Chapter Text
The moment their deal was made, Vox wasted no time in dragging Alastor first to his news studio for an impromptu press conference and then immediately back to the V tower, his own suite from the look of it. His pixilated smile was bright as a child’s on Christmas morning as he pulled off the gag. “I want to see what I just purchased,” he said. “Take your clothes off.”
“No.” The radio demon sounded calm, almost bored, but he failed to hide the spilt-second widening of his eyes or how his hands clenched tightly as he crossed them over his chest.
Vox gave a put-upon sigh. “Why do you have to be so difficult, Al? Fine, I’ll do it.”
Cables shot out, wrapping around Alastor’s wrists and wrenching his arms behind his back before binding them together so tightly that his elbows almost touched. His eyes widened again in alarm, staying that way this time, contrasting sharply with his fixed grin. Vox stepped closer, close enough that his ozone and salt-water scent filled every – alarmingly ragged – breath.
‘He’s just doing this to unnerve you,’ Alastor told himself and tried to believe it.
Vox's razor-sharp claws delicately unclasped the few remaining buttons on his shirt before pushing both it and his coat as far down his arms as the bonds would allow.
Alastor pretended the shudder that ran through him was a result of the room’s chilled air against his skin.
Vox's gaze took in his thin chest and the half-healed wound he had ripped open once more. Dagger-like digits traced the ragged flesh outlining the injury, twanging the re-done stitches.
Alastor was acutely aware of the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage with each unsteady breath. He tried to force his breathing to slow, to appear calm, unconcerned. He failed.
Vox inspected the tracery of burns left by his electricity and the slowly forming bruises. Where Valentino's strike had landed was already purple, while the marks from his cables and his own hands were still no more than reddened splotches. "Why aren't you healing?" he said. He might have been talking to himself.
Either way, Alastor gave no response.
Metal claws followed the lines of older scars, not cutting yet, barely brushing skin. When they reached his waistband and started to unfasten those buttons too, Alastor flinched and tried to pull away, but the cables held him in place. "Stop." Anger and fear warred in his voice.
Vox simply smiled in response before down pulling down both the trousers and the underwear beneath them, leaving Alastor fully exposed. The media overlord’s hands danced over narrow hips, cyan claws click-clacking, threatening to pierce through the thin skin and into the bone beneath. He circled around, inspecting Alastor from all angles.
Vox paused behind him, and Alastor squeezed his eyes shut, as though he could block out what was happening. He reminded himself that he'd chosen to put himself at the other demon's mercy, even knowing he might do something like this.
It didn't matter what Vox did; it would be worth it to break his chains.
It would be worth it.
His eyes shot open again when the cables around his wrists yanked his arms abruptly upwards.
The force and angle almost tore both his shoulders from their sockets and certainly would have lifted him off his feet if more cables hadn't snapped around his legs, anchoring him to the floor. As he gasped in shock and pain Vox clapped in apparent delight. "This is precious!" he cried.
Alastor struggled to process what was happening, the stretched-out agony of his current position scrambling conscious thought.
Vox's hand closed around his small tail, already raised in alarm, and Alastor jerked, instinctively trying to pull away but held firm by the restraints.
“This… this is so cute.” He was running his claws through the fur, and Alastor gave another involuntary jerk. “And you’ve been keeping it hidden, a special surprise just for me.”
Keeping it hidden… what was Vox talking about? Did he expect him to wander about naked to display the thing? Alastor wanted to mock the ridiculous suggestion but couldn’t seem to get enough air into his lungs to speak.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” He was still touching him, petting him. “It can be our little secret.”
“Stop… touching me!”
Vox did not stop. “But I like touching you, Al; you’re so soft. Doesn’t this feel nice?”
“No. Get… get your hands off me.” His voice came out a paniced, static soaked growl.
Vox tugged sharply on his tail in response, sending a jolt of pain up Alastor’s spine. Then he went right back to stroking it. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Al. You’re mine, remember? Still, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Everything about the current situation gave lie to those words. “I’ve an idea,” Vox said brightly, “a compromise, so you aren’t being ‘touched’ and I still get to enjoy this.” He tugged on the tail again, not as hard as before but still enough to hurt. “Wait here, my deer.”
The hand finally lifted from his tail, and Alastor was left strung up in the cold room, his clothes bunched around his wrists and ankles. He didn’t know where Vox had gone. Several minutes passed. His muscles shook from the strain of the position he’d been forced into.
This would all be worth it.
Anyway, it wasn't like he could back out now.
So, this had to be worth it.
"I'm back! Look what I’ve got!” Vox appeared directly in front of him, holding a concerning item that might have been a small pair of garden shears or a tin snips. “It’s a wire cutter, but it should do the job.” He moved around to behind Alastor again - who suddenly understanding what he intended to do - froze, not even able to breathe.
Cold metal scraped against the base of his tail. Vox pressed down, and the blades sliced into skin and muscle. Alastor bit back a cry of pain.
“Hhhu… I kind of expected it to come off with one snip, given how scrawny you are.” Vox twisted the tool, and Alastor bit through his tongue as the metal tore through more flesh, scraping bone. He could feel the heat of blood running down his bare legs. And pain too of course, rather a lot of it. He forced a breath into his lungs, trying to brace for what was coming next.
Another twist, and then Vox pressed down again and kept pressing until the bone splintered.
Agony, white-hot and blinding, exploded across Alastor’s consciousness, obliterating all else.
When awareness returned, he found himself gasping, still held up by the cables. Every breath felt like being stabbed in the spine.
“You’re bleeding an awful lot.”
‘Of course I am,’ he wanted to reply, ‘you just cut off my damned tail.’ But he couldn’t force the words out.
“I suppose I’d better do something about that.”
Something – another cable – brushed lightly against his right buttock, and he flinched violently. The cable reared up and stabbed itself directly into the open wound where his tail had been. He would have screamed, had the powerful surge of electricity from the cable not immediately forced every muscle in his body to contract.
He was burning.
He was on fire.
He was being ripped apart.
The shock ended as abruptly as it had begun, leaving him twitching, chest heaving, thoughts scrambled. He could smell urine and was vaguely aware that the electrocution had caused him to void his bladder.
“There, all cauterized.”
Vox moved around to stand in front of him again. There was a lump in one of his pockets, dark liquid seeping through the fabric around it.
“Oh, don’t make that face; it’ll grow back.”
Alastor wasn’t entirely sure it would. Since taking a blow from that fucking angelic axe, his healing had been affected, moving at a glacial pace compared to what he was used to.
“Besides, I was doing you a favour, remember? Because you hate being touched so much.”
Alastor glared at him, trying to ignore the pain and focus on his anger instead. A door slammed, and he flinched, silently cursing the left-over reflex from human life, more because he knew Vox had seen than for the sickening jolt it sent through his shoulders and spine.
“Holy shit, Babe! You ran out on me again!”
Valentino. Footsteps padding across the floor signalled his approach. Closer now, the moth demon gave a laugh that could have signalled shock, amusement or both. “What are you trying to do here, Voxxie?”
Vox blushed blue, his mouth a jagged frown. “I… I was just…”
Valentino laughed again. “I told you how to deal with him before, Papi. Remember, same thing I do to get the bitches to behave?”
Understanding dawned in Vox’s eyes. He hesitated.
Valentino laughed, “Oh, you want to, don’t you Babe? Come on, I’ll get the toybox.” He moved away.
Vox’s frown deepened, before, a moment later, he stepped out of Alastor’s view.
Toys? Bitches? What was Valentino talking about?
“I’m not sure about this,” Vox said.
“Babe, why are you lying to yourself?” The moth was further away than before but getting closer. “You know you want to do it. I know you want to. You’re practically vibrating at the mere thought. Here, how about this teensy one?”
“No. This one.”
Valentino laughed again.
Alastor didn’t understand.
Vox walked back into his field of vision. “I have a little gift for you, Al.” He was holding a strange metal object that resembled a number of steel eggs welded together into a nobbled string. There was a flat handle at one end. Presumably, this was supposed to be intimidating, but Alastor had no clue what the thing could even be for. Did Vox plan to beat him with it?
A shocked laugh escaped the media demon’s speakers. “You… you have no idea what this is, do you?”
Valentino leaned over and, his voice sing-song and mocking, said, “It goes inside you, Bitch.”
What?
They were behind him again. Something touched him, just below the open wound where his tail had been, and he tried to squeeze his legs together. A harsh tug from the cables forced them apart.
One of Vox’s claws nicked skin as he smeared something wet and cold along the cleft of Alastor’s buttocks. Alastor’s own claws were digging into his palms, drawing more blood. His ears were pinned flat against his head. Something hard pressed against his rear end.
He’d expected Vox to focus on humiliating him and probably to rough him up a bit but not this.
“Don’t!” He hated how weak his voice sounded, but he couldn’t stop the pleas escaping his mouth. “Vox, don’t!” He could feel the thing pushing into him. “Vincent, please-” His words were cut off as the metal was forced up inside him. He wasn’t sure if he cried out, but, with disgust, he realised he was crying. The unfamiliar object was pushed deeper, and he could stop neither it nor the shameful tears. Objectively, he knew that this was less painful than the other things Vox had done since getting him to the tower. But he would take that pain ten times over, if it meant this would stop. The thing was being shoved deeper and deeper into his guts; it felt like he was being split open. He bit back a sob. Another shove, and he could feel the handle flush against his skin. At least it couldn’t go any deeper, he thought, before Vox gripped the handle and twisted sharply, wrenching a pained bleat from his throat. Valentino laughed. Vox repeated the motion. Alastor wanted to die.
This wasn’t worth it.
Vox started to draw the awful metal length back out. That hurt too, pulling and stinging. But at least it was almost over.
Vox pushed it back in.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
“Stop. Please stop…”
Vox stopped. But he left the thing buried inside Alastor. “It’s meant to feel good, you know,” he said, walking around to face him again. He frowned at Alastor’s limp penis, “Not that you got that memo, apparently.”
“Take it out.”
“No; I don’t think I will.” He pulled back up Alastor’s trousers, fastening them carefully before doing the same with his shirt.
When Vox was done re-dressing him, the cables adjusted, slamming the Radio Demon into a chair. A jolt of pain stabbed through Alastor, stealing his breath. By the time he could think again, he was bound to the chair and Vox was re-fastening the gag over his face.
“Well, let’s go,” the T.V. headed sinner said, turning to Valentino. “We’ve got a parade to plan.”