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It is indisputable that Vox Akuma, the almighty voice demon who once ruled over his very own clan, has perhaps one of the foulest mouths in the whole company.
His little quips and innuendos had surprised Ike the first time he heard them, the profaneness of his words shocking the poor novelist, who had never before encountered someone quite as vulgar and straightforward as Vox.
“Suck my fat cock, you rat bastard,” Vox had growled, his hands jamming his keyboard with an equal level of fiery spite. “Come at me with those moves again and I swear, I’ll fuck you up.” And, after a slight pause, “Or, I might just kiss you, you stupid brute.”
Ike had witnessed all of this with the sheer amusement of someone observing the mating rituals of a rare species of bird for the first time. And yet, he couldn’t help but think that this — whatever this was — suited Vox’s character perfectly. The down-to-earth, charmingness of his words, however foul, was presented neatly with a bow and served seasoned on a silver tongue to a waiting audience. It was tantalising, and more than anything, it worked.
What Ike did not expect, however, is to have that very mouth turn on him.
Vox is… for the lack of a better term, persistent in his advances.
“Of course, I love everyone in Luxiem equally. But especially you, Ike,” Vox says and turns to gaze at him calmly mid-collab. He is staring into Ike’s eyes when he speaks again. “Especially you.”
It’s a repeated joke, a meme Ike has already laughed off once before, but still, Vox’s words work. They do their magic as they have always done before, and Ike tries his best not to shift in his seat. He musters his courage and wills his voice to come out still.
“You’re impossible,” he laughs at Vox, his eyes closing into little crescents at Vox’s targeted quip. Laughter-induced tears have gathered at the sides of his eyes, and he feels the beginning of a blush spreading up his ears.
“Am I?” Vox asks back. His eyes gaze keenly back at him, the soft smile spreading across his face sending a sharp spike of something warm through Ike’s heart.
He’s serious, Ike thinks to himself, brain shuttering. His pulse shifts into something rabbit-fast, and Ike is suddenly acutely aware of the worn fabric of his sofa beneath his fingers and of his proximity to the other man. They are only a hair’s breadth away — close enough to touch, close enough to feel each other’s warmth — and Ike, not for the first time, is tempted to simply erase the barrier he himself has put up between them both. Yet, just as quickly as he allows himself these thoughts, Ike pulls away, a familiar fear clogging up his veins and spreading cold dread through his heart.
Ike chooses to ignore him, sidesteps it easily enough, and ignores the flurry of comments building up on his side of the screen.
Their back-and-forths always end up the same — a timely manifestation of love, of pure, splendid admiration from Vox, and then, Ike, who hesitantly parries with his usual skilful navigation of bluffs and the occasional petty ignorance. And Vox, persistent, charming, gentlemanly Vox, catches him where he is at and plays along.
—
Ike’s nightmares always start out the same.
He would hear the carriages first, the comforting knock of hooves on cobblestone — an aural reminder of the past. His past. The bells would strike next, a single, harsh clang of metal against metal, their deep ringing tolls signifying the approaching afternoon sun.
Despite the noon bells, his hometown always appears to be washed in black. The village houses shift and dilate in the imposing darkness, their edges a blurred enough mess that Ike finds it impossible to tell where one house ends and where another starts. Through the murky filter of this world, Ike knows deep down that this place — this copy of his childhood town — is nothing more than a figment of his imagination. A dream. And yet, the fear that pervades him in this world feels so incredibly raw.
The fear begins when the bells toll. It starts slow and small, a scratchy, impossible-to-rid itch that crawls from Ike’s heart to the rest of his limbs. He tries his best to push it down; he knows that fear will do nothing for him here.
Struggling past familiar scenery, Ike falters when the first silhouettes begin to appear. His fear, forcefully pushed down only seconds ago, rises into a fiery panic. It tugs at him, incessant and forceful and loud. As the silhouettes coalesce into visible shapes, Ike realises that they are people — past the hooves and the blended houses are townsfolk he once recognised but can no longer seem to remember. Their faces washed out and empty, they reach out closer and closer towards him.
“You don’t remember me?” one asks, their approach slow and unsteady.
Ike wants to defend himself. He really does. But he can’t seem to remember their face, and he stumbles across words he means to say but cannot get across.
The faceless figure looks at him, their non-existent eyes boring down at him in a silent, judging gaze. There are pale indents where their eyes are supposed to be, and if Ike wills himself to look closer, he can see the smooth, moulded expanse of their featureless face. Perfect, smooth, wrong. He steps back.
“You don’t,” the thing answers gleefully as if they have won a prize for guessing something right. They step forward, closing the gap between them once again, hands grasping for his face.
“You don’t,” another accuses from his side, their face also a hollowed mask of stitched-together skin.
“How could you?” asks another.
They crowd around him, a horde of hands sliding across his face, desperate fingers clawing into his skin, his eyes, his mouth.
“Do you know what you did?” someone, no, something hisses into his ear. “You left us here to die. Mere creations of your fantastical dreams.”
The thing grabs his chin, and when Ike forces his eyes open to look, he is face to face with a blank canvas of undulating flesh.
“Keep running, novelist,” the thing spits out, its voice awash with nothing but anger and venom. “One day, when you’re sapped dry of your words, you’ll realise you have nowhere else left to run.”
It lets go, and a mass of fingers replaces it. Ike can feel their nails scraping across his skin, but whatever pain he is supposed to feel is masked by the thundering of his heart. And when his fear reaches a momentous, ringing high, Ike jerks himself awake, his wet lashes fluttering as he blinks himself into consciousness.
Even in the hazy, waking hours of the real world, Ike can never seem to remember the contents of his dreams fully, but he knows somewhere deep down that it is always the same damned one.
—
His nightmares worsen considerably as the weeks pass. The longer Ike tries to ignore them, the worse they seem to get.
He is plagued by the same old dream, and he wakes up, night after night in the same cold sweat.
Ike knows he cannot afford to lose the people dear to him again, knows he cannot bear for them too, to turn into the shambling faceless marionettes of his dreams. And thus, he repels them. He repels the affection and the concern and anything that would make the fear blossoming inside him grow larger than it already is. After all, what he doesn’t have, he cannot lose.
He makes an attempt to keep his distress to himself, but he realises a little too late how difficult it is to hide your hurt from the people who care about you.
He tries to accept the little bits of care from his friends: Luca’s energetic voice messages and well-wishes to feel better (“Ikey-Wikey! Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”) Shu’s thoughtful concern, reliable and wise from his years as a sorcerer (“I don’t think I have a spell for wishing away nightmares, but I’ll think of something.”) Mysta’s slightly chaotic messages, bundled with an incoming chime of money for food (“You better be taking care of yourself, mate.”) And of course, Vox, who shows up uninvited at his door with bags of groceries by his side.
Their apartments aren’t all that far away, but still, to show up at his door?
“Ike,” Vox greets him simply when he opens the door, his initial surprise offset only a little by the affection in Vox’s voice when he calls his name.
“Vox? What are you—”
“Not going to invite me in?” he asks, his voice full of mock hurt.
“Wait, what? No, of course— of course I am. Hang on.” Ike opens the door wider and steps aside to let Vox in. “What are you even doing here?”
Vox glances at him, surprised. He has already made his way into his kitchen and was in the middle of pulling out a carton of what looks suspiciously like Rockstar from his bag when he turns to look at Ike.
“Wait, you’re serious?” Vox asks, setting down the cans on the counter. “You’ve been looking frazzled for what, weeks? And you think we hadn’t noticed?” He pulls out a carton of beer next, and turns to look at Ike fully, both eyebrows raised. “We’ve been worried sick. I’ve been worried sick. And I know Mysta sent you food money, but between the two of us, we know you haven’t been eating.” He gestures amicably at the stale slice of half-eaten toast that has been sitting beside the sink since, crap, this morning?
Ike frowns at the toast and then at Vox.
“So I’m here,” Vox continues, making himself at home as always as he heats up Ike’s pan. “If not to hear what is going on with you, then at least feed you and make sure you don’t pass out where you stand.”
Ike says nothing. They stand in stark silence as Vox makes him his first meal of the day, and the silence stretches on even as he inhales the steak Vox has seared for him.
“So,” Vox begins when they are both settled on the couch, comfortable and fed. He sips from the can of beer in his hand and asks, “What the hell is going on with you?”
Ike turns only slightly to look at him, his head nestled on the sofa back and his figure a sprawled, lazed line of carefully concealed rigidity. He had expected the question to come, had come up first, with a hundred different excuses and later, a hundred other ways to explain his fears, but at that moment, he still finds himself unable to answer.
“What can you tell me?” Vox tries again, his teeth biting down on his bottom lip. “Anything would do, just—” He reaches forward and puts his hand atop Ike’s own, which lay on his lap, one cradling the other. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I just need an affirmation that you’re alright.” He pauses again, this time to look into Ike’s eyes. “And don’t. Don’t lie to me. Not to us.”
Vox’s eyes are a startling swirl of emotion and concern, and Ike tries not to flinch away from his gaze. He tightens his grip on his own hand, and sees the hesitancy in Vox’s face as he ponders whether or not to draw away. He doesn’t. He keeps his hand on top of Ike’s, and the warmth that permeates Ike from where their skin touch fills his heart with the same pressing longing that he has tried so hard to bury. Words bubble within him, and finally, finally, he relents, the exhaustion from the past few weeks catching up to him all at once. He lets the bubble he has built around himself pop, and waits for the words to rise. Shifting in his seat, Ike reaches over to snag the can of beer from Vox’s hand and chugs. Only when his body is warm from the alcohol and his tongue loose does he begin to speak in earnest.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” he starts softly. “The same damned thing.”
He curls his legs close to his chest and forces himself to speak. “I wake up alone in this town I used to live in before. There are all these people,” he trails off, voice picking up a slight tremor. “These people who I don’t know but that I know I knew. Hundreds of them — faceless beings who want to be remembered but I just—” He draws in a shuddering breath. “I just can’t. I can’t remember any of them. But I don’t want to forget, not like this, not stripped away from me one layer at a time.
“And then there’s the guilt. I left them, Vox. I abandoned them without being able to leave a word even though I knew what would happen to them. There were people who cared and people I loved that I willingly gave up but I can’t seem to remember them at all.” Ike ignores the sting of his eyes. “If I forget, I want it to be on my own terms. This is—” This isn’t what I wanted.
Perhaps it was the feeling of ease he feels around the other. Or perhaps it was the knowledge of the demon’s past — the shared sense of loss from a time long past, of hundreds of years, spent and gone within the blink of an eye. But Ike talks like he has never done so before, and Vox, throughout it all, says nothing. He sits, eyes kept on Ike and only Ike, and listens.
When he finishes, voice trailing and exhaustion creeping in, Vox is looking at him with an expression that Ike doesn’t think he has seen before. It is tinged with just a hint of melancholy, but Ike can’t quite put his finger on his expression at all.
Vox doesn’t speak, not for a long time.
“There was a girl I met on the day my clan perished,” Vox says. His voice is smooth, but Ike hears the faint quiver hidden cleverly behind years of practised fronts. “One of my clansmen. It’s been so many years, but I can still remember her face when she told me she wasn’t afraid of the ensuing battle.” Vox tilts his chin towards Ike, his smile soft. “It was much like yours.”
Ike says nothing, and works to keep his expression neutral. Vox’s smile lifts just a fraction.
“She hid herself very well behind a mask, but she was undoubtedly afraid of what was to come. She didn’t want to lose her home, but more than anything, she didn’t want to lose her sense of self.
“She had nothing before, but now she had a home to fight for, and I told her to cling on to that.” Vox’s voice is cold when he speaks again. “She would die fighting for a home that had its fate long sealed.” He leans back into his seat, eyes staring up at the ceiling in a glassy haze of old memories. “Perhaps things would have gone differently if I hadn’t been so tethered to the idea of having a home that was tangible in my grasp.”
Ike processes this slowly, hears the unspoken words Vox cannot bring himself to say, feels the guilt laced within each and every word of his story. You blame yourself for her death, he realises, fingers tight around a now empty can. All their deaths.
“You had a home before Ike, but it’s a drowning ship. This is where you belong now, and you’re doing yourself no favours chasing a time you cannot return to.” Vox pauses, his eyes keeping Ike in place. His next words come out soft and a little sad. “Hold on to the present, Ike.”
Ike doesn’t think he would react, not at first. Vox’s words made logical sense, and for the most part, he agrees. Except that Vox had hundreds of years to process his guilt and Ike — Ike realises now with a startling certainty that he had none.
He had been transported so abruptly into the present that he had no opportunity to say goodbye to what he had left behind. He had tried so hard to move on to the present, to acclimate himself to this new environment that he had forgotten about his past. No, he corrects himself. He had pushed it away and out of his mind’s eye. Now, he is subconsciously chasing that past he had failed to let go of, and it continues to chase him now, through heavy dreams and faceless spectres.
Ike doesn’t realise he is crying until Vox shifts towards him, face flustered and concerned. With one hand between them, Vox leads him gently into an awkward one-armed embrace, and Ike lets him. He succumbs to the quiet warmth of the other man, his head burying into Vox’s shoulder as he lets his touch and familiar presence rock him into a comforting state of drowsiness.
Ike knows he is afraid of letting loose. He knows how unpredictable his memory and his body have gotten after he got sucked into the present, and he knows just how mortal some of his family are here. And he is afraid to lose them — he’d rather die than have something take away those he loves again.
But perhaps Vox is right.
He is too caught up in the memories of his past, and he is fighting to stay afloat in waters too murky to see. He will drown soon enough if he keeps himself swathed in his past, too afraid to reach out to those he figures he’d only lose.
The future is unpredictable, and he wants so much to let the people around him now know how much he loves them — and that’s more than enough of a reason for him to keep going.
His home — it’s here.
Ike is one step away from the comfortable lull of sleep when he feels the first light caress on the top of his head. A hand — Vox’s, he thinks blearily — sifting through his soft strands ever so gently. He is only vaguely aware of the soft pattering of feet and the warm fold of fabric atop of him before he sleeps.
And for the first time in a long time, Ike doesn’t dream.