Chapter Text
Vaggie had left nearly at dawn to do the shopping. She tried to soothe Charlie back to sleep with a tuck of the blanket and a kiss to her brow, but it hadn’t stuck. It was unfortunate that the hours between the late night parties and the midday rampages were some of the only sensible times to get errands done. Charlie sat up and let her hooves hang off the edge of the bed, blinking at the first light shining in the sky before deciding that she should just start her day.
Surprisingly, the kitchen wasn’t empty, Alastor had made it down before her, actually cooking rather than taking a meal in his room. He was at the stove frying eggs and sausage, another pot on the backburner as well. He barely glanced at Charlie when she entered, but another two eggs and a sausage patty were added to the pan quietly. He gestured widely with a claw to the carafe of coffee at the end of the counter.
“Do help yourself, dear, breakfast will be ready shortly,” he said.
Charlie hummed sleepily in response and poured herself coffee, adding sugar and cream liberally before taking the mug over to the kitchen table. Despite living in the same building and working together on her hotel, it was rare for Charlie to be alone with Alastor without a buffer. Usually Vaggie, hovering with a protective glare, occasionally only Husk, Niffty or Angel on the edges of the room while she brought a needed repair to Alastor’s attention.
The coffee tasted better than usual, Charlie thought, listening to Alastor hum gently to himself. She summoned a pile of papers, a mix of notes and colorful drawings filled with ideas to redeem sinners, and she pretended to focus on them instead of Alastor. He was always cryptic. Never really interacting beyond surface level quips. But perhaps since they were alone, he would be a little more open, more honest?
“I know you don’t believe in redemption but… “ she hesitated. He had stopped humming. She could feel the weight of his attention even if he didn’t turn to look at her, “I only… if you did. Would you want it?”
There was a click as he turned off the range. Warbles of shifting radio channels around him as he served up portions for them both eggs, sausage, and grits it seemed. He turned like a dancer, holding the pates. “My dear, I am exactly where I belong,” he said. Always so polite in tone.
Charlie frowned, “That’s not really what I was asking,” she mumbled, not sure why she had been hoping for more.
Alastor set a plate in front of her and she pulled it a little closer. She took a few bites. It was buttery, salty, and comforting. She avoided the meat for now, even if it smelled delicious. You never knew with Alastor. He poured himself more coffee into his own mug, before taking the seat across from her. He ate a few bites from his own plate.
“Just… you have goodness in you. You know?” she said softer. After all, even if he thought her idea of redemption was hilarious, the warm and delicious breakfast he prepared for her without being asked was proof. “Maybe if you worked through some things you’d see that too.”
"Are you offering to be my therapist?" Alastor played a faint laugh track to punctuate his mocking question. Charlie tried very hard not to be offended by the humor that Alastor was taking from her earnest questions. It was a deflection, she was sure. She decided to press on.
"If you want to talk then I want to listen." she insisted, lifting her chin imperiously. She felt some victory when Alastor didn't immediately bite back with another retort. Instead his claws tinked on his mug as static hummed in the air.
"Would you like to hear about the first person I killed?" Alastor said, eyes crinkling as he delighted in challenging her offer.
Fuck no, Charlie thought to herself, suppressing a shiver. Yet, if he really was going to talk about himself, and not just himself but who he was in life? If she shut him down now, would he ever open up to her again? Even if this was a sick joke or an attempt to make her give up on believing in his hidden good nature, she had to try.
"Yes." she said, setting her face with determination. She set aside her fork, definitely no appetite as she prepared to hear about murder. Alastor raised his brows, smile becoming close-lipped.
"Very well." he said, leaning so casually as he lifted his mug, elbow on the table.
"I didn't mean to kill my father." he began, tone light. He took a sip of his coffee, and Charlie tried not to regret her choices. "Or rather, I didn't plan on killing him in advance. Honestly, with as long as it took to track him down, you'd think I'd have known what I wanted from him, but I was still a child. I can forgive myself for poor planning."
“You were a… child?” Charlie asked weakly. Even with sinners, she still imagined they were largely innocent as children. Alastor's eye contact was intense, pupils briefly flickering into dial shape. He blinked and everything was normal once more.
“Ha, well, at fifteen I certainly thought I was a man, but no. In all ways, I was a child who foolishly believed that the sorry day-laborer who abandoned his mixed bastard was worth any of my time or attention.” Alastor tipped his mug up again and then set it aside on the table. “But I found him, caught him when he was alone. I think I meant to make him feel remorse. He had none to give.”
Charlie tilted her head, eyes wide. She had expected a vivid description of gore, but this? She tried to quickly recall her lessons about politics and culture from Above, narrowing it to early 1900’s North America from what she knew about Alastor already. In just one sentence he showed so much more vulnerability than she had dared to hope for. Children out of wedlock were shameful then. Mixed… race? Racism was still a topic for her to get her head around when she saw the vibrant and diverse shapes of the sinners in Hell, but she understood the gist. And this perhaps century old hurt, if it was a hurt. She was glad she’d dared to ask, even as Alastor continued.
“We argued, of course. I shoved him, he shoved me. And then I gripped onto…” Alastor’s brow furrowed, he was holding a fork up in a grand gesture and then he shook his head and laughed. “Funny, I can't recall now. A pipe? A shovel? Ah, regardless, once it was in my hands, I knew what was coming next. I’d never felt such cold clarity or decisiveness before. When I swung my weapon, it was like my body was made for nothing but violence. It connected with his head so beautifully, and he fell, bleeding. I struck again, again, again. Cracking the delicate bones of the skull and jaw. I erased every feature our faces had in common, molding it into a new image. I felt powerful. I felt like god.”
Charlie was frozen in a kind of shock, stomach clenching on the half of her breakfast she'd managed to get down. Yes, this was more along the lines of what she’d been expecting, but it was intense with Alastor’s emphatic elation. His gaze had become distant. He was panting softly and his antlers had grown. Then his eyelids fluttered and he refocused on Charlie. He put on one of his sweeter smiles and took a bite from his now tepid breakfast.
“I was, of course, very lucky that I wasn't caught, I didn’t even hide the body before I fled. Fortunately he had debts that had given him some enemies that took the blame. I was never that sloppy or unprepared again.” he concluded his tale back to his regular, cheerful tone.
“That uh,” Charlie croaked and cleared her throat, “thank you for…sharing?”
Alastor hummed, pleased, “No, thank you, my dear. It was nice to be nostalgic for a moment.”