Explain why is he torturing her!!!! 😭😭 How could you do this to Ann 👿👿
no hate meaning! 😭 I love your art and i wanna take inspiration on it 🥹🥹 since my art is not that good 😅 i don't recommend looking it in my account 😭😔
ur gud dw
That's actually Ann doin the torturin btw
all in the name of love nvfdjbv
The papers dubbed her The Defacer as she leaves her victim's faces completely mutilated.
Her victims are all women Alastor has interacted (or even gone on dates) with in some way shape or form.
cuz if she can't have Alastor, then nobody can! 😤
⟢HumanAlastor x FemaleBurlesquerReader - A Doe in Fall
A burlesquer with a penchant for conning men, you find your latest game interrupted when your next mark saves you from an aggressive fan— by killing him. The chance encounter left you curious, still half convinced you could complete your normal chase. Unbeknownst to you, you were the one being tracked.
Part 1 - Pretty in Red smut💦
Part 2 - Liar smut💦
Part 3 - A Tragedy smut💦
Part 4 - Enough
Part 5 - Too Much
Part 6 - Learning smut💦
Part 7 - Recognition smut💦
Part 8 - Trust sexual 🥵
Part 9 - Shiny Things
Part 10 - Good Deeds
Part 11 - Caught
Part 12 - Eddie
Part 13 - The Release
Part 14 - Someone like hersmut💦
Part 15 - Silence smut💦
Part 16 - Mine 📍
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Where we left off: After a busy evening of drink, dance, and dashing from the police, you finally confessed with a heartfelt bouquet. Alastor's reply was nonverbal but a reply nonethless.
Part 16 Mine
Alastor wants a chance to reply properly, and you return to work.
「Warnings/Promises: Human!Alastor x Fem!Reader, none really, A short one dears but it needed its own piece, foreshadowing out the ass, a slow night at the theater, a lot of catching up as we try to set our newly confessed lovers into normalcy, more is written I just wanted this moment to exist on its own」
When you woke up and instinctively reached for him your hand came up empty. Something that very rarely happened. Waking up without Alastor always left you panicked, even if it wasn’t a common issue.
In the past when he’d left bed for chores or restlessness your worry was so strong he promised to leave you a note in the future. So you’d know he was coming right back. It wasn’t a concern of trust for you, but safety.
Or maybe there was a deeper fear. A lead bullet in your gut he’d disappear entirely. Before you had said the words, you knew the stress had been mounting. Loving someone so sincerely meant putting everything truly important to you outside of your control. Ripe to be taken from you for any number of reasons. Turning to your side of the bed you saw there was no note either. Your stomach twisted. Had you fucked it up that efficiently? An embarrassing display of affection and already you were alone again. It was irrational, you could see that, but wouldn’t it just make sense that was your fate?
After several moments your body caught up to your waking mind and you heard the splashing of water outside. Ah, he was there. He was home.
A breath so deep and slow it was embarrassing. You’d have been less relieved if a speeding car stopped inches from you.
Looking out the window you saw the greenhouse was empty. A pause to figure out where he could be before turning slightly to realize the sound was coming through an open window. You briskly crossed the hall to his mother’s old room and stopped short of sticking your head out. He was washing his car. The twisting of your stomach stopped but the knots didn’t unravel. Your confession had apparently mattered so little he was moving swiftly past it.
“Hey.” You leaned down and shouted out the window. There was no plan beyond that.
His head perked up, glasses reflecting the sun brightly and hiding his honey brown eyes. His face went from rest to grinning. His teeth were so pretty. He wore a white shirt that shone in the sunlight and those loose fitting pants. Perfectly pleated with his iron, a task you heard single men complain about often. One he never asked you to take up.
“Hey! Good morning!” He lowered the hose and bent it to weaken the flow, “I’m sorry about last night.” A little laugh, you could see his eyes close with the sound as his head tilted from the sun’s glare, “Come down here.” His eyes opened and cut into you, “Let me try again.”
Your body responded with a flinch, bringing the back of your head into the window’s bottom rail with a thwack that echoed down to your teeth.
Alastor rushed to turn off the spigot, “You okay?” He yelled up to you.
Your hands were clean of any blood, you hadn’t broken the skin but it felt like you had, “Yeah.”
Why was this scarier than the confession itself?
You’d made it halfway across what used to be his mother’s room before you stopped. She chose that room so she could see him as soon as he got home. To feel relief as quickly as possible that he’d made it back every time he left.
The cold tendril of fear took hold of you by the ankles. Saying it was terrifying, but unrequited love still meant freedom. Even if it was a little harder to enjoy. But if he said it back, that was it. There would be expectations. Could you stomach being the woman in the window waiting for him to come home safe? It was one thing to do it now, but once you’d let your guard down fully it would mean tearing away your flesh to be taken away from him. Your heart outside your body. Your life intertwined so intimately with another that you would mourn your own unlived future if they were to leave. If Alastor were to leave. You had to say the name, because it made it so much worse and somehow all the more worth it.
Telling Alastor you loved him was for Alastor. That was a necessity. A truth you had to share. But accepting it from him?
You found yourself chewing on your thumbnail absentmindedly. A bad habit, one you couldn’t quite place the origin of.
Had you really not expected him to say it back? You heard the door squeak open downstairs.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He called up from the base of the stairs.
“Yeah.” You shouted back, a false chipperness to it you hadn’t meant to give. It sounded so fake and unlike yourself that it made you cringe.
As the wind pushed the clouds east over the old home and you fell into a shady darkness, Alastor entered the room.
He said something as he approached you, but your eyes were drawn to his shoes. Wet and dirty, tracking the driveway into the normally pristine room. And then he was so close to you that you could feel the heat of the sun radiating off his short sleeved polo. A daring color to wash a car in, but Alastor always liked to look like he was in control of everything; even splashback.
Warm. That smell of sweat and soap and sun-kissed water rose to meet you.
Looking up at him felt like turning the next page, so you stared at his chest before you. It was glowing, the sun coming back into view of New Orleans and pouring light through the windows.
Alastor didn’t know how to say it plainly. For so long his love sat like kerosene in his chest. Purposeless and evaporating slowly over time as it went unneeded. Dying fumes dizzying with their evaporation. Suffocating him as it threatened to go entirely wasted before he died. A love so like him, dangerous but with reason; by design. Just a little spark, a tiny flicker of something true to set him alight. Unused love sitting in his chest like lighter fluid, waiting for something to burn it away.
He could do anything, he could bury whomever. So what good were words now? How could he offer you sounds and pretend it carried an ounce of weight compared to the burning in his chest. Alastor knew he should have replied the night before. But he took the risk and trusted what you’d said. That you wouldn’t be going anywhere. That you loved him for the sake of it. He could be scared and make missteps without worry of you leaving.
His head dipped down to meet your eyes from the side, and as yours flitted to his he lifted back up and your gaze followed.
With a breath he opened his mouth and then exhaled. A hot palm came to rest on your forearm, the other slipped between elbow and nightgown to rest on your back and bring you a little closer.
You had to take a step and a half toward him to not fall forward. What were you meant to do with your hands? The illustrations inside the covers of novels came to mind. You chose against them all, and instead let your hands stand at your sides.
His eyes locked onto yours, moving back and forth like he was checking for something. Unbearable for you, to be seen so thoroughly and to not be able to look away. Could he feel your heart racing in your chest? Could you sense his doing the same?
Words he never thought he could say and mean before you. Words he had to whisper out of cowardice before. Words that he paradoxically finally understood and yet knew meant so little in comparison to what he felt. Insufficient. Base.
“I was scared last night,” he said.
“Of me?” You huffed a laugh, “That’s rich, given your hobbies.”
“You are terrifying.”
“Aw, the three words every woman longs to hear.”
“In a wonderful way. In a way I don’t want to lose.” The rustle of the wind in the trees outside as he took a calming breath, “Not that you’re something to have.”
You wanted to scream he’d had you since the alleyway beside the theater, since you saw him smiling from the crowd that night but you’d already exposed enough of yourself for one week.
“I’m not…good.” His eyes wandered down your nightdress, something white and thin meant for warmer weather than what was rolling in now. “Everything I touch breaks, is cut, falls to pieces and sinks into….dirt holes and still waters.”
You had to remember to breathe, the words coming out quiet when your inhale was too weak to gather enough force, “Don’t decide for me if I break or not. That’s still my choice to make.”
A chuckle, a smile that made the small wrinkles beside his eyes deepen, “I wouldn’t dare. But, I don’t think you were supposed to meet me.” He watched the softness in your eyes turn on him.
“Who says? And as if you didn’t try to stop me. You failed spectacularly.”
His hands came to hold your head, taking away your breath yet again. “I can feel them watching, the spirits beyond the safety of the haint blue of our porch. The ones always listening for words to twist. The bad things that eat good things. You are a good thing. And I love you more than I was ever meant to.” You watched his waterline fill before his arms wrapped around your head and pulled you into his chest.
His entire body was rocking with the beating of his heart.
He said it, actually said it loud enough for you to hear and register. Despite feeling so sure it would set off the hungry creatures to whom he owed his debts, his karma, whatever it was called if they even gave it a name. A declaration and a challenge. He felt it in his bones. He couldn’t keep you. No books about murderous men had happy endings of loving families and peaceful lives. It had always been a tragedy. And beautiful things only existed to twist that knife deeper. How many beautiful things had you given him already? How terribly would they hurt when he failed and you left? Like you had said, he had failed to keep you away. He surely would lose the battle to keep you near.
Tightly he held you, and only when your arms came to wrap around his chest and scratch at his back did he take slow deep breaths in. You felt the muscles across his ribs and down his shoulders relax under your hold. On your tippy toes you reached up to hold more of him.
Love was scary, so it made sense to you that he was scared. You were scared too.
But sometimes fear makes you bold. Defiant. His mother taught him about the ghosts that wandered around waiting to pull apart happiness at the seams, but your mother taught you to go down swinging.
After several moments, watching the light of the room dim and grow with the winds and taking in the warmth of his body. The residual sun’s heat was still radiating off of him. The water from the hose and the faint smell of sweat rising to your nose. The feel of his shirt against your cheek and his racing heart. All consuming. In that moment he was monopolizing your senses and if you could you’d be buried in that moment. Surrounded on all sides by Alastor.
If he had shouted his love at you from a tall building or wrote a banner and flew it past the house, it’d have meant so much less than what he had said. Your own confession had been a moment of vulnerability you hated, a display that exposed your guts to the open air.
And in his own way, hadn’t he done the same thing? Alastor admitted his love had become a runaway train, something he wasn’t choosing but something that was carrying him away from his comfort just like yours had. The current pulling your ship out of the harbor into the still unfamiliar but promising open seas that was now your unrestrained relationship. Anchors gone, ropes cut. Neither of you had any control of where this was headed, but you were going together. There was a new comfort in that.
And now you stood. Chests torn open gingerly for each other, hearts in your hands, blood mixed with blood. Sentiments neither of you could laugh off or wave away.
It would be too much to address the topic any further now. But you didn’t need to.
“You're damn lucky I didn’t walk home last night when you didn’t reply.” You said it into his arm, his embrace still firm. You always told yourself that was an option, just walking home if things went badly. It was hard to let old habits like back up plans and emergency exits die.
“In the dark? Darling it’s too dangerous out there, didn’t ya hear? Some mad man’s killing upstanding New Orleanians.” His arms loosened enough to let himself lean back and see your face. “And I did reply.” A sly smirk, his eyes rolling up, “just not verbally.”
Your brow crinkled with a tinge of embarrassment, remembering how silently he nodded as he laid you down and undressed you on the porch. “Well thank goodness I’m not upstanding. - I’m a nude dancer ruining the moral fabric of our country,” you read out the lines you so often saw in the papers with heavy sarcasm. The fight against burlesque was still strong and gaining traction up north. Briefly you thought about work. Maybe it’d be okay to go back soon. You’d need to check in first, see if any police or detectives had been lingering around.
A hand came to tilt your chin up and out of your thoughts of work, “I love you.” He heard your sharp inhale as if the words hurt you some way, but closed in for a kiss. Soft, you thought. Comfortable. The sensations would have kicked in your fight or flight before him, to be kissing so sweetly on another person’s property. But it didn’t. Instead, you felt like you had unclenched your shoulders for the first time in years.
For once someone's affections weren’t a police searchlight chasing you down and revealing you harshly, but a soft golden spotlight you could call home and bask in. You’d thought before it had been cruel to not accept the love others had offered when it was thrown at you. But you’d break a thousand more hearts if it meant getting to see Alastor’s.
At first it was just words, albeit pleasing ones. Words that made your stomach flip and something flutter in your chest. I love you, you said it tentatively at first whenever you felt overcome with something new and immutable stirring in you. But soon it became a phrase you said so confidently; A declaration when he left for work, a promise before you fell asleep. You relayed it like it’d gain more weight with every breath.
And for Alastor, it did. It was becoming something solid he could feel inside him. A disproportionate weight to its size, like gold under his sternum. It held his feet on the ground so the strong winds of insecurity couldn’t carry him away. That magnet he always felt pulling him to you grew stronger. He was sure he could feel you across the river when he was gone. Alastor began to think his mother hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she could sense when he was hurt or upset. He was sure he’d feel it, too, for you.
It became an expression you couldn’t hold in if you tried. And every time you said it it felt like peeling another strip of flesh off your chest, exposing a little more of yourself. And every time, it hurt less.
A bleeding heart, but the meaning was much different for you.
You could imagine it, the blood of your love soaking through your dress and down your stomach. Was it your blood, though?
“You always look lovely in red,” Alastor marveled at the color of your lips as you slowly applied your lipstick. Your eyes tore themselves from the gorey mirage in the vanity mirror.
“You'll like tonight’s set then.” Another week had passed sitting pretty in Alastor’s home after your confession before you found the strength to call the theater and check back in. Slowly you settled back into life as it was before Brady. First watching rehearsals, then discussing a comeback, practice and costumes and precautions. It was time to return.
“You're wearing red?”
You considered the words closely, “Hmm, wearing is a loose term. I’ll be undressing in red.”
Not every show could be rhinestones and feathers. Mostly due to costs, but there was something to say for a more intimate style. It had been decided your return would be special, and you offered your own idea.
A simple night in.
Johnny’s brow had quirked at the idea, Ruth trying her best as newly promoted artistic director (as she proudly named herself) to gently remind you the point of burlesque for the majority of the crowd. But with a little demonstration and conversation you got them on your side.
The theater said there’d been no issues. Well, the staff didn’t notice anything. The dancers said there was an influx of more new faces but it couldn’t be discerned who was a looky lou and who may be looking for trouble. You were going to just slip back into things casually but it had been decided by the theater they might as well flaunt the drama, bring in some more bodies with the excitement of the arrested dancer back at work.
With Alastor letting the cat out of the bag, as much as he had atleast, and nothing coming from it meant you could just … let go of the pretense. It’d be Alastor’s first time watching your show as your guy, and it was a fact you didn’t need to hide.
He had been right about Brady. He had several weeks while you hid at Alastor’s and let the theater and neighborhood at large settle down again to make some move and nothing came of it. Brady had nothing. Alastor spent the time home as well. No hunting, no killing, he avoided gossip and news to keep the urge dead. You both had circled the wagons. But the threat was seemingly gone.
Plus you missed the art of burlesque. And carrying his love with you onto the stage felt like something new and shiny that would add to your skill.
When your set was next in the line up and Alastor seated among the crowd, you felt the nervous energy in your fingertips. There was little chance of failure for you physically. But you could find you didn’t get the warm welcome you had hoped for. Maybe people were still angry at the attention you turned on your seedy little part of New Orleans. You’d heard word other establishments nearby had lower attendance in the days following your arrest.
The music started low and slow, setting the mood for your performance. The scene was set with a partition, a dressing table you all had dragged from the back, a cushioned stool, and that was it. Nothing fancy. It’d just be you up there.
Small and quick steps, your ankle length dress a bright, obscene red limiting your range of motion. The neck was high and modest, but as you turned the audience could see the bareback that ended in a neat satin bow just above your tailbone, tied tightly to keep the back strung taut. White satin gloves past your elbows added a layer for you to remove. The perfect image of a lady of leisure on her way home from some event. A strappy heel that clicked as you walked across the stage and echoed out past the music. Burlesque at the time was dance more than anything, quick movements of the chest and shoulders, rolls of the hips. A curtain of fabric letting peeks of cheek flash at the audience. A twirling of cloth giving quick and insufficient glances of your barely there but still bejeweled panties.
The places people were the loudest at showed more, but every theater and every dancer had their own norms.
And tonight you wanted to go slow.
Taking a seat on your stool you unclipped your earrings and set them down, the crowd still murmuring with their own jitters. You unhooked your necklace and the clinking sound was buried under whispers. When you turned your body to the side and bit the tip of your glove you stopped as if interrupted.
Glancing over your shoulder you looked out at the audience as if you’d heard a noise.
You made a face, a gasp, was someone watching you?
A loud hush through the audience, mischievous snickers popping up as you waved away the intruders and returned to your task.
Pulling slowly with your mouth you removed your right glove and let it drop. You tugged at each fingertip of the left to loosen its hold and just as slowly unsheathed the other arm.
Everyone was finally understanding.
Turning to face the peeping toms, you bent down and undid your heels and slipped out of them. The neckline was high and didn’t offer any glimpses of cleavage, but the lovely and long lines your body made were their own treat.
Standing, you walked half across the stage and paused, another slow and deep bend as you rolled your dress higher and higher up your thigh to reveal your garter. The curve of your thighs and backside the focus. Once undone you took your time rolling the nylon over your bare leg until it stopped at your ankle. With a little kick, it flew off. You repeated this on the other side and continued your saunter to the paper partition across from you.
Before retreating you reached back and pulled at the bow, the top of your dress gliding over your shoulders with the tension now gone, leaving a bare back and a loosely hanging skirt on your hips.
Once behind the partition, the light popped on for a classic silhouette tease. You let the dress completely fall off and stepped out of the pile of clothes. A turn to the side, a shadow of your near naked body visible to the audience before facing away from the hidden voyeurs. Your garter was taken off and dangled before you tossed it over the thin divider hiding you, panties soon following them.
And then the light cut off, you quickly slipped into something that wouldn’t have the cops running in again and waited for the shift of the focus. The stage light moved to the mirror of the dressing table, the light bouncing off expertly to give you a new spotlight.
Alastor watched you with a swell in his chest. He didn't have the same reaction as the others, because he knew what bodies were. He knew people were meat and bone and blood and sinew. But, he still felt so much. As he watched the strangers watching you, whispering about you, adoring you, Alastor could feel his ego overwhelming him.
People paid to watch you move and undress, a pleasure he had daily. And no matter how hard they could try, Alastor knew no one would beat him out for your affections.
And if they did…
How much more common thoughts of murder for the sake of keeping you came to him now.
Alastor had felt a disconnect with death since his youth. It was enthralling, and part of the fun was being God in that moment of someone’s quickly ending life. Deciding they were bad and not worth having around. Being the man who made that decision and acted it out with finality was the initial appeal.
But… he’d kill Brady. He’d kill anyone in the room with him now. He killed Tommy.
The only thing any of those people have in common was the perceived threat they posed to him and you. None of them were truly bad as he had always claimed his victims were.
The hum of his heart became a chant, Mine, Mine, Mine.
Yes he knew he would lose you, even as the fear calmed over time and the fact remained. But who would try to steal you from him?
Someone handsome, he thought as his eyes roamed around the room. Someone family oriented with a respectable job. Someone with cleans hands. Someone who wouldn’t hold you too tightly.
Someone Alastor could burn away with whatever love you left behind in him.
So consumed in the puffing of his chest as the sinners breathed out lust and he inhaled pride he didn’t notice the young woman taking a seat at the table beside him. Her attention decidedly not on the performance.
You ended the show by slipping out of your dressing gown just in time to flash a little cheek to the audience before you were spirited away behind the curtain.
As you let yourself relax again you wondered if anyone could see the tremble in your fingers. It was nerve wracking to be on stage again. But the applause made your skin tingle, a buzzing down your stomach when flowers kissed your toes as they slid across the stage. The theater had made a show of advertising your return, and paid a young man to stand out near the front with roses for sale. Nothing gets people in quite like a line of people with flowers. Must be special, they think. And it was special, because it was Autumn Hind’s return to the stage after her sudden and violent arrest.
He’s in love with her, the rumors had spread. The detective wanted her all to himself but she said no.
Suspended because he couldn’t keep himself away from her, you heard from the others during rehearsals. Sent to the boonies to clear his head and brought back to sit at a desk.
An order from his boss, he’s not allowed within 500 feet of the theater, the patrons harshly whispered as you slunk onto stage earlier that evening, Well I heard he can't come within 1000 feet of the pleasure district Autumn works.
But even the comfort of the dressing room and high of the praise was sullied when a loud noise made you shriek. You couldn’t admit you thought it was Brady storming in to take you again, so you laughed it off when everyone turned to look at you. The previous days of practice and getting back into your normal routine at work was mired with quick glances around for cold blue eyes and a stiff hat. It had been more than a month since you’d heard a peep from the man. Even his name felt foreign now, something your mind willed to the dustbin.
Well, you couldn’t say nothing happened. Alastor did receive an odd call at work not long after your confession. A promise from the former partner of Brady that he had indeed been briefly removed from his role and forced into a week of “vacation”. From the horse’s mouth Alastor learned that Brady had a bit of a breakdown at work. When his superior told him trespassing and a coerced search of someone’s property was a step beyond the pale no matter what vague confession Brady had heard or imagined, he slammed the door on his way out so hard the glass had shattered. Which was…unsettling. You hadn’t taken him for the violent type, but it must have been humiliating. To have the killer smile in your face and your boss just wave it all away as something you thought you saw.
The adoration of the audience did have its usual effect though. You floated from stage to seat and only the brief scare could bring you back to earth. You let thoughts of him drift away and allowed your feet to leave the ground again when you put on something cotton, loose with a ribbon on the low waist, and reintroduced yourself to the crowd. Modest, but put together. Clean straight lines, your hair neatly in place as if you hadn’t been sweating under the lights some time before.
You could understand how some people confused your workplace for a combination of entertainment and marketplace. Most dance halls didn’t have the talent mingling among the tables after their sets. But maybe that was the draw for many. Not all, but some of the dancers were accessible. And for a drink and maybe a cigarette anyone could enjoy a conversation with their own private star.
If others thought more should be expected, well that was on them. You could see the hopeful expectation in the eyes of some of those approaching you. How long had it been since you played your little game? Your own hunt. Finding someone arrogant and assumptive to get drunk and finesse.
Skillfully you greeted old and new faces while still keeping your eyes peeled for Alastor.
He could see you exiting from the same doorway he had followed you through so many months ago. But as he slowly approached you, taking in the sight of several others watching you hungrily, he was stopped.
“Hello!”
Alastor bristled, the voice unknown and the hand hooking his arm violently unwelcomed. Had he been in a more secluded place he’d have yanked his arm away. But this was his first real debut at your work and he didn’t need rumors he was rough with women reviving Tommy.
His head turned quickly, a petite woman with pitch black hair and bright eyes was hugging his forearm far too familiarly. He blinked, confused as to if he knew this person and forgot. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Hello,” it came out flat, the edges of his tone upturned with agitation.
“I’m new here, could you show me around?” Alastor watched her flutter her lashes and turn in her shoulders to make herself small. He sighed. With a glance down her clothes he leaned back to look at her shoes. Dressed well, making good money but unmarried. Fashionable but in a sense meant to draw attention. She worked for an established brothel with all the proper protections by the looks of her, a fallen angel as they were euphemistically called.
“I’m new here as well, sorry, can’t help you doll.” Alastor slipped his arm away but she pulled it closer to her chest and squeezed.
“Well then maybe we could go somewhere you know better.” Her smile was sweet, nothing about her seemed desperate. Maybe she did just find a chance for an attractive John. He smiled at the thought, she would be so lucky to catch him.
Alastor looked back at you. You were nodding along to something someone was saying, their hand on your wrist as if they’d never let go from a handshake. There was a sense of urgency in him he couldn’t place. He liked watching them fawn over you, but he worried how it looked now. You sweetly smiling to some older gentleman with too many rings and his arm between some young lady’s breasts. He wanted to steal you away and break the hearts of everyone in the room. Wanted you on his arm so he could drink in the glares and sneers. A thousand little deaths of those who had hoped for your time.
“You’re a flatterer, but no. I’m happily taken and needed here.” As his left arm pulled free, the woman snatched his hand and pouted.
“Taken but not the kind to wear a ring?” Her painted finger tapped his.
Alastor cackled, loudly laughing at the audacity. Rarely had a woman ever been so brazen in their crooning, most stuck with coy or blunt not bounced between the two in the same interaction. She recoiled at the sound, the unhinged nature of his laughter unsettling.
“You”, he pulled his hand from hers harshly and let his index finger gently bop her on the nose, “are too pushy for your own good. Find another tree to shake, sweetheart.”
She didn’t walk away though. In his peripheral he saw her still standing there in the center of the room, watching him and biting her bottom lip in contemplation of something. A fan, he considered. He had those, after all. It’d been so long since he’d gone out he had forgotten sometimes they popped up.
Finally, he could move past the others and make his way to you. A stream slipping past rocks and fallen branches to get to its mouth. To the place it could flow and become more than it was, vaster and deeper. Ah, that’s what love was, he considered as your head turned to him and he watched your face light up at the sight of him. The ocean, deep waters running cold and slow carrying you both somewhere new.
Your wrist was freed and you seemed to be attempting to introduce Alastor to the person you’d been talking to, but your words were stifled.
His fingers slid up the back of your neck to feel you held in his two palms as he pulled your face up to kiss you.
Yes you’d leave someday, but he’d not let go so easily.
"Alastor didn’t know how to say it plainly. For so long his love sat like kerosene in his chest. Purposeless and evaporating slowly over time as it went unneeded. Dying fumes dizzying with their evaporation. Suffocating him as it threatened to go entirely wasted before he died. A love so like him, dangerous but with reason; by design. Just a little spark, a tiny flicker of something true to set him alight. Unused love sitting in his chest like lighter fluid, waiting for something to burn it away."
Towards the end of his 4th year at JCC, becoming the order trainee. Shin eventually tracked down Sakamoto and found out that he indeed has a family now. Much to Shin’s distraught he initially hates Aoi and Hana, blaming them for Sakamoto’s abandonment. He eventually accepted that Sakamoto is happier with this life without him or anyone else. When random gangster wanted to get to Sakamoto through Hana, Shin somehow happened to be there and rescued her. He told her that he is a spy and she cannot tell any of this to Sakamoto or he’ll lose his job. He then comes to check on them every once in a while (while also entirely avoiding Sakamoto himself) just to make sure they’re safe.
All he knows is that they’re important to Sakamoto. Sometimes he’d go far to disguise himself to help Aoi babysit or teach Hana homework if Sakamoto is busy elsewhere. (Nagumo warns him that Sakamoto can tell if someone’s in disguise, especially someone he knows). He slowly come to check on them less once he started receiving more jobs from the order. Though when there’s a bounty on Sakamoto, it worries Shin about them greatly.
Sakamoto Days AU. Order trainee Shin. He’s quite numb, less cheerful and more quiet than canon Shin, most members like him because he’s not annoying. He’s very serious when doing tasks but he gets upset when the order doesn’t take him seriously. Like an unpaid intern, he also gets random jobs that has nothing to do with assassins work at all (which he eventually gets used to). One of them being just following Nagumo around and paperwork.
Sakamoto Days AU where after Sakamoto retired, Shin became bitter and went through many things, ended up getting into JCC. Found out that Sakamoto was an order member and wanted to become an order member himself to get stronger and get closer to Sakamoto. Working as a trainee under the order, mostly Nagumo.
⋆.˚ 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘. he laid his eyes on you the first time you stepped into the shop and you were a different kind of beauty .
⋆.˚ 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓. ~0.8k .
⋆.˚ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓. eesome — (adj.) pleasing to the eye. written to be fluff, kinda plantonic though. f!reader. crack. written in 3rd pov. spoiler - free. safe for minors! crappy writing ( when was the last time I wrote? ). edited.
BEAUTIFUL. That was the only thought that crossed Asakura Shin's mind as soon as a beautiful girl set a foot into the store, Sakamoto's store, the self-proclaimed no. 1 safest shop in Japan. It was kinda true though with the legendary, ex-hitman Sakamoto Taro working here, assisted by Asakura Shin himself, it must be the safest shop. Well but come back to the present.
His black eyes followed her figure, unfortunately not being able to catch a glimpse of her face and yet he could already tell that she was a different kind of beauty. She wore an old-fashioned white dress, matching her big white hat made out of sinamay that covered her face while she gracefully carried herself in those cinderella high heels through the whole shop.
Shin would bet that she could probably afford other luxuries in those expensive, extravagant shops, so why was she here? Nonetheless he won't judge. After all, here is a pretty customer. As much as he wanted to ask for her number, he didn't dare to be near her, only waiting behind the counter while gripping onto the wooden table with his sweaty hands. God. He wants to read her mind, but he also didn't want to read her mind.
What if she thinks he's ugly? What if she was thinking bad about him in general? No, no. He will not hear those thoughts voluntarily.
"Excuse me?"
Not wasting a second, Shin immediately lifted his head and parted his lips to answer. "W— hi." he stuttered and greeted her with an easy-going hi as if they were good friends. Not once did Shin feel more embarrassed than right now. Oh god. The heck? He shuts his eyes for a second to calm himself down before opening his eyes again. What was your expression? How he would've loved to finally see her face.
"How can I help you?"
"Oh umm... I'm here to pay for my things, but I assumed you spaced out." her voice was smooth.
But he didn't have much time to think about that fact as his gaze sank down to the counter. Right. "S-Sorry..." he apologized, beet red because of the downright embarrassment while taking the scanner into one hand and the other grabbed the items. The silence was loud. His mind was racing with multiple thoughts while he silently hoped to see her face, wishing that she would lift her head anytime soon before she leaves the shop.
And somehow, god heard his prayers. The woman looked up the next moment, the shadow of her hat covered the upper part of her face. His black eyes met stoic, [e/c] ones. Wow. 'Beautiful.' was his thought—the thought he quietly whispered under his breath. And as soon as he realized that he said it out loud, he quickly looked down to your items again, his face red again, too shy to meet your gaze again.
"T-That makes 3.550¥ in dollar!" Shin said.
The sound of bills and coins being placed on the small silver tray and the rustling of the plastic bag being taken into hands echoed in his ears. "...Thank you for your purchase! Please visit us again." it's a line he says everyday, yet somehow it felt heavier than usual to let those daily words out of his mouth today. Shin didn't dare to meet her gaze again, leaving his head down as he waited for her to leave the shop.
'Cute.' ah, seems like he couldn't help himself but peek into her mind to get a taste of her thoughts. Short after hearing her thoughts, he looked up with slightly widened eyes. Did she just call him cute? "Could you please ring this up too?" she asked and placed a cat keychain on the counter, getting out her purse again. Lost in thoughts, he stood there for a while and stared at the woman. Well, he was staring for too long now.
BEEP !
"Huh?!" Shin blinked rapidly and watched how she scanned the item herself. "W-What are you doing, ma'am?!"
"I helped myself..." she placed the money on the small silver tray again before she pointed the scanner at him and—
BEEP !
"Ring yourself up too." he cannot take her serious even though her face showed him plain plainness, the keychain already attached to her keys. "You look like this keychain."