I Love Therapy Animals, And I Show This By Giving One To All Of My Blorbos - Because They Desperately

I literally LOVE this take with all my angst loving heart. It makes sense too - the parent who doesn't fucking HIT you is always the best parent, even if they do shit that's actually just as bad, because kids don't understand how damaging it is to not receive love from a parent - they just know that that parent (AKA Alastor's mom) isn't hurting them, so obviously they're amazing, right?

I imagine that whatever scenario happens where his mom gets to see him for a bit, the others all meet her, and they're expecting this loving saint of a mother based on the way Alastor talks about her but instead they see this woman who always looks guilty when she looks at Alastor. There's none of the warmth a typical caring mother has when she looks at him. They can all see it, but for some reason, Alastor just doesn't. None of them can tell if he knows and is just ignoring it, or if he genuinely thinks this is what a mother's love is - this solemn distance and one-sided enthusiasm.

He knows though. He just tries not to think about it, and tries to love her enough for both of them.

To make things even worse, I imagine that whenever she was talking to Lucifer, Alastor overheard everything. He knew his mother didn't love him, but it still hurts to hear it from her own mouth. Then for Lucifer to say that no one else loved him either? Again, it was something he knew - he didn't really think anyone else cared for him, but hearing out loud stings.. After hearing them talk, he just goes to the kitchen with a big (painful) smile on his face and begins making one of his mom's favorite recipes. If she has food she loves, maybe it will make being around Alastor a little easier for her

I often think about a What If scenario in which Alastor's mother was actually just. Not a good mom. I don't mean in a "she's evil" sense or anything, I just mean it in a "she didn't want children" sense. Or at least, not children with Alastor's father.

I like to think about Alastor's mother doing her best, but her best isn't good enough because 1, this wasn't the life she wanted, and 2, her child's face reminds her of a man she hates. As a consequence, she doesn't actually love Alastor, and feels guilty about it.

Meanwhile, Alastor grows to understand his mother doesn't love him, but he still loves her because she stuck around anyways. Sure, she can't look him in the eyes, but she's still around, still feeding him, sewing patches into his clothes, teaching him life lessons. And most of all, she doesn't physically harm him, which isn't something he can say about his father.

Of course, the lack of love from both of his parents still does a lot of psychological harm that he's just not aware of.

The O'Carrick Curse

I just talked about a headcanon in the comment section of a fic that I just read, and realized that maybe I should post it here too.

In the fic ("who you are" by mipmaps on A03) Will ends up offering the surname 'Treaty' to Halt, who accepts, which I am absolutely in love with because of the headcanon that I am about to share with you guys.

I feel like Halt sees the surname "O'Carrick" as a curse, especially when he considers how miserably and/or tragically every O'Carrick (that we know of) has lived and died.

~ Halt mentioned that his parents argued all the time and were pretty much straight-up neglectful to everyone but Ferris. (I also headcanon that they were abusive, but I'll go more in-depth about that another time).

~ Ferris was so blinded by greed that he tried to kill his twin brother multiple times over a throne, and did so terribly at being king that he was most beloved by the people when that same twin was pretending to be him - not to mention that when he finally started to do better, he was instantly murdered for it.

~ Caitlyn spent her childhood being neglected and forced to grieve as the one person who truly cared for her apparently died, and she was the only one who really knew who was behind it. She also spent her whole life being sickly, and it was eventually what killed her, leaving her son (who I'm sure Halt was grateful didn't carry the same name) alone with her snake of a brother.

~ And Halt. He was also neglected his whole childhood to the point of being so afraid of hurting his parents' relationship that he would rather run away and leave everything he had ever known and loved behind then tell his parents that his brother was trying to kill him. Speaking of, his twin brother - with whom he spent his entire childhood, and loved in a way that only twins can - tried to murder him on three separate occasions for a throne he didn't even want in the first place. Shortly after this, Halt lost the man who he had come to see as a father, and had to deal with the survivor's guilt brought on by being saved by Will's parents, and leaving Will himself orphaned. He also didn't tell a soul about who he really was until literal decades later. He had to give up a second home in order to save his son apprentice that he felt responsible for losing in the first place (whom he has almost lost multiple times - the majority of which he felt responsible for). Then, he lost the man that he considered a brother (or perhaps a lover????). Not to mention the fact that by book 8 - aside from Sean - his whole family was dead.

I feel like Halt was bittersweet about his standing as the last of the O'Carricks. One reason, is he's glad no one else has to carry the burden of the (in his mind) cursed name. A part of him however, wonders if perhaps Halt was the curse all along. That was another reason that Halt didn't offer Will the O'Carrick name at his graduation, he was afraid that sharing a surname with Will would leave his former apprentice vulnerable to his curse.

When Will first offered his surname to Halt, the older ranger teared up, and Will was startled when Halt seemed to be on the verge of breaking down.

Before Will could start apologizing, Halt found himself pouring out all of his thoughts about the curse that he had feared his whole life, and his fear of inflicting it on Will and causing him the same misery. Will was completely stunned, because the only other times Halt had been this vulnerable were when he was telling Will about his mother, and when he spoke about his own childhood, and even then, those times were nothing like this. He had never heard this self-loathing from his teacher before but as he processed the words, he realized that it must have been hidden deep within Halt all this time.

Will took Halt's hands in his own, cutting off the older ranger's uncharacteristic rambling, and looked deep into his stricken eyes. "Halt," his quiet voice cut through Halt's mind like an arrow, "You are many things, but a curse is not one of them." Halt's eyes misted over, and it was all he could do to maintain eye contact. Will had never seen this level of vulnerability and hurt in his teacher's gaze, and he would do anything to take his pain away.

"You are not a curse, or a burden, or a monster, and it is not your fault that things with your family turned out the way that they did. You were as much of a victim as they were, if not more so." Here, Will took a deep breath, and bent slightly to maintain eye contact with the Hibernian whose dark gaze had drifted downwards to hide his shame. "Do you know what you are?" The soft question was rhetorical, for Will needed no one to give him answers besides his own heart and memories, "You are a protector, a kind soul, and the greatest man I have ever known. And I am proud beyond belief to call you my friend, mentor, and father."

At this, Halt's gaze snapped back up in shock. How could Will still say that after seeing him like this? After all the broken promises, and the hurt and heartache cause by simply being associated with the former prince? However, before he could speak his thoughts, Will plowed on. "I offer you my surname, not out of a sense of debt or obligation, but because I love you, and I wish for the world to know that we are family, and nothing - no self-believed curse, no painful pasts, and certainly no self doubt - will ever stop me from seeing you as my father. I offer my name because I see how much pain your own brings you, and if I can do even one thing to show you the same care you have always showed for me, then I will gladly do so."

By this time, tears had begun to flow freely down Halt's face, and Will's own eyes burned as well. Slowly, Halt nodded and whispered his acceptance which Will had to strain to hear. The younger ranger pulled his father into a strong yet warm embrace that he could only hope expressed the love he had for the slight man before him.

As Halt melted into the embrace, he felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and though it would never truly leave him, the pain of his curse finally melted away as accepted the family he had feared for so long.

This is a platonic SFW tickle fic, and if that isn't your cup of tea, kindly keep scrolling.

TW: it does get kind of intense but that's because Alastor is an idiot (lovingly) who doesn't know how to shut tf up, and Lucifer is a petty bastard who has been banned from completely disintegrating this deer twink.

Me??? Projecting on Optimus Prime????? Blasphemy. Could never happen, you're being ridiculous. More likely than you'd think.

Halt's Brain Damage

I mentioned Halt's head trauma in an earlier post, and said that I would elaborate on it. Well, this is my elaboration. Keep in mind, I am not a health care professional, I am only certified to perform first aid. I am only speaking from what I have witnessed in someone who has had a similar condition from a motorcycle accident, and from what I find and cross-reference in my internet search on the matter.

Halt, as we know, has suffered MANY blows to the head - a lot of which could have been fatal if not for the intervening hand of Lady Luck and some very conveniently placed Plot Armor™. Now something that both the characters in the books, and probably a good portion of the readers either don't know about or haven't considered is the resulting brain damage - or more specifically, the damage done to Halt's gray matter.

For those of you who don't know (no shame), gray matter is tissue in the brain that is largely responsible for motor functions, emotions, and memory. Gray matter cells are known to be the longest lasting cells in the body, but they do tend to degenerate and die as people get old. There are other things that can speed up the process of gray matter cell death, most notably Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and traumatic brain injury.

I have a friend who was once in a bad motorcycle accident that resulted in a metal rod and screws being put into his wrist, and a sudden increase in gray matter cell death brought on by the head trauma. He was a teacher of mine and currently has a wife, daughters, and grand daughters, and he is just over fifty years old. I had the same class with him all year for 4 years (JROTC), and during that time, I was able to see how the condition affected him as time passed. He does make jokes about it, and is very open with it. I also asked him if it would be okay to post this beforehand, don't worry. The symptoms that Halt experience in my headcanon align with this because it is my closest experience with it.

Obviously, these characters don't know what gray matter is, but that doesn't mean it won't affect Halt, and some of these symptoms are things that Halt experiences in the books. I'll give examples of that too.

One of the symptoms of gray matter damage is difficulty controlling emotions. Now you may be saying, "But Void, Halt practically patented the ability to control emotions," and you're right. However, we all know that Halt has a pretty quick temper that can lead to some rash decisions - and this seems to get slightly worse as the books go on. One of the biggest emotions that people with damaged brain matter have issues dealing with is anger - closely followed by sadness and feelings of emptiness (AKA signs of depression).

Another symptom of gray matter damage is memory loss. The only example of this I can think of off the top of my head (that doesn't include when he was poisoned which is a whole other type of trauma) is when he had extreme trouble finding the correlation between the red hills and Redmont in book 7. Then again, it was a stressful situation and no one can be expected to notice everything. Not to mention that he was the only one to make the connection at all. This one and the next one are more for angst potential then as current existing evidence. Imagine really quick as Halt gets older that the memory loss starts slow - forgetting that he already told someone something, forgetting where he put something, etc. Small stuff. But later, it gets worse. He starts to forget meeting new people, important past events, how to cook certain things, or even just trailing off in the middle of a sentence - unable to remember his original purpose for speaking, almost as if a sort of fog has started blocking things out. A lot of times, he'll know that he knew it at some point, but sometimes, he doesn't remember that he knew that thing in the first place. Sometimes gentle reminders will work, and other times, entire stories, recipes, and tasks will have to be completely re-hashed with him.

The final symptom I'm going to cover in this already too-long post is how gray matter damage affects fine motor skills and language. I'm fairly certain that there is an example of this somewhere in the books, But I would have no clue where to look. We're going full angst potential on this one boys. Again, it starts small - some slight tremors in his hands here, a troublesome button there. Then, it gets worse as the years pass. Having difficulty tying knots, writing getting more and more difficult, cutting his hand while trying to prepare food, dropping his mug of coffee for no apparent reason, sometimes slurring his speech, forgetting certain words from other languages, not realizing that he had reverted back to Hibernian in the middle of a sentence because his brain temporarily stopped being able to comprehend Araluen speech.

Halt doesn't want to tell anyone that the changes in his behavior that he can't seem to control frighten him. He's never been genuinely afraid of his own mind before up until he could no longer control what happened. It was a type of fear he was unfamiliar with, but couldn't stop from growing every time he failed to tie a knot, or someone told him about an event he couldn't remember. Everyone else was afraid too, but they toned down their own fear whenever they saw that desperate look in Halt's eyes that he couldn't quite hide, the one that begged for any confirmation that he wasn't crazy.

What the hell. I just wrote an entire essay. You know those posts that say, "In this essay I will discuss..." but they never get to the essay? Yeah, that but completed. This was born from the fact that Hal't has had a bunch of head injuries and I immediately thought 'haha brain damage go brr' and proceeded to write that in essay form. If you've made it to the end of this monstrosity, more power to you.

I'm going to try to go into a coma now.

Sharing Alastor Headcanons

@lonely-lost-insanity (you should go check out her blog) and I were sharing headcanons about our mutual favorite babygirl piece of shit and I decided to post mine here

we borrowed @head---ache 's character ask game for inspiration on this one, so bare with me here. (also if you like Sonic, you should check them out too)

🏳️‍🌈 A sexuality headcanon: Asexual and completely sex repulsed, mostly because both the fluids involved, and other people's genitals completely repulse him. He also deals with feelings of severe shame any time he gets aroused, but that's more of a gender identity crisis than anything

🏳️‍⚧️ A gender headcanon: Though he's primarily masculine presenting, Alastor is actually genderfluid, though he only learned about it recently. Angel is the one who caught on and talked to him about it, and currently the only one who knows since Alastor isn't confident enough about it to tell anyone else

😇 A headcanon about their religion/lack thereof: His maternal grandmother was a slave who was originally from Haiti, so he grew up following the practices of Hatian Vodou. He was actually training to become a Oungan (similar to a priest for those unfamiliar) before his mother died and he got shipped off for the Great War

🧸 A headcanon about their childhood: He used to have a little hand-sewn frog plush that he cared for for years until his dad burned it in a fit of rage. Alastor never forgave him for that because it was a gift from his grandmother

👻 A headcanon about what scares them: He has a phobia of dogs from his death, but he's also scared of heights and confined spaces, and thunder gives him flashbacks to mortar fire

🎶 A headcanon about music: He has listened to and enjoys a lot of modern music, but only plays it when he thinks he's alone - Vaggie was Shook to find him rocking out to Insane Clown Posse while making breakfast one morning

👽 A headcanon about a weird quirk of there: Alastor is actually weirdly good with guns after his time in the military - they're one of the things he makes sure he's always up to date on just in case of an emergency. He can take one apart and put it back together while telling you the caliber it shoots and the brand it is. He also owns a surprising number of them, and usually keeps at least one on his person at all times

💤 A headcanon about their sleep: He has the worst insomnia, but likes to pretend that he just doesn't need sleep to seem mysterious. When it gets really bad, he'll just drink until he either blacks out or temporarily dies of alcohol poisoning. He says it's the same thing as sleeping. It's not

🦾 A disability headcanon: He had a serious hip injury when he was a kid that never healed right, and while he was in combat, the knee on the same side was severely injured. It doesn't bother him too often now, but the cane he always has isn't for show - he keeps it on him to store part of his power, and to have on-hand in case his injuries flare up (which, rather inconveniently, starts happening more after his fight with Adam - when he no longer has a cane)

💝 A headcanon about their love language: His love language is primarily touch which both makes his touch aversion easier and harder to navigate. If he likes you, he can usually get comfortable enough to express his love language, but on his bad days, he just has to go without his primary form of comfort because it would make everything worse

🫂 A friendship headcanon: Alastor and Vaggie can actually get along quite well when they put their minds to it - they're both down to earth and naturally pessimistic (though Alastor hides it better), both love spicy food, and lived surprisingly similar lives (not super similar, but moreso than they'd thought). Alastor becomes okay with Vaggie's touch faster than he did with Husk when they'd first become friends

💔 An angsty headcanon: Despite her best efforts, Alastor's mother didn't actually love him. Alastor was the result of a rape, and after he was born, she repeatedly debated smothering him - all the way until she died. Alastor knew deep down, but she still cared about him and showed him affection on her good days which is more than his father ever did, so Alastor always figured that he could just love enough for the both of them

🪢 A headcanon about their family: Alastor;s grandmother was actually the one to begin teaching Alastor about Vodou since she was a Mambo (female priest for those unfamiliar), but she died when he was 6 so he started learning from his mom and an older woman a few blocks away

📓 A headcanon about their hobbies: He actually really enjoys drawing and has countless sketchbooks with everything from ideas for furbies (straight up furby ocs lol) to landscapes to random doodles, to portraits. If anyone ever picked up one of his sketchbooks and looked through it, he would immediately die of pure embarrassment. The only things he wants people seeing are the things he shows them

👗 A headcanon about their clothes: He much prefers dresses and skirts (if wearing shorts or boxers underneath) to pants because he likes the way they move, look, and feel, but since he isn't confident in his gender identity yet, he refuses to wear them

🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence: He's actually really good at hand-to-hand combat because of his time in the military, and he only improved once he went to Hell and fought all the overlords at the time. If he and Vaggie were to spar, it would be pretty close, but he could most likely beat her

🌟 A headcanon about their desires/wishes: Sometimes, Alastor wishes that he didn't have such a hard time with being touched - he can still remember the times his mother would go to touch him lovingly and he'd shy away from her, and he knows he can never go back and change it

🥇 A headcanon about what they’re best at: Overall, his greatest skill is his ability to read people. It stems from his traumatic ass life when reading people's mood had the potential to save him from getting a beating. Now it's saved his skin on multiple occasions - from interactions with his owner to spats with Vox or other beings more powerful than himself, he knows how to talk people into revealing their plans without them ever realizing they'd done so. It's also a skill that's gotten him in plenty of trouble, but for the most part it's saved his ass

🍫 A headcanon about food: He does like some sweets, but he can only have them in moderation - except for any coffee-based dessert. He would KILL for a whole tray of tiramisu

🎭 A headcanon about what they lie about: His relationship with his father. He always claims that he's always hated his father, but deep down there's a part of him that wishes he'd gotten his approval/love, and missed the father he'd have once in a blue moon when the man was in a pleasant enough mood to deal with his son

❤️‍🔥 A romantic headcanon: While he personally has no wish to have a romantic relationship, he's a sucker for reading about the sweet ones who will always go back for each other

💄 An appearance headcanon: He has fawn spots all over his back and shoulders, and it's symbolic of the fact that a large part of him died the day his mother did - when he was just a child

🖕 A headcanon relating to anger: Alastor doesn't like lashing out at people when he's angry because it makes him feel like his father. The problem is that he has a pretty short fuse naturally, so he usually just buries his claws into his palm until he bleeds to try and calm down. If he can feel an explosion coming on, he'll go to his room, lock the door and put up a sound muffling ward before destroying his furniture in a fit of rage. when he calms down, he fixes everything with magic and apologizes to the picture of his mother he keeps on his mantle before going back to what he was doing before

😺 An animal related headcanon: Surprisingly enough, dogs actually really like him which is unfortunate because of his hatred (read: phobia) of them. They'll go up to him begging for affection and he immediately starts having trauma flashbacks to his death

😬 A headcanon about the worst thing they’ve done: If you asked him, he would say that it was the fact he helped his father bury his mother's body after he murdered her, but Alastor had no choice in the matter since he was so little and the only other option would have been to die with her

😭 A headcanon about the worst thing that happened to them: He faced different types of torture for the entire 7 years he was gone. Sexual, physical, mental, emotional, you name it, Alastor probably experienced it. Then he was just shoved back into the world and told to get to work, so he still hasn't dealt with anything

😶 A random headcanon: He's a surprisingly great runner. Like yk those videos of track relay races where one person is easily catching up to everyone else after their team was falling behind? Yeah, that's basically Alastor. And he only got better at it after going to Hell and getting deer legs - which are made for running. He's got really good form too, to the point where you'd think he did track or something but nope - entirely self taught

either autistic characters need to stop being so relatable, or I need to see a doctor

Alrighty the recent poll of who draws on who in the RA world brought me to a whole new idea

Autistic! Halt + drawing on skin/doodling

- Halt's hands are always littered with texsts and things to remember, as he isn't actually that good at remember *certain* things. (Some things stick, some don't, to do's and people are especially non-sticky)

- He gets distracted fairly easily in long briefings, but doodling on his skin helps, it keeps him from retreating into his own mind too much. Crowley knows this by now, and always has two pens with him for Briefings.

- Halt has trouble with showing love and affection in a, what he deems to be, 'socially normal and acceptable way' (kissing and touching, public hugs, saying I love you...) so he has a habit of doodling on the arms of the people he loves. Small imprints of his presence there, as if to say 'I want you to think of me, as I do of you' Crowley often has a bunch of his freckles connected to form constellations, or birds species (one of Crowleys absolute favourite things, it's why he loves to whistle)

- When Halt goes bad, getting to draw can sometimes help. Either as a form of mindfulness, or as a plain communication tool when he goes mute. He'll draw or write out what he needs at this time of distress. (And as Ranger's they dont tend to take a lot of paper, because it'll get wet anyways, so skin it is)

- Sometimes he thinks the drawing will help, but then he'll just get stuck in it, drawing the most horrid, deformed faces on his, or Crowley's hand, way too fast, and actually quite hurtfull, because of the tip of the pen. But even though it hurts, he can't stop. Crowley knows he hates this, and will be careful to wash his hands after a breakdown like this, so Halt doesn't have to see what he drew.

- When Halt gets really bored and doesn't know what to draw, he'll just ink his entired hand, but because ink doesn't go off easily, it can stay on there for a few days when it's as layered like this, terrefying possible opponents.

Vox and Lucifer enjoy having sex - but Alastor has made his views on that very clear. Not wanting their deer to be left out, they look for a different kind of intimacy to satisfy his needs.

This is a sfw queerplatonic tickle fic, if that's not for you, then just scroll right on by.

this is another kind of intense one, but they are very safe about everything, and Alastor has a safeword. There are so many healthy boundaries in this fic, you won't even believe. Lee!Alastor and Lers! Lucifer and Vox, this was the fic I hinted at in my QPR Applemedia post

Tickling the Ivories

Alastor has always loved playing the piano, and Rosie loves to listen. She also loves fucking with Alastor because it's written in the job description of being a best friend. He really just makes it all too easy when he keeps messing up the song he's trying to play

This is a platonic sfw tickle fic (though you can picture it as romantic if you would like to). If that's not something you're interested, then just keep right on scrolling

this one's a bit shorter than my usual stuff, but I'm tired, and it's ok to do things differently sometimes. This is for a friend on discord, idk which one right now. They said: "Alastor playing piano. right?? yes okay. Someone (rosie, vox, lucifer, anyone) is tickling him while he plays. if he messes up, grabs for them, tries to stop playing, tickles get worse and/or he has to start the song over. it eventually just turns into a full on wrecking." If you see this, this is for you.

Grimwalker Alastor AU: The Reveal

(OG post and follow up post)

Needless to say, Alastor didn't know he was a clone. Every clone's memories were altered so that they remained blissfully unaware of that fact - it made them more compliant. Any changes they had in their appearance were included in the memory alteration so that the clone believed he'd always looked like that. Every now and then, a friend might send him a questioning look or two that he didn't understand the reason for, but eventually they all assumed that it was just something to do with Hell anatomy. After all, they were pretty minor changes, and it's not like Alastor acted differently from what they could tell.

I'm stuck between two options: having the truth revealed in front of the others or having Alastor be alone when he learns he's a clone. Instead of choosing, I'm just gonna do stuff for both lol

With the others:

Somehow, everyone at this point has learned that Alastor doesn't own his soul (hotel cast everyone, not everyone everyone)

His dealer has entered the hotel or managed to get everyone in one place and she's acting super weird with Alastor while the others are unable to do anything

He finally manages to defy her despite the terror she's ingrained in him during his time with her, but instead of actually reacting or being angry, she just kind of tuts at him in disappointment

This reveal ends up going a lot like Hunter's reveal in The Owl House, except somehow more violent and horrifying because this is an adult show, not one on Disney XD

She tuts at him in disappointment and gently cups his face while looking searchingly into his eyes. Apparently, she doesn't like what she sees there because she turns away and snaps his chains into existence (ankles, wrists, and neck to really leave him helpless as he gets yanked to a kneeling position

"How characteristically disappointing. I suppose I'll just have to do better with the next clone."

Alastor freezes and his eyes go wide, but before he can even ask what she means, his chains start burning into his skin, leaving him screaming in pain as the magic she's using buries itself beneath his skin.

Everyone else is crying out to him trying to get her to stop, but no one really understands what she's doing to him other than it's hurting him and they've never heard Alastor scream like that

It's the same way she killed the other clones when they fucked up, the magic buries into him and steals his memories and powers for the next clone before essentially melting him from the inside out

Somehow everyone manages to break free and stop her before she kills Alastor, but he's pretty badly hurt when they bring him back to the hotel. The scars where the chains were are permanent, and he develops chronic nerve pain in the aftermath

He has a huge crisis about being a clone (reasonably) and barely talks to anyone for weeks

Eventually there's a happy ending, but haven't really fleshed out how they get there because I can only assume it would be a lot of heavy stuff before that point. But the happy ending does happen

2. By himself:

This direction is a lot more low key than the first way, largely because Alastor would absolutely keep it to himself once he found out, especially considering how traumatizing it is

In this version, his dealer isn't trying to kill him, but keep him in line. He does something that pissed her off, but she spent so long perfecting this clone that she refuses to kill him in a show of temper

So instead, she tells him the truth. She hasn't tried that with any of the others, so she figures that that might just be what works

She lets him view her memories, lets him see the gruesome deaths of the dozens of past clones of himself - the gruesome death that surely awaits him if he continues to defy her. Dozens of versions of himself have succumbed to this fate, and they have tried every trick and scheme and desperate attempt he could ever think of to escape her, and none of them succeeded. Not one. He is no different, so if he doesn't do what she wants, she has no qualms restarting, as he can clearly see

Once the memories are finished, Alastor realizes that he's been silently crying the whole time. When she gently cradles his face and wipes his tears away, he realizes that no matter what he does, he's never going to escape his deal

He goes back to the hotel and isolates himself for a few days before going back to trying to pretend everything is normal, but the others can tell that he's not acting like himself and try to talk to him, but he can't tell them what the actual problem is. Even if he could, he wouldn't because he can't bring himself to speak of the things that upset him in the presence of others

He's never the same after the reveal despite how hard he pretends because now he knows. He knows that he has never been the person he thought he was, and that he had always been an intruder in his own life. Everyone notices that he's different but no one can help because they have no idea what's wrong

He stops fighting his dealer, just as she wished

For now, at least. Who knows, maybe there's a possible happy end for this route too