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Vox had achieved everything he ever wanted to. Victory felt like a tidal wave of ecstasy in his veins, like he was connected to every source of power in hell. The only thing now to complete the constant hole in his chest was to finally get answers after all these decades.
Alastor was still tied to the chair where Vox had bound him to with reinforced cables, body sacked with all energy gone. Good. Vox hoped the injury fucking hurt.
“Wakey wakey,” he yelled as he threw the door closed with a bang. Alastor didn't give him the satisfaction of flinching but it was a near thing, if the twitching of his ears was any indication. He slowly rose like he was still trying to portray himself as someone who hadn't just been paraded across the entire town in a muzzle.
“Vox,” he said with a biting smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Just wanted to see how my favorite prisoner is doing! You know, I do want to make your stay here as comfortable as possible.”
“Evidently.” Alastor looked down at the cables around him.
“Aww, don't look like that, old friend, I know you'd have done much worse if our roles were reversed.”
Alastor gave him a good-natured shrug. “I would have torn you limb from limb and feasted on your organs.”
“That's the only way you'd want me inside you, huh?”
Radio static made his ears ring for a moment as a look of pure disgust flew over Alastor's face. Great. Even just the idea of Vox and him together repulsed him this much.
“What do you want?” Alastor asked, and Vox had the distinct impression he simply wanted to change the subject. “Came here to gloat more? Honestly, I'd have thought you'd be bored by now. All this repetitiveness and-”
Vox grabbed his face. Annoyed, Alastor tried to twist away, only to stop when Vox's claws dug deep into his cheeks. It was almost like being high, this ability to touch him however and whenever he wanted, to be able to feel the warmth of his skin, to rub his thumb into his flesh and feel the blood and veins underneath. Vox felt like a man in withdrawal who finally tasted a sip of alcohol after months of abstinence. It wasn't fair, this grip Al still had over him.
“Still entertained by manhandling me? Pathetic.”
“Shut up.”
“You've never been the most creative person. But what do I expect from the personification of the television?”
“You never know when to just keep quiet, huh?”
“Time made you weak, Vincent. Is this sentimentality I see? Still hung up on that little acquaintanceship we had all those decades ago-”
Vox twisted his fingers into Alastor's hair and kissed him. It was violent and awkward, more a clash of teeth than anything resembling warmth, but Vox couldn't help the shudder of pleasure, couldn't help but push himself deeper, deeper into Alastor, deeper into his space, until he was practically sitting on his lap. Radio static tore at his ears but he was too deep into the sensation of Alastor, Alastor, Alastor, Alastor-
Vox nipped at his lip, pressed his mouth open, breathed into him and fuck, Alastor must feel this too, this tension, this fucking all-consuming desire that had haunted Vox for the last decades. Alastor was shaking underneath him, teeth clamping down to bite into Vox's tongue but that only made him gasp in pleasure. Blood spilled into Alastor's mouth and Vox felt him choke when it went down his airway. Alastor was twisting in his binds, legs kicking out as shadows tried to tear Vox away, but Vox ignored them, too focused on the desire to care.
“I finally have you,” he whispered into Alastor like a prayer, “I finally fucking have you, fuck-”
What an addicting feeling, kissing him, touching him, being able to freely consume him.
So then why-?
Why?
Why did Vox's chest still feel so empty?
Decades ago kissing Alastor would have completed his world, would have made him whole. So why did it still feel the same as the day Alastor had ripped his heart out of his chest?
Vox plunged his hand underneath Alastor's shirt, felt along every inch of skin, every part of Alastor, he shut his eyes and pressed closer until it felt like their bodies would merge into each other.
And it changed nothing.
With an angry scream Vox separated, surging up without releasing Alastor, as if his body couldn't even fathom the idea of letting go. Alastor was wide-eyed underneath him, ears pinned to his head as he was gasping for air, still choking on Vox's blood. It coated his teeth, his chin, dripped onto his suit, climbed into the collar of his shirt. Vox slowly removed his hand from Alastor's waist and Alastor followed his every movement with his eyes like he was ready for an attack. Fucking hell.
Maybe Vox had just built up this moment too much in his head. Or maybe- maybe he had been too aggressive. His younger self wouldn't have kissed Alastor like that. He'd have been soft. Gentle.
Vox released Alastor's hair to instead let his hand rest against his cheek, thumbing the soft skin underneath his eye. Alastor’s smile looked more like a grimace, his composure frayed. There was a constant growl in the back of his throat that reverberated through them both. Did Alastor ever have a lover? Had he ever kissed someone like Vox just had? Had he ever loved someone the way he wouldn't love Vox? Did he prefer gentleness, to combat all the violence in their lives?
Vox leaned down again and kissed him, this time gentle. He tried to imagine it, being decades younger, imagined sitting at that bar with his friend, nervous about his proposal. He imagined a world where Al had just said yes, where they would kiss, drunk on booze and happiness. Would Alastor shiver underneath his touch, would his hands come to a rest on Vox's waist to pull him closer?
Alastor was shuddering as he tried to twist away. His arms were bound and he hadn't closed his eyes.
What the hell was Vox doing.
Chasing remnants of his old life, of a dream that had long been torn apart. As if that version of him hadn't been weak. Too weak to keep someone by his side. Fuck, even now he wasn't able to. Alastor looked at him like he was a cockroach he had stepped on.
Vox had dreamt of this day for decades and it only left him with an acidic bitterness that climbed up his throat like vomit. He gave one last press against Alastor's lips, tried to imprint the warmth into his RAM, before separating for good. For a moment they seemed in limbo, in a frozen dance.
Alastor spat on the floor when Vox didn't move to kiss him again. He continued to spit and choke and wow okay, overreaction much? Vox wasn't that bad of a kisser.
Radio dials flashed up at him in pure anger. “What the fuck was that.”
“Why the surprise?” Vox asked, unafraid by the pure rage dripping off Alastor's entire being. “I've been wanting to do this the entire time we've known each other.”
“You wanted to assault me?!”
“I- what- I mean I wanted to kiss you, you asshole!”
Alastor's lips curled into pure and unadulterated disgust as if Vox had announced he wanted to get redeemed in that little hotel of theirs.
“Do that again and I will rip you apart until not even your little goons will be able to recognize the bloody puddle I'll leave behind.”
Vox tightened the restraints with a flick of his hand until Alastor hissed. Served the fucker right for thinking he had any right to threaten Vox in the position he was in.
“I humiliated you, electrocuted and slammed you around and this is what gets you angry?! Me kissing you!? Fuck you, I'm not actually this disgusting to you! Is it ‘cause I'm a guy? Are you, like, super-straight or something?! With that getup?!”
“Hah?!” By now Alastor seemed to have lost all of his composure. It was enticing to look at, the way his mask was slipping. “Wasn't having me as an unwilling audience for your depravity enough?!” He froze all of a sudden like a video paused, his ears pinned to his head, and for the first time he looked genuinely scared. After everything Vox had done, and only now did he look like he was aware of the situation he was in. “How far are you willing to go for your childish anger, Vox?”
Fuck you, Vox thought. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
After decades and the pain, this awful hole Alastor had ripped in his chest, was just seen as childish by the very person who had caused it.
“It wouldn't mean anything anyway,” Vox muttered bitterly and leaned away, letting go of Alastor. Somehow it was the most difficult thing he had done, his body still yearning to touch, to feel, to caress. It was a hollow want though, empty without reciprocation.
“Mean anything?!” Alastor's voice had grown shrill and if Vox wasn't seconds away from turning his systems off for the next months to just relax in darkness, he’d have laughed. “Why would that mean anything?!”
Fucker. “Very funny,” Vox hissed. He glared down at Alastor, before frowning. Alastor didn't look like he wanted to mock him. No, he looked genuinely confused, like he could not conceive any reason why Vox would want to kiss him. For a moment Vox froze before his systems rebooted again. “You- you're serious.”
For the first time in probably his entire life and afterlife Alastor stayed quiet. Speechless. Vox had finally shut him up and he couldn't even enjoy it.
“Again, you can't possibly understand why the fuck I wanna kiss you piece of shit?”
”No,” Alastor said, baffled. He pulled back with a disgusted grimace. “Aren't you and that Moth Man..?”
“Open relationship.”
“And the sanctity of love lives on.”
Vox slapped him lightly over the head. Fucking 1930's piece of shit who should really learn to get with the times. It was a shocker the asshole wasn't on Vox's ass for liking men. It had been one of the reasons Vox had fallen for him all those decades ago. Vox had grown up in an extremely homophobic time and place, and hell had equally been as homophobic back then. And there he had been, the strongest sinner of them all, uncaring for whatever sexuality you had. It had been refreshing, had made him think that maybe, just maybe, Alastor too had liked men. It had made the rejection feel all the more painful.
“Guess I wanted to fulfill my younger self's dream. Don't think anything of it, I'm not dumb enough to still be in love with you.”
Alastor, honest to God, choked. He coughed, smile almost slipping off his face, only kept on by desperation and an invisible force.
”What.”
“Why the fuck do you look like I just burned down that stupid fucking hotel of yours?”
Alastor looked like he had just found the last piece of a very complex puzzle. "You... had a crush on me. That's what that proposal was. You fancied me."
"It wasn't a- it wasn't a fucking crush!" Of course motherfucking Alastor would lighten the all-encompassing feeling Vox once had for him into a simple crush. “I was in love with you! I worshipped you! I loved you more than I've ever loved anyone in my life! And then you- you didn't just reject me, you fucking crushed me, Al. You broke me.”
Alastor still looked like he was reeling from the realization. “Decades of obsession - and that's what it was?! Romantic interest?! I broke you because of romantic interest?! Vox, I'm disappointed.”
“You don't get it,” Vox muttered and wondered how the fuck he had ever fallen in love with this asshole. “‘Course you don't. You have no idea what it feels to love.”
Alastor's eyebrows furrowed. He looked angrier than when Vox had ripped his stitches out. “You think just because I don't want to fuck you that means I've never experienced love?”
“It's not about sex!” Vox yelled. “I'd have been happy not ever touching you if it meant staying by your side!”
“Fine, you think just because I don't want to kiss anyone that means I don't feel love.”
“Yes!” Vox said. “Kissing, love, romance- you don't even understand any of it! This entire time I thought you just didn't want me! But- ha, haha, turns out you just can't feel love!”
It seemed to have struck a nerve in Alastor. Shadows flickered around them as his smile grew sharper. Then the anger ebbed away from his face like water dripping off skin. It left behind a lazy smile. “And here I thought we actually had something approaching a friendly acquaintanceship back then,” he sighed.
“What do you mean?”
“I've told you about my life before all this. Why, you are one of the only ones who knows! And yet you claim I don't feel love to- what? Feel better about yourself?” He threw his head back, laughing. “How pathetic! One rejection, decades ago, and you still have to go so far as to lie to yourself to keep that fragile ego intact!”
Vox grit his teeth, felt his claws dig into the cushion of Alastor's chair. It took only a deep breath and a quick background cooling of his systems to make himself relax, to not jump at the asshole's throat and wring it. It had been decades ago, but Alastor had told him about his old life. It had been one of the reasons Vox had assumed his interest was mutual, after all not everyone had received the privilege of information on the infamous Radio Demon. Alastor had told him about his killing spree, his victims. That his first victim had been his father for what he had done to his mother.
“It's not the same,” Vox muttered. “You're supposed to love your mother.”
“And yet many don't.” Alastor rolled his eyes, seemingly done with the conversation. He let out an aggrieved sigh, leaning back into his chair. “I don't need to prove to you that I'm capable of love.”
“Then why are you trying to?” Vox leaned closer and he hated it, hated how much he still needed from Alastor after all this time. Back then he had thought Alastor was all he had, was all he needed. After the rejection he had thought this love, this pain, would disappear once he became stronger, once he got his team, a lover, friends, respect, power, status. How cruel, that they were still there, lingering in the back of his mind like a constant reminder of the hole Alastor had ripped out of his chest. Hell, back then Vox would have freely given him his heart to devour if it meant being able to keep him.
Alastor shrugged as well as he could in his binds. “Call it whatever leftover affection I still have for you.”
Vox almost blue-screened. “You- you still have affection-”
“No. God, you're making this too easy, Vincent.” Alastor spat his old name like an insult and Vox closed his eyes, steeled his mind against whatever leftover affection he still had. Whatever. He didn't need Al. He didn't need his approval, his affection, his whatever. He didn't need any of that.
“You never wanted me at all?” Vox wanted to know. “Not even a little bit?”
Alastor frowned at him, his smile dimmer than usual, more honest than the annoyance he had worn during Vox' victory parade. "I'm not interested, you know? Wasn't back then either."
"Yeah, no shit," Vox snorted. “Couldn't have been clearer than that. What if- what if I had made it clear it was a romantic proposition? Would you have been as cruel?”
“Hmm,” Alastor tilted his head. “I would have been crueler.”
“Of course, fucking-” Vox finally stood up, pushing himself away as he pinched the area where the bridge of his nose once had been. It was a leftover gesture, so ingrained and present even after having spent more time as a TV than as a human. “You're the most infuriating fucking- fuck- what the hell did I even see in you, fucking, dicksucking- shit!”
“It doesn't change anything,” Alastor said. “I thought you just wanted to use me for my power. Now I know you wanted to use me for something worse.”
“You make it sound so dirty,” Vox hissed. “I really just- just wanted partnership. With you. ‘Cause I genuinely liked you. Is that so hard to believe?”
Alastor's expression said yes, it was indeed hard to believe.
Vox let himself fall onto his desk chair and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He poured himself a glass, and after some consideration poured Alastor one too.
Alastor accepted the cable that carried the glass of whiskey towards him. He sipped at it like a proper gentleman while Vox knocked his back under the judging stare of Al.
Vox slammed down another glass of whiskey immediately afterwards and furiously pointed at the other, already slightly buzzed. “Fuck you, I'm capable of genuine love!”
“I'm not denying that.” Alastor shrugged with a smile. “I simply want no part of it.”
“‘Course, ‘cause you're ace or whatever. Don't let Val hear that, he doesn't believe in any of that. Wants to fix those poor suckers. He'll see it as a challenge.”
“People keep calling me that,” Alastor said with a frown. “What does that have to do with your little underling?”
Ah yeah, old-timer who never got with the times. “No idea what the fuck you guys called it in the thirties - anaphrodites? No-sex-havers? You know, people who don't wanna fuck.”
“Your crude way of expressing yourself continues to charm me.”
Vox lifted his middle finger for a moment before flapping his hand around like he was chasing away a particularly annoying fly. “Come on, dontcha think you owe me an explanation after all this time? You straight or what?”
“Hm, I don't owe you anything.” Alastor crossed his legs, like this was just a casual meeting. “Besides, that is frankly none of your business.”
“You really should be more aware of the situation you're in. I own you now. I can make you say and do whatever the fuck I want to.”
Alastor tilted his head. “Then why haven't you?” His smile curled up. “Don't tell me- you're still in love with me.”
He spat out those words like they were slurs, and hell, maybe for Alastor they were. Fuck. Vox should have never said anything. It felt like he had pressed a loaded gun into Alastor’s hands and had guided it straight to his own forehead.
Vox raised his glass of whiskey and knocked it back again, to Alastor's continued annoyance. Fuck alcohol etiquette. That was reserved for rich people who wanted to show everyone how fucking posh they were. “Come on, just indulge me for once, Al. I just flayed myself open for you.”
“If I recount correctly, you forced yourself on me and then had a crisis.”
“I just kissed you, man, you should see what Valentino gets up to with his whores when they tell him no.”
Alastor's lips curled in displeasure. “Going for the weak and feeble. All in the search for what- carnal pleasure? Your minds will never fail to elude me.”
“I'm not like that,” Vox hurried to say, somehow still desiring for Alastor's respect. Ahh, fuck. Alastor had been right. He was so pathetic.
Alastor smiled and pointedly licked the blood off the corner of his lips.
Vox swallowed dryly and looked away. “Besides that.”
“Besides that,” Alastor repeated with a sardonic laugh. “No, you all are the same to me. Controlled by your bodies as if lust has any priority above dignity.”
Vox looked away, bitter. Even now Al didn't seem to understand what the vastness of Vox's past love had meant. Of course he'd reduce it to simply carnal love. First calling it a crush then this.
“I've known men like you back then. Men who wanted to reinforce their power not by challenging the strong but by harming the ones who couldn't even defend themselves. It was quite a pitiful show.”
“You constantly murder other sinners,” Vox pointed out.
“Only if they bother me,” Alastor said with a shrug. “Or if they have even the slightest chance of being an interesting opponent.”
“Yeah, Adam was interesting, alright.”
Alastor's eye twitched and he waved the cable over for his glass of whiskey.
“If the weak didn't wanna get trampled over, they should learn to get stronger,” Vox said. “I fought for my power, clawed myself up. Pulled myself up by the bootstraps, as they like to say. Why should I have any pity for anyone who doesn't do the same?! Fuck, that whore Angel Dust sold his soul for some cheap fuck, and now he's out there whining and going to the fucking princess of hell because he's too weak! And you want me to feel sorry?!”
Alastor snorted. “Oh no, no, my dear, you misunderstand. I do not feel pity for them. I simply hold no respect for people like you.” He smiled, eyes squinting in a mocking amusement. “After all, those who put themselves into a stupid situation should be strong enough to get themselves out of it.”
“That's what I'm saying!" Vox refilled his glass and pulled Alastor's chair closer to refill his. “You and I- we earned our power! We earned our place in hell!”
Alastor tilted his head in agreement, a sardonic snort escaping his lips. “I concur.”
“And that means I got you fair and square.”
A laugh bubbled in Alastor's chest, spilling out like blood, amused at a joke only he understood. “Of course,” he agreed.
Weird fucker.
They drank in compatible silence for a while and Vox tried not to close his eyes and imagine being decades younger. It wasn't the same, wasn't the warm bar, the constant feeling of fullness in his chest, the slight buzz of his old TV screen. Or maybe he should. Maybe he should put himself back into that bar, where he had gotten piss-drunk after Alastor had broken his heart, should hold onto this hurt, lest he fall back into Alastor's spider web.
It was Alastor who broke the silence. “I'm not interested in any of that romance stuff, if you want to know so badly,” he said, and it felt like an olive branch. “Kissing. Hand-holding. Whatever hormonal roller-coaster causes people to behave so irrationally. It's all so… juvenile.”
“It's human,” Vox said.
“Am I not human?” Alastor grinned and Vox closed his mouth.
“Guess you are.”
Alastor took a sip of his whiskey. Another cable refilled his glass and he nodded politely at it. “You know, at one point I thought I simply hadn't found the one, in the way so succinctly described by everyone. I thought I'd find a lass-”
(“You like girls?!” Vox exclaimed and Alastor shushed him with a look.)
“I thought I'd find a lass I'd have a connection with and I'd experience what everyone else was constantly prattling on about. And then I landed in hell and I realized it was all nonsense. I was simply not made to feel these things.”
“That sounds lonely,” Vox muttered and Alastor shrugged.
“I've seen the things people do to escape that loneliness. My mother was like that. And it got her killed. Why, isn't the reason your depraved Moth has so many contracts because oh so many sinners fall in lust with him at first? Why our dearest Angel Dust is in his clutches? No, I am grateful for what I am! I am grateful I don't have to deal with any of that.”
It felt like a tiny needle stabbing Vox's already empty chest. His dream had already burned down to cinders and Alastor was dancing on the ashes. “You're grateful you never even had the chance of falling in love with me.”
“Goodness, not everything is about you,” Alastor said. “I don't need those chains binding me down.”
“Of course. The great Radio Demon does not even believe in friends.” Vox knocked back another glass. He felt it circulating through his systems, burning hot through his veins. “Then again, there he goes, offering his soul to save the lives of those- those nobodies!”
Alastor shrugged. “I have invested too much effort into them to let them die so easily. They still need to serve me.”
That sounded more like it. If Alastor had gone out and made friends after everything he had done to Vox, Vox might have just ripped all their hearts out and force-fed them to Alastor.
“Don't let Velvette hear you don't love that way. She doesn't believe in that.”
“Vincent, your goons sound like a nightmare.”
Vox laughed at the earnest way Alastor had spoken. “They can be,” he said and found himself smiling. “But they're what makes me stronger. They're why I beat you. And you're here. Completely alone.”
Alastor shrugged. “I am where I want to be.”
“Forced to partake in a humiliation parade, made to watch Val, me and our depravity and kissed by me?”
Alastor grabbed the rim of his glass with his teeth and thrusted it at Vox. It splashed all over his screen and Vox yelped, drying it with his sleeves. Fuck, fuck this asshole, piece of shit, gonna kill this motherfucker, holy fucking-
“Still the strongest sinner in hell. Why, it took you two other overlords to beat me while I was suffering from an injury.”
“Doesn't change that you're the one captured, Al.”
“Guess it doesn't.”
Vox pressed his lips together as he looked, truly looked at the other. Alastor truly didn't care for those two nobodies. For the damned princess of hell. He surely didn't believe that redemption was possible. Then why the fuck would he ever suggest that deal?
“Hey, you know, now that I'm thinking about it, when we made our deal-”
“If it's any consolation,” Alastor interrupted him, and it was back again, this softer voice of his like he was dropping his mask, only allowing Vox to see the true him. It was alluring, so alluring, being the one person allowed behind closed curtains, but Vox had decades of hatred and bitterness keeping him away. It still wiped all his previous thoughts away, like Alastor had him on a string, constantly pulling Vox towards him. “Had you not said anything, I think we'd have stayed like that.”
“Friendly acquaintanceship?” Vox snorted.
“Exactly.”
“That would have made me miserable.”
“And you aren't miserable now?” Alastor smiled.
“Miserable?! I've got everything I've ever wanted! A team! More power than you can even imagine! Everyone saying and doing whatever I want! All of hell and heaven soon under us!”
A chortle escaped Alastor's lips. He paused when he realized Vox was serious. “You- you actually think you can defeat all of heaven?! Ha! Hells, you wouldn't even be able to defeat a Goetia! And you- ha, you want to defeat heaven?!”
“Just watch me, Al!” Vox spread his arms like wings and spun around in his chair. His vision was dizzy and the spinning did not make it better. “I'll make you watch me! I'll make you watch as I become the strongest!”
“Take it from someone who fought against heaven - they are not a foe to be taken lightly.”
“Aww, is that concern I hear there, Al?”
Alastor looked like he was considering hurling another glass at Vox. “Call it-”
“- whatever leftover affection you still have, yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll beat them, just you wait and see! I beat you after all!”
Alastor snorted, a helpless little thing that he didn't seem to be aware of himself. “After all this time- after my disappearance- after you beat me- and you still hold me in this high regard?”
“Of course,” Vox said. “You're the Radio demon.”
For the second time this night Alastor seemed speechless. His smile was almost gone, lips slightly parted and eyes wide as if he was seeing Vox for the first time. “I see,” he only said.
Vox raised his glass.
-
“Vox,” Alastor slurred when they had drunk themselves silly, and Vox was barely able to lift his head to give him an affirmative noise, too drunk for more. “If you let your Moth boy toy anywhere near me, I will destroy you and everything you hold dear.”
Vox snorted. “I'd love to see you try.”
“Vox.”
Sighing, Vox slumped back into his desk. Fuck this. Fuck whatever remnants of affection were still holding him captive. Fuck the warm, fuzzy feeling, fuck the excited part in the back of his mind that yelled Al asked for a favor, Al needs my protection, Al needs me like he was a dog barking at its owner, fuck everything. “Sure.”
“I need you to promise me.” Al actually sounded anxious.
Fuck this. Vox buried his head in his hands and hated himself a little bit more. “Yeah,” he said. “I promise.”