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hello! im genuinely in love with ur hazbin stuff, i think they’re lovely xx
i was js wondering if u could do individual hazbin characters (specifically thinking of vox, alastor and lucifer… idm if you’d like to do others) x fem! reader: where they basically just have an infatuation with the reader and aren’t dating yet.
i’d love to see them try to gain her attention (and attraction) in any way, js doing whatever (maybe by trying to impress the reader, giving her gifts… kind of also including their love languages i think like what would they do with someone they have a crush on 😭)
thanks for considering and take care <3
This is such a cute request :,) thank you for taking the time to write that all out lol i'll try to do your request justice
⌑ " hopelessly devoted to you "
The hazbin men when they have a crush
Hazbin men x f!reader
Characters : lucifer, vox, alastor
Warnings : mentions of val. Swearing i guess? I think this is actually one of my more tame posts but if you guys find anything i need to put in the warnings let me know in the comments :)
A/n : it was very difficult to characterise Alastor's part i'll be honest so I hope i did my guy justice. I'm deffo gonna start writing for human vox and alastor soon, because Alastor was so fine when he was alive bro. Also is anyone getting tired of just working constantly? Feels like i have had zero time to myself lately, shit sucks. My only interactions with people have been with coworkers and I hate all of their guts like bro let me have time to hang out with my actual friends type shift 🙏
▢ vox ᯤ
This man acts like he's above having a crush on you but the second you walk into his office he turns into 10% flustered glitching, 40% panic that he hides beneath jokes, and 50% smug peacocking.
His screen brightness auto-adjusts whenever you compliment him, the blue more vibrant. Like you literally light this man up
Competitive flirting!!! If you're chaotic, he's more chaotic. If you're witty, he's faster. If you lean in close, he presses his screen so close to your face you can feel the heat radiating off of it. Sometimes he'll slip up and he'll short-circuit, but he pretends it's just a glitch claiming smoothly - "that was intentional, sweetheart. Artistic effect, y'know?"
His love languages : Gift-giving + physical affection. He leaves tech gifts on your desk every morning - WON'T admit they're gifts, though - "They're not gifts you idiot. They're corporate perks. Completely professional."
Like Alastor once pointed out bluntly, Vox almost always is touching your shoulders. It's usual a weird power-play thing with others but with you? It's complete affection.
He'll come up behind you when you're working, shoulders immediately captured by his claws as he talks you through the email he had sent you. When yapping, he's absentmindedly just start massaging your shoulders. Like bro is not subtle with his feelings at all.
Adjusts your tie, picks off fluff or lint from your blazer, and guides you by the waist.
Talks shit about everyone else around you. This man is a fucking gossip gremlin. Loves that you match his energy as well -
"Im so goddamn sick of Katie's weird fuckin' flirting but she's one of my best news anchors so I can't do shit about it."
"She's literally drenched in perfume everytime she comes in here, Vox. Like - she'll walk passed my desk in the morning and it will fucking linger until the end of my shift. I work for 12 hours."
"Oh shit I'll install an air-freshener in your desk, sweetheart. that sounds like torture."
Pretends he doesnt crave your approval but starts malfunctioning when your praise him.
"Is that a new suit? You look hot."
The background of his face literally turns into hearts and he's quick to throw his arms across his face to hide it," Fuck - ignore that."
The most pettiest jealous man in hell. If one of the other Vees mentions you too fondly, he malfunctions.
Velvette : " I need Y/n to model for me-"
Vox : " WHY. YOU HAVE YOUR OWN STAFF FUCK OFF."
If Valentino flirts with you? Vox actually becomes visibly angry. He knows the nature with why Valentino flirts, so he'll always sweet talk the moth into shutting his trap and walking his ass away.
He purposefully calls you into his office to watch him do something impressive, always seeks your approval for the littlest things. Your approval was important to him.
"Look, sweetheart, I upgraded our entire network firewall in 10 seconds. I'm literally the shit."
"Sir, you could have just emailed thi-"
"Nope. I needed you as a witness. Now tell me that I'm the shit."
"... You're the shit."
"I fucking know, right?"
Will play music from his speakers when you walk into his office, or play soundbites of an audience clapping and cheering. He claims it's meant to "empower" you as a woman.
Becomes weirdly soft when he sees that you're visibly tired or stressed. One time you fell asleep at your desk and he stops his typing to just admire you for a moment, definitely not taking a photo from the webcam of his screen of your sleeping face, and then takes off his blazer to wrap around your shoulders. You wake up surrounded in the smell of his expensive cologne and him sitting at his desk, casually greeting you with a - "finally awake, sleeping beauty?" Isn't mad in the slightest.
He loves making you laugh. He tries so fucking hard. Not even subtle. When you laugh at something he says, he stands taller, voice drops and his screen brightens - he's basically preening. Then he promptly brags about making you laugh.
"Did you hear that, Val? She laughed at MY bit. MY comedic timing. Don't fucking talk to me like I'm not funny as shit."
"Ay, dios mío..."
▢ alastor ⌖
He does NOT fall easily. So the first flicker of interest towards you genuinely just irritates him more than anything. Why is it that you catch his attention more than the chaos of the hotel? It makes no sense to him.
He tries to observe you from afar like you're an oddly fascinating wildlife specimen. He's not sneaky about it in the slightest - he stares unabashedly and smiles sharpy like he's plotting your death, which, to be clear, he isn't.
Probably.
He likes to be a witness to your hobbies and routines. He enjoys knowing things that he's not supposed to know.
"Oh, you're having mint tea today? I thought your favourite was jasmine. Curious."
"Are you stalking me??"
His love languages : Words of affirmations + acts of service. He compliments you in old-fashioned, theatrical ways that make everyone else in the room uncomfortable, but you? You fire right back.
"And you're looking like a man who rehearsed that line in the mirror."
"... Perhaps I did."
He likes when you challenge his compliments, or make him work harder to get a reaction. Like bro is delighted when you straight up reject his compliments.
He "coincidentally" handles tasks and chores before you get to them. Dishes? Done. A stuck window he saw you struggling with earlier? Fixed. A resident being too flirty and touchy with you? Silenced.
This guy loves making your life easier. When you notice what he's doing, he merely laughs like he's been caught in the middle of a murder he's proud of - "whatever do you mean, my dear? I only wish for your days to be smooth and your spirit unburdened!"
He'll engage in chores he normally finds beneath him just to hear you say," Wow... thanks, Al."
That single phrase could power him for a week.
Teasing is his favourite form of flirting. He loves someone who not only receives his taunt but also throws the knife back.
"You keep hovering around me, dear. Are you smitten?"
"Don't flatter yourself. The only thing I'm smitten with is cold hard cash."
"Ah! A fair point!"
He pushes your buttons deliberately, trying to see how far he can go before you snap or blush. But loves it when you land a good hit on him with your words, his cold dead heart would be thumping away like the wings of a butterfly if it could. It makes him lean in, grin sharp, voice dropping just for you - "Hmm... aren't you deliciously bold today."
You fluster him rarely. He flusters you constantly. It becomes his daily enrichment activity. He literally keeps mental score :
If you blush? +10 points.
If you stumble over your words? +50 points.
If you glare at him, trying to fight back a smile? He's just won at that point.
▢ lucifer 𖤐
He falls hard and embarassingly fast for you. One day you're organising his paperwork, the next he's privately composing sonnets about the way you handed him a pen.
He sticks his tongue out in concentration as he's writing in a sparkly diary - "Her grace... her poise... the divine elegance with which she passed me that pen.... I need her. Carnally."
He's the king of hell, and yet one (1) compliment from you and he crumbles like wet paper.
"Nice job today, Lu."
"Oh uh- thanks! You too!" He's internally imagining how he's going to propose to you and where you should go to for your honeymoon.
This man is PAINFULLY transparent. Bro isnt even trying to hide his crush. He gets all twitchy when you enter a room and he absentmindedly tap a love song on the handle of his cane. He glows around you, smile permanently etched onto his face.
His love languages : Physical affection + gift-giving. He finds excuses to be near you at all times. Standing too close? Absolutely. Touching your elbow to guide you? Constantly. Accidentally brushing your hand? Commonly.
He loves hugging you. LOVES. Oh, you're in a professional setting? Doesn't matter to him, he always requires a hug after such a tough and tiring meeting.
"Y/n, I require emotional refueling. Talking to Michael for a full hour has bummed me the fuck out."
His gifts are either wildly over the top or painfully sentimental. No in-between.
A diamond-encrusted pin of your favourite TV show character.
A hand-sketched portrait he stayed up all night drawing because he thought you looked particularly lovely that day.
A personalised planner that he's left little notes on every page for you.
He just loves seeing your face light up when he hands you something. He gives your little daily offerings. Fresh tea. A bouquet. A single shing trinket. Manifesting fireworks for you when you finish a task because you called them pretty one time.
"Just a token of appreciation for my radiant, brilliant assisstant keeping my kingdom from falling apart, y'know, no biggie."
He is shamelessly dramatic about how much he adores you. This man yearns like it's a full time job, one that he is fully committed to.
Stares longingly when you're focused on something else. Sighs wistfully when you leave the room.
Sometimes he'll drop the dramatics and lean in close, his voice silky sweet - " take a brake from work, yeah? I want your full attention."
Leaves you flustered from the random and sudden smooth flirting.
He loves being the cause of your smile. Will literally risk his image to hear your laughter, no care in the world if he's embarassed himself. You make him forget about his pride, even for a brief and peaceful moment.
Whenever i think about how gentle Pierrot tries to be with MC despite the fact that hes a monster whos killed several and will kill again,all i can think about is how much the others are probably thinking
✦ warnings — Horror atmosphere, fear & psychological distress, attempted sexual assault, protective Alastor.
✦ requested by @cartoonykatbird
✦ blurb — Moving into the room beside Alastor feels like the beginning of a horror story. Somehow, somewhere between midnight jazz, radio static, and three gentle knocks against the wall, it becomes a love story instead.
Ever since the Extermination, the Hazbin Hotel had barely known a moment of peace.
News traveled fast in Hell, especially when it involved the impossible. Charlie and her friends had survived, Adam had fallen, and suddenly redemption no longer sounded like the naïve dream of a hopeless princess. Every day brought another wave of sinners through the front doors, some curious enough to see what all the noise was about, others convinced the hotel was nothing more than another scam waiting to collapse, while a handful arrived carrying little more than the quiet hope that maybe, just maybe, they could become something better than they had been.
The lobby had become almost unrecognizable. Suitcases lined the walls, voices overlapped from every direction, demons argued over rooms, asked endless questions about the battle against Heaven, interrupted Charlie every five minutes to ask whether angels could really die, or whether Lucifer had actually shown up, and whether another Extermination was coming. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Niffty darted between legs with an armful of cleaning supplies, Husk complained from behind the bar that nobody was paying their tabs anymore, and Vaggie somehow managed to keep everything from descending into complete chaos.
It was exactly what Charlie had always wanted.
It also meant the hotel had run out of rooms.
You'd been living there for a few months now, long enough to settle into a routine, long enough for your room near the lobby to start feeling like home, but with so many newcomers arriving every day, the entire floor was being reorganized. Larger rooms became shared bedrooms, empty offices were converted into guest rooms, furniture disappeared into hallways only to reappear somewhere else an hour later, and somewhere in the middle of that ever-growing list of changes, your name had quietly been moved to another room.
The only problem was actually finding someone who knew where that room was.
You caught Vaggie first, weaving your way through the crowd until you reached the reception desk, where she stood surrounded by paperwork and at least six impatient sinners trying to speak over one another.
"Vaggie?"
She looked up just long enough to recognize you before another voice immediately cut across yours.
"My shower only has cold water!"
"The guy next door keeps stealing my cigarettes!"
"I signed up yesterday, when do I get redeemed?"
Vaggie pinched the bridge of her nose before looking back at you with an apologetic expression.
"I know, your room. Just... give me ten minutes."
You took one look at the crowd surrounding her and immediately understood those ten minutes would probably become an hour.
Charlie wasn't any easier to reach.
She stood near the staircase with a dozen sinners gathered around her, answering questions almost faster than they could ask them, smiling patiently while everyone seemed determined to learn every detail of the battle against Heaven.
"Did you really kill Adam?"
"What was Lucifer like?"
"Can angels bleed?"
"Are they coming back?"
Charlie somehow managed to answer all four questions before spotting you across the room, her face brightening almost instantly.
"Oh! You're here for your new room, aren't you?"
"I was just wondering if—"
"Niffty!" Charlie called before you could finish, waving the tiny maid over as she zipped past carrying a stack of freshly folded towels. "Could you show her where she's staying? I'd do it myself, but..."
Another sinner had already started asking about redemption.
You smiled.
"It's okay."
Niffty bounced over without a second thought, reached behind the reception desk, grabbed a key hanging from one of the hooks, then immediately caught your wrist.
"C'mon!"
You barely had enough time to grab your suitcase before she was already dragging you across the lobby.
The first few hallways felt familiar, filled with voices spilling from half-open doors and guests wandering from room to room, but with every turn the hotel seemed to grow a little quieter. The conversations faded behind you, replaced by the distant creaking of old floorboards and the occasional groan of ancient pipes hidden somewhere inside the walls, until eventually even the noise from the lobby disappeared altogether.
You frowned.
"I didn't know the hotel went this far."
"It does!" Niffty chirped cheerfully, still marching ahead without slowing down. "Nobody really comes here anymore."
That wasn't exactly reassuring.
The corridor narrowed as you continued, the lights growing dimmer with every few steps until only a handful of old sconces remained, their warm glow barely reaching the worn carpet beneath your feet. Dust clung to forgotten picture frames lining the walls, doors became fewer and farther apart, and every sound you made echoed just a little longer than it should have, making the entire hallway feel strangely detached from the rest of the hotel, as though this corner of the building had quietly slipped everyone's mind years ago.
Niffty finally stopped in front of a door tucked away at the very end of the corridor, proudly dropping the key into your hand before pointing at the room.
"There!"
You looked around instinctively.
The hallway was completely empty, no voices drifted through the walls, no footsteps echoed from another floor, and no doors stood open anywhere nearby. Only two rooms occupied the very end of the corridor, facing the same stretch of dimly lit carpet, separated by little more than a few feet of polished wood.
"...It's quiet."
"I know!" Niffty beamed, clearly delighted by your observation. "Isn't it nice?"
Before you could answer, she was already hurrying back the way she'd come, humming happily to herself until even that sound disappeared into the distance, leaving you alone with your suitcase, your new room, and the heavy silence settling over the forgotten end of the hallway.
You slipped the key into the lock without another thought, completely unaware that Niffty had grabbed the wrong one from the reception desk, or that the room beside yours, hidden behind an identical wooden door only a few feet away, belonged to the one resident Charlie would never have assigned as your neighbor on purpose.
The room itself wasn't much different from the others you'd seen throughout the hotel.
At least... it shouldn't have been.
The furniture was the same style Charlie had chosen for every bedroom, the bed neatly made, a wardrobe tucked against one wall, a small desk beneath the window, yet something about the room felt older than the rest of the hotel. The wallpaper had already begun peeling in one corner, the wooden floor creaked beneath your footsteps, and the soft amber light hanging from the ceiling never seemed quite bright enough to chase away the shadows gathering in the corners.
It was strange.
Lucifer had rebuilt the hotel with his own magic only a few weeks ago. Everything else looked almost brand new, polished and full of life, while this forgotten corridor felt like it had somehow escaped the renovation altogether.
You shrugged to yourself.
It was probably temporary.
Once the excitement around the hotel settled down, Charlie would almost certainly move everyone back into more sensible rooms. You only had to spend a few nights here.
That wasn't so bad.
You unpacked your suitcase, folded your clothes into the wardrobe, lined a few books neatly across the little desk and placed your toiletries in the bathroom, slowly turning the unfamiliar room into something that felt a little more yours. By the time everything had found its place, the last traces of daylight had disappeared behind the curtains, leaving the room wrapped in the warm glow of the bedside lamp.
You changed into something more comfortable, climbed beneath the blankets with a book in your hands and spent the next hour reading, grateful for the quiet after the endless commotion downstairs. Eventually your eyelids grew heavy, the words began blurring together across the page, and with a small yawn, you closed the book, switched off the lamp and let darkness settle over the room.
Sleep never came.
At first, it was nothing more than a faint crackle somewhere beyond the wall beside your bed, so quiet you almost convinced yourself it was the old pipes settling inside the building. You closed your eyes again, listening to the silence return, only for the sound to come back a few moments later, longer this time, carrying the unmistakable hiss of radio static.
Your eyes opened.
The room was dark.
The static disappeared.
You frowned, waited another minute, then slowly relaxed against the pillow.
A voice crackled softly through the wall.
Not clear enough to understand.
Just fragments.
A sentence.
A chuckle.
More static.
You glanced toward the clock sitting on your bedside table.
2:03 AM.
"...Okay..."
The whisper left your lips before you could stop it.
The radio faded again, replaced by the old building creaking somewhere down the corridor. Floorboards groaned one after another, slow enough to sound like careful footsteps wandering just outside your room. You held your breath, waiting for someone to knock, but no knock ever came. Instead, something shifted beneath the gap at the bottom of your door, a shadow gliding lazily across the floor before disappearing just as quickly as it had arrived.
Your stomach tightened.
"Nope."
You pulled the blankets a little higher.
The silence lasted all of thirty seconds before another burst of laughter drifted through the wall.
It wasn't loud.
It wasn't even directed at anyone.
It simply... existed, warm and amused, as though someone next door had heard a joke only they understood.
Then came the smell.
It was faint enough that you almost questioned whether you had imagined it, something metallic lingering beneath the scent of old wood and dust, mixed with the unmistakable aroma of coffee that had long since gone cold.
You were officially terrified.
Sleep had become completely out of the question.
Instead, you sat upright against the headboard with your knees pulled tightly to your chest, clutching the blanket around yourself while your eyes remained fixed on the bedroom door, trying to convince yourself there had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything you'd heard.
It was an old hotel.
Old buildings made noise.
Pipes rattled.
Floorboards creaked.
Shadows...
Shadows were probably... shadows.
Another burst of static hummed through the wall.
You squeezed your eyes shut.
"This is fine," you whispered to yourself. "It's just one night."
The radio crackled once more, louder this time, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone speaking.
Not in English.
In French.
"Mais voyons... ce n'est pas du tout comme cela qu'on prépare un café."
Your eyes flew open.
You knew that voice.
You'd heard it every day since arriving at the hotel, greeting Charlie in the mornings, chatting with Husk in the lounge, filling entire rooms with effortless charm wrapped in old-fashioned manners.
Alastor.
You stared at the wall separating your bedroom from the next room, the realization settling in with almost embarrassing clarity.
Niffty hadn't just given you a room at the end of the corridor.
She had accidentally moved you in next door to Alastor.
Morning arrived almost offensively normal.
Golden sunlight slipped through the curtains, chasing away every shadow that had kept you awake for hours, while the room looked exactly as it had the evening before. The wallpaper still peeled slightly in one corner, the old floorboards remained perfectly still beneath your feet, and the hallway outside was silent enough that you almost convinced yourself the entire night had been the product of an overactive imagination.
Almost.
Because you knew what you'd heard. The static.The laughter. The footsteps pacing back and forth beyond the wall. And most of all...
Alastor.
You rubbed a tired hand across your face, glanced at your reflection in the mirror and immediately regretted it. Dark circles had settled beneath your eyes, your hair had long since given up trying to look presentable, and judging by the exhausted expression staring back at you, you'd managed to sleep perhaps twenty minutes in total.
"Great."
You changed into fresh clothes, made a half-hearted attempt at fixing your hair, then gathered the things you'd need for the day before heading toward the door. Maybe Vaggie would finally have a minute to spare, maybe Charlie had realized the mistake by now, maybe you could quietly swap rooms before another night turned you into a nervous wreck.
You slipped the key into the lock, turned it carefully behind you, then bent to pocket it.
The door beside yours opened. Your entire body stiffened before you even looked up.
Polished shoes appeared first, followed by the familiar red pinstripes of an impeccably tailored suit, and finally Alastor himself stepped into the hallway as though nothing in the world had ever been out of place. He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, then lifted his head, his ever-present smile widening ever so slightly the moment he noticed you standing only a few feet away.
For a brief second, genuine surprise crossed his features.
It disappeared so quickly you almost wondered whether you'd imagined it.
"My," he said pleasantly, his ears giving the faintest twitch as his crimson eyes drifted from your face to the door behind you before returning just as smoothly. "This is unexpected."
You opened your mouth.
Nothing came out.
During the months you'd spent at the hotel, the two of you had barely exchanged more than a handful of conversations. There had always been polite greetings in passing, the occasional remark over breakfast, brief exchanges whenever Charlie happened to gather everyone together, but that was where it ended. Alastor had always remained just far enough away to be untouchable, smiling that unreadable smile whenever your eyes met across a room before disappearing again as though he'd only ever been passing through.
You'd caught yourself watching him more times than you cared to admit.
He had caught you doing it almost every single time.
There was something deeply unsettling about him, something that made the instinct to keep your distance fight constantly against the quiet curiosity pulling you back in his direction. Every glance lasted a fraction longer than it probably should have, every accidental encounter carried a strange tension neither of you acknowledged, and every time his eyes lingered on yours, you found yourself looking away first.
Now there were barely three feet separating you.
His smile remained perfectly bright, his posture as relaxed as ever, as though the previous night hadn't been filled with radio static, laughter echoing through the walls and French drifting into your bedroom at two o'clock in the morning.
"I... just moved in," you managed, still sounding far more tired than you intended.
"So I gathered," Alastor replied lightly, glancing once more toward your door before giving a thoughtful hum. "I must confess, I wasn't informed I would be welcoming a new neighbor."
Neither had you.
The thought almost escaped your lips before you stopped yourself.
He tilted his head ever so slightly, his smile never wavering.
"I do hope the room proved comfortable."
You stared at him.
Comfortable.
You hadn't slept a single minute.
He either had no idea what kind of noises escaped his room in the middle of the night...
...or he knew exactly what you had endured.
"Did you sleep well, my dear?"
You forced a smile onto your face, hoping it looked more convincing than it felt.
"I slept fine," you replied, perhaps a little too quickly, clearing your throat before adding, "It just takes me a little while to get used to a new room, that's all."
Alastor regarded you in thoughtful silence, his crimson eyes lingering on the dark circles beneath yours for just a fraction longer than was comfortable. His smile never changed, never faltered, yet you couldn't shake the feeling that he knew perfectly well you were lying. If he did, however, he was far too polite to point it out.
"How unfortunate," he said pleasantly. "I'm certain you'll settle in before long. One grows accustomed to unfamiliar surroundings rather quickly."
You hoped he was wrong.
"Well..." You adjusted the strap of your bag, taking an instinctive half-step toward the staircase. "I'd better head downstairs."
"Of course."
He stepped aside with effortless courtesy, one hand gesturing toward the corridor as though inviting you to pass first. "I do hope we shall have the pleasure of seeing more of one another, my dear."
You offered him a polite smile that probably looked more nervous than friendly before hurrying past him, resisting the urge to glance over your shoulder until you reached the first flight of stairs. Only then did you risk a quick look back.
He was still standing exactly where you'd left him, watching you.
The moment your eyes met again, he inclined his head politely before disappearing back into his room, the door closing with a soft click that echoed far longer than it should have.
You let out the breath you'd been holding.
The walk back toward the lobby felt considerably shorter than the night before. Familiar voices slowly replaced the oppressive silence of the forgotten corridor, footsteps echoed from occupied rooms again, and somewhere downstairs Angel Dust was already complaining loudly enough for half the hotel to hear him. By the time you reached the main hall, the unsettling feeling clinging to your shoulders had eased just enough for exhaustion to take its place.
Charlie and Vaggie stood near the reception desk, buried beneath another mountain of paperwork while Niffty darted happily between them with a feather duster nearly twice her size.
You didn't even slow down.
"Vaggie."
Both women looked up.
"I need another room."
Charlie blinked. "...Good morning to you too?"
"I can't stay there."
Vaggie frowned, immediately setting the clipboard down.
"What's wrong with the room?"
You glanced briefly toward the staircase before lowering your voice.
"It's next to Alastor."
Silence settled over the reception desk. Charlie slowly turned toward Vaggie. Vaggie slowly turned toward Charlie. Then, together, both of them looked toward Niffty, who had frozen in the middle of dusting a picture frame.
"Niffty..."
The tiny maid looked up innocently.
"What?"
"Which key did you give her yesterday?"
Niffty tilted her head, clearly thinking very hard before reaching into the pocket of her apron and pulling out another brass key.
"...Oops."
Vaggie closed her eyes.
"You grabbed the wrong one."
"I did?"
"You gave her Alastor's neighboring room."
"Oh."
Another pause.
"...Oops."
Charlie sighed, though the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
"I knew something felt off when I couldn't find that key this morning."
You looked from one to the other.
"So..." Hope crept cautiously into your voice. "Can I switch back?"
The hopeful expression on Charlie's face faded almost immediately. She looked toward Vaggie. She already knew the answer.
"We can't."
Your heart sank.
"What do you mean you can't?"
She gestured toward the crowded lobby behind you, where another pair of sinners had just walked through the front doors carrying suitcases.
"We're full."
Charlie nodded apologetically.
"Every room's occupied. We even converted the old music room into a bedroom yesterday, and Husk is still complaining that people keep trying to sleep in the lounge." She winced sympathetically. "If we had another room, I'd move you immediately."
"There isn't even a storage closet left," Vaggie added. "Trust me, I checked."
You stared at them in disbelief.
"So you're telling me..."
Charlie offered you an apologetic smile.
"...You're staying next to Alastor."
The words landed like a sentence.
You closed your eyes for a brief moment, already imagining another sleepless night filled with radio static, laughter drifting through the walls and shadows crawling beneath your door.
Somewhere behind you, Niffty smiled brightly.
"I think you guys are gonna be great neighbors!"
The rest of the day passed far too quickly.
You spent most of it helping Charlie wherever you could, carrying boxes upstairs, showing new residents around the hotel, answering the same handful of questions you'd already heard a dozen times that morning, all while trying very hard not to think about where you'd be sleeping that night. Every now and then, your eyes drifted toward Alastor across the lobby, only to find his already resting on you before he politely tipped his head and returned to whatever conversation he had been having, leaving you wondering whether he'd actually noticed how exhausted you looked or whether your imagination had simply decided to torture you a little more.
By the time evening settled over the hotel, you had run out of excuses.
Your room hadn't moved.
Neither had his.
You climbed the stairs with considerably less enthusiasm than the night before, unlocked the door, stepped inside, and immediately began preparing for what you had already decided would be another sleepless night. You changed into comfortable clothes, left your book untouched on the bedside table, turned the lamp off much earlier than usual, then slipped beneath the blankets, determined to fall asleep before the strange noises next door had a chance to begin.
It didn't work.
Every time you closed your eyes, your mind wandered back to the previous night, replaying the static, the laughter, the footsteps pacing outside your door until your own heartbeat became loud enough to keep you awake. You shifted beneath the blankets for what felt like the hundredth time, staring into the darkness while the clock beside your bed crept steadily toward midnight, your body begging for sleep while your thoughts stubbornly refused to quiet down.
Then, almost exactly when you'd started expecting it, the familiar crackle drifted softly through the wall.
You didn't jump this time.
The radio hissed quietly for a few seconds before old jazz filled the silence, warm brass and gentle piano replacing the unsettling static that had terrified you the night before. Somewhere beyond the wall, you heard the faint scrape of a chair moving across the floor, followed by the unmistakable sound of Alastor humming absentmindedly beneath the music, as though he'd completely forgotten anyone occupied the room beside his.
It sounded...
Oddly normal.
You rolled onto your side, facing the wall separating your room from his, listening more carefully now that you knew what the sounds actually were. The laughter was still there every now and then, quiet enough to suggest he'd amused himself with some passing thought, the floorboards still creaked beneath his footsteps as he wandered from one side of the room to the other, and the radio continued playing those old songs you'd never heard before, filling the silence with something that, strangely enough, no longer felt frightening.
If anything...
It was almost relaxing.
Without really thinking about it, your fingers began tapping lightly against the mattress in time with the music, following the rhythm until, after a moment's hesitation, you shifted a little closer to the wall and gently knocked against it instead.
The sound barely carried through the wood, soft enough that you almost doubted it would reach the room beyond, yet the effect was immediate. The music cut off mid-note, the faint crackle of the radio vanished with it, the floorboards fell completely silent, and suddenly the corridor seemed to hold its breath, every strange sound that had surrounded you only moments before swallowed by a silence so complete it made your own heartbeat sound impossibly loud.
Oh no.
He'd heard you.
Of course he'd heard you.
You'd just knocked on the wall separating your room from that of one of Hell's most powerful Overlords, and for reasons you still couldn't explain, you'd somehow expected him not to notice.
You held your breath, every muscle in your body tensing as you stared at the wall, wondering whether you'd just made the biggest mistake since arriving at the hotel. The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity, your heartbeat pounding loudly enough that you were almost convinced it would carry through the wood, until, at last, a soft knock answered from the other side. It was gentle, almost hesitant, nothing like the response you'd imagined, and certainly not the angry outburst you'd been bracing yourself for.
You blinked in surprise, your fear slowly giving way to curiosity as you lifted your hand once more and answered with another careful tap, a little less uncertain than the first. The silence returned, though this time it felt different, less oppressive, almost expectant, as though whoever stood on the other side of the wall was considering what to do next, before a familiar voice finally drifted through the old wood, warm, perfectly calm, and unmistakably Alastor's.
"Y/N?"
Your heart lurched so violently you were convinced he could probably hear that too.
"...Yes?"
A quiet chuckle reached your side of the wall before he spoke again, his voice carrying that same effortless politeness it always did, softened only slightly by the late hour.
"Well..." Another brief pause settled between you, almost thoughtful this time. "The walls are remarkably thin, aren't they?"
You couldn't help letting out a small, nervous laugh.
"I guess they are."
"I do apologize if I've disturbed your rest," he continued after a moment, and although his voice remained light, there was something unexpectedly sincere beneath it. "Old habits have a tendency to follow one home, I'm afraid. The radio, the music... I confess I hadn't considered someone might be trying to sleep on the other side of the wall."
The apology caught you completely off guard.
You had expected amusement, perhaps teasing, maybe even indifference, but certainly not concern.
"If you would prefer silence," he added, "I'd be more than happy to turn the radio off for the evening."
You hesitated.
Only an hour ago, you would have accepted without thinking. You had spent the entire previous night terrified by every crackle of static, every laugh drifting through the wall, every creaking floorboard that seemed to carry some unseen presence through the corridor. Yet now that you knew exactly where those sounds came from, they no longer felt like the whispers of something lurking in the dark. They were simply... Alastor, moving around his room, humming to himself while he read, letting old records play as he passed the time.
Strangely enough, that thought warmed your chest.
"No," you answered quietly, your fingers absentmindedly tracing the blanket gathered over your knees. "You can leave it on."
A brief silence settled between you.
"...Are you certain?"
"I think..." You smiled to yourself before finishing your sentence. "I actually like the music. It's... soothing."
Another soft chuckle drifted through the wall.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"I guess it is."
The radio crackled back to life a few seconds later, softer than before, the volume lowered just enough for the jazz to become little more than a gentle melody drifting through the old wood. You rolled onto your side, resting your head against the pillow as the music filled the silence once more, and before you even realized it, your eyes had finally grown heavy enough to close.
It was the first good night's sleep you'd had since moving into that room.
The following evening, you found yourself waiting for the music.
Not consciously, at least not at first, but when midnight came and the familiar crackle of static drifted through the wall, you caught yourself smiling instead of tensing. The old records had become oddly comforting, a quiet reminder that someone was awake on the other side, going through the same familiar routine while the rest of the hotel slept.
Eventually, you reached to him more often through the wall.
The conversation that followed lasted barely five minutes, nothing more than a polite exchange of good evenings and harmless observations, yet somehow it happened again the next night, and the one after that, until speaking through the wall quietly slipped into your nightly routine without either of you ever deciding it should.
Some evenings you commented on whatever song happened to be playing, admitting you preferred the slower jazz records over the livelier ones, while Alastor insisted your taste was "surprisingly respectable," changing the record anyway whenever you wrinkled your nose at one you particularly disliked. Other nights, a loud crash from his room would make you blink toward the wall before asking, unable to suppress the smile tugging at your lips, "Did you just trip over a chair?"
His answer always came after a suspiciously long pause.
"I most certainly did not."
"You definitely did."
"...The chair was poorly positioned."
You laughed.
The conversations grew longer after that.
Sometimes he told you about his day, about the latest argument between Angel Dust and Husk, about Charlie's endless optimism or Niffty's newest obsession.
Sometimes you spoke instead, recounting little moments that had made you laugh, complaining about difficult guests, rambling about books you'd been reading, never quite noticing how late it had become until one of you pointed out the hour. Alastor never admitted how much he had begun looking forward to those conversations, but you noticed the radio always started a little earlier now.
It became your routine.
Then one evening...
The knock didn't come from the wall.
You looked up from your book, frowning slightly as three soft knocks echoed through your room, unmistakably coming from the door instead.
For a brief moment, you simply stared at it.
Another knock followed, patient and unhurried.
You climbed out of bed, crossed the room and slowly opened the door.
Alastor stood in the hallway, one hand resting lightly against the frame, dressed as impeccably as ever despite the late hour. The warm light from the corridor caught the edge of his smile as he inclined his head politely, looking almost amused by your obvious surprise.
"Good evening, my dear."
"...Good evening."
"I was wondering," he began, smoothing one of his cuffs almost absentmindedly, "whether you might care to continue our discussion without the inconvenience of several inches of plaster separating us."
Your heart skipped.
For weeks, the wall had been enough.
Comfortable.
Safe.
You had spoken to him almost every night, laughed together, shared stories neither of you had expected to tell, yet somehow standing face to face felt entirely different, as though every conversation you'd had until now had merely been preparing you for this one.
He noticed your hesitation immediately.
"There is, of course, no obligation," he added gently. "I simply thought the acoustics might benefit from a slight improvement."
A nervous laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
"...I think the acoustics are fine."
"They are adequate."
"And yet you still came knocking."
"Indeed."
Silence settled comfortably between you, neither awkward nor pressing, while you searched his expression for... something.
Anything.
Instead, you found only that familiar smile, patient as ever, waiting without the slightest intention of rushing your answer.
Finally, you stepped aside.
"...Okay."
His smile widened just enough to notice.
"Splendid."
He waited for you to lock your door before leading the way the few short steps separating your rooms, reaching his own door almost immediately and holding it open with a courteous gesture.
"After you."
You had imagined Alastor's room countless times over the past few weeks.
None of those imaginings had prepared you for the reality.
The room felt less like a bedroom and more like another world tucked quietly behind an ordinary hotel door. A fireplace crackled softly against one wall, bathing the room in a warm amber glow that danced across polished wooden floors and deep crimson furniture. Shelves overflowed with books that looked decades older than the hotel itself, old records were stacked neatly beside a vintage gramophone, and the familiar jazz you'd listened to through the wall for weeks now drifted softly through the room, quieter than usual, wrapping everything in an atmosphere that felt strangely timeless.
The room smelled faintly of coffee, polished wood and old paper.
Somehow...
Exactly the way you'd imagined.
"I hope you'll forgive the modest accommodations," Alastor said with playful formality as he closed the door behind you. "One does what one can."
You couldn't help smiling.
"This is modest?"
"I've always found extravagance rather exhausting."
Your eyes wandered toward the fireplace where two large armchairs faced one another, positioned close enough for conversation, a small table resting between them with a steaming coffee pot already waiting.
He noticed where you were looking.
"I took the liberty."
He crossed the room with the same effortless grace he seemed to carry everywhere, lifting the coffee pot before glancing back toward you.
"Do you take sugar?"
"One."
"An excellent decision."
He poured two cups with practiced precision before handing one to you, his fingers brushing yours for the briefest instant as you accepted it.
The contact barely lasted a second.
It still sent warmth racing through your chest.
You settled into the armchair opposite his, the fire crackling quietly between you while the record continued turning in the background, filling the comfortable silence neither of you seemed in any hurry to interrupt.
It should have felt awkward.
Instead, it felt strangely familiar.
You already knew the cadence of his voice, the way he laughed softly whenever something genuinely amused him, the moments when he paused to choose his next words, even the habit he'd developed of absentmindedly adjusting the volume of the gramophone whenever one particular trumpet became just a little too enthusiastic. Weeks of speaking through the wall had quietly taught you all those little things, yet sitting across from him now somehow made each one feel more real, as though the man you'd slowly come to know through old plaster and midnight conversations had finally stepped out from behind the barrier separating your worlds.
For the first time since moving into the room next to his, there was no wall between you.
Only two cups of coffee, the soft crackle of the fire, and a conversation that neither of you wanted to end.
After that first evening, the wall quietly became unnecessary.
Some nights you still spoke through it out of habit, exchanging a few words before one of you inevitably wandered into the other's room, coffee already brewing while another record waited to be played. Other evenings, Alastor simply appeared at your door with a polite knock and another excuse prepared, perhaps he'd found a book he thought you might enjoy, perhaps the gramophone had acquired a particularly delightful record, perhaps, and this remained his personal favorite, "the acoustics have once again become intolerable."
You always laughed.
You always followed him.
The evenings blurred together after that, slipping into a routine neither of you ever acknowledged aloud. You learned exactly how he liked his coffee, strong enough to wake the dead, with only the smallest touch of sugar, while he somehow remembered every tiny preference you'd ever mentioned in passing, quietly replacing records you disliked before you even had the chance to wrinkle your nose, leaving your favorite chair closer to the fire whenever the nights turned colder, making sure there was always another cup waiting by the time you arrived.
Nothing between you was ever spoken.
Nothing needed to be.
The hotel noticed long before either of you did.
Charlie caught the change first.
It wasn't anything obvious, only little things that seemed meaningless on their own. You smiled more often now, the quiet, absent-minded sort of smile that appeared whenever someone crossed your thoughts, and somehow Alastor always seemed to appear a few moments later, as though he'd heard them. Breakfasts that used to end with him disappearing into the shadows now stretched a little longer whenever you happened to sit nearby, evenings in the lounge became less lonely, and whenever you wandered into a room, it rarely took more than a few minutes before the Radio Demon found a perfectly reasonable excuse to be there as well.
"You've been seeing a lot of Alastor lately," Charlie observed one afternoon, trying very hard to sound casual.
You looked up from your book.
"...Have I?"
Charlie exchanged a quick glance with Vaggie.
Vaggie snorted.
"You literally walked in together."
"We did?"
"And you left together."
You blinked.
"I... hadn't noticed."
Charlie smiled to herself.
"We did."
You hadn't.
It wasn't intentional.
You simply reached for coffee at the same time.
Sat beside each other without thinking.
Walked through the hotel while talking about whatever book Alastor had recommended the evening before, never noticing the distance between you had quietly disappeared.
Even Husk noticed.
"He's following you."
"He is not."
"He is."
"He just happens to be there."
Husk looked over the rim of his glass toward Alastor, who stood across the lobby discussing something with Charlie. Almost as though sensing the conversation, crimson eyes drifted toward you for barely a second before his smile widened ever so slightly.
Husk sighed.
"...See?"
You looked away first.
"I think you're imagining things."
"I'm really not."
Then, for the first time in weeks...
Alastor wasn't there.
Charlie had asked him to accompany her into the city that afternoon, leaving the hotel strangely quieter than usual. You spent the day helping a few of the newer residents settle in, carrying supplies upstairs and answering questions you'd already answered dozens of times before, until evening finally began settling over Pentagram City.
You had just stepped into the lobby when one of the newer sinners approached you.
He'd spoken to you a few times before, always politely enough, asking harmless questions about the hotel or Charlie's rehabilitation program, and you smiled politely when he greeted you again.
"I've been looking for you."
"Oh?"
"I was wondering if you'd have dinner with me."
You offered him an apologetic smile.
"That's kind of you, but I'm not really interested."
He laughed.
"C'mon."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
You shifted your weight uncomfortably.
"I said no."
Instead of backing away, he stepped closer.
"You've been avoiding me."
"I've been busy."
"You could make time."
His smile had changed.
It no longer looked friendly.
"I don't think you understand," he continued, lowering his voice as though the two of you shared some private joke. "You're one of the prettiest girls in this dump, sweetheart. Don't waste your time pretending you're too good for everyone."
Your expression hardened.
"I didn't say I was."
"So what's the problem?"
"I already answered you."
"You haven't answered properly."
Another step.
Closer.
"You'd probably enjoy yourself if you stopped acting so difficult."
You took one step back.
He took another forward.
"I said no."
"Oh, don't be like—"
Your hand landed flat against his chest before you even thought about it, shoving him back hard enough that he stumbled two full steps, surprise flashing across his face as several nearby guests looked up from their conversations.
"I said," you repeated, your voice noticeably firmer this time, "no."
For a long second, neither of you moved.
His expression twisted with annoyance, lips curling into something that looked dangerously close to contempt, before he scoffed under his breath and raised both hands in mock surrender.
"Fine."
He turned away with a dismissive laugh.
"Bitch."
You stood there for another moment, your pulse still racing, before forcing yourself to breathe.
The lobby slowly returned to normal around you.
People looked away.
Conversations resumed.
Someone laughed near the bar as though nothing had happened.
You rubbed your temples, suddenly feeling far more exhausted than angry, then quietly climbed the stairs toward your room, your thoughts already drifting somewhere much safer.
Toward the room next door.
Toward the familiar crackle of an old radio.
Toward the man who, without either of you realizing when it had happened, had somehow become the part of your day you looked forward to most.
The encounter downstairs lingered in the back of your mind longer than you cared to admit, but by the time you reached your room, you had almost managed to convince yourself it was over. Hell was full of unpleasant people, you reminded yourself while closing the door behind you, and most of them eventually lost interest when they realized they weren't getting what they wanted.
You locked the door out of habit.
Then you started getting ready for the night.
Your routine had changed over the past few weeks without you ever deciding it should. Instead of throwing on the first thing you found, you found yourself hesitating in front of the wardrobe, your fingers drifting from one pajama to another before settling on the soft burgundy set you secretly liked best. It was comfortable, warm enough for the cool evenings, and if it happened to look a little nicer than the oversized shirt you'd been wearing before...
Well.
You smiled to yourself.
Alastor would probably knock within the hour.
He always did now.
You brushed your hair, lit the small bedside lamp, straightened the blanket even though it didn't need straightening, then glanced instinctively toward the wall separating your room from his. Charlie and Alastor had spent the afternoon in Pentagram City, and you already found yourself wondering what stories he would bring back, whether Charlie had dragged him into another overly optimistic conversation with strangers, whether he'd complain about the city traffic with that perfectly polite smile that somehow made every complaint sound like a compliment.
You were still smiling when the knock finally came.
Three gentle knocks.
Exactly the way he always did.
Your heart lifted almost instantly.
"Coming," you called, already crossing the room.
You unlocked the door without a second thought, pulled it open...
...and the smile disappeared from your face.
It wasn't Alastor.
The sinner from the lobby stood in the doorway instead.
The friendliness he'd worn earlier was gone, replaced by something harder, something that made your stomach tighten the moment your eyes met his. His smile no longer reached his eyes, and there was an ugly satisfaction in the way he looked at you, as though he'd already decided how this conversation was going to end.
Your hand instinctively tightened around the doorknob.
"What are you doing here?"
"I figured we got off on the wrong foot."
"I don't think we have anything else to talk about."
"I'm pretty sure we do."
You started pushing the door closed.
He caught it before it moved more than a few inches.
The wood shuddered beneath the force of his hand.
"I said I'm not interested."
"And I said," he replied, his voice dropping lower, "you're making this harder than it needs to be."
Your pulse quickened.
"You need to leave."
Instead of answering, he pushed.
The door swung inward despite your resistance, forcing you to stumble back as he stepped across the threshold without the slightest invitation, his gaze sweeping lazily around the room before settling on you again.
"You can't just walk into my room."
"I just did."
You took another step backward, keeping as much distance between you as the small bedroom allowed, refusing to let him see the fear beginning to crawl beneath your skin.
"Leave."
"No."
The single word landed heavily in the silence.
He kept advancing, slow enough that every step felt deliberate, while you matched each one by retreating until the backs of your knees brushed against the edge of the bed. Your heart hammered painfully against your ribs, your mind racing through every possible way out of the room, every scream you could let out, every object within reach that might buy you enough time.
"You've been playing hard to get all day," he said with a crooked grin. "I think we're done pretending now."
You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to hold his gaze despite the fear knotting in your stomach.
"I'm asking you one last time."
Your voice trembled only slightly.
"Get out."
He laughed.
"I don't think you're in a position to tell me what to do."
His hand shot forward without warning.
You twisted away just in time, his fingers brushing the sleeve of your pajama instead of closing around your wrist, your heart lurching into your throat as you stumbled around the corner of the bed. The mattress dug against your hip when you caught yourself, breathing hard while he turned slowly to face you again, his grin widening as though the whole thing amused him.
"Oh, there you go," he sneered. "Run a little. Makes it more interesting."
You moved again before he could reach you, circling the bed, trying desperately to keep something between the two of you, but the room was far too small. Every step backward stole another piece of the little space you had left until your shoulders struck the wall with a dull thud, the edge of the bed pressing against your legs while he stopped only a few feet away.
There was nowhere else to go.
His eyes traveled slowly over you, lingering in a way that made your stomach turn.
"You know..." His smile curled into something uglier. "You look damn cute like this."
You didn't answer.
"I've been thinking about you all day," he continued, taking another slow step forward. "Couldn't stop imagining what you'd sound like screaming my name instead of telling me 'no.'"
Your blood ran cold.
Fear settled so heavily in your chest it became difficult to breathe, your pulse pounding painfully against your ribs while your mind searched frantically for something—anything—that might get you out of the room.
The hallway.
No.
He was blocking the door.
The window.
Too small.
Your voice.
You could scream...
But this part of the hotel was practically abandoned.
The corridor had been empty every time you'd walked through it, silent enough that your own footsteps echoed off the walls. Nobody came here unless they already lived here.
Nobody...
Except—
Your eyes darted toward the wall beside the bed.
Alastor.
Please...
Please be back.
Please have come home.
The sinner noticed your glance and laughed again.
"Looking for a miracle?"
You didn't answer.
Instead, you slammed your fist against the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The impact stung immediately, pain shooting through your knuckles as you hit the old plaster harder and harder, each blow echoing through the room while the man lunged toward you, barking a sharp laugh as he grabbed for your arm.
You tore yourself out of reach at the last second and struck the wall again with everything you had.
"Alastor!"
Your voice cracked.
Another desperate pound rattled the frame of a painting hanging above the bed.
"Alastor!"
You didn't know whether he was home.
You only knew that, for weeks, every laugh, every song, every late-night conversation had carried effortlessly between your rooms.
Now...
You prayed your voice would do the same.
On the other side of the wall, Alastor finally allowed himself a moment of quiet.
The afternoon in Pentagram City had been... exhausting.
Charlie had insisted on stopping every few streets to greet complete strangers, explain the hotel for what must have been the hundredth time, reassure nervous sinners that redemption was still possible, and wave enthusiastically at anyone who so much as glanced in her direction. He admired her determination, in his own peculiar way, and although he would sooner bargain away one of his antlers than admit it aloud, the princess possessed a stubborn kindness that even Hell had failed to extinguish.
It was... Refreshing. Also incredibly draining.
He loosened his bow tie ever so slightly, settled comfortably into the armchair beside the fireplace and lit one of his cigars, letting the first plume of fragrant smoke curl lazily toward the ceiling.
the fire burned steadily a few feet away, and for the first time since leaving the hotel that morning, he finally began to relax.
His eyes drifted almost absentmindedly toward the wall separating his room from yours. It had become part of his routine now.
He would enjoy a quiet cigar, finish whichever chapter he'd been reading, perhaps pour the two of you another cup of coffee, then, sooner or later, three gentle knocks would sound through the old plaster, followed by your voice wishing him a good evening. It happened with such comforting regularity that he had quietly begun arranging his evenings around it, though he would have denied such a thing with perfect confidence had anyone dared suggest it.
Curious.
He had spent decades avoiding company whenever possible. Now... He found himself looking forward to yours with an eagerness that bordered on impatience. The thought drew the faintest smile to his lips.
Then he heard your voice. It was muffled by the wall, too indistinct for him to understand the words, but unmistakably yours. He lifted his head slightly, listening without much concern, assuming you'd decided to entertain another guest before the evening inevitably found its way back to him.
How... unusual.
You rarely invited anyone upstairs.
He took another slow draw from his cigar. The conversation continued for another few seconds, still too quiet to make out, until a sharper voice answered yours. Male. Unfamiliar.
His smile faded ever so slightly. Perhaps one of the newer residents. The hotel had become rather crowded lately.
He reached for his coffee. A loud bang exploded against the wall. The porcelain cup stopped halfway to his lips.
Another. Then another. Not rhythmic or playful. Desperate. Every instinct in his body sharpened at once.
The cigar was already forgotten between his fingers as he rose smoothly from the armchair, his gaze fixed on the wall while another violent impact shook the picture frame hanging above the fireplace. The knocks came faster now, frantic enough to rattle the old plaster between your rooms, carrying a desperation he had never heard from you before.
He was already crossing the room.
One step. Two. Then your voice tore through the wall.
"Alastor!"
Everything inside him stopped.
The blood beneath his skin turned to ice. Not because you'd called his name. Because of the terror in your voice. He had heard fear before. He had caused it countless times. This was different.
This wasn't the trembling uncertainty of a frightened sinner. This was someone begging for help. His help.
Another crash echoed through the wall, followed by the unmistakable sound of furniture scraping violently across the floor, your breathing breaking into panicked sobs between muffled cries that grew harder and harder to distinguish.
His expression emptied. The smile remained. Everything else disappeared. The room darkened.
The fire bent violently toward him as shadows spilled across the floorboards, stretching unnaturally from every corner until they swallowed the walls themselves.
a violent burst of radio static that crackled through the room loud enough to make the windows tremble. Another cry.
Another frantic blow against the wall. His name again. There was no hesitation.
Only one thought remained, burning through his mind with terrifying clarity. Someone had laid a hand on you.
And whoever stood in that room had just made the greatest mistake of their existence.
The wall gave way with a deafening crack.
Wood splintered, plaster burst outward in a cloud of white dust, and the entire room shook as something tore straight through it without slowing down for so much as a heartbeat. The bedside lamp flickered violently before exploding in a shower of sparks, darkness swallowing the room as radio static erupted from every direction at once, loud enough to make the windows tremble inside their frames. Shadows spilled across the floor like living ink, swallowing the broken wall, climbing the ceiling, stretching until they towered over the room itself, and from the middle of that suffocating darkness stepped Alastor.
He looked... wrong.
His smile remained exactly where it always was, perfectly composed, perfectly polite, yet everything surrounding it had changed. Crimson eyes glowed with an intensity you'd never seen before, his antlers seemed taller somehow, disappearing into the monstrous silhouette rising behind him, while the creature hidden inside his shadow unfolded slowly across the bedroom, dozens of glowing eyes opening one after another until they all fixed themselves upon the sinner standing over you.
Only then did the man notice he was no longer alone.
He had been too busy wrestling you onto the mattress to hear the wall collapsing behind him, one hand still wrapped painfully around your wrist while the other forced your shoulder back against the bed, his weight pressing down hard enough that every desperate attempt to push him away only seemed to amuse him more.
"You'll stop fighting eventually," he laughed, leaning down again as you turned your face away from his, refusing to let his lips touch yours. "You'll even start enjoying it."
The radio screamed.
The sound ripped through the room with such violence that he froze mid-movement, every muscle in his body locking instinctively before he slowly turned his head toward the impossible wall of shadows now filling your bedroom.
His face drained of every trace of color.
Alastor didn't move.
He simply stood there, framed by broken plaster and shattered wood, while the static continued roaring through the room, his shadow twisting higher and higher behind him until it brushed the ceiling like some enormous beast struggling to remain contained.
For the first time since forcing his way into your room...
The sinner looked afraid.
"H-Hey..." He released your wrist so quickly it almost hurt, stumbling backward until he stood between the bed and the shattered window, both hands lifting awkwardly as he searched desperately for words. "Calm down, alright? We were just... just messing around."
Silence answered him.
"I mean..." He forced out a nervous laugh, glancing briefly toward you before looking back at Alastor. "She was playing hard to get, that's all. We were having a little fun."
Nothing.
His smile remained.
His eyes never blinked.
"You know how girls are," the sinner continued, speaking faster now, "they say no at first, then—"
His voice broke.
Only then did Alastor finally shift his attention away from him.
His gaze settled on you instead.
You were still pressed against the headboard, breathing so hard your chest ached, your hair falling across your face where desperate hands had grabbed it, your pajama wrinkled and half pulled from one shoulder, your whole body trembling violently as you struggled to catch your breath. Your eyes met his for barely a second, wide with fear, glassy with unshed tears, and somewhere beneath all of that panic sat the quiet relief of seeing him standing there.
Something inside him broke.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
The shadows exploded.
They crossed the bedroom in less than a heartbeat, surging around the sinner's legs before wrapping themselves around his torso and throat with terrifying speed. He barely managed to scream before they lifted him completely off the floor, his feet kicking helplessly through empty air while invisible claws tightened relentlessly around him.
"W-Wait!"
His voice cracked.
"It was a misunderstanding!"
Alastor took one slow step forward, the static lowering just enough for his own voice to cut cleanly through the room.
"You frightened her."
The words were quiet.
Almost conversational.
"I didn't mean—"
"You touched her."
The shadows tightened.
"I swear, I wasn't gonna—"
"You entered her room."
Every sentence landed with frightening calm, each one colder than the last, until the sinner had stopped struggling altogether, reduced to little more than terrified pleading beneath the crushing grip of the creature holding him.
"I'm sorry!"
Alastor tilted his head ever so slightly.
"I am not."
The window exploded outward.
Glass burst into the night as the shadow hurled the sinner through it with impossible force, his scream disappearing almost immediately into the darkness below while thousands of glittering shards rained toward Pentagram City. They were among the highest rooms in the hotel, high enough that the streets below looked impossibly distant, and by the time silence returned, there was no sign the man had ever been there at all.
The radio static faded.
The shadows slowly withdrew.
The monstrous figure behind Alastor folded back into itself until only his own silhouette remained, standing quietly in the middle of your ruined bedroom while dust continued drifting lazily through the air.
He didn't spare the broken window so much as a glance.
He was already walking toward you.
His pace slowed as he reached the bed, every movement suddenly careful, almost hesitant, as though he feared even approaching too quickly might frighten you after everything that had just happened. He lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress, enough space remaining between you that you could choose whether to close it yourself, his crimson eyes searching your face with an unfamiliar intensity while one hand rested quietly against his knee.
"My dear..." His voice had softened so completely it barely resembled the one that had condemned a sinner only moments earlier. "Did he—"
You never let him finish.
The distance between you vanished in an instant as you threw yourself into his arms, your body moving before your mind had the chance to think, your fingers clutching desperately at the back of his jacket while you buried your face against his shoulder. The adrenaline holding you together shattered all at once, leaving nothing behind but violent trembling, ragged breaths and tears you hadn't even realized were falling, soaking silently into the fabric of his suit.
For the first time in many, many years...
Alastor forgot what to do.
He remained perfectly still for a single heartbeat, surprise flickering across his face before disappearing beneath something infinitely gentler, then, almost cautiously, his arms rose around you. One settled securely across your back while the other came to rest behind your head, his fingers threading carefully through your hair as though reassuring himself you were truly there, truly safe, and no one would ever lay another hand on you again.
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, a quiet breath escaping him, one he hadn't even realized he'd been holding ever since your panicked voice had reached him through the wall.
"...Thank you."
Your voice barely existed.
It trembled against his shoulder, broken by uneven breaths and quiet sobs you still couldn't seem to stop, yet he heard every syllable as though the entire world had fallen silent for you alone.
"I..." You swallowed hard, your fingers tightening around the fabric of his jacket. "...Thank you."
"My dear..." he murmured softly.
One hand moved slowly through your hair, careful, reassuring, while the other held you just a little closer, almost instinctively, as though putting even the smallest distance between you had suddenly become unthinkable.
"You needn't thank me."
His voice remained perfectly calm, but beneath that familiar smoothness rested something heavier, something startlingly honest.
"I was..." He paused, searching for words that had never come naturally to him. "...relieved to find you in time."
The confession slipped out before he could stop it.
He lowered his head ever so slightly, resting his cheek against your hair for only a moment before his lips brushed the crown of your head in a featherlight kiss, so gentle you almost wondered whether you'd imagined it.
"You are safe now," he whispered. "Nothing will ever happen to you again."
His hand settled more firmly against your back.
"I won't allow it."
The promise lingered between you, quiet and absolute.
"You are..." His voice softened even further. "...mine to protect."
You didn't answer.
You simply held him tighter.
After a long while, once your breathing had finally begun to steady and the trembling in your body had eased into exhausted shivers, Alastor carefully slipped one arm beneath your knees while the other remained securely around your back.
"What are you...?"
"You are not spending another night in this room."
Before you could protest, he lifted you effortlessly into his arms. You were too emotionally drained to argue, your head naturally settling against his shoulder while he carried you toward the gaping hole where your bedroom wall had once stood. Broken plaster crunched quietly beneath his polished shoes, scattered pieces of wood forcing him to step carefully through the debris until he crossed into his own room, where the familiar warmth of the fireplace still danced across the walls.
He lowered you gently onto his bed, disappearing only long enough to pull another blanket from the wardrobe before returning to drape it carefully over your shoulders. When he turned to leave, your fingers caught the sleeve of his jacket without thinking.
"...Please."
Just one word.
That was all it took.
He looked down at your hand resting against him, then back at your face, still marked by exhaustion and tear tracks, before quietly abandoning whatever intention he'd had of spending the night in the armchair.
Without a word, he sat beside you.
Your fingers never let go.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, exhaustion finally claimed you.
When you woke briefly a few hours later, the fire had burned low, dawn had only just begun creeping through the curtains, and Alastor remained exactly where he'd been, sitting against the headboard with a book resting forgotten in his lap. He wasn't reading anymore. On hand absentmindedly tracing slow circles across your back, while his crimson eyes stared quietly into the dying fire.
The moment he noticed you stirring, his gaze softened.
"Go back to sleep."
This time...
You did.
Weeks passed.
The shattered wall never returned.
Instead, Lucifer himself had found the whole situation oddly charming, and with little more than a snap of his fingers, the broken plaster disappeared, replaced by a proper wooden doorway connecting the two bedrooms. It matched the rest of the hotel perfectly, as though it had always belonged there, another quiet passage hidden away at the end of the forgotten corridor.
"It'll save me repairing the wall every time someone gets emotional," he'd joked.
Charlie had laughed.
Neither you nor Alastor corrected him.
The door remained.
So did the habit.
If one of you wanted coffee, there was no need to knock anymore. If a book needed returning, if dinner had been particularly entertaining, if one of you simply couldn't sleep, the door quietly opened, and the conversation resumed exactly where it had ended the night before.
No invitations.
No hesitation.
Just...
Home.
The rest of the hotel noticed, of course.
Angel Dust started taking bets on how long it would take before one of you admitted what everyone else had already figured out. Husk only rolled his eyes whenever someone brought it up, muttering that they'd been "acting like an old married couple for weeks," while Charlie smiled so brightly every time she saw the two of you together that Vaggie eventually started dragging her away before she could accidentally say something embarrassing.
Neither of you ever made a public announcement.
Neither of you defined whatever had quietly grown between midnight conversations, shared cups of coffee and evenings spent reading side by side before the fireplace.
You didn't need to.
Everyone already knew.
Niffty certainly did.
Every morning she bounced cheerfully into your room with feather duster in hand, humming to herself while tidying the little space that somehow never seemed lived in anymore. Your bed remained perfectly made almost every single day, the pillows untouched, the blankets folded exactly as she'd left them the afternoon before, while the door connecting your bedroom to Alastor's stood slightly ajar, never fully open, never completely closed.
Niffty always peeked through it.
She'd spot the two coffee cups waiting by the fireplace.
Sometimes two books resting on the same table.
Sometimes your cardigan draped carelessly over the back of his armchair.
Sometimes nothing at all.
She'd simply grin to herself, quietly dust around the doorway, then leave it exactly as she'd found it, half open, just enough for two neighboring rooms to remain connected.
The walls that had once terrified you had disappeared.
In their place remained only a single door, one neither of you ever bothered locking again.
ʜᴇʟʟᴀᴠᴇʀsᴇ (you're tagged in everything Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss)
Tags: nsfw, smut, cock riding, established relationships, horns, tail, being flustered, teasing
Ko-Fi | Rules | Fandoms and Characters | Commissions
A/N: Getting back into writing with drabbles! Feels good to post again.
You were too caught up in bouncing up and down Lucifer's cock to notice how he clenched his teeth and tried to stop himself from shaking. He promised to let you ride his cock tonight as much as you wanted as payback for teasing you in that boring meeting.
"I said hold on!" His voice sounded strained but still commanding. As you finally looked at him you saw how out of breath he really was, the blonde strands of hair out of place and falling over his eyes, his horns fully out and eyes shining red. He looked absolutely feral. "Hold on a second, let me calm myself bit."
He leaned back while he held you down you your thighs, claws slightly digging into the soft flesh there. "What's wrong? Are you too tired? We can stop if you are." You placed your hand on his spotted cheek and he nuzzled into it with a lazy smirk.
"Not at all, my love. I need you to slow down a bit that's all. Slower. I know I said you could ride me but you're going too fast and I'm getting really close. Been wanting your pussy all day, it's kinda hard for me to hold back. And I want to enjoy every precious moment we have together." You shivered as you felt his tail drag up and down your back, leaving goosebumps on your skin. "Just cause I'm bad doesn't mean you have to be. You can be a good girl for your King right?"
It wasn't often that he pulled the royalty card on you in bed. Your pussy clenched around his sensitive cock, making it twitch weakly. "Anything for my cute husband." You started again, this time barely raising your self up, keeping most of his cock inside you the first few times, then only leaving his tip in. When you saw him lean his head back with a moan you finally pushed yourself back down, making sure you could feel every throb of Lucifer's cock on your way down.
I just finished reading both parts of Shattered Illusions and it was a AMAZING!!! And if it’s okay with you, I wanted to know if you could please do the Circus’s reaction if the Ringleader’s Child was reincarnated as the MC
≫ Hello! Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot! I’d be happy to share my further thoughts and ideas about this potential AU! (Go read it if you wanna understand this post lol)
≫ Though I’m not sure I’d ever make a full series version of this, I still have a bunch of ideas I’d be happy to share! Feel free to use these for your own AU’s, all I ask is that you credit me if you post it! <3
Shattered Illusion AU Premise/Ideas- Long Post!
────୨ৎ────
General: What if the child of the Ringmaster MC was reincarnated into the Present!MC?
≫ I imagine it’d be pretty neat if the Present!MC initially has no memories of their past life, though there are still vague impressions of their (your) past existence. Same face, same name, same good-natured curiosity and desire to help.
≫ But there are other flickers of the past in this new life, coincidences that are later realized to be echoes of that life all along…
————
≫ You had frequent childhood dreams of bright-eyed monsters, scrawled crayon and marker drawings of dark horned figures that filled your drawers, an inherent interest in all things morbid, mystical, and macabre…
≫ You even had claims of having imaginary friends in your youth, shadowy creatures that appear in your dreams. They hate being in their cages, you’d tell your parents. They’re very hungry all the time. They don’t like talking for too long. They’re very tired and not very good at walking.
≫ You even used to kneel down in your bedroom as though you were actually talking to these nonexistent friends, exchanging words and phrases that a young child wouldn’t normally understand. You’d brush a hand on your neck as though tending to a wound that wasn’t there.
≫ It got to the point where your father got concerned that you wouldn’t be able to make any normal friends, or that your habits were a sign of possession. You seemed rather convinced that your imaginary companions were actually real. And you had very…unconventional interests, to say the least.
≫ But eventually, those strange habits and quirks faded away as you got older, and you interacted with others quite normally, all things considered. Outside of those odd habits (something your mother attributed to all kids being weird in their own ways), you had an uneventful childhood.
≫ And like all children, you grew up. Fledged the nest. Went off to establish your own life somewhere else with nothing but your own determination and your parents’ support.
≫ You still had a fascination with all things spooky and morbid. You listened to podcasts about unsolved crimes, garnered all sorts of “weird” paraphernalia of your interests, read books and watched documentaries about mysteries both felonious and paranormal. You didn’t believe in half the ghost stuff you consumed, but it was interesting nonetheless.
≫ You got a job working as a barista in a coffee shop. Carol, your coworker, even shared a couple of your interests! And your boss is a pretty nice guy. Your life was simple, if not a little uneventful. (A blessing, really. But it's human nature to silently long for what you shouldn't have, isn't it?)
≫ One day, though, you notice that there’s a sort of small festival or fair set up in a public park area. Tents are seemingly set up overnight, and there's no shortage of gossip about the new events going on. After a day or so, flyers start to show up everywhere—plastered on the sides of buildings, stapled to telephone poles, handed out to just about anyone who spares the tall performers a glance.
≫ It was inevitable that you'd learn what exactly had come to the city. A circus of horrors, one that supposedly wasn’t for kids or families. It was admittedly quite interesting, as this circus advertised against what most other circuses and fairs marketed themselves towards.
≫ But other people seemed to have an issue with that, evidenced by the way someone had attacked one of the circus workers after only a few days of them being in town. You were walking to work when you saw it: a man beating a jester clad in red to the ground. The small crowd that had formed didn't seem exactly keen on helping him.
≫ Naturally, the sight alone fuels you to instantly go against your better instincts to mind your own business, and you intervene. You position yourself between the altercation, refusing to back down. The man eventually walks off, and you help the clown up while offering a bandage.
≫ But once you actually got a good look at him…you got a really weird case of Déjà vu. You knew you hadn’t seen him before. It would be pretty hard to forget a really tall bright crimson-wearing jester guy with white hair and a mask.
≫ But it was undeniable. His golden eyes…they seemed so familiar. It was almost unsettling.
≫ You snap yourself out of your daze, internally scolding yourself for rudely staring—nearly gawking—only to realize the red-clad clown was doing the same. Did he also feel that strange familiarity? It’s not like you can just ask him, that would be really weird…
≫ Brushing off that lingering feeling, you politely bid the clown farewell before making your way to work. You try to forget that encounter, those golden eyes paired with that ashen hair. Such a distinct combination, such a distinct-looking person overall, there was no way you’d seen him before.
≫ Oh well. It was just a brief interaction, and you likely wouldn’t see him again. Better to just move on from that strange encounter.
≫ But of course, fate has different plans.
≫ You end up meeting the red clown once more, and he introduces himself and even gives you a red ticket to the circus! How kind of him. It's like he knew you were drawn to creepy and eerie things. The tickets to the circus were so expensive (likely to discourage families from attending) and you had resigned yourself to unfortunately missing out on the unique experience.
≫ But this gesture was your once in a lifetime chance to attend the performances, and you wouldn't dare question it now. (Even though you really should be questioning certain things at this point like your coworker's absence and why Pierrot seemed so uncannily familiar)
≫ Ah. It seems nobody thought to quell your naivety and ravenous curiosity in this life either. But can anyone really blame you?
≫ You're excited to learn about this circus of horrors. It was so unconventional, so interesting. You clutched both your ticket and the red paper flower the Pierrot (you ask yourself why he wears jester-like attire if his role is that of a Pierrot's) had gifted to you as a token of appreciation for aiding him earlier that day.
≫ The two of you actually have a lovely conversation about things deemed unseen or morbid, about how fear reveals a lot about people. Some people vehemently try to reject and suppress their fears, others are haunted and hollowed by them. And some don't even realize their fears until its too late.
≫ You were sure you could have spoken to the Pierrot for much longer, but it was past closing time. After confirming that you would attend his show, you bid him farewell and go back home to your apartment. However, once inside the threshold, you slump against the door.
≫ The amount of nostalgia and familiarity you felt while speaking to that red clown was almost nauseating. There was a sinking dread in your heart that infested your lungs. It made you feel short of breath, like you were constantly on edge despite the fact that he didn't pose any threat. He worked at a circus of horrors, but he was rather nice. Weird and perhaps a little creepy at times, sure, but he wasn't intimidating.
≫ ...Not that intimidating, anyway.
≫ You try not to think about it too much, but it proves to be a daunting task. It's like something is hiding right beneath your nose, some sort of vital yet elusive detail that won't make itself known.
≫ That night, you have dreams like the ones from your childhood that you had nearly forgotten. Hushed voices and unnaturally colored eyes and sharp teeth glinting from nonexistent light. You looked down at your hands and saw blood and rust and the veins in your fingers turned sickly black. You awoke in a cold sweat, unsettled and nostalgic for all the wrong reasons...and late for work.
≫ The day mostly goes by normally, and you meet the one called the Harlequin on your way to work. He was far more...talkative than his fellow performer. He tries to trade your red ticket for his green one, but you're not even given a chance to consider the thought before Pierrot shows up, golden eyes slitted in a way that made your heart sink to your stomach.
≫ That sight remains in your head longer than it should. Kind and large eyes turned malicious, almost animalistic, it was a very jarring and unsettling change in behavior for Pierrot. Granted, you didn't know him that well, but for some reason it felt as though you had known him for ages.
≫ You try to brush it off. It's just an act between the two. Isn't it?
≫ That dread and sense of foreboding doesn't disappear, especially after learning that Carol was now missing. Some of the excitement you felt about visiting the circus is somewhat dampened by the undeniable tension that had formed in the city ever since it arrived. You don't entirely know what to think.
≫ But you had made a promise to use the red ticket. Pierrot had lightly grabbed your arm earlier—for some reason you braced for him to place his black-gloved hand against your mouth—and eerily asked you to promise him that you'd use it. What else could you do but agree?
≫ The Harlequin had also entered your workplace, and it was noticeably odd how much you were seeing these guys in the matter of just barely a couple days. But strangely enough, it feels natural. Even stranger, it feels deeply unsettling at the same time.
≫ When night comes and you make your way to the circus threshold, the man in the blue suit elicits yet another involuntary sense of recognition. It was getting a little ridiculous now, how all of the circus workers seemed to be the cause of such sensations. But what is even stranger is the way you notice the black and white-masked man freeze for just a split second upon moving to greet you and take your ticket.
≫ But the moment is gone as soon as it came. He recovers from his pause effortlessly, wishing you a good experience in the circus after punching your ticket. You thank him while avoiding eye contact. The ticket in your hands now seems less like an invitation and more like an indictment. Just what had you gotten yourself into?
≫ You remain slightly on-edge as you make your way to the green tent, where the Harlequin tells a strange story using puppets made of paper. The figures are all silhouettes, obscured and simplified forms whose names don't matter, only the roles they play.
≫ The green clown weaves a story of monsters, men, and angels. Suffering and insatiable hunger and desperation. Your eyes remain fixed on the paper puppets, thoroughly invested in the story. But then the angels just...disappear. Vanished into the moonless night with the wind.
≫ Chills creep up your spine every time your eyes land on the stitch-like markings on the backs of the Angels. One was a monster, the other a human. How could either of them be angels sent from above?
≫ There's something off about the story. Something missing. You're not sure what that missing piece is, but you feel it deep in your gut in a way that's hard to explain. You know that you've never heard such a story before. Yet still there's that sense of familiarity, of some distant and tiny connection to it.
≫ You can't even entirely pay attention to the Harlequin trying to make advances on you after the show just because of the overwhelming feeling that you had heard a voice like his before. Sly and almost serpentine...
≫ After the green tent was the red tent, and you watch from the front row as Pierrot dances beneath a spotlight in a way that made you deeply unsettled. His pale ashen hair swayed with his movements, tiny bells on his costume ringing like death knells. The lights above him didn't hide his golden gaze...instead they only exaggerated it.
≫ For some reason you expected Pierrot to have a saddened or pained expression on his face as the show went on. Instead the expression on his white mask gradually turned more and more sinister, a sharp smile growing wider as he danced with his own shadow. It made a pit form in your stomach.
≫ And then he started throwing those knives at that stage assistant. The crack of the blades hitting and slightly splintering the wooden board the woman was strapped to made you flinch back slightly. They got close. And then closer. And then even closer. And just when you thought he was finished with a third knife...
≫ A fourth one went straight for her head, splitting it open.
≫ You ran out of the tent after that, your lungs aching for air and your head buzzing with too many thoughts and attempts at rationalization. You were into morbid and creepy things, sure, but even that was too much for you. How did those other people in the crowd not panic like you did?
≫ It feels like the entire world is in on some giant joke, like everyone in the world got a script to follow except you. But that obviously couldn't have been a real person who got a knife to her head...just some insanely good practical effects, right?
≫ Pierrot came up to you after that, leaning next to your ear and asking how you liked his show. Obviously you told him that it was very realistic, so much so that it gave you chills. He looks happy to hear that, but you can only internally wince.
≫ And then he asks if you want to stay at the circus and see more of it, if you want to join him and learn more about the performances. A terribly tempting offer. But you were almost feeling nauseous from what you had seen in his performance, and all the strange familiarity of this circus was starting to make your head hurt.
≫ (It doesn’t matter what choices you made. Eating drugged circus food, being kidnapped by Pierrot, going home safely and dreaming further of rusted cages and paper-thin lamenting voices…Nobody gets to choose their fates, only how fast they reach them.)
≫ It all ends with you being even more confused by the circus members. You catch glimpses of what lies behind their masks, the truth of their nature. For some strange reason, the implication of inhuman beasts existing isn't what frightens you. What unsettles you is the fact that it feels so normal, like it was expected to happen. Like you had encountered this all before.
≫ But then you run into one of the performers in pink, and her mask falls off. You have to resist the urge to puke when you see your missing coworker standing like a doll, eyes clouded with a purple haze. Carol. She's here, alive...but is she really?
≫ You don't realize you’re back in your apartment until you’re standing right next to your bed. It was all just a daze of shock and paralysis ever since seeing Carol like that. You don’t even realize you’re holding a red ticket until you drop it to the ground like it was contaminated with something.
≫ And then you hear Pierrot’s voice. It’s distant and muffled, like…
≫ You freeze upon seeing his golden eyes looming over you. That gilded gaze was once looking over you like this in darkness while your vision was fading, telling you to sleep with a hushed and rasping voice, digging black claws into the sides of your head. Those eyes were the only thing you saw as your vision warped and swayed-
≫ You don't even realize Pierrot was calling your name with a concerned expression until you suddenly snap out of that daze with a sharp gasp.
≫ He backs away, worried that he had hurt or frightened you. You don’t know what to say. But you eventually tell him that you’re afraid. So much has happened in just two days, you’ve seen things you can’t unsee, learned things you can’t unlearn.
≫ He tries to reassure you, but you don’t have the heart to tell him that you knew things that you couldn’t. About the circus. About him and the Harlequin. About the repeated instances of Déjà vu and familiarity that ate away at your mind the longer you tried to ignore it.
≫ But there’s only one option left if you want to make it to tomorrow alive and sane. You have to go back to the circus.
≫ And so you do. What else can you do but see if the other circus members also resembled the shadows in your dreams? Even now you denied the resemblance of Pierrot and Harlequin to the golden and green-eyed ones in your subconscious.
≫ The first place you visit in the circus is the blue tent. You see the same shadows that had always existed in your dreams, hear voices that had once only been heard in your childhood when you played with imaginary friends.
≫ You chalked most of it up to the nature of the performance and the overarching narrative the circus seemed to have—a narrative that you seemed to know so very well—until you encountered the cracked mirror just near the exit.
≫ There, in the glass, was your reflection. But not really. You were wearing unfamiliar non-modern clothes. Though there was a large crack over where your eyes would be, you still recognized the figure as being you. There was a wet red splotch on the front of your clothing that only seemed to bloom the longer you stared.
≫ You blinked once, and you gasped. There was now a blazing fire behind your reflection, a gaping wound just beneath your chest that exposed your ribcage and entrails. The reflection didn’t show the shocked expression you knew you had plastered on your face. Incoherent whispers filled your ears.
≫ The stench of bitter smoke and burning wood made your face twitch in disgust, and you turned away from the cracked glass. It was just too much.
≫ And towards the end, just when you thought you had gotten through the worst of it…
≫ “Come closer.”
≫ A set of pink eyes meet your own. You take a few steps towards that mirror towards the end of the maze…
≫ And you’re dragged into the mirror at the end of the hall by dark hands.
≫ What you witness is nothing short of horrific. Shadows of beasts and whispers in hoarse voices and a death so gruesome and utterly undeserved it makes you nauseous.
≫ And then you’re suddenly seeing through someone else’s eyes, no longer an onlooker but a participant in this disturbing tale. You can’t look away. You can’t ignore the screams of pain and the inhuman wails and cries. It’s all just so overwhelming.
≫ When it’s finally over, the pink-eyed reflection in the mirror looks almost…hopeful. A jarring sight compared to the macabre story you just witnessed. She thanks you for hearing her story. But her voice is laced with familiarity and fondness that you felt you hadn’t earned. You don’t know her…do you?
≫ You don’t get time to process it before you are within the Cyan tent, then the Purple tent. You barely manage to shamble through both of them—while getting nearly sick with nostalgia from meeting the Doctor and the Jester—before someone holds you from behind as you try to leave.
≫ It makes you remember things that hadn’t happened to you. Strong arms holding you from behind while someone else pricked something into your neck, a warm wetness traveling down your collarbone while a stinging burn is seeping into your veins-
≫ You nearly yelp, only to realize it was Pierrot who was behind you. He tells you that he loves you for who you are, that he can’t bring himself to let you go for even a moment. You can’t and don’t believe him.
≫ And then you’re on your own to walk home, back to your apartment. What choice do you have but to trudge home in a daze, trying your best to ignore the fact that you feel new sets of eyes watching your every move?
≫ Nothing feels real. Everything feels like you walked into a darkness that nobody returns from. It still feels like you’re on a stage with an invisible audience watching and judging your every move, waiting for you to mess up some unknown script so they can devour you whole.
≫ You can’t sleep after that. Can’t think, can’t even breathe properly. It feels like you’re going insane.
≫ The next day arrives, and you call in sick for work. Your boss sounds concerned but you tell him that you’d stay home and stay safe. You can’t bring yourself to leave your apartment, but you also can’t sleep, too restless and trying to digest all that you had learned and ignored and didn’t want to know.
≫ It feels like you’ve known the circus members your whole life. But you’ve known them only for a couple of days at most. What’s happening to you? Why is your mind betraying you? Why can’t you think or sleep or just ignore what’s happening?
≫ So with your sleeplessness you start to rack your brain for clues. You do some research on any circuses that had made their way through your home. Flip through a couple unfinished journals you had filled with drawings and paragraphs of especially vivid dreams over the years.
≫ You deny it. You deny everything. That reflection, all the dreams you’ve had over the years…they can’t be yours. Surely you’ve been experiencing someone else’s life through their eyes?
≫ You end up slowly passing out on your bathroom floor, completely overwhelmed with all that was consuming your mind. Turns out having an existential crisis, depersonalization episode, and panic attack all at the same time isn’t very healthy.
≫ Deep in your subconscious, you can’t hide from your innermost thoughts and fears. If anything, they’re multiplied. You dream of flickering flames and gnashing teeth. Brittle claws and rusting metal and pointed eyes always in the same colors.
≫ Golden yellow. Deep purple. Venom green. Cyan turned blood red. Blue and white. Pale pink.
≫ And then you look down to your hands, your clothes. Unfamiliar patterns, yet somehow you still recognize them as yours. The veins in your wrists turned an unnatural color from something that had should not be alongside your blood.
≫ Poison.
≫ And then you look back in front of you, seeing that someone was now standing there. It was…you. But it wasn’t. But it was.
≫ Same face, but with a sad and restless expression. Same eyes, but without any light like a living person. The person looks into your eyes with their dead ones. Red begins to seep through their clothing, but they don’t move. Four points along their neck begin to bead up with blood, and it trickles down their collarbone. They still don’t move, don’t even react to the injuries.
≫ Your shoulder starts to sting, right over where you knew you had four tiny little dot-shaped birthmarks. The back of your throat begins to tighten like you had swallowed something sharp and hot.
≫ This was you. This person was you, and you are this person. Memories of love, hate, suffering, loss, yearning. A wish never granted. A curiosity towards things that lingered in the dark. Fear of God, of the ones you loved rejecting and forgetting and denying you simply for not being perfect.
≫ You wake up on your bathroom floor, stomach churning and eyes stinging. You then proceed to vomit your guts up into your toilet, moaning in pain and trembling from head to toe. It was a very lucky thing that today was yet another day off from work.
≫ Not really. Instead of possibly being distracted by your daily tasks at your job, you’re left leaning against your bathroom door to retain some sense of control over your situation.
≫ You can’t face anyone today. Not even yourself. Especially not Pierrot or Harlequin or any of the other circus performers.
≫ There’s so much dissonance between the ones you know now and what you knew then. Too much of a difference between the monsters in your dreams and in the circus. They killed you. Ate you. Yet the golden and green-eyed beasts hold your hands in theirs and claim to your face that they wish to keep you safe.
≫ Did they already know the truth? Were they just stringing you along to try and devour you once again? Was this all some cruel rigged game? And if they didn’t know…how long until they did? What would they do, what would they say? What should you do?
≫ How early into your life was it too late for you?
≫ A sob escapes your throat at the idea of being doomed from the start. You just...can't think. It’s too much.
≫ You just stay there, sitting on your bathroom floor and breathing too hard to be healthy. It feels like the only safe space in the entire world from hungry inhuman eyes. Your fingers tremble and your head hurts. Bile bubbles at the back of your throat and coats the end of your tongue.
≫ Fear plagues your mind. Yet there’s also an ache in your heart that comes from some stinging sense of betrayal. And betrayal only comes from those dear to you.
≫ Yes. You had found yourself endeared to Pierrot in such a short amount of time. You liked him, enjoyed his endearing personality and his devotion. And you were effortlessly intrigued by the Harlequin, aching to know more about him and his true nature.
≫ You found yourself endeared to the entire circus as a whole, in truth. Even despite your fear. How much of these feelings were leftover from your past life, how much was from your own heart here and now?
≫ God, what’s gotten into you?
≫ You don’t know. You don’t know whether to consider that past existence yourself or someone else. You saw through their eyes, felt their pain, shed their tears. Lived their…your life in that god awful prison disguised as a circus. That death was yours.
≫ Those dreams you now realized were memories, those experiences, that life…all of those were yours. Weren’t they? The fondness and fear, those feelings of wonder and terror.
≫ But every cell in your body is fighting against your soul. You don’t know which side of yourself to listen to, that aching hunger to know the truth…or the terror of being dragged down into a darkness deep as hell where no one is supposed to go.
≫ But eventually, you ran out of things to cry about on your bathroom floor. At some point, you have to dust yourself off and face the facts. (Which is much, much easier said than done, by the way)
≫ With aching and shaky legs you force yourself to stand up, hands gripping your sink like it were a lifeline.
≫ You don’t want to meet the gaze of the person in the mirror. Who is that?
≫ A naive and stupid human who thought they were a normal person until yesterday, that’s who. No, that’s not even the whole truth. You always knew there was something going on beneath the surface of the circus. You just tried to ignore it and brush it off as something else.
≫ Pull yourself together, will you? There’s still something important that you have yet to consider in all of this.
≫ As far as you know, you have two main choices.
≫ Either face those beasts once more and almost certainly end up killed…or try to run as fast and as far away as possible to live the rest of your life until the inevitable arrives.
…
≫ No. No, that can’t be it. You can’t just give up when you haven’t even tried. That was then. This is now. Your life…This is somewhere. This is something. This may be all you have, but it’s still something. Your home of crowded streets and working in a coffee shop for minimal pay. The sky above, the world below.
≫ You’re still here. You’re still alive. Things are different now. They have to be.
≫ This was a chance. A chance to do something different. A work of fate to do something better than what had happened so long ago. You turn on your sink faucet and splash your face with cupped palmfuls of water, grounding yourself in the present as best you can.
≫ Right now, there’s something you must do. Something you should have done a very long time ago.
≫ You need to get some answers. If not for yourself or your previous life who died afraid and undeserving…then for the one they call Columbina. The one you once called the Lamb. Your friend.
Circus Member Reactions:
Pierrot:
≫ I feel like Pierrot, despite being the first to encounter the MC, would be the last to fully realize and accept that the MC is, in fact, the same kind human who helped them all those years ago, reborn into new flesh but with the same soul. Or at least fragments of it.
≫ He attributes the feelings of familiarity and nostalgia to simply being a form of his lovesickness. Clearly it must mean that you and him were destined to be together, right? Surely it was just coincidence that you looked and sounded exactly like that human from before. Humans all tended to blur together over the years. Surely this was just another case of that.
≫ But one thing he can’t deny is your scent.
≫ It’s less about the physical attributes of your scent and more about the impressions and memories that spark as a result of them. You smell of coffee grounds, steamed milk, and other subtle things that become sinfully alluring. But strangely, those qualities elicit an odd reaction in his mind. Impressions of the one before…
≫ The human in the past smelled differently, like fresh linens and cotton…and blood. But one distinct note is shared between you and that other human whose name he and the others never learned. The subtle smell of dust. Dry and earthen and delicate. Easily missed, but not easily forgotten by one such as him.
≫ It's hidden, elusive. But it's there. As he continues to interact with you and learn more about you, it's nearly suffocating. But he ignores it. Or at the very least, he poorly attempts to. If he acknowledges it, then that could mean the others would find out. And what scares him the most is the fact that he doesn't entirely know what the others would do with you, do to you.
≫ But it all comes to a head after you went back to your apartment, and you hadn't been the same since. You were much quieter, tenser. You had the telltale signs of having learned something you couldn't unlearn. But what?
≫ If it had anything to do with the circus, then you were in great danger. A sharp pang of fear spears through Pierrot's heart at the mere thought of you being in any kind of danger, let alone danger from his own fellow circus members. He has to protect you. He has to. He has to talk to you, to know what it is that you've learned.
≫ When you encounter him once more, there's a strange awareness in your eyes that seems all too familiar. You don't say anything for a moment before you slowly ask him if he had ever worked in a circus before the current circus of horrors. He's slightly caught off-guard before admitting that yes, he did.
≫ But then you ask him if he had known any humans in that old circus. He's confused, but you don't let it go. You ask him if he knew about what you had been feeling these past few days. If he remembered as much as you did.
≫ "I...I don't know what you're talking about, MC."
≫ He very much does know what you are talking about. But he never wants to think of such things. Can't you two just ignore it? Can't he just remain as your admirer, your loyal inamorato, your Pierrot? He doesn't want to remember his time as some sorrowful creature rotting in a corroded cage.
≫ But apparently, you do.
≫ "You held me from behind. You told me to sleep. Your voice was the last one I heard."
≫ He presses his palm to your mouth before you can get another word out. It isn't voluntary, his body moved on its own before his mind could even begin to fully comprehend what it is you said. But then he retracts his hand as though the contact burned him...or you.
≫ "I..."
≫ It’s not possible. But the words that came from your mouth were true. And there was no way for you to know such things unless you were there with them on that night. None of the other troupe members had spoken a word of what had happened.
≫ It's not possible. Yet here you are.
≫ When he finally comes face to face with the undeniable truth…he’s terrified. So terrified that he doesn’t know what to say or do or even think.
≫ If you have the memories of the one before…then you know what he is. What he’s done. You being truly afraid of him is one of his deepest fears. What if you flinch away from him? What if you try to run? What if he can’t stop himself from tracking, pursuing, hunting?
≫…What if you hate him for what had happened in the past?
≫ And yet, despite his fears and dread, he still can’t leave you. There isn’t a single bone in his body that would let him do that. But he’d be lying to himself if he claimed that he was completely alright with this new revelation. He's just...frozen.
≫ Fear, guilt, sorrow, shame…these all swim through his head and make him lightheaded. You knew he was a monster. Your eyes reflected sorrow, pain, and a knowing pity. For him or for yourself, he can’t tell. It makes his heart and mind hurt even worse than if you were afraid.
≫ But eventually, those thoughts form one single cohesive desire.
≫ He needs to protect you. But how? He can’t just…stay away from you. He can’t do it. He won’t. It’s selfish, this he knows. Terribly selfish and foolish and bound to end terribly in more ways than one. But Pierrot can’t bring himself to leave you be.
≫ If the others find out...
≫ They might try to stake their claim on you. They might try to hurt you. They might devour you whole because they had long convinced themselves that it was all they were meant to do with humans and the ones they cared for.
≫ He can't let that happen. He can't lose you. He refuses to let you go.
≫ Both of you need time to process. But he doesn't want to leave you on your own. So the two of you just sit near each other, not exactly embracing or speaking, but trying to hold in all the information and your emotions. He doesn’t admit it outright, but you know that he knows.
≫ He's afraid to hold you, touch you, be anywhere near you. He can still remember the scent of linen and cotton and dust, the smell of death, the stench of iron. He held you still while the others, they...
≫ And then he...
≫ It's going to take a while for this all to really sink in. Even longer for him to come to terms with it all. But he won't leave you. Not even with his pain and tears. He loved you, lost you, consumed you once. But now there was a second chance. A second chance that he knows he doesn't deserve. But he'll use it anyway.
≫ You thought he was bad before? Good luck having any degree of freedom from him in some form. (You're gonna need it. Like REALLY need it.) The only reason he doesn't outright kidnap you is because the others would have easier access to you.
≫ He knows better than anyone that the others aren't mindless bloodthirsty animals, but he still can't help but want to protect you from them. Who knows what their reactions would be like once they inevitably find out the truth? Will they seek to repeat the past? Will they want to make an example of you?
≫ What's likelier is that they already know the truth, just as Pierrot knew it (and ignored it) from the start. It's simply a matter of time until they actually face it and accept it.
≫ Until that time comes, though, Pierrot will cling to you impossibly tighter. But can you really blame him? I'm sure if you asked for some distance to process your memories on your own, he'd give you whatever you needed. But he'd be waiting.
≫ He's tied with Harlequin to be the one who wants to talk about those old memories the least. He just wants to love and protect you here and now from anyone or anything that would threaten you. Why linger in the past if there was nothing left for you there?
≫ But there is something left there. And it will take a lot of time and effort to finally acknowledge the wounds still bleeding on his heart.
≫ In the end, Pierrot is actually one of the ones who accepts the MC being a reincarnation the easiest. Not the fastest or the happiest about it…but simply the easiest. Mostly because he doesn’t ask very many questions when it comes to fate. You were here. You showed him genuine kindness. There exists a second chance. That’s all that matters.
≫ It’s no surprise that he would want to keep you close to him forever, take you from the cruel and cold world and keep you safe in the circus.
Harlequin:
≫ Harlequin, on the other hand, instantly notices the uncanny familiarity, the way you’re drawn to the circus like a moth to a flame. He initially thinks it to be your curiosity about things that best remain in the dark. That curiosity will be the death of you, this he can feel. (If only he knew it had already been the death of you once before)
≫ But as he gets closer to you, there’s an undeniable sense of nostalgia. It becomes harder to deny the fact that he's just as drawn to you as you are to the circus.
≫ It isn't until you visit the green tent and watch his show that he starts to become slightly intrigued outside of wanting to take you from Pierrot. He notices the way you watch his paper puppet story intently, the way your eyes remain fixed on the simple silhouettes meant to portray the monsters and humans.
≫ You ask about his show. About the little Angels sent from above. About what happened to them. This piques his interest in you even further. What was it that made you so drawn to the circus, to the story of suffering woven and ingrained within its very foundations, to him?
≫ Well, if you were so insistent on learning more, on being near things like him and the others…why not give you something to remember?
≫ That’s what prompts him to enter your apartment after that foolish Pierrot had finally left your side. Oddly, the red-clad clown seemed…disturbed. Unsettled. Harlequin thinks nothing of it.
≫ Pierrot was laughably sensitive to every word you shared with him, every little thing you did to him. It was likely nothing of note that affected him so deeply. Now was the Harlequin’s chance to steal you away from him, just as he had done with the Angel before.
≫ But when he enters your apartment from your balcony door the way he had before, something is off. You’re less responsive, seemingly distracted by something. It’s not nearly as fun if you’re not entirely focused on him.
≫ So he probes at your mind, questions what has you so distracted from someone like him. Surely it couldn’t be that red fool, he sneers with barely contained disgust. But still you don’t say anything. You barely even look at him.
≫ But when you do, Harlequin regrets ever going into your apartment.
≫ “You poisoned them. The Angels. You poisoned me. Right here.”
≫ You press the fingers on one hand to the side of your neck, to the spot where a strange birthmark was. Four subtle little dots along your neck and shoulder. The exact spots where his claws had once pricked a certain human with his strongest poison. He feels his practiced smile shrink and tighten.
≫ But he doesn't let himself be caught off-guard for long. You're good at getting his walls down...but not good enough. He's back to his outward persona in a matter of moments.
≫ “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t think you do either, MC.”
≫ It’s one of the only times he uses your actual name. A hidden warning. Don't keep doing this, he silently tells you. Don't speak of things you don't fully understand. He was just starting to like you, too. It would be a shame to have to cut this all off-
≫ "You didn't want it to hurt."
≫ That makes his entire body halt. His heart skipped too many beats, his lungs surged as though he had been stabbed. The blood beneath his skin had turned to ice. There was no way you could have known such a thing. Yet here you were, spouting words that he desperately wanted to pretend he didn't know the meanings to.
≫ But even still, he doesn't break. He had broken once, but never again. His eyes narrowed at your words that stung like accusations.
≫ "You don't know that. You don't know anything about that story. I think it would be wise for you to choose your words carefully."
≫ But to his surprise, you don't have any other words. You simply step closer to him and wrap your arms around his torso, embracing him in a way that made him want to puke.
≫ His arms awkwardly move away from the gesture, a guttural and visceral hiss coming from deep within his chest, but you don't let go. Instead a small wet spot starts to form on his costume where your face is buried. Tears. You were crying.
≫ Harlequin's own eyes begin to ever-so-slightly sting behind his mask, but he ignores it. Instead his claws instinctively sharpen at his immense discomfort and nearly sink into your flesh, but that instinct is quickly quelled. Mostly.
≫ He continues to hiss, to warn against your foolishness, to spit barbed yet shallow words to get any kind of reaction out of you, but you still don't say anything. You just keep holding onto him like you had any idea what you were doing to a loathsome monster like him.
≫ Foolish. Only an idiot would show such nauseating displays of affection towards someone like him if they knew what he'd done.
≫ ...But in that sense, maybe you really are that callow human from before reborn anew. Rebirthed in new flesh to haunt him and the others in a new cruel way. As if the circus itself wasn't haunted enough.
≫ He doesn't regret what he did, he tells himself. It was the only way. What was done was done. That story was finished. So why would you come back? It just doesn’t make any sense.
≫ How dare you. How dare you return to them now after all this time? What could you want from them? Your existence can’t mean anything good for the circus or its members.
≫ Harlequin keeps his distance from you after that. He can't handle the idea of you, the idea that the past had taken on a form of flesh to loom over him and remind him of everything he had done. He avoids you like the plague.
≫ It will take a tremendous amount of time and patience on your end for him to even consider the idea of facing what he and the others had done in the past. And he’ll try his hardest to make you want to avoid him just as much. He’s willing to make you scared, angry, sorrowful. Anything to keep you away.
≫ But of course, his sharp words did not work on you back then in the old circus. You still came back, night after night, offering sustenance and warmth and companionship, however pathetic and meager your attempts were. Why would he expect thorns and barbs and pointed edges to work now?
≫ Because it’s all he knows. It’s all he’s ever known. And it’s all he ever will know.
≫ (That’s what he had told himself long ago, and he forced himself to think that he accepted that. But you challenged that before, and now you challenge that once again.)
≫ Harlequin wants to be rid of you once more. To get rid of his loathing longing for a way to atone for what he had done. But he cannot change. Nobody can.
≫ He is still a monster. You are still a fool. This story can only have one ending. Fools are eaten by monsters for their crimes of curiosity and ignorance. That’s how the stories go. Those are the roles that had been cast for you, for him, for every human and beast that dared to cross paths.
≫ However, deep in his blackened and caged heart, there was a flickering glimmer of hope that refused to die once and for all. And it only got worse when he had met you, when you dared to show kindness to a beast like him.
≫ But that all means nothing. Try as he might, this was not one of his paper doll tales. He was not the one in control here. And he wants so desperately to be able to tell this story without having to be a part of it. To distance himself from the truth.
≫ Even the most ambitious of vipers know when to abandon prey, when to loosen their coiling grip and hinge their jaws once more. This prey was not poisoned, not pointed or sharp…
≫ But sweet. Sickeningly so. Like a carnivorous plant, unassuming and alluring to an insect…only to swallow them whole in moments, leaving nothing behind but a husk.
≫ That is what awaits him, he is convinced. After all, why wouldn’t you want to exact revenge for what was done to you? Blood repays blood. Why wouldn’t you hate him for what he had done?
≫ (Of course, he never makes any of his suffering known. If you try to acknowledge it, he’ll ignore it and you. If you try to force him to confront what must be said, he’ll laugh in your face. Lean even further into the persona he had cultivated over many years. Be patient. Silently leave your arms open and he will slowly walk towards them, step by step.)
Ticket Taker:
≫ The Ticket Taker is the one who first recognized the strange illusions of memory with you. He was simply using his human disguise to hand out pink tickets and only wished to stop and get a cup of coffee at the place where he scouted out his latest doll.
≫ When you come out and begin to take his order, he is immediately caught off-guard with that nostalgia. He doesn't let it show, obviously, but it's undeniable. You look like an ordinary human, unassuming and ultimately forgettable in the grand scheme of things.
≫ He needs to get to the bottom of this, he decides. And what better way to do that than give you a pink ticket?
≫ But of course, several things get in the way of you being completely at his mercy. (Whether or not you take the pink ticket from him in the shop doesn't matter in the slightest, as fate itself seems to have different plans for you outside of the pink tent.) That seems to be a recurring trait about you, always slipping through his fingers like water.
≫ But when you enter his tent for a second time, this time on your own and without anyone to protect you...he recognizes an opportunity. Your curiosity is insatiable, and it is all too easy to draw you further and further in his tent with visions and voices and brief tricks against your mind with his mirrors.
≫ See why in shadows we hide, he and his reflections whisper from within the glass, beckoning you closer and closer to a mirror that houses an obscured mirage of his true form within. He waits inside the reflection, waiting for the perfect moment to close in, to corner you, to render you completely helpless.
≫ He can tell that your mind is wildly beating against his lure like a bird ensnared in a trap. But even the most rabid and arrogant creatures can be broken in with the promise of something desired.
≫ You walk closer, unafraid when you should be, naive when you shouldn’t. The Ticket Taker slowly emerges from the mirror’s surface, the glass rippling when it shouldn’t be possible. One of his white-gloved hands reaches out, an invitation that served more as a trap.
≫ But just before his hand could touch yours, you drew back, seeming to realize or remember something. Your eyes shone in a way that felt much too familiar.
≫ “It's you. I know you. A long time ago, you...”
≫ Your eyes drift downward as if you were truly recalling a memory that couldn’t be yours. But before you can get a word out, the Ticket Taker speaks over whatever thoughts could be turning in that head of yours. (That head which had a face so very much like a human he once knew)
≫ “…You’re speaking nonsense, visitor. And I think it’s about time we drop this charade.”
≫ He fully steps out of the reflection in his mirror, though you don’t step away or flinch back. Not this time. How strange. Perhaps you thought that luck was still on your side.
≫ But your luck had run out, this the Ticket Taker was sure of. You held no red ticket, had no white-haired beast looming over your shoulder. Some indulgent and slightly sick part of him took pride in knowing that he would see that frail sense of security shattered.
≫ But then his heart stops when his gaze lands on something you take out from one of your pockets. A few matchsticks. Unassuming and irrelevant to all who would see them. All except for him…and you. It’s painfully silent for too long. But then you begin to speak again.
≫ “You told me-"
≫ "That's enough."
≫ His white-gloved hand moves to grab your shoulder, to get you out of this circus so you can't cause any further problems. Where exactly would he take you? Hell if he knows. He just needs you to go back with the other humans where you belong. (The thought of dragging you to the pink tent is tempting, but Pierrot would likely become a problem)
≫ But his hand never reaches your shoulder. It gets closer and closer, but you don't move away. Not even a flinch. Not even a fearful look on your face. It makes him freeze just before his fingers can reach to grasp your shoulder. That look in your eyes. That damned look in your eyes.
≫ It was just like...
≫ He pulls his hand back, moving to brace both of his arms behind his back to retain any modicum of professionalism and control over the situation.
≫ "I think it best you leave, visitor. Before you disrupt anything any further."
≫ Outwardly he looks composed and refined. But anyone with functioning eyesight would be able to detect that not even his half-faced mask with a constant smile would be able to hide his insurmountable stress. Anger? Sorrow? Fear? Not even he really knows what roils within him. He’s just…stressed.
≫ This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to be left behind to rest like everything else in that godforsaken prison, supposed to be a distant memory. You were supposed to stay dead. That’s how the world worked. Humans died as a result of their own curiosity, and monsters feasted on them.
≫ But undeniably, here you stand in front of him once again. Alive. Naive. Intruding on a story that wasn’t supposed to account for you.
≫ You don’t move from where you stand for a second, and he feels his composure start to crack, his claws threatening to split the seams at the fingertips of his gloves. You’re disobedient and unbearably frustrating. So impossibly foolish and unknowing. Just like…
≫ Just like back then. Always coming back when he and the others warned against it. Every single time, without fail, you would show up from behind those curtains. Always with that damned look in your eyes that made it hard to refuse to answer your questions.
≫ He retreats into one of his mirrors upon involuntarily making the connection, never once taking his eyes off of yours. It’s the first time he actively avoids a glaring problem instead of moving to remedy it in some way.
≫ But what can he do to be rid of this outlier, this stubborn and irksome human? As easy as it would be to simply drag you to the pink tent and get rid of this problem at its source, to maybe keep you in his blue tent forevermore…he can’t. Not only because Pierrot would become irrational and unstable over you, but also because…
≫ He doesn’t let himself finish the thought.
≫ This is one of the only times the Ticket Taker has ever felt so powerless, so unknowing of what to do. The circus had encountered myriads of problems in countless forms, and it had endured every single one of them. Not always cleanly, and certainly not always proudly, but the troupe had withstood. He had withstood.
≫ But now there was one little exception, one little human who should have stayed in the past where they belonged. What will you try to do now? Will you wriggle your way into their lives like you had before, becoming yet another catalyst for insurmountable loss?
≫ That can’t happen again. Each of the circus members had worked too hard for too long and lost far too much just to have it all be rendered meaningless by a single human.
≫ Of all the circus members, the Ticket Taker is the most concerned and stressed with these circumstances. You had wandered into their darkness once before, learned the truth of their nature and paid the price for it. But what would you do now? Would you try to become some martyr? Would you attempt to bring an end to what they had tried to build?
≫ He doesn’t know, and he only gets more and more frustrated the longer he realizes he can’t entirely control what you do. He feels no different than when he was in that wretched cage, powerless and helpless. And he detests that more than anything else in the world.
≫ He loathes that. Loathes you. You and your godforsaken curiosity and influence over the circus and its members.
≫ (He does not. But it’s quite easy for him to convince himself that he does. He hates what you represent in his eyes—loose ends. Unresolved business. Unfinished work.)
≫ He wants you far, far away from the circus, from his kin, from him. You can only bring trouble. Unnecessary drama and risks that simply aren’t worth it. (It is, but he doesn't know that.)
≫ He wishes more than anything that he could nip this problem in the bud, but he can’t. The best he can do is hope that the others help him with this…anomaly. If he can’t kill you…then he’ll avoid you.
≫ Unless ordered by the Jester to do otherwise, it’s all the Ticket Taker can bring himself to do.
The Doctor:
≫ Like Harlequin, the Doctor instantly picks up on the strange impressions he gathers from you. He’s encountered countless types of humans before, but only once has he encountered one like you. So very curious about and drawn to the things that go bump in the night. So strangely unafraid of things you should dread with all your heart.
≫ Or perhaps you were afraid and dreading, and you simply hid it well. That was an equally intriguing possibility. After all, it was quite rare when anything escaped the Doctor's watchful gaze.
≫ After you entered his tent for the first time, he’s left with more questions than answers. Inconclusive results that make him want to split you open, examine and poke and prod at your mind, your heart, your nervous system, everything.
≫ Which parts of you would reveal what he wanted to know? Such a delicious and promising specimen, this human. Frightened by many things, but not for the reasons he initially expected.
≫ There’s something in your eyes that tells him there’s more behind your fear beyond shallow dread towards the unknown. In fact, it almost seems like there’s a knowing fear in your gaze.
≫ Interesting. Very, very interesting.
≫ He decides to perform a little test when he spots you finally making your way towards his cyan tent once again. A minor psychological assessment, he calls it. You look concerned and mildly nervous, but not outright afraid.
≫ When you’re strapped to the medical chair and left completely at his mercy, he doesn’t refrain from poking and prodding both figuratively and literally, trying to dig down into your psyche and see what makes you different.
≫ You’re oddly quiet…more so than any normal human being he had ever had in his examination process. You’re distracted. You’re unable to move in a strange and dark environment, and your mind is off somewhere else, clearly finding a more important priority to think about than your own survival.
≫ Clearly, a more intensive treatment is needed. A mild escalation.
≫ He injects just a small dose of a pink serum, one that will make you a little more…compliant. Just to ensure you don’t lie to him. It was rather important you remained truthful for this.
≫ When you’re good and drugged up, he then holds two items up for you to see. In one hand is a bandage, an item all other humans would have chosen. But in the other hand is an ancient-looking metal key spotted with rust. He asks you which one you’re more drawn to and why.
≫ You briefly look both items over before answering, movements sluggish and words ever-so-slightly slurred from the drug he administered.
≫ “The key. It’s…familiar."
≫ Your words make him still his actions. But he remains calm and level as he tilts his head at your choice, more intrigued than anything else.
≫ "You've never seen it before."
≫ "Yes I have, from..."
≫ You trail off, evidently quite tired from the serum in your system. An unfortunate side effect. The Doctor’s red-gloved hand finds its way beneath your chin, clawed fingertips tilting your head upwards to encourage you to wake up a little. He still needs answers.
≫ “From?”
≫ “…From before. From the circus. The old one. The Ringmaster, he…”
≫ You trail off again, struggling to keep your eyelids open, too tired to continue. You seem to relax in the chair you were strapped to, face leaning into the red glove that no doubt reeked of blood and death and medical sanitation substances.
≫ You, a human in a strange environment with no way to move, were trusting him with your life. You dared to allow yourself to be so vulnerable like this. Why? How? Why weren’t you more afraid? How was your nervous system not panicking and forcing you to stay awake?
≫ But most importantly, how the hell did you know the significance of the key?
≫ The Doctor knows you haven't seen such a thing before. He knows you would have no way of knowing about the old circus. He knows you wouldn’t have a single clue about him if you were an ordinary person.
≫ Well. Clearly, you are not an ordinary person. You knew about things you shouldn’t, made him and all the others feel some strange sense of nostalgia, and resembled someone from very long ago…
≫ This warrants further study. Further testing.
≫ He should cut you apart while you were asleep and oh-so enticingly vulnerable. He does not. Why, he can’t decide. Perhaps you had more of an effect on him and the others than he thought.
≫ That needs to be studied as well.
≫ He injects you with yet another serum, this one a mild stimulant to wake you up a little. This isn’t the time for a dissection or a vivisection. For now, he’ll let you walk away. There are too many questions he needs answers for from you, and you would be of much more use if you were alive.
≫ “Come now, sweetie. Wake up. There’s work to be done.”
≫ The Doctor is the least visibly affected by the reveal that you are a reincarnation of the human from so long ago. Though the past was obviously a sore and fragile wound, he is actually more invested in the how rather than the why.
≫ He lists every last question that comes to his mind, every possible test and procedure he can do to possibly explain this strange phenomenon. He wants, no, needs to know every detail of how you returned, how you came back the same and yet so very different.
≫ It’s not really a surprise that he wants to keep you, though not exactly in any ethical or entirely moral sense. If you become a circus doll dressed in pink? Good. If you’re alive and fully conscious/lucid? Great! If you’re dead? Not ideal, but he’ll get what he can out of this.
≫ The Doctor favors you over his other dolls and test subjects. He likes you, even! But he doesn’t entirely respect or acknowledge the fact that you have your own autonomy and will. He isn’t cruel or rude in the slightest, just…subtly condescending. A little bit patronizing.
≫ He’s quite used to treating humans as test subjects instead of…well, you know, people. It’s gonna take a while for him to see you outside of those rigid norms. (Assuming you survive long enough for him to do so)
≫ If you put in enough effort, you could get him to acknowledge the past and the part he played in it. But there isn’t much to say about what happened, is there? That was then. This is now. And now the two were intersecting, and he wants to know why and how.
≫ But if you challenge him in your own way by observing him just as much as he tries to observe you…that makes him halt temporarily. It reminds him of the way he used to study and learn from that human from his cage just in the same way that creature once learned from his and the others’ stories.
≫ Funnily enough, despite the fact that the Doctor wants nothing more than to splay your innards once more, to peel you apart layer by layer…I imagine he’d actually end up being the least of your worries in the circus.
≫ He can’t kill his most important patient, after all. He still has so many questions to quell his insatiable morbid curiosity, and when one is answered, two more form from the previous conclusion.
≫ So he won’t hurt you. Not seriously, anyway.
Jester:
≫ The Jester senses something strange before he sees anything. It's subtle, easily missed and just as easily brushed off. It gives him a feeling that someone, something, was slinking around. But oddly enough, its not a bad feeling. Instead, it's...familiar.
≫ But monsters aren’t attuned to the supernatural or paranormal. Jester merely attributes such feelings and contemplations to the time of year near the anniversary…the yearly time of that fateful moonless night. That must be it. He wasn’t immune to nostalgia, that had to be it.
≫ But unlike some of the other circus members, Jester remembers that old night with startling clarity. Every word. Every tear shed. Every bite. And he remembers that human who insisted on intruding into their godforsaken prison. Their face, their scent, their eyes filled with so much naivety and unmarred goodness. It's sickening. Yet he never fights those memories when they emerge.
≫ So it's especially strange that so many things are suddenly remembered when you arrive to the circus. Jester feels it before he sees it, a presence so familiar and unbearably nostalgic that it genuinely puts him on edge for the first time in a long time.
≫ And when that he gets a proper look at the human, when they finally make their way to his tent and his play...that feeling only multiplies. He stares into your eyes, watches the way you turn away to leave yet also glance behind your shoulder. Something coils and writhes behind his ribcage upon seeing that. Seeing you.
≫ A part of him wishes to immediately string you up as one of his dolls, examine every part of your mind. But a larger side of him decides to wait. If you really were anything like the one before...you'd be back. It was simply in your nature.
≫ And how right he was. He sees you wandering near the circus threshold, eyes filled with so many emotions and a desire to know. And that’s when he makes the connection far faster than any of the others. But he has to make sure.
≫ He indulged you before with knowledge...why not indulge you now?
≫ And so he decides to make a test out of this. A judgement of character, in a sense. He uses and puppets one of his Fools to lead and guide you to a place where no guest is allowed to go. To his personal quarters, just past the outskirts of the circus itself. You hesitate at the entrance, yet you go in anyway. Jester knew you would. It was in your nature, after all.
≫ So curious. So naive. So desperate for answers, even after all this time.
≫ You don't even notice how he effortlessly followed you in, hiding in the shadows and watching your every move. How nostalgic, he thinks.
≫ Violet eyes watch from the darkness as you seem to have some sense of intuition that prompts you to slowly move towards a specific storage box. It's old yet reliable, and it houses many precious things. But you are drawn to only one precious thing in that entire assortment.
≫ Your fingers tremble slightly as you gently pick up something loosely wrapped in cloth. That cloth is then peeled away from the item, a fragile and singed book with burnt edges now held in your hands. The pages are thin and extraordinarily brittle, no different from dead leaves. The spine is warped, and the words written inside are just barely legible.
≫ Jester watches the way your fingers gently trace the words written in that journal, your face twitching and subtly shifting in a way he had seen many times before in many humans who had learned just a little too much. Recognition. Dread. Realization.
≫ He hears you exhale a short and shaky breath when you carefully turn a few pages and land on a set of old drawings. Dark-inked sketches of shadowy figures that appear both humanoid and animalistic. Jester had flipped through that diary himself so many times over so many years that he could tell exactly what pages you were looking at.
“They spoke again tonight. They told me about their old home. A valley. It was as empty of food as it was full of mouths to feed. Monsters Beasts of all kinds lived there. Tight-knit families and clans and groups. But there were also those who had broken away from their kind to have better chances at survival. What is better, to live among those you love and suffer from empty stomachs and suffocating cages together, or survive alone and suffer only of loneliness? I am not quite sure I fully understand either option. I have always had Father, but…I have also always felt lonely. Perhaps humans suffer differently from other creatures. Or maybe we all suffer the same.”
≫ Beneath that written passage was a set of sketches of flowers in various states of bloom and decay, then a rendition of the beasts in their cages with their luminous eyes and sharp edges. Jester knew it without even fully seeing the pages.
≫ He stepped forth from the darkness then, the bells fastened to the ends of his cap and atop his boots jingling just a little. The sound was more than enough to make you flinch and jolt your head in his direction, eyes reflecting just how startled you were. You didn't say anything for a moment, and neither did he.
≫ “You."
≫ It's the only word that comes from your mouth. One word, and it means more than an hour's worth of speaking. It's spoken with awareness, dread, sorrow, but also...
≫ Just the slightest bit of familiarity. But that familiarity wasn't yours to have. Not here. Not now.
≫ It was all the Jester needed to hear to know everything he needed to.
≫ "I-"
≫ “Why do you return to us now, creature? Why here? Why come back at all? Why haunt us in this way?”
≫ You say nothing. The journal in your hands was clutched to your chest as though it truly did belong to you. And in a sense, it did. With wetted eyes and paralyzed limbs you continued to stare at him, unable to answer his questions. His eyes narrowed, face uncharacteristically unsmiling.
≫ “You shouldn’t have come back, beast. There’s nothing left for you in this place.”
≫ He notices the way your eyes widen slightly with the nickname, like you recognized it as once being yours. He didn’t even realize he had used it for the first time in many years.
≫ “...Unless you wish to do this all over again?"
≫ He steps closer to you, moving one of his black-clawed hands near your neck and just below your jaw, almost grazing his long and sharp fingers near the skin there. But just before his sharp fingertips could make any contact, he stops himself. Whether for your sake or his, not even he knows.
≫ What would your heart taste like this time, he briefly wonders. Would your bones still scrape so cleanly like they did last time? Would your flesh still taste sweet...or would it now become bitter from fear?
≫ You still don’t answer him. Did you interpret his words as a threat? A promise? An invitation? Not even the Jester himself entirely knows how he intended them.
≫ He has an urge to claim your mind, to make you one of his dolls. It would certainly make tracking you far easier. But for some reason he doesn’t. Besides the logical reasoning that Pierrot would certainly react poorly to his pet being toyed with, there’s something else preventing him.
≫ But he cleverly hides his inner turmoil. Disguises it as toying with you by pulling you one way and then another when in reality his mind shifts like a tide. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Going everywhere and nowhere.
≫ Should he kill you, nip this little problem in the bud? Should he keep you as a doll, claim your name and your face and hide you where nobody could find you?
≫ The Jester is uncharacteristically and completely indecisive, a very rare occurrence. He was used to handling the burdens of making hard decisions, used to being looked towards for answers and conclusions. But here, he had no answer for himself.
≫ He simply does not know what to do. And that unsettles him more than your existence.
≫ It would be rather easy to simply get rid of this problem entirely. It’s what Bil would do. Yet he also finds himself wanting to know about this strange occurrence in its entirety. Why did you come back? How? Are you merely a mimicking echo of that dear human, or are you something else?
≫ You are not that human from before. Not entirely, anyway. Here and now, you’re less afraid. Less naive. But still bold. Still ignorant of the toll that must be paid to cross over into the beast’s world, their world where to love is to devour and to suffer is to survive.
≫ You’re in their environment now. And there was nothing stopping him or anyone else from tearing you apart and making you a ghost of the past once more. Or worse.
≫ Nothing except, well…those damned undefined feelings that still reside in his blackened and twisted heart even now. It would be…a wasted opportunity, of sorts, to kill you now. Not when there were opportunities to learn from what you are and how you came back.
Columbina:
≫ Columbina has been so unfathomably lonely for these many years. She can’t recall many details of her life before the old circus, can’t remember what it was like not to suffer in one form or another.
≫ But what she can remember more than anything else, more than her own death, is a light in the darkness. A source of comfort from her feelings of filthiness and a distraction from her hunger pains. A human who wished to help her and her kin. Why? She didn’t know. Not at first.
≫ But she also saw your goodness, your desire to help simply because it was the right thing to do. You saw beings who were suffering and wanted to alleviate their pain. Why weren’t all humans like that?
≫ Such questions will never be answered.
≫ The Little Dove can only hope that she had told you enough to remain safe and close to her. Would you piece everything together? Would you keep trying to ignore what she already knew?
≫ She could only hope you’d come back, that you would be alive, that the others wouldn’t give in to their suffering and be rid of their only chance at peace…
≫ You were a shining light of hope for redemption, a mercy from fate made manifest into flesh born anew. There was no way the others could be so callous as to be rid of you once more. Columbina knows that there’s still goodness in them hidden away somewhere.
≫ She closes her eyes, trying to focus on that light, your presence. It’s all she can do to weakly remedy her insurmountable sorrow and isolation. Was it her own mind conjuring such naive thoughts? Maybe insanity had finally come to claim her mind.
≫ And then she realizes that the light isn’t merely a hallucination or a dream, it’s real. You’re here. Here and alive and present and drawing near the mirror that houses Columbina’s spirit.
≫ Step by careful step, you approach the echo of her presence, eyes wide but not afraid. You seem more sad than anything else. Like her.
≫ "Its you. You…you knew me, and I knew you.”
≫ She just nods. Of course she knew you. She knows you better than she knows herself. If she were blind or deaf or unfeeling she’d still know you.
≫ Columbina never thought she’d see you again. Not while she was still here like this. Her chest aches when she sees the knowing look in your eyes, and her undefined hands press against her side of the mirror’s surface.
≫ "Sorry...to have you shoulder these pains and burdens."
≫ Her dark and cold hands reach out past the mirror, though not without great effort from her end. It's been so long, and she only has so much energy to interact with the living. It's a good thing you have such an attunement to things beyond the mortal veil. A part of her aches further when she cradles your warm face in her barely corporeal hands.
≫ "Sweet human. You who attempted to aid us once before. You who paid the price for my mistakes..."
≫ Be you a phantom or a cruel figment of the Ticket Taker's looking-glass illusions or truly a reincarnation...the Little Dove no longer cared. She just wants this one chance to see you again, alive and well...It brings her soul just the slightest bit of peace for her lingering guilt and regret for not being able to protect you better.
≫ "I wish there was more I could do for you. But all I can do is ask this one thing."
≫ She has no right to ask of anything from you, this she knows with every fiber of her being. Yet she asks anyway. This was the only way to get a somewhat happy ending for everyone...
≫ "Amorzinho...see the others not for what they've done, but for who they are. We are more than monsters. More than foul devils. You showed us that once."
≫ It was selfish of her to expect you to bring peace to her kin simply for being what you are. She knew all too well what it was like to have roles and titles substitute her name and identity. But she wouldn't have asked this of you if she believed there to be another way.
≫ She strokes her thumbs against your face then, already knowing what you were feeling without you needing to say it aloud.
≫ There’s an understanding in your eyes. Those memories, those dreams and feelings and recollections…they were still yours even now. There’s also a tinge of fear in your expression. A deep dread of losing who you are now in order to remember who you once were.
≫ “You have a good soul, dearest one. You always have, and you always will.”
≫ There was no angel watching over you or Columbina on that moonless night. The two of you met with unfortunate deaths, but not endings. But with this one chance, maybe something become of this. Maybe she could become your guardian angel if nothing and nobody else would.
≫ No harm will come to you, she’ll make sure of it with everything she has and everything she is. Maybe Columbina could redeem herself in this way. Maybe she could atone for her past mistakes by ensuring that you stay alive.
≫ She leans forward, her face reaching the top of yours. It drains her to do so, but she presses her lips to your forehead in a gesture of care. Of protection. Something wet trickles over her thumbs on your face. Tears. She swipes them away slowly with her thumbs, nudging her forehead against yours. She faintly remembers that gesture from her family.
≫ “I’m sorry.”
≫ For dragging you into this again. For not being able to do more. For not being able to protect her only friend in that wretched prison. For not being able to protect you better in the present. For placing this burden of choice upon you.
≫ Your voice is hushed and thick with apologetic grief when you finally respond.
≫ “I’m sorry, too.”
≫ For not being there in time. For not being able to save her from that awful fate. For not being able to save any of them…
≫ Columbina just holds you closer. A deep sorrow roils within her very being.
≫ It is certainly not your responsibility, but…a part of her wishes for you to take care of the others since she cannot. They’re so lost, so hurt, so convinced of their brokenness and irreparable suffering.
≫ The others obviously aren’t entirely innocent, but she knows better than anyone that there is no such thing as black and white in this place. Despite their best efforts to make it seem otherwise, everything resides in shades of grey.
≫ No matter what choice you make, if you wish to live out your second chance at life away from the circus, if you wish to remain here and seek whatever it is you desire from this place…Columbina will do her best to help you. She knows what it’s like to be unable to choose her fate. She knows that you had been deprived of choice once before.
≫ The least she can do is honor your wishes and autonomy, and try to answer whatever questions you may have.
≫ If it is the circus, your past life, or the others you wish to know more about, then she will tell you everything she knows. You were kind enough to listen to her story and remember it for what it was. So she’ll give you whatever it is you need to remain safe in this place where knowledge is a double-edged sword.
≫ Or if you wish to live your fullest without any burdens of the past, to live the life you were denied in your previous life, then she will tell you anything and everything you need to disarm the others, to escape the cycle of eating or being eaten.
≫ Just as long as you make your choice without any regrets…then she will bear no sorrow or resentment towards you.
————
≫ Knowing what you know now, what can you possibly hope to do?
≫ Perhaps this would be the point where you decide whether to forgive the beasts for what they had done, or seek some feeble form of revenge, or perhaps even attempt to get some closure for your undeserved and untimely death long ago. But if you’re quite honest with yourself…
≫ None of those options sound like something you could do. Not yet, anyway.
≫ But you can’t just move on with your life like nothing happened. There would always be a part of you that’s just so…sad. So restless for answers and reasoning. And it will always eat away at you from the inside.
≫ You will always be in pain from wanting things from those who do not and will not want to give you anything.
≫ The lines between who you were, who you are, who you wanted to be, and who you are yet to become are blurred and undefined. Story becomes memory. Memory becomes knowledge. Knowledge becomes suffering.
≫ But maybe there was another way. Another hope beyond these sad cycles of violence and fear and twisted care. Your story may not have had any happy or fair beginning…but maybe that’s why you were still here.
≫ (How funny. Still so naive after all these years. That’s going to be your end, you know. Or is it?)
≫ It all depends on your choices. If not for yourself in the present, then maybe for that young and innocent version of yourself from so long ago. And for the Little Dove who did not deserve such a brutal end.
≫ There is one thing that is almost certain, though. The circus members are not quite done with you yet. One way or another, you’ll find yourself inextricably linked to them. Resent or embrace or ignore it all you want, it makes no difference.
≫ Between knowing fear and naive hope, what will you choose?
≫ Will you put in the work, try to get some form of closure for yourself and create unbreakable bonds with the monsters in this life as well? Or will you seek answers more directly through any means necessary and at any cost, including your sanity and closeness with them? That, I will leave up to you.
————————
≫ GOD this took a lot out of me. Had to fight myself to write at least a little bit every day before my brain would turn to sludge. >.>
≫ I listened to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack while listening to this so I'm sorry if this all seems a little melodramatic LOL (I may or may not have drawn just a little inspiration from the mirror scene for TT’s section…iykyk)
≫ I also listened to the Ballad of Jane Doe from Ride The Cyclone as a sort of inspiration for the MC's plight with their nature! I don’t see a lot of reincarnation stories where the main character genuinely has an existential crisis over who they were, who they are, and who they are expected to become.
≫ I wish I was good at art so I could draw out some of the things I thought of while making this, but alas, I am not. (Whatever higher power that exists had to nerf me I swear) Guess we’re all gonna have to use our imaginations!
≫ This is actually my first ever time making any sort of AU thing, so I apologize if any of this isn’t very good by AU standards. I’m still learning! >_<
≫ Feel free to ask further questions about this AU in my ask box or make content of your own about it! I’d love to see how you guys could interpret this. :)
≫ This and all of my posts are made entirely without the use of generative AI. I do not consent to any of my work being scraped, copied, or otherwise fed into any form of character-based AI or other LLM. If you’re going to do that anyway, then don’t tell me about it.
≫ Thank you all so much for your interest in this silly lil idea I had, and thank you for reading! :)
I finished it! Fluffy lil TFC fic for you guys. ^^ Hope you enjoy! :D
Pls lmk if you see grammar mistakes this is not fully beta read
Idk wtf I’m doing but I’m doing it the best I can-
The cast all stared curiously as they watched you gather everything even remotely soft within the tent that you could get your little hands on.
“Are they…?” Ticket Taker began, not daring to finish.
“They can’t be.” Jester rationalized, but he doubted his words.
“It really looks like…” Harlequin tilted his head as you jumped in order to make the last couple inches to reach a blanket on another bed due to the shackle’s limited range.
“But humans don’t…” The Doctor trailed off.
It was Pierrot who finally said it, fawning over how cute and homely you looked as you flitted about. “They’re nesting~!”
Jester scoffed. “Humans don’t have a nesting instinct except during late pregnancy. And it certainly doesn’t look like this.” He didn’t want to add the last thought, but he didn’t have to. Everyone knew it was there. They were all having it. Despite being a mere human, what you were doing… it resembled monster nesting.
“You must remember that at their base biology, humans are animals. It is possible that some of them may have a nesting instinct like ours that can be unlocked or is perhaps attached to a specific gene?” The Doctor mused, stepping forward to better observe your fascinating behavior.
Pierrot quickly stopped him with his arm, eyes narrowed. “Nesting cannot be interrupted. You know that.”
“They’re not nesting, Pierrot!” Harlequin growled, face riddled with denial. “This is probably just some human ritual we’ve never heard of!”
Ticket Taker hummed in thought as he watched you feel the material of each and every item you’d gathered before organizing them as you saw appropriate. “It certainly looks like they’re nesting.”
“Because they areeeee~!” Pierrot cooed, hands on his cheeks as he swooned.
By now, you had begun to meticulously start piling what you’d collected, carefully layering your chosen materials, which mostly consisted of blankets, sheets, and pillows. To keep everything fitted to the bed, you tucked in the sides that stuck out. When only a single blanket was left, you rimmed the nest with the pillows, using the grooves you’d made to keep them in place. Finally, when it seemed you were finished, you crawled within and settled down, resting your head upon one of the pillows as you covered yourself with the single remaining blanket. Your breathing promptly began to slow, the security of your creation soothing your nerves, body softly vibrating with something that vaguely resembled a faint, contented purr.
The monsters were completely silent. There was no more debate. That was a nest, and a damn cozy looking one at that. Impressive, given your lack of proper materials.
Pierrot stepped forth into the tent while the others continued to quietly observe in astonishment. “My dearest, what is this?” He asked. He knew, they all did, but he still needed confirmation from you.
“Nest…” You mumbled back, sinking further into the pile as your body curled more tightly in on itself. “Need comf… feels safe…”
That settled it.
He couldn’t help his next question. “Where did you learn to do that?” Perhaps you had a monster ancestor and the instinct was passed down to you? Maybe you knew one when you were younger? Or what if…
“Nowhere…” You murmured, voice getting quieter as you began to drift to sleep. “Just makes me feel safe…”
He wanted to ask more but he could tell with the way the rise and fall of your chest had slowed that you had officially slipped into slumber, and he didn’t wish to disturb you.
“Fascinating…” Doctor whispered and Pierrot let out a low hiss, not having realized the other cast members had approached. “They implied this was instinctive for them, but I have never heard of humans nesting in the way monsters might. I’m eager to learn more.” But as he reached for you, his hand was swatted away by Pierrot.
“Come now, Pierrot~ Let us see~” Harlequin coaxed, but his larger cast member stood his ground, eyes wide and wild. He resembled a protective mate, dutifully guarding his partner, even if he currently only qualified as a suitor. The green monster snickered as he taunted the golden eyed beast, whose snarls were growing louder and more ferocious by the second, muscles flexing beneath his costume.
“Let us compromise, Pierrot.” Jester intervened before the inevitable scuffle could take place. Pierrot turned to the purple clown, anger quieting out of respect for the ringmaster, though his teeth remained almost imperceptibly bared. “You know we’re all curious about this nest, though it is clear you value this… human’s safety. If you allow us to investigate while they are away from the nest, I will allow you to show them around the circus tomorrow.”
Pierrot growled low in thought, the sound a deep rumble from within his chest, mulling over the Jester’s offer. On the one hand, he did want to show you around, to acquaint you with his life. He knew so much about yours, but you knew so little about his. On the other hand, he knew that the sanctity of a nest was almost sacred to its builder. You had said you made it to feel safe, and he didn’t want to disturb that for you. But there was also the point of Jester’s great dislike of humans venturing too deep into their circus. For him to offer something like this… it meant his curiosity was intense, and it was not an opportunity to so quickly toss away.
The red clown instantly quieted as he heard you shift within the nest. As he stiffly turned to look at you and gazed upon your sleeping face, he felt his entire body relax. It was cruel of you to be so adorable in your sleep, teasing his desires when he couldn’t act upon them… He looked back at Jester. “Fine.” He said, accepting the leader’s terms. This arrangement would hopefully segway into allowing you permanent residence within the circus.
Jester nodded. “When they wake up then.”
—————————————
Pierrot took you out the next morning to show you around the circus, carefully unlocking your shackle and guiding you away. Once the cast saw you disappear among the tents, they made their way inside the tent Pierrot had stashed you in when he’d taken you and towards your bed. Towards your nest. They paused, examining it, but unsure of where to go next.
Jester made the first move, gently reaching out a hand and pressing it into the nest. He was surprised to find how soft and well put together it was. To see it was one thing. To feel it was another. The others decided to follow his lead.
“Incredible…” Doctor muttered.
“I’ve never felt a nest so comfortable,” Ticket Taker commented absentmindedly.
Harlequin didn’t bother saying anything. He just flopped down and made himself at home in the sanctuary.
“Harlequin!” The Jester hissed, only to be cut off by a sigh of utter bliss from the normally snarky menace.
All the muscles in the green monster’s body had gone completely lax as he stretched out amongst the softness before snuggling into it. “It’s so cozy…” The nest reminded him of a time long gone, when he was young and still had parents. When he didn’t quite know the cruelty of the world just yet. Something nostalgic. Something heavenly. Something… comforting.
The others were taken aback. To see Harlequin so… well… vulnerable? To say it was rare was an understatement. They couldn’t even remember the last time there had been such an occurrence.
Doctor joined him in the nest, Harlequin growling as he was pushed over to make room, seeing as he’d plopped himself down right in the middle. Almost the exact effect came over him. Same with Ticket Taker, the next to join, leaving only Jester remaining on the outside, watching as more than half the cast comfortably curled up in a nest made by a human. The purple clown sighed before relenting, the last thought he had before laying down being ‘It can’t be that amazing, can it?’
—————————————
By the time Pierrot brought you back to the tent you had woken up in, the entirety of the cast was asleep in your nest, nuzzling into the comfort you had so expertly crafted. Jester cracked open an eye when he sensed the presence of the naive monster and his human obsession. He groaned. “Fine… They can stay for now…” His voice came out in the form of a reluctant grumble, conveniently leaving out that he also meant you could stay alive for the time being. “But they need to make something like this for each of our tents for our own personal use…”
As Pierrot found himself overcome with joy, you couldn’t help whining at the sight. “My nest…”
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