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Crimson light bathed the room, skating along the edges of scattered glass. Scatterings of cobwebs and torn fabric descended from the ceiling, the wound metal supports gleaming in the ambient hues of red. The hairs upon his neck tingled with the freeze of exposed metal, the sense of his spine all too noticeable pressed against the console. Oozing welled up beneath his fingers, rising up like a tide through the gauze bound tight around his chest, to the point his ashen skin yellowed at the edges. All he could amass were shallow gulps, so searing was the pain. His spare index prodded absentmindedly at the rent, jagged edges of the parts of his cane. The eye set in the base of the microphone’s pupil had swollen, risen in pain, and was distant. Not quite focusing on anything.
Dust and grime from the wooden floor clung to his hand as he made a desperate attempt to clean congealing blood licking at his digits. His fanged mouth sneered at the mess, a hiss of breath escaping with his shallow breaths; ears pressing backward to the point the fluff tickled the buttons of the console behind him. With a sigh, he wriggled his shoulder like a butterfly escaping it’s cocoon, his loose, pinstripe crimson jacket sending up a storm of dust that tickled at his back and arms. His lingering fingers pressed cold with the clinging of his own viscera into his shoulder blades, the gauze falling to as he worked the bandaging loose. The rims of the glass gleamed in hopeful anticipation as his fingers fastened upon the rough gauze, the lines pressing into his hand as he undid their tight bind around the cardboard.
Careful footsteps, and a shuffling. Ears pricked and pointed to the noise, a franticness in the shrieking tear as the threads gave way, the redding and yellowing of his skin as the lengths tumbled past his trembling digits, his lips twitching like a dog’s. Shoe soles screaming against the floor, the jagged break of his staff jutting into his palms, the silhouette in the door rising, his hand bathed in his gore in a vain attempt to conceal its severity. The metallic scent wafting through his sinuses, permeating his senses. Shifting metal in a click, as burning simmered on his forehead, and the shade of the shadows swelling like his wound.
Black lips shimmered with a soft glow of red, cheeks flush with colour, and a set of dark eyes that lacked the life to even embrace light; a rusty-brick dress swimming in the layers of grime, dust and tickling the discarded glass. Shadows stilling, as he huffed out the breath he never realised had taken residence in his throat. Swallowing the dust she disturbed, with a subtle bell of relief, he lowly exclaimed beneath a hush of pain, “Rosie…!”. A laugh played on the name, his yellowed fangs glimmering with delight. A half smile curled like petals on those black lips, her brows upturned in a sense of concern. “Alastor! I’ve been worried sick, you goin’ off disappearin’ like that! Lucifer’s daughter and that lot at the hotel had told me you’d gone and kicked it; now, I didn’t believe ‘em a moment, but hell!” Her eyes widened as her soulless gaze placed upon his bare chest, covered only by a small, loose wind of the bandaging. A sneer played on his face accompanied by a splash of bile on his throat as the realisation rose in him. “Please, Rosie, give me a minute to make myself even the slightest more presentable…” Her mouth flashed open in a snatch of protest, throwing her face away so as to not face him, she waved him down. “Of course, of course.” Picking her way more carefully across the debris, he gazed on as the door creaked close with her tender push.
Tendons hurled curses and screams at his senses, as his limbs protested at the shuffling of his body; the reach of his arms around his tender midriff to dress the gash that danced from his hip to just beneath his shoulder, the minute jostling of his shoulders to squirm his delicate figure back into his shirt and coat, the shoulder blades threatening to pierce straight through his skin for the severity of the pain. His bow tie dangled almost dejected around his neck, despite his longing to tie the silky ends, the screams of his muscles forbade him. Pushing for a few moments on his own larynx, the muscles themselves hesitant to obey orders of work, he mustered a weak call. “You can come back in…!” A shame washed over him for the fragility of his words, each so muted by the pangs of agony that gripped him; pulsing from that ugly, rancid cut that feeble angel had dared to deface him with. And with an electric guitar! Not even an instrument with a hint of decorum or style.
The tendons on her hands cast deep red shadow, the dust dancing in billows past the tips of her slender fingers. His light breaths reverberated in the tight space, his brown-tipped hair drooping into his vision, his forehead pressed gingerly into the soft flesh of her shoulder. Her thin fingers ruffling the fabric of his coat, sinking in lightly as she drew his form into hers. A warmth passing into his broken body, a calmness sinking through him. His warm breath dancing back up to his face to light it in a pleasant tepidness. Existing for some moments in their shared space, trading warmth and a sense of unspoken trust. Her bottomless eyes bore into his, her deft fingers pressing into his weary shoulders with an unintended sharpness, her arms outstretched. Blinking as she examined the lines of his face as if she were studying a gem for its authenticity, though here it would be difficult to declare him anything but a ruby. “Alastor…!” Her coal lips taught as her void eyes swam with a kind of pity. A light breath rushed up from his chest, his arms bound to his sides as if restrained, her arms grasping him so tightly as she rocked him side to side, a rising ‘hmm’ on her lips. The impression of her grip lingered as cold blossomed on his bent spine again. “Please, come on back to the town… you’ll be better off there, we can get a decent meal into you at the emporium.” Turning his gaze away with a low static, his scarlet eyes squinting, the shadows began to deepen, running into one another like rising embers. Lingered still the impression of Rosie’s firm but gentle embrace, Alastor bowing his head as his fluffed ears hung limply to the sides of his head. White noise ran lines though his syllables as he conceded. “…If you’ll have me.”