Chapter Text
There’s something wrong with the Whittman boy; Alastor can see that the moment he sets eyes on him.
It’s not in the same way there’s something wrong with Vince Whittman, Sr. The elder Whittman is careless in his personal life, cutthroat in business, demeaning toward women, and a bit racist even for a wealthy white man, but he has his rules and his codes and he thrives on social niceties and the favors they buy him. Vince Whittman, Sr. is gregarious and charismatic—he’s not likable once you get to know him, but everyone claims to like him because he knows how to trade favors and lay on the charm.
His son is something else entirely. He’s wrong in a way that Alastor knows should unsettle him but does not—or at least, it doesn’t unsettle him for the reasons it should. There’s something missing behind those mismatched eyes, a hollowness he spots instantly, because like recognizes like.
Alastor isn’t fond of children as a general rule—he doesn’t like their too-large eyes or their too-fragile bodies or their too-earnest questions. He’s never understood how other people can look at someone else’s offspring and see anything but a pitiful creature that hasn’t quite learned how to be human yet. But then, he’s never understood a lot of things about the way other people see the world, so this doesn’t surprise him too much.
At eight years old, Alastor can see that emptiness in Vincent, and if Vince were a friend instead of a grudgingly-tolerated business associate and stepping stone, he might pull the man aside and warn him. You’ve got to watch him, he might say, I’ve seen this before. He might make sure Vince knows he’s got to be prepared to cut the boy off and cut him loose, and he’s got to make sure the boy knows he’s serious, because if a boy like that has even an inkling that his father’s wealth and power will get him out of trouble, he will bring trouble to their doorstep the likes of which the good, God-fearing Whittmans could never imagine. If Vince were a friend, Alastor might suggest he send the boy off to military school in the hopes it will set him right, or at least train him to channel his urges toward an acceptable target.
But Vince is not a friend, and Alastor is not a good man, so all he does is pat the boy on the head and say, what a charming young man!
At first, Alastor made a small effort to charm the boy. His disdain for children notwithstanding, he’s found that pretending to like them can be terribly helpful when trying to earn the favor of their parents. It’s easy enough to play the role of a kindly grownup always game for a bit of mischief, and doing so has helped him get quite a few people into his pocket without having to resort to more tiresome and expensive means.
Left alone with the 8-year-old Vincent Whittman, Jr. for a few minutes, Alastor had given him a disarming smile and asked if the stuffed animals arranged in a row on his bed had names. The boy pointed at each one and recited a list, showing no particular excitement or interest in telling him more, as other children might. Alastor got the distinct impression that these were names Vincent had made up simply because he’d been asked this before, and knew he was supposed to have an answer.
Tucked away in the corner of the bed was a teddy bear, brown and curly-furred, lying in two pieces, its head torn neatly off its body. “What happened to that one?” Alastor had asked.
Vincent had shrugged. “Didn’t like it.”
“Why not?”
Another shrug. “Just didn’t.”
“Why do you keep it around, then?”
Vincent had picked up the bear’s head, turned it in his tiny hands, and plucked a bit of cotton stuffing from the ragged neck. Alastor saw another flash of something he recognized in the way those small pink lips curled as he dropped the piece of fluff and watched it drift to the floor.
“I like it this way,” he’d said, and Alastor understood better than the boy could have known.
But then Alastor had quickly realized Vince Whittman was not the kind of man who gave one single flying fuck who or what his child liked, and so he’d dropped the pretense of the kindly uncle figure and went back to treating the boy the way he preferred to treat all children: like he didn’t exist at all. He saw that soft, round face peeking out from the shadows from time to time, but it was easy enough to pay it no mind, because Vince had clearly beaten it into the boy that children should be seen and not heard when adults were talking. The boy was a ghost in his own home, and Alastor was going to enjoy watching the chaos when those long years of invisibility finally drove him to be seen in any way possible.
Vince Whittman had nearly outlived his usefulness, anyway. If his blossoming monstrosity of a son dragged the family name through the mud and ruined a business empire with a tragic, senseless, and inevitable act of violence, that would save Alastor the trouble of doing it himself.
Over five years of acquaintance, the ghost grows up, looming larger in the shadows while Alastor and Vince have their little meetings, discussing ad copy over cigars and whatever liquor is fashionable at the moment, having conversations that could have—should have—been had formally at the radio station. They discuss how Alastor will talk up the latest business to carry the Whittman name, while Vince pretends he isn’t just trying to dig up dirt on his competitors, and Alastor pretends he’s revealing everything he knows. He’s gotten good at this dance, and his ability to keep it up with the dozen or so men running the entertainment industry in this city at any given time has done wonders for his career.
It’s during one of these meetings that Vince is called away to deal with some urgent matter, and Alastor is familiar enough at the Whittman home now that he’s left to finish his brandy and make his own way out in his own time. The home is quiet and still without its patriarch’s overbearing shadow looming in its halls, and Alastor takes his time savoring the drink and the last of his cigar in peace.
He needs a trip to the restroom before leaving, and as he reaches for the gleaming brass doorknob, a soft, high sound reaches his ears from the next door down—the door he knows to be Vincent’s bedroom. The door is just barely cracked open, spilling a crisp line of yellow light into the hallway, and he hears the noise again: a quiet, rhythmic squeak.
He’s not sure why—perhaps it’s the brandy, perhaps its the already-transgressive sensation of prowling a home while its so-called master isn’t there—but curiosity compels him to step closer, padding softly down the carpeted hall. Before he gets there, he realizes what he’s hearing, but he’s drawn to it anyway, some dark compulsion pulling him nearer, seeking to know what’s behind that door.
Through the crack, he can just barely see movement with one squinting eye, and he nudges the door silently inward with a careful fingertip—barely an inch, but it’s more than enough to get a clear look at what’s happening inside.
Vincent is on his bed, back hunched as he straddles an oversized stuffed animal—an orange-striped tiger with a top hat—and rocks his hips against it with the sort of pent-up desperation only found in teenagers and rutting animals. There’s a pillow beneath the plush toy, giving it more height and bulk for Vincent to grind against, and every thrust makes his bedsprings squeak again, a bright counterpoint to his rasping breath.
The thing Alastor is focused on, though, is Vincent’s hands. They’re wrapped around the stuffed tiger’s throat, squeezing and shaking as the boy stares down, eyes wide and unblinking, teeth bared in a grin of fierce delight. Vincent’s frame is beginning to fill out, muscle barely visible in the shoulders and upper arms, and Alastor can see hints of strength that will be dangerous in a few years, when he’s settled into himself and no longer this creature of jutting knees and elbows and unsatisfied hunger.
Alastor pushes the door a bit more, giving him a better view of Vincent’s straining arms and clenched teeth and all the raw, burning desire running through his veins. He’s a little bit magnificent like this, all flushed and sweating, hair askew, as he pours all of his focus into his perverse little ritual.
The boy’s hands tighten; even over the sound of panting and squealing springs, Alastor can hear stitches pop. His ears are deep pink, his forehead damp, and the tiny, strangled whine he lets out as he bites his lip is a sound Alastor knows. It’s frustration and want and loneliness and the bone-deep knowledge that there’s something missing, something he needs, and he either hasn’t figured out what it is yet, or isn’t ready to take it.
Alastor hasn’t made a sound like that in a very long time—not since 22 years ago when, at 15, he’d slit his very first throat and watched the hot gush of blood coat his hands like a pair of old familiar kidskin gloves worn butter-soft. He’d felt it pour into that empty place inside him, sticky and red, and he’d finally understood his hunger and how he was meant to live his life. That tight ball of confused frustration had never plagued him again once he knew, and he sees it in Vincent now, a tangled knot of need the boy doesn’t have words for yet.
A soft grunt escapes Vincent’s lips, and the tendons in his neck stand out, quivering with tension. Alastor isn’t sure what to do. He could give the boy the words for what he’s feeling, push him off that precipice into the calm of self-realization and watch the chaos as a clumsy, sheltered 13-year-old tries and fails to cover up the mess he makes satisfying desires he still doesn’t fully understand. He could walk away and see how long it takes before he can no longer hide the wrongness crawling under his skin, before the boy’s parents catch on that there’s a dangerous animal under their roof, and find out if that moment comes before or after it’s too late for them to disentangle themselves from him. He could—but he won’t—tell Vince what he saw and see whether the inevitable disaster that follows breaks the boy into pieces or does just the opposite, carves him into the sharp-edged, deadly figure he was always meant to be.
Before Alastor can choose a course of action, something compels the boy to look up, and his eyes go wide as he notices the man watching him from the doorway. He doesn’t flail or fling the evidence away or try to pull a blanket over him to hide his shame, but he releases his grip on the tiger’s throat and snatches his hands back so forcefully they make an audible slap against his thighs. The rest of his body is frozen, the only movement the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders as he stares up at Alastor with more confusion than panic.
“What are you doing, boy?” Alastor’s tone is airy and detached, betraying nothing but his morbid curiosity as he leans against the door frame.
The prominent bulge of the Adam’s apple bobs in Vincent’s scrawny throat as he swallows. “Nothing,” he rasps, unconvincingly.
Alastor clucks his tongue. “Come now, Vincent, you know better than to lie.” He takes in the coiled spring of the boy’s body, the trembling of muscles that, even through the fear and shame and adrenaline, still want to continue that clench and pull written into them by habit and animal instinct. The deep red flush of Vincent’s face runs down his throat and beneath his collar, where his chest is still heaving with barely-contained anticipation. “Put your hands back where they were.”
Vincent looks down at his hands, flexes them, and looks back up at Alastor, unsure. Suspicious, he’s clearly expecting this to be a trick, but Alastor merely watches him with a bland smile and waits. Slowly, Vincent reaches forward and curls his hands around the stuffed animal’s throat again, putting his body back into a predatory, aggressive arch.
“There,” Alastor purrs at him, his smile widening. “Doesn’t that feel so much better?”
He can see that it does; it’s clear in every line of his body and the bright, unblinking stare of his green-and-blue eyes. Vincent nods with a soft mumble of assent, and Alastor waits for the boy to settle into it, to grapple with the warring desires in his body, smiling down at him like a benevolent god.
Finally Vincent seems to understand that he’s not being chastised or punished or mocked, and he pushes his hips into the mound of pillow and plush before him, lower lip caught between his teeth to stifle a moan as he looks back up at Alastor, shy, questioning. Alastor inclines his head in a ghost of a nod, and that’s all Vincent needs—he grinds against his imaginary partner (for he surely isn’t ready to admit what he wants is a victim) with frenzied force, squeezing the throat tighter with a faint growl that sparks something deep in Alastor’s gut.
In a few years, what a glorious monster this boy could be.
“That doesn’t look like ‘nothing,’” Alastor says mildly, and the boy’s hips stutter briefly before resuming their rhythm. Vincent is making low, choked-off noises deep in his throat, his hair falling into his face as he bears down with all the weight of his pubescent body. “It’s filthy,” Alastor says without judgement, without giving the word value or weight. “What you’re doing is shameful.”
Vincent whimpers, thrusting harder.
“But you know that, don’t you? You know you’re supposed to feel ashamed of this. But you don’t.” Vincent groans, pressing down, grinding his hips into the pillows in short, stabbing strokes. “You only care that it feels good, greedy little thing.”
The choked sounds the boy is making are nearly sobs now, and Alastor licks his lips, desire beginning to curl around his spine like heavy smoke. He so rarely feels this stirring, and even more rarely is it inspired by something as vulgar as this act—the novelty of it tickles at the back of his mind, a bright little thrill he wants to pull open and dissect and replicate.
“That’s good,” he says, fighting to keep an edge of breathlessness from his voice. “You should be seeking your pleasure. You should be taking what you want.” The boy whimpers so loud they would’ve been caught if anyone had been around to hear it, but Mrs. Whittman has already retired to her room with a dose of laudanum for her fragile nerves, and Mr. Whittman, as usual, isn’t here.
“You should make yourself feel good, Vincent.” Even though he’s barely given Vincent a passing thought over the years, Alastor knows what kind of man Mr. Whittman is, and what sort of things are lacking in the boy’s life. He doesn’t need to know a thing about this boy to know what will tip him over the edge, because men like the Whittmans are a dime a dozen in his world, and every last one is predictable to a fault. “Go ahead—you deserve it.”
There’s a gasp and a jerk, and Vincent’s mismatched eyes lock on his, hips twitching erratically as he rides out his orgasm with his hands wrapped tight around the stuffed tiger’s throat. When it’s done, he doesn’t move, doesn’t curl in with shame, just waits, panting softly, for Alastor to react.
Alastor softens his smile, smooth and measured, and reaches for the doorknob. “Good night, Vincent,” he says, and pulls the door shut with a soft click as he leaves.