Chapter Text
Alastor paced the empty sitting room, the grand finale concluded hours ago, yet the events of the day repeated in his mind relentlessly. He felt jittery, his hands still lightly shaking, every ache in his body drawing scenes of the fight to the surface of his mind. Arm brushes rib spiking tender pain from a bruise up his side- the hard impact against a city street as he was tossed like a ragdoll onto the road, concrete cracking beneath him. A crick in his neck as he turns- thrown through a twenty story window like it was nothing, landing spine first against a countertop. The list goes on, the most annoyingly persistent is the twinge in his fetlock from being hoisted by cables, shaken around for all of hell to see. Hearing that familiar cackling mocking laughter behind him.
Vox’s voice rang disturbingly clear throughout his thoughts of the day. Some speaking habits remained the same from when they worked together years ago. A slight lilt at the end of his sentences, part of the salesman intonation he slipped into when pitching an idea. He always had a sheepishness to him, hypothetically charming, and presumably purposeful to seem nonthreatening. Alastor could hear it even in his grand finale speech of the day, twisted into something new. Fragility oozed from his confident facade, the fervor in his voice edging breathless, a righteous trembling undercurrent as he spoke of utopian fantasies.
There was a look in his eye at the end, wet with tears Alastor was unaware he was capable of shedding. Something to the broken way he vowed to destroy himself if it meant he could destroy Alastor with him.
He swallowed audibly, noise deafening in the silent room he paced in. He felt a rising squirming sensation under his skin, unfortunately familiar, the most unpleasant factor of his relationship with Vox. Arguing with him until the beat of his heart drummed so loudly he couldn’t think. Hatred muddled into a wrenching pain in his chest, barbed gratification. A great and terrible need to see Vox, miserable or otherwise.
Alastor shook his head, pacing picking up tempo. He had seen him, he had seen his head wrenched free from his body, tucked under Valentino’s arm with a carelessness usually reserved for objects.
Touch irked him, his frustration usually beginning and ending with being on the receiving end of unexpected physical contact. Grimacing, he felt a gnarled twist in his stomach at the memory of Valentino manhandling Vox’s head into his grip. Absolutely thoughtless, careless, a complete lack of cunning, just bland, boring intent and action.
Alastor would have held him like a trophy, dangled him by his flimsy antenna like a shot rabbit, the prize of a hunt. He would have toted him around for all of hell to see, mounted him on his wall, used the soft glow of his screen as a reading light. Heat rose on the back of his neck, “The lack of creativity is appalling.” he muttered under his breath. Trying to banish the re-emerging squirming sensation, he tried smoothing his hands down his front to straighten out his suit, a gesture to right himself. Unfortunately, the pull of claws down his torso brought yet another memory of the day to his mind.
During their fight, Alastor dizzy, grinning so wide his face might split open, standing over the upper half of Vox, ripped free from his chitinous legs.
Vox looked monstrous, sprawled on the ground, ripped apart and snarling. His rage answered by Alastor elbow deep, tearing through his torso with primal need.
He had disemboweled many a man before Vox. The feeling of vital insides shredding, squelching, snapping, was nothing new. And yet. He longed to feel it again. Inside, the sensation so alien and invigorating.
Coolant where blood should be, viscous and tacky, squeezed from tubing as wires snapped free, caught on his fingers. The entirety of the act silken, cold, and wet.
Alastor dropped his head into his hands, groaning. Squirming heat going absolutely nowhere. The feeling wasn’t attraction per se, though he also didn’t want to call it need, which it felt closer to. Sighing again and shrugging, sore arms reminding him yet again of Vox and their entirely too intimate fight, Alastor decided to leave it without a label for now. He knew he felt something about Vox that was, maybe new, maybe just more than what was there previously. It was still grounded in a want to see him writhe, suffer, whimper or grovel. In essence, it changed nothing about their relationship, they still hated each other and now Alastor was slightly more invested in that mutual hatred. He wouldn’t become obsessed, like Vox towards him. Alastor found it pathetic. The concept of obsession only even marginally endearing when Vox hate-fawned over him.
Logically he knew he wouldn’t be seeing Vox for a long time, until he had built a new body, or perhaps longer if he had to regain the trust of Velvette and Valentino first. The problem that was Vox had been solved for the time being.
This gave Alastor valuable time, time to scheme all the ways he would make Vox miserable once he came back. His eyes landed on the cracked, half century old television in the middle of the room. The irony of this particular sitting room with this particular object sitting dead center, constantly in his periphery, being the location of his restless pacing did not escape him.
Vox used to be able to manifest in any television set he liked, at any time, at any moment, even appearing on multiple screens at once. Alastor chuckled, an ugly little laugh escaping him, Vox was near powerless now, with no way to get out of his sad bodiless head. He couldn’t even dream of spying on the hotel, utterly ruined as he was.
Alastor wondered what kind of body Vox would make for himself once he had made his no doubt innumerable apologies to Velvette and Valentino and they did whatever needed doing to enable him. He had a notable fondness for sharks, ironic considering his body would almost certainly be damaged if it came into contact with water. Perhaps his new body would be more aquatically inclined, sleeker and waterproof. Fins for flare maybe, he was quite showy.
Though, Alastor rested his head on his hand, thinking on it, his outfits were subdued, not attention grabbing in the way most overlords and even everyday citizens of hell’s clothing tended to be. Most of his allure was in his act, his showman persona, the dazzle of charisma and stage lights. A persona Alastor worked hard to see crack and crumble in his presence. Heat rose, coiling incessantly as he thought back to the week they spent together. A necessary evil to free himself from his contract, with the added bonus of ruining Vox’s plan.
His smile fractionally widened, remembering the look of abject betrayal that followed his freedom from that damn chair. The expression so genuine, so vulnerable, like Alastor had broken his favorite toy. Seeing Vox so uniquely pathetic was a highlight of his day, maybe his week, even, with how he had spent it. The sockets of his arms still sore from being bent at an angle, the demeaning position he had been tied to a chair in.
He shrugged his shoulders, rolling them in an attempt to loosen the irritated joints. It was an interesting week. He’d shared many things with Vox, a duet, a mutual antagonism, a connection of reciprocal loathing.
Pleased with the endless barrage of insults he had taunted Vox with. Sniffing out his insecurities like a bloodhound, striking where he was most sensitive, and then twisting the knife had to be one of his favorite games to play with the man. He felt a certain satisfaction from seeing Vox flustered, pouty and mad, screen flickering with visible frustrated overwhelm. The shattering of any charisma he was trying to exude, all likability wilting away as he took in Alastor’s sneering face and struggled, yelled, futilely trying to disprove every knife deep jab.
He never made those expressions on his shows, never screamed, on the verge of crying in frustration for anyone but Alastor. A side of Vox that was only his, giving Alastor possession over his vulnerability and rage.
The heat hadn’t left his face, the room felt too hot, the past train of thought about Vox’s body barreled directly into Alastor’s brain, not helping matters in the slightest.
Something in the defensiveness, the raised hackles, maybe his new body would be sturdier than his last one. Extra plating, some fancy new buttons for fancy new shields.
Alastor frowned, speculation would get him nowhere, he decided, he needed to think about the weaknesses he knew about, in the body he was somewhat familiar with. His suits covered him almost entirely, only his hands and head ever exposed. Vox had similar hands to Alastor, humanoid but clawed.
His head was of course entirely different, Alastor never familiarized himself overly with television sets, maintaining that radio was and always will be the superior form of entertainment. It left aspects to the imagination, the consumer was not spoon fed the entirety of their entertainment. Radio more effectively sparked a listener’s curiosity, an interest in learning. Alastor’s eyes drifted again to the old TV in the center of the room. The need to learn how the machine worked became suddenly relevant. Maybe there were similarities between it and Vox’s flat screen, something to be gleaned. A plan to be hatched, a curiosity to be sated.
Before proceeding, Alastor listened very closely, checking to see if anyone was still awake and roaming the halls. It was late, Alastor’s sleeplessness leading him here to pace at an ungodly hour, but he could never be too careful. Especially with a matter as life ruining as being caught inspecting, or even worse touching a television. An ear flicked, swiveling until he was satisfied that that hotel was silent.
Nerves grating slightly, accompanying the ever present warmth, the now soft but audible beat of his heart in his ears, Alastor knelt down in front of the old TV set.
Carpet padded his bony knees, still smarting faintly, bruises tender from the fight. He felt a sense of familiarity, being in a demeaning position in a room with an obnoxious television was how he had spent most of his week. Shaking off nerves, he leaned on the familiarity, “How hard can it be to take apart an egotistical piece of scrap metal.” he muttered, leaning in to look at the tv set.
Trying to think back to decades ago when Vox had gushed to him animatedly about these new picture boxes. Impressing upon him the marvel that was technicolor. The unfettered passion in his voice so honey sweet and alluring. Alastor remembers that he had wanted to eat him whole, to see if his robotic flesh tasted as sweet as his cloying excitement.
He places his hands on the sides of the box, feeling the edges for knobs, indents, some kind of switch. The cool wood paneling once sleek now worn with age catching beneath his hands.
He’d recently had the privilege of seeing Vox fairly consistently from a fairly unflattering angle. Looking up at Vox from a rolling chair half his height granted Alastor the chance to see buttons, haloed by mild red illumination, tucked away on the underside of the flat screen.
The model beneath his hands now was clearly an older version, but the notion of a button or dial of some kind used to turn the device on and off remained. Feeling along the side, he leaned forward, lifting up on his haunches slightly to reach the back. Hands following along ridges between the paneling. Pressing firmly, he runs a finger along the indented vein of metal, savoring the chill sleekness tucked beneath the flat rough wood.
He reaches the back of the TV and feels for anything of note, finding a square cut indent with raised metal cylinders tucked inside. Leaning forward, resting his free arm on the top of the device for balance, his height gives him a clear view of the back of the TV. A cable is attached to one of the raised cylinders, running all the way to an outlet in the wall.
Alastor squints at the indented panel, fiddling with the- they have to have a name- he sighs, thinking once again to his decades passed education on the wonders of television.
Vox chattering away animatedly, gesturing to a TV set that was half taken apart, tools in hand and absentmindedly explaining his process. Alastor remembers half paying attention, feigning engagement, nodding along with a “Certainly!” when Vox asked him a question, or “That’s quite the trick you’ve done there!” when Vox clearly was attempting to show off with his handiwork.
He was laughably readable when he had a goal in mind, and the goal today was to impress Alastor. It was clear in his incessant prompting for responses, the looks he kept tossing Alastor, wide eyed and grinning, the confident quirk of his brow when he pulled off a particularly impressive stunt.
The most obvious when he gestured to a wiry configuration of some kind, plunging his screwdriver in, twisting it to send a cascade of sparks into the air, leaning back from the spectacle laughing. He had turned to Alastor, expression somewhere between desperate and earnest,
“That’s what happens when you divert the flow from the power board to the thermistor.”
Alastor nodded, “A light show for the ages.” Something must have shown on his face, a fraction of the endearment he felt towards such a fervently pathetic bid for his attention. He nearly fell weak kneed to the floor when Vox’s display lit up red around the cheeks. Alastor was left astonished by the clear show of affection, so pitiably misplaced. Vox turned away, still grinning, getting back to his work, unaware of the thoughts racing through Alastor’s head.
Alastor spent the rest of their time together staring hungrily at the back of his neck, his eyes tracing the exposed line of skin below his head, above his shirt collar. The dark blue surface flushed enough to prompt Alastor to speculate what his blood would taste like.
“It’s called a port.” Alastor barely recalled. Murmuring aloud to himself to shake off the memory. Trying to ignore the fresh hunger he now felt, old speculation on Vox’s flavor profile now once again at the forefront of his mind. He busied himself with prodding the raised cylinders with his index finger, trying to push them down to see what would happen. He thumbed the ridges of the leftmost port, reading the word “AUDIO” beside it.
Years ago he had settled on battery acid, maybe to dissuade himself from actually trying to eat his then business partner. Running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, he leaned back from the TV; the on switch didn’t seem to be one of the ports, and settled back on his haunches again, eye level with the blank screen.
Maybe like antifreeze, the fluorescent blue kind, the color was close enough to his blood that it felt fitting. He settled his hand against the panel to the right of the screen, eyeing the knobs set within it.
Having the flavor of a toxic substance seemed fitting for such an unpleasant man, he pinched the dial between index and thumb letting his claws dig in, the plastic quietly protesting as the pressure made marks. He twisted right, hearing a click inside the device.
Bright light blinked to life, accompanied by more clicking, like an old bulb flickering on. Alastor squinted at the screen, triumphant but mildly startled. Ears flicking, he realized the sound was on, whoever had last used the TV had, thankfully, had the volume quite low, barely a whisper. Yet that whisper-
“-back to our show! Last we left off we had just put our delicious pot roast of dubious ethical origin into the oven, and my goodness the aroma-“
Alastor groaned, thunking his head, or more accurately his antlers, against the tv screen in defeat. Of course it was a cooking show. He was leaned so close to the screen he could hear and feel the buzz of electricity, a gentle humming vibration saturating the air in front of him. His bangs resting against the screen stood slightly up, small strands of hair floating gently in the invisible mist. So close he could make out thin lines across the display, so many he couldn’t count them, but they flickered softly, giving themselves away, drawing his eye to the movement across them.
He let his mind relax, trying to focus on anything but his thoughts of Vox, while sitting not an inch away from a TV screen. He sniffed, the humming vibration tickling his nose strangely. He caught a lungful of ozone, not unpleasant, different to a storm, more sterile, but similar enough to place the smell. Vox had argued with him with intense enough pretense that their faces had practically touched on several occasions.
Reflecting on having his face eye crossingly close to Vox’s in the past, he tried to recall if it had felt like this. Alastor looked forward, as much as possible so close to the screen, and imagined Vox’s large, quite dumb looking face instead of the nondescript cooking show. Tried to picture how it would feel to be so close his hair stood on end, his breath soaked by ozone, that he could feel that humming sensation, but one distinctly Vox’s, so close he could figure out what he tastes like.
He found the idea of knowing Vox with all of his senses less repulsive than he might have expected before this. Hearing his grating voice spoken directly into his ear, in a whisper as quiet as the barely audible TV, words spoken just for him. That barely there muffle from audio sourced from a speaker, much clearer than his own voice. Vox would berate him, or beg and whine, close enough that Alastor could hear every catch in his voice, every stutter in his breath.
Alastor was nearly feverish, the heated writhing in his body bordering on unbearable. He imagined himself entangled, Vox beneath his hands, cool to the touch, feeling every hard edge of him, plastic and metal knitting together into an intricate simulacrum. He shuddered, grasping the edges of the tv set, a symphony of cracking wood and creaking metal, all of it bending in his grip.
He wanted to pry him open, hear him scream, kiss his exposed circuitry and mouth at tubing that pulsed like organs until his face was dripping with coolant. He closed his eyes, fingering the dials with one hand while his other snaked up to twirl the bent antenna in his grip.
Moving forward, pressing his entire front fully against the TV and the stand it was sitting on. He could feel the hum in his sternum, vibrating above his heart. The screen had warmed, slightly, less than body temperature but approaching it. The ozone smell had warmed with it, pleasant, still with a distinct sterility but now closer to rain in summer.
Smell correlates to taste, Alastor thought, absently, somewhere in the back of his mind as the front screamed closer, more. Something in him cracking fundamentally as he pressed his open mouth to the glass.
The sensation felt distinctly Vox in every way. Hard, terrible, indescribably alluring. His teeth clinked against the surface unpleasantly, scratching as he grimaced. He pulled back, looking at the distorted lines his teeth had carved, the image around the lines warping inward. He pictured Vox with the same distortion, screen marred in the exact shape of Alastor’s teeth, a pout on his face as he noisily complained about screen replacements. “It’s barely a scratch.” He huffed, leaning in to lick the neat gouges, running his tongue along each line with a precision he hoped Vox could feel.
The thought was jarring, not enough for him to pull completely away but enough for him to pause. He needed to immediately rationalize what had just crossed his mind.
A notion came to him fairly quickly, if Vox is happy before Alastor inevitably crushes him, it makes victory all the more satisfying. It made sense, and was an incredibly simple plan. Alastor would test the waters to see if Vox was still interested in him. Undeniably he was when they were partners, less assuredly he was now, couldn’t hurt to try. If all went well they could engage in something mutually enjoyable for a time, if it didn’t then Alastor would just ruin him again.
In the end the knowledge he gleaned might help Alastor destroy him, piece by piece, wielding a precision only possible from practiced intimacy. Alastor blushed at the thought.
He pressed his cheek to the glass, an affectionate nuzzle he wouldn’t be caught alive or dead doing under any other circumstance. “Would you like that? Would you like me to take you apart?” He asked indulgently, caressing his fingers over smaller dials near the corner of the screen, his nails making a quiet scratching sound against the plastic. He pushed a claw under the topmost dial, stroking tenderly at the underside. Vox might like that, he assumed, if his body was similarly humanoid enough to experience pleasure but similarly strange enough to experience it in ways a human on earth never could.
He pulled back a bit and let his hand drop from where it had settled near the antenna to rest against the side of the frame. He laughed at the absurdity, that he truly cared and wanted Vox to feel things other than abject misery.
He looked at the screen, the cooking show seemed to be wrapping up, the host had large stains across their apron and the pot roast was nowhere in sight. Time to change the station, he supposed, guessing and turning the dial his hand was already on.
“-reruns of his most popular programming, viewed through a new lens in light of recent events.”
For all his bravado, Alastor momentarily considered tossing himself bodily off of his radio tower when Vox’s face appeared on screen. Small but still there in the top right corner, his grinning expression motionless. Below the freeze frame a put together looking demon in a nearly featureless room was announcing a list of Vox’s television pieces to be aired over the course of the following hour.
His hand twitched, urge to turn the TV off sudden and overwhelming until he heard Vox’s voice, oozing with that unpleasant charm he put on, tinny and quiet.
The words were meaningless, he was advertising one of his millions of branded products. Alastor listened anyway, ears tilting forward in another embarrassing display to hear him more clearly.
Vox was now fully on display, the small window taking up the entire screen. Vox sat in another sterile looking conference room, perched in an office chair with his legs crossed.
An uncomfortable softness marred his expression as he looked down at the toy or maybe weapon in his lap. A small robotic shark with four toddling little legs and some kind of gun strapped to its back. From what Alastor could catch Vox was advertising it as a family pet. That unfortunate tugging endearment that plagued him tonight returned at the sight of Vox holding the wriggling puppy-shark thing in the air with pride. “-vaporized to ash!” The Vox on TV finished, setting the animal back on his lap.
Rather than examine the writhing, complicated feeling in his chest, Alastor headbutted the TV. Clinking his antlers against the glass, soft enough that they just scraped upward across the top part of the screen. He frowned at the position this put him in, inches away from the screen again, with the program changed to the next episode.
He was growing accustomed to, even enjoying the buzz of the screen and the not quite warmth it emanated. When Vox’s entire idiotic face appeared on screen Alastor simply sighed, the sound too close to affection.
This was a man that tried to ruin his life, destroy his reputation, and tied him to a chair for a week. Alastor still felt a stinging, superiority driven contempt for Vox. The Vox on TV paused, the new episode was some kind of interview, leaving Vox smiling stupidly as the interviewee took their time responding. Alastor closed the distance, kissed the corner of his mouth and lingered, lips buzzing.
He mouthed obscenely at the glass, distantly listening to the interviewee continue to drone on as Vox’s expression got increasingly tense. Tonguing at the sleek surface he watched Vox’s eye twitch, red and light cyan disappearing and reappearing along the lines of the screen.
Alastor pet the top of the console demeaningly, stroking along the wood surface in soft little circles, “They’ll shut up soon, or maybe never.” He crooned, affectionate and belittling. Alastor pictured the situation lasting forever, Vox stuck unable to speak until he cried, his tongue traced the imaginary tear track, ozone masquerading as salt water as he breathed in the taste. Distractedly lapping at a spot on the display under his eye, heat in his cheeks and the erratic beat of his heart clamoring in his ears, Alastor almost missed Vox finally losing it.
He heard yelling before he pulled back and saw Vox’s sour expression, full face upset and reprimanding the interviewee for speaking for so long. Alastor frowned mockingly, “Someone’s sad about losing the crowd’s attention.” pitying and cloying. Alastor leaned in, petting at the sides of the TV consolingly. He couldn’t make out what Vox was saying through the pulsing thrum in his head, the dizzying heat scorching his insides.
He imagined he was yelling at him instead. Heart swelling when he thought of all of Vox’s pathetic insults, futile squirming, the lashing out of a scared lonely animal. A vulnerable thing with sharp teeth and an insatiable appetite.
Nuzzling the screen again, digging his claws deep into the sides of the TV and dragging down, “I‘ll keep you with me forever-“ Alastor breathed “I’ll eat you alive.” He moaned, Vox’s squirming, bloody form, an amalgam fantasy of every time Alastor had beaten him, surfacing in his mind as he wrapped his arms around the TV’s large frame, curling possessively around it.
Hot breath leaving patches of condensation on the glass, Alastor ran his tongue along every curve of Vox’s still shouting face. He doesn’t know when he started moaning Vox’s name between the wet open mouthed kisses he was peppering the screen with. By the time Vox’s rant appeared to be over, his face a neutral expression, he could hear himself, dangerously close to speaking volume, the name slipping from his mouth recklessly.
He swiveled his ears to check again if there was any sign of activity nearby. Hearing nothing he sighed in relief, relaxing until-
a static screech rising with the volume dial wrenched of its own accord to the highest setting,
“ALASTOR.”
True to his nature, deer in the headlights, Alastor froze, processing until he recovered enough to pull his incriminatingly open mouth away from the corner of the TV screen, calculating the distance between the top of his radio tower and the ground below as he did so.
“Vox.”