Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Ah, this day simply cannot get any better.”

Vox lounged back in his chair and leisurely gazed out the windows to the city below, smirking with unbridled joy excessively so that it nearly made him overheat had his internal fans not kicked in. He had everything. The power. The prestige. Partners who backed him and a company with reach that rivaled those in the Greed ring. Everyone beneath him cowered while simultaneously looking up to him for direction like sheep and he reveled in the heedy thrill it gave him.

This was what he was made for. To be a ruler. A God.

“Careful you don’t jinx yourself over there, Vox,” an irritating voice floated over from across the room. “You remember what happens when you get ahead of yourself, don’t you?”

His smirk dropped into a frown at lightning speed but just as quickly returned in time to face Alastor.

His captive stubbornly paraded that stupid smile, no matter how much Vox ridiculed and humiliated him, whether on live television or in private, that fucker simply wouldn’t let go of it. It was infuriating. Insulting, really, that Vox could make him do anything he wanted except get rid of the annoying curve of his lips and the sinister gleam in his eyes that made Vox feel like that embarrassing fool decades ago.

“I seemed to recall you saying you wouldn’t be talking,” Vox said with a raised eyebrow. He kept his posture as relaxed as possible, not wanting to let the radio demon know how truly irked he felt underneath. He was the one in charge here. The one who held the chain to Alastor’s collar. Showing weakness wasn’t an option. 

Going by the twist of his smile steadily growing into a smirk at his reply, Alastor knew exactly the effect of his words. “Why, I said I wouldn’t be giving any information about the hotel, I didn’t say anything about a few friendly words of advice.”

His hand clenched out of view. “Friendly,” Vox barked through a bitter laugh. “The last thing I’d use to describe anything you say would be friendly.”

The worst part about being the TV demon was that his every experience was stored in a memory bank. Years of VHS tapes and DVDs transferred into digital files that he could access whenever he wanted. It had its benefits, of course, and sometimes it outweighed the negatives, but with Alastor in front of him it reminded him of far less appealing times.

More specifically, the night where he resolved to devote the rest of his afterlife to becoming the most influential entity in hell.

Scornful laughter that played back with haunting clarity and the painful sting of tears burning his screen.

He was not that snivelling naive idiot anymore.

The sound of a familiar taunting static hum filled the air. 

“Such rude words. Is that really all the hospitality you can muster up for an old pal?”

“Pal?”

Vox knew he made a mistake as soon as he opened his mouth but the words spewed from him like an uncontrollable waterfall full of vitriol and incredulousness. It was hard to keep his composure in the face of the smugness radiating off that cocky son of a bitch—although, when was it ever not?

He made a proper show of himself half crawling over his desk and sneering, “you’ve got some fucking nerve calling youself that, you fucking prick.”

Alastor rolled his eyes and somehow, while bound to an office chair on wheels, still managed to cultivate an aura of nonchalance as if he held all the cards. It served to infuriate Vox further, raising his internal temperature to dangerous temperatures.

“No need to put yourself in a tizzy over it, it’s simply an expression,” Alastor sighed out delicately, looking over his shoulder as if the wall was far more interesting, and fuck did that just make Vox want to grab Alastors face between his hands and force him to pay attention to only him. 

Why was it that even now he was still scavenging for crumbs from him?

Vox snorted. “Nothing with you is ever just an expression. You may look like a deer but underneath you’re a shark hunting for blood.”

The radio demon bared his teeth in a pale imitation of his smiles. “And we know how partial you are towards those sea beasts. It’s quite flattering you think of me so highly after all these years.”

He followed his gaze to where Shok.wav’s tank rested and felt a flush rise to his face. It was as if Alastor knew what comparison he was going to make before he’d said it and made to rub it in his face how much weakness was leaking from him.

For a moment he was frozen in mortification, stuck in an all consuming whirlpool of shame before gritting his teeth and raising his head up high, refusing to shrink back.

“Don’t kid yourself. The only time I think of you is when I’m coming up with ways to humiliate or destroy you.” He slipped away from behind his desk and languidly strolled to where Alastor sat, pretending the feel of the other’s gaze didn’t make parts of him spark to life. Finally, he had his attention where it belonged—on him.

When he stood in front of Alastor he grinned wickedly. His prisoner could do nothing but suffer in silence as Vox cupped his cheek mockingly, like a lover would. Privately, Vox cherished these unhindered touches. Alastor never tolerated more than a second's brush to the shoulder and that was only if it were a good day with a whiskey or two down first.

His skin was surprisingly soft, unblemished and perfect in the afterlife. He wondered what he looked like as a human, if it were the same, and then perhaps if he would’ve allowed Vox to stroke his cheek like this up there. 

A fool’s daydream when he already knew the answer.

“Or when you’re copulating with Valentino.”

He blanched, briefly blue screening. “What.” 

“Oh don’t act as if you didn’t make it glaringly obvious.” Alastor did a double take and, upon seeing the unfiltered bafflement on Vox’s face, did he let out a gleeful cackle. “My, my, I knew you were slow, Vox, but I didn’t take you for a simpleton to such an embarrassing degree. Have I raised my expectations too high?”

“Shut. Up,” Vox growled.

“Hm. No.” He looked pleased as punch as he continued, “the way you rutted disgustingly against that filthy moth pimp while glancing at me every two seconds left little to the imagination. Why, I’m surprised Valentino could even stand it, pardon, I mean lay for it—or perhaps he enjoys knowing he’s no more than a warm body substitute. I couldn’t tell, maybe I’ll ask him next time he visits.”

Vox snarled and slotted his fingers through the back of the radio demon’s head, pulling viciously at soft red blood hair until he could feel loose strands slipping through.

“For all that witty southern bravado bullshit you present yourself as you’re really fucking stupid to make the person who has you bound and chained angry.” His fingers curled tighter to further his point until Alastor finally reacted with a muted flinch as he was forced to meet his gaze.

That motherfucker had the nerve to have glittering eyes as if this was precisely what he wanted from him. 

Is that what he was doing? Falling into another one of Alastor’s traps? 

Is that all he ever did?

Vox glared, deluding himself into thinking that if he did it hard enough, maybe then he could read his mind and glean an ounce of clarity he’d been practically begging for since the day they met. Times like these he wished his hypnosis worked on him.

Within his screen’s vision, multiple lists piled together of the ways he could torture Alastor. Amputation, burning, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, slow acting poison, scalping. One after the other ideas flew by until he’d gotten a plan that would last centuries, ensuring Alastor would never receive a day’s rest under Vox’s thumb.

The image settled prettily in his mind. Alastor, panting and weak, crawling along the cold dirty floor in front of him. He wouldn’t beg for mercy, no, Vox knew the radio demon would be too proud for such things and his will iron clad, but his eyes would plead for reprieve as he struggled not to lose his mind after several months long rounds in the sensory deprivation tank. An ounce of charity Vox wouldn’t deign to grant. 

He’d be the one on top having proven Alastor wrong once and for all while shoving it in his face that he’d beaten him at his own game.

And yet it wouldn’t be enough.    

There was a hunger clawing at his insides. A monstrous feeling that left him on the verge of strangling Alastor on the spot and be done with it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a feeling born out of maliciousness. He wanted to consume him. To intertwine and blur the lines until there was nothing else but them. 

Such extremes for another person in Hell were not out of the norm. It'd even be cause for celebration if they were directed at Val, but when it was for Alastor, the man who took his heart and stomped on it right in front of him, it was maddening. It made spittle want to fly from his mouth as he screamed at the universe for doing this to him. Was taking his life on Earth not sufficient? Must he suffer horribly in hell as well? For a man who wouldn’t look his way no matter how illustrious or powerful he became he would never be more than the dirt beneath his shoe no less.

“Oh, Vincent,” Alastor murmured suddenly, breath torturously like kisses across his face. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

The shock of hearing his actual name after he’d gone years going by another had him scrambling to release Alastor and stumbling backwards on shaky legs until he felt his desk behind him.

“What the fuck?”

“Did you think I’d forgotten? My memory may not be as perfect as yours but I never forget the name of a pretty face.”

His screen blushed with a bright cyan blue before shaking his head furiously. “You’re not tricking me with your shitty tactics, asshole.”

“Is vulgar language really necessary? I merely paid you a compliment. One would think you’d be over the moon but instead you act as if I’ve personally cracked your screen,” Alastor tutted, his voice pouting. “How disappointing. What about a smile? You always looked dashing with one.”

Everytime Alastor opened his mouth previously had been with the single minded goal to insult or goad Vox into making a fool of himself. Never had he expressed anything close to positive. And now here he was, throwing him a compliment like an owner would a stripped down bone for its beaten dog.

Vox felt disgusted with himself that for a split second his heart had skipped a beat with something dangerously close to hope.

Looking back on it, his feelings must’ve been glaringly obvious if Alastor of all people managed to pick up on it. How strongly he must’ve been broadcasting if it’d surpassed his channels and landed on his radio frequency.

They’d never talked about it. Never brought up the elephant in the room casting shadows in every over enthusiastic giggle and blushing glances sent in the radio demon’s way when Vox thought he wasn’t looking. 

He never thought Alastor would use it against him for sick entertainment.

“This is a new low, even for you,” Vox snapped with less heat than he liked. He sounded wounded to his own ears and knew for Alastor that meant he heard blood trickling in the water, ready for his next hunt to feed from. He was off balance, off center, like his head had grown too big for his body and gravity would take hold of him at any second to send him crashing into the ground, except physically he was perfectly fine.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Fuck off. You know exactly what I mean. Using my name, the—the compliments.” His laugh held an edge of unhinge to it. “The weak ass flirting may have worked for a common ten dollar whore but from you it reeks of desperation.”

Alastor’s smile stilled. His head tilted to the side eerily. “Desperation? Do tell.” 

“There’s no way out of your deal. No underhanded loopholes or easy backdoor solutions. You’re trapped. My prisoner forever.” As he spoke, his confidence began to return and he grasped at it like a shield. Vox leered at him. “And that enrages you, the fact you had no choice but to willingly bind yourself to me to save the lives of your pathetic underlings and salvage your precious hotel's crumbling joke of a reputation.”

A radio static’s threatening hum filled the air and he delighted in knowing he managed to get under his skin. The same skin he’d been coveting to feel since he was a newborn sinner and gravitated toward the most powerful overlord in Hell.

“Choose your words carefully, my dear, because you are encroaching very closely on dangerous territory.”

“Aw, did I hit too close to home? Hurt your feelings?”

Alastor threw his head back with a crackling laugh that echoed through Vox’s own speakers along the room. Vox’s spine tingled at the electrifying sensation of feeling him everywhere for brief precious seconds.

“You’d have to do more than that to hurt me, but I applaud your measly attempt. No, what I was referring to was you misconstruing the circumstances of our little deal. You see, at no point was it to rescue some pesky souls or protect that farce of a place.” His expression sharpened into a bite. “I protect my investments.”

“Aren’t I glad for that.” Vox’s gaze flickered to Alastor’s chest where he knew underneath his nicely tailored suit sat a wound poorly held together with unstable thin green stitches. “As well as your hilariously failed venture to take on that archangel. That little band-aid you have woefully slapped on won’t do you any good in the long run. Powerless and shackled,” he chuckled. “It’s a good look on you.”

Alastor’s jaw clenched, the one imperfection in his usual flawless demeanor. As sweet as his tangible vexation tasted, it wasn’t what Vox was looking for, which was irrational because he himself couldn’t articulate what he was searching for either.

Acknowledgement? Absurd. He didn’t need Alastor to tell him what he already knew—that he was right, that he’d won.

Vox thought back to their long tattered relationship, if one could term it that, to those days in smokey bars and the smell of whiskey intermingling with the cries of lowly sinners perishing before them. Those late nights where he cherished the euphoric and satisfied crazed expression from the radio demon as they leaned closer together and talked about business, their territories and sinners under their control. Somehow, after a few rounds, their conversation would shift to other things. More mundane. Slowly giving each other pieces of themselves.

Not even in life had Vincent Whitman been as real and raw to another person. Comfortable in a way he couldn’t afford to have been while alive on Earth. The equivalent of baring his soul.

He’d thought it’d been mutual. It hadn’t. 

Vox didn’t imagine it though, he knew he saw Alastor’s eyes soften the tiniest bit when he mentioned his mother once upon a time. How his smile quieted but gained a genuine fondness when he laughed in Vox’s direction. The way he passed on useful tips and tricks when Vox was newer and still learning how to control his influence and power.

After all their time together, how could it boil down to a crushing rejection and contemptuous laughter?

He’d spent years combing every interaction over like a crazed man looking for answers and nothing to show for it but resentment building and bubbling inside him. It had been his fuel, his reason, for years. When he remembered Alastor’s existence it wasn’t the gutting pain he reached for but the hatred he let slide over him like an old friend and guide his actions.

Maybe that was his problem, too stuck in his past that he was blinded by what was right in front of him.

And here Alastor was, strapped to a rolling chair and carefree as ever, acting as if he were the one who held all the cards. 

“It’s all one big joke to you, isn’t it?” 

“Hm? Do speak up, Vox, your manners leave something to be desired if you’re muttering nonsense.” 

“What made you so eager to make a deal with me?” Vox asked suddenly with startling clarity. Alastor hadn’t expected that, clearly, as he blinked mutely at him, and Vox pounced. He stalked closer until his face was up in Alastor’s. “You said it yourself, you don’t give a shit about those losers or Morningstar’s hotel. You speak about investments but you have nothing to gain from either.”

Vox was a businessman at heart. He knew how to appreciate a good deal when it was sitting right in front of him for the taking and he’d like to say he’d thought it through when he agreed to Alastor’s terms, that he knew he was getting the better end of the stick, but he couldn’t. He’d been too eager, too intoxicated by the fact he’d have the man he’d spent decades harboring in his heart in his clutches at long last.

Alastor’s conditions seemed straightforward and simple and they were—ridiculously so. Suspiciously so.

“What exactly are the investments you’re so keen on protecting?”

There had to be more to it than conserving some insignificant soul deals in that wretched excuse of a hotel. If he’d learned anything from Alastor it was that he always had an ulterior motive and if you thought you’d figured out what it was, you were most assuredly wrong.

“Ha-ha, don’t you go and overheat,” Alastor chirped, sounding unruffled as ever. “And don’t you worry your screen over little ol’ me. I seem to recall you were in the middle of gloating earlier. What is this sudden need to actually use your brain, hm?” 

“I’m trying to figure you out,” Vox said, eyebrows furrowed together as he studied the deer. Alastor did a little spin in his chair as if to say, ‘Here I am!’ and he wished it were that easy to read him.

“Sweetheart, if you couldn’t do it seventy years ago I doubt you can now,” he mocked with flourish. “But you’re free to try with that dim-witted thing you call intelligence.”

Vox felt his hackles rise. His teeth clenched and his pulse picked up into a dull roar. This, he knew, was where he took the bait. Alastor would insult him in some way while mentioning their shared past and Vox wouldn’t be able to help but respond in an electric blaze right before clashing. The same old song and dance that everyone in Hell knew by heart.

He could let himself fall for it. Fall into the familiar routine. Stomp toward him with fire in his blood and electrocute that stupid fucking smile off that asshole.

But that was exactly what Alastor wanted.

He wanted Vox to succumb to his pride and forget his train of thought. Which meant he was onto something Alastor didn’t want him sniffing around.

Forcefully pushing down the anger that begged to bubble over, he took a page from Alastor’s book.

He smiled. It was a slow creeping tilt of his lips, one that made him look unperturbed.

Alastor eyed him warily when his needling yielded no results. What a rare gift it was to see the usual mischievous shit-eating grin subdued when his plans didn’t go his way.

“You know,” Vox started smoothly as he pushed himself off his desk and trailed along the floor like a predator would toward its prey, slowly and calculating. “All these honeyed words thrown my way: sweetheart, dear, calling me pretty—one might confuse you for being sweet on me.”

Radio static scrambled in high pitched incredulity. Alastor looked caught between disbelief and outright hysterics.

“This is what your pathetic mind manages to cobble together? Really? I mean, I already knew my expectations were too high to begin with but this is a whole new level of disappointment,” he clucked his tongue, sounding every bit like a teacher scolding their errant student. “And here I once thought we could’ve been intellectual equals. That was my mistake, it seems.”

Vox’s jaw twitched in irritation but that was the extent of what he allowed himself to show. He let the words roll off him.

Alastor continued, an unrelenting force, “it’s part of my whole schtick in case you’ve forgotten. What was it you called it—my ‘witty southern bullshit?’” He shook his head patronizingly. “If you’re this insecure and loveless, well, my, it seems Valentino isn’t as enthralling as his picture films. Could this be the end of Voxtek’s famous partnership with its adult studios? Imagine the scandal, the CEO discarding its own to vie for the attention of the radio demon. Now that would be a quality broadcast for my listeners.”

Vox observed him carefully. The way the deer’s ears flattened and his hooves planted firmly on the ground, evidently no longer in a whimsy mood. Alastor carried on, his voice steadily climbing and deeper within his radio filter, but the words faded to the background for Vox. Every barb and jab was like seeing him for the first time because it was as if something had clicked in his mind.

Was this Alastor being…defensive?

How had he never noticed this about him before? 

The answer came quickly—Alastor had never been this open at any point in the past. He’d hidden behind the screams of his broadcasts and the mysterious aura his power offered until the veil was so thick and opaque no one was allowed to see through it. 

Vox had no plans to see through the veil like some outsider. He was going to break it.

“You called me Vincent,” he interrupted, causing Alastor to fall silent. “You’ve never called me that. Not since…” he swallowed. “And even then, you rarely used it.” It meant something. The fact that Alastor chose now to use his given name. Like an itch he couldn’t find or a puzzle piece he couldn’t quite fit—its meaning slipping through his grasp at the last second.

Alastor snarled. Impressively, it was the most emotion Vox had seen from him the entire two weeks since their deal struck. “It’s called manipulation.”

“No. No, I don't think so. Not quite.” He shook his head. “I think you did care about me back then. I might even go as far as saying you do right now.”

This, it seemed, was the absolute limit of blasphemy Alastor could stand. When Vox leaned down to get closer, Alastor decided to kick himself away on his chair as far as he could. He nearly made it to the other side of the room but Vox sent a few cables to wrap neatly across his person and reel him back in.

Alastor squirmed and thrashed fruitlessly, like a feral animal's last desperate attempt at survival. The cables were secured snugly, ensuring he couldn’t escape. “Of all the brain dead theories and ideas you’ve concocted over the years—this has to be the most insulting! Get your wretched wires off me or so help me I will burn your insides until you’re nothing but melted plastic and broken screws, you idiotic minuscule excuse of a demon,” he threatened with a scathing sneer. 

Vox took it in stride, offering a mere placid look in return until Alastor was where he belonged in front of him.

“I’m glad you didn’t overreact or anything,” he said dryly. He shouldn’t be surprised when this further set the radio demon off but he winced when he spied the fierce viciousness in his expression.

“Overreact? If you think this is an overreaction just wait until I’m out of these chains and wrap my hands around that neck of yours, you mangy self obsessed bottom of the barrel talk show host—”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Vox interjected tiredly with a raised hand. He sighed and refrained from rubbing at his temples. “Why is it so hard for you to just admit it? It’s not a crime to have feelings.”

“I do not have feelings,” Alastor hissed venomously. “Especially not for a man who’s so weak willed and helpless to search for handouts wherever he goes to gain a smidge of power. Who dared to think he’d hang off my coattails and waste my time with his deceitfulness. The gall to insinuate that I’d ever feel anything for you other than contempt and disgust would be laughable if it weren’t so pitiful.”

“Deceitful?” He echoed and then laughed bitterly. “If anyone was deceiving it was you. Years of companionship down the drain because you’d rather sit up at the top alone than admit you actually enjoy my company.”

He felt the heat of Alastor’s glare and answered back with a stare of his own, wordlessly daring him to deny it.

“And if I did?” Alastor questioned lowly after an excruciating pause. Vox felt his heart jump at the sliver of confession. “So what? Your worth to me boiled down to the amusement your bumbling gave me. I allowed you to learn some tricks of the trade because it made getting territory easier to take. I allowed you to sit with me because the obvious worship in your eyes made you exploitable to a hilarious degree. You’d worn out your stay when you decided you wanted the stage for yourself, selfish as you are.”

“I—I wanted the stage for myself?” Vox looked at him in disbelief. “Do you hear yourself? You think I spent years at your side, forcing myself to drink sazerac, because I had some master plan to, to what? Dethrone you?”

Alastor’s silently raised eyebrow spoke volumes. 

Anger that had been simmering beneath the surface exploded into a boiling rage inside him. “Then you’re a fucking idiot!” He shouted. “Jesus—did you ever think that maybe I did all that because I fucking loved you?” Alastor’s eyes widened like this was some big surprise to him, which, what a laughable thought when he’d referenced how doey-eyed Vox had been for him. 

Vox threw his hands in the air. “I don’t even fucking like sazerac!” The floodgates had opened and out it barreled in a torrent. “But you loved that shit so of course I had to sit there and sip my stupid fucking too sweet drink in the hopes it’d make you, I don’t know, like me more. Satan forbid someone actually enjoys spending time with you because not everything’s a secret ploy to use you or take your precious power you hold so obsessively dear.” By the end of his rant he was panting, breathing heavily, and embarrassing himself further by showing so much vulnerability, essentially offering up his neck on a platter, but damn it he was tired. Emotionally and physically, and the idea of having Alastor being bound to him forever wasn’t as appealing as it had been in the beginning if this was what it came down to.

He didn’t know what outcome he expected from spilling his guts. It wasn’t like Alastor would care or reciprocate in any way, despite what niggling suspicions he might have about his true feelings. The radio demon had himself so far buried he likely had no idea what he felt. What was Vox trying to accomplish here?

Alastor sat on his chair quietly, an indecipherable look on his face, the kind Vox couldn’t hope to understand. Contemplative, if he had to guess, but with a darkness creeping from the edges not unlike the time he wanted to rip apart a whole block full of sinners for double crossing him.

Vox steeled himself. Alastor treated emotion like one would with foul garbage. Except he would have to acknowledge garbage in order to throw it out. With feelings involved Alastor would rather abdicate from the whole thing altogether if it meant he didn’t have to deal with pesky human faults.

“You don’t love me,” came the surprisingly muted retort. Alastor had lost his bite from earlier and in its place was a pensive countenance.

Vox chuckled darkly. “That's your problem, Alastor. You never could quite grasp the fact that despite your attempts to renounce any humanity you once had, not all of us are the same.” He waved a hand absentmindedly in the air, wishing his growing headache would disappear. “What do I care at this point? I've finally got everything I dreamed of. There are more TVs in homes than radios these days, after all. I don’t need you.”

“And yet here I am.”

His screen glitched briefly, hopefully unnoticed.

“Well, wanting is an entirely different thing.”

Alastor’s face twisted chillingly. “You want me like a hunter does their prized animal. Mantled onto the wall so everyone can see. That’s not love. That’s ownership.”

He scoffed. “Have you forgotten you willingly offered yourself to me? To protect your ‘investments,’ so you say,” he rolled his eyes, showing how much he believed that line. “And if this is the only way you’ll allow me to have you then, ha, why not revel in it. Don’t act so high and mighty when you’d do the same if our places were reversed.”

“I’m not the one claiming to,” Alastor paused to grimace. “Love anyone. Seems rather counterintuitive to treat someone you hold in high regard with such depravity.”

“Do you—do you honestly think I still love you? After all this time? After you rejected me and made me the laughingstock of the city. It took me years to salvage my reputation, no thanks to you, and most of it was spent scrounging to make up for the losses you caused me.”

Remembering the aftermath of their broken friendship made him want to scream hard enough that it caused outages miles long. He didn’t care if Alastor said otherwise, they had been friends. He might not have wanted to put a label on it but the facts didn’t change.

Vox had been practically catatonic then. Living each day listlessly, searching for something he’d never have again, and wanting to delete himself as he wondered where he’d gone wrong. He couldn’t quite recall when exactly he got back on his feet, when the drive to continue his reworked plans for hell wide domination resurfaced, but he did know it happened after he blocked a certain demon’s broadcast from his channels.

He may have loved Alastor but the very same emotion became the base for the malice and loathing he’d spent decades building and fortifying like a wall around his heart.

“Love may not be within the area of my expertise but I like to think I’ve grown a bit since my stay at little Charlie Morningstar’s hotel,” Alastor said with a cock of his head. “In which I’ve gleaned what it means when your gaze lingers on my person far longer than necessary, or how your complexion raises to a lighter hue around me.”

Vox fought the urge to let the aforementioned blush make itself known. Even the strongest walls held cracks deep enough.

“Wow. Congrats,” he said sarcastically. “You learned basic fucking social skills. You want me to throw a party for something people learn by age three?” 

Alastor grinned wider, his teeth sharp and promising. “I wasn’t finished, my dear, but if you’d rather take the stage floor again, by all means!” His voice sunk into his radio filter with dramatic flare.

Vox shot him an unamused look.

“No? Hm, and here I thought you liked the sound of your voice.”

His eye twitched. “Get to the point,” he gritted out.

“No need to get twisted up in knots, my good man!”

Vox grimaced. Alastor was leaning deep into his accent and radio persona. It was especially annoying when it seemed like he was about to reveal something significant.

Although, that may be why he was acting as such. Who would’ve thought even the great and mighty Alastor was fallible enough to succumb to something as human as a defense mechanism.

“The hotel is a lot of things—a foolish dream, a cess pool of positive toxicity, the reason we sinners may all be damned to be exterminated,” Alastor listed brazenly despite the depressing content matter. “But I’ve rather found myself in a predicament as of late. Charlie loves her special group therapy sessions, you see, and she sometimes asks me to join in.”

At this, Vox couldn’t hold back his snort. He knew what Morningstar’s little therapy group entailed and he wished he and Velvette could’ve gotten the one with Alastor on camera. Not that he had any hope his cameras would’ve stayed intact while around him but what a missed opportunity.

Alastor smirked like he knew where Vox’s thoughts had gone. “Yes, yes, amusing I know. Usually I sit in to humor her and she accepts the most I’ll do is watch on silently but…”

Damn that demon. He knew what he was doing, trailing off and looking toward Vox coyly and expectantly. He wanted Vox on the edge of his seat dying to hear the rest, his ego stroked like any other entertainer would. Vox understood that feeling well.

“I found myself at times engaged with the sorry excuse of a group. Listening to them prattle about their miserable failures and disastrous relationships, it allowed me some insight into my own past.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?”

“It seems I may have potentially grown to care for you during our time together back then!” Alastor revealed brightly as if he expected Vox to share his joy. Instead Vox remained frozen, watching him warily. He carried on as easily as breathing, “A shock, I realize, but imagine my surprise when it explained occurrences I’d previously brushed off as some undiscovered debilitating disease—haha!”

“So,” Vox parsed slowly. “You expect me to believe sitting with a bunch of sniveling losers as they show and tell their snot and tears made you suddenly grow a heart?” A strangled, mangled noise escaped from the back of his throat. “Do you think I was killed yesterday?”

Alastor paused. Then stared at him. He opened his mouth.

“Skepticism really is an ugly look on you, Vox, I mean, those frown lines and wrinkles are going to bleed onto your screen permanently—”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Alastor gasped dramatically. “I am trying to tell you how I had no idea I’d learn to depend on you for companionship. Sure, I had noticed a sort of emptiness after we dissolved our acquaintance, but it took seventy years and witnessing many of what Angel Dust termed, ‘sappy hallmark moments,’ before realizing perhaps I had categorized you as a friend subconsciously.” He learned forward in his seat. “It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say I missed your presence.”

The silence in the aftermath was deafening.

Vox had no idea what to do with his hands. They shook uncontrollably until he had no choice but to clench them and hide them behind his back but still they persisted.

He let out a shuddering breath in the hopes it’d regulate his processors but they, like himself, were overwhelmed.

Alastor was torturing him. He knew it. Alastor knew it. Like dangling a carrot in front of him and leading him on.

“...Vincent?”

The use of his name was sobering. A dump of cold water to his face he’d desperately needed. 

His voice lowered, “You say you missed me?” The room dropped to a noticeable icy degree but Alastor greeted it with glee. Vox answered it with a piercing cool smile of his own. 

Flashbacks hit him in waves. Vox, a newborn sinner, meeting the infamous radio demon. Pining after him and his amazing feats. Loving him. Losing him. Rising from the ashes higher than ever. Stronger than ever.

Lonely as ever. 

Seventy years. Seventy years for it all to be thrown in his face because Alastor hadn’t had enough fucking therapy to deal with his own shit. 

“You missed starstruck Vox who hung off your every word and would’ve followed you to the ends of hell to make you happy,” he swallowed, sourness coating his throat. “You have no idea what it means to truly love someone, and for how evil and masochistic I am, at least I can say I have the ability to care about another person.” Val had shown him that.

Alastor tutted, disappointed. “How shallow of you to think your way of love is the only way.”

“And how narcissistic of you to think loving someone is missing what they could do for you,” Vox retorted.

Alastor let out a long suffering sigh and his eyes rolled upward. “If that’s what you took away from my admission, then, it seems we’re at an impasse.”

“At least it’s a step above from whatever the fuck we’ve been doing to each other for decades.”

“Oh come on,” he said, sounding teasing, as if they were sitting in that smokey bar once again and talking like old friends, and Vox was enough of a moron to want to fall for the illusion. “It wasn’t all bad, was it? Sure we had our differences and squabbles along the years but it had its charm. Think of it as keeping ourselves young and refreshed.”

A bark of laughter erupted from Vox. “That’s one way to look at it. I seem to remember we destroyed a five mile radius of buildings the last time we fought.”

Alastor was practically buzzing in his seat, something wild and heady in his eyes that Vox couldn’t take his gaze off. It was like a breath of fresh air, like stepping into sunlight, to see Alastor so lively and remind him why he’d been so drawn to him in the first place.

“How exhilarating it was,” he breathed out. “You were one of the few people who gave me anything close to a challenge. Certainly the most thrilling.”

Warmth flooded Vox’s person. He’d be lying if he said the flattery didn’t make him want to shut offline for maintenance and hide for the next few hours like some blushing schoolgirl.

He let his desire guide him, to steer him closer to the trap Alastor had laid out perfectly for him.

“You always know how to talk your way out of anything,” Vox relented, conceding, body expression loose.

His feet took him closer, until Alastor had no choice but to crane his neck to meet his eyes, and he slid a hand to cup his cheek. Vox had already done this earlier, a gross imitation of intimacy, but this time there notes of genuiness. His thumb swept across Alastor’s cheek, a shiver passing through him when it brushed the corner of his lips. His gaze locked onto how Alastor leaned the tiniest bit into his palm, as if seeking solace from Vox.

It was everything Vox had ever wanted—Alastor accepting him. It felt electrifying, freeing, like his heart was permanently lodged in his throat. It felt like he’d been given a second chance, a fresh start, to make amends and have their story written differently. It felt like—

It felt like heartbreak.

“And I know…” Vox whispered, feeling in real time as jaw muscles tensed under his hand. “I know that you’re only letting me do this because you’re hiding something else, something bigger, from me.” He let a single claw trace down the deer’s cheek, mimicking a teardrop’s trail. Alastor eyes flashed briefly—shock, maybe, that he had figured it out. Or perhaps astonished that he was remaining soft in the face of his deceptiveness. 

Whatever life remained in blood red eyes dulled and the vindication Vox expected to feel coursing through him never came. Instead he felt cold and bereft.

“I told you I wasn’t that naive, starstruck person anymore. You’re not making a fool out of me again,” he said with a steadying breath. It was the final nail in the coffin. A goodbye. “I will find out why you made your deal with me.”

He committed the feel of his skin to memory, the way his breath hitched imperceptibly, another file to add to his favorited Alastor folder, and then he pulled away. 

He left Alastor sitting there alone as the lights automatically shut off behind him, nothing but a rolling chair and a darkened room to keep him company. 

It was justice to be the one to leave first.

Vox had won but it didn’t feel like a victory.