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Ah.
The shop bell jingled merrily as Alastor stepped back out onto the street, but that sound wasn’t his focus.
This bookshop was on the very outskirts of Cannibal Town, and while it still fell under Rosie’s purview, it was apparently far enough from the emporium at the center of town that it had acquired a bit of a pest problem: his ears twitched minutely as he clocked the distinctive hum-whine of an electronic eye hovering in the sky.
It was impressive how Vox managed to make Hell ever more Hellish with each “advancement.” The proliferation of radio wave-controlled technology took annoying to a whole new level, subjecting electromagnetic-sensing Sinners to a constant background cacophony of electronic noise.
It would drive Alastor to madness were he not capable of adjusting his own frequencies to neutralize the shrill whine—a display of power that was a subtle middle finger to the originator of the irritating racket.
He didn’t even bother looking for the Voyeur Scope. The thrum of its rotors was quite audible to cervine ears that could pinpoint the patter of a mouse at fifty yards; Alastor could swat it from the sky without breaking stride…not that there was any point in doing so. It would be replaced in minutes.
Besides, despite his deep-seated distaste for video, most of the time he really didn’t mind. Let the modernity-addled picture box stare. Alastor didn’t blame him for being fascinated with the most interesting soul in Hell—on the contrary! It was only natural! It was to be expected, of course, even if all he was doing was minding his own business. Alastor was accustomed to being the center of attention, and while he disliked the sensation of a recording camera crawling over his body, its greedy glass eye gleaming, he relished the frustration at the other end upon seeing nothing more than a glitching, artifacting red smudge.
Alastor hummed softly under his breath as he turned to head back to the hotel, errands completed for the day, and he was unsurprised that the drone followed. It trailed behind him like a particularly ugly flying puppy. So long as it kept a decent distance from him, it was of no particular interest to him…
…and if there was an extra bounce in his step and a frission of fizzy excitement bubbling under his skin, that had nothing to do with that silly piece of junk nor the even sillier piece of junk operating it! In fact, it was merely performative arrogance to cover stomach-twisting revulsion! It wasn’t just that the camera looked at him—no, no… it consumed. It ate him up, from heel to the black-furred tips of his ears. It lingered on the curve of his back, the flare of his coat; it licked up his long legs, nipped at the nape of his neck. Alastor could feel his its hunger, the aching hollowness that settled under ribs, into the concavity of the belly. He knew hunger intimately, and like knew like.
The lens whirred as it kept trying to focus through the interference.
Alastor’s smile curled at the edges as he made a short detour. The security cameras in the alley turned to stare, all of them moving as one as they tracked his progress.
Coincidentally, the alleyway spit him out about a half-block from an electronics store, which—as he’d expected—had a variety of television sets displayed in their front window. (Alastor would bet his eyeteeth that businesses were contractually required to place their Voxtek products in such a way that Vox could use the majority of them to indulge in his nasty little hobby.) A number of them fuzzed out into visual snow. The rest made up a flashy patchwork quilt of advertisements for various geegaws and doodads, each more ridiculous and more unnecessary than the last.
Alastor gave it a passing glance as he meandered in front of the windows, momentarily reducing the amount of interference he was emitting as he slowed his steps. He already knew the shark was circling. Primitive creatures, ruled by instinct and relentless hunger, drawn by electromagnetic fields and blood in the water—easy prey for a more powerful predator.
One by one by one, screens changed from commercials to a variety of Voxes—one per screen, glowering, scowling, sneering, smirking, a kaleidoscope of screens on screens. Each Vox distinct in subtle shades of curious, delighted, victorious, interested, angry, amused as shown in the tilt of his head, the arch of his brows.
Alastor’s smile was placid as he took in the panoply of Vox, eyes lazy. “The same thing on every channel? Tsk, tsk, tsk! There never is anything good on!”
The screens blipped in unison as the crazy-quilt panels became individual pieces of a singular Vox, huge and leering, red dripping from his glowing grin.
Alastor clicked his tongue once more and turned to leave…only to pause and reexamine his own reflection. His bowtie was uneven. Well, that wouldn’t do, not at all! Deft fingers loosened the knot, flipped up his collar; Alastor hummed as he leaned closer to the window and retied the bow into a perfect butterfly.
Vox’s expression flickered as he was ignored in favor of Alastor’s one true love—himself. Static sizzled like the hiss of an angry cat as he watched the Radio Demon preen in the glass, fluffing his hair and nipping color into the pale curve of his smile, dusting non-existent lint from his coat-sleeves. Vox watched jealously, drooling like a starved animal even as his lip curled.
He looked, Alastor mused, like he wanted to just eat him up.
Something sharp and cold shot up his spine into his skull—a dizzying rush of disgust and desire, kinship and contempt.
Alastor turned back to his walk with an arrogant toss of his head and flourish of his microphone. He could feel the neon eyes burning into his back, could almost smell the musky, rotten meat of a carnivore’s humid breath steaming in the air.
The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Under his coat, his tail quivered.
The world hadn’t been kind to a skinny brown boy at the turn of the century in the Deep South. People like him had always needed finely-tuned survival instinct in order to survive against the odds, and though Alastor had been a wolf in sheep's clothing, he'd still had to act the part of the sheep to keep hiding and biding his time.
His demonic attributes warred against each other—a predator's appetite and a prey animal's instincts. The conflicting urges churned raw and primal as a spring flood through the wasteland of his twisted soul, capable of tearing away chunks of landscape in violent flashes.
Vox had no such complexities with which to struggle: he was an indiscriminate predator, just as likely to eat a license plate as living prey, unable to differentiate between what was nourishing and what was trash. (For proof of this inability, Alastor merely had to point to whatever garbage was currently airing on any one of Hell's television sets.)
The drone continued to trail after Alastor at some distance—stalking, sizing him up, staring at the way his coat swung with each step. At the base of the hotel’s hill, he gave it a mischievous look from the corners of his eyes, smile widening. The silly thing hovered indecisively for a moment as it listened to the frequencies in its range, then it zipped off, a streak of silver, its thrum fading as it retreated into the sky.
Inside, Cherri and Angel were taking turns harassing Husk. Despite the sour look on his thrall’s face, Alastor knew he was enjoying at least a little of the attention. There was the smell of burning emanating from the kitchen, and by the time he reached the stairs, an alarm was shrieking warning and Charlie and her idiot father were shrieking back at it and hitting it with something. There was a large crash. Niffty wailed about the new mess.
Alastor dissipated into shadow; he had little interest in the domesticity of the hotel at this moment, and while taunting Lucifer was entertaining, it was also low-hanging fruit: it was too easy to overindulge.
His own rooms were quiet, with only the crackle of the eldritch-green foxfire in the hearth and the faint chorus of wildlife in the far reaches of his swamp and the near-silent sound of his own feet as he crossed the parlour to his private chambers.
Alastor shrugged out of his coat and hung it on an antler-crowned rack, then slid long fingers under his bowtie to wriggle it loose. A glass of whiskey appeared in his hand as he reclined on the chaise, long legs stretched out in a luxuriant sprawl, and the blood-red tips of his shoes gleamed in the low lighting falling through the open windows. He took a sip of his drink and sighed, shifting to get comfortable, then reached to finish removing his tie.
Duke Ellington began to play softly in the background.
Alastor smiled around the lip of his glass as he took another sip, then leaned his head back, sighed again, and undid the first button of his shirt collar. Then another. Then another, until a gray-beige tuft of chest hair began to appear in the opening, then rolled his head to lazily glance at the drone hovering outside. Hair fell across his cheek as he met its single unblinking eye and grinned like a cat.
His shoes hit the floor as he toed them off and flexed his hooves, rubbing one foot against the other in sheer pleasure of being freed from their confinement. His legs slid together as he stretched his toes out, his trousers riding up enough to give a tantalizing peek of black-furred pastern and sharp shin, and his shirt pulled up ever so slightly.
“It’s rude to stare, old pal,” Alastor told the drone as he pulled it closer to himself and tilted it toward his feet. He couldn’t control the camera directly, but he didn’t have to—he just manipulated the entire device to show exactly what he wanted to show and nothing more. He let it linger on his hooves, turning an ankle like a flirtatious Southern belle.
A little amuse-bouche for the slavering carnivore panting at the other end of the camera feed.
He pushed one foot against the drone’s lens, obscuring the view. “I bet you like this, hm? I can imagine you whining oh, step on me, daddy…” Alastor pitched his voice higher, a little nasally, in a sneering approximation of Angel Dust, then he laughed. “So pathetic! You can dress yourself up as a big important powerful businessman and Overlord, but we know the truth, don’t we, dear?” He dropped his leg away, revealing that he’d finished unbuttoning his shirt. It lay around him like a pool of blood.
He could faintly see his distorted reflection in the lens—the ridges and valleys of his corrugated ribs, the thick ruff of fur that disguised the bony plate of his sternum, the vulnerability of his belly, all crisscrossed with various scars. The image fizzled unevenly.
Alastor sat up and drained his glass, the pink of his tongue visible for flash as he licked his lips, then set the empty tumbler aside to reach out to the hovering drone. He barely brushed his fingers over the device, but the impression to the viewer would be as he were cupping their face in his hands as he drew nearer.
“And the truth is,” he whispered into the drone’s microphone, “that the only thing you’re any good at is watching. Isn’t that right, my little voyeur?”
The music stumbled over a burst of static, and Alastor laughed again. He let the drone drift around him as he settled back onto the chaise. “You just can’t help yourself. Why, you’re probably touching yourself as I speak! Do you imagine it’s my hand stroking you?” He made a disgusted bleat, stomach twisting at the idea, even as the heat in his core coiled tight and his mouth watered. “Go on, tell me.”
For all intents and purposes, the drone was Vox. Its glassy eye was his eye as his consciousness occupied the device, and he controlled it as an extension of himself and his power.
And yet, the drone was not Vox: it was just an electrical gadget with no mind or soul. It was an impartial participant, merely a vector through which their interaction was mediated. It could be destroyed easily, unlike its much more durable master.
Alastor plucked at the waistband of his trousers with a sidelong glance and sly smile when the radio squealed as its frequency was intercepted once more. Vox only had so much patience, and apparently he’d just run out. The shrill sound died down to the soft snow of white noise.
The low mutter of “fuck you” would have been inaudible to a less sensitive set of ears. Alastor’s, meanwhile, twitched in acknowledgment. “Hmmm?” he coaxed. The camera whirred as it followed his other hand as he toyed with his own chest fur.
“Fuck you,” Vox said, louder this time.
Alastor chuckled. “Don’t be so tetchy, darling!” He thumbed the first button of his fly open. “I’m just…” Another button. “…so…” Another. “…curious!”
The radio emitted a hungry growl, a breathy huff that was half-amusement, half-irritation. “That so? Does it get you hot, picturing me jerking off to this little show?”
“No,” Alastor said truthfully. There was little appeal in the visual of Vox masturbating, other than to muse on how ridiculous the whole process looked.
(And he did look so very ridiculous tugging on the thing between his legs, squirming and making dumb animal sounds of pleasure; saying the most obscene, inane things; ludicrous expressions on his glitchy screen. It was wildly entertaining, just not in the way Vox was suggesting.)
No, the pornographic spectacle was only mildly entertaining at best.
Vox growled again, this time in annoyed displeasure. “You could at least—”
Alastor rubbed his thumb against the last button of his fly. “Talk to me. Tell me...” His smile sharpened as he gave the drone an intense stare from under his lashes. “Tell me what you would do with me. And be specific.”
“You know what I want.”
“I do! But I want to hear you say it!”
“I would electrocute your scrawny ass until you were a smoking lump of charcoal,” Vox snapped back sharply.
“Ha! That is not what you want, old pal.” That might be what Vox thought he'd wanted for years and years, but it was not what he actually wanted. He'd put on a damned good show of unadulterated hatred and relentless rage—all sound and fury in the wake of having his pride wounded. (And heart broken, if Vox was to be taken even somewhat seriously, though Alastor thought that was a bit dramatic even for Hell and far, far too maudlin to even be acknowledged.)
“There are days...” Vox groused. He fell silent for a moment, and Alastor just knew that he was lost in the visual of the hand thumbing at the button of his pants. “You look so gorgeous there, unwrapping yourself like a present for me, letting me see those beautiful hoofs.”
Alastor laughed. “My gross hoof feet?” he asked innocently, lifting one leg toward the camera to push against the lens with said hoof foot again. He smirked and finally popped the last button on his fly, then pressed the heel of his hand against his groin and arched his back. “Degenerate!”
“Fuck yeah, that’s so hot, baby. You can step on me with those gross hoofs anytime…just—just right on my dick. I wanna see my cock between your toes. I want—fuck, Al, there's not a lot I don't want do to you. I want to tie you up and tie you down and tease you for fuckin' hours, until you're out of your mind, until you're begging me to...”
There. Alastor relaxed as Vox started rambling, words spilling out faster and faster. His eyes slipped closed and he hummed tunelessly as he lazily ground his hand against his crotch. One leg fell off the edge of the chaise as he lifted his hips, as his other hand raked fingers through his hair, as his lips parted. He didn't need visuals of any sort, and he really preferred not to see himself in this state. Besides, he didn't need to look in order to put on a good performance for his audience.
His ears rotated toward the radio like furry sonar dishes. Vox's words didn't always do the trick, either, at least not at first, being too foul or too modern, but the tone of his voice, the naked hunger, the breathy pants and glitching syllables, desperation and need and shamelessness... A shiver ran down Alastor's back. The majority of Hell might bow to Vox's power in one manner or another—obsessing over the next V-Phone release, fangirling over the latest episodes of his trashy programming, even idolizing the megalomaniac himself—but the Radio Demon could make him crumple to his knees with nothing more than a flick of his tail. Literally.
Oh, that was a spectacular idea!
Heat flashed through his body and his head swam briefly: vertiginous exhilaration borne of playing the wanton hussy against all his natural impulses. Alastor twisted up onto his knees and shot the drone a wicked, terrifying grin over his shoulder as he settled his elbows upon the backrest, back curving in a steep arch that popped his ass up in the air in a pose that would make Angel Dust envious. His tail flicked up with a flourish—the bow on the pretty package.
The power blew, which was gratifying and hilarious, and the noise that came from the radio was unholy, perverse. Alastor buried his teeth into his lower lip to keep his own sounds contained even as his smirk broadened to an unnatural width: Vox took being laughed at poorly much of the time. Repairing their relationship had done nothing to lengthen the fuse on the Media Demon's short temper.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!” whined Vox. “Fffff-fuh-king cheater! It's not fair for you to be so...” Lacking the proper term for what Alastor was so, the Media Demon's words disintegrated into frustrated little growls and grunts. “...fuckin'...sexy-ass...piece of sh—...relic...” A few choice words were recognizable above the hiss of static and sharp gasps. Electricity skittered over the surface of the drone.
“Gracious me! You must be a little pent-up, dear: I’m still partially clothed and barely even doing anything!” Alastor almost never felt like playing this particular card, which made Vox go wild for it when he did; there was something about the fact that the Radio Demon deigned to be the subject of Vox’s voyeurism while still maintaining the upper hand in their relationship that made Vox extra pathetic.
He reached back between his legs, cupped his balls and still soft cock, and gently pulled them forward as his tail flicked again.
The drone dropped like a rock, black smoke floating out from its casing.
Alastor buried his face in his arms and snickered uncontrollably, whole frame shaking. He was still giggling when he felt a power surge sweep through the room with an audible pop and make every hair stand on end, as he felt more weight settle on the chaise behind him.
“No, no, no! I don’t fucking think so. You wrote me a check, cockteasing bastard, and I’m gonna cash that in whether you have the funds or not!” Large hands gripped Alastor’s narrow hips, and the sting of sharp claws sinking into his flesh made him inhale sharply, a wave of uneasy arousal sweeping through him. “I’m gonna eat you alive.”
“There you go, making promises you don’t—!” Vox cut him off with a hard bite to an asscheek, making the word trail into a wavering moan. A kiss to the base of his tail followed, soft and affectionate save for the press of sharp fangs behind it.
“Oh sweetheart, I fully intend on keeping this one.” Vox’s voice rumbled into subsonic frequencies, and Alastor shuddered at the vibrations rippling through him, awakening something feral and needy. He whined.
Alastor peered over his shoulder and shuddered again. He squeezed his eyes shut. There was actual blood dripping from Vox’s grinning leer, and his left eye was a bull’s eye of red and black. A splinter of genuine fear struck like ice in Alastor’s chest and his dead heart thudded against his ribs. Even after all these years, his Hellish instincts still insisted the television demon was a threat despite years of experience proving otherwise.
“Al?”
After a moment, Alastor caught his breath. “Love me,” he managed through thick radio filter. Savage me. Love me. Kill me. Adore me. It was all the same thing.
“Always,” Vox said. He brushed the hair from Alastor’s face, drawing an involuntary bleat from him at the feel of those razor talons so near an eye. A line of blood welled up along his cheekbone from the touch, in spite of how light it was. “Trust me.”
Alastor’s smile relaxed. He twisted under Vox’s weight in order to face him (complete with a hard crunch of breaking bone) and gripped the edge of his screen as he leaned in. “No,” he said, just to be contrary. “Never.”
“Would you prefer if I went back to watching?” Vox added, “Since it’s the only thing I’m good at.”
“Someone has to keep your grossly outsized ego in check. It has gotten wildly out of control in my absence and needs vigorous pruning,” said Alastor, matter-of-fact.
“Pot, kettle. Well?”
Alastor's smile quirked. Vox's heat and static was oppressive this close, prickly like a rash. It made his skin shiver. It made him want to bite like a cornered animal. “If you would.”
Vox growled again, a low rumble, but carefully backed off the chaise and into a chair, never taking his eyes from Alastor. He slouched, propping his head up with one hand while the other made quick work of pulling his erection free from confinement.
Alastor rolled his eyes, then twisted back around. He draped his arms over the back and laid on his chest, back a steep curve as it followed the shape of the furniture, his legs a loose-limbed sprawl. He waved a standing mirror into existance, angled just so to allow him to watch his watcher watch him—the reflection showed his crimson eyes on Vox, who was salivating over his prettily presented posterior and stroking himself.
“Oh please don't bore me by taking forever,” Alastor hummed just for the pleasure of annoying Vox. “The lead-up is dreadfully dull. I'm only interested in seeing the, hmm, conclusion.”
“Why— Why am I not surprised...” Vox huffed, either indignant or else simply jerking off too hard, “...you like the part were I lose control because of you?”
“Mostly I like seeing the stupid faces you make!”
“Uh-huh.” The television demon was thoroughly unconvinced. “Fuck, you're so goddamn gorgeous like that, baby... Shiiiiiit. Look at that cute tail all up in the air, like a, uh, invitation to pound that ass...”
“It is not.”
“...hav'ta keep your face in the mattress to keep you from biting, like I'm fucking a wild animal...”
Alastor idlely wondered how one dealt with friction burns on one's genitals. Vox was evidently trying to start a fire in his lap, considering the ferocity of his self-molestation. Perhaps he should offer something for lubrication...he probably had a tin of Tiger Balm around, if not some old A.B.C. Liniment. That would certainly spice things up! “You're a biter as well, my darling hypocrite.”
“Yeah, but you like it.”
Alastor made a puzzled noise as he cocked his head—but calling Vox out on every nonsensical thing that came out of his mouth was a waste of time, even in Hell where there was infinite amounts of the stuff. Vox's eyes flicked from his ass to his reflection, meeting his gaze, and the media mogul groaned as if in pain.
“You look bored, goddammit, like I'm—I'm not even, hah! worth your t-t-time. God, fuck, shit, patronizing asshole... I want to fuck you til you're crying; that'd be so ha—ha— Ah! Mm!” Vox writhed in the chair, still looking and sounding like a man in torture even as he spilled white-hot over his own hand and pants, electricity crackling around him.
Alastor watched as his screen spazzed out in glitches and errors, his features—when visible—contorted wildly, with his eyes rolling “back” into his jerking head. It was beautiful in its absurdity; he bit down on the side of his own hand to deal with some of the excitement bubbling through his guts.
“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Vox sighed. He ran a hand over the top of his head, sweeping his antennae back. A few loose sparks flew. “Oh baby, I love it when you're in this mood.”
Alastor yawned and stretched out his bleeding hand as an offering. “I know,” he smirked. “Now make sure you show me exactly how thankful you are, my dear.”
Vox's knees hit the floor.
It was going to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.