Splitting at the Seams (RadioApple)

Part 1

If there was something Alastor was most immediately known for, it was his endless sadism.

It was the most readily apparent thing you could see from him; even from just a glance at his too-rabid smiles it was clear the man was a fan of pain and all it wrought upon its victims, only encouraged by pleas for mercy rather than swayed. It was to many the most frightening thing about him when in combination with his sheer overwhelming strength - most denizens of Hell were desensitized to pain, or found the adrenalin of a fight or kill exhilarating, but few actively sought it, saw it as its own goal. A man that wanted to hurt you utterly for its own sake and had the ability to do so no matter what you did was something out of many nightmares.

It was funny then, that for all he had relished in agony and stress and fear, for all that he had even himself dabbled in a bit of it in his pre-life as a child, bashing himself into walls and slamming his hands in drawers, he found this current pain so utterly intolerable.

Adam's attack had taken him completely off his guard, and without even the broken part of his cane to use as defense he had taken the entire force of the blow onto his chest - and boy could he feel it. Slipping into the shadows to the sound of Adam's grating laughter had granted him a short period of oblivion as his shadow and threads of magic tugged him further away, caught in the whirlwind of darkness and frustration, but the moment he re-emerged some space away he had doubled over in agony, and for once in his life he couldn't find even a speck of humour in the ordeal.

Every breath ached and rattled in his ribcage, and a fumbling hand across his midriff to check for breaks was no comfort, sparks of pain rattling through him even some room away from the gash. His head felt gummy and stuffed full of cotton, his neck stiff from where he had remembered hitting it when he had flown back into that wall, the sickening snap sound of his head jerking back reverberating in his ears and nearly making him flinch. At a test, he could barely even move it, and his arms trembled trying to feel at the area. At the very least his head itself seemed undamaged, no sore spot or dampness, but it was a cold comfort in the face of his true problem - the large slice in his front.

Arcing up from the right-side of his midriff to the left of his chest just above his heart it continued to thrum with such alacrity he struggled to think coherently through it, every pulse of pain managing to interrupt his internal monologue every time, flashes of 'pain, pain, pain' muddling him up and making him feel as though he were forcing his mind through cement. At the very least he didn't believe he had punctured any organs, though he was sure he had damaged something, but more pressingly the dark blood continued to ooze out through his torn coat, and with nothing but his hands to stifle it with his panic only mounted further. The cold of the stone below sept through the fabric of his trousers into his skin, his head throbbed like a drum being beat, and ambient smoke felt like it shredded at his already bruised lungs.

'Think, damn you!' He hissed mentally, deaf to the shouting all around him. He had no care for the lot of them anymore, he refused to die for these people, he refused to die AT ALL. 'Stop whimpering like a child and fix this mess before the lot of them see you!'

Next to him his shadow chittered in concern, expression drawn into a grave sadness the man himself would not be caught dead portraying, and prompted him with a strange gesture. It took him a few seconds to comprehend.

'Lovely.' He thought grimly as the shadow mimed pulling a thread to and fro. 'More pain, then. Cheer up old chap, you've had worse.'

And this was how Alastor stitched himself up with his own faltering magic on the battlefield, cowering behind a wreck, without any anesthesia or anything resembling a formal check-up beyond his stumbling fingers applying pressure, panting and gasping but never allowing his smile to drop, only allowing his hands to tremble when the pain reached a crescendo that meant he had to choose between that or screaming.

He wasn't a medic, or trained, and he'd never had to work with something of this severity before. It was sloppy and pulled horribly as he staggered off, constantly having to check if it had torn and re-opened... but it held. Perhaps he could get Rosie to look at it later, but the shame of being seen as weak in front of her, as irrational as it was, made him push away the thought. Their dynamic... when he thought of her bent over him providing medical care and speaking in her kinder tones, he could only see and hear another, a blurry figure in a childhood bedroom. First, he would see how well his work held.

Not once did his shadow stop chittering, anxiety radiating off it in waves - not until he dispelled it with an angry snap of his fingers.

When he appeared again it was like nothing had happened. Having procured a new coat and cane (a temporary one, as his normal one was still, ah, recuperating) that he was most certainly not using for it's proper use for once, if asked, with newly brushed hair and a flawless smile, he was unquestionable. Or to the truth, he was certainly questioned (Charlie cried a bit), but a quick little lie and a pat on her back did wonders. (And also fulfilled the growing paternal urge niggling into his chest. Sue him, the girl was infectious, which was why he needed to do better at not being infected by it!) Focus moved to celebration, or in regards to Pentious a moment of respectful mourning, and all attention was drawn away from him at last.

...well, not all of it.

From the middle of the group that stood and gazed up at the newly reconstructed hotel, Lucifer himself sized the radio demon up dubiously.

As the biblical progenitor of lies himself he had plenty of experience in the craft, and that included a skill in spotting it as well as spreading it. The other man stank of deceit, but not maliciously. And so he watched, and waited, and was finally rewarded when Alastor gave the act just a little as everyone looked away from him. His eye twitched, his jaw clenched, and his hand shook at his side as though it was eager to move, to hold at something, and for a moment he half lifted it, fingers curled ready to grab.

Then Husk chortled something - an unlikely sound from the usually sour bartender, though that wasn't something Lucifer knew personally as he'd spoken to the man all of zero times and only overheard some of his dialogue with the others - and elbowed Alastor in the side viciously. Lucifer blinked in surprise as he saw the cannibalistic deal-maker barely swallow back what might have been a gasp if he'd let it, hand jerking straight back to his side, responding to the cat demon as though nothing was wrong.

What was just as interesting as all of this was that Husk himself squinted in suspicion at the taller man, opened his mouth to push it, but had to let it go for frustration when Alastor immediately pulled at one of his whiskers, Husk batting his hands away and stalking to go be by Angel who looked all the happier for it. Alastor only looked relieved, but didn't falter again for the rest of the evening.

Odd. He filed all of it away for later. Later, he could confront Alastor, perhaps confront them both. For now, he would thrive in the celebration, the miracle that besides that funny little snake sinner no one had been greviously hurt.

It was almost too good to be true!