Chapter Text
"Wow," Velvette said, blinking down at the bundle in Vox's arms. "That is a really fugly baby."
Vox couldn't quite disagree. The last time he had been remotely near an infant, it had been during his mortal days — it must have been one of his more family-friendly broadcasts where he talked about the sanctity and accessibility of education. He wondered how that was going for Earth. Parents came up and handed him their baby, and he sat with the squirming, crying infants in front of cameras.
He didn't hate them, really. They were annoying, and painfully loud, and Vox would rather saw off an antenna than babysit one of them actively, but the vicious bubbling malice he had felt for most fellow humans didn't manifest in front of the squabblers. It was a special level of evil to intentionally harm a child. He hadn't thought of kids during his mortal life much, if he was fair to himself — he had never married, had barely had any semblance of relationships in his crazed clawing of power. The only children in Hell he had seen were mostly cannibals or hellborn, and they tended to steer away from Sinners.
The kid in his arms was neither.
"Really fugly," Velvette was saying. Vox felt a spark zip up his crooked antenna. "It looks...human, ish? Except it's got your antennae. And one of your swirly eyes."
"Yes."
"So, uhh, who was the mom?"
"Please shut up, Vel." The baby in his arms began to squirm. Vox's arms felt stiff; wooden. He had never held a baby for long, and he didn't...didn't really know what to do. Did the baby want milk? Did it need to be burped? He asked Velvette what to do.
"Are you asking this because I'm a woman?"
"No, but you give off a motherly nature?" Velvette's glare could make Hell freeze over. "You're, uh, good with kids, right? Influencing 'em or something?"
"No. Isn't your head directly connected to the Internet?"
The Internet told him wash his hands before touching the baby, then to change the diaper, to feed at certain intervals, to support the head and shoulders. Vox held up the kid the way he remembered his mother holding him up. Large baby head rested against his shoulder. He could feel a tickle of warm, soft hair brushing his screen.
"You still haven't answered my question," Velvette was saying. A pair of needles floated besides her head, knitting on a small woolen cap. "I mean, based on the fact that you're not shipping off the kid to the nearest orphanage—"
"Velvette."
"It's better to give a kid a good life than to hold onto them if you know you're not up to it. They didn't ask for it."
Neither did he, Vox thought, staring down at the bundle. It looked like it could be any human, with brown hair and brown skin and slightly pointed teeth. The body was thin and somewhat frail, but the chest was rising and falling. It had been a little girl. Vox had scoured all possible names in Hell at least twice, and had still come up with nothing.
"Of course, if the other parent ever comes back—"
"He's me and Alastor's kid," Vox snapped, instantly regretting it when the baby shifted uncomfortably in his grasp. Both eyes blinked open at him. The little girl had inherited his heterochromia, somehow; one dark brown eye, one paler brown.
"Oh. Ew."
"No, we didn't actually f— it was a, um. A signal thing."
"Is that some kind of old man Morse code slang for sex?"
"I wish. No, we, uh, fought a little—" blew out half a street — "and he grabbed my antennae—" had twisted them, nearly crushing them in his grasp, "—and beamed a signal in my head?" — had sent a signal so deep, invasive, a scourge into his very soul, a signal that had bled every inch of contempt and hatred and disdain Alastor had felt for him. It had blew out nearly every circuit in his body.
"So...a hate fuck?"
"Sure, Vel."
"Also, aren't you both m..."
"It's a digital baby, Vel, I don't fucking know." He shifted the baby in his arms. It had been a very literal digital baby — he hadn't even noticed the presence of another being inside his code until he was cleaning out his memory drive, and saw the single, shifting kernel of consciousness. Twenty freakouts and hundreds of scans later, and a curse towards how little Hell followed any rules of universal laws, it was confirmed that it was the start of a child. One that Vox could destroy, if he had the desire to. It would be painless. Maybe in his mortal time it had been unthinkable, but times had changed. Somewhat. It should have changed more. Of all the great and terrible things Vox had done in his existence, this was his own choice.
The faint ghost of a memory — of his mother holding him, of the soft joy in her face as she had held him — had floated up, long lost before he had ever upgraded his memory drive.
.
.
.
The Overlord of Media and Television had a child.
It was amongst the slew of news Alastor had been bombarded with, as he adjusted to his first few days at the new Hotel. Hell had changed rather unpredictably during his sabbatical! Minor Overlords had rose and fell, Carmilla was still the undisputed warlod of angelic weaponry, and the turf wars had been exarceberated from the renewed Exterminations. Old names and haunts he had visited for years had suddenly been wiped away, their very souls shredded and torn apart, their beings reduced to less than dust. How dreadful! How disruptive! His favorite bar had been shut down from it.
"—and the new pack of Overlords," Charlie was saying in their first 'staff orientation'. It consisted of her and Vaggie; Husk had passed out at the bar and Niffty was likely stuck in the pipes somewhere. "Angel's been telling us a bit about the Vees. Actually — it's a bit amusing — now that he's seen you proper, he thinks you're a bit familiar. Do you know any of the Vees?"
"I've heard of them, I'm sure." Had Vox and that horrid moth finally done something worthwhile? He could still remember the sting of acid rain as he wrenched Vox's antennae into fragments — how the man's scream had echoed inside and outside his head — how Valentino had struggled to come to his rescue, fighting so stupidly hard to save that picture box. How pathetic. Alastor tapped his fingers on his knee.
"Oh, cool! Well, this is actually really interesting — and I'm definitely gonna ask my dad about it — but apparently one of the Vee overlords has a kid. Like, they're Sinners, but they have a kid! I've never seen her before, but Angel tells me she doesn't really leave the Vee building."
"Hm." It would be more interesting if Alastor gave an iota more of a shit. "You said there were three of these Vees?" He had heard vague rumors of a third Overlord, a doll-like demon that controlled those insipid apps the Sinners and hellborn were always tapping at. "If I must wager a guess, the child is likely the moth's. He has quite the reputation amongst Sinners!"
"Nah," Husk grunted from the corner. Alastor searched in his personal shadow void to find when he had granted Husk permission to speak. "It's Vox."
Alastor paused.
A single, spark of static unfurled in the air, like a quiet knell.
.
.
.
Vox had named her Anna.
It was one letter off from his mother's name, Alastor thought, and for a second he wondered if there was any connection. Then he remembered that he had never mentioned his mother's name before to Vox. Or maybe he had. They had been talking about the mortal people they had ever given a damn about, and Vox had brought up his own mother and a coworker early in his weatherman days. "They're probably both in Heaven," Vox said, grinning drunkenly as he nursed another glass. "Man, if they saw me down here...they'd laugh their asses off. Squashed flat by a CRT. Anyone you gave a shit about, Al?"
"My mother."
"Aw, damn! You a momma's boy too? I barely was that. Mom croaked when I was four, and Dad shot himself after. Funniest thing the town's seen, I bet."
"I suppose, if you count respecting and caring for your mother to be abnormal." He did talk about her, Alastor thought. Her favorite flowers — the whirling lilies that grew near the bayou. The soup she made when he was sick, and vice versa. Vox had never brought up these details ever, and Alastor had assumed the other man too inebriated or egotistical to care for such mundane, petty details. None of these details would assist in his mad rush for power; why would he bother to remember them?
From the corners of the streets, he watched Vox and the child go inside a store. The child looked...Sinner-like. Normal. Antennae poking out from dark hair, the hair similar to his own when he had been human.
The concept of Vox being a father in any form or fashion was strange. He knew Vox had pets; large, disgusting sharks, smaller vulnerable sharks. He knew Vox treated them kindly. There were many human and Sinner monsters that treated their pets well and their closed ones abysmally. His father had been one such fellow, before Alastor had plucked his brain from his head.
He followed them inside the store. It was a general one, with utilities and a some convenient snacks. Vox was not in a suit, for once; his clothes were almost casual, a simple sweater vest and pressed slacks, an overall malaise of fatigue hanging from each movement as he glanced around the shop. The little Anna had hesitantly reached up to take Vox's hand. It was comedic, almost; her entire hand was the size of Vox's thumb.
Vox took it gently, the motion stiff but sincere. A strange helplessness had crossed his screen. He looked more deeply uncomfortable than Alastor had ever seen him — each word, each motion, had lost his unfounded confidence, the effortless grace he had used to spin the flow of the media. He looked like a child himself, struggling to learn how to walk. His grasp on the child's hand was awkward, taut, but sincere in a way that made humility flicker down Alastor's chest.
Anna pointed at an object on the shelf. She was rather quiet for her (assumed) age. Alastor watched Vox pick up the said object awkwardly — it was a manual to repairing a TV. Vox bit back a chuckle. He tucked it under his arm. In the sweater vest, he looked so much like his old self that Alastor had to glance aside, hating the unfamiliar, foreign sensation spreading up his throat. Except this Vox was crueler, sharper, but he was thinner in a way that suggested years of exhaustion. There were deep smudges under his eyes. Even his antennae hung limply, the crooked one barely upright.
"I'm tired," Anna said.
"I know."
Anna raised her arms. "Almost my bir'day."
"Yeah. I know."
They still held hands as they crossed the street. A few Sinners had glanced at them suspiciously — quickly backing away when Vox glared at them, the single eye spiraling dangerously. But when he looked down at his daughter, the restrained softness in his expression was an expression Alastor had only once seen, decades ago in the bar. The same night that Vox had offered his foolish dream of partnership.
He loves her, he thought suddenly. It should have been stupidly obvious, a father loving their daughter, but Alastor knew better of humanity. Yet here Vox was, carrying one grocery bag of...something, the other hand stiffly clasped around his daughter's. Vox, the monstrous egomaniac that had murdered and backstabbed everyone who had ever stood in his path to deluded Godhood. Vox, who had sneered and spat in Alastor's face, the puppyish love curdling so abominably quickly into a hateful, spiraling obsession. Vox, whose face had once been plastered on every billboard, maw dripping blood, promises more empty and vague than a fruit made of glass. Trust us, he said to every gullible, corruptible mind. Give everything you are to me.
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we walk around a bit more?"
"...yeah." Vox's eyes looked so, so tired, but his antennae still sparked as his daughter squeezed his hand.
Alastor followed. Vox made sure to walk on the brightly lit streets of the Entertainment District — there seemed to be a rebrand, Alastor observed. None of the distasteful pornography or garish trends Vox had been relentless about. Instead, it was mostly on fashions, somewhat-family-friendly-films, and innocuous technology. Phones, computers, tablets. The father and daughter paused and sat at a bench; Vox pulled out a small pastry, splitting it in two. The larger half was given to Anna. She ate it politely, brushing her hands of crumbs.
"Are we visiting Aunt Vel today?"
"No. She's a bit busy today."
"What about, um...Val? Do I have to call him uncle?"
"Fu— uh. I mean. No, Anna."
"...okay." Anna kicked her little feet. Her shoes looked a bit similar to his own, Alastor thought; shoes with reinforced soles, as though she had hooves. He didn't pay much attention to the thought. Many Sinners had hooves. Even the Princess of Hell had hooves.
"So are we visiting him?"
"No."
"Oh." Anna hung her head, and Alastor watched in fascination as guilt trickled across Vox's expression. He almost wanted to laugh. Vox, the great media mogul, the demon of the screens, was barely hanging on a thread. Instead, an unnamed emotion rose in his throat as Vox gently patted Anna's hair, careful to avoid the antennae.
"What about, um..." Anna's hands twitched. "My, um..."
"Hm?"
"My other parent," she whispered. One eye peeked open at her father's. She had heterochromia; Vox had had it as a human, Alastor remembered, and even in his demonic form there was still a hint of it in the outline of his eyes. Another of those small, meaningless facts, exchanged deep in the night. "Just, um. Just wondering."
Alastor let himself settle as a shadow underneath their bench.
"...they're not here," Vox said, tiredly, like he had said this over and over. Alastor had never seen the other man so defeated before, as if this mysterious partner had been a crutch to the overlord. As if their disappearance had caused a bit of Vox to die inside as well. "And I promise you, sweetheart, it...it wouldn't help if they were. They're not — they—" a spark circled around a red orb. "They — I — they don't..." his voice cracked, slightly, and Alastor thought of Vincent trying to restrain his pathetic tears that night in the bar. How his voice had trembled, trying to muster up some passable imitation of courage. "They wouldn't care for this. This concept of family."
"They wouldn't love me?"
Vox's smile bordered on something bitter and tearful. "They would pretend to, up until the moment they deem you useless." Anna flinched, and Vox sighed, the guilt doubling tenfold on his face. "That's what they did to me, Anna. And knowing them...they'd use you, just to get back to me. Just to hurt me even more."
"...sorry."
"Don't be. You have the right to know."
They ate their pastry in silence. Alastor slinked off to the shadows.
His thoughts swirled in a haze. That unnamed emotion had bubbled down into his chest, a sharp, clawing thing he couldn't quite cough out, even as he rematerialized back in his room. In the humidity of the bayou, he paced for a bit, his silhouette swirling and seething around his feet.
Vox. Vox of all people, having a child. A little extension of himself. Except Vox didn't treat little Anna like a narcissistic extension of himself. He treated Anna as if it hurt to look at her, but he did it anyway. His love for her was sincere. Bottomless. It was so torturous that it must have hurt Vox to scrape out this kindness, but he did it easily with Anna.
Whoever Anna's other parent had been, Vox had loved them and loathed them. Loathed them so much that his love for Anna was almost reluctant. Loved them so much that he still thought of them, even as he knew they would hurt him. Vox loved that person, and he hated that he loved them.
Alastor clenched his teeth.
You pathetic man, he had once said to Vox, in one of their many brutal fights. Always seeking what you can't have. But he thought he might know it now, that relentless hunger to have it all, even if it acted directly against his self-interests. The emotion bubbled down into his core, spreading moral rot into the depths of his bones. The burn of envy. Of jealously.
Whoever this person was — this inferior thing that Vox had somehow adored to pieces —
All night Alastor stared at the bayou, trying to picture this person. A person Vox loved. Genuinely, quietly loved. Alastor knew of Vox's sordid relationship with the moth; had vaguely heard of his one-night affairs throughout their years of companionship. He had never heard of Vox's love. He had never heard of Vox complimenting someone, of speaking about them with warmth, of a person that could keep his attention. He had never seen Vox's eyes light up at the mention of someone else, his little antennae sparking and glowing in excitement, the jagged slash of his smile softening into something sweeter. He wondered what this person looked like. He wondered what they had done, somehow, to deserve Vox's love.
The jealousy built; an ugly, decaying thing.