Chapter Text
“Fuck off.”
“C’mon, baby, we don’t wanna have to hurt ‘ya.”
Vox pauses his walking and he glances up at Alastor to watch his ears swivel towards the alley nearby. He knows this song and dance by now, and simply watches as Alastor’s grin turns sharp and his eyes light up with the prospect of a hunt on the horizon.
“Now, just be a doll-”
“Heh, don’t you mean a lamb?”
“Either way-OW that bitch fucking stabbed me!”
“I guess you don’t want us to play nice, huh?!”
“Let go of me!”
Without needing to say anything to his partner, Vox is already walking casually towards the commotion, the rising volume of ambient static at his back.
He generally finds these kinds of introductions work best before Alastor has the chance to respond in whatever way he finds fit. It’s a nightmare trying to convince whoever Alastor decides to help that he’s not there to hurt them as well once the body parts start flying, or with a giant manic deer monstrosity blocking out the sky behind him.
It took quite a while to even convince Alastor that it was in his best interest to allow him to be the first face they see. That if he wants to succeed in whatever rescue endeavor he wants to accomplish, it’ll work best if Vox is there to flush out the demons he wants to destroy.
Getting them out of the other’s line of sight before Alastor decides to rip them apart is their best chance of actually helping anyone.
Luckily, this is hardly the first time he’s had to do this. Vox has found that if he takes too long - the time being directly related to how impatient Alastor happens to be feeling that day - Alastor is liable to ignore his advice and absolutely traumatize whoever they’re attempting to help.
Personally, he thinks that if he were the one backed into a corner he’d be delighted to watch whoever was doing the backing being torn to shreds, but for whatever reason no one else seems to agree with him.
Oh, well.
“Gentleman! Now, is this any way to treat a lady?” He asks, arms wide as he approaches. He's found that appearing as though he's defenseless does wonders in lowering other's guards, making it that much easier to worm his way into their pathetic minds.
“Fuck off, box-head! This don’t concern ‘ya!”
“Oh, but it does, trust me . Now, why don’t you leave this alley and give the lady her peace?”
They’re so insignificant that Vox barely has to try to use his hypnotic eye to get them to leave both the alley and the woman clutching a knife they’ve backed into the wall. He’s still perfecting his hypnosis so he’s only able to hold onto both of the men until they pass his line of sight.
But that’s entirely fine, he only needed them out of the alley. Besides, Alastor prefers to chase his prey, anyway.
He’s approaching the woman with his hand out to help her up, but the knife flashes into his line of vision before he can take more than a single step.
“Hey, now! No need for that, ma’am! My partner and I just want to help remove these, let’s say unsavory men from your vicinity, nothing more!”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before, buster. If’n ‘ya think I’m some easy mark, they won’t be the only ones leaving this alley bleedin’!”
Vox is about to respond when what she’s saying registers in his brain, making him pause. He…he knows that voice, that harsh slang that’s coming from this woman. In his time she had polished it down so he was the only one who ever heard her speak so coarsely, but he's spent over 30 years of his life listening to it behind closed doors.
He’d recognize it anywhere, he just never expected to find it here of all places.
“‘Ya got cotton ‘tween ya ears, or somethin’? Why’re standing there like-”
“Nellie?”
The knife is to his throat before he’s even registered that he’s spoken the name aloud.
“How in the fuck do you know my name?” She demands, digging the knife into his neck harder for every second it takes for him to respond.
“N-Nellie, it’s me! You think I wouldn’t recognize you even like this? ”
“Wait…Vin…?”
She moves her face closer to his, looking intently into his screen trying to find some part of him she can recognize.
Vox has long ago accepted the form hell has given him - it’s not like complaining would change anything, after all. But some part of him will always wish his face, his head, was more… normal. At least by hellish standards. It’s still jarring even to this day to be, somehow, a freak among freaks.
He knows that it doesn’t matter how long she stares, there’s nothing there that she’ll recognize - not anymore - and he can’t help but mourn it. Vox can still see traces of the woman she was when she was alive in her, even behind the lamb-like features she’s been given in death.
But he’s been given a form that doesn’t have the ability to keep his old features, not even an echo of them, but that doesn’t stop him from desperately trying to look like his human self anyway through his screen. She knew him the best when he was alive, they’d been together for decades. So, even though he knows it’s futile, he still has to try in the hopes that - even like this - she’ll recognize him.
“Are you really my Vin? Or is this some kind of weird hell thing to trick me into-”
“Nel, if I was trying to trick you into thinking I’m actually me, don’t you think I’d have chosen literally any other way to do it? Or that I’d look like this while I did it?”
She slowly eases the knife from his throat, but he doesn’t miss the way she doesn’t relax her grip or her stance, still ready to strike at a moment’s notice. He can’t help but feel a mix of nostalgia that she’s the same spitfire he married, and regret that she’s somehow wound up in hell and he wasn’t there to help her with the transition.
Before he can ask how long she’s been down here, he hears the click of Alastor’s shoes as he approaches while humming a jaunty tune.
“Ah, hello my dear! Pleasure to meet you, and I must thank you for providing me with such an entertaining dinner! Why, I haven’t had the opportunity to chase vermin in such a long while!”
Vox doesn’t miss the way Nellie warily watches Alastor as he approaches, nor the way her eyes track his every movement. He knows Alastor doesn’t tend to go after women - at least not individually, citywide slaughter is fair game for anyone of any gender. And that he tends to find being attacked by much weaker demons than himself more entertainment than anything to actually respond to, but he doesn’t want to take the chance of her being the exception.
To try to help he steps in between them in the guise of introducing her to Alastor, to cut her line of sight before she does something drastic.
“Al! You won’t believe who this is! This is Nellie, my wife! Isn’t that a wild coincidence?” He says, hoping to alleviate the tension radiating from the woman behind him.
He is so focused on making sure Nellie’s hackles are lowered that he doesn’t even notice Alastor's rising instead.