Chapter Text
Velvette's call lit up his screen. Again.
It was her third call. It was his third hour off the grid, after all, and anyone who even remotely knew Vox knew that this was a massive, massive red flag. His work ethic was literally his only redeeming quality. He had killed employees for less. People who contracted to work at Voxtek have truly one designation — don’t even think about skipping out on work. Do whatever the fuck you want on your downtime, but skipping a second of work was technically enough to warrant permanent discharge.
Well, semi-permanent. However long it took for a sinner to reform. "Reformertime," he had once joked to Vel, who tried to disembowel him with one of her sewing needles for that pun after.
And yet here he was, nowhere close to closing time, and he wasn’t even sulking in the penthouse or shmoozing away somewhere on the Vees’ turf or getting his brains fucked out in Valentino’s bed. Vel’s fourth call vibrated quietly through his head, the frequency familiar as the back of his hand, and Vox absentmindedly flicked on Do Not Disturb. A little crescent moon signal popped up on the corner of his face. Besides the redness of the sky, the only other source of light glowed from his face, stripes of soft light and softer shadow overlaid across the figure.
He didn't know how long he had been crouching here -- okay, that was a fat fucking lie. He knew exactly long he had remained still, his visual processes slowly looping the sight before him, his somatosensory receptors all too aware of the coldness and hardness of stony ground, how each sensation slowly bled into his heels. The metallic scent of blood drifted around his scent receptors in slow whirls. The faintest tinges of static rested on his air, undetectable by any sinner that didn't have an entire physical head that tuned in daily to the whole of the radiowave spectrum. A low fluctuation of 20-30 MHz made the tip of his tongue tingle.
At his feet, Alastor twitched.
The ruins of the radio tower gleamed red. Rubble from the hotel was scattered across the city — that was how powerful the angel’s holy beam had been. It happened to be coincidence that the place where Alastor’s tower crashed down was so uncommonly close to the Vees’ turf. It was within blinking lights of the Vees’ Tower. From here, through a red haze, Vox could see the glow of three V’s, as if light was shining through a veil. It looked like a lighthouse.
Alastor let out a faint gurgle. Black-red blood puddled around his torso, soaking his red suit even redder, and his gloved fingers were smeared. Tufts of hair laid in strands, framing the sharp lines of his face. He stared up sightlessly at Vox, his eyes straining against their sockets. The stitches across his mouth and face pulsed, tightened, disappeared, as if his very bones were struggling to shift around. Sickly, greenish glows seeped from his frame, dissipating into the red of the air. A stray symbol flickered in and out of existence. The odd buzz traveled along the underside of Vox's face.
All of Alastor's equipment had been shattered. There were deep gouges in the desks, as if someone had sank their claws full inches into stone and carved out dragged, bloodied trails. Vox couldn't help but note the same, if shallower trails that marked deep from Alastor's temples to chin. There were faint cuts on the demon's bottom lip, and Vox watched the mouth half gape open, the edge of sharp, needle-like teeth glinting in the dimness. The urge to wipe away the faint bloodstains peaked before Vox crushed it into shreds.
The air was colder here. Drier. In all senses of the word, it was a tomb.
ping — no messages lit up his screen, at least, but Vox still felt the warmth of one crawl through his system. Still Vel. where r u??
ping
where tf did u go? press wants 2 know abt angelic security
ping
THEYRE WAITING
ping
if u didnt want to talk w em u could just hiptize them away jfc
ping
vox??
ping
VOXXXxx
ping
voxxy istg
Another ping — a slightly different frequency, hitting straight into his core. Valentino. Shit had to be bad, then, if even Val was jumping out of their usual customary-breakup-silence. And taking note of actual work, per unusual.
vox vel is up my ASS what am I supposed to do?
I don’t have fucking time for your news report shit
I’m going to go kill them if they bother me again
VOX
ping ping ping ping.
This time, when Alastor twitched, something squirmed and thrashed beneath his skin. His mouth drooped open. Bloodied hooves scraped the ground. Antlers had pushed out of his scalp, but it wasn't its usual sleek glossiness. Instead, it looked...brittle, like it was one touch away from shattering. A twig about to snap.
Vox didn’t think he had drawn a breath since — since all of this happened. Since he had entered the ruins. Not that he functionally needed to breathe. But it was a holdover from the living days, and it was one of the hardest habits he had had to drop. Something like air forced itself into his system, trying to coax his consciousness out of what-the-hell-just-happened Mode.
He drifted into Modes occasionally, especially if there was too much information being streamed or if he got a little too lost in thought. And cyberspace. Usually a hard reset or a good knock to the head sent him skidding back to full thought power, but — Alastor had reached out to him, a thin, bloodied hand, deceptively delicate from the monster claws that have shredded through hundreds and hundreds of sinners. Vox remembered how the claws could tear straight through metal.
The same fingers reached out to him now, the movement of the arm stiff and unnatural, as if his body was reacting to some unseen force. His gloves were dirty, stained, but surprisingly still intact. It wasn’t meant to threaten or even intimidate, but Vox still flinched back. The fingers grasped air. Between them, a chain flashed again, green-blue links roped around their throats.
The weight of his actions had yet to settle.
ping
The helplessness of Alastor’s gesture — the humanness of it — was what makes Vox’s body lurch forward, even before he could process his actions. It was a stupid response. No other demon had as much minute control over his physical autonomy as he does; no other demon could measure their heartrate to the nanosecond, to decompose thoughts into functional little chunks and recurse through millions of possibilities within the span of a breath drawn. No other demon could filter this much information, millions of processing power conceptualized into numbers and data packages and assembly. Yet, the legs that crouched besides Alastor, the hands that somewhat gently shift Alastor into a half-upright position, the fingers that rubbed a slow, semiconscious circle across the deer demon’s shoulders — there was no information processing motivating each movement of muscle and wire. Something terrible and choked rose in what was left of his flesh-based throat.
What the hell am I doing.
He couldn’t even remember touching someone else this reservedly. Affection with Val and Vel, sure, but even then, this — this carefulness. Like he was fixing up the back of his head, or repairing shards of glass on his screen. Up close, he could see the gash across Alastor’s torso. How Alastor had even survived a cut that deep, Vox didn't know. He could see the dark mass of intestines underneath if he squinted hard enough, and bile churned in his stomach. What looked like edges of gold trace around the open wound.
Angelic weapons.
He had seen it. He had seen it full on TV, had the moment committed to his hard drive. The way Alastor had braced back, a millisecond, an undoubtedly human reaction, right before the First Man nearly split him into two with that absurd guitar. A second too late, and Alastor would have been torn into pieces. He wouldn’t be here, his head half in Vox’s lap, breathing raggedly with wide eyes staring up into nothing. And Vox had cheered at that moment too. The elation he had felt at seeing Alastor crumple, the ecstasy as Alastor tried to crawl away — it was orgasmic. Ut was pure euphoria, headier than any drug. It had shook through him like a shockwave.
Alastor’s hand rested limply on the ground. Those long fingers, so careful in their movements, manipulating shadow tendrils as large as buildings, adjusting all his little knobs and dials, tapping restlessly on his staff. His staff. Hysteria bubbled inside Vox. He was right in the lair of the radio, and Alastor didn’t even have his stupid little mic. The hand was now utterly still.
Power hungry. Ambitious. Everyone in Hell was starved for power in their own way, and Vox was no different. Val thirsted for control; Vel craved attention. Vox wanted information. He wanted to absorb every iota of knowledge, to hijack any screen and scrape every byte of data until everything compressed into raw bits, to know that no one else had this extent of control. He lived in every phone; in every corner of the Web. He wanted to know too much.
ping
He ignored them. Time ticked, slow and immutable as the increment of a dial. Alastor should be snarling up at him, Vox thought numbly as he slowly tried to lift him. Vox wasn’t physically weak, although he was not going to be lifting boulders with his bare arms, but Alastor was a lot more heavier than his fucking stick-ass-figure would imply. Plus, a wave of blood trickled from Alastor’s gut. Alastor should be gutting him for seeing him in this moment of weakness. Dial eyes, full antlers, a voice dredged up from the bottom of the abyss. It shouldn't be a low, strained sound rumbling from Alastor's chest, the bones of his shoulders and shoulder blades sharp and jutting as they pressed into Vox's palms. He didn't dare to lift Alastor onto his shoulders, and instead settled for looping both of the deer demon's arms semi-around his neck, as if both of them were trying to stumble home from a night of hard drinking. An unbidden laugh bubbled in his main tube. Knowing the Radio Demon, that uptight bony prick probably still thought Prohibition was a good thing.
He didn’t even know if Alastor was conscious. Still -- "rest," he muttered into the other's ear, balancing his hipnotism and a natural suggestion to a slow, steady tone of persuation, his voice soft enough that he could barely hear himself. He wasn't sure if Alastor could hear him, but then Alastor relaxed a bit, his shoulders slackening from a winded tension he hadn't even noticed.
There were few Sinners with the ability to teleport. Even the top Overlords weren’t capable; Carmilla’s power rested in the ability to bring down a building with a punch, not flashing away on pointe. Alastor could merge with his shadows, carve out his portals, but Vox could go anywhere. The flaw of interconnectivity, he supposed. As long as there was a signal, his consciousness could somewhat manifest. There was a brutal irony of two of Hell’s most vicious teleporters now shuffling through the rubble, one barely held up by the other. Small, teetering human steps, hooves that dragged along on the ground.
Dry air hit his face. They were almost outside. Vox paused, tried to channel more energy into his arms. He really should work out more. Or get way more fucking souls. Alastor’s head lolled, resting on the lining of Vox's suit, and Vox felt the weight of the chain once more. It cut at his essence. He could feel the other demon's cheek press against his throat, how shaky breaths brushed across his vent openings. Alastor's hair was softer than it looked.
Why, his mind screamed at him. His body tried to funnel away the gut instincts of his human soul, the emotions that threaten to knock him into complete Power Reset. Why. Why are you doing this. Why did you do it. Alastor trembled, as involuntary as a mouse twitching from electrocution after death, and Vox wondered if he was cold. Hell surely couldn’t be cold, but here the air cut like a blade, and Alastor’s suit was practically in rags. Frayed tatters shifted from the wind. You loathe him. You cheered for his death. You should be wrenching his head off his neck.
There was a lot of should haves, and not enough of — of actual — but he wasn’t even operating on conscious, calculated thought now. It was his whole fucking image; cold, calculating CEO of Voxtek, every word precise and placed as a scalpel. He could talk Val down from even the most murderous of moods. There was no rational reason why he was dragging a nearly-dead demon on his shoulders, his footsteps plodding — somewhere. There was no calculation in adjusting his rival, his fucking nemesis, a man he loathed to the bone, to make sure the worst of the wind didn’t get to him. There was no rationale in how he tried to blunt his claws so it didn’t cut Alastor’s arms further. There was no reason why he shouldn’t leave him to die.
Idiot, the Val in his head hissed. Reckless, Vel piped up. You really don’t know?
He shouldn’t have ever come back here. He hadn’t even been looking for Alastor. For Lucifer’s fucking sake, he was 82.3% sure the other man was dead. No one had ever survived an angelic wound that deep. He expected Alastor’s haunt to be empty, cold, devoid of life as its broadcaster shut down. He hadn’t expected any living — or, not-dead-dead — being to be present, and he hadn’t expected to find a silhouette curled on the ground, surrounded by broken stone and glass, the odd warble of his voice flickering on and off. A faulty signal.
“Help…”
The image of Alastor trying to crawl on his wounded stomach, those delicate fingers curling helplessly in air, reaching towards Vox — a smile stitched-up and eyes that screamed — the essence of a soul that twisted on the palm. Help, the fragment of Alastor’s soul had pleaded. Please. Help. Help. Help. Pleading with his enemy. Alastor couldn't even recognize him. Vox hadn’t even paused to think as he grabbed Alastor's hand, and the smallest bit of his own soul twined around, deep deep deep, merging fully with that fragment of Alastor, anything to steer him away from the awful finality of nonexistence. Vox's mind rejected the notion. His conscience exorcised the option from reality.
A double soul-bind was — rare couldn’t even begin to describe it. It was nonexistent.
And yet, here he was, half-carrying Alastor, taking another step. Another. His own piece of soul struggling to keep Alastor’s in existence. Blood dripped down Alastor’s pants, trails snaking behind in his hooves. They cut deep into the earth. Here, Vox could hear the hum of the city, the awful red of the sky blaring down like a concentrated ray. His mind felt like it was on autopilot.
ping
The rubble of Alastor’s tower might have fallen closer to Vee territory, but there was one location it was even closer to. Vox gazed up at the huge fucking hill on which the Hotel rested on.
No way, his inner voice taunted, a blend of Val and Vel and his own, mocking tone. No way you’re considering any of this. You want him dead. You want him powerless and completely at your mercy.
It was just a hill. He had climbed worse in his human lifetime.
Come on, the voice wheedled. Give us some justification. Save us some face. We could have dragged him back to our tower. Tortured him. Strip away every inch of his power. Did to him what he did to us.
Every uphill ambition had a downfall. If only he hadn’t want to know. If only he hadn’t come sniffing around like the world’s most pathetic mutt, desperate for any scrap of info on the man that had humiliated him on live TV. Given the chance, Alastor would eat his sinews for breakfast, and his bones for a snack later. He could argue that he didn’t want to kill this bastard, to have the chance to truly take him down, but it didn’t explain why he hadn’t left his carcass for the first sinners to find. Certainly it didn’t explain why he lent a small piece of his soul to make sure Alastor kept breathing, or why he was planning to dump Alastor off at the cesspool of a locale called the Hazbin Hotel instead of throwing him into the Tower's deepest dungeons.
Eyes flickered over him.
Vox twisted his head around, and the sight of about a dozen sinners staring at the two of them in disbelief — an emotion he didn’t dare to name reared in his body, a physical force that lashed against his mainframe, and he felt something spark in his antenna as the air thrummed heavy with static.
"F̴̩͎̤͍̓̂̏̾͛͊̓͗̏̆͐̚͝Õ̵̝̜̗͐̎Ř̵̗̗̱͓͙̲͚͉̼̯̬̣͎̥̍̓Ģ̵̼̹̱̻̟̙̃̊̃͑͝Ȩ̶̨̫̱̜̼̖͖͎͎̟̥͓͋͊̋T̷̡̛̩̟̳̟̹̹̘̝̃͆̆͘͜͝.̶̠͎̘̩̯̠̙̘̩̑̓͑͌͘͜͝͝," he snarled.
The sinners' eyes went glassy.
Shit. Shit shit shit shit. The more targets he used his hypnosis on, the less time it lasted for each individually. He had — what, minutes? Maybe less. Under his own full power, he could vault across the Pride Ring in moments. Vox let power charge into his arms, his back, his limbs shaking from the artificial burst of strength. He just had to get Alastor up that fucking hill. Then he could dart back into his Tower, back into his sanctuary, and put the image of Alastor’s shaking fingers out his fucking memory forever. He was going to manually free that fucking reallocation until even the big G couldn’t find that piece of shit anymore. Kick it to the fucking Trash Bin icon where it belonged.
News drones flitted overhead. Vox curled his fist, summoning even more of his power, and they short-circuited — signals severed — a black hole of information on the hill. Anyone with an eye on the feed would notice immediately. The strain of the hypnosis, of cutting out the drones’ power, of making sure none of his electricity hit Alastor by accident — and he would be stronger, he would be, but Alastor’s fragment of a soul twisted inside him and he. Couldn’t risk it. There was so little of it left. Alastor’s heartrate had slowed to a crawl; he was cold to the touch. His eyes had slipped shut and his breathing had grown erratic.
Come on. The dial ticked. The heart pulsed. His internal clock built. Each second — he was almost there. He was so close. He was so, fucking, close, and then he could just leave Alastor on that fucking doorstep and the rest of the little Hazbin crew could take care of it. The fucking Princess and King were there. They could probably fix Alastor up with a snap of their fingers. Vox clenched his teeth, trying to ignore how soaked his suit was. He would never wash out the smell of blood from the fabric. He was so close. He could see the walls. The new Hotel facade. The eye of the Key, glancing down at him, the double doors — the goddamn double doors —
His processors saw the silhouette before he consciously did. Vox instinctively crouched over Alastor, conjuring up every fucking ounce of energy he possessed just before the figure rammed into him. The force field shook, cracked, splintered immediately. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
What the —
The impact had sent Vox reeling, the pain searing and head-splitting even his whole system desperately recalibrated. Feet still on the ground, gravity reorienting, weight sizing to reinforce the central core near his brainstem -- CRITICAL HIT. Another blow like that, and he was fucking done for. His normal eye rapidly scanned the surroundings, picking up, picking up, what the hell was he picking up — 700 MHz, no sign of nearby life, temperature at Hell's constant whatever-the-fuck, pixels solidifying into —
An X carved over the eye. A broken Exorcist mask. Bloodied wings tucked tight against the body.
Vox’s blood ran cold.
The Exorcist lunged at him again. They should’ve all fled back. They shouldn’t be here. But apparently, Heaven left behind stragglers, because the Exorcist swiped at him with the broken stub of an angelic blade, barely staying on their own feet. The jagged end missed Vox’s neck by millimeters. Fuck. Fuck fuck — and it would be effortless to teleport away, to disappear into the wiring of the drone and pop out nice and safe in his own Tower, but Alastor made a low, animalistic sound as Vox’s elbow pressed against his torso, and for some reason, the thought of making the stupid uphill climb for nothing clawed at at his mind.
Swipe. Swipe. SSSS SHKKT —
Fistifcuffs, Vox stood no fucking chance. The Exorcists might as well been goddamn machines. If he had some distance, if he had been prepared, if he was at full power — if if if. There wasn’t ifs. There was him, standing on enemy territory like a complete idiot, his rival bleeding out right behind him. His brainstem and processors kicked in for him, a spike of disorienting, oscillating 400-600 focused MHz shaking through the air even as arcs of electricity erupted from his fingers. The cables on the closest drones creaked, snapped out of their casings, shooting straight for the Exorcist — and the blade swiped through, easy as knife through butter. The resultant pain struck Vox like an actual blow. Some visceral, foreign sound tore from his throat.
There was no fucking way he was going to die here, permanently, while protecting Alastor.
Protecting, the voice mused, ugly and venomous. At least you’re not that much of a pussy to admit it.
The angel lunged, vicious and fast and Vox tried, tried, but so much of his energy had naturally cocooned around Alastor and he only had his body and he braced, the broken pieces of wire trying to reassemble, trying to create a paper shield —
“STAND DOWN!”
A spear of light shown, so bright that even Vox had to shield himself. A trident. It stabbed straight into the angel, clean and straight, and golden ichor burst out from the angel’s back in a fanlike wave.
The angel crumpled immediately. The double doors shook, rebounding from the force of their swing. What sounded like thousands of footsteps thundered over, and Vox —
Vox glimpsed the Princess of Hell.
The moment lasted a second. Nanoseconds. Maybe even less. If Vox had been a normal, fleshy sinner, the moment might have been lost to him like water through fingers. Yet, his greatest power — his greatest weakness — was the ability to categorize every detail, to analyze onto a micro level and keep every byte of information intact, to preserve permanently in the Cloud. It was the curse that Hell had bestowed on him. He saw her golden hair, her red, red eyes, the innocence of her face contrasted with the sharp angles and the cut of her suit. Hellfire simmered around her feet.
At that singular moment, where the drones flickered on and all eyes turned to Hell, Vox fled into the circuits.
A black hole of information. Yet at that moment, where crimson eyes had met his — and had they? Had the Princess of Hell even processed the scene? Had she even seen him? Had she seen how he had crouched at Alastor’s side, his charisma and public front stripped away like flesh down to bone, how one hand had hovered over Alastor’s head, as if it could stop the impact of an Exorcist blade —
Fled. What an ugly word. But the blue of circuitry and wires and signals welcomed Vox home, and the memory of Alastor’s unseeing eyes couldn’t follow him here.