream. His mind must be playing tricks on him, if only to get him away from the sheer torture his body, mind, and soul were subjected to. Once he opens his eyes, he’ll be subjecting himself to that whole ordeal again. Rinse, repeat, and again and again and again—
“Ahhh…” Alastor cries, feeling breathless and ashamed and pained and so many other emotions that he could never possibly hope to describe in human terms.
He curls onto his side, pressing a hand against his wounded stomach, feeling as if there are still hands crawling all over him, trailing lower and lower and lower……
Wait.
His hands were bound, and his ankles were also tied with heavy, impenetrable rope. He’s not supposed to move, and that’s not even getting into the fact that his ankles, legs…hands—They were all sliced off. He was…he was dismembered. He was played with and defiled and humiliated and tortured and…he shouldn’t be alive. Alastor f*cking knows he shouldn’t be alive.
Don’t…don’t open your eyes.
Alastor can’t bring himself to open them. If he does, it’s all over. But…underneath the scent of copper and dirt and…other wretched substances he’d rather not dwell on, Alastor catches the unmistakable scent of roses.
His mind really is playing tricks on him.
Immediately, a strangled cry tears out of Alastor’s throat as his right leg involuntarily twitches, around the area where his ankle had been cut and pulled off. Alastor is breathing heavily, blood dripping down from his lips as he desperately tries to….to fade away, to succumb to his wounds. To die and never wake up.
They’re not attacking him yet. Clearly, they’re just waiting for Alastor to wake up.
Afterall, where’s the fun in torturing him if he’s not awake to feel every last thing they decide to subject him to?
He’s dead.
He’s dying.
There is no hell, because if there was…he just left it behind. Everything here smells of roses and apples and wildflowers. It’s not cold, and…the ground is surprisingly soft. His heart is racing a mile a minute [Except, that would be a lie. Alastor is quite sure they ripped his still-beating heart out of his chest].
Please, please, please just let him die quickly, before they realize he’s awake.
Everything they told him was a lie.
If he just kissed them, everything would hurt less. Maybe if he’d acted less ‘broken’ and didn’t have his…peculiar tendencies and proclivities towards matters of the heart, then maybe he wouldn’t have been tortured to such an excessive degree.
Those men called him cute and adorable and pretty.
They called him a whor*, a slu*t, said he was nothing more than a cheap lay.
“Ahh…hahhh…aAAHHHH—”
Alastor can’t…he cAN’T GO BACK—NOT THERE…NOT THERE, WHERE THEY’LL JUST…
Just……
Why…why why why why why why Why WHY COULDN’T HE HAVE DIED ALONE?
“AHHHHHH,” Alastor screams, already knowing the inevitable is about to happen. They know he’s awake now. Those men f*cking know, and he’ll be subjected to even worse for pretending to be out cold. He’s going to die…if only Alastor could just f*cking die.
Nothing happens.
Alastor knows they’re just waiting for him to open his eyes. Grinning and holding back their laughter, salivating at the thought of subject him to even more torture—ripping away his dignity, whatever little remains of it…except, that’s a lie. Alastor already gave up his dignity, pride, all of it when he willingly kissed them. He didn’t have to.
He didn’t have to.
If only Alastor had stayed with Mimzy for the night…if only he didn’t let them follow him into the bayou…hadn’t let them drug him and pin him to the ground and beat him and stab him and have his way with him and kiss him and---
Alastor f*cking deserves this.
They caught him…they knew he was the serial killer stalking the streets of New Orleans.
He was shot straight through the head with a silver bullet. He was torn to shreds by ravenous hounds. He was electrocuted and burned and buried alive. He was ripped apart. He wasn’t…he wasn’t a victim. This was…this was their own sense of justice. Nothing happened.
Alastor sure as f*ck wasn’t taken advantage of.
If only that thought alone could make everything hurt less.
Don’t open your eyes.
He knows that he’ll deeply regret what will happen, as soon as he allows himself to wake up. But…Alastor is delaying the inevitable. He’ll already make everything much worse for himself than they already are. Slowly, reluctantly, Alastor opens his eyes. It takes him a few moments to adjust, as he’s feeling disoriented from blood loss and pain and…just…it’s so f*cking bright.
Another few seconds pass, before Alastor becomes acclimated to the fact that the sky is bright red.
A pained gasp falls from his mouth as he moves slightly, an involuntary spasm wracking his other mangled, f*cked up leg…except…it’s whole. Both of his legs are still completely exposed and bloodied and battered and bitten and cut and covered in bruises in the shapes of handprints, but they’re still attached to him.
But…that’s not what truly captures Alastor’s attention. His legs are gray. A sickly shady of gray, and couple with the distressingly large amount of purplish-blue bruises, he looks just like a corpse in livor mortis.
“What…?” Alastor whispers, voice hushed, a sense of dysophoria washing over him as he stares down at his feet…or rather, his hooves.
This…this isn’t right. Everything here is all wrong.
His complexion is supposed to be dark, not pale like a corpse. And somehow, his legs look even more delicate than they already were with the hooves—reminding him immensely of a fragile, porcelain doll. Apprehension races through Alastor, and with a sudden burst of energy veering straight into hysteria, he turns his attention towards his arms—
The ropes are gone, thankfully, but he can still see burn marks around his wrists. Bites and bruises and blood…so much blood, but just like his legs, his arms are also a disturbing shade of gray.
And…and his torso, stomach, chest—covered in just as many bruises and cut and…Alastor needs to get up. He sees the remnants of his clothing not a stone’s throw away. Ripped and torn but otherwise, still wearable. Alastor knows he needs to get up. The logical part of his mind informs him that those men aren’t here. That he’s dead, that’s he’s in hell.
Though, it’s hard to imagine flower fields and quiet and peace would be found anywhere in hell. This place can’t be Heaven, however. Not with the grotesque red sky—
And the sheer abundance of red coating the wildflowers. He’s laying down in a field of flowers, his own tainted blood painting pristine white lilies in horrific shades of scarlet. Alastor tries not to cry, but no matter how hard he attempts to hold back his tears, they all come rushing out. And he tries…he tries not to remember the sensation of hands roaming all over him, the fear he first felt when someone stuck a hand underneath his shirt.
He turns on his side, unable to hold back a scream as the action pulls at his tattered flesh.
It’s thankfully not cold here. If this is hell, the weather is surprisingly quite pleasant, but…he needs to get up. Alastor curls on his side, a hand placed over his stomach. His insides feel as if they were ripped apart, and even the mere act of breathing feels as if nails were lodged into his lungs.
But he can’t stay like this forever. He needs…he needs clothes. If he’s to leave, he won’t be undressed for longer than he can help it.
Alastor presses a shaking hand against the ground, attempting to get up to his knees—
“—Look, the f*cking bitch must be really enjoying this.”
NO.
“How about another kiss, sweetheart?”
No…no, no, no, NO NO—
Alastor can’t...he can’t...he needs to leave. If he stays like this, he’ll be proving them right. But try as he might, his f*cked up legs can barely support his weight. Alastor’s face flushes [Or at least, it would if he didn’t look like a f*cking corpse], as he has to resort to crawling over to his clothes. The sheer indignity of this is…well, at least he’s alone. Eventually, he’s able to gather his clothes—only for his momentary bout of hope to immediately fade away at the realization that most of the buttons on his dress shirt were torn away, and even his vest was desecrated beyond repair.
But it’s better than nothing.
It’s f*cking better than nothing.
He tries not to cry as he puts on the shirt, affixing what little buttons he can, doing his best to cover up his eerily gray skin—already feeling that he lost something dearly important to himself…that he looks even less like Maman now. But…maybe that’s a good thing. Alastor can’t imagine Maman ever being in a place like this.
Alastor doesn’t want to fathom what that could mean, if someone as undeserving as her were to end up here.
…His trousers prove to be more of a challenge. It’s as if heated serrated knives are being stabbed deep into his flesh. Every single small movement is enough to send his nerves into a frenzy, for his bruises and bones to ache, for his skin to burn as it remembers all of those disgusting, lecherous, unwanted touches. But somehow, somehow, Alastor is finally able to put on his trousers, though…the buttons on those, too, had regrettably been ripped away.
Nothing about this is good or ideal, but he finds that his wounds are just a little bit more bearable, now that he’s fully dressed.
He can almost delude himself into imagining he isn’t covered in bruises.
That his wrists and ankles are devoid of rope burns.
And…that Alastor wasn’t begging for his life all evening, hadn’t sold off his body, hadn’t kissed them of his own accord…hadn’t thrown out his pride, his life, he…he should never have let them follow him.
He needs to get out.
Alastor can’t stay in this garden forever.
Immediately, he collapses onto the ground, flat on his back. Arms splayed out, eyes closed as he breathes in the scent of roses. It’s comforting, it’s familiar, it…it serves as a mockery of everything that he has ever lost. That he’ll never again be able to reclaim.
“Ahhhh….” Alastor doesn’t even know if he’s crying or screaming at this point, but…everything hurts.
There are faint footsteps in the distance.
Much too delicate to belong to those men, but Alastor can never be so sure. Every part of himself tenses up, and his back is rigid as his eyes lock onto a deathly pale woman garbed all in crimson. She’s tall…far taller than any woman he’d encountered when he was alive. Her face is painted up like a doll’s, but…it’s her eyes—
Or rather, the lack of eyes that alerts Alastor to the fact that she’s a demon.
She isn’t smiling as she carefully walks over to him, a decorative umbrella held in her left hand. The woman with no eyes and sharp teeth kneels by his side, long skirts tucked underneath her legs as she brings a hand up to his lips. They’re painted in charcoal black lipstick, and up close…she’s……
“Oh, you poor deer,” the pale woman gasps.
Alastor gazes up at her with wary eyes. “Who…who are you?”
The morbid-looking woman holds her umbrella out to Alastor, offering him a gentle smile. “I’m Rosie, darling. And what might your name be?”
He studies her features, and notes just how sharp her teeth are. This demon must be planning to eat him. But…that’s fine, that’s good. Alastor really did want to die alone, but that opportunity was taken away from him. At the very least, being eaten alive in death should be relatively painless compared to being brutally hacked to pieces and violated and tortured while he was still a living, breathing human.
It hurts to speak. Alastor’s breathing heavily, eyes half-lidded, weakly clutching onto his bruised, wounded stomach with one hand.
But eventually, he answers her. “Alastor,” is all that he says.
The woman smiles. It’s a look all in the teeth, but despite her whole general…eyeless, corpse aesthetic, she doesn’t feel threatening. Though, anyone would be less threatening and sad*stic and vile than those men had been. “Nice to meet you, Alastor,” the demonic woman gently replies. “What a lovely name you have. Such a nice, charming smile as well!”
Alastor’s smile widens, eyes wide and manic as he stares up at the pale woman.
“You are just too adorable. The whor*’s really getting worked up. It’s like he’s never done this before. How about you give us all a kiss, dollface?”
She knows. She knows that he’s a whor*. Anyone coignizant would be able to tell what happened to Alastor, with the cuts and rope burns and bruises adorning his flesh—he notices her eyes flicker over to his shirt, where it had parted slightly to expose his bruised, cut, desecrated flesh. And she can see, can f*cking tell that he was violated.
This woman knows.
He smiles at her, knowing that as he stands right now, he probably looks ‘adorable’ to her, with his porcelain appearance and hooves and…he doesn’t look human.
Alastor wasn’t even able to hold onto the single part of himself that he actually liked.
And somehow, that proves to be too great. That he really does have the complexion of a corpse here. That for the rest of eternity, he will be as dead on the outside as he already feels on the inside. Tears start to trickle down, and Alastor is thankful that this demonic woman has enough grace and mercy to avert her eyes from the pathetic display.
She sits down on the grass, idly plucking up a white rose in one hand.
“Ahhhh…” Alastor screams, but whether from pain or heartbreak or humiliation or the full gravity of his situation crashing down on him, who can really say?
He brings an arm up over his eyes, weeping uncontrollably until his voice is ragged, until his lungs are burning, until he feels that he is on the verge of passing out once more. This demon lady seems quite nice. She’s probably waiting until he’s unconscious to eat him, and…that works too. Alastor doesn’t know how much more torture he can take before his mind irreversibly shatters.
Or maybe he already lost his mind, and this entire scene is just a f*cked up reality his brain created to save him from his murderers.
The woman is humming a faint melody.
It’s…soothing and warm, and somehow, she reminds him of someone……
Alastor’s still crying, but it’s softer now. When he opens his eyes, the demon woman is sitting right by his side. She holds a hand out to Alastor, gazing down at him with a questioning look. Alastor nods, wordlessly giving her permission. The demon woman, Rosie, cards a hand through his hair, still humming that faint, soothing melody.
“Your death mustn’t have been easy,” she softly whispers.
Weakly, Alastor nods.
She smiles at him, though it’s a haunting, remorseful look. “But…”
“I’d say out of all the places to wake up to in hell, this garden isn’t so bad.”
---
“WHAT—You mean to say Alastor can be redeemed!?” Mimzy erratically yells, shaking Uriel by his shoulders. “Al’s really going to be alright…” she whispers, both in disbelief and hope. She never thought this ‘redemption’ sh*t would amount to anything, when most of the jerks who wind up in hell [Herself, included] deserve it, but Alastor’s a whole different story!
“Absolutely not,” Sera immediately responds, sorrow painted over her features as she gazes at the scene from beyond the phone screen. “Uriel, we’ve talked about this before……”
“—But Sera, you heard what they said!” Emily cries out, hands balled into fists as she glares up at the taller angel. “That poor deer is suffering, and his death was……”
“How many times do I have to say—”
“Hiya Sera, Emily!!” Uriel chirps. “You two had best be quick, since I think this lovely sinner’s about to strangle me to death~”
Emily offers Uriel an anxious smile, while Sera looks to be moments away from committing bloody murder…but in the old-fashioned, ‘Crusades’ sort of way. “
“Uh, why’re you so against redeeming Smiles, here?” Angel Dust curiously asks. “Not that I particularly believed in redemption at first, either, but…the guy really needs all the help that he can get. There's no harm in trying.”
Immediately, the room devolves into chaos, with…Uriel somehow also joining into the mix.
“Enough,” Sera huffs, right eye twitching. “There is a man sick and injured in your midst, so I implore all of you to behave like adults!”
Mimzy narrows her eyes. “But none of you fancy winged ladies gives a sh*t about Al…”
“Yeah,” Emily joins in. “He deserves to be redeemed—”
“I don’t want to give anyone false hope!!” Sera tearfully confesses, only for her eyes to widen in alarm. It takes her a moment to revert her expression back to its usual impassive look as she does the sign of the cross and mutters a short prayer underneath her breath.
“But we’re angels,” Emily protests. “We’re all about hope!”
Sera opens her mouth, only to fall silent. But eventually, she finds her voice. “And that is exactly the problem, Emily. They’re demons. They don’t get the luxury of hope…it would be cruel to give them the illusion that everything will be alright if they suffer enough, if they repent enough, if they lived terrible lives and endured such terrible deaths.”
“Alastor was raped…” Charlie distressingly whispers. Vaggie and her father stand by her side, while all Charlie can do is stare directly at Alastor. In all of the commotion, they had no choice but to unchain Vox from the wall. Alastor just...he kept calling out for Vox. He wouldn't stay put, and they couldn't risk poor Al injuring himself even more than he already is. And…Vox is stillchained. His hands are behind his back, but he’s right beside Alastor. Or rather, Alastor had climbed onto his lap, both arms wrapped around Vox’s waist as he buries his head against the TV demon’s shoulder.
The poor deer demon is shaking uncontrollably, letting out keening whines as he’s bleeding all over.
It all appears to be too much…for…for everyone.
Sera and Emily are arguing amongst each other in the background, their voices loud even through phone audio.
“I’m sorry,” Sera’s voice carries out loud and clear.
“Excuse me…?” Emily whispers.
“We can’t do anything more for him, but…I can see you all care for him…” Sera pauses for a moment, aiming a suspicious glance at Vox. “Most of you care for that man, and…It’s good to see that his final moments will be made all the more bearable—”
“That’s f*cking bullsh*t—”
Who the f*ck said that…?
“You don’t want to help him because he’s a demon!”
“My Alastor deserved better! He was a good man; he didn’t deserve to die all alone…”
“I wasn’t alone,” Alastor interrupts, a dissonant smile painted over his features. “They wouldn’t leave me alone, no matter how much I asked.”
“You can stop talking, sweethe—Alastor,” Mimzy corrects herself at the last minute.
“They called me cute.”
“Alastor…”
“They called me adorable.”
“…No, you really don’t need to say anything more……”
“They said if I kissed them, it would hurt less. But it didn’t, when they put their hands underneath my shirt, when they—”
“Oh, so is THAT where you picked that up from!?” Vox darkly chuckles, to-which Alastor clings onto him even harder. “Even in life, you really were nothing more than a slu*t. So tell me, how many of them were there…?”
“I’m going to f*cking kill you,” Mimzy shrieks, with Vaggie and Lucifer pulling out weapons out of seemingly nowhere.
“Sera, what’s going on…?” Emily calls out from out of frame. Sera looks extremely distressed, one hand attempting to keep Emily out of the frame. “I’ll tell you later,” she feverently hisses, “But you’re much too young—”
Emily pouts, “No, I’m not!!”
“Hm, everyone seems to forget what I was here for!” Uriel cheerfully interrupts, before he scoops Niffty up into his arms. Niffty…isn’t smiling for once. Her singular eye is wide, seemingly brimming with tears. “Salvation is very much possible, at least, if you stay in my domain! All that sad, injured little sinner needs to do is spend around…7,493 years in purgatory, and then his soul will be cleansed!”
“WHAT!?”
“But since this sinner isn’t the type of demon who should’ve been stabbed by my very ingenious knife, I’ll knock down his penance to around 4,444 years! How’s that sound!?”
“What the actual f*ck?” Husk exclaims at the same moment that Lucifer huffs, “Not again.”
Seemingly oblivious to everyone’s dismay, Uriel floats over to Lucifer. “Don’t be so glum, old friend o’ mine! While he’s in purgatory, the curse will be put on-hold. The poor guy’s still going to be suffering from his wounds, of course. And again, that is…my bad. I lost that knife around 1948…it was supposed to be for…ya’ know—”
“This is exactly why I keep telling you to stay out of hell,” Lucifer deadpans.
Uriel tilts his head in-confusion. “Talk like that some more, and I’ll think you might actually hate me, Lucy! But…fine, there’s another alternative, though it’s a lot harder to achieve.”
“Well, don’t keep us hanging,” ‘Lucy’ quips, clearly irritated.
“He’ll have to kill the person who stabbed him!”
“WHAT!?”
“Just kidding~!!” Uriel innocently laughs. “You’re all sinners, so I thought you’d appreciate the gallows humor—”
“Uriel,” Sera warns.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it, Sera. What’s the point of ‘penance’ if you’re just going to kill the person who stabbed you? To save this sinner, all you’d need to do is find the person who stabbed him and hope they give you back the knife!" Uriel chirps, completely unaware of the irritated, borderline homicidal glares thrown his way.
"Maybe if this pitiful little sinner can prove that he’s sorry, then they’ll give him back the knife free of charge, and he can destroy it. That will negate the curse…probably. Hell’s super large, so who knows how that will turn out," Uriel disparagingly remarks. "Luckily for this deer, he won’t be alone! I can stop by purgatory from time to time. Bring some board games, snacks…it’ll be like having a slumber party!”
“Uriel,” Lucifer hisses.
“Yesssss….?”
“I’m going to f*cking murder you.”
