𝐇𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐃𝐄 - Hazbin Hotel

Opening Up

After the battle with Adam, Alastor tries desperately to pull himself together before anyone notices what's wrong. Unfortunately, Lucifer's smarter than that.

     Alastor was the Radio Demon. He was a menace to the Overlords of Pentagram City. He never left a battle in a worse condition than his opponent, if anyone dumb enough dared pick a fight with him. And in this case, that statement still held true, though being in a marginally better condition than your opponent was only so much of an achievement when your opponent was dead.

How did it all come to this?

Alastor supported his weight on the metal control panel in the head of his tilted radio tower, claws plastered tight to his torn flesh. Hot blood already soaked the front of his shirt and overcoat, dripping into warm pools on the cold metal beneath him. Through rapid shallow breaths, he managed to pry his claws away from his wounded gut for long enough to assess the damage. A glimpse of his collarbone shone pearly white through gray skin, exposing a deep notch where the holy axe had bitten through marrow. Faintly down the rest of his torso, he thought he could see where the skin had been cut away to reveal white flecks of newly exposed rib. It was one swift, clean incision, made by a weapon sharp and fast. The resulting impact against the cement wall, however, was less graceful. The wound itself was deep, but it was external, and most of all, fixable. Judging by the way his lungs crackled with each aching breath he took, he guessed there were deeper issues to be addressed, as well.

Best to look on the bright side, he supposed.

His mind was foggy from pain and blood loss, but the adrenaline from the battle kept him alert enough not to pass out. That probably wouldn't be true for long. He needed to act quickly.
The wound extended from his right collarbone to his left hip, stopping just above where the pelvis started. The wound was gushing blood – he knew a cut this deep hit at least one major artery. He could feel himself getting lightheaded already – he didn't have time to dally.
He closed his eyes, rummaging around in his mind for something useful he could pluck from the ether. A needle and thread appeared in his periphery. He swallowed. The thought made him feel a bit sick.

It'll do the job.

Sinking to the floor, he summoned them both quickly. A spool of thin white flax thread and a long, curved upholstery needle appeared in black clouds of mist before him, remnants of the cold ether still clinging onto the items. He let out a shaky sigh through clenched teeth. These were not the best tools for the job. If it were up to him – which, apparently, it wasn't – something as simple as fishing line would have done the trick tenfold better. It was smooth, strong, and relatively painless as compared to the seamstress' flax-spun thread, which was significantly weaker, and had an excruciatingly rough texture that loved to snag on flesh.

He took the needle and thread in his shaking hands from where the void left them hovering, sending the shadowy mist wisping away back into its ether. His eyes came in and out of focus. His claws trembled like they were going to shatter. His overcoat grew heavy with pooling blood, excess running down his stomach and back. He could physically feel his time running out, dripping into dark, steadily growing pools around him. He needed to thread this needle. He could not waste ANY more time. Every second that went by was a second off of his lifespan.
He fumbled with the needle, trying to readjust the angle, and dropped it. It bounced against the floor with a light clink.

Shit!

He didn't have the coordination for this. He squinted at the floor where he thought it might've dropped to, but leaning over to peer at the ground left him blind and breathless with pain. He settled for fumbling blindly on the floor, searching for a cold metal needle in a cold metal haystack. His movements were beginning to get sluggish. His window for living long enough to leave this radio tower was growing slimmer. Finally, his fingers grasped something, and he tried to pick it up. He dropped it again.