cupid clearly hates me.

[ 46 ]

"So... I'm totally safe now, right?"

Alastor lightly traced the tip of his finger over your palm in the shape of circles. "Yes, as long as you stay inside. We'll need to make a proper disguise for you, if you are to leave."

"That's fine by me."

Alastor smiled. Everything about his face—the wrinkles, the contours, highlights and the hills—was gentler than ever. It made you want to simply melt, like a cup of chocolate ice cream left out in the summer sun.

"That illusion," you grinned, "of the knife... it was amazing! True magic. I thought it was real, and I was sitting there, thinking, why the hell doesn't this hurt?"

"It looked that real?"

"Yeah." You nodded, legitimately impressed. "So real. Good thing it wasn't, or I would have haunted you for the rest of your days."

"You can't haunt when you're double-dead."

"Oh yeah? Who says?"

"Science."

You made a loud, spitty pfft sound. "Fuck science."

You were sitting at the chess table, facing each other. Alastor's right hand was intwined with your left hand over the surface, and the chess pieces were all scattered, like little lost souls. You picked up a pawn with your free hand and began to twirl it around.

Suddenly, a thought came to your mind. "Alastor?"

"Hmm?"

You bit the inside of your lip, refusing to make eye contact with him. You just stared at the little white dude in your hand, helpless—but also lifeless—as anything could be. "Are you..." You cleared your throat. "Uh. Are you going to be... okay?"

Fully expecting Alastor to laugh your question off like it was the silliest thing he had ever heard, your heart was stricken by the moment of silence that drew out between the two of you. Your eyes flickered up to examine Alastor's face, and what you saw wasn't at all reassuring.

"Alastor..."

He pulled his hand away from yours and pressed it underneath his eyes.

He was crying.

You didn't hesitate for a second. You stood up, ran over to Alastor's side of the table, then hugged him with all of the passion, love and emotion that you could.

"I love you. Please don't cry."

From that point on, each breath you took hurt, as did each heart beat, like a python had wrapped itself around your chest and squeezed harder with each second. And when he spoke-saying, "I'm so sorry," over and over again—his voice was tight and shaken, like there was a python around his chest, too.

And that was that.

Those tears, coming from the eyes of the most feared overlord in all of hell, who had fallen in love with the purest, craziest girl in all of hell, marked the end of your adventures.

And you knew it, too.

But that only made you hug Alastor tighter.