A Broken Record On Repeat In A Crowded Bar

You Scrubbed Away The Bloodstains On The Carpet

The old tower's interior reeked of blood, stained red by more than just the light, the air heavy with iron. Resonant drips pattered against a raspy patina of gasps staining what would otherwise be silence, the blood pooling on the desk falling heavily to the equally wet floor. It was an airless place, like a prison or tomb, a place a person was not expected to leave.

Alastor, shirtless and inexpertly bandaged, knelt by his control desk, before the transmitter. He had had to tear the wires out to shut the place down completely, and he still wasn't certain it had been enough to stop the unintentional broadcast airing. He could still feel the Pentagram's radios, like a cloak of spiderweb on his shoulders, pulling at him. Shudders wracked him, a feverish glisten glazing his pallid, greyish skin in the low light. His bones shifted loosely beneath flimsy strings of muscle, his whole body lingering on the verge of falling apart and peering apprehensively over the edge of oblivion. It was a worrying possibility that he might collapse into strings of gore and be gone altogether.

And he had done it for them.

That was the worst thing, eating at him more than the hole in his side. Perhaps it was the blood loss, or the pain making him cloudy-headed, or the onset of illness from spending a night bleeding in a cold radio tower, but he couldn't understand what he had done. He had gone to war with the angels under the banner of justice and redemption... he could scarcely comprehend it. He wanted almost desperately for someone to tell him it wasn't true but his audience, blessedly receded, was, for once, mute.

It was Charlie's fault, he was convinced of it. Being in such close proximity to her noxious optimism, her hope, her unflinching belief in his better nature. It was like fatal radiation—it was punching a million tiny holes in reliable armour he had thought ironclad, making him soft. She made people want to prove her right—not about change, or redemption, but smaller, selfish things. Things like mattering. The rest of Hell had turned cold and disdainful after his... absence. Charlie alone, in her power and infinite potential, looked at Alastor and his parlour tricks like they were impressive and, in a moment of laxity, he had grown addicted to the glow of wonderment in her eyes. It was impossible to doubt her sincerity, and the smiles she doled out so freely said she admired him, even if she didn't fear him... even if she was stupid enough to want to keep him close enough to bite.

Certainly it was sentimental... but Alastor couldn't deny he had started to covert it, a dragon with its gold. He would do almost anything to keep her smiling up at him like he was brilliant, almost anything at all... and it had made him stupid. Reckless. It had almost gotten him killed.

(Quietly, under layers of denial embarrassment was heaping atop it, Alastor was aware of his original certainty in the plan, the pragmatism he had been fully willing to commit to. It was a plain fact that the others were feeble. Even Husker—still an Overlord in technicality—would have barely posed a distraction to Adam. Pentious with his silly machines, Vaggie and her old spear, Anthony with his guns, Niffty with a dagger little better than a needle... they would have been killed in seconds, and he refused to examine the twist of emotion that thought sparked. The only other person who had stood a chance was Charlie herself, and she couldn't have struck a killing blow if her life depended on it—which it had. All their lives had. Perhaps more horrifying and unacceptable to Alastor than anything else was the dim recognition that fighting Adam himself had not been the wrong choice.)

'Alastor, altruist... died for his friends.' There was nothing in his stomach, but he fought a retch anyway, eyes swimming.

After so many years of the dark, and the cold, and the dreadful quiet, it had been bracing to be placed in something that felt close to a home, with people who quickly stopped flinching when he spoke. A hole his Master had torn in him was patched over, inexpertly and inadequately, by clumsy, well-meaning, oblivious hands. It had felt good to be treated like a person again, like those early days in cannibal town when he gadded about on Rosie's arm and the world was full of smiles that came easily. Oh, they were stupid—all of them, so stupid—and he knew they didn't necessarily like him, but they held their hands out to him in a fashion almost willing, and it had been so achingly long since anyone had been so bold... He had gotten used to it; he'd gotten fond.