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Absolutely fucking wasted and the world spinning like a teacup ride that didn’t have seatbelts, Vox flopped backwards in bed. He pressed his cell phone against the side of his screen as he listened to it ring. There was a click, and an unenthused voice greeted his audio receptors.
“You have reached the Hazbin Hotel, how can I help you?”
Ah, yes, the former Exorcist angel. The same one who was now little Princess Morningstar’s girlfriend, or something. He couldn’t care less. She wasn’t who he wanted to speak to. The rebuilt hotel had a working telephone now, and in his drunken haze he decided to take advantage of this opportunity.
“Is Alastor there?” he asked.
“Wait… Vo—?”
“Is. He. There?” Vox said more insistently.
Vaggie grumbled something under her breath, and based on the shuffling he heard he assumed she covered the phone microphone with her hand to muffle the sound of her speaking.
After a moment, she pulled her hand away and said, “He wants to know who’s calling.”
Vox’s heart sunk and his throat ached. What the hell was he thinking, that Alastor would just accept a call without asking who it was from first? Not like Alastor would have heard him out even if he did accept the call. He would have recognized Vox’s voice in an instant and hung up.
“Hello?” Vaggie prompted drily. “Are you still there?”
“Y… yes,” Vox answered. “Tell him Vincent is calling.”
It was a long shot but he hoped maybe if he used his old name, Alastor might respond just the tiniest bit more positively. That he wouldn’t just tell Vaggie to hang up, or worse, take the phone from her to tell him to “Fuck off” and then hang up. He caught the sound of Vaggie covering the phone’s microphone again. Then he heard more noises, like something plastic being fumbled with (the phone passing hands?), and then it was quiet again, save for the very faint sound of breathing.
“Hello?” Vox croaked out, his stomach churning.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise?” Alastor drawled, derision dripping from every word. “What is it that you want, you obnoxious picture box?”
Despite his efforts to maintain his composure, Vox’s voice warbled as he replied, “It’s my birthday today.”
“Are you drunk?”
“…” That was what he was focused on?? “What’s it to you?”
“Hmm,” Alastor hummed.
Vox imagined him curling the telephone cord around his beautiful, clawed fingers. The same claws that once tenderly guided Vox as they slow danced in the radio demon’s living room, fireplace lit and warm. The same claws that later would viciously tear into Vox’s flesh, drawing blood and cutting down to the bone.
“Well… in any case, I suppose a ‘Happy birthday’ is in order. So. Happy birthday, Vox. Now, is there anything else? Have you perhaps grown tired of your precious Vees and desire to seek redemption?”
Vox snorted.
“Fuck no,” the media overlord answered. “I’d rather hurl myself in front of a moving bus.”
He tried to smile as he spoke. Instead his mouth twitched into a deeper frown. Today was important for another reason, one that had thoroughly tainted his birthday over seventy years ago.
“You remember that night, don’t you?” Vox pressed. “You know what day that was?”
“Hmmm,” Alastor hummed again.
Vox’s heart sank further. Either Alastor didn’t remember the exact night it took place, which implied he didn’t care as much as Vox did or…
Or he did remember…
And he was reacting so casually to the revelation because he again didn’t care as much as Vox did.
Back when Vox made the offer, Alastor had no idea when his birthday was. It wasn’t his fault. Vox had never told him. He’d had grown up in a cult religion where birthdays weren’t celebrated, along with a whole slew of other holidays. Even when he realized it all had been a fucking lie and he walked away, he still never really celebrated his birthday. He’d made a half-hearted attempt at it once or twice, but it never stuck.
He had bigger and brighter things to focus on at that point, anyway.
It was only when he began planning out his proposal that he really started to care. He wanted a reason to care that wasn’t just about his being born. He wanted to remember Alastor saying yes. He wanted to remember them dancing, just like they always did. He wanted to remember the dinner he had planned for them.
He wanted to remember possibly, cautiously, sneaking a kiss from Alastor. He wanted that day to be special. To mean something for both of them.
Obviously, none of those things happened. Instead Alastor laughed at him. Mocked him, called him pathetic and weak, and made it perfectly clear that whatever they had was one-sided. That none of it ever mattered to Alastor.
Vox went home that night and tore apart his apartment— destroying all the decorations he’d put up, putting out the candles he’d lit around the dining room, and breaking every piece of furniture he could get his clawed hands on. He’d slept on the floor that night, pathetically cradling a bouquet of flowers he was planning on giving to Alastor when they got to his apartment.
Vox’s birthday wound up becoming the worst day of the year from that point on, even after the Exterminations started. It was a day to be despised. A day where he had to get so fucking drunk he’d pass out, or (before he met Valentino and the moth stopped him out of sheer horror and worry) even sometimes kill himself the night before just so he didn’t have to deal with it.
“No, I don’t believe I do,” Alastor finally answered, the sound of his voice pulling Vox out of the memory and back to the present. “Though the tantrum you threw was quite memorable.”
Of course. What did Vox expect, really? For Alastor to remember the date it happened on? For him to care?
“There are no friends in Hell, Vincent!”
They were never friends. They’ve been at each other’s throats for over seventy years. Why would Alastor suddenly care now, after all this time?
Vox didn’t even bother trying to muster up a reply, instead pulling his cell phone away from his head and tapping the little red icon to hang up. He then tossed his phone onto the nightstand next to his bed and buried his face in his pillow as he broke down sobbing.