Chapter Text
“Fuck hell, fuck heaven, and fuck all of you. As long as I wipe that smile off Alastor’s fucking face, I don’t care what happens.” Vox hated how a tear escaped his eye, running down the screen as he screamed that to all of hell, still on live broadcast. He felt his mind spinning out of control, and like the emotions flooding through him were going haywire, all tangled together in the thinnest wires, unable to be differentiated from each other other than just a tangled ball of absolute hate and grief emanating from his deepest core.
Worse still, he felt, when he stared straight into Alastor's eyes. That fucker, that demon, the one man who used to be his everything—the most important man in Vox’s life, who cruelly stomped on his heart and shattered it into ugly pieces—only narrowed his eyes back, his unfeeling and unbothered smile like a taunt to Vox’s heart. Vox wanted to scream until his voice gave out, he wanted to sink his claws into Alastor’s shoulders, rip him apart gruesomely until there was nothing but a mess of tangled limbs on the ground. Pathetically, Vox still held hope that if he destroyed enough, Alastor’s face would finally wear something more than a cold smiling mask of neutrality. He would look at Vox like he mattered to him, like he was something more than just a passing fish in the sea to him, like Vox actually existed in Alastor’s universe.
He aimed the cannon straight at Alastor, emotions too high to process anything he was blurting out. None of his efforts would repair the damage he had already done in his frenzy to kill Alastor. The onlookers in the crowd and the viewers online, goading him to publicly hang himself, only nailed the coffin shut. His ratings were tanked beyond repair, his power gone, and his body all but spent, even the other Vees left him—he had nothing left. Nothing except those sickening feelings towards Alastor he still felt, even after everything the radio demon did.
After the fight at that bar, Vox, with his fresh wounds, tried to isolate himself from all mentions of Alastor, only finally biting the bullet and looking him up after a particularly noble accomplishment he made that was praised across Hell—the acquisition of man-made movies. He wanted, needed to know for his peace of mind that he was doing better than Alastor, to show him that he was thriving, without him. Vox couldn’t help the absolute rage that coursed through him when he heard that Alastor had somehow done something even more impressive—connecting his radio to the ones in the human realm, and giving his listeners a chance to relive precious nostalgia. The achievement heralded Alastor as ‘Hell’s entertainer of the year’, Vox couldn’t have been more furious, and hopeless. He also couldn’t help but turn those dark feelings towards himself when his heart, traitorously, gave a strange jolt when Alastor announced that particular feat.
He hated the fact that he still loved Alastor even after he ridiculed him, he hated feeling so weak to his feelings, a vulnerable spot that couldn’t be covered up. He was Vox, Hell’s number one favourite public figure, he started at the bottom and climbed his way up, twice, he had endless amounts of power, wealth and influence. He had it all, yet his soul still yearned for Alastor’s approval, to impress him, and to win against him, once and for all. Without anywhere for his emotions to go, he turned those intense feelings he felt into red hot hate.
In his mind, he would conquer Heaven, rule everything and beyond, and Alastor would gaze at him in admiration, admit that he had been short-sighted when he rejected Vox’s proposal, and beg Vox to take him back. And Vox would, generously, keep him around, in his presence just to remind Alastor what he could have had if he had just been smarter, all those years ago. That had always been the plan, until Alastor flipped the script on him with his cowardly, sneaky move. Vox couldn’t believe he was so stupid to be blindsighted like that. Alastor knew him too well, it was a weakness Vox had underestimated. Alastor needed to go; he couldn’t toy with him if he was broken, mentally and physically.
The cannon gave a lurch as Vox commanded it to shoot one last time. He looked at Alastor and couldn’t hide the grin on his face. Alastor had an expression like a deer staring at headlights as he stared at the charging cannon, his wounded body twitched, like he wanted to dodge his certain demise but was too weak to move. Vox tried to steady himself, taking a shaky inhale as he treasured this moment spread before him. He was the one who would get to kill the infamous radio demon. It was beautiful poetic justice, Vox who Alastor had looked down on, mocked, laughed at, for even thinking about being equals and proposing a partnership—to rule Hell together as one, being the sole king of Hell at death’s door.
The cannon was shaking now. He had finally done it, one final blast to end it all—Alastor, himself, all the other overlords, maybe even Hell itself. He felt an empty void where concern and self-preservation would have been, his once-intense emotions quickly twisting into apathy. He didn’t care at all, as long as Alastor died by his hand, he would consider that his final victory. And he was always someone who would rather die in a glorious triumph than to lick his wounds in a humiliating defeat.
Vox felt his eyes start to water again and quickly blinked away another tear. He refused to let Alastor see how much he was affected emotionally by him. The most important thing that the cannon would destroy now was the history between them, a relationship Vox’s obsession to erase landed on the extreme. It was like a metaphorical chain and collar around his neck, Alastor had a dragon’s hoard of information on him that could be exposed at a moment’s notice, and Vox was a sitting duck, bracing for the tug of the collar at his throat. He hated how stupid he was to confide his secrets and feelings with Alastor, hoping and wishing that Alastor would give him a slice of his personal life too, someday. He felt even worse for believing that he had finally made a genuine friend, and his stupid hope that they could have been more. But none of that mattered anymore.
As Vox stumbled off the cannon and drew closer to Alastor, he bit his lip to prevent himself from shedding more tears and humiliating himself even more. He was crying over a man. Absolutely revolting. A visceral feeling of being stabbed in the gut spread through his entire body as he looked at Alastor’s face. A mocking grin greeted him, not unlike the one he wore 68 years ago, a face that would haunt Vox’s nightmares for years to come. “Well now, Vox. I told you that you would lose your marbles. You’re so predictable, it's an utter bore.”
The knife twisted. Vox reached a hand out to yank Alastor towards him, to bring him into the spotlight of attention too, the broadcast would be on both of them tonight. “Guess what, Al? You might be right, but I don’t give a shit.” He spat that last word out like something rotten between his teeth. “Because when this baby–” Vox gestured behind him. The Might of Lillith’s beam was pointed at them both, glowing brighter and brighter as it charged with a voracious amount of energy, “–blows, it’ll finally end your misery, and there's nothing you can do about it.” Vox ended the sentence with a maniacal laugh bubbling in his throat. Feeling a little hysterical, he grabbed Alastor’s broken staff as a precaution in case he tried to cowardly slip away using his shadow. When push came to shove, Alastor treasured nothing more than his life. He knew that from watching him, when Alastor retreated in the fight against Adam last month, in spite of his pride and ego. It was endlessly satisfying and glorious to see him knocked off his perch. Just like now.
The Might of Lilith crackled, shuddering and rattling with unstable power. Vox sucked in a shaky breath. “This is it, Alastor! It’ll be an honour to be the one to take your life. I’m so glad you turned down my offer to be my partner all those years ago, it just makes this moment all the more sweeter. Just.. Thank you.” Vox choked out those last words, his voice a mess of heavy emotions as he tugged at Alastor’s staff again, to pull his former-friend closer to him, one last time. Vox felt his body rattling now, the intense vibrations of the cannon causing his head to spin and the earth to shake, the light charging behind him was so bright he could barely see the outline of Alastor’s shadow. This is it. His antennae buzzed with uncontrolled electricity, masking the words Vox wondered but wouldn’t dare speak. Was anything we did together ever real?
Alastor finally wore a new face. Eyes wide, looking at Vox indecipherably. Vox felt giddy, something inside him snapped, releasing what felt like a century of tension he didn’t know he had been holding. He was so incredibly glad that this was the last thing he was going to see before he died. At death’s door, he finally, finally, got Alastor’s attention. He wished things went this way from the start.
That was his last thought as the machine exploded behind him, essentially flashbanging him with a divine light. The sound of static was all that greeted him when his screen flickered shut involuntarily.
A strange crackling noise echoed throughout the room. “Ah, looks like the radio is out of tune again.” Vincent got up from the floor—where he was previously occupied with drawing all sorts of cool sharks with his new crayons his mom got him—and walked on over to his desk. He felt a strange tingle in his hand as he extended it towards the old family radio. He turned the tuning knob, the static getting louder and louder as he tried to change the frequency to find another station. He fumbled with it for a moment before his patience snapped and he raised his fist, hitting the top with a thunk— the old family radio was usually encouraged to work after a few blows to the right place, but this time, it stayed unbudging. He wiped his greasy hands on himself, leaving a few blue waxy crayon stains on his white shirt, before inspecting the tuning dial.
“Huh? The needle is jammed..” He muttered to himself as he tried to fiddle with the knob. That wasn't right, where were the other channels? Vincent moved his attention to the other knob, the one controlling the power and volume, but he found that that one, unlike the tuning knob that could still be turned, was stuck in place, unable to be pressed or turned. Vincent bit his lip worriedly, his dad was going to kill him if anything happened to the radio. Focusing his mind back on the tuning knob, he found that it only turned one way. Forward.
The more he turned the knob, the heavier his hand felt, like there was electricity pulsing through it. He let out an audible gasp as a shock was sent through his entire body, like his neurons were tingling. His childhood room spun around him as his entire life and afterlife flashed before him. He collapsed onto the ground, white-knuckling the rug, as he sunk into his own shadow and his ears flooded with distorted speech and hazy memories. His childhood of listening to the radio, reading picture books about sharks, his parents’ expectations of him, his job as a weatherman, the fans that cheered and clapped when he stepped onstage, the intense pain he felt when he died, the sharp uprising of VoxTek and its products, Valentino and Velvette forcing him to take pictures with them, getting all of Hell on his side and declaring war on heaven, and Alastor.
His spiraling, noisy voices in his head cleared like smoke when his thoughts landed on Alastor, like a droplet of water in an otherwise still lake, sending tense ripples across the surface. The chaos in his head ceased at once, and it was replaced by a sharp ringing sound, silencing the rest of Vox’s thoughts. The noise was amplifying by the minute, the cause of the pitch was slowly inching closer and closer, a hunter towards its prey. Then, at its peak, hush silence fell over Vox’s mind. Vox took that minute to pull himself together, breathing heavily in the pitch black space he was in. Then, a voice, speaking like it was directly into his ear, purred. “Found you.”
The floor of the expansive black space gave out and he fell, feeling extremely off-balanced—like a rug being tugged from underneath him. Vox was pulled awake from a strange slumber, heart still pounding in his chest. He lifted his heavy eyelids, blinking a few times. “What the fuck.” His speakers were so rusty the sound came out in a buffer. He hauled himself upright from the cold floor he found himself sprawled out on, head feeling extremely heavy.
He was at his office at VoxTek, that much he could tell. The distinct blue style of lighting he had trademarked when he first arrived in Hell, was shining down on him, making him feel oddly exposed and vulnerable, like sitting on an operating table, waiting for the scalpel. He instinctively flinched away from the dim glow of the room. After being basically killed by light, he felt like any brightness was too bright, his eyes could hardly handle it, static filling his screen.
“What sort of stupid fucking prank is this?” He called out loud, in his most authoritative voice, after he took a moment to recover. It had to be a prank, the room looked like a background set to one of those sitcoms that get taken off the air in a season, due to low viewership. No wonder, Vox clicked his tongue in disapproval, to no one in particular as he squinted across the room, the decor was older than some of the overlords alive.
The blue lights, embedded into the ceiling were wide and bulky and, if Vox leaned close enough, produced a faint buzzing sound. The furniture was out-of-date too, a kidney-shaped coffee table, notably with dull, round edges, and an armchair that couldn’t even swivel, which was his favourite aspect of the chairs he owned. Someone was going to be fired, and maybe killed too, depending on his mood. Getting a headache at the sight of his office, Vox grimaced and turned the opposite direction.
His bedroom, attached to his office, provided a similar scene, to his dismay. Not only was his bed significantly less wide, the headboard was a plain, sleek midnight blue, nothing like his usual one with the glowing fancy screens and projectiles that usually displayed large amounts of news and reports. His wardrobe too, had gone back in time, lacking the usual edge. Most notable of all, was the object on top of his nightstand, laying there, harmlessly, the brown thing clashing with the blue of his room gave the impression it was placed like an afterthought—when it was everything but that.
His heart stopped for a moment when he laid his eyes on it. His vision shook and he squeezed his hands together to stop the trembling in them, not caring that his claws punctured into his skin, drawing blood. He felt like he was being sucked into a black void, his insides a blender of anxiety, where reality connected but distorted at the same time. The furniture, the lights, everything made sense now, because it wasn’t a matter of where, but when. Everything in this office was something he previously owned, but he just forgot them. They were discarded and replaced, everything in his office was, when they stopped serving his use—he would barely notice.
But as he looked at that object on his nightstand, he couldn’t help but notice it now, he noticed it when he first put it there, and he noticed it every time he went to sleep, he noticed it when he used to treasure it fondly, and he noticed it when he threw it against a wall, crushing it underneath his heel til it became irreparable junk. Because on that nightstand was a radio, not one produced by VoxTek, but one given to him as a gift by someone he thought of as his first ever friend.
He forced his eyes shut, not wanting to look at the hideous wooden box any longer. It made him nauseous just looking at it. His heart hammered in his chest loudly and he suddenly felt too hot, a sharp contrast to the cold, barren blue walls around him.
Just like everything else in Vox’s life, his taste in aesthetics was carefully engineered for the benefit of himself. The sleek and smooth, stark, minimalist decor offered no personality and no warmness, just serrated, uncomfortable edges. They were a way to remind everyone that they were in his domain, and they didn’t belong here. To facilitate anxious slip-ups and a feeling of exclusion, as the glossy surface would reflect light—or more specifically—Vox’s face onto every surface, from the walls, to the reflection of the table and even the chairs, creating the illusion of being surrounded, trapped and cornered.
The greatest thing about minimalism was that it was easy to sell to the public too. Take away the option for more detail, customizations, and freedom and the public would riot. But turning it into an aesthetic and calling it futuristic? The people would all want to own furniture like his. It could now be seen as cool and luxurious, something to be desired.
But Vox didn’t feel the desire at all when he took a deep breath and forced his screen brightness up, casting a glow around the dark room, because he saw a face he hadn’t seen in many years—one he had torn off all records and completely erased from Hell’s internet. He suddenly experienced a chilling feeling of deja vu, of being sent back right to that cursed memory of him sitting on that bar stool as—next to him—past-Alastor pounded the table, gasping for air as he laughed at him for proposing. As he increased his screen brightness up, he saw the scattered reflections of his young, terrified self staring back at him from dozens of surfaces across the room.
Except this time, the cause of his expression wasn’t because of Alastor, it was because of himself. And he looked like utter shit. Vox only managed to weakly croak out, “...what the fuck is happening?”