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For a while, Vox didn't answer. Were it anyone else, Alastor might have thought they'd lost their ability to speak—but Vox would never let something like a little apocalypse silence him, and certainly not for long.
So Alastor waited, tilting his head with an expectant smile as he watched the thin, tense line of Vox's mouth tremble along with his baleful, fractured gaze. The garish liquid leaking from his screen was sinking into the dirt below; an awful waste! Alastor was familiar enough with the taste of Vox's blood—he'd be lying if he said it wasn't one of the things he'd always looked forward to with their little scuffles—but this was something Alastor had yet to sample.
Damaging Vox's screen to such an extent had always been—well. Not on the cards! He'd never really wanted to linger on why.
Seeing him now, like this, said it all. The possessive irritation he recognised all too well as stemming from someone else having damaged that which belonged to him.
Vox's eye squeezed shut briefly before reopening, and now there was nothing but a dull weariness in the wreck of his face. Alastor's own body ached so badly he wanted nothing more than to lean against the wall; to slide down to the floor beside Vox and simply be. Instead he allowed himself to set the spear down and rest his weight on it under the pretense of leaning in.
"Of all the things I might want right now, Al," Vox said at last, the familiar smooth richness of his voice raspy and thick with exhaustion, "you're pretty much at the bottom of the fucking list."
It was almost convincing.
But the still-raw hurt, resentment and need were only buried in a shallow grave, and when it came to Vox he needed no tool to exhume them. For all of his blustered proclamations of being a lone wolf, Vox had always been a needy thing, desperately searching for a pack.
"You can pretend you don't have a choice, if it makes you feel better," Alastor said brightly, "only one of us still has any functioning limbs after all, ha ha!" The cackle that escaped him ended in a wheeze of vague hysteria, and he dropped the spear to clutch at his chest as an agonising cough wracked him, the tang of blood filling his mouth.
For the first time, something like an uncomfortable fear flickered and fritzed across Vox's face. "I'm not—" he started mulishly, and then faltered. "I'm not clinging to your shoulders like a fucking backpack."
Alastor swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. It came away glistening red.
"You'd rather I carry you in the crook of one arm like a newborn babe?" He didn't bother to keep the amusement from his voice, grin widening with something genuine for the first time since regaining consciousness in this waking nightmare. "Well, if you'd prefer I leave our last line of defense here…" Alastor kicked at the spear with a deliberately loud clatter and crooked one finger in condescending invitation.
"I hate you," Vox said, voice choked, and that was more convincing. "But I don't know if I can—" he broke off as his features distorted in pain, splintered eye bloody and freshly leaking as four thin cables slowly, haltingly, began to extend from the shredded remains of his neck. Alastor's smile twitched; even being able to call upon this much power was—
"See, isn't that better?" It was as he'd suspected, but he knew his voice was too thin, too urgent, too telling. If Vox scuttled away now— "Up you get!"
Alastor grinned through the lancing pain that shot up his spine as he knelt, grasping for the spear as Vox dragged himself around, muttering under his breath. He wrapped two of his cables around Alastor's waist, hoisting himself up until his eye could peer over Alastor's shoulder.
The wires settled tightly around Alastor's chest, a harsh, constrictive comfort.
His.