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“Alright Al, shirt off.” Vox leans in with a glare as the cables binding Alastor to the office chair snake away, eyes narrowing as the other man tilts his head and raises his brow in disdain.
“Really, now, Vox. All that song and dance earlier, and that abysmal attempt at a burlesque show, and now you’re asking me to disrobe? Truly, you’re insatiable.”
“Shut up! D-don’t make this weird!” Vox’s left eye spirals in irritation, and the faint cyan tinge that’s bloomed at the center of his screen deepens at Alastor’s snigger. Vox leans back on his perch on the edge of the tub, crossing his arms and looking down and away.
He’s rolled Alastor into his massive private bathroom, an echoey room all blue tile and sharp edges, somehow both spartan and gaudy, smattered with unnecessary technology and tacky shark themed décor. The toilet is some sort of hideous technological nightmare that Alastor thinks hilariously matches Vox himself, there’s a clear circular raised port in one corner that leads down to what Alastor assumes is the shark tank, and the tub Vox is currently sitting on the edge of is one of those oversized deep ones sporting jets and various screens with readouts.
Alastor amuses himself for a moment with the mental image of Vox swimming around with the sharks. He hasn’t seen the man swim in over half a century, of course, but even with Vox’s current flatscreen being decidedly more hydrodynamic than his original hardware, Alastor still remembers the hysterically awkward affair of gangly limbs struggling to move Vox’s body against the resistance put forth by his clunky square head. Hell had gifted Vox with the ability to breath underwater but combined it with a terribly unbuoyant form that swimming did not come naturally to, and Vox had apparently never learned to swim in life. Or if he had, he was not very good at it.
Oh, Alastor had managed not to laugh in his face at the time, mostly due to the shock of seeing that idiot topple into the river and his surprise at how his shadow had plunged right in after, seemingly without any input on his part, only for Vox to be almost disappointingly fine in the end. Sure, he had been wet and embarrassed as the shadow drug him out, and he’d had a bit of an annoyingly staticky cold for a few days after, but overall he really was no worse for wear, and that initial moment of shock and something akin to worry had been a whole lot of wasted emotional effort on Alastor’s part.
The object of Alastor’s reverie snaps him out of it with a cyan claw pointed in his face. Alastor had seemingly missed whatever quip the TV had just lobbed at him. “See? This is exactly what I mean! I can’t gloat properly if you’re drifting off into fever dreams and not paying attention, so we need to keep that nasty-ass parting gift Adam left you clean! I need you well to witness my triumph, so start stripping!” Alastor rolls his eyes but acquiesces, gingerly unbuttoning and shouldering off his overcoat. Vox is back to his cross-armed pose, eyes once again elsewhere as his mouth forms an angry little squiggle across his screen. Alastor puts on a brave face like always, but sweat beads at his brow and his movements reveal just how much he’s flagging. Getting electrocuted had taken more out of him than Alastor would ever admit, but Vox could tell the man was tired as his fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt.
“Hurry it up. Or would you rather I have Val be the one to do it?!” Vox brings out a few thin cables to start pushing buttons through holes where Alastor’s claws had left off. It’s meant to be a threat, but Alastor’s perma-grin widens cheekily and he seems to seriously consider the idea as he eyes Vox faux-coyly.
“Hmmm, well now, he is just so much better with his hands than you are, isn’t he?” Alastor’s knowing look sends Vox spluttering the way he knew it would.
“Shut up! T-that! Has nothing to do with anything!” The center of Vox’s screen is glowing again, much to Alastor’s smug satisfaction, but Vox brings his talons forward to unfasten the final few buttons and pulls the shirt down over Alastor’s shoulders almost delicately to stare at his wound.
“Ha! Yeah, Adam fucked you real good! Bet that hurts like a bitch!” Alastor doesn’t deign to give that a response, but his ears have flattened back against his head and he’s looking away with a guarded grimace, as though bracing himself for more pain. Vox doesn’t seem to notice, or at least doesn’t acknowledge it as he continues his rant.
“You’re probably using some old-timey folk remedy bullshit on it, too, aren’t you? I’m surprised it isn’t festering.” He claws come inches from the gash and Alastor turns his head to face him, smile looking more like the snarl of a cornered animal, but Vox stops short of touching him. Alastor’s ears prick in surprise.
“It still feels a little warm, though,” Vox says quietly, almost like he’s muttering to himself, and he sends some cables to press some invisible button on one of the walls and then retrieve a box from the recessed panel that slides open. He takes it into his hands and pops it open, revealing medical supplies inside. Cables snake in and out, wrapping around this or that to hand it off to Vox, but his eyes stay on Alastor’s chest the whole time. Alastor supposes he’s probably guiding the cables through the security cameras mounted in the corners of the room that he’d noted with disgust when Vox had first wheeled him in here.
Vox sprays some sort of antiseptic into the wound and there’s a static hiss of radio feedback from Alastor at the sting, but the solution seems to have a numbing effect, because the throbbing in his chest lessens a moment later. Vox has sprayed alcohol over a handful of the tiny cables and they’re now pulling gauze from where it had been soaking in a bowl. Alastor eyes them warily as they approach, but he barely feels it as they tuck the strips of moist cloth in between his stitches and pack it down neatly into his wound. Vox has already taped some bandaging in place over the gash and is wrapping it in place almost before Alastor realizes it.
“There, isn’t that better?” Vox’s tone is mocking as he clips the end of the wrap together, but his touch is still gentle as he slides the shirt back up Alastor’s shoulders with his own sinister claws. Alastor brings his hand up to rest on his bandaged chest as Vox rebuttons his shirt. When their hands brush Vox stops and sits back again, gripping the sides of the rub as he stares down at the floor. Alastor hums thoughtfully.
“Hmm, not too shabby. Perhaps you should retire your megalomaniacal aspirations of world domination and take up nursing instead. Why, I daresay you even have a talent for it!” Vox scoffs and scowls at the backhanded compliment, but he doesn’t seem too displeased as he sends more cables to finish redressing the other man and then uses them to tie him back up and spin the chair around with a little too much force.
“Yeah, right, in your dreams, Alastor!” He shoves the chair roughly ahead of him as he maneuvers Alastor back out of the bathroom, refusing to meet Alastor’s eyes when the deer demon looks back at him with a wicked grin. Oh, Alastor almost feels bad for the poor fool. He’s going to have so much fun.