Putting WARNING here just in case, this chapter has a stalker scene and attempted assault/kidnapping
It turned out that not only did he take the radio, but he also took out the gramophone along with the records for it. You tried your hardest to tell him to please put it back, but since you didn't have another radio, Alastor had zero intention on putting it back where he had found it. Especially when it 'came from his era'.
How did it happen you ask? Quite simple, someone stole your key to the room and unlocked it, by none other than effing Angel. Because he got bored listening to the TV and swimming in the pool. Charlie and Vaggie hadn't realised what was going on until it was too late. The only thing you could be grateful for was that they locked the door before anything could be moved, well, they thought so until they walked into the living room with your mum's radio sitting innocently on the table.
That radio had been passed down from your mums side of the family, it was one of the family 'heirlooms' you had left of her. So for Alastor to take it and the gramophone out of the one place you had specifically stated was out of bounds, it made you feel attacked, like you had been robbed. And now the devices were now tainted from his foul claws and odor, including Angel for starting this in the first place.
And to make matters worse, because of his stunt, your mind and body were screaming at you to throw the radio into the pool in the hopes that it would 'clean' it. The rational part of you obviously knew that doing so would damage it beyond repair, but it didn't stop the urge building inside of you.
You were so angry that you couldn't sleep after you sorted the pool out, the heat was picking up once again and it made you even more irritated. You had to stay in your room and blast your eardrums off with headphones just so you didn't snap or attack anyone just for saying 'hi' and 'morning' to you. They didn't deserve that when they did nothing to warrant your wrath. Well. Not Charlie or Vaggie anyway.
Definitely not Nifty, as she decided to clean the room too before the girls had the chance to lock it. You have never felt so violated in your life. You had absolutely no idea what to do with yourself.
It didn't help that for the rest of the week, Richard wanted you to keep working at night to take care of the cables. You would always stare at the mess like an idiot before he shoved you forward to 'get a move on'. Your arms would always go numb at the end of your shift, it was really starting to wear on your body.
This was also how you learned that the shifting ability was tied to your emotions, mainly anger, you wanted to claw your face off or bite someone's arm off? Out came the claws and menacing smile faster than you could say 'fan-tucking-fastic'. Which was a pain to reel in when you want to claw at the demons currently taking residence in your house.
And to make matters worse, now that your job now resided in the dark, Alastor had taken it upon himself to walk home with you every. Single. Night. Because he 'wouldn't be a good tenant if he allowed his amazing host to get hurt'. You didn't stop yourself from scoffing at that comment while he just looked at you with that bloody smug look on his face.
You also made it your personal goal to ignore him completely every time by putting your earphones in and playing your favourite music, that wasn't Jazz (cue dramatic gasp).
You still smile when you remember Alastor's smile twitching when he hears your 'atrocious and poor taste in music'. It had been unintentional but you don't regret it either.
That had been days ago, you honestly don't pay much attention to the date other than knowing whetehr or not it was a work day. Right now you had just left the building with Alastor walking by your side but at a distance, as usual, and you were in your own little world listening to your music, only for a bit though, you needed to de-stress but knew that it wasn't a good idea to have them in for too long given everything that's happened.
You faintly hear him trying to talk to you but the sound of your music blocks him out, so you just look up and enjoy the night sky, ooh, looks like there'll be a full moon soon, hopefully, that will be a hot day for a nice nightly swim .
Drip. Drip. Drip
Oh blast it all, now the rain decides to make itself know, curse you Mother Nature. You pull out your earphones and put them away, then you pull your hood over your hair, making sure it covered, and hid everything.
"What ever happened to good old umbrellas? Surely you still have those around" Alastor asked as he looked over at you.
You don't say anything, you just look at the ground where the shapes of square's of concrete made the pavement, still in your little world, and daze, you move your feet so that you stood inside the squares and not on the 'cracks'.
You feel a giggle escape your mouth as you 'dance' to a chant "step on the crack, break your fathers back, step on the line, your doing fine"
It was like playing an imaginary hopscotch, and despite how childish it felt, you really couldn't find it in yourself to care at the moment. Well. Until you stood on a foot.
"Sorry, thought you were a crack in the pavement" you giggle.
"F*cking b*tch, keep your disease away from me"
Annnnd your weird mood suddenly disappeared. Lovely.
"No need to be so rude, good sir, they were simply enjoying their night out after a hard day's work" Alastor stated in his usual tone.
"Doesn't mean that they have to walk about like a f*cking loony" the man scoffed.
You have no idea where it came from, or perhaps it was simply because Alastor was generating his confidence on to you too, but you reply weakly to the man "if you're going to insist on harboring sticks firmly in your hindquarter, then you can at least have the decency to keep them in bloom, sir"
You see Alastor snap his neck towards you as if processing what you just said, while the goon does the complete opposite and frowns at you like you just let one off in his face, while also squinting his eyes like he was trying to intimidate you.
"Wait a minute" he mutters as he leans closer to you "you look familiar"
Oh crap "you must have me mistaken for someone else good sir" you state as you put on your best 'Alastor voice'.
He clicks his fingers "oh now I remember, you're the one I stated I loved listening to a while back, and it wasn't just your voice I enjoyed"
Double crap "Echo? Sounds like something you would hear in an empty cave or room"
"My dear, did you get hit by a faulty cable during work?" Shut up Alastor "you are Echo, you've been on the radio for, well, ages, but your boss decided to make you work the night shift"
You were going to kill Alastor for this. No, you had to stay calm right now, getting angry would only trigger the change and you really didn't want that to happen when there was an 'innocent' person caught in the crossfire. You don't know whether to thank Alastor for his stunt with the radio and gramophone or smack him.
"See? Even he knows" the man says as if proving his point and looking at you smugly "man, I didn't think it was true but it seems I was right"
That didn't sound good "about what?"
"That the one in charge of this place hired a sp*z to do the speaking so people who listened to the radio would laugh at them"
You feel like someone just punched you in the gut. What? How would this guy know you were autistic? Unless someone from work knew him and sang like a canary.
"What? Nothing to say? Not going to try and talk your way out of it? Or even stutter?"
Last time you stuttered was from around the time you were getting into the hang of things, something was very wrong here. Or it could just be the paranoia getting the better of you.
"Where do you think you're going?" he says as he pushes you back when you try to get around him "don't you care about your fans? We could go somewhere to get a drink"
RED FLAG ALERT! STRANGER DANGER ALERT!
Taking a deep inhale as you try to speak as loudly as you could, which wasn't much "I don't drink sir, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth" like the words he said to you.
And why the hell was Alastor being quiet? He loved being the center of attention so much that it was nearly impossible for him to shut up.
"Oh come on, surely you can make an exception for a fan"
Fans wouldn't do this, stalkers would.
"That weird cosplayer of yours can join too if you're worried"
Come on Echo, grow up and act like an adult.
"I'm sorry but the answer is still no, please let me leave" you reply through gritted teeth as you try once again to go around him.
This time he grabbed your wrist, and your first instinct was to tug it hard, but his grip wouldn't budge, if anything it got tighter that it felt like your arm was going numb. You had never been in a situation like this before so you had no idea what you needed to do without risking going to jail.
"Come on, it'll only be for a while"
A hug that seemed innocent turned into your worst nightmare>/em>
"No" you whisper weakly as you fight to release his grip.
When it didn't work, the realization of your situation finally sunk in and you began to panic, hitting his arm with the palm of your hand in the hope that he would let go, there was no way you could get angry enough to turn into the creature to move him and run away, you were completely defenseless.
Just like before.
"Shouldn't you be treating me better?" the creep asked you in a sarcastic tone "I thought you would know better than- GAH!"
"I do believe my friend stated that they were not. Interested"
You almost jumped when you saw Alastor's hand on the man's wrist come out of nowhere. But with the way he spoke to the man, you highly doubted that he was grabbing it firmly if the man's expression was anything to go by. And the growl.
"Alright dude, chill, calm down it was just a ques-"
"A question that you pushed onto them before attempting to kidnap them, not very gentlemanly of you, is it?" Alastor practically snarled at him, and you were almost certain that his eyes were starting to lose their 'humanoid' appearance.
"Alastor? I think he's learned his lesson now" you state weakly as you hold your wrist gently to your chest "please, can we just go?"
You hated the fact that you were talking to him now, and you highly doubted that he would listen to you, but the only thing going through your mind right now was to get back to the house as soon as possible before he gave away who he really was.
Alastor's head literally snapped in your direction, he looked really ticked off, his smile was larger than normal, his eyebrows were scrunched in a way you had never seen before, and you were almost certain that his claws went in deeper.
"Please" you whisper pathetically, knowing that he wouldn't do it.
He narrows his eyes at you, and despite your eyes not being able to stay still, you manage to maintain eye contact with him. Kind of.
And then. He lets go?
"Well, this has been fun and all but it's way past this one's bedtime" he states as he keeps his eyes on you "until next time my effeminate fellow"
With that, he grabs your shoulder and proceeds to drag you away from the whole situation. You had a hard time trying to catch up with him but didn't think it was a good idea to ask him to slow down. Not that you could anyway.
Alastor didn't quite like the situation that literally appeared out of nowhere, but he thought it would be a good idea to see how well the human handled the situation, would they run away? Would they try to talk their way out of it? Or would they turn into his demon form and tear the filth apart with their bare hands?
Talking their way out of it was his answer, and to say he was disappointed would be an understatement, he had been observing their emotions since day one, so he knew that once Echo started panicking it was almost impossible for them to get into an angry mindset. He would give them some points though for at least trying to use violence, even if it was in the result of weak punches.
Why did he leave that filth alive? Even he hadn't a clue, well, besides the weak pleas they gave him, and maintaining eye contact for once, not to mention the fact that another dead body was just asking for trouble. Even if he was close to bashing the filth's skull open.
No, that wasn't right, it was because that this time was so much more different than his.
He may not be fond of the more, modern, forms of technology, but he wasn't stupid, he knew exactly what the majority of things were, how they operated and such, he just didn't like using them and much preferred things from around his era. He knew about cameras, mainly because of Vox, and with this being the living world, there would no doubt be more of them in every single shop, he wouldn't be surprised if there were some in houses.
Had this been his time he would have done it with little to no effort.
"Ugh"
Oh dear, he was so trapped in his thoughts that he gripped his host a little too tightly, that would never do. How very un-gentleman on of him.
"I trust that your wrist isn't broken?" if it was then he was going back to break his.
"Sore but-"
He stops his movement and looks down at Echo "it's rude to-"
A quick shove to his chest caused him to let out an ear-piercing shriek as Echo pushed past him to lean over in the grass, making noises as if they were throwing something up. But Alastor didn't see anything coming out of their mouth and he was even more confused when they started crying. How strange but also amusing to watch.
This certainly made up for Echo ignoring him since that day, and all because he took one little radio and gramophone from a room they deemed off limits. Granted he wasn't a man who would just break and enter into anything that caught his eye, Angel had been the one to open it, and those items were something that was practically from his era, how could he leave something precious sitting there? Gathering dust in a room that looked barely used, the very thought sickened him.
It shouldn't have warranted them to ignore him though, very rude indeed. No matter, he had something to enjoy to make up for all of that.
He watches with glee as Echo collapses onto the ground, breathing heavily and crying with tears in their eyes, why did it choose now to pop up?
"This more than makes up for all those times you just ignored me when I simply wanted to have a conversation with you dear" he states calmly as he watches the show before him. Not like they could go anywhere in the state they were in.
"As weak as it was, I didn't peg you to be a violent person" he chuckles, thinking back to the time they bit one of their bully's arms "almost pitiful compared to what you had done previously"
They don't say anything other than breathe heavily, curl themselves up into a ball hugging their themselves as they hid their head from his eyes. That would never do.
"No need to worry though" he states as if talking about the weather "we'll have you straightened out in no time"
He walks casually to their feeble form with a more twisted look on his face, leaning forward until his mouth was in line with their ear. Anyone looking from the outside would mistake him as one trying to comfort the smaller-looking person.
"After all, you are the 'modern' version of me" he whispers menacingly into their ear "a killer heart, no matter how nice you put upfront" he allowed his eyes to glow as he hissed the final words "you are just. Like. Me"
He found himself on the pavement with a stinging sensation on his right cheek.
"I'LL. NEVER. BE. LIKE. YOU!"
Wow, even with the hiccups and crying, Alastor still found himself shocked that Echo was able to get the jump on him and get a good punch on him. He was both amused and very, p*ssed off.
"I WON'T KILL AGAIN! NOT NOW! NOT EVER!"
Alastor blinked, then slowly pushed himself up to look at the half-formed Echo crouching from where they had been curled up. They looked at him with a wild look before running off towards their home. He found himself shivering, but he wasn't cold.
It was in anticipation. And desire.
Very entertaining indeed