So Much In Common: Book 1

Chapter 3: Nightmare

"No! Stop it!" Alastor cried out to from where he sat, curled in on himself. He was ten years old again, and the children of his school surrounding him, kicking him, hurting him, insulting him.

"You shouldn't be here you coonass!" A girl drove her fist into the side of Alastor's head, making his ear bleed.

"You're only here because you're dad's a wealthy white man!" Alastor doubled over and cried out in pain as a foot drove into his side. He cried for help, but just like every other day, the teacher pretended not to notice what was happening.

"He would have left your black whore  mother if she hadn't gotten pregnant with you, FREAK!!!" This time when the boy who said those words tried to bring his curled hand down onto Alastor's nose, which they could now get to because he'd lifted his head, ended up punching the brick wall behind him. The boy yelled out in pain and and back up, only to have Alastor knock him down.

"MY MOTHER IS NOT A WHORE YOU PATHETIC WAIST!!!" Alastor left his fist fly into the boys face, who was twice Alastor's size, but couldn't escape from the skinny kid on top of him. As the boy lay there crying, arms up in a useless attempt to shield himself from the blows. The other kids just stared in shock, even as Alastor grabbed a nearby rock that was just a bit bigger than a tennis ball.

"NO ONE INSULTS MY MOTHER!!!" Alastor brought the rock down square in the middle of the kid's head, causing blood to spray upward and onto Alastor's neck, shirt collar, and lower face. A scary grin broke out across Alastor's face as he got up and looked down at the boy, excepting crys of pain, but the boy did not move. He only laid there twitching, the rise and fall of his chest hardly there. This caused Alastor's grin to disappear slowly.

"You killed him..." Said one of the girls who had been beating him up, "TEACHERS!!!" she began to screech in terror. Soon, everyone was running away from Alastor, crying and screaming in terror of the mixed raced boy, who was now covered in blood that was not his own.

Alastor didn't respond to anything as he stared at the boy who was now hardly alive. He didn't respond to the teacher yelling his name, he didn't cry to the teacher striking the side of his face with a stinging slap, he didn't utter a word as he was dragged to the principal's office after the teacher sent two kids to get the school nurse, Alastor didn't even say anything as the teacher screamed insults at him about him being a demented, murderous cajun with his parents by his side.

It wasn't until Alastor got home and was alone with his parents that he broke down. Alastor cried his eyes out as he muttered apologies, said that he didn't know why he did it, and that he was a monster. All through his tearful words, his mother hugged him, trying to consul him, but soon Alastor's father pulled her off of their son and stared down at his son in disgust.

"Father, I-"

"You are no son of mine, you filthy monstrosity." Was all the boy's father said as he told Alastor's mother to start dinner and walked away to his study.

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"Alastor!?" Angel Dust shook the deer violently, trying to wake him up. Angel had just come back to his room after getting Alastor's jacket from the roof and found Alastor tossing and turning on the bed, tears streaming down his face as he muttered incoherently in his sleep. It was obvious that he was having a nightmare.

"Alastor!" Angel yelled again, this time his voice was more fearful then surprised this time, but it woke Alastor up.

"MOTHER, NO!!!" Alastor shouted as he snapped awake. There was no radio static in his voice, so Angel could hear every bit of fear and anguish the deer's voice held. He was now sitting upright, his chest heaving up and down as he scanned the unfamiliar room he was in.

"Alastor, it's alright! You're awake!" Angel rushed over, discarding the jacket on the edge of the bed. The spider took the deer's hands and tried to calm him down.

"Breath, just focus on your breathing." Angel Dust squeezed Alastor's hand gently, glad to see Alastor starting to breath evenly. The Radio Demon started looking around, realizing where he was.

"Angel, why am I in your room?" Alastor lift the blanket to make sure he was still wearing pants.

"Wow Alastor, thanks for the trust." Angel gave a sarcastic eye roll, "I may wanna fuck you, but I wouldn't drug you to do it. You fainted and since I can't open your evilly voodoo door, I brought you here." Angel there Alastor's jacket at him, still hurt that Alastor thought he would stoop so low.

"Faint? Why in the Nine Circles would I faint?" The spider gestured to the bandages on Alastor's arm, making the deer's blood run cold.

"Because you lost a lot of blood. I cleaned up the mess to by the way. Figured it would be better not to make Charlie and Vaggie think you killed someone." The two didn't look at each other, they just seemed to embarrassed and awkward to talk, until Alastor tore off the bandage.

"Hey!" Angel protested, "You're gonna bleed all over...my bed..." The spider gazed at the deer's arm in wonderment. All of the gouges that had been in Alastor's arms were completely healed, leaving only scars behind. Alastor saw Angel's fave and chuckled.

"One of the perks of being an Overlord is fast healing. Thanks for tending to my wounds though, it probably would have taken longer because of infection if you hadn't." Alastor swung his legs over the edge of the bed and shrugged his jacket on and buttoned it over his undershirt, which now had both sleeves rolled down. With his smiled back on, Alastor took a step forward and almost fell over, but once again, Angel Dust caught him.

"Al, maybe you should wait a bit before you try walking. You really did bleed a lot." Alastor brushed off what Angel said and made his cane appear, actually using it to support himself this time.

"Angel, I'm fine. I'll just take it easy with my powers and I'll be fine." As the Radio Demon reached a hand out to grab the door handle, the porn star behind him said something that made him stop with his hand resting on the handle.

"What did you mean last night, when you said that hurting yourself kept the real pain away?" Alastor turned so he looked at the spider out of his eye.

"You wouldn't understand." Alastor suddenly wore a look of surprise with his smile as Angel got angry.

"Like Hell I wouldn't!" Angel Dust pulled of his top right glove off, revealing the scars on his wrist to the demon in front of him.

"I don't wanna talk about it." The usual chipper tone in Alastor's voice was gone, even though his smile was still there, he seemed really sad.

"Well...if you change your mind, I'll listen." Alastor didn't say anything to reply to Angel, he just left in a quick buzz of radio static. Angel let out a sigh and sat on the bed where Alastor had been sleeping. The two may have some in common, but that didn't make them the same. Still though, Angel couldn't get the look on Alastor's face out if his mind. Such sad eyes.