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A lick of static trails up Vox's arm, one that's slung over the side of the massive bed with claws nearly scrapping the floor. The tickle is enough to rouse his sleeping mainframe, screen blinking back into existence with a few nanoseconds of flickering white. Forcing his processors to catch up is more difficult, especially when he knows, thanks to an internal redundancy, that it is only two in the fucking morning, and there is no reason to be awake at this hour without copious amounts of caffeine. Vox has only been in bed actively trying to sleep for the last hour or so, and should have been out for at least another five or so before starting another tedious day.
But there's a chill on his back where another body should be, and pupils blown far too wide staring at him mere inches from his screen. Fluffy crimson ears turn flat against a skull at the sudden brightness of Vox's face, brought to 100% at the sheer fright of being jarred awake. Alastor's eyes are nearly consumed with black, barely a sliver of his pink irises left as his ears twitch in anticipation. His yellowed smile flickers, casting odd shadows against his cheekbones that make him seem larger than life in the dim lighting of Vox's bedroom.
The shadow it casts against his walls looks ready to devour him whole.
Vox feels his heart jolt in his chest. Sleep fades from his mind with haste, leaving only room for the horror of what is about to come. One of Alastor's hands comes to rest on the edge of the bed, a single claw resting against the glass. Razor sharp, Vox knows that those devils can just as easily caress his body as they can steal a piece of his liver. He fights against a flinch as a jagged line digs into his screen, trailing from beneath his digital eye to the edge of his casing.
There's a brief huff from Alastor's nose, hard enough to ruffle the sheets, ghosting against Vox's neck, and then he's gone.
Even the faint light of his smile is removed, drowned by the shadows that consume everything. Vox's apartment is not a place for darkness. Between the various electronics and his massive tanks filled with all varieties of aquatic life, finding a shaded corner or overlooked crevasse is a challenge. His lover has complained about how it complicates his travels, forcing him to take the elevator like a civilized member of society. Vox just hates to admit that he's no longer accustomed to pitch black, having been drowned in stage lights before and after death.
Not that it matters now. Every wave of light has been snuffed out like a burnt out candle. Even the brightness of his screen is lost to the void of unnatural darkness. The air feels thicker as Vox pushes himself from bed, falling to the ground in a less than graceful heap. The rest of his processors haven't quite caught up with the situation they have found themselves in, leaving his joints stiff and his skin itchy. Only his gills manage to flutter with anticipation of what's to come.
Slowly, carefully, he inches forward, knees sliding against the sleek marble floors. The silk of his pajama bottoms does nothing to suppress the chill. His spine rattles with shivers and foreboding, knowing that if he doesn't get moving soon, he won't be waking up tomorrow morning. Regeneration is a bitch and he has far too many meetings that have been rescheduled far too many times. Alastor had heard him stressing the importance of each one over their dinner, red wine flowing freely before the rye had been opened. That soft grin, chin resting against freshly sharpened claws, ears low and relaxed, would be burned into Vox's mind for the rest of forever.
Of course his prick of a partner would chose tonight of all nights to pull a stunt like this.
The top of his head collides with the wall harshly, jarring the pixels of his face. His antennae squeal with feedback, sensitive and angry at the jostling. The bent one sparks in angry arcs, neon blue embers shooting off like a flare. Vox curses under his breath, trying to get his surprise under control. His exhaustion is only making him an easier target, a prey animal in the middle of a field without escape. A curved talon sinking into his ankle, curling around the tendon of his ankle, warns him of his first mistake.
Alastor is kind in that way. Vox won't get that lucky a second time.
The television leaps to the side, catching his hand on the doorway of the bedroom. Alastor's claw tears straight through the delicate flesh of his ankle, severing the connection between calf and foot. It hurts, dear Satan does it hurt, but there's no time. Pain is temporary, another nuisance, another horror, another punishment. Vox has become well acquainted with it's presence over the last century. What is a little bloodshed between lovers, friends, foes? At least it wasn't anything vital.
Vox uses the doorframe to propel himself into the hallway. His path is eased by silk and blood, allowing him an escape from the infernal darkness and back into the subtle glow of his penthouse. His caught breath finally escapes him in pants, rapid and horrible, as he catches a glimpse of Alastor's tongue chasing the trail of his blood. There's a garble of static that must be a laugh, amusement in the haunting slivers of pink that flicker in the shadows. He forces himself to his feet, or well, foot as the other seems to be useless now.
Tucking himself against the large sofa that takes up most of the room gives Vox a moment to breathe. His fingers itch to turn on the lights, to chase away the terrible things that linger in shadow and void. He's been through this enough times to know that the game will end the moment he does, with petulant Alastor sulking back to bed without a word. Instead, he wraps a hand around his tendon to staunch the flow and focuses on the rules of the game.
Rule 1. Bloodshed is never off the table, unless someone cries Prometheus.
Rule 2. Turning on the lights ruins the thrill of the chase and is effectively the same as yelling Prometheus.
Rule 3. The only end to the chase is the catching of the prey.
Problem is, despite the what the beginning the of the pursuit would suggest, Alastor is the prey. With gnashing teeth and a kick strong enough to knock his head clean off his neck, his partner craves the chase. There's a thrill in being hunted, of feeling the need to hide and blend in. Of accepting that no matter where he runs or how hard he tries, Vox will find him and claim what is his. He wishes Alastor would just ask for what he wants with words rather than a creepy wake up call in the dead of night, but beggars can't be choosers.
Demonic healing is making quick work of Vox's Achilles heal, knitting flesh together as fast as he can weave a plan. Something clatters to the floor in the kitchen, a smash of glass and the skittering of an old apple across the floor. A stream of light from the refrigerator leaks into the narrow hall between them. Vox lets out a large sigh, scrubbing the last remnants of sleep from his screen, before crouching down on all fours. A bruised piece of fruit knocks against his knee, glistening with bloody saliva.
Vox locks on to the stench of blood, of that which is his not his own. Alastor's tongue and his teeth do not always agree on which belongs in his mouth. It's not uncommon for streams of blood to seep from the corners of his lips, meeting the red of his collar without so much as a stain. Perhaps his shirt had been white once, now rouge from the constant stream. He hopes to one day know the truth, but he'd have to get over just how mad the smell of Alastor's blood makes him, and after all this time, it doesn't seem likely that he'll get his answer.
A single tooth, canine and sharp, is embedded in the apple. A whisper of tendon and gum remains, but clearly it had been ready to go. Alastor likely already had one behind it, ready to replace a fallen comrade. The Radio Demon's victims, those with bodies left behind anyway, often had decayed and honeyed teeth still rooted into the muscle and fat, latched onto bone. Vox's plucks it out with overzealous claws, nearly crushing the softened enamel with the force of his eagerness. What he lacks in a nose, he makes up for in other senses.
His gills flutter against the fabric of his tank top. And then. Frenzy.
There's little Vox can do to stop it once it happens. Before Alastor, he'd woken to slain sinners at his feet, blood soaked and sated. The odd strips of sinew he'd pulled from his teeth had been coincidence. Marks of struggle had been battle scars. Fallen foes coincided with a dry cleaning bill, and Vox had been to focused on climbing Hell's ladder to care. Bigger, better, brighter.
Plenty of shark species are cannibals, it turns out. Not quite so different from his human form, if not for the change in methodology.
A whiff of Alastor's blood causes his back to arch and his screen to meet the floor. This dims the light of his screen, but allows his other senses to take over. Visual stimuli only adds to the noise that swims in his head constantly, violently, a mess of emotions and thoughts too nonsensical to matter. Here, in his home with his lover and their game, instincts can be their driving force. Vox can block out the massive pumps for his aquariums, the constant hum of the tower itself, the snoring of his fellow Vees. There was only a single current that floated through the air, casual as can be, that made his mouth water.
From the bottom corner of the kitchen archway, Alastor's eyes briefly caught the glow of his screen, flashing green in the reflection of the sudden light.
Vox's arms stretched out in front of him, chest meeting the floor as he locks on to that excitable gaze. His back arches, hips raised high. Thighs tighten, calves coiled with a strength usually reserved for battle. There's a hiss of talons scratching against smooth tile.
Their bodies collide midair.
Alastor had aimed to sail overtop of him, to lead their chase deeper into the apartment, but Vox is fast. Certainly faster now that this has become a semi regular occurrence. He's been affectionately calling them Alastor's "zoomies", which the Radio Demon abhors. Despite his very cervine appearance, Vox thinks he's far more feline in both attitude and tendencies. His point is only proven further when Alastor hisses as Vox's hand wraps around his waist, the tips of his claws catching in the silk of his partner's pajama top.
Despite being a lithe thing, Alastor hits the floor with a loud thud, nearly cracking the tile as Vox slams him down. A bleat of static fills the air, filling his screen with white noise for a brief moment. That's all his companion needs. Pointy hooves, sharpened just this evening as part of his pampering, catch Vox in the gills, splitting some of his lamellae. While he uses them mostly for ventilation rather than oxygenation, it still steals the breath from his lungs as blood pours from his side. The added slickness causes his knee to give, sliding inelegantly from under him.
He has to release Alastor to catch him, to protect his delicate face from shattering. Alastor slides out from beneath him, languid and giggling. "You'll have to try better than that, Vincent," he purrs, slipping back into the shadows before Vox can catch his breath. He groans as something clatters to the floor in the living room, something large and likely expensive that he'll have to replace tomorrow.
Internally, he forces his ventilation systems closed, sealing his gills and preventing more blood from escaping his body. Hopefully the stain would come out of these pants. He really likes these shark pajamas.
Vox forces himself upright, taking careful steps towards the destruction that awaits him. The large flat screen that usually takes up most of the wall is in shards, glass and plastic spilling out in an arch on the ground. The side table next to his ridiculous sofa has claw marks deep enough to eat from gouged into the fine wood. Alastor's favorite chair is on its side, the fluffy blanket he was using earlier discarded in a heap.
If he can't beat him, he might as well join him.
One of his giant cyan claws rests for a moment on a sleek sculpture he purchased for far too much money, all harsh lines and amorphous nonsense. Vox hates the thing, only kept it around since Velvette decided it would be the next big thing. Unfortunately, that seems to change every week, and now he's left with an ugly statue that Vel insults every time she's in his apartment. Hypocrite. He'd find more joy in the destruction of this garbage art if he wasn't immediately ducking for cover.
The high back and deep cushions of the sofa hide his giant frame well, the fabric absorbing some of his residual light. Vox may not have night vision, but he can see with his screen dimmed to 1%, which is basically the same. It's enough for him to see Alastor spring forward from behind his usual chair, clawing at the ceramic chunks that litter the ground. The short hair on the back of his head is nearly standing on end, hackles raised and ready for a fight. Vox can hear the growl of disappointment that this wasn't a clumsy mistake, but instead a trap.
A trap that is, quite literally, sprung.
Vox leaps over the sofa, lunging for his prey with precision. Toned arms wrap tightly around Alastor's waist, his own claws tearing into his arms to lock the wiggling deer in place. The laugh he lets out is triumphant and ridiculous, much too loud for the early hours of their game. But Alastor's giggles are just as loud, just as sweet, lightening the abyss that surrounds them.
Vox's antennas spark, a heart forming in the center as he lifts Alastor from the ground. This time his hooves kick with a giddy petulance, not to maim. His tail flicks wildly from side to side, rustling the fabric between them. That vicious grin has softened, melting into sheer joy. Once blown pupils have rescinded, exposing the beautiful pink and red eyes he's adored for decades. Despite his panting breaths, the heat building in his lungs, the sweat tickling his skin, Vox couldn't be happier.
"Gotcha! Come to bed, you freak!" Vox sets Alastor's feet against the ground, but doesn't let him go, pressing him further against his chest. "You're going to have to get the blood out of these pants in the morning," he says, lacking any bite. Alastor's hands resting against his forearms, head resting against his shoulder, soothes his nerves near instantly.
Alastor's laughter dies down in fits as he relaxes against Vox's solid frame. His fingers dance along Vox's wrists, pressing down just enough to feel his fluttering heartbeat. "Whatever you say, dear." He wiggles himself in Vox's grip, turning in his arms to lace his fingers behind the television's neck. "What were you saying about bed? I find myself quite exhausted."
Vox huffs hard enough to blow Alastor's bangs from his forehead. "Prick. You just want me to be exhausted so I'll cancel my meetings and tend to you all day instead." It doesn't stop him from carrying Alastor back to their bed, laying him down with a softness reserved only for them.
"Hmmmm, perhaps. Is it working?" It's coy, sweet, and everything Vox thought he would never have.
"I could be convinced," he growls, leaning down to press a kiss to Alastor's lips. Vox would love to drag it out, take him apart, leave them both sobbing with need and want and release.
A rapid fist against the front door of the penthouse ruins their perfect bubble, rattling the walls. "You two need to shut the fuck up so I can get my beauty sleep, cabrón! If I hear one more footstep, I'm going to rip your dick off and shove it down your throat!" Valentino's screeching is almost engulfed by their shared laughter, nearly choking on their joy. Vox collapses into bed, curling around his lover as they let their amusement subside. Eventually, the moth demon leaves, swearing in every language he knows.
Vox can't resist caressing Alastor's face, pressing a wayward strand of hair out of his eyes. "Goodnight, Al," he whispers, screen readying itself for rest mode.
"Goodnight, Vincent," Alastor sighs, nestling his head against Vox's chest. "Sleep tight. Don't let the sinners bite."
Nights like these are the ones where Vox gets the best sleep he has in his entire (after)life.