Chapter Text
NOTE: This is supplementary material. Skip to chapter three for the beginning of the AU.
Vox was born in 1919 to stage performers Winnifred/Meredith Vaughan and William Oxright. They’d struggled to have children and had him somewhat later in life, so they saw him as something of a miracle baby. However, despite how dearly they had wanted him, it didn’t take long for their attention to turn elsewhere. Vox’s mother was a singer/dancer/actress with lofty ambitions but who had found limited success, while his father was a singer/actor who was beginning to transition into a managerial role. They were both highly invested in their careers, which took up the majority of their time. As a result, Vox (or Vaughn at the time) was often left in the care of friends and relatives, brought along to the theater to wait backstage, or simply left alone in their Philadelphia townhouse during his early years.
Almost as soon as Vox was old enough to form memories, he learned that if he wanted his parents’ attention, he needed to work for it. Vox was a very cute child, with piercing blue eyes and a precocious demeanor, but while that may have been enough for his parents’ friends/coworkers, it clearly wasn’t for them. At the age of two, he began putting on little shows for the people backstage, using what he’d picked up from watching others perform. People found this adorable and began recommending that his parents get him involved in the industry since he showed legitimate promise. His mother began teaching him how to perform in her free time, and his father enrolled him in a dance school. Vox eagerly went along with this; when he performed, people would give him attention and praise, so he’d just continue performing.
By the age of five, Vox’s parents started to get ambitious. Their son was showing a level of talent and dedication “beyond his years,” and it had people enthralled. They decided it would be best for all of their careers to have Vox start performing for real, and the three of them joined a Vaudeville company. His father handled the business side of things while his mother continued to train him and manage his everyday life. They promised him that if he did well, he may one day be famous or even end up in the movies. Vox, not even old enough to read and feeding off the love and attention his parents were suddenly showing him, obeyed without question and threw himself into his new job.
The three of them toured the Vaudeville circuit for the next several years. Vox’s mother occasionally would perform alongside him, but usually, he was up onstage by himself or with other members of the company. It was grueling work; their troupe wasn’t particularly well-known, so they performed more shows at more locations across the country than more well-established companies. For a while, Vox convinced himself that he was happy. Even if the work was hard and they were never in one place long enough for him to make any real friends, he was pleasing his parents and helping the family make money. But as the years went on, he began to lose his enthusiasm. He was so tired all the time, but his mother would never allow him a moment’s rest. He needed to keep working and training; if he didn’t, he was being lazy and risked costing the family their place in the troupe. When he powered through the exhaustion, his parents would lavish him with praise, telling him what a hard worker and good child he was, so that became the norm.
Despite his dedication, Vox never made it out of the mid-leagues. Audiences thought his act was charming, but no Hollywood producers ever swooped in and offered to put him in a movie. However, his parents still tried their best to network their way to success. Vox often found himself brought along to some very not child-friendly industry parties, where he would sit awkwardly in a sea of drunk adults while his parents tried to schmooze with the big shots. This was the norm for a while, up until one man almost succeeded in luring him into private while he was left unattended. Thankfully, his father punched the man’s lights out, and from then on, Vox wasn’t allowed to come to parties anymore; after a show, his parents would drop him off at the hotel they were staying at and leave him in the locked room by himself while they went off to celebrate.
By age ten, Vox fully understood that he was miserable. He was exhausted and in pain most of the time, he was socially isolated and undereducated, he was finally wise to the manipulative praise-neglect loop his parents utilized to keep him obedient, and on top of all that, his career was in more-or-less the same place as it had started at. There was nothing he could do to break the loop, though. This was all he’d ever known, and any time he tried to push back against his parents, his mother would blow up at him, crying about how he was ungrateful and lazy and would drive them to poverty if he quit, while his father would turn cold and harsh.
Things finally came to a head when, one night, during a performance, Vox’s ankle just suddenly gave out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor in front of a packed theater. It was humiliating, and to make matters worse, he couldn’t get back up, no matter how hard he tried. His parents gave him hell for forcing them to issue refunds, but they recognized that he was injured. For the first time in who-knows-how-long, Vox was allowed to rest… for a few weeks. However, as soon as he could (gingerly) walk again, his parents were demanding he get back onstage— they couldn’t afford to have him out of commission for an extended period of time because of something as minor as a sprain. He reluctantly went back to his usual performance schedule, in pain all the while. Then his ankle gave out again. Another few weeks of recovery time. Then, back to work. When he collapsed onstage for the third time, his parents finally took him to a doctor. After examining his leg, the doctor told them that long-term damage had been done and Vox was at risk of being permanently “crippled” if he kept walking/dancing on it before it was fully healed. His parents, terrified at the concept of Vox’s career ending and them being left with a disabled child, finally relented and took him back home to Philadelphia to recover.
Vox was on crutches for months. He was finally going to a regular school, but his injury, coupled with how behind he was compared to other kids his age, made the other students pick on him at worst, and avoid him at best. Far worse than that, the year was 1929, and the Great Depression had begun. His parents were incredibly anxious for him to get better already, fearing what would happen if they all lost their jobs. However, by the time he finished recovering, it became clear that Vox’s dance career was over for good. Vox tried his absolute best to avoid developing a limp (and succeeded, thankfully, for his future career), but he simply wasn’t capable of standing for extended periods of time anymore. His parents were deeply disappointed and scrambled to try to get their old jobs back. For the rest of his adolescence, they guilted him for putting the family in such a precarious financial situation at such a dire time for the country.
After years of hard work, Vox was right back where he started: sitting alone in the family townhouse while his parents paid him no mind.
- First realized he was interested in men at age 11 when he became super attached to an older boy in his church’s youth group. He became very clingy and started sending the boy dozens of increasingly intense, totally-not-love letters, which made the boy uncomfortable and got Vox switched out of the group. The fact that this was obviously a crush went unsaid but not unnoticed by those involved. The rejection was devastating for Vox, and he swung hard into homophobia and petty displays of masculinity afterward.
- He stayed out of showbiz during his teen years but still participated in dozens of events and competitions— any opportunity to perform and receive praise.
- Was drafted into WWII as a young man. Never saw combat on account of his old leg injury, but was instead assigned to work as an electrical engineer, building radar tech and other telecommunications materials. It was outside his intended field of study, but he took to it quickly and became very close with the other men on his team. It was the last time in his life he could remember feeling truly happy.
- Realized he was really, embarrassingly into BDSM (or at least the 40s/50s equivalent) via pulp novels, plus how excited he was made by the head of his team being cold/condescending towards him when he first joined. Took this secret to the grave but always kept a stash of retro-style erotica wherever he was living.
- After the war, he decided to get back into show business. Started dating and quickly married a girl from a wealthy, well-connected family. Things started off okay, but it only took a few years to devolve into simmering animosity. He was self-absorbed and inattentive, she started using pills to cope. Neither of them had any interest in getting a divorce, though, given the times and the damage it would do to both their reputations. They had two kids who were basically raised solely by their nanny. Their parents both loved them in their own ways but were too wrapped up in themselves to pay them very much mind.
- Vox quickly got involved in the television industry, using his good looks and charm to rapidly climb the ranks and land a job as a presenter. He was a pain to work with for anyone he deemed beneath him, but he was a great networker and could schmooze with the “important people” like nobody’s business.
- Despite running in some pretty elite circles, his TV career never quite reached the heights he wanted it to. He was, objectively, quite successful, making good money and being the face of his own show, but he wanted to aim higher.
- When he walked into the studio one day in the mid-50s, ready to shoot another show, he had no idea it would be his last day on Earth. He was just supposed to introduce a musical performance alongside his co-anchor; that was it. But for whatever reason, the crew wanted them to do it using standing microphones this time. However, due to a mistake by one of the tech guys, Vox’s microphone was not properly grounded. When they started counting down, and Vox put his hands on the mic, several hundred volts of electricity went coursing through his body. His heart stopped almost instantly. He didn’t have time to even register what had happened to him, just the sound of screams and the faint smell of burning flesh.