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Alastor wasn’t a vulnerable man. It wasn’t something he took as a weakness of his, quite the opposite really. His ability to smile no matter his present emotion, how little the media knows of him; personally, physically… it was power. Giving up information, pieces of himself so willingly wouldn’t just be foolish, it would be handing off power, handing off leverage.
Even mortal, when no one could stand to lock eyes with a man that possessed dark eyes and almost as dark skin, he didn’t mind it. It wasn’t a fantasy, revealing every scar, every inch of him, just for a moment of fleeting pleasure.
Of course, as a mortal, he’d dared to dabble in this pleasure; in the dark, alone, when there was no one to see such a sight… every man has, he assumes. But it wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Of anything, it was simply a mess.
But now he was no man, and he had no interest in such activity. He had better things to worry about. Like gaining back his dignity.
He doesn’t know how his mind works sometimes, or how a woman is supposed to hand him back his dignity, but his heart is sure that Rosie holds the solution. He didn’t enjoy listening to his heart; it always brought him back to her, and he wasn’t so sure how to feel about her at all.
Rosie was his owner for years, but she was his roommate too. His cook, his company. They had a rhythm that was reliable as steel, sturdy too. He didn’t necessarily like the woman, he’d simply grown used to her. They’d lived together for more decades then he could count on one hand, after all.
But regardless of his divided emotions, he’s knocking at her residence anyway. She’s eager to pull him inside the second she answers. Odd.
“Oh deer, I’m so glad you turned up! I swore I’d be practically forgotten now that you have your little soul back,” Rosie sighs with a giggle and that cheeky smile of hers, hands clasped together.
She didn’t seem angry, that much was certain. But… Why? Alastor often killed the souls that had somehow found a way to escape his grasp, his deals. But Rosie was cheery as ever. Was it an act? Surely he could read her now after so many years… and yet he struggles.
“Ah Rosie, like I could ever forget a demon like you,” Alastor chuckles, smiling that usual flashy smile as he steps in.
He glances around and is struck with something so terrible it was like a physical blow.
Emotion.
It had been a seven year gap since he last stayed here, and every inch of this establishment reeks of memory. The stove she made tea, the table she laid out snacks, the couch she fell asleep on reading, the window that showed off her acre-long red rose garden that Alastor had helped painstakingly plant, water, and weed for years…
Then the memories he didn’t want to remember, the memories of her stroking his ears whenever he got so angry they twitched, her touch soothing until he was practically forced into melting against her. The way she would call down the stairs insisting it would only be one more minute when she’d been doing her hair for hours only to wear that signature hat of hers.
He looks at Rosie herself, his mind pulling more memories he pushed off quickly, noticing that look in her eye. He pauses, realizing quickly she must have said something that expected a response.
He gives the signature grin of his, “I’m sorry dear, what was it you said?”
But she sees through him like glass. Oh now he hates that. Her smile fades slowly, her eyebrows pushing together as she reads him like those old novels she adored.
“Oh, never mind that. There’s something new in those eyes of yours,” Rosie declares, and Alastor raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Sit, my deer, let me make tea.”
He’s sure she poisons her tea. He’d had tea, he’d even had rose tea, just the type she makes. But her tea always was just the right temperature, just the right sweetness with that floral taste that lingered on his tongue long after the cup was gone; a cup she always filled, insisting on being a good host despite his residency.
Two cups before his chest gets warm and he doesn’t flinch when her hand rests so gently on his shoulder, standing behind him, over him. He should do something to correct their position, their stance, but he’s tired and she knows just how to break him perfectly.
“…Deer. Tell me what rests on your mind.” A voice sweet as sugar and smooth as the tea she serves whispers with more care than Alastor is used to.
He was a powerful sinner. The most powerful. Influential, popular, feared, respected- but oh, was he a weak man.
“Ah… I suppose I’m simply adjusting after my… short imprisonment” Alastor chuckles, his grin unwavering.
But her grip tightens just slightly and her eyes holding an understanding too deep for a man so masked. He didn’t want her to understand, because understanding implied knowledge, and to come full circle… implying she had power over her, something he never wanted.
…right?
“Your short imprisonment,” Rosie’s voice is flat, almost angered on his behalf. “With that incompetent TV head?”
Alastor chuckles, turning to look up at her, “Indeed, my dear. He’s not my preferred company, after all. Far from it.”
Rosie’s hand cups his face and Alastor can feel his ears drop back in that terribly, terribly vulnerable manner as her eyes look into his with sympathy and heartbreak.
“What did he do to you?” Rosie whispers, almost like she shared his pain, and Alastor finds himself struggling to respond.
He didn’t want to give up more than he already had, but Rosie knows his truths from his lies, and the words are slipping out as his voice cracks,
“He made me watch him, Rosie. It was repulsive, sickening, nauseating!” He cracks, his mask slipping where no one but she could see.
She’s so gentle and so sweet, tracing the bones in his cheeks with careful nails, heartbreak in her whisper, “Watch him what, Deer?”
Alastor chokes over his words, but the truth is inevitable now, “…watch him, with Val. I-in bed.”
Rosie stares at him with those eyes of sorrow and shock, a mix of anger and pain as her arms wrap around him, pulling him against her as she trembles with anger and her eyes water in rage. “Oh… oh my deer…”
He’d never felt so warm, buried in her chest, claws digging through the layers on her dress as weeks of unrelenting panic and confusion and disgust exit in these horrific sobs he never wanted to admit he could make. But she holds him tight and strong, her arms steady and sure as steel. Her scent, that rose perfume she made herself from the garden they grew. It makes relief roll down his back in waves, comfort enveloping him in a warm embrace.
He doesn’t remember the fine details, he simply remembers his smile slipping as his sobs shake his shoulders and tremble his frame, he remembers feeling Rosie’s fingers run through his hair, and he remembers sitting beside her on the foot of her bed, tempted to crawl his way closer in this state he’s in, a pathetic mess.
His eyes open to catch their reflection in that large, gold, full-length mirror she keeps propped against the wall. He’s gripping her tightly, half buried against her, tears burning down his pale skin, ears shaking and pinned back like a wounded dog.
He sees the rage in the black tears that fell gently down her face, in her stoic expression as she grips him just as tight, perhaps tighter, and holds him just as close. How could she look so ethereal, gripping his hair somehow so gentle and with such rage, staring at him in their reflection as he stares at her. Her eyes soften as they meet each other's gaze in the reflection, her hand running through his hair in a soothing, simple stroke.
“…he humiliated you,” Rosie murmurs, playing with his hair much like she was petting a cat, “Mocked you for a simple passion you lack.”
Alastor swallows, unable to hold her eye contact as he speaks, his voice almost returning to normal… though now it doesn’t have that echo, that static. Right now he wasn’t the radio demon…
He was Alastor.
“…a desire I don’t have.” He murmurs and Rosie frowns, shaking her head.
“You don’t lack desire, you lack sexual desire. There is a difference.” Rosie replies firmly and Alastor snorts
“Trivial. Hardly a difference, is there?”
Rosie scoffs, her eyebrow raising, that familiar dynamic sparking between them even during a moment like this. Alastor almost liked it.
“There is a large difference. Would you like me to show you?”
“Be my guest.”
“Take off your shirt.”
Alastor opens his mouth to bite back when her words click and he snaps his head up to look at her in sheer disbelief.
“…what?”
“You said be my guest, and so I said, take off your shirt.”
He hesitates a moment, gathering his thoughts before he snorts.
“…No.”
“Why? I’ve seen you shirtless before.” Rosie scoffs, and Alastor finds himself grinning.
She was nothing if not relentless. And truthfully, she was right. They’d spend some mornings running around from room to room trying to scramble to get ready, they’d spent summers so hot out in that garden that Alastor’s shirt quickly became a new veil for Rosie’s hat as she sat while he did most of the hard work.
But that had been on his terms, in a different context entirely. Now he was sitting on the edge of her bed, in her room, in her house, with her hands on him. Why did it feel so different?
Why did he feel so… vulnerable?
“Alastor,” she whispers, catching his attention with the use of his real name, “Do you trust me?”
He wants to laugh, wants to tell her that trust means nothing in hell. But he doesn’t. He nods, and slowly, he lets her find the buttons on his shirt.
She’s seated with her chest pressing to his shoulder, one leg tucked behind him as she leans in her hands, slow and gentle, her eyes focused on the next button.
Her voice comes as a soft whisper close to his ear, “Good. I promise, I’d never do a thing you wouldn’t want me to. I won’t touch you, not in the way you’re imagining. I wouldn’t dream of such vile acts.”
Alastor nods, fixed on the reflection of her almost wrapped around him, pulling his shirt off, exposing scars and old wounds, revealing pale skin and a thin frame.
Her lips find where his shoulder dips, her hands find his waist, and she’s so gentle that Alastor can’t even fathom what’s happening.
He feels like he’s come alive for the first time, there’s a new buzzing under his skin as her lips travel with a gentle love over his shoulders, down his arms, as her hands trace up and down his sides, her nails scratching faintly, soothingly. He can hardly keep his eyes open as warmth floods him better than any pleasure could ever feel.
“Rosie?” He croaks, almost a gasp, he wants to sound shocked or even confused but he sounds nearly desperate.
She murmurs something his mind can’t comprehend, but his eyes close and his head tilts back and she simply… stays.
She doesn’t dare reach her hands to his pants, doesn’t even kiss his neck. She lets her hands memorize every scar, tracing them each until she’s committed them to memory. Her lips are just as gentle, her eyes fluttering closed, switching between those soft kisses and simply resting her head on his shoulder, letting her own eyes close.
This is what ecstasy must feel like Alastor thinks when he finds himself laying in her bed, both of them so tangled that they’re holding each other. He hadn't bothered reaching for his shirt, he was too busy obsessing over the feeling of her head on his chest.
His fingers run slowly through her hair as he realizes why people might risk simply gifting their power- vulnerability- to others. Because, if a moth had found a warm light instead of a fire, as it so rarely did, that warmth…
It was worth it all.
So no. Alastor still isn’t a vulnerable man. But when he was Rosie’s deer… perhaps something as simple as intimacy kept him smiling the next day.
//
Bonus
As he lays, his mind wanders, playing with her hair without thinking much of it.
“…Rosie, dear?”
“Yes, deer?”
“You said you would show me that I had desire. How did you… do so?”
“Did you undress for me?”
“Well, I…”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Did it feel intimate?”
“Very.”
“Did it feel… good?”
“Very.”
“Then would you say you desired me?”
Alastor goes quiet a moment as he mulls over her words before smiling softly, pulling her closer,
“…touché.”