[ standing over a body ] " oops. " | from here!
The smell hits him first. Copper... thick, suffocating, clinging to the back of his throat. It stops Husk dead in the doorway, one hand still braced against the frame as his mind struggles to make sense of what he’s seeing.
His voice comes out quiet... thin, uncertain. Then his gaze drops. Blood. Too much of it. Spilled across the floor, soaking into fabric, pooling beneath still limbs. And at the center of it Alastor stands there triumphant. Knife in hand. Crimson dripping from the blade. From his fingers.
Husk’s eyes widen, something sharp and cold twisting in his chest as the reality finally clicks into place.
“What the hell did you do?” The words rip out of him, hoarse, disbelieving as he pushes forward, boots dragging through the sticky mess without care. He closes the distance in long, urgent strides, grabbing Alastor by the wrists before he can even think better of it.
His grip tightens, forcing the younger man’s hands with the knife gripped downward. The knife clatters against the floor with a sound that echoes far louder than it should in the suffocating silence.
Husk doesn’t let go. He can’t. His fingers stay locked around Alastor’s wrists, like if he loosens even a fraction, something worse might happen. Something he won’t be able to stop.
“…Alastor,” he says again, lower this time. Unsteady. And then...
He looks at his face. That smile. Those wide brown eyes... God. It’s all wrong. and twisted.
Something in Husk’s expression fractures.
His breath stutters, grip faltering for half a second before tightening again, like he’s trying to ground himself in something real... anything real, while that image burns itself into his memory.
“…This ain’t funny, Al. What the HELL did you do?” he mutters, voice rough, almost pleading now, like he’s hoping, desperately, this is something else. A delusion. A nightmare. A joke gone too far.
But the blood is warm. The body isn’t moving. And Alastor... Alastor is still smiling. Husk swallows hard, staring at him like he’s seeing a stranger wearing a familiar face... This is something he’s never going to forget and the image of it would be forever burned in his head for years to come in drunken nights.
