Chapter Text
Vox walks down Pentagram City’s main street in a haze, barely registering the lesser sinners scrambling out of his way, nor the ice-cold rain coming down in sheets.
He’s such an asshole.
What’s the point of being an overlord with your own power and your own contracts, if the Radio Demon’s is just going to treat you and your friendship with him as nothing? Alleged friendship, Vox supposes. It’s only when his feet stop of their own accord that he takes note of his surroundings.
Lover’s Leap, Vox realizes with a wry smile.
Lover’s Leap is a massive, ornate bridge in Pentagram City where sinners, mostly lovers and mostly non-Overlords, jump to their deaths in the fiery waters below. Sometimes to temporarily escape the purges for the year in each others’ arms, sometimes to temporarily escapes the pain of unrequited love. Vox looks down and silently watches the cold rain vaporizing on contact with the fire-water.
It really would be so easy, wouldn’t it? No one’s ever cared enough about him to notice if he did jump, his younger sister aside. But she’s in Heaven or purged, based on how Vox has never seen her down here with him.
It’d be so easy.
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All Alastor has ever wanted was power.
Power over his father, power over his older siblings, power over the shit-eating people of his hometown. Power to influence his listeners over the radio, and avoid the pesky business of being judged on skin color or class background. Pure power. Pure free will.
He walks over to the window of the radio tower and happens to spot Vox easily in the crowd, walking down main street in the direction of Lover’s Leap. Honestly, it isn’t even that hard to do, what with that ridiculous television helmet he wears. Anyone would’ve spotted him easily.
Alastor wonders, not for the first time, the face Vox hides beneath that helmet. After all, what’s the point of pretending you desire friendship with someone like Alastor, if you want to see beneath Alastor’s mask while providing no information of your own. Not usual information anyway. He looks away from the sight of Vox still walking and looks at the red sky of the Pride Ring, where he’s trapped alongside every other damned sinner in this place. Like rats in a researcher’s maze.
It was only a matter of time before Alastor bored of Vox, really, Alastor considers as he watches the smoke of some turf war’s explosion rising into the sky, into Alastor’s field of vision. It’s nice when other people decide to do the work of ending things for you.
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Vox walks along the railing of the bridge.
He wishes his sister were here. He always made his day better, especially during their time in that horrible home growing up. His biggest regret was running away with the intention of coming back for her when he got a stable life together, and ending up never seeing her alive again.
That was the first time he considered how easy things can become when you see the end in sight.
He jumps down, gritting his teeth in determination. No, he’s still going to get to Heaven with his plans, and he’s going to find her there. Alastor, or no Alastor. Partnership, or no partnership.
Fuck Alastor. Fuck him hard into a million pieces.
Since Vox is so easy to forget, he’ll make sure no one cares about Alastor in comparison. Just handwave everything Alastor is to other sinners in Hell. To Vox.
It’ll be so easy.
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Something drips onto Alastor’s hand and it would’ve startled a lesser sinner.
He looks down and, to his horror, sees water on the back of his hand. He brings a finger to his cheek and feels wetness, flinching as if burned.
What the hell is going on? Is this some side-effect of the deal hanging over him? It must be.
He decides on a sabbatical. A chance to clear his head and investigate the ins and outs of the chains on him and what it takes to break them. And he will break them and gain the powers of Heaven and Hell for himself. Vox, or no Vox. Handshake, or no handshake.
If Vox wants to pretend that a laugh at his expense, a simple chuckle really, is worth throwing everything away due to embarrassment…. Vox should be embarrassed. Imagine building a team of Overlords, instead of just systematically taking other Overlords out to gain their power and territories. What a ridiculous notion. What absolute buffoonery.
So it’s decided then. Alastor will continue on his own. And by the end of his sabbatical, not only will even Heaven fear Alastor’s name, no one will ever know Vox even existed. They won’t see Vox’s bright eyes when they close their own.
It’ll be so easy.
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I’m still waiting for you.