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The entertainment district was silent at night, Vox thought. This was because it was situated far away from the lower-class and the suffering and the nightclubs. All of the sinners in the entertainment district owned shops or businesses, closing at maybe 5 pm, their owners would collect loans or kill or commit general crime in the east (poor) and then return to their comfortable and spacious houses.
The entertainment district was also home to The Vees. The Vees tower was silent at night as well. Velvette had gone to sleep, Valentino had gone to torture a soul or two of his, and Vox was in his bed. Pondering about silence.
With Alastor, it had always been quiet, but never silent; He always had a faint static buzz around him, so Vox did as well: they were attached at the hip after all. He had gotten so used to Alastor’s white noise that when he left, silence seemed to envelope everything. He had been so close to Alastor’s familiar warmth that the temperature was bitter and foreign when he left.
Sighing, Vox stood up. He knew this feeling. Walking over to his closet felt like a humiliation ritual. He walked anyway.
Alastor’s warmth and his ambience made Vox feel hot at the collar. It made Vox feel hot between his legs. It made Vox feel loud.
When Alastor was still around, his warmth and Vox’s heat mixed. His quiet and Vox’s loud were a pleasant opposite.
Now Alastor was gone. He was a distant figure with other people to take under his wing and Vox was a burning heat in a cold, empty tower. Vox was a screaming voice in a silent district.
Vox had an old jacket in his closet. It haunted his room. It smelled like Alastor.
He got into his bed and forgot everything but the man.
Alastor’s smell drove him crazy. He smelled like forest and cinnamon and radio and static and quiet, not silence. The jacket was in Vox’s arms, wrapped around a pillow. The blanket, tousled and strained, was between Vox’s legs and his hot breath filled the room but it was still cold.
He remembered.
-
A restaurant. Romantic music. A sweet smell. A table for two.
“Vox, my dear, don’t be ridiculous!” Alastor was laughing, because Vox had done something dumb or asked something dense. He couldn’t even remember.
Alastor had a laugh that rung like a church bell. He was sat opposite Vox; he was leaning back in his chair and he looked comfortable and open. He had one hand to his chest, claws relaxed. He had one hand on the table.
A stream of rare sun was peeking through the window from the pale white heaven in the sky. It was in Alastor’s eyes and he was squinting because it was so bright, reflecting from his monocle and painting him in the best watercolours.
Vox was staring like a lovesick idiot. He was a lovesick idiot, he supposed.
“Really darling you say the funniest things,” His tone was light.
The pet name was a reflex; he called Rosie and Nifty ‘darling’, even some cannibals he was close to. Knowing this, Vox felt a bolt of electricity through his metal spine anyway. His transatlantic drawl would be burnt into his mind like a brand on a cow.
Darling. He was Alastor’s Darling.
Alastor talked about the music. In his radio host way, he chatted about everything and nothing. He talked about the food. He talked about Rosie and a book he read.
Vox listened to Alastor. He didn’t care about the music or the food. He didn’t care about Rosie and he hadn’t read a book since he was alive and 23. He listened to the warmth and familiarity in his companion’s voice, his quiet rises and falls.
He could listen to Alastor all day.
-
The memory tasted like ash. Alastor had burnt many bridges, even the ones Vox was still on.
Vox had been plunged into the freezing water, and the rush of the waves filled his ears and his nose and his mouth.
He had scrabbled onto the dry earth, cold and dripping, and it had been silent.
Taking gasps of Alastor’s fading smell, Vox gripped the pillow with an arm. Desperately, he shoved the other arm in between his legs. Alastor’s transatlantic drawl burned him, his old timey static heated his core. He was hot all over.
Thinking of Alastor, his legs clenched the pillow harder, his arm jerked harder with his shame between his fingers. If he squeezed his eyes hard enough, the tears would wash away and he could just imagine that it wasn’t his own hand, but the hand of someone else. He went faster. Between sobs, he took huge gasping breaths or let out pleasure from clenched teeth. Oil was leaking from his monitor. Hot. Wet.
In his core, something hot but not warm or comforting built. It felt good. It felt embarrassing.
He pumped harder. He was full of anger. Why did he leave? Why did he come back? He came back and went to that stupid hotel to play holding hands, but he didn’t come back to Vox. Was he not good enough? The questions burned, burned like his thighs and his core and his mind, all hot for Alastor, Alastor, Alastor.
Vox wanted Alastor more than anything.
Vox didn’t know what Alastor wanted.
“Alastor-“
He moaned the name like a prayer. Like a secret.
“Alastor…”
Like a mantra. The name filled his mouth with poison and filled his stomach with acid and heat, not warmth.
He went faster. The coiling in his core had wound tight like a spring. A red haze had set over him. Desperately, he fucked the pillow like it was a man he wanted to fuck him. Fuck him. He abandoned Vox. He was wailing and moaning, every sense on fire, every wire hot but not warm. The jacket was in his arms, and it was cold and Vox was burning.
In a jolt of electricity, the coil came undone. The spring popped. Reality came crashing down on Vox, like he thought it would. The jacket was covered in the stains of his lust with that name on his tongue, still like ash.
And that's all it was: a jacket. It was fake, and Vox was real. It would never be warm. It would never be Alastor. He had rutted like a dog over the smell of a man who didn’t give a flying fuck about him.
With a sardonic laugh, Vox got up. He took the stained jacket with him. He didn’t need it.
He held it over the trash can.
With a sigh, Vox walked back over to his closet in the humiliation ritual. He put the jacket in the same spot it always went to.
He’d wash his sheets tomorrow.