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Life was hell.
Even in comparison to the fact that he had lived in the literal place and had been for the past seventy or so years, nothing could compare to his own personal Hell he was living at the moment.
Since he had threatened to destroy everything within the radius of Vee Tower, killing most of the population in the process, he had been limited to living a very boring life. He had been taken in by Velvette and Valentino so he wasn't left wandering the streets and being a threat to anyone immediately following his own beheading. Of course, they'd quickly realised that he was far more annoying when he was just a head and had reluctantly given him his body back on the promise he behaved himself in return. Before he could even argue with them, he had been thrown into his own private room space and treated like some sort of prisoner.
He wasn't allowed out. He wasn't allowed to do a single thing without their permission first. Valentino refused to even listen to his many attempts at poor apologies. All he had was himself and the thoughts entertaining his mind. The dangerous thoughts that seemed to grow more and more intrusive with each passing day.
Vox had had everything. He was the most powerful sinner in Hell, for about twenty minutes. He had managed to strike Heaven, albeit he ended up doing more damage to Hell with his weapon in the end. People had adored him just like he always desired, until he fucked it all up by getting caught up in the heat of the moment and accidentally destroying everything. Hell, he had Alastor on his string for weeks, until he was beaten out by the stupidest wordplay he had ever heard before in his afterlife.
Now, everyone in Hell hated him. That was just a definite fact, and he knew it. He had destroyed so much of the pentagram, threatened the lives of thousands more, and shown to everyone just how insane he truly was underneath it all. Public image was everything in Hell, and he had spent seven decades building up his reputation to perfection so the denizens of Hell only saw what he wanted them to see and not the broken, power-hungry man underneath it all. But then all of that had been thrown away in an instant when he was instead filled with desperation: the desperation to finally prove Alastor wrong and show he could do something, be someone, without abusing others in the process. Even if doing so would be the last decision he ever got to make, he was more than willing to make that sacrifice.
Anything to wipe that stupid fucking smile off of Alastor's face.
At the time, he had been smiling. Thinking that this was it, that he had finally won. Would finally best Alastor and give him the payback he so rightfully deserved after all these decades. But in the end, Alastor's smile never wavered once. Not when Vox threatened to kill them all. Not when he declared how obsessed he was for all of Hell to know. Not when he was a bloodied mess on the floor desperately trying to crawl away to safety.
Vox had come to one single conclusion during all that: he was chasing an impossible goal. He was playing a game with Alastor, but Alastor was cheating somehow. He had to be, it was the only thing that made sense. No man, no matter how prideful they are, can keep a constant smile up all the time. He had no idea how it was possible, but he knew with how much he had already lost, it was a game he could not keep up playing anymore. As much as it was the last thing he ever wanted to do, he had to concede defeat to the radio demon.
Somehow even when Alastor had been publically ridiculed by his hands, he still came out on top after everything. Alastor had left that day a hero, having helped fight him off and then join in with the whole "power of friendship" thing the princess had started. Yet Vox had left that day with nothing, when he originally had everything. Fame, success, friends, business partners, respect, and all of it had vanished in a single instant when he made the choice that he didn't care what happened so long as he and Alastor were gone. Because the only way he could beat the radio demon was in double death, especially considering for the past seventy years, their lives had been interconnected along every single step of the way. Yet Alastor still always found a way to win at everything.
At this point, Vox recognised all too well that the only way he would ever win this battle was in death, because he could have the last grin and leave Alastor without his entertaining little rival. And Vox had to admit, the release from everything death would bring him was starting to sound more and more enticing as the boring days spent staring at the walls of his room went by.
The only thing making him laugh at this point was seeing how far he had fallen in such little time for a man who at one point had everything.
Valentino and Velvette may have confiscated basically all of his belongings from him after they managed to tame him, but they thankfully had never thought to check absolutely everywhere for his things and instead mostly just removed everything from around his room that they deemed would be "problematic" if he was left alone with them. Vox had learnt quickly that whenever either of those two did looting through his stuff whenever something had happened over the years where he warranted a search, they often tended to skip over a few places. Namely, they often forgot that Vox's en-suite bathroom had just enough space inside to hide things if he so needed to before one of those two discovered something he didn't particularly want them finding.
This time he had managed to hide away something he had picked up secretly the last time he had visited Carmilla Carmine's. A knife, short just like the one Niffty had used to slay Adam that one time, but still lethal nonetheless. Any angelic steel was fatal no matter how small in size it might be. Considering the metal was strong enough to wipe out the all-powerful angels, one could only imagine the permanent damage it could do an unholy demon. Alastor's scar was more than enough proof Vox needed to know that any harm done by angelic steel was absolutely permanent no matter how powerful of a demon you were.
Though the fact they had been used for seven years straight as tools in murdering as many demons as possible so they stayed gone should have been more than enough proof anyway.
Vox made double sure the other Vees were preoccupied by quickly finding their schedules for the day in the VoxTek (currently rebranding) databases before deciding to go through with the little idea that had entered his mind. His thoughts often wandered to dark places these days given how his mind had completely fallen apart of the seams, but he had never really acted on them because he still had so many other reasons to live for. Things he could recover from given the chance. But what he had done during his war with Heaven had crossed a line with everybody. There would be no more recovering from it, not when the other Vees had completely disowned him entirely over it all.
Over the weeks since he had been curled up in his room collecting dust, he had realised that he really didn't have anything left to live for. Not his status since that had all but disappeared after he chose to selfishly end the lives of thousands for some stupid deer who didn't even care if he lived or died. And certainly not for his relationships since Valentino would rather ghost him and pretend he didn't even exist, and Alastor hadn't given a single shit about him since he had taken Vox's heart and effectively pulled it out, shot a bullet through it, stabbed it, hung it and feed it to the fishes.
Fates he ironically deserved given how many of those he had made others suffer for his own gain.
Unsure as to why he was sneaking around when he was the only one in his room and Val and Vel were busy with the whole fixing their PR thing after he had destroyed it all, he headed into his en-suite bathroom and dug around through his cupboards until he found what he was looking for. Various pill bottles were thrown out and discarded as he scavenged for the angelic blade he had hidden away where nobody would find it. The bottles he was discarding were all things he had been prescribed by Hell's incredibly shitty doctors over the years. He had insisted that he was fine, but it had been Valentino who had been concerned for his mental state after some big crashouts when work became too much. In reality, he had never taken a single one, he simply just told Valentino he was and Val kept up the prescription, hence why his cupboards were slowly starting to fill with bottles he hadn't found a way of throwing out without Valentino noticing yet.
The only other things in his private bathroom cupboard was a random selection of condoms still in their packaging. He examined the strange box in his hands, wondering where they had even come from in the first place. He definitely didn't remember buying them. Not that many things were bought in a place like Hell with theft being such a common sin. That wasn't the confusing part, because the part that was confusing him the most was what was even the point of such things in Hell? Everyone was already dead anyway and only angelic weapons could guarantee the permanance of death, and nobody down here was really giving two shits about using them when sex was all pleasure and everything. Valentino certainly was not the one who had bought them and stored them in his cupboard either given Vox was pretty sure Valentino would rather be caught dead than do such a thing, including use them. Ignoring the confusion regarding their existence, he discarded them with everything else and continued digging through the cupboard.
Eventually he found the knife at the very bottom of everything, having been hidden well by him when he had taken it in the first place so that nobody in the tower would ever find it. His logic that everything else in there would have discouraged them from looking any further, and he was grateful he had come up with that idea at least since it seemed to have worked. Not that he doubted any of the Vees ever would have tried to look through in here, but it was still a potential possibility and while it existed as a possibility, he couldn't take that risk.
When he closed the cupboard door, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the nearby mirror. His eyes glanced at the mess staring back at him, his own image showing just how badly he had fallen. His antenna were lopsided, even more so than usual after he snapped one of them so he could no longer hear the frequency Alastor emitted anymore when he was nearby. His neck was covered in pieces of tape from when Valentino had (reluctantly) stuck his head back to his body. His clothes were baggy around his figure, a clear side effect of the fact he hadn't eaten a proper meal since his solitude period had begun. He hadn't found the will or the energy to.
But when he blinked, his reflection flickered for a second. He saw his old self, from when he was alive. The ghost of the hugely successful man he used to be before he lost everything within seconds thanks to an unfortunate freak accident (that he might have sort of caused even if not his original intentions). If Vincent Whittman was here right now, he would probably be laughing at what Vox had become.
The failure.
Vox shook his head and turned away from the mirror. He didn't want to stir up any more long buried memories. Not when Vincent was nothing but a distant, old persona now. All thanks to Alastor and him providing Vox with the kick up the ass he needed to stop being a pushover and get his shit done just like how Alastor did. As cruelly as possible. He turned on his heels and pushed away the memories back to the dark recesses of his mind they had surfaced from all of a sudden.
With what he desired in his hands, he left the bathroom in a mess and went back into the sanctuary and comfort of his master bedroom. At least when the Vees had restricted his life they still allowed him to keep his own room and most of his old things. That was one small victory, if he could even enjoy those still.
He sat on the edge of his bed, blade between his fingers, just being held for the time being. Once upon a time he had shared the bed with Valentino, but those days were long gone now. Of course, he'd dreamt about a world where he could have shared said bed with Alastor instead, shame that was a place that was never going to exist outside of his mind. Alastor had repeatedly made it clear he didn't care about Vox over and over again after all. Now, the bed was simply just there for his use, and nights felt much more lonely when he was by himself and his thoughts.
Vox sighed and then got back up to go over to his work desk, leaving the angelic weapon behind. If he was going to actually go through with this, he figure he may do it all properly and leave a note and everything. Better to do that then make Val or Vel freak out that they'd had a security breach suddenly when they finally bothered to check on him again.
Yet when he went to write, he found his mind blanking on what to say. Words always came so natural to him, but having to give a cause for why he was ending everything was difficult. The reason was simply just because he wanted to, he had nothing left, and his mind kept arguing it was the right thing to do. Was that all he had to say? It sounded incredibly half-assed, but he wasn't sure what else there was to put.
Unless he spoke from his heart too. Write down everything he had bottled up inside so that at least someone would be able to finally know what was going on in his mind after all these years. Might as well be honest with those feelings now given nobody was going to be able to make fun of them when he was dead. So that was what he eventually ended up doing: just writing down whatever random feelings he'd had locked away over seventy years in Hell. Once he started doing that, he found that things actually came a lot more natural than he ever expected them to.
He left the note face up on his desk and slumped back towards the bed. He didn't even notice the way he was secretly being watched, nor did he spot the unnatural shadow flicker away back into the darkness.
Vox grabbed the blade again and began messing with it between his fingers. Hesitation. Like something deep inside was screaming at him that this actually wasn't the right thing to do. But since when had he ever listened to whatever morals were left in his mind after everything? The only thing stopping him at this point was his own mentality and his will to keep going, even though he was struggling to keep up that will when there wasn't a single thing left.
So he decided to stop thinking about things and just do them. He was done letting his head make the decisions and decided to follow his heart for the first time in his life. For once, he didn't care about anything, so he figured what exactly would the damage be to this plan. Nobody was going to even care if he was gone, they'd just forget about everything and move on. Hell was forever after all and he was just one soul of millions residing there.
One single soul that wouldn't be missed if he went away, not by anybody, and especially not after everything he had done to Hell.
In one swift motion, somehow without any hesitance since he switched his mind off, Vox stopped fiddling with the angelic steel and instead plunged it right into his left forearm. The pain hit him instantly, but he also knew that nobody would hear his screams since he had made sure to soundproof his bedroom walls after an incident where Velvette filed a formal complaint regarding "nobody wants to listen to you and Val fucking". It pierced through both flesh and circuitry and that was evident from the pain that went shooting through his entire systems the second the steel cut through.
He pulled it out with a quick thrust and that caused the pain to at least subside a little. "Fuck!" He screamed again upon taking note of the sheer amount of his own blood now running down the rest of his arm and staining his shirt and trousers that it was resting against. Usually when he had been in the presence of so much blood like this, he had been the one causing it and it was always someone else's, never his own. Hence why he was in a state of shock for a while just watching the way everything stained crimson for a while whilst also fighting through all the pain.
He might have been hesitant at first, but now he had been swayed completely by the promise that at least the pain could stop if he went ahead with it all. With that thought in his mind, he grabbed the knife again with the arm that was still functioning and didn't have a gaping hole through it, closed his eyes, and with shaky hands, went to plunge it into his chest.
Until a gentle set of fingers wrapped around his hand and halted his actions entirely. Vox's eyes might have been closed, but he still knew exactly who it was. Despite the years apart, he'd never forget the feeling of Alastor's fingers in his.
"Let go of me, Alastor." His voice was broken. There was none of the usual confidence, nor the need for making everything a pain like conversations often went between them. Just a shell of a deeply broken man.
"Are you going to kill yourself if I do?"
Vox opened his eyes, no snarky comeback ready like usual, the obvious sign that he had hit rock bottom. He hadn't realised Alastor was so close when he first grabbed him, but now Vox could see the very limited space between them. Alastor's slender fingers refused to remove themselves from being curled around Vox's and the knife, even as much as Vox stared at him with the expression of someone who had truly lost everything.
"Why do you care?" Vox asked, voice breaking. "Or are you just here to finish the deal yourself? See me here like this and decide you want one last win against me? Decided that you wanted to be the one to put me out of my misery?"
"Vox. Stop."
It was the way in which Alastor was still so calm as he spoke that was annoying Vox the most about it all. Not only was he getting in his way once again, like always, but he was being so calm about everything when usually the pair of them would have greatly revelled in the other's suffering. Yet now when he was about to finally let Alastor win, he was somehow able to spin it and be smug in his own Alastor way. And that was the part that Vox hated the most about him being stopped.
"No." Vox stated, demeanour remaining the same. He refused to even look at Alastor's eyes because he wouldn't like what he saw in them judging from how Alastor was treating this situation. "This is what I have to do."
"No, it isn't," Alastor argued. "Vox, give me the knife."
Neither of them budged an inch. They just remained there, fingers brushing and threat of death lingering heavy in the air between them. One wrong move and one of them could get seriously hurt, so they were having to be careful to avoid any accidents. Alastor didn't deserve to get caught in the crossfire of Vox's decisions.
"Al, why can't you take your fucking win and leave me alone?"
"This isn't what you really want to do, Vox. You can't let those intrusive thoughts win."
Vox scoffed, despite being on the verge of breaking entirely. "What do you know about intrusive thoughts? Have you ever had a reason to be mad at the world in your life? Ever? All you do is bring others down! And you enjoy it! You enjoy watching everyone around you suffer! Me included!"
"Vox, I-"
"Save it, fucker! How you could even begin to understand what I went through? We could have had everything! You started all of this, and you could never even begin to fathom what I've experienced thanks to you. I loved you, and you just threw me away like I was trash! Do you know how much that stings, Al? No. No, you don't. You could never understand what that feels like, because you're oh so perfect all the fucking time. Do me a huge fucking favour and just kill me yourself since you've clearly been wanting to since forever!"
Vox's tears ran down his screen uncontrollably. When neither of them moved once again, he started getting mad, mostly at Alastor's sudden change of heart trying to halt his apparently reckless actions.
"Alastor, just do us both the favour and kill me. I've never asked for much from you before, but just do this for me. All of Hell will be better off without me. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. So, just kill me. Please."
"You're wrong," Alastor muttered.
"What?" Vox asked the question and prayed it wasn't just heightened emotions at that moment that were playing cruel tricks on him.
"I'd miss you."
Or perhaps Vox had already died a second time because that was the only possible explanation for the words that just left Alastor's mouth.
Despite the depression he was feeling, Vox managed to let out a laugh. Broken, but still there. "No you wouldn't. Don't- Don't lie to me when I'm already down, Al."
"I'm not lying, Vincent," he said. A statement. "You have no idea what I've done. How much I regret. But one thing I don't regret is coming here and stopping you from doing this."
"You started this! If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be in this mess. Do you even know how much that night hurt me?"
"Yes! I do, Vox! You're not the only one who suffered from the choices made that night!"
Vox dropped the knife and it fell to the floor with a thud. Alastor's sudden display of emotion, even when still coated with his smile, had caught him off-guard. Rendered him speechless, and Vox usually prided himself in being a man who could always find something to say about any situation he found himself in. That and he often just seemed to enjoy hearing the sound of his own voice, as many people had told him over the years.
"You- What? How could you have possibly suffered from it all?" Vox asked, voice wavering again. "You never needed me, and you made that pretty fucking clear-"
"I panicked, Vox!" Alastor confessed. Apparently Vox's near suicide was the thing that would finally break Alastor into revealing what was behind that twisted smile of his. Vox, in that moment despite his willingness to end everything, decided to listen. He only hoped Alastor might finally provide him with answers he had been searching for for seven decades now.
Alastor sighed, calming himself down, before continuing his story. "I panicked. I thought that what I did was the only right choice, to protect you. But I never expected that choice to make me live with so much guilt, so much regret, ever since you stormed out of that bar and went on with your life."
"What?" It was the only word Vox could properly form at this point, not knowing if Alastor was just taking advantage of him being vulnerable or whether the radio demon was actually being sincere.
"I thought I did what I had to do in order to protect you. To protect you from the confines of a deal you weren't a part of. To protect you from realising your emotions and allowing others to prey on them. To protect you from... me. Me and the stupid feelings I didn't want anybody in Hell to know about. So I pushed you away, because I thought it was the only option. And I have regretted it every single day since."
Vox's hands started trembling as the words processed in his mind. All these years of praying for some form of answer to why Alastor had done what he had that day were finally within his grasp, but he was too far gone to even acknowledge it anymore. To him, everything felt like lies now. Desperate attempts to try and bring him back to reality even when he deserved everything he was doing.
"No, you're- You're lying," Vox said, grabbing the edges of his screen like he so often did when he became overwhelmed. "You have to be!"
Despite making it clear in the past that Alastor hated physical contact, he was still acutely aware of how comforting such an act was for Vox. Hence why he found himself, against all odds, reaching out to gently caress the corner of Vox's screen. Something he knew was a comfort for him after all the years together, and from seeing the way Valentino had done it too during the time he had been a captive under the Vees and forced to watch their domestic life from a distance for weeks on end.
"I'm not lying, Vox," he assured. Vox leant into Alastor's touch, revelling in the moment despite everything going on inside his spiralling mind. "You know that though, don't you? You just don't want to believe it. You want to find a reason not to live anymore, when I unfortunately just granted you one for the opposite."
"Al- You can't just come parading in here and drop something like that on me. You can't just pretend to care about me now after everything you've done to me. Do you honestly think I'm going to just buy whatever sob story you give me?"
"I don't expect you to believe me, but I also know that you will regret going through with this if I didn't stop you." Discretely, Alastor used his free hand to pick up the discarded knife and keep it out of Vox's reach. It was an interesting thought to know that Alastor now carried Vox's life or death in his hands, and yet he was for some bizarre reason choosing to save him from a fate Vox had presumed he was wishing upon him for seven decades. In reality, Alastor had never wished Vox death, even through everything Vox had put him through, only because of one reason. That reason had always been that when a man so heartless and psychotic as Alastor was found himself falling for someone in an emotion that should have been completely foreign to him, it was a difficult thing to just get over and forget even as much as he tried.
And believe me, Alastor had certainly tried to.
"Just know that you will regret killing yourself just like I regret what I did to you that night if I hadn't tried to stop you just now. If you need a reason to keep living, then you have one right in front of you. It may not be one you ever expected nor hoped for, but it's there. And it's begging for you to reconsider."
"Why?" Vox muttered. "Why now?"
"I imagine life would be quite boring without my little picture box constantly fighting for my attention," Alastor joked, hoping it would break the difficult atmosphere in the room. "So I figured if there was any time to finally come clean about it all, it was before it was too late to. You deserve to at least know before you die again, my dear. I couldn't do that to you after everything I'd already done."
Vox took a deep breath and embraced the surprising support he was receiving at the moment. Alastor was the last person he had ever expected this sort of stuff from, but he found that he really didn't care all that much given how much he still loved Alastor. Plus his touch was soft and comforting, and since he was still willing to keep up the contact, Vox wasn't exactly going to be one to complain about it.
Somehow, Alastor's comfort was actually helping him calm down. With Alastor here, the thoughts that had threatened to spill into his actions were starting to repress themselves again. For that reason, he suddenly relaxed again, choosing to enjoy the moment for what it was. No stress, no pressure, nothing. It was just him and Alastor, and the surprisingly calming presence the radio demon was emanating.
"I'm not going to kill myself, Al." He decided, and he could swear he saw the smallest hint of relief flicker in Alastor's eyes.
Not that he was deliberately looking at Alastor's eyes or anything.
"Good," Alastor muttered before turning his attention to the gaping wound in Vox's arm that had gone ignored this whole time because of him wanting to deal with the larger issue at hand first. "Now, let's get this patched up, shall we?"
He snapped his fingers and a selection of bandages appeared from thin air. With extreme care, Alastor began tending to Vox's wound like he had done this a million times and this was a normal occurrence for them. Vox was greatly surprised by how seriously Alastor was taking this despite the fact his own angelic wounds were currently being healed by his own half-assed attempt at stitching them back together. Vox did flinch at the contact at first because of how deep his cut was and the fact it was likely never going to heal if Alastor's chest was anything to go by.
Not that he thought about that time when he had Alastor pinned against a wall, shirt unbottoned, chest on display-
He shook his head and tried to stay in the present the best he could. The present in which Alastor was treating him like they hadn't spent almost seventy years trying to one up one another. Like they had been good friends all this time. Even though Vox couldn't deny the intimacy lingering between them with everything Alastor had confessed and that he was just supposed to accept so easily.
Though Vox did have a question of his own as Alastor worked on bandaging up his own damage.
"Hey, Al, how did you even know I needed help anyway?"
His smile widened at the sides ever so slightly. So faint it might have gone unnoticed by any normal demon in Hell, but Vox had spent enough time watching Alastor over the years that he could at least tell Alastor's discrete tonal shifts when nobody else could. In fact, he was probably the only person who could and even then, only Rosie came close considering what Vox knew about their relationship.
"I have my ways, Vincent. Ever since that day you were taken back in by the Vees, I had my shadow carefully, and discretely of course, watching you. I feared you would stage something like this, and so I decided to keep an eye on you. Of course, as soon as it became evident you were going to cross that line, it scurried back to the hotel and warned me. So I came here as fast as I could, and I'm glad I did because it seems like I got here just in time."
"I- Thank you, Alastor." Vox blushed once the words left his mouth, but he also found he didn't care anymore. Not with how heavy this entire conversation had been, and the fact he still to address the things Alastor had confessed, he was just waiting until he was in a better mindset in order to do that. "For saving me from myself, I mean. I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you."
"Well, you often do end up being your own worst enemy. I think it's a symptom of the narcissistic personality disorder you have, dear."
"Were you being serious earlier?" Vox asked, hopeful. "About you trying to protect me? About having feelings for me? Or was that just you trying to get me to hand you the knife so I wouldn't kill myself?"
If it was possible with that permanently stitched smile, Vox could swear he was smirking. "It was sincere. And it is a secret I have lived with ever since that day. But I knew I fucked everything up by saying what I said, and that was something I deserved to live with. I hurt you, and I knew nothing would ever make up for that fact."
"Yeah, I was hurt. That doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when you said those things to me. I loved you, Al, and I wasn't afraid of admitting that, and you treated me like shit. I can't just forget something like that so easily."
Alastor's expression shifted, not enough to display what was going on inside his mind, but enough for Vox to know that what he had just said had struck some sort of nerve. "I didn't expect you to forgive me so easily," he simply stated. "I wasn't even going to even be offended if you didn't, because I know hurting you was so, so wrong. Honestly, I wouldn't even blame you if you continued to hate me forever for toying with you like this for so long."
Alastor tightened the bandages and made sure they were secured in place before announcing he was done. With tears on the rims of his digital eyes, Vox tackled Alastor in a hug. Alastor's internal radio let out a screech in surprise at the sudden gesture but he quickly embraced it and reciprocated it.
"We could have had this years ago, Al," Vox whispered into Alastor's sensitive ears. "We could have been happy. If I had you, like this, maybe I wouldn't have started a war with Heaven. Maybe I wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place. Because you were all I ever wanted. Fuck power, fuck wealth, and fuck being feared by everyone down here. As long as I could have you, for the rest of eternity, I don't care about anything else."
"I've heard that speech before," Alastor joked, still trying to break the heavy mood. It successfully made Vox laugh, and that was music to his ears considering how close to falling apart he had been a few minutes ago. "Though the contents and circumstances were vastly different."
"Not entirely though. I was perfectly willing to kill myself back then too."
"I know. But you were stopped, and I was relieved. I should have been the one to do it but your damn pet hits hard. At least I can be thankful for your little business partners deciding to take actions into their own hands otherwise things might have been vastly different altogether if not for them."
"Yeah," Vox simply replied, the memory hitting him all too fast. How he had been so overwhelmed with his own emotions at that moment. Determined to win over Alastor no matter what it took. The funny irony was that he now knew all that time he had been chasing an impossible goal, simply because Alastor had already fallen for him and had just locked away that part of him behind that smile. "Still. It's crazy to think that all this time I was trying to impress you when I had already won you over."
"Yes, I must admit that was entertaining to watch. You, desperate to win me over, going head over heels for any sort of attention from me when in reality, you already had my entire attention."
"Is it bad that I wish I could just stay here with you, like this forever?"
Alastor sat on the edge of Vox's bed, and the former media overlord joined him, refusing to separate from Alastor no matter what. Like he was desperately trying to make up for seven decades of lost time. "Not at all, dear," the radio demon replied softly. "Sometimes a quiet life is nice. Prevents one from falling too deep into insanity. Though, I suppose we've never exactly been the perfect pictures of sanity, have we?"
Vox chuckled, genuine happiness finally creeping back in. That fact made Alastor relax a little as well given his only desire from all this was Vox pushing away his intrusive and dark thoughts and enjoying the moments he still had to cherish in life. He was never going to admit how much he had waited for the moment they were sharing and thus how much he was deeply enjoying this quiet moment where neither of them had any of their worries haunting them anymore. No Rosie and her pointless tasks for him to complete, no Charlie and her annoying positivity at everything, no Lucifer and the way his mere existence angered Alastor. It was just him and Vox, the rest of the world a complete blur. Locked away from their chaotic lives and the cruelness of Hell, even if only temporarily.
"Alastor?" Vox suddenly spoke after a few minutes of blissful silence.
"Yes, Vox?"
"I know you aren't particularly fond of the whole, as crazy as this phrase is gonna sound, touching thing but me? I'm the kind of person who seeks comfort in physical touch."
Alastor's eyes narrowed, understanding the implication without Vox even needing to say any more. The idea would have sickened him if this was any other time before, but in the here and now, he found the thought intriguing. Mostly, he found himself wondering if he didn't oblige to Vox's small, harmless requests, he might go back into another spiral that Alastor was desperately trying to prevent.
"I'll indulge you."
The way Vox's screen displayed a smile so wide it could almost rival his own made Alastor sigh first. Regardless, he let Vox shift his body weight so he was leaning against his chest anyway. Though he shot Vox a warning stare first, reminding him about a certain little scar still haunting Alastor's chest, which prompted Vox to spout out a little comment about him promising to be careful.
The first thing he noticed was how much heat was emanating from Vox's head, likely due to all his internal systems working their hardest to keep him from crashing. Judging from how much his mind must have been fighting to stop him from doing something reckless, Alastor figured they were likely working overtime too to keep him from trying it again. It made him wonder just how often it ended up being basically a free radiator, before finding that he actually didn't mind that.
He might have been a psychotic killer, but even he was still human underneath it all. And he was slowly discovering, being here with Vox, that he seemed to enjoy those more humane things, even as much as he despised the thought of admitting that out loud to anyone. Vox included.
At the angle Vox was at, and mostly because the room had been in darkness this whole time, Alastor finally noticed the collection of lopsided and messy tape gathered around the very bottom of his screen and continuing down his neck. It didn't take someone with his excelling intelligence to realise that it was because of Valentino and Velvette's best efforts to stitch him back together following his own public beheading. However, from the poor state of it, it looked like the pair of them had done an incredible half-assed job at it. Probably due to the fact that they didn't give a shit about him in any way anymore, which was all too obvious from the way he was hauled up in the room and on the brink of insanity because of it.
If he ever found them after all of this, he had a few nasty things to say them about their treatment of Vox, even if he did deserve it after everything he did.
"Al, when you leave, are you gonna keep me here with them?"
The "them" in this context was referring to Valentino and Velvette no doubt, Vox's asumedly now former business partners. The same ones who had basically locked him up in his room and stopped caring for him, instead letting him die on his own accord. It was the tone in which Vox had asked his question that was providing difficulty in answering because Vox sounded so genuinely scared of that possibility. And in his incredibly fragile state he was in right now, Alastor wasn't sure what to do.
Vox seemed to get an answer from the silence Alastor provided however. "You are, aren't you?"
"I have to," Alastor replied, the words not sounding any better once they became voiced. They still hurt no matter what, and knowing how much they likely cut through Vox made Alastor feel the tiniest pang of guilt. (Only a tiny bit though, this is still Alastor after all.)
"No, no, no," Vox kept repeating, like some sort of broken record caught on loop. "You don't have to leave me here!" he argued, desperately. "You can take me with you! I don't even mind staying at the shitty hotel!"
"Vox, I don't think Charlie would particularly appreciate-"
"Al, please," he begged, burying his screen tight into Alastor's coat. Grovelling was no doubt a new hobby of his from how professionally he knew how to do it with feeling. The whole act was quite amusing, but Alastor also grew tired of it far too quickly. "I just got you back, I can't lose you again."
And there was the unfortunate point he had to make. If Alastor left him unattended to living in the tower with the Vees, then the same thing he just prevented would just keep happening, and with his busy hotel duties now that sinners knew redemption was indeed a possible feat, he might not be able to escape so easily next time. Vox might be a goner if he tried again without Alastor knowing what he was doing.
Convincing Charlie was going to be a huge headache however, especially after everything Vox did to not just the hotel, but to her friends, and to her citizens when he threatened all their lives in his moment of sheer desperation and insanity. However, it was the more civilised of the two options since at least Vox would be alive in this scenario as opposed to becoming a rotting corpse on his bedroom floor one day.
And of course there was the point Vox had mentioned. How they had waited almost seven decades to be together like this, and now he was being so quick to separate again, even when Vox was in a vulnerable state and needed emotional support to stop his unstable thoughts from returning. What kind of person would he be, even if he technically was a psychotic murderer, if he just added salt to Vox's wounds by ditching him again when he needed him most?
Alastor had already run away from his feelings once before, and he sure as Hell wasn't going to do it again. Not when Vox, this Vox he managed to comfort and represent the Vincent he used to know again, was bringing him some genuine happiness back into his life. And it seemed like he was having the same effect on Vox too, which only made the decision even easier to make in the end.
"I suppose I could convince Charlie to let you stay, if you promise to behave yourself. You know she'll accept anyone off the streets so long as you show some sort of enthusiasm for her little redemption project. And she is quite a firm believer of the whole apologising thing after all. I see no reason why she won't let you stay once we explain things. I think her morals will sway her to our side when she understands the situation you have been in. I can't imagine she'd be particularly pleased with the way the Vees have been treating you."
"Thank you, Alastor." Vox's grip on Alastor tightened as the television demon squeezed him into a hug again. Alastor found himself reciprocating it, against his better nature. "Somehow, despite me being about to kill myself like twenty minutes ago, this is the happiest I've been in a very long time."
"Ditto, Vincent."
Maybe things wouldn't be too bad if the world stopped spinning right now. After all, Vox would be in safe hands and he wouldn't have to worry about all the stresses of working trying to satisfy both Rosie and Charlie's constant wishes and errands.
Vox relaxed in his arms before whispering one singular phrase. "I love you, Al." Fragile words, like he was absolutely terrified of waking up and discovering it had all been a dream. (Something told Alastor that Vox had experienced that before, way too many times, judging from how his voice shook when delivering the promise.) "You mean everything to me. I mean that."
"I know," Alastor replied, matter-of-factly. "And, ditto once again, Vincent. Don't you forget that."