Work Text:
Alastor, nineteen, eyed the soulmark on his wrist with wary befuddlement. It remained as it always was: a little blue square with two insect-like antennae pointing toward his palm. Except, that wasn’t entirely true. From his childhood up to this morning he could pass it off as a birthmark in the right light. Now it was positively neon.
Who the hell would grow more attached to him after he’d slaughtered his commanding officer?
Although this was hardly the first time the mark had surprised him. When he was old enough to understand what it was, he was surprised by its existence alone. There were plenty of perfectly normal children with unmarked skin, no soulmates to speak of. It seemed a cosmic joke that he, who felt no attachment to other people and preferred spilling blood to playing ball, would have a mark. He would have pitied his soulmate if he could have felt such a thing.
Some of his classmates’ soulmarks faded, which was hardly astounding, and some gained marks over time, which seemed logical. Most of them changed at least once. But not his. The stubborn thing refused to budge, and he sincerely hoped the person at the other end wasn’t equally as mulish or he’d have to do away with them.
Which brought him to today. His commanding officer was a buffoon determined to get two hundred men killed because he fancied a particular hill very much. This hill meant absolutely nothing to anyone who could understand the enemy’s battle formations, which the sheltered private school officer apparently could not. So Alastor had killed him. Not for the other two hundred men, for himself. Not even to survive, just because the stupidity irritated him and he could get away with it. His commander would no doubt be given a medal when they found his body outside of camp, assumed to have stumbled upon a German patrol like so many other poor bastards and not cut down by a laborer tired of hearing him try to think. And now Alastor’s soulmate mark was brighter.
What kind of nutjob had fate set on him?
He tugged his sleeve down over the mark and decided to deal with it when they met.
He returned to the States just in time for whisky to be outlawed. What was he to do for fun but keep killing?
He slit the throat of a man who swerved to splash mud on him as he drove by. Cheery bright blue clashed with the red on his sleeves.
He gutted another who spat in his lunch. It was funny how soulmate marks could be a color not found in nature.
He acquired a taste for blood when the arterial spray of his eleventh victim hit the grin he didn’t realize his lips had pulled into. The mark’s lines thickened.
“Look at that!” Mimzy cried when he’d lost count of the bones hidden in the woods. “Such a bright color! Whoever your soulmate is must adore you!”
“Hmm,” Alastor replied, meaning perish the thought. He could hardly return their affections, so he dearly hoped they wouldn’t. Not for their sake, of course. It would just be easier for him if he didn’t have to perform one of those tiresome gentle turndowns, and it would be unbearably dull if that was what finally wiped the mark away. At thirty-nine, the mark was no longer his soulmate’s to do with as they pleased. It was part of Alastor, and he liked himself better than anyone else and didn't want to change a single thing.
At forty, he died.
He was wholly transformed, aside from one small blue souvenir.
Shrugging, he killed a whole lot more people in much more brutal ways. He couldn’t be surprised anymore that the mark remained, but he was man enough to admit he was disappointed he never got to put a face to the damn thing.
And then, almost exactly twenty years after his death and possibly near his sixtieth birthday, an odd new sinner, with an electronic box for a head, antennae, and a faintly blue aesthetic, turned around covered in blood after viciously shredding the former mid-level gangsters in possession of the area around his favorite bar.
It could not possibly be anyone else.
The man blinked. Then narrowed eyes popped open wide.
“Oh my god, Alastor? Alastor the Radio Demon!?” He took two large strides with his irritatingly long legs but stopped dead when Alastor’s warning static suffused the air. He raised comically large hands in front of his chest. “Hey man, I wouldn’t be that stupid! I’m just a huge fan!”
“A fan.” Alastor repeated.
“Yeah! Um, I actually used to listen to your broadcasts when you were alive, too.” The man rubbed his neck, blushing disarmingly, as if it wasn’t obvious that he’d taken over the block in the hopes of possibly meeting the Radio Demon at the bar he was known to frequent.
Alastor’s fingers tightened on his staff.
Trying to draw attention from his scheming and already substantial power with charm, what a shameless man. Calling himself a fan, banking on Alastor assuming his human body was never found and crimes never uncovered, as if he hadn’t found out from sinners who died later that he was front-page news for months-
“And uh, I wasn’t… only a fan of your radio work.”
The man favored him with a coy smirk.
Who fucking picked this obnoxious jackass as his soulmate? They were going in the broadcast right along with him.
“Are you alright? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Ahah, we’re all ghosts, aren’t we?”
He hadn’t killed a weak sinner on the street in years, and there was no telling if this one had a bad reputation or not. It wouldn’t do for people to start asking questions. Anyone who’d seen his mark would know immediately who the man was, so he had to disguise this kill as well as possible. He’d bide his time, ensure no one would be suspicious. Heaven forbid the man himself find out. He’d just have to keep it close to the ve-
The bar door slammed open and a blonde cannonball barreled into his side.
“There you are, Alastor! I’ve been waiti-” Mimzy gasped. “Oh my god, is that her? Him? Sorry dear, I’ve had a lot already!”
“Mim-”
Mimzy darted to the stranger and clasped one of his hands in both of hers.
“Anyway, I’m Mimzy, and it is such a pleasure to finally meet Alastor’s soulmate, aaaa!”
“Ahahha… his what?” The man’s charming smile held for a few seconds, aimed at his little meddling friend. Then it faltered. Big red and blue eyes raised questioningly to him.
“Mimzy.”
It was rare for Alastor to experience the feeling of watching a train wreck, since he was usually the one causing them, so he could have appreciated how novel the moment was if only it wasn’t his train.
Mimzy turned and propped her hand on her hip.
“What? Was it a secret?”
“We just met.”
“You what?” She blinked. Her hands flew excitedly to her mouth. “What, just now!?”
He was again tackled as he pondered killing everyone and going home. At least they had whisky in hell. Maybe he’d manage to forget this if he drank enough of it.
“Oh my god congratulations!”
“Wait how…” annoyingly large hands folded and flexing in front of him, the sinner had the nerve to look cute. Alastor wanted to kill him so very badly. “How are you both so sure?”
“Who the hell else would match this?”
Alastor yanked his arm out of her grasp too late to prevent her from displaying the garishly bright blue mark that marred his black and red aesthetic.
Heedless of the earlier warning, the man padded forward slowly, his eyes on Alastor’s covered wrist.
“Can I see it again…?”
He was, infuriatingly, taller than Alastor. Killing everyone was still an option.
Sighing, Alastor flopped his hand over to display his wrist. The cat was out of the bag anyway.
The boxy face turned blue in the center. His eyes got big and shiny. It was annoying. Everything about him was annoying. Alastor had never found anyone so annoying, which was the most annoying thing about him because it meant he wasn’t just anyone and fate might have been onto something and he hated that idea.
“Wow, that… really has to be me, huh?” He laughed, his eyes rising to Alastor’s.
His genuine smile wasn’t half as annoying as whatever he’d been doing before.
“Hi.”
“Well?!” Mimzy interrupted, thank heaven.
The man’s mouth disappeared, dazed confusion in his eyes.
“Do you have his?!”
“Oh, right.” Another lopsided smile. The man was doomed. Alastor wanted to kill him before. Seeing this, he wanted to eat him while he was still breathing and conscious to appreciate it. “I wasn’t sure until I saw you holding that staff, but…”
He pulled down his sleeve to reveal an unmistakable red petal shape.
White noise in his ears drowned out Mimzy’s excited squeal.
The mark was as bright as his.
He swallowed the urge to tear at it, bite it off, drink it down and put it back inside himself where it belonged. He felt like he’d been called a name by fate, seeing the implication that he could ever care so much about this smug, sly, overconfident snake oil salesman. He’d said he wasn’t sure. Meaning he’d taken over the block hoping to stake out the bar and meet Alastor with the relatively certain belief that Alastor was his soulmate, but instead of saying so he tried to drag Alastor into doing it for him. Cowardly on top of everything else. How dare he cling so stubbornly to Alastor’s skin. He wouldn’t last a day with the real thing if he was that afraid of rejection. It would be sweet, then, to rip his heart out and see the blue fade away at long last. Certainly. After meeting its owner, Alastor had no attachment to it.
“Well come on, come in, come in! Let’s toast to your meetin’!”
“As if you need anything to toast, Mimzy.”
Alastor sighed and allowed himself to be ushered into the bar. He’d find a nice, ripe time to do it. Not in front of Mimzy. He’d never hear the end of it if she saw.
He liked the bar on this street because it was decently quiet. It wasn’t quiet with Mimzy and his soulmate present. Actually, it reminded him of the speakeasy on Earth. Together they roused the regulars, and the noise brought in new customers. He wasn’t sure how he ended up on the piano again, but he blamed the excited little blonde celebrating his fated match in his place.
Could you teach me? His soulmate murmured at a rare moment when he wasn’t chatting up the entire room, and for some reason Alastor indulged. The man was a shockingly good student. Too good. Alastor eyed him knowingly when his clumsy finger position went on too long to be faked but his playing improved dramatically. His personality itself was a lie: he was, as the kids said, a nerd. The whisky made this more amusing than it should have been and he laughed too hard at Mimzy’s next joke.
At some point Mimzy realized what he hadn’t bothered to correct and asked, “So what’s your name, sugar?”
“Vincent,” his soulmate answered absently.
“Oh no dear, that’s too normal. You’ve got to get something better down here.”
“I’ll… try to think of something?”
“Vox.” Alastor provided before he could stop himself.
“Huh?”
“It’s Latin for voice. Also, it rhymes with box.”
Mimzy nearly fell off her stool laughing. Vox smiled crookedly, though he didn’t seem displeased.
“Wouldn’t voice suit you better?”
“Haha, no, I don’t talk nearly as much as you.”
“I don’t think that’s a compliment,” Vincent said, still smiling.
“Oh don’t mind him, he’s always gotta remind you of his teeth and claws. Rawr.” Mimzy mimed claws in the air. “Anyway, what got you into hell?”
"You'd think he was your soulmate, Mimzy, for all your curiosity," Alastor drawled.
"Oh come on Alastor, you've gotta be dying to know what kind of person would be your soulmate same as me." She wibbled excitedly on her stool. "So?"
“Probably all the murders,” Vincent, or perhaps Vox, replied, equal parts smug and bashful. In case one didn’t fly, no doubt. He stole a glance at Alastor as if looking for approval.
“Wow, you two do have a lot in common, don’t’cha?”
Alastor found himself the subject of a bright beam.
“He’s an inspiration.”
That.
That wasn’t bad.
Alastor’s grin turned strange at the fizzle of odd electricity in his chest.
Murders were an absolutely absurd thing to compliment him on. No one had ever tried it. Of course his soulmate would. Of course he would be as sincere as this freak obviously was, even if he rarely was sincere.
It was less surprising now that fate picked him out, he had to admit.
The surprising thing was that their creator crafted two of them.
Alright, he thought. He’d indulge fate this once. If nothing else, he was sure he could find a use for this Vincent character.