Work Text:
In Alastor’s humble opinion, there are few pleasures more sublime than those of the soul. Trading souls, stealing souls, rending souls—and even these delights pale in comparison to the pure, unadulterated satisfaction of being given a soul of one’s own free will.
Free is free, coerced or not, and as he gazes over the table at a shaken Husker, whose garish orange cuffs and lapels have swiftly darkened into the rich, bloody shade of Alastor’s own crimson, he shivers and grins with the heavy click of an Overlord’s soul settling in his pocket. And oh, this long con has been worth it indeed, to see the anguish in Husker’s eyes as he reckons with how truly, monumentally fucked he is in real time. It’s almost as good as the feeling of Husker’s soul, saccharine on Alastor’s tongue and powerful, even in the poor man’s disgrace.
“Well,” Alastor says, allowing the word to spool out of him and hang between them, crackling, in the air. Husker’s claws are digging into the table, abusing the grain. “Now, my good fellow, don’t look so dour! The smile makes the man, you know.”
He brings his hands up to his face and taps the corners of his grin, miming dragging it up even further, but he isn’t sure he is capable of smiling any harder. Husker’s soul is incandescent, and he feels positively dizzy with glee, his breath coming in quick, hungry pants like some kind of salivating animal, his shadow dancing restlessly on the wall behind him, and the fear on Husker’s face, reacting to whatever antic emotion is shining in his eyes—honestly, delectable.
And if he may be so indulgent… a mood this good deserves to be shared.
He doesn’t particularly feel like introducing Husker to this side of him just yet; best to let the man stew and come to terms with his new circumstances, build up the anticipation. They’ll be spending more than enough time together soon. But there is one demon he knows who will certainly welcome the opportunity to get ridiculously sloshed and possibly instigate some petty violence and mayhem, so Alastor rises to his feet and primly adjusts his monocle, ignoring the way Husker has collapsed backwards into his seat, head in his hands.
He paints a beautiful picture of perfect hopelessness. Alastor wants to savor this moment forever.
Alas! Places to be, TV demons to bother, and such. “Consider yourself lucky I don’t tear you to shreds right now for cheating,” he says, relishing in Husker’s flinch. “As if I didn’t notice. I ought to hang you from my tower like the tricksy wretch you are.” He sighs gustily. “But that’s no fun. I’ll be calling on you, Husker—try not to succumb to despair in the meantime. You’ll find I’m quite the fair employer!”
“You’re… leaving?” Husker’s voice has gone low and gravelly with his despondence, and Alastor wonders absently if his new pet purrs like a real cat. Wouldn’t that be a treat? And he has all the time in the world to find out!
“I’m afraid so. You didn’t honestly think I cleared my schedule for this little rendezvous?” Alastor laughs and his audience laughs with him, canned and gay. “No, I have other engagements more worth my time. Goodnight, Husker.”
In fact, Alastor had cleared his calendar for this venture, but Husker doesn’t need to know that. It’ll be good for him to remember what it’s like to be unimportant; it’s a state of being he’ll have to get used to again.
Slotting his monocle back into place, Alastor turns on his heel and melts into the shadows, leaving Husker to his misery. As he strides into the secret places where no one dares follow, a prancing, satisfied piano strikes up in his wake, circling his steps like a wheedling crow as Louis Armstrong croons, do you know what it means to miss New Orleans… and miss it each night and day…
Husker’s soul burns in the dark and oh, Alastor feels good.
“Vo-ox, darling,” Alastor sing-songs, rapping his knuckles lovingly against Vox’s apartment door. Usually, he just drops right into wherever is most inconvenient or embarrassing for Vox at the moment, whether that be his place of work or his bathroom while he’s showering, but he’s feeling so downright courteous that he’s actually knocking this time, and waiting to be granted entry! Vox really should be lavishly thankful. “I’ve brought your favorite rosé, and I daresay—” He gasps, pretending to see something. “And look here! It even has our names on it. How thoughtful!”
He knocks again, louder. What is taking him so long? Alastor’s been here for—almost a full minute! Vox never keeps him waiting this long. Perhaps he’s suffering a conniption and is seizing on the floor at the moment, insensate, struggling towards the door but unable to speak. Little else could keep him from welcoming Alastor inside when Alastor calls him ‘darling’.
Alastor waffles, shifting from foot to foot, and twirls the rosé by its neck. He’d thought his heart long dead, but it’s beating very fast, thrumming shallowly within his ribcage. He should be hungry. He’s… not. He’s not? That would be a first since arriving down here. Husker’s soul is a banquet, a cornucopia, and the black hole gnawing at the core of him has never felt more satiated.
Pulling a different card, he leans close to the seam of the doorframe and says, “Vox, if you’re molesting yourself in there and that’s why you’re ignoring me, I’ll have you know that my patience is infinitely longer than your capacity to, shall we say, hold out. By which, of course, I mean I can wait another thirty seconds.”
Still nothing. Damn. Usually insults to Vox’s sexual prowess get him to react if pet names don’t. He rattles the doorknob just to be contrary, then crosses his arms and huffs.
Vaguely, Alastor suspects that he’s being petulant in a way that isn’t endearing, but the powerful rush of acquiring an Overlord’s soul—it’s dizzying, intoxicating, very much like being drunk. Or hopped up on coke! Somehow, both sensations seem equally true: the slow, lethargic swoon of the world doing lazy laps around him, and the electrifying thrill sparking along every nerve, making him feel downright effervescent.
Good thing Vox is familiar with Alastor in both moods, and also Alastor doesn’t care about Vox’s opinion, else he might very well feel ashamed of himself!
Hah. Imagine.
Impatience rattles through him like an electric current. Alright, he’s had enough of this game. He bypasses Vox’s front door and reconstitutes in the middle of the very sad, dismal living room, which contains all the classic signs of a man with no self-respect: greasy takeout boxes littering the coffee table and shelves, scattered paper scraps—concept art, diagrams of electronic wiring, a few furious, shredded sketches of stick figures—and Vox’s pride and joy, his shiny mahogany television atop the mantle on the far wall, overlooking the entire room. Alastor rolls his eyes at it and, after dropping off the wine on an end table, saunters deeper into the apartment.
“Vox?” he calls, tapping his microphone lightly against the floorboards, heralding his presence. The shadows sway happily around him with the beat of his staff, and he sways with them, tipping his head back and forth to a melody only he can hear as he hunts down the hallway, unexpectedly enjoying the sensory experience of his ears wobbling from side to side. He really is out of it.
Kitchen, laundry room, and bedroom all yield nothing. Perhaps Vox isn’t even home. That would be very disappointing.
Alastor stops more abruptly than necessary in front of the bathroom door, ending his pleasant musical accompaniment with the sharp thud of his staff against the ground, a firm caesura. He twists the knob experimentally, finds it unlocked, and pushes it open.
Oh! Static flares with interest, and Alastor grins, letting his head tip entirely to one side as he leans in the doorway. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
Navy darkness fills the ensuite, laden with quiet shadows that drape over the corners and edges of yellow tile like gauzy fabric, blurring everything in a muddy, cornflower haze. In daylight, the space is a riot of canary and cream, all tawdry floral wallpaper and tessellated hexagons, interlocking like daisy chains; but in the swaths of late evening, it’s pleasantly unobtrusive, easy on the eyes and even easier on his interior decor sensibilities. To his right is the boxy ceramic sink, and further along is the toilet and the shower; to his left is the deep, wide alcove bathtub, built rigidly into the wall rather than the tasteful freestanding clawfoot in Alastor’s own home.
A soft, mechanical hum saturates the air. In the dim, Vox’s screen emits a very faint, almost negligible glow; he lies in a sprawl of unwieldy limbs at the bottom of the bathtub, curled in on himself like a wounded animal. The mingled scents of ozone and acrid, toxic blood make Alastor have to swallow down the sudden pool of tacky saliva that fills his mouth, throat clicking as he presses down, down on the hunger that sleepily lifts its head inside him, intrigued.
Vox is still and quiet. A far cry from his usual exuberance, normally irritating and now sorely missed.
As Alastor observes him, he takes stock of the fractures webbing Vox’s CRT screen, spiraling in an appealing circular pattern from the impact point in the top left, where something had caved in the thick glass; his arms are folded tightly against his chest and abdomen, protecting what must be the unseen injury, and if Alastor squints in the dark, he thinks that one of Vox’s ankles is decidedly not twisted the right way ‘round.
It seems like while Alastor was off preying on the self-destructive addictions of desperate sinners, Vox was off getting himself beaten half to death, probably from spouting belligerent nonsense at someone with violent tendencies and a far lower threshold for disrespect than Alastor. Not everyone finds poor Vox’s chatter as charming as he does.
If Vox is unconscious, then Vox is not being entertaining, and Alastor came here to have fun, not play nursemaid.
Reaching out with an annoyed wash of radio waves, Alastor tugs rudely at Vox’s muted frequency, intending to jar him into waking up. Vox’s antennae flicker in response, a hint of blue fuzz humming between the two nodes, but he doesn’t move. Alastor rolls his eyes and presses harder, doing the mental equivalent of burying his claws into a loom and yanking out the thready guts.
Vox’s signature frequency bursts to life with a hollow scraping of electronic gibberish, reacting sluggishly to Alastor’s prodding but reacting nonetheless. His physical body twitches, hard, and his screen judders with a low, murmuring whirr, his face display winking back on as a stuttering glow. “Wh-What the fzz-uu-uck—”
“Indeed!”
Vox flinches, limbs banging against the ceramic sides of the tub as he whips around, but he seems to instantly regret this as he suddenly groans and hunches over, clutching at his chest. His face keeps flickering on and off, marred with small, staticky interruptions, and the surrounding shadows seem to swell and ebb with the arrhythmic light, like the pulsing of a heartbeat. The heady scent of blood is so intense now that Alastor is tempted to open a window just to keep from getting too distracted.
He laughs instead, stepping further into the ensuite and looming over Vox’s pathetic form. His faithful shadow rears up behind him gleefully, leering at Vox, and he finds that he enjoys the look of disoriented fear on the man’s shattered face as he struggles to regain his bearings.
“Bad night on the town?” Alastor inquires. “Told the wrong gal she should smile more? I sympathize with that one, my friend—apparently, it’s considered quite rude these days!”
Vox heaves a rattling, hoarse breath. He tilts his head back to clunk gently against the sloped side of the tub, peering up and focusing on Alastor with considerable difficulty. He looks like he’s having trouble seeing through the myriad cracks across his screen, and his voice comes out slurred with static. “Alazz-zstor?”
“Would anyone else be in your apartment at this time of night?”
“Fu-ucking hell.” Vox brings one hand up to probe wincingly at his screen. His other arm stays firmly pressed to his abdomen. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve just won a very powerful boon and I felt inclined to celebrate! You’re in the mood for a good time, aren’t you? Something to lift your spirits from this very sad, very pitiful…” Alastor gestures vaguely, smiling. “Wallowing.”
“I am nn-not wallowing.”
Vox curls one hand around the rim of the tub and makes an admirable attempt to drag himself upright, but his grip slips and he collapses back into a pained heap, his screen briefly going black again for a full three seconds before reluctantly fizzling back on. His warped expression contorts with frustration and he snarls out a curse.
Alastor doesn’t offer to help. He watches, impassive, as Vox makes a second attempt, this time levering himself all the way into a sitting position, his fans puffing and groaning like an overworked steam engine all the way. He slides his uninjured leg up, planting his heel against the bottom of the tub. Then he hesitates, gaze darting to Alastor for only a moment, met with a smile that Alastor is trying to make placid but probably reads as manic instead—but he gathers himself and struggles on his own, bit by bit, to his feet.
Leaning heavily on the adjoining wall to support his weight, Vox manages a weak, triumphant grin. “Not down f-for the count jus-zzst yet,” he says proudly, sparks spitting from the frame of his skull. He probably ought to get that checked out.
“Seems that way,” Alastor agrees.
“Lend me a hand?” Vox asks, tipping his head down towards himself in demonstration. He really does look quite disheveled. “I don’t know if I c-cxxan put weight on my left foot.”
Alastor sighs. “Oh, alright, but only because I’m feeling generous.”
He holds out his hands and allows Vox to grab his forearms, leaning hard on Alastor’s immovable presence to clamber out of the tub, choking on grunts of pain whenever he aggravates his ankle or the wound carved into his stomach. His claws are cold and numbing where they’re wrapped around Alastor’s thin wrists, leaving Alastor to grimace slightly at the unwelcome sensation, but he puts up with it for as long as it takes to get Vox out of the bathtub and standing by himself, at which point he gently pries Vox’s hands off of him and makes the impulsive decision to press his microphone into Vox’s grasp instead.
“Since I presume you don’t have crutches on hand.” The words are flippant, but the sentiment is not, and they both know it—Alastor does not let just anyone touch his staff.
Vox stares at the microphone for a long, uncomfortable moment, shell-shocked and a little awed. Alastor doesn’t know if he likes that expression very much.
The bathroom suddenly feels suffocating.
“I brought wine,” Alastor says shortly, then whirls on his heel and—does not run away, certainly not.
Alastor chooses to blame that little lapse in judgment on the scintillating way that Husker’s soul is still making his extremities tingle and nothing else.
He needs something to do with the jittery energy in his body that isn’t uncorking the rosé and drinking himself into a stupor, so he combs through Vox’s genuinely depressing cabinets in search of ingredients to put together for a slapdash meal. He suspects that the only time Vox eats anything with nutritional value is when Alastor cooks for him, if the state of his pantry is anything to judge by; honestly, how does one survive without basic staples like garlic powder? But then he opens the breadbox and discovers that Vox doesn’t have bread either, only cobwebs, so maybe his expectations are too high.
Or Vox is just a miserable failure of a person. Yes, that sounds more correct.
What Vox does have is a truly baffling amount of figs, or the hellish equivalent, which is so absurd that Alastor can do nothing but stare at the crate of figs in silent astonishment for several seconds.
Okay. He can work with figs.
Going through the familiar motions of cooking serves to exorcize some of the excess power seething in his veins, so by the time Vox limps into the kitchen with a first aid kit under one arm and collapses into a chair at the table, Alastor feels secure enough in himself again to say calmly, “My staff back, if you please—” and Vox, smartly, makes no relevant comment as he hands it over.
“What are you making?” Vox asks instead, sliding the first aid kit towards himself and beginning to rifle through the contents. Out of the cool darkness and under the warm, orange lights of the kitchen, he looks significantly worse: his ruined screen glimmers with glassy splinters, and the front of his mint green button-up has been thoroughly shredded, revealing his bruised torso and the rather gruesome slice stretching from his diaphragm to around his fourth rib, smearing his stomach and hands with his corrosive blood as he starts to wipe the edges of it with a washcloth. Beneath the table, his left leg is extended carefully in front of him, his ankle wrenched sideways at a grisly angle.
Alastor tucks his mic into the crook of his arm and turns back to where he’s simmering the figs on the stove. “Fig quenelles to pair with some kind of sauce, I haven’t decided just yet. Your kitchen is a travesty.”
“I don’t usually nn-need to—fuck,” Vox hisses, presumably from being overambitious with the washcloth. “It’s more convenient to just order in.”
“Convenience doesn’t hold a candle to the satisfaction of a home cooked meal.”
Vox huffs. “Lay off with the sermon, Al. After the day I’ve had… you szz-sa-aid you brought wine?”
Alastor’s shadow slips into the living room and retrieves the rosé, setting it lightly on the kitchen table. Vox makes a crackling sound of delight and immediately goes to grab it, but Alastor’s shadow snatches it back, silently wagging its finger in a chastising motion, before setting it on the counter by Alastor’s elbow.
“Thank you, dear,” he says to his closest companion, then smiles over his shoulder at an irritated Vox. “Let’s not be so uncouth as to start drinking before dinner. In the meantime, why don’t you patch yourself up and tell me all about how you did this to yourself.”
“Ugh, you’re such a tool.” But Vox obediently goes back to cleaning up his wound, so Alastor returns to stirring the figs, pleased. “There’s been a turf war raging on the lower east edge of the Pentagram for a few days now. I went to go see what all the fuss was about.”
“Oh, I see. So you thought you’d get involved, try to bump off a few players under the cover of warfare?”
“No,” Vox groans. “I wanted footage. People love the inside scoop on that kind of stuff, so I wanted to be the first to put out an exclusive broadcast. I havvx-ve a lot of competition and—and it’s not easy running a one man show.”
Ah, insatiable curiosity. It’s a trait that binds them together, Alastor and Vox—their inability to leave well enough alone. Alastor sets aside the figs and starts to whisk the heavy cream. “I find it quite simple.”
“Only because people are too scared of you to turn off their radios.”
“I’m in such a good mood that I think I’ll pretend not to hear the implied insult. In any case, it’s because my listeners understand quality entertainment when they hear it.”
“I’m trying to build a brand, Alastor, not skulk around and snipe my competitors whenever I feel like it. I have to prove I can be worth listening to in my own right.”
Vox is not an Overlord yet, but that yet is tantalizing; Alastor sees the hungry ambition in Vox’s eyes whenever Alastor returns from council meetings, sees the way he presses outward at the seams of his life with a greed that outgrows itself every day. He is a creature who wants so desperately that proximity to it often makes Alastor’s skin itch with the messy overflow of desire, bleeding into the air around him like an airborne toxin.
He wonders how swallowing Vox’s soul would compare to Husker’s. If it would go down smooth and sharp like ice. If it would burn. If it would—Alastor shivers with delight, heart quickening and ears flicking against his will, and oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it bit back? If it hurt?
It occurs to him that he’s been staring into a bubbling pot of chicken stock for longer than is socially acceptable and he shakes himself, moving swiftly to grab the half-empty bag of hell carrots from the fridge.
In his periphery, Alastor sees Vox attempting to thread a needle, but his hands are trembling from blood loss and he keeps blinking, hairline cracks latticed over his eyes and likely skewing his depth perception. Taking pity, and sort of annoyed with the display of incompetence, Alastor sets his shadow to the task of chopping the carrots and steps over to pluck the needle from Vox’s grasp.
Vox leans back in his chair, silently conceding to the indignity, and Alastor goes down on one knee for a better angle. The first press of the needle through the edge of his wound makes Vox suck in a sharp breath, claws digging in harshly where he’s gripping the seat of his chair, but to his credit, Alastor doesn’t have to remind him to stay still.
“Got a little too close to the action,” Vox murmurs, watching Alastor sew the gash shut. He’s very warm, Vox is, and he always has been. He’s the paradoxical cold of walking barefoot on sunbaked concrete—an overwhelm of heat, confusing the brain’s signals and crossing wires that ought not to be crossed. The white chill of lightning just before it strikes the earth. “Got my footage, but I was careless. It won’t happen again.”
Alastor’s knuckles brush over the sensitive skin of his lower belly and the muscles there tense, briefly, before deliberately relaxing again. Vox’s claws are destroying his chair. “I would certainly hope not.”
As he finishes the final stitch, leaning in close, he places his hand on Vox’s knee to keep his balance. Vox’s voice stiffens with strain; goodness, they really need to work on his pain tolerance if a few measly stitches have him this bothered. “Anyway. How, uh… how was your day? You—you said szz-something about a boon?”
“Oh, yes. Do you remember Husker, the Overlord down south who runs the casinos?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s fallen on hard times,” Alastor says, letting his honeyed tone drip with a mockery of compassion even as his grin sharpens, necrotic and slick as whetted bone. He snips the thread of the final stitch between his claws. “Addiction. So sad. Kind soul as I am, I offered him a way out of the hole he dug for himself, and let’s just say he was smart enough to fold on a bad hand.”
“No strings attached, huh?” Vox’s smile is a starved, selachian thing.
“Dear,” Alastor purrs, digging his nails into Vox’s knee, “there are always strings attached.”
Dinner, in the end, turns out quite impressive for such slim pickings. Alastor transforms the dregs of Vox’s unhappy cabinets into a thick, savory broth with sweet fig quenelles, taking the time to shape each quenelle by hand while Vox finally cracks open the rosé, pouring them each a liberal amount in two wine glasses. Alastor supposes he can reluctantly concede that while this isn’t what he initially had in mind for the evening, it’s not the worst way the night could have gone—Vox is good company even despite the obvious pain he’s in, which is an aspect of him that Alastor has always appreciated. He’s proven that he can and will compartmentalize anything to spend time with Alastor.
Flattery will get you everywhere.
“By the way,” Alastor says, flicking out his tailcoat and settling in the chair opposite Vox, “why did you have nearly three pounds of figs in your cabinet?”
Vox holds up a finger, finishes draining his wine completely in one long swig, sets it down hard, and then starts to refill it, shuddering. “Fuck, I needed that. Oh, uh, the figs? I’m not sure. It’s an inside joke down at the office, every holiday gift exchange is all figs, but I think someone ordered a shipment of forty instead of four by accident and I just happened to be there when they arrived.”
“I see.” Alastor does not see, but there seems little point in pursuing that line of inquiry further. He collects a bit of broth and quenelle onto his spoon and tastes it, genuinely unsure what to expect, and then gives a light hm! of surprise. The mild sweetness of the figs interacts in a lovely way with the rich, creamy sauce, and he finds himself very near wriggling in his seat with pleasure and Lord, he needs to not be seen in public until this high wears off, this is starting to get embarrassing. “Ooh, interesting. This is actually quite nice.”
“I don’t think you’re capable of making a bad dish.”
“Trying to butter me up, are we?”
Vox laughs. It’s the first time he has all evening, and something inside Alastor twitches at the sound. Fingers hovering just above the tips of his ears, not touching, a visceral phantom of intimacy. “Caught me. I’m going to need you to reset my ankle after dinner so it doesn’t heal wrong. The screen will seal up on its own, but you already knew that.”
“Mm. You’ve asked quite a lot of me this evening, you know.” Alastor takes another bite, affecting indifference to the way Vox’s confidence falters, the strong set of his shoulders shrinking into something smaller, more unsure. Wariness always looks good on Vox, but then, so does pride. Alastor can never decide which he prefers. “I’ve not yet received anything in return.”
“I can make it up to you. I-I know you didn’t want to—aha, deal w-with this tonight, but we can—” Vox is scrambling now, his earlier conviction crumbling rapidly under his desire to stay in Alastor’s good graces, an instinct Alastor has tenderly cultivated over the many years of their acquaintanceship. He rests his chin on his fist and smiles serenely as Vox stammers, “I, fuck, what do you want? A shout out on my show? A favor? I’ve already—I’m already so fucking deep in your debt—”
“That you are!”
“Alastor,” Vox whines, plaintive. “I’m not—I can… anything y—”
“Vox,” Alastor says, and Vox’s mouth snaps shut with an audible click of sharp teeth. He looks close to distraught, the poor thing, though that may just be his broken screen. “I do not want a promotion on your insipid show. And honestly, I doubt there’s any favor you could offer me that I couldn’t achieve on my own.”
“So…?”
“It’s endearing to watch you panic, and tonight has been a treat enough in itself.” Alastor raises his wine glass to his lips and watches, eyes half-lidded over the rim, as Vox’s screen darkens in a simulated flush. “Even more rewarding to witness your pain.” He takes a long, languid sip, never breaking eye contact with Vox, and silken satisfaction coils in his gut like a lazy snake at the way Vox visibly shivers.
Off-kilter, though he tries to seem nonplussed, Vox mutters shakily, “Right. Sadist. Somehow I keep forgetting.”
“I’ve never pretended otherwise.”
“That’s… true.” Vox narrows his gaze at Alastor, but it’s playful. He can’t hold a grudge to save his life. “Dick.”
Alastor chuckles, then gestures at Vox’s plate with his spoon. “Eat your dinner, lest I take offense. Then we’ll see about this leg of yours.”
“I wish I had your ability to break all of my bones with no issue,” Vox complains, sliding his elbows back and levering himself into a recline on the couch, propping himself up on a throw pillow. He’s tucked another pillow underneath his broken ankle, elevating it for ease of access; as long as Alastor can realign the bones properly, Vox’s demonic healing will kick in and begin to mend the injury. Otherwise, the bones may end up fused together wrong, and then Vox will have to re-break the entire limb to set it right again—essentially, this is a cautionary measure against further pain down the road.
Pain in the present, though… Alastor intends to savor that.
“I can only imagine what ill-advised schemes you would throw yourself into if there were no lasting physical consequences to your actions.” Alastor settles down on his knees beside the couch, meeting Vox’s gaze. “But I suppose you don’t learn your lesson either way.”
“Nope.” Vox grins cheerfully. “I’m relentless, baby.”
“You are difficult to be fully rid of. Like a malignant cancer.”
“You love me.”
Alastor places his right hand very lightly over the crooked, unnatural bulge of Vox’s broken ankle, causing him to instantly shut up. “I wonder if you’ll still be so coherent when I’m finished.”
Vox makes a faint noise in the back of his throat, eyes blown wide with anxiety and something else, an emotion Alastor can’t quite pin down… anticipation, maybe, but brighter, like the difference between coals and a bonfire. He wants to chase that emotion down to its dregs.
“Probably not,” Vox whispers, claws curling into the couch cushions.
“I thought so.” Indelible smile sliding into something close-lipped and meditative, Alastor shifts closer on his knees, resting his other hand on Vox’s calf and pressing his thumb into the muscle there, just to see Vox’s shoulders jump. “Now, my dear, I’ll have to ask you to hold very still. This is going to hurt.”
Vox nods. “I know. I trust you.”
Always so obedient. So agreeable. His trust sears like sunlight, unearned and frankly naive, but it’s addictive. Alastor has begun to wonder, more and more, if there is even a limit to what Vox will say yes to, if framed in the right way.
“You know,” Alastor adds as an afterthought, mildly unsure why he’s even saying it, “I could hurt you very much like this.” Leaving his right hand still resting gently over the actual injury, he digs his left thumb harder into Vox’s calf until Vox’s breath hitches, leg muscles tensing as he fights not to squirm away. Putting himself in Alastor’s hands. Knowing exactly the kind of monster Alastor is and submitting to him anyway. Trusting Alastor to hurt him. It’s foolish, it’s naive, it’s… rather charming, really. “Would you ask me to hurt you, I wonder? How far would you allow me to go?”
“Um,” Vox says, chest heaving. “I…” His eyes never leave Alastor’s face, shot through with shattered glass but always so expressive, so human. Always so much. Alastor struggles to remember how to be a person on the best of days; ironically, though his body tells a different story, Vox is incapable of being anything else. “Fuck, Alastor, anything. I’d let you do anything.”
Alastor clicks his tongue, petting down Vox’s leg with the tips of his fingers. Just enough for Vox to feel the threat of his claws, but not enough to harm. The orange glow from the kitchen behind him casts his shadow over Vox’s lax, pliant form, caging him in.
“You should be more careful with the freedoms you allow me, Vox. Who knows how I might abuse them.”
“I’d let you,” Vox repeats, voice now edged with the sibilant rasp of hissing circuitry. Low and firm. This is the breathless tension right before the storm hits, ozone sharp on the wind; the sweet ichor of his potential seeps from every pore, and Alastor is so very hungry. Husker’s soul isn’t enough. Nothing will be enough until the day that Alastor finally crushes Vox between his teeth. “I trust you.”
You shouldn’t, Alastor thinks, hopelessly fond. I’ll eat your heart raw.
“Breathe in,” he orders, and the moment Vox does so, he grasps Vox’s ankle with both hands and wrenches it back into place.
Vox tenses up violently, claws shredding through the upholstery as a pained, keening whine spills from his lips, and there it is—exactly what Alastor has been waiting for. The agony that twists across his face is exquisite, antennae sparking and fans shunting air in and out like the whuffing of a great, panting dog, his whole body trembling without reserve, nearly obscene in its indulgence of pain. Alastor can’t tear his eyes away. Mine, the slavering, primal thing at the core of him snarls. This belongs to me.
He drinks up every second that it takes Vox to calm down: the way he bites down on a whimper, throwing his head back and inhaling raggedly, exposing the vulnerable hollow of his throat; the sweat-slick sheen of his skin beneath the tatters of his ruined shirt with the dark, neat rows of Alastor’s needlework clearly visible; the feathery down clenched between his fists that he’d accidentally torn from the cushions.
And then, finally, it’s over. All the tension leaves him in a rush as he goes boneless against the couch, breathing hard and wild-eyed. “Holy shit,” he moans, staring down at his leg. “Asshole. You could’ve warned me.”
“It was more amusing this way.”
Alastor is vaguely shocked at how steady his own hands are as he unspools a length of gauze and begins to wrap Vox’s ankle, because he doesn’t feel steady—he feels cracked open, vulnerable, inexplicably touched, even though nothing of the sort had occurred. He doesn’t want Vox looking at him like this. Doesn’t want to risk Vox seeing—
Seeing what? he wonders. He doesn’t know, and he shudders with discomfort at that thought too.
He retracts his hands quickly the moment he finishes wrapping the makeshift splint. It should suffice through the night, and Vox should be right as rain in the morning, if a little tender.
Vox will be fine. Alastor, on the other hand… he needs to get out of here.
“... while I was alive,” Vox is saying, when Alastor snaps back into reality. “Damn, that hurt. I could not have done that by myself.” He grins sheepishly at Alastor, leaning up slightly on his elbows, and Alastor rears back, pushing himself abruptly to his feet.
“Happy to be of service, my dear,” he says, brushing imaginary dust off of his lapels with a smile. He aches. Glancing at the shuttered window, he gasps theatrically and taps his bare wrist. “Time flies when sharing a meal with a good friend, doesn’t it? Hah! I daresay I ought to be heading home.”
“O-Oh. Uh, right, yeah.” Vox nods, antennae bobbling comically with the motion, and something seizes painfully in Alastor’s chest. He might be having a heart attack.
He straightens, summoning his microphone to his side, and rests his hands on it as he turns to smile warmly down at Vox. He finds he can’t seem to catch his breath all the way. More evidence pointing to heart attack. “I quite enjoyed this little rendezvous, figs and all.” A subdued laugh track plays. “And I wish you luck with your broadcast; I’ll be tuning in.”
“You—you will?”
“Mm-hm!”
Vox looks stunned, and for good reason: Alastor has never voluntarily watched one of his television broadcasts before. “That’s…” Naked astonishment quickly gives way to earnest, cloying happiness. “Thank you, Alastor. That really means a lot to—”
Alastor flees into the shadows, hunted by a brassy, waltzing surge of trumpets nipping at his heels all the way, howling in the dark like wolves.
… Do you know what it means… to miss New Orleans… when that’s where you left your heart…