Chapter Text
These rolling blackouts throughout Pentagram City were fucking with his head something awful, and the throbbing from his bandaged wrist traveled all the way up his arm to add to the pounding headache.
He curled his claws around the bandages, pressing on them to alleviate the pain. This would be worth it.
He just had to time it right.
He sat below an open window, listening to humming and shifting movements inside as a radio show crackled. The ground was slimy. It had rained yesterday, something that he was pretty sure was blood or at least biological matter splattering down and stinking up the place when it passed. He’d hidden in someone’s back doorway to protect his fragile electronics, then skittered away like a particularly malformed raccoon before he was found and beaten. He was generally really confused about what was going on, but what he’d learned very quickly was that people liked to smash anything particularly breakable. Like TVs.
Fuck did he get a bad deal, whatever – whatever his deal had been.
But this would change all that. Alastor was top of the food chain, according to the gossip. But also according to gossip and his own surveillance, Alastor was also really, really weird.
The streetlamps flickered, then died. The radio, too. Then, the humming.
Blast these blackouts! Alastor said cheerily as something flew out the window and shattered in the street. Really putting a damper on my drama.
This was it. He had this. He’d prepared and then over-prepared. He'd carved out his own wrist for this, for fuck's sake. He could do this. How long had he been living in the alleyways here, just watching? Too fucking long. He scrambled over to the front stairs, and almost immediately slipped in some gore or another, nearly shattering his face on the edge of a step.
Before he could even pound on the door or lose his nerve, it opened.
Hello! Alastor chirped from some amorphous origin that wasn't quite his own mouth.
His eyes flicked briefly to the microphone in Alastor’s hand as it shifted of its own accord and blinked at him, then back to the far more dangerous demon in front of him. This wasn’t any stranger than his head being a television set, he reminded himself. Except Alastor wasn’t actually a radio, lucky bastard.
“Hi.”
They stared in silence at each other, the only lights coming from Alastor’s eyes and his face.
Can I help–
“I make electricity,” he blurted, jerking up his wrist. Alastor flinched back from the unexpected movement, small tail flipping briefly up before it drooped. Like he was any threat to an Overlord.
“If you need, I mean. I have – uh – in my – here – I have an outlet –”
Fuck he needed to breathe. He was pretty sure he was about to die. Could he even die here? He barely knew the rules but was still trying to play the game. He was fucking this up so badly.
An outlet, you say?
“Uhuh.” Things were getting dark, and it wasn’t just from the blackout. His breathing was crackling embarrassingly loudly with panic. Please God, do not let him pass out on Alastor's doorstep.
Well, come on in, then! Come on, come on, I’m missing the best part of my show – which is all parts! He laughed at his own joke as he waved him in.
The door closed with an ominous, deep click.
This was Alastor’s home. This was Overlord Alastor’s fucking home.
It looked like a grandma’s house. Not his, he was pretty sure, but definitely A Grandma. Alastor grabbed his ratty jacket before he could protest and tugged it off. After a moment's contemplation, Alastor opened the door and threw it outside.
He didn’t get a chance to really study the doilies and pictures everywhere, though, as Alastor ushered him to the living room, where a cathedral radio sat on a dresser.
Plug’s over there. Make yourself at home, Alastor said before ditching him. Like it was completely normal to let a strange demon into your house and not even keep tabs on them.
Oookay. He had planned to make it this far, he reminded himself. But he’d not really thought he would. Being able to genuinely just waltz into an Overlord’s house and – and make himself at home had not been a feasible plan from the get-go.
The living room was nothing but crowding shadows and trinkets that glinted in the pallid light from his face. Familiar but only from the outside when he’d been spying for days on end. Cautiously, trying really hard not to think on the absurdity and peril of his situation, he crept over to the radio.
There was a chair next to the outlet, and a footstool. He sat on the floor, kind of jammed up into the corner between the chair and the radio, and unwrapped his bandage. On his wrist was a single outlet, fringed in dried blood. Installing it had been... painful, to say the least. Nauseating. But he'd done it, somehow.
He’d tested it on fans and small televisions and plenty of radios, and it always really sucked, but he’d never fainted, which was all he needed.
The radio glowed to life. Sound poured out, crackling and muddled. Pain laced up his arm and briefly blinded him. Reflexively, recognizing the poor signal, he reached up to adjust his own antennas until it cleared. It got worse, turning into a buzzing whine that grew louder and louder.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
He muted himself and yanked off his antennas, sheer terror fueling his actions, then threw them out the window. The shriek of agony would have been earsplitting, but blessedly all that anyone could hear was the sudden clearing of the radio’s transmission.
Agony washed down his body in waves of light and dark. He didn’t know if he could puke, but he really didn’t want to find out sitting on the floor of Alastor’s living room.
Alastor blinked at him from the doorway, rictus grin managing to radiate confusion. He had a tray in his hands.
“Didn’t want to interrupt your show,” he managed to choke out. That seemed to be answer enough for whatever questions Alastor had, as he stepped into the still-darkened room and set the tray down on a low table. There were two cups on it, both steaming, and a small flickering candle for all that either of them actually needed the light.
Good lad! I made us coffee.
“Thanks,” he muttered, but made no move to grab it. He really should. It was expected. But he could barely see straight right now. This was starting to feel less worth it than he’d predicted. Something liquid and cold trickled over the top of his head from where the antennas had been.
Alastor sat in the chair opposite the one he could have taken and studied him silently, or… was just staring at him while listening to his show? He wasn’t really sure. Alastor’s foot was tapping, though, so maybe he was just zoning out?
When Alastor reached forward and turned off the radio with a click, he jumped, startled from his own woozy reverie.
“‘S it over?” he slurred. How much time had passed? How much energy had he drained powering Alastor’s radio? The lights were back on, and he’d not even realized. How long had he not needed to be doing this?
That it is, for now, Alastor said with all the drama of a narrator. He knelt down, held out the coffee, and waited for him to take a sip into the strange void that sort of qualified as a mouth. Ugh, it didn’t have any sugar or milk in it, but he wasn’t going to complain. As he choked it down, Alastor trailed one finger through the blood on his head, then dragged it down the glass. He shuddered but tried to keep all of his attention on the drink. Alastor's claw left a hair-thin gouge in its wake.
Now, tell me about yourself, my exceedingly useful chum.
Holy shit. Was it really that easy?