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“Go on, then,” Alastor grins, knocking back the rest of his drink, “Give it a try.”
Vox sputters into his glass, sending drops of whiskey splattering across his screen. He frantically mops at it with his sleeve, and then blinks at Alastor.
“What?”
“Well you've been going on about it for the past thirty minutes, and, quite frankly, I'm not convinced this little bout of ‘hypnosis’ actually occurred.” Alastor leans back in his seat, shrugging, “So… prove it.”
Vox bristles, “I swear to fuck-”
“Charming language.”
“Fuck you-” Vox shoves his middle finger towards Alastor's face, where it's quickly swatted away by a wisp of shadow. “I did so totally fucking hypnotize that little freak. I’ve explained it, what, five times now? He didn't wanna give me my change, and he was really pissing me the fuck off. Like seriously, this dickhead is going to try to cheat me out of my own money? My left eye burned so bad it felt like it was going to shatter my screen. And when I told him to give me my money again, he just… Did it!”
“And I've said, what, five times now?” Alastor echoes him mockingly, “That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I know you may fancy yourself a ‘master manipulator’, Picture Box, but hypnotizing people? Really? I'd have thought you were above all of that- what did you call it? Woo woo-”
“Oh shut the fuck up about that-” Vox rolls his eyes, “Fuck, you say something one time. It's probably like… a new ability or something because of the network gaining so much traction lately. That's not impossible, right?”
“Oh, I don't know, Vox,” Alastor tips his head back against the couch cushions. He swivels to look at Vox, eyebrows raised, “Maybe if you'd give it a try we could find out, and then you can drown your disappointment over your failure with more alcohol.”
“You're such an asshole. You have freaky shadow tentacles, for fuck’s sake!”
“Mh. Oh, I get it,” Alastor nods solemnly, “You really don't think you'll be able to do it, hm?” he sighs exaggeratedly, grin widening, “Well, I can't say I blame you. After all, my mind is far too powerful to be influenced by hypnosis. And you are far weaker than me.”
Vox sees the goading challenge for what it is, and lets himself be needled anyway. It's a fun little game they play, baiting each other into displays of idiocy. “I'm gonna make you jump straight off the balcony,” he grumbles half-heartedly.
“A very worthy way to christen this new darling little apartment of yours, I'd say.” Alastor chuckles.
Vox plucks the nearly empty glass from Alastor's hand and drains the last of it in one swallow.
“That was my whiskey,” Alastor complains.
“That was my whiskey,” Vox corrects, “I bought it with the same enormous paycheck I used to lease this big fancy penthouse. The paycheck that I got because of my incredibly popular network? The network that's currently destroying your station in viewer numbers?”
Alastor doesn’t even bristle at the prodding, just rolling his eyes and folding his hands across his stomach.
“How do you fit that giant ego of yours through the door of this place?”
Vox places the glass next to his own on the coffee table, and turns to face Alastor fully, tucking one leg underneath himself.
“Alright, fuck it, let's go.”
“Oh?” Alastor raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, c’mon, sit up, turn,” Vox flaps a hand.
Alastor groans, closing his eyes, “Must I?”
“Yes, Al, you prick,” Vox grins, “Move your scrawny ass before I make you move it.”
Alastor snorts, but he peels himself away from the back of the couch and turns to face Vox fully, pulling one leg up to mirror his position. Their bent knees brush.
Vox stares at him. Relaxed, unguarded, hair mussed. So far from the pristine countenance that he keeps on display for anyone else. He looks comfortable here, like he belongs in Vox's space. His smile is light and easy. Vox can't tear his eyes away, can't form another thought but to want to lean forward and-
“Is this it?” Alastor asks, tilting his head. “Goodness, I'm feeling so very hypnotized. Quickly, give me an order. I may even do a jig if you ask nicely.”
Vox hisses out a long suffering sigh.
“Is this what you did to that unfortunate shopkeep?”
“God I fucking hate you,” Vox mumbles, dragging his hands down his screen.
“Stop inviting me over,” Alastor shrugs.
“Shut the fuck up, I need to concentrate.”
Alastor mimes zipping his mouth shut and tossing away a fake key, and then folds his hands primly in his lap, amusement flickering in his eyes.
Vox can't help but smile back at him, affection fluttering through his chest.
He inhales as deeply as he can manage, and then closes his eyes and lets it out slowly. He relaxes his shoulders, tips his head from side to side to loosen his neck, and lets his face smooth out.
Alastor never does what Vox wants him to. He’s infuriating that way. Everything Vox says, Alastor has a contrarian response to. Everything Vox does, Alastor has a criticism for. Every suggestion Vox makes, Alastor is sure to do the exact opposite out of spite. Vox is enamored with him. Alastor keeps him on his toes. Alastor doesn’t kiss his ass for a raise or a promotion or air-time. Alastor is worth his place in Vox’s orbit, and Alastor makes sure that Vox works for his place beside the illustrious Radio Demon in return. He’s the closest thing that Vox has ever known to an equal, the only person Vox hasn’t wanted to kill and become.
But once, just once, Vox wants to know what it’s like to have Alastor listen to him. To agree. To tell him actually, yes, this idea is good. Vox can’t pretend that he doesn’t absolutely crave attention. He certainly didn’t start a cult for the tax breaks. (Well, not just for the tax breaks.) He’s not on TV for his health. And he doesn’t come crawling back to Alastor with new ideas over and over again because he doesn’t hope that this will finally be the one to impress him. He practically foams at the mouth at the thought of the day that he slaps a script down in front of Alastor and watches satisfaction spread across his face instead of varying levels of disapproval.
There’s a simmering ache in his chest that burns for Alastor’s eyes to find him and finally decide that what he’s seeing is enough. Enough to stand beside him without constantly clawing and fighting and agonizing over each minute moment. Enough that he won’t be tossed out with the day’s trash over the tiniest mistake. Enough that Alastor might not just tolerate him. Enough that he’s not just something to endure.
Enough that Alastor could want him. That he could be wanted at all.
Vox draws on that storm of tangled emotions when he opens his eyes again and looks Alastor in the face.
Just once, he tries to convince himself, would be enough.
It’s like someone cracks a whip against his left eye, a horrible snap of pain that makes him choke on his next breath. The pixels swirl, his head feels like it might split in two.
Alastor’s eyes go wide, and then, to Vox’s immense surprise, the arrogant grin slips from his face. His smile goes smaller and softer, more content. His eyes lose their hard edge, now glassy and blank. His chin tips upwards, ears flicking forward. It’s like all the defiance leaves his body.
Even in his more relaxed moments, there’s always a certain thread of control that Alastor holds tightly. Forever composed, never truly let loose. A wall between himself and the world.
Without it, he looks so small.
“Holy shit,” Vox breathes.
“Tell me…” Vox flounders, shaking his head, mouth moving soundlessly as he thinks, “Tell me the finale of Desperate Hellwives was good?”
“The finale of Desperate Hellwives was good,” Alastor answers easily.
Vox rubs at his stinging eye with the heel of his hand, wincing and covering it with his palm. The pain vanishes almost instantly. “Holy shit, I fucking did it.”
What is he supposed to do now? He hadn’t thought he’d get this far. Alastor hadn’t been wrong in teasing that he was afraid it wouldn’t work.
“Al?” he asks quietly, pulling his fingers away from his eye.
Alastor blinks rapidly, and then his head lolls sloppily to the side.
“Hmmmh?” he hums quietly in response.
“What the fuck,” Vox whispers, lowering his face to his hands, “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuuuuuuuck.”
There are a thousand and one things that he wants to hear Alastor say.
There are even more things that he wants to do with him.
But he can’t.
He wouldn’t.
Not… fuck, not those. He may be a horrible asshole, but he’s not that horrible.
He looks back up and Alastor is still smiling at him softly.
He looks so fucking uncharacteristically sweet. Vox’s mouth tilts up at one corner.
“Say you love watching my shows.”
“I love watching your shows.”
“My ideas are the best!”
“Your ideas are the best.”
“I’m the most charming, charismatic, handsome TV host that hell could ever ask for.”
Alastor repeats him without skipping a beat.
A huge, toothy grin spreads across Vox’s face. Even if it’s fake, he can’t ignore the goofy, elated warmth that spreads in his chest at hearing compliments from Alastor’s mouth. He’s going to be replaying these clips as motivation to not kill himself at least once a week.
“Tell me that TV is better than radio.”
“TV is better than radio,” Alastor echoes dreamily.
Vox honest to God giggles. That clip is going into the favorites archive.
Talk about blackmail material. Fuck, Al is gonna be so fucking mad when he plays that clip back for him during their next argument. Wait, shit-
“Will you remember this when we stop?” Vox asks frantically.
Alastor’s eyebrows furrow, just for a second. “Do you want me to?”
“No!” Vox practically shouts, flailing his hands in front of himself, “Fuck, no, forget this. Don’t remember anything.”
“Okay,” Alastor says simply.
Vox blinks at him. He could… There are things he knows he’ll never hear out of Alastor’s mouth. Simple endearments, reassurances… Things no one has ever said to him.
Things Alastor would never say to him. Not of his own free will. It scares him to recognize what he’d give to hear them. It’s pathetic, he knows, to use hypnosis to be told that he’s something worth cherishing. To have to use it, because he knows he’ll never hear it otherwise, and he can’t fucking stand it. To want it all bad enough to do it anyway. Something ugly and bitter rears up in his chest. It claws up his throat, tears its way out of his mouth without warning.
“Fuck you.” he spits, breath whooshing out hard. “Fuck you for making me do this. Making me beg for fucking scraps!”
His screen glitches, voice catching and skipping with it.
“You’re s-szo fucking condescending! All the time! You kno-ow that? Always some shitty comment, or- or some sarcastic bullshit. Nothing is ever right! Nothing is ever good enough for you. I’m never-”
Vox stares helplessly at Alastor.
Alastor only blinks back at him.
Vox sucks in a steadying breath through clenched teeth. He shakes his head, shoulders dropping. A humorless laugh punches out of him.
“Why can’t you just like me?”
Vox stiffens, surprised at the intensity of his own outburst. The honesty of it. Embarrassment burns across his screen. His casing heats, and his fans whirl faster to counteract the uptick in temperature. He shakes his head frantically.
“I- No- I just want you to-” he snaps his mouth shut, swallowing hard. Colors swim in the corners of his vision. “Fuck, you’d have to be hypnotized to even fucking touch me.”
Vox’s breath catches on a hysterical half-laugh. His heart pounds. He chooses selfishness.
“Tell me… Tell me you’re proud of me.” Vox whispers miserably.
“I’m proud of you,” Alastor echoes immediately.
Vox’s heart stutters at that. Something in his chest collapses into a horrible canyon of need.
“Tell me you enjoy my company.”
“I enjoy your company,” Alastor replies seamlessly.
Vox’s mouth wobbles. His eyes burn.
“Tell me…”
He wraps his arms around himself, trying to stuff the broken pieces of himself back inside.
“Tell me you like me,” he whispers.
“I like you, Vox.” Alastor murmurs. His hand twitches toward Vox’s.
Vox’s eyes catch the movement immediately.
“You can touch me,” he says quickly, “Please touch me.”
Alastor reaches out once the request is made. Vox catches his hand, fingers wrapped around his slim wrist, thumb pressed into the warmth of his palm.
He leans closer, bringing Alastor’s hand to his chest. He sets it over his pounding heart, covering Alastor’s hand with his own.
“Touch me, please,” Vox whispers, vision blurring with tears.
This is farther than he meant to let things go. It’s too much. But he can’t stop himself. It’s everything he’s never had, everything he’ll never find.
Alastor’s hand slides up his neck, fingers curling around the edge of his screen. He leans into it hungrily, shamelessly. Into the warmth, the gentleness that Alastor would never deign to show him were he in his right mind.
“Tell me you-” Vox's mouth trembles.
He looks into Alastor's expressionless face. He can't look at him when he asks for this, when he hears Alastor say it. Not when it’s the only time he’ll ever hear it, and looking into those vacant eyes would remind him all too well that Alastor would never choose to say it. He squeezes his eyes shut. His shoulders hike up.
“Tell me you love me,” Vox chokes out.
There's a split second of hesitation, fingers curling and twitching against his face. And were he any less terrified, were his blood not roaring in his ears, alarm bells not sounding in his head about what a bad fucking idea this is, he might've noticed that.
“I love you,” Alastor murmurs.
Vox's breathing goes ragged. He curls in on himself.
He almost asks to hear it again. Bites his tongue hard.
He reaches out blindly for Alastor's waist, palm landing on the curve of his hip.
“Fuck,” he exhales brokenly. “Fuck.”
His breath shudders out as a messy sob. He shakes his head, clenches his teeth. When’s the last time he’d heard that? Had he ever? He gives in.
“Again-” the plea comes out crackly and distorted through his audio outputs.
“I love you, Vincent,” Alastor’s voice is soft, absent of its usual static.
Vox hiccups, feeling every bit as pathetic as he’s ever been told he was.
“I don’t know how to stop wanting this,” he confesses. “I’ve tried. I promise I’ve tried, Al.”
Alastor’s hand is warm against his screen. He wishes, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that he hadn’t been cursed to live out an eternity as something halfway human. He wants to be able to bury his face against Alastor’s neck, wishes he had hair for Alastor’s fingers to stroke through.
“I’ve never fucking loved somebody before.” A maniacal little laugh bubbles out of him. “How the fuck do you make that go away? God it fucking hurts. When does it stop feeling like dying?”
Alastor's fingers tug at his face, and then there are lips on his.
Vox’s eyes snap open and he rears back. He stares at Alastor in utter bewilderment, opening his mouth and snapping it closed again.
“Alastor?” he croaks, “I don’t understand. You were- I thought I’d-”
Alastor raises an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry-” Vox blurts out hysterically, his hand spasming, “I’m sorry! Don’t fucking kill me! Please let me-”
“Oh dear,” Alastor tilts his head innocently, fluttering his eyelashes, “You didn't really think you'd be powerful enough to hypnotize me, did you?”
Vox short-circuits, vision flickering into darkness for a moment before he’s able to reboot.
“That,” Vox sputters, “No! Tell me you’re lying. You wouldn’t have… but you said-”
“I know what I said,” Alastor assures him, tipping his chin down. There’s no humor in his eyes now, “and I know what I just did.”
Alastor pulls on Vox's collar, drawing him in to kiss him again. Vox resists.
“Let me,” Alastor insists, “Let me.”
Vox melts into his hands. Alastor’s mouth brushes lightly over his, again, and again, and again. Until Vox is breathless. Until his hands are shaking, clenched in the fabric of Alastor’s coat. Until he’s ready to drop to his knees and beg Alastor to stitch together every one of his frayed edges so that the agony might stop leaking out of him with each breath.
Alastor kisses him senseless, and then breathes new sense back into him.
With it, comes the experience of being treated gently; held like something cherished, touched like something beautiful.
Fingers sweep over tear tracks trapped behind glass, like following raindrops as they race down the windowpane. They can’t be thumbed away, but Alastor ghosts over them anyway, and the pixels dance under his touch.
Alastor’s mouth shapes devotion against his own, teeth and tongue scrawling sonnets that seep down his throat and chase the shards of glass from his lungs.
When Alastor pulls back, it’s easier for Vox to breathe than it’s been in years.
“That whole time?” Vox asks, warring with the latent sting of embarrassment over his breakdown. It’s a little easier to stuff down with the taste of Alastor’s mouth still on his tongue.
“That whoooooole time,” Alastor says with mock solemnity, grin spreading. Affection cracks Vox open.
“Fuck. If I’d known, I- I wouldn’t have been so…”
“Pathetic?” Alastor supplies, cocking his head. He leans in and presses his nose to Vox’s screen, static fluffing up his bangs. “Oh, my dear, you are always pathetic.”
“You're an asshole,” Vox says incredulously, wondrously, against his mouth.
“Mind your tongue,” Alastor chirps cheerfully, voice flickering through glowing teeth as he sinks his teeth into the offending thing in question.
~~~~~~
“So, not even for a second?” Vox asks later, Alastor’s head on his chest, carding fingers through his hair.
“Not even for a second,” Alastor answers.
“Not even when you told me Desperate Hellwives was good?”
Alastor freezes. “When… when did I say that?”
Vox cackles.