Chapter Text
The artificial, headache-bright glow of Vincent’s screen was muted to a soft, cerulean dim in the dim confines of the spare hotel room.
For the first time since his… reassembly, the constant hum of static in his skull had quieted to a whisper.
It was replaced by the distant, off-key chorus of a morning rehabilitation song session led by Charlie, echoing up from the lobby.
Vincent flinched at the initial burst of noise, his hands (still startlingly solid, thanks to Alastor’s meticulous stitch-work) flying to the sides of his monitor.
Then, he forced them down.
This was the deal.
This was safety.
A safety brokered by a smiling psychopath who now, apparently, brought him lukewarm sinner-blood coffee every morning without a word, leaving it on the dresser with a faint tap-tap of a clawed finger.
Vincent had apologized.
Alastor had merely nodded, his static buzzing a cryptic tune.
Nothing was settled, yet everything had shifted.
A fragile, unspoken truce woven from medical tape and shared, seething hatred for a certain trio in a tower downtown.
Today, however, Charlie’s enthusiasm was inescapable.
Her voice boomed through the hallways, announcing a “Non-Murderous Social Bonding Exercise, The Hotel Family Potluck!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vincent muttered to his reflection.
The cracks were still visible, fine lines like spiderwebs under his screen’s surface.
Permanent scars.
A constant reminder of Valentino’s cruel hands and Velvette’s dismissive laughter as they’d pried at his components.
A shadow fell across his doorway.
Not a shadow, a presence, one that swallowed light and sound.
“The Princess’s fervor is quite the alarm clock, isn’t it?”
Alastor leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his grin as wide and unreadable as ever.
“I trust you slept? Or whatever it is you do.”
“I powered down without nightmares, if that’s what you’re asking,” Vincent said, turning.
The sight of Alastor, tall, poised, impeccably dressed, still sent a conflicting jolt through his circuits.
Terror, gratitude, and something else, something that buzzed warmer than static.
“What’s a ‘potluck’?”
“A quaint and dreadful mortal tradition where everyone contributes a dish, often with disastrous and hilarious consequences! Poisonings, mostly. Charlie, in her infinite wisdom, has decided it fosters ‘community.’ I am, regretfully, expected to participate.”
Vincent's processor whirred.
An idea, fragile and bold, formed.
“What are you making?”
“My famous jambalaya, of course! A recipe from my mother, perfected in death. It’s to die for, you could say!”
Alastor’s chuckle was a record scratch.
Vincent stood, smoothing the front of his borrowed dressing gown.
“I don’t know how to cook.”
“A tragic but unsurprising shortcoming of the ‘modern’ mind,” Alastor sniffed.
“Teach me.”
The static in the room sharpened. Alastor’s smile didn’t falter, but his eyes narrowed to crimson pinpricks.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. Teach me to cook. For the potluck. I’ll… I’ll make something.”
Vincent's voice lacked its usual broadcast-boom.
It was quieter, raw.
“I can’t just show up empty-handed. I’m already the charity case, Al. I won’t be the useless one.”
He’d used the nickname.
It hung in the air between them.
Alastor was utterly still for a long moment, the only movement the slow swirl of the shadows around his ankles.
The silence stretched, punctuated by Husk’s grumbling and Angel Dust’s cackle from downstairs.
“An intriguing proposition!”
Alastor finally declared, pushing off the doorframe.
“The great Vincent, reduced to a novice in the kitchen. The humor is not lost on me. Very well! Meet me in the hotel kitchen in one hour. Don’t be late, my dear fellow. Punctuality is the first ingredient in any good recipe!”
~time skip~
The hotel kitchen was a battlefield of chrome and old grease, currently under the occupation of a Radio Demon.
Alastor had already laid out an array of ingredients.
Strange roots, vibrant peppers, a hunk of dubious meat, and a plethora of spices.
An old, crackling jazz tune spun from the ether.
“You’re late,” Alastor stated, not looking up from where he was deftly dicing a root vegetable.
“By thirty seconds!”
“Late is late! Now, apron on.” A
frilly, pink-checkered apron was flung at Vox’s face.
Vincent stared at it, then at Alastor’s pristine red tailcoat.
“You’re not wearing one.”
“I don’t make messes.”
Alastor’s knife moved in a blur.
“You, I anticipate, will be a catastrophe. Apron. On.”
Gritting his teeth, Vincent slipped the apron over his head.
He felt ridiculous.
He looked ridiculous.
Alastor’s smile gained a genuine, sadistic edge.
“Good. Now, we’ll start simple.
A holy trinity, celery, bell pepper, onion.
Dice them. Uniformly.”
Alastor pointed with his knife.
Vincent picked up a chef’s knife, its weight unfamiliar.
His first cut into the onion was clumsy, a jagged hack.
The second was worse.
“By the Nine Circles, you hold it like you’re trying to murder it,” Alastor sighed, a long-suffering sound.
In a flash, he was behind Vincent, his long, cool hands covering Vox’s own on the knife handle.
Vincent's screen flickered, his entire system freezing for a nanosecond.
“Relax your grip. Guide the blade, don’t fight it.”
Alastor’s voice was close, a low hum right by his audio receptor.
He moved their hands together, a smooth, rocking motion.
The onion yielded into perfect, tiny cubes. “See? Control. Precision. It’s not unlike broadcasting, in a way. You must command the material.”
Vincent was intensely aware of every point of contact.
The chill of Alastor’s fingers, the faint smell of ozone and old parchment, the static that now buzzed in harmony between them.
It was terrifying.
It was the safest he’d felt in decades.
“I… I see,” Vincent managed, his voice modulator crackling.
Alastor released him and stepped back, as if nothing had happened.
“Continue. The pepper is next. And try not to sever a finger. I just reattached all of them.”
The lesson continued, a bizarre dance of insults, precise instruction, and fleeting, electric contact.
Alastor was a brutal teacher, exacting, mocking, and strangely patient.
When Vincent knocked over a bowl of flour, sending up a white cloud, Alastor’s laugh was a sharp, startled burst of static that sounded almost real.
“A magnificent disaster! Clean it up. A chef must also master the art of remediation.”
As Vincent sheepfully swept, Alastor began to prepare his own dish.
The transformation was mesmerizing.
Where Vincent was all clumsy tension, Alastor was a symphony of effortless, graceful motion.
Ingredients flew into the pot in a perfect sequence.
The air filled with intoxicating, spicy scents.
For a moment, Vincent just watched, mesmerized by the focused, almost peaceful intensity on the demon’s face.
“Why are you doing this?”
The question left Vincent before he could stop it.
Alastor didn’t look up from his pot.
“Doing what, my dear? Creating culinary art?”
“This. All of it. Fixing me. Letting me stay. This… lesson.”
Vincent gestured with the broom.
“I betrayed you. I spent decades hating you. I tried to kill you.”
“And failed spectacularly!” Alastor chirped.
He stirred the pot slowly.
“You are a fascinating puzzle, Vincent. Broken, reassembled, humbled. A former rival, now indebted. Your suffering at the hands of those vulgar upstarts was… poetically just. But your continued suffering would be tiresome. A broken toy is no fun to play with.”
“So I’m a toy?”
“You are a guest in my hotel,” Alastor said, his tone shifting, losing its playful edge for something colder, sharper.
“And the Vees touched what is under my protection. They sought to dismantle what I had put back together. That is an affront not easily forgotten.”
There it was.
The possessive, territorial core of it.
Vincent wasn’t sure if it made him feel used or cherished.
In Hell, perhaps they were the same thing.
Hours later, two dishes sat completed. Alastor’s jambalaya was a masterpiece, vibrant and steaming.
Vincent's attempt at a simple pepper and sausage pasta was… lopsided.
The sauce was a bit too thick, the sausage slices uneven.
But it was edible.
It was his.
Alastor eyed it.
“Adequate. It will not kill anyone, which is a higher standard than most here achieve.”
It was high praise.
Vincent felt a stupid, warm pride light up his pixels.
The potluck in the lobby was a chaotic affair.
Angel Dust brought “special” brownies Husk immediately confiscated.
Sir Pentious presented a towering, wobbling gelatin mold with live eels inside.
Charlie’s smile was blinding as she clasped her hands together at the sight of the spread.
And when Vincent, hesitantly, placed his pasta dish on the table, no one laughed.
Niffty snatched a plateful immediately, and even Husk gave a grudging nod after a taste.
Alastor held court by his jambalaya, but his gaze kept flicking to Vincent, who was standing awkwardly by the punch bowl.
Charlie swooped in, dragging him into a conversation with an enthusiastic Cherri Bomb.
Vincent's laugh was strained, metallic, but it was there.
Later, as the chaos died down, Vincent found himself on the balcony, the cacophony of Hell a familiar, comforting drone below.
The door creaked open.
“You didn’t entirely embarrass yourself,” Alastor said, coming to stand beside him, not looking at him.
“Thanks. I think.”
Vincent paused.
"You...You didn’t have to do that. When you were teaching me.”
Alastor was silent for a long time, his smile soft in the neon glow.
“No,” he said finally, his voice barely a murmur woven with radio static.
“I didn’t.”
From below, a sleek, black limousine with a distinctive V logo slithered through the streets, turning towards the Vee Tower.
The fragile warmth of the evening shattered.
Vincent's hands clenched on the railing, the plastic groaning.
“They’re still out there,” Vincent whispered, the memory of surgical saws and mocking laughter flooding his processors.
Alastor’s shadow lengthened, twisting into antlered shapes that clawed at the hellish sky.
His grin widened, showing too many teeth.
“Oh, I know, my dear. I know. Let them enjoy their tower. Every party must eventually face the morning after.”
He placed a cold, careful hand on Vincent's shoulder.
It was not a gesture of comfort, but of alliance.
A promise written in static and old blood.
“The next course,” Alastor purred, his eyes fixed on the distant, glittering tower, “will be served cold.”