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Vox couldn't remember a time when he wanted to be alive.
He couldn't identify when the feeling had started, it really could have been whenever adulthood, teen years, childhood. Maybe he'd always been like this.
He'd never really found much value in the universal lived experience.
Reflecting on it maybe that's why it was so easy for him to cause harm to others he just never saw the value in life. Of taking care of yourself just because.
The only time his life ever felt worth it was when he was on that stage soaking up the praise, the love and the adoration he'd always found purpose in it. It was so much easier to just live for others.
But maybe at a certain point even that might have stopped being enough?
Vox could remember his last day alive so clearly even now, he'd woken up sharply at six in the morning, had a bowl of cereal and gotten into his car heading towards that abandoned aquarium.
He'd then spent the next few hours setting it all up, he could still recall feeling proud looking at his work like he was ready for whatever was next.
He had started his seminar in the late afternoon.
Everyone was dead by dinner time.
Even after all these years Vox wasn't sure if somehow on a subconscious level he'd planned his death without him even realising.
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You'd think that dying once would quell that ideation at least for awhile but for Vox, death just made the desire for an end stronger.
His first few weeks in hell had felt utterly pointless only exemplified by the fact that there was simply no options for him this time.
At least, until he heard that silky, jazzy radio voice.
Since then Alastor had almost always been on his mind those broadcasts and the power that the Radio Demon held was Vox's drive to push on, to grow stronger and maybe one day he could find an end in that screaming broadcast?
The day they met was equally wonderful as it was terrifying, some parts of Vox was left regretting every decision he'd ever made and other parts made him feel like he was floating in the most wonderful dream ever!
Vox had never fully understood why Alastor had kept him around, but he found himself never really wanting to question that 'why' because for those few years. The feeling had grown quieter.
It felt like the universe had granted him a purpose, a real reason to make him want to change and grow instead of remaining in that stagnant slump.
But a life that good was clearly far too nice for Vincent to deserve.
He could still recall it all so clearly. His stupid offer, the laughter, the mocking and the heartbreak. He honestly couldn't even remember the apparent 'tantrum' he threw after all just hurt.
It was a hurt that splintered off at the edges consuming his entire being in that glasswork spiral of sharp hatred, a hatred that was so all consuming Vox couldn't help but push on.
Until he met Valentino that hatred was the only thing he had. It had become a constant, a painful, bleeding reason to survive and grow and be better.
Truly a double edged sword in an almost literal sense at times.
He could consider both Valentino and Velvette reasons too, he couldn't discredit them in that regard because unlike Alastor they were unmoving constants.
But neither could ever truly fill the gap Alastor had left, a gap that had long since grown into a festering wound that slowly killed him yet somehow kept him alive.
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Anger, was another one of those thing that defined plenty of Vox's life, he grew violent when angry often lashing out at the first thing he saw.
Most of the time that thing happened to be himself.
He'd always engaged in such behaviour even when he was small, he'd bite and punch and scratch himself because it was only thing that reliability calmed the rage.
In a few ways they almost felt like physical marks of failure.
Sometimes when Vox looked in the mirror he would laugh at the irony of this body and how it was almost tailor made for these behaviours in all ways that weren't discreet.
Claws that easily torn through skin, strong near metal fists that always left bruises and teeth that easily tore through anything in its path.
Of course he could always just take off his anger on the next random, unlucky intern but sometimes the pain felt so... real. Like a strange reminder that underneath the blank, thoughtless hum of machines was a human.
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When the announcement of the first extermination was broadcasted to Pentagram city the people panicked, Vox watched them all panic from the cameras watching as the entire world grew hysterical.
Vox didn't find himself panicking throughout that entire objectively terrifying few days, occasionally he feel a detached sense of dread or worry in his gut for his company, for his sharks, for his business partners but never for himself.
If anything there was this sense of anticipation as the date got closer, a momentary feeling that this would actually be the end and Vox felt ready for that!
But then he looked to Valentino and Velvette, observing the panic and fear in everything they did as the date ticked ever closer. In a way it put into prospective how actually strange his relationship with death was.
And for the first time in almost forever Vox had felt unsure about his demise, the elation of practically being given a free ticket out had worn away into something less then desirable.
It many ways the thought was still enticing but at least for now he couldn't just let the other two go on without him.
He wasn't going. Not yet.