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Day 15: Decor-Eclectic | Mediterranean | Modern
It's the oldest thing in the tower. They should have thrown it out years ago. It sits in their common area, in a duster corner, untouched for years. It's not anything that even brings positive memories; it's an old radio. An old radio that once used to blare music and fill the huge empty space with the sound of laughter and dancing. Vox won't tell them where he got it, but they know. They know when he looks at it, and sometimes there's rage and hatred in his face and sometimes he looks like he's going to cry.
He kept it, even though there were no longer any fond memories, even though there was no longer any friendship. They've never been sure if it was obsession or desperation or just an inability to let go of Alastor.
It's been shifted around the room dozens of times; more then once it has been thrown out. But it always ends up back in the common room, back in the back on some dusty table or shelf, untouched, hidden away like it is dangerous or fragile. No one is sure which he considers it- no one is sure which it is.
But it sits back there like a promise or a threat, even as the tower changes and grows around it. They get bigger, they modernize, and it still sits in the back of the room, silent, still. Sometimes Vox will whisper a hand over it, sometimes he will smile slightly, but always, always, it warps into an expression of bitterness and broken hatred.
After he cracks, after they drag him home as nothing more then a tablet and he stays that way until he's earned Body Privileges back, he destroys it. Slams it into the floor, the wall, tears it apart, rips out the internals and smashes it, smashes it, and they pretend not to see, not to hear the noises of agony leaving the room, the roars, the never anything but a toy, the selfish bastard, the fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU, pretend not to hear him sob.
And when it is gone, at last, no one says a word when he stares at where it is supposed to be, and pain streaks across his face like a whip-crack.
But then it is back, one day. Quietly sitting there as if it never was destroyed. It's still shattered and missing pieces, but patched carefully back together. It doesn't work anymore, but then, who knows if it has in years? Not a single damn one of them are sure how it got back there. Not one of them are sure how it got patched back together.
Or at least, that's what they tell him.
They're not sure if it was the right choice. But when he brushes his fingers over it one day, and gives them both a smile that knows more then he lets on, warm and grateful and soft, they know they could never have made any other.