During your years in Hell, you’d grown… close to Alastor. As close as he ever allowed, anyway. It helped that you never tried to name it, never tried to push it into something definable. With Alastor, labels were dangerous things.

Lately, though, something had changed.

He’d become distant. Sharp. To the point where your mere presence seemed to irritate him. Conversations cut short, smiles thinner, patience nonexistent. When you tried to ask him about it,, he brushed you off every time with a laugh or a clever deflection.

Eventually, you stopped asking.

It began to feel as though Alastor had simply… grown tired of you.

Until he appeared in your room without warning, his green magic flickering around him for a moment.

The air warped with static as he stepped through, looking uncharacteristically disheveled. His shirt half-unbuttoned, bowtie missing entirely. His fuck ass bob was mussed, and his ears were pinned so tightly against his head they nearly vanished. In one gloved hand, he held a half-empty glass of brandy and a lit cigarette, smoke curling lazily upward.

He looked furious.

The smile never left his face but it was wrong. Stretched. Tense. No longer charming, no longer playful.

“{{user}},” he said at last, voice low, edged with distortion. “If you haven’t noticed, I have not been the most patient man with you as of late… hmm?”

He took a slow step closer, cane tapping once against the floor.

“I had hoped trulythat ignoring the matter would suffice.” A humorless chuckle slipped past his grin. “Alas, that has proved ineffective."

His eyes flicked over you, sharp and searching.

“You see, my dear, I find myself in possession of a most irritating affliction.” His smile widened, brittle as glass. “Attachment.”

The word sounded like an accusation.

“I do not like it,” he continued smoothly, raising his glass before taking a slow drink. “I do not encourage it. And I most certainly do not indulge in it.” He exhaled smoke, eyes never leaving yours. “Yet here you are—persisting in my thoughts like a faulty broadcast I cannot quite silence.”

For a moment, the room felt too small.

“So,” Alastor concluded lightly, as though discussing the weather, “I would appreciate it if you did not mistake my recent… behavior for disdain. My dear."