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askaalaska-vdeppressed · 8 days

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I Cannot Breath (So I Must Sing) Ch.1

Series Masterlist

The grand facade of the theater grew ever closer as Alastor walked the streets of New Orleans. They were barren at this time of day. The morning rush of commuters long past and the vibrancy of the night life doomed to be banished till the sun began to rest her head. Alastor’s stride was quick and confident, with just a hint of enthusiasm in his walk. This was just going to be grand! A quick meeting with this little ingenue, perhaps an observatory tour of the theater just for his own curiosity, then back home to a good read and a chilled glass.

As the doors of the building yielded to his hands the strings of melodic sounds danced into Alastor’s ears. This wasn’t his first time visiting the old building. He’d written reviews and talked about performances before. Back when he was taking any chance he could get to get coverage and be heard. Back when he was a scrap of a young man, practically still a boy, desperate to prove himself. Back before his coverage of the bayou butcher put him on the map. Despite the joyful sounds that filled the room, a strange sense of melancholy-even if ever so brief- washed over him. He didn’t dwell on it, certain that it was just the sense of nostalgia trying to revive his long dead enthusiasm.

He entered the auditorium proper, the stage a beacon in the dark room. Two figures stood on it, a man and woman arguing in a recreation of a bedroom. He recognized the man on stage. Danny or Dale or something like that. He’d been at the theater quite some time, he was a draft horse of a human. A gentle giant. The woman he did not know, meaning she was either new since he last visited or was the lady of the hour he was there to see. At the very least she was seasoned. Her motions were fluid, natural, as if she were relaxing at home and not in a costume on a stage.

As the music’s tempo picked up, the woman began to sing. It was as if… Alastor’s soul left his body. His eyes were both unfocused and staring straight at her. Her voice reverberated out, spinning into gold muslin mid air, and cushioning his head. After the initial shock he was able to focus more on what was going on in front of him. The scene was humorous, singing about her missing shoe while she manically stalked the room on stage. And damnit if she didn’t know what she was doing. Her facial and body expressions perfect, her timing immaculate, the jokes hit and they hit well. Then without a note out of place her costar lifted her up, throwing her over his shoulders, there backs against each other. She was now singing upside down, being carried across the stage.

“That was her idea ya know” The stark contrast of Mickey's sharp tenor almost made Alastor jolt. Surprising punctual, Mickey stood beside him observing the scene on stage with a wistful hum, a rusted toolbox cradled under one arm.

“She’s something ain’t she? Came in here and started changing things left and right. Thought she was gonna make the director pull out the last of his hair. A right proper diva, but I gotta say…” Mickey turned his focus back to Alastor.

“Everything she’s changed looks and sounds a whole lot better now”

“I can see now why everyone’s been so worked up over her, she’s quite remarkable.” Alastor’s eyes never left her figure. He was far too mesmerized by the swishing of her skirt and the unwavering rhythm of her vibrato.

“Tell me about it. Stage manager said they’re gonna finish this scene, give notes and be done. I’ll show you to her room backstage.” Mickey walked to an entrance on the back wall, the phrase ‘Theater staff only’ painted on it. While Alastor was loath to miss the rest of the performance, it would do him no good to stand there and stare. He had a job to do after all.

Alastor followed behind his little handyman acquaintance, the man’s orange curls bobbing up and down with his stunted gait. He’d probably told Alastor what caused the limp before, and no doubt with a little liquor in his system, he’d tell him again.

Perhaps he’d listen this time.

It was then that Alastor, wanting to fill the lull in the conversation, made the utterly horrendous mistake of commenting on the architecture of the place.

“Hell if you like what you see here I outta show you the ceiling by the costume room on our way. Oh and the marble piece by the managers office, and the..” Thus began the long, arduous detour as Mickey entered room after room, showing Alastor each piece of cabinetry and gilded doorknob he’d found interesting. When he’d thought about taking a tour, this wasn’t what he’d meant. And with no knowledge of the buildings layout, and almost no other staff milling about from what he could see, there was almost no chance of Alastor ditching Mickey and finding the woman’s dressing room on his own. He was well and truly at this buffoons mercy.

By the time Mickey had deemed him educated enough on the buildings design, they were a good 45 minutes late. Alastor’s good mood from earlier long gone, the memory of the woman’s voice replaced with his inner thoughts doing their best to keep him from strangling his companion. He would be lucky if she was even still here, probably leaving sometime ago, and if she was as much a diva as Mickey had described earlier, he could kiss the idea of rescheduling with her goodbye. The smile on his face had never felt tighter or more forced.

Mickey gave a good 3 solid knocks on the door, it rattled, the ancient looking wood contrasting again the shiny new hinges. Shuffling could be heard on the other side, the new hinges remaining silent as the door opened.

“Mickey, I was starting to think you had forgotten” The woman from before stood before them, her costume now replaced with some light looking summer affair. The hair from the performance apparently part of the costume, as y/h/c strands stuck with sweat against her brow. Her accent was thick, almost annoyingly so. Not incomprehensible but certainly not accustomed to the foreign sounds and syllables on her tongue. Which Alastor found odd, as he’d not detected a whiff of it in her song earlier.

She stepped aside, gesturing the men into her space. It was humbly furnished with a daybed, an arm chair with a side table and large mirrored vanity. A long pole stretching from one wall to the other, housing a hand-full of dresses, marked with pieces of paper and scene names. Her hands, slightly sullied with ink stains, were clasped in front of her as she waited on the men to enter and adjust.

“Sorry to keep you waiting ma’am it was all my fault truly” Mickey fessed up, arms in front of with an apologetic look in his eyes.

She pulled out the chair at the vanity as she began to speak, a small selection of raw vegetables sat on wax paper in front of her.

‘How odd’ Alastor thought.

“Oh it’s alright sir, I take notes well here just as I do at the apartment” The sentence made Alastor worry. The accent he had anticipated, but the broken English would be a problem. He could deduce from the state of her hands and the manuscript sitting next to the armchair that she was talking about taking down notes, but one could not count on visual context clues in a strictly audio-graphic medium.

“Oh where are my manners” Mickey seemed to remember he was there for a reason. “Miss. Y/n Leroux, Mr. Alastor Altruist, the finest radio personality and friend a man could ask for.” Mickey stepped aside, his hands in dramatic fashion as he bowed, gesturing Alastor forward.

“Ma’am I hope you can forgive our tardiness” Alastor took the woman’s hand, pressing a chaste kiss to the knuckles before taking a step back. If there was ever a time to turn on the southern charm it was now.

“Oh no no, it’s good. It’s water with a bridge and all that” She put her hands up in a dismissive manner. While Alastor thought the flubbing of the idiom was cute, the more he dwelled on it the more it gave him pause. Why was a woman who didn’t know English using a metaphorical turn of phrase? That seems rather, advanced, didn’t it? His intrigued piqued, Alastor sat in the arm chair, helping himself to the pen on the side table while pulling out a steno pad from his breast pocket.

“If you don’t mind ma’am, I’d like to share some of my questions with you now. Just to give you some time to polish your answers before we go live.”

“Oh yes, okay” Y/n sat back, her legs crossed at the ankle with her hands once more clasped in front of her on her lap.

As Alastor began to focus, the rhythmic squeaking of the floorboards got his attention. He turned toward the sound, Mickey standing there, rocking back and forth with his hands in his pockets. Feeling Alastor’s gaze, he looked at the pair.

“Oh should I?” Mickey made a pointing gesture at the daybed before walking over and sitting on it, without actually receiving an answer. Before Alastor could even begin to focus this time, the whistling began. Try as he might he couldn’t school his features enough to hide the irritation in his brow.

“Parfois je me demande si t’as été bercé trip près du mur…” Y/n muttered under her breath. “Mickey could you help me?” Mickey sat at attention. “My hat I think is backstage, or eh in the seats?”

“Oh I‘ll go fetch it for you, won’t take me but a minute. Don’t start without me Al!” Mickey practically sprinted out the door.

As he heard the latch secure in the frame, Alastor let out a small breath, the stress in shoulders dissipating significantly . Y/n just hummed fondly, before reaching behind her seat. She turned slightly, a small grin plastered on her face as she raised her hand, holding the ‘misplaced’ hat up for Alastor to see.

Alastor let out a small laugh “Many thanks” he said, this smile feeling much more genuine. Y/n simply nodded her head, gesturing with her hand for him to start once more.

They were about 15 minutes into it and Alastor was almost done explaining how things would go, and feeding her some of his questions. As she spoke he took down her answers, not for the sake of remembrance but to try and parse out how much English she really knew. As he was reviewing small crunches could be heard across from him. Y/n was munching on the vegetables he had noticed earlier.

“Why are you eating like that?” Alastor asked off the cuff.

“Pardon?” She simply sat there, genuine confusion on her face.

“Why are you eating like you’re a rabbit and not a human? What is your French palette to delicate for our American cuisine.” The comment was out of the blue and a bit forced, but Alastor wanted to insult her. He wanted to see how she reacted when given a surprise.

“Do you insult all your eh guests?” She said, sass dripping out into her voice, looking very much like she wanted to role her eyes.

There it was, his lynchpin.

“I’m the interviewer here, not the interviewee.” Alastor’s confidence had well and truly been restored. This time she did role her eyes at his comment. He just gave out a laugh. “Tell you what, how about a little tit for tat. I’ll answer a question, if you do.”

“I was already answering them.” She just fixed him with a look.

“Off the book questions, no interview, just personal questions for me.” She seemed to ponder a moment, before giving in.

“Fine”

“Ladies first” Alastor gestured to her.

“Do you insult all your guests?” She asked, the evidence once more affirmed in Alastor’s mind.

“Actually my dear, I don’t really do interviews. I’m more of a solo artist. This one was more me being opportunistic, let’s say. Since you are my only interviewee then I guess the answer is yes, though I didn’t mean any insult.” Y/n just gave a huff at his comment.

“So why do you eat like a woodland critter?” Alastor prodded once more.

“I’ve been here since the morning. It’s hot here and meat spoils. So” She gestured to the remnants of what was apparently her lunch. “Your turn” Alastor simply said, no further comment on his lips.

“If this is for me, why are you taking notes?” This intrigued him further, so she was not as oblivious as she seemed.

“These are more just for the sake of record keeping. Just makes the process easier” The lie was easy, and flowed smoothly of his tongue. The most impressive part being she couldn’t really call him out on it. The back and forth had settled her, she seemed eased and comfortable with the questioning.

Time to knock her down.

“So for mine what I want to know is why you’re pretending you don’t know English? “

“Excus-“

“Save it” He held his hand out in front of him to stop her. “You couldn’t have known this but I do know some French, and from what I know the word ‘do’ doesn’t exist in it. So if you were as linguistically challenged as you say you are, then that little ‘Do you insult all your guests’ would have sounded a lot more awkward than it was, or at the very least a whole lot slower.” Alastor just sat there and basked in her face. The mix of offense and frustration that he found just so adorably entertaining.

“Though” he began pondering aloud “I suppose I didn’t need that tidbit of evidence, Mickey said he spoke to you, and heh even I can’t understand Mickey most days.” The grin on his face was wide and sharp, the tension in the room stifled the air around them. He half expected her to walk out, seeing as she gave no response to him.

Y/n closed her eyes and took a breath, steadying herself before opening them once more, her gaze no longer shocked but determined.

“If you must know” the change in her voice was striking. Gone almost entirely was the accent, and the small cautiousness that hung over her before was no where to be seen. “It’s because I’m a novelty. While I’m more than confident in my capabilities as a singer, Mr. Altruist, I’m much more valuable to Americans as an exotic European foreigner, than as a competent singer.”

“So you’re being a ham for the sake of what exactly?” His brow quirked up in curiosity.

“That’s two questions in a row, it’s my turn.” Y/n stated matter of factly. “What it’d like to know is why you’ve been needing to get blood out of your clothes recently?”

Alastor swallowed hard, surely she was joking? Perhaps she was testing him?

“It was hard to tell when you first entered, considering Mickey so odorously reeks of grease and metal. However what this rooms gains in amenities it lacks in air flow. As we’ve sat here I’ve noticed how strongly the scent of citrus and salt is on you. While any decent lady knows this is an easy remedy for most stains, it’s the underlying twinge of iron that gives away just what stain was being removed.” Y/n just sat there, her arms at her sides, eyes alight and mouth eased into a grin.

“Though” she said “I suppose I didn’t need that tidbit of evidence as when you sat down I noticed that odd purple stain on your collar.” She paused pointing on her neck to where the blotch was on him. “My guess is you missed the spot while blueing your shirt since it sits right in the fold of the collar .” Y/n sat back, pleased with her analysis of the arrogant bastard in front of her.

Alastor looked down, his face blank as he tried desperately to hold himself together. He couldn’t kill her, Mickey was still in the building looking for her blasted hat. Plus she was much too high profile and he had bragged at the office about the interview. So no alibi, a witness and a persistently observant woman in front of him. What to do?

Alastor laughed slowly before looking up once more. “Why do you know so much about removing blood stains Miss. Leroux?” He smiled once more, it was a flimsy trap, but he couldn’t let her know that. He didn’t need to cover though as she didn’t fall for it,.

“I think I asked you first.” Was all she said. The smug look on her face as she crossed her arms was too much for Alastor, he made to lift himself up and out of this hellhole of a dressing room.

“So Friday at 4 then? Or 3 to be early?” She simply stated nonchalantly, making no move to get up or stop him.

“Heh, do some preliminary stalking of me did you?” Alastor was trying and failing to get the upper hand again as he grabbed his things to leave.

“Don’t flatter yourself. Mickey told me when your show was.” Alastor turned to see her once more before he left. The look in her face had not lessened any. She smugly raised her hand, waving at him with 3 fingers.

“Toodles”

#alaska writes #alastor x reader #reader insert #human alastor #alastor x y/n #alastor x you #Parfois je me demande si t’as été bercé trip près du mur #is an affection way of calling someone stupid #Direct translation: Sometimes i wonder if you've been cradled too close to the wall #some say mickey is still looking for readers hat to this day #also blueing was a method used for color correcting white clothes

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