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The office still hummed with the fading silhouette of Valentino’s cologne, sugary and vicious, a scent that clung to the walls like a crime scene no one bothered to clean properly. The door clicked shut behind him. And in the middle of that buzzing, over-warm room, Alastor sat perfectly still. Still tied to the damned office chair. Still forced into this grotesque little pantomime of containment. The ropes raked across his wrists and torso with every micro-movement; and he did move, though infinitesimally, twitching against the constraints like a violin string pulled just a touch too tight. The bindings were part of the arrangement Vox insisted on: not because Vox needed them, but because Vox wanted Alastor to feel the symbolism, to taste the implication that someone else held the reins in this neon-lit empire.
It would have been insulting, if it weren’t so amusing.
Alastor lounged as much as one could lounge while tied to a chair, back straight, shoulders drawn in a performer’s poise, his smile unwavering beneath the static-drenched light. The faint flicker of outdated frequencies whispered through his antlers, a warning signal only he could hear. He ignored it. Instead he watched the reflection of Vox’s colossal screens dance over the polished floors, watched the door where Valentino had exited, watched the subtle vibration in the air that meant Vox was about to monologue.
He could feel Vox’s presence before he saw him. Alastor’s smile didn’t waver. Though perhaps, if one were sentimental, there was something behind it. A glimmer of something hot and unpleasantly pleasant. Something that looked like anticipation dressed up as disdain. Vox stopped in front of him and the air between them tightened.
Vox stepped into view slow enough to look unbothered but intentional enough to tell Alastor he wanted him to watch. Wanted him to see how his screens brightened, how the lines of his form sharpened as though he were preparing for a broadcast even in the privacy of this backstage. Vox leaned closer until the glow of his body washed over Alastor in waves of cold, synthetic heat. He rested one hand at the top of the chair, fingers drumming a slow, dangerous rhythm that vibrated through the leather and into Alastor’s neck. Alastor tilted his head away from where Valentino just left, lips curved in that timeless, unsettling way; a smile that was equal parts weapon and shield.
“See? I’m in charge here.”
He was too close. Close enough that if Alastor breathed in, he would inhale static. Close enough that the ropes suddenly felt less like a symbol and more like a strategically placed inconvenience. Close enough that the tension between them snapped tighter than any binding.
Alastor’s smile remained fixed but something under it changed. A shift so slight it could have been a glitch in the light. And yet, the air reacted. As though both of their powers were prickling, sensing a crack in the stalemate neither would acknowledge. A lesser demon might have swallowed. Alastor did not.
He simply held Vox’s artificial gaze and let their energies brush, clash, scrape sparks off each other in a way that felt almost intimate.
“Excuses and lies seem to still be your speciality” Alastor finally murmured, voice dripping with amused disdain.
“I try,” he replied, his voice silked with smug electricity. Vox’s fingers lifted to Alastor’s chin. He hovered just a breath away, close enough that Alastor could feel the hum of his proximity buzz against his skin, a faint electric sting.
A dare.
Alastor’s laugh was soft, a radio hiss like a secret frequency slipping through static. “Careful,” he murmured. “Your boyfriend seems to be already pissed at you for not considering his ideas worthy.”
“Please.” Vox’s voice glitched, not from weakness, but from deliberate distortion, like a smirk transmitted through faulty wiring. “That’s not how Val is.”
“Oh,” Alastor purred, leaning forward as far as the restraints allowed, “are you sure?”
The room felt hotter. The neon lights bled harder around the edges. Vox’s screen dimmed, then brightened, as though flickering through a dozen emotional responses he refused to process out loud. His hand dropped to the armrest beside Alastor’s thigh, fingers curling into the plastic.
“You should be grateful,” Vox murmured. “I’m giving you front-row seats.”
“To your speech?” Alastor replied lightly. “How flattering.”
“To my supremacy.”
“To the delusion of it.”
Vox leaned in again. His voice dropped to a whisper made of static and threat and something dangerously close to longing. “You talk big for someone who’s tied up.”
Alastor’s grin widened. “And you talk big,” he whispered back, “for someone who still wants me watching.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Like a wire pulled so tight it was one spark away from snapping clean through. Vox straightened abruptly, recalibrating himself with a tiny glitch of irritation, though the irritation wasn’t at Alastor. Oh no, it was at himself. He turned away, walking toward the screens, trying to occupy his hands with re-arranging data windows that didn’t need arranging. His glow dimmed, then flared, betraying cracks in the performance he intended to project. Alastor watched him with unsettling calm, the kind of calm that made predators uneasy. He tilted his head, studying Vox’s neon spine, the glow of his fingertips, the twitch of the line displayed across his screen.
“So,” Alastor said softly, “are you going to rehearse for me, darling? Or was the point simply to remind me how very important you are this evening?”
Vox froze mid-gesture. “And if it was?”
“Then I consider myself sufficiently reminded.”
Vox scoffed, but his voice pitched lower; richer, less mechanical. “I don’t need your approval.”
“Oh, I know,” Alastor said. “You need something much more interesting than that.”
There was a brief, sharp flicker of static. Vox crossed the room in two strides. He grabbed the back of Alastor’s chair, leaning over him, frame enclosing the radio demon in a cage made of neon light and electric heat. The ropes creaked under the change in pressure, Alastor’s chest brushing the front of Vox’s. He did not flinch. If anything, he leaned in.
Vox’s voice was almost a growl now. “Tell me, Alastor… what is it you think I need?”
And Alastor, smiling with all the elegance of a predator who knew exactly when the balance of power tilted, whispered: “An audience that can look you in the eye without worshipping you.”
Vox stared at him for a long moment. A static-sharpened beat where neither of them breathed. Then Vox whispered: “Good.”
He stepped back, slow and deliberate, letting the tension snap like a powerline cut loose in a storm. His glow steadied. The speech countdown flashed across every screen. He was ready. And because he could not resist, because his ego demanded it, and because something else in him demanded it even more, Vox lowered his head toward Alastor one last time and murmured:
“When I’m done out there, you’ll understand.”
Alastor smiled. “With pleasure.”
Vox smirked, half of it pleasure and half of it irritation at the pleasure. “Try not to break your restraints while I’m gone.”
“No promises.”
Vox’s screens brightened, filling the room with an anticipatory hum. And as he walked toward the door, the glowing line across his screen flickered with something Alastor had never seen on him before:
Heat.
It made the back of Alastor’s neck prickle under the ropes.
The door clicked behind Vox with a tone so smugly calibrated it sounded like punctuation to a sentence that hadn’t yet finished. The room hummed in his absence, the air still vibrating with aftershocks of static, like echoes from a storm that had already swept on but left the ground trembling beneath it.
Alastor remained tied to the chair. Smiling. Still, perfectly, infuriatingly smiling, except now the smile was not entirely voluntary. Something in it twitched, strained, sharpened into a strange, thin thread of tension. Because as Vox departed, the screens behind him, those towering monoliths of neon and ego, burst into life.
Dozens upon dozens of displays. Panelsm floating holograms, shards of glass-like projections. Every screen lit up with different angles of the stage outside, every vantage point meticulously orchestrated, every pixel sharpened to a surgical blade. Vox liked being seen from every direction. Vox liked mastery. And Vox, damn him, wore it beautifully.
The moment his silhouette cut into view across the screens, Alastor felt the faintest shift beneath his ribs. A jolt, unwanted. A ruffle of ancient instincts that had no business responding to neon and circuitry. He inhaled through his teeth. The ropes creaked. Vox stepped onto his platform in a crackle of brilliant blue and white, the flicker of his body casting thunder-shadow across the stadium. The crowd roared so loudly Alastor could feel it through the screens, a bass-thrum that rattled the chair beneath him. Vox lifted his hands effortlessly, elegantly, arrogantly, and the crowd quieted.
A god made of broadcast.
Alastor hated him. He also couldn’t look away.
And then Lucifer appeared.
A spotlight devouring the darkness around him, making his pale figure almost holy in contrast to Vox’s mechanized brilliance. Lucifer carried himself with that ancient arrogance, that inborn radiance that belonged to someone who once ruled Heaven and now ruled through sheer force of personality.
Alastor despised him, too. Because Lucifer, unlike Vox, never questioned whether he deserved to be adored. He simply assumed it.
Alastor’s smile tightened. There was a beauty to Lucifer, whether one liked him or not, a terrible elegance that made lesser demons tremble and fall to their knees. His halo was a memory now, but the posture remained, the bearing remained, the echo of celestial authority remained. And Vox was about to tear him apart in front of thousands.
The screens began to flicker with that rising, humming, self-indulgent crescendo that seemed engineered specifically to punch arrogance into the air. Vox raised a hand and the humiliation began.
The camera cut to Vox’s face, visage lit with cruel neon, the line across his screen bending into a curved, cutting smirk. He sang his tyrannic speech with a tone so honey-slicked and venom-laced that it felt like a spear thrown underhand. The stadium swallowed the sound. Lucifer’s expression froze and Alastor, still tied to that damned chair, felt something in his chest loosen, like a knot pulled by an invisible hand. Oh, how he loathed Lucifer’s perpetual self-assurance. How he relished seeing cracks splinter across that gilded façade. How he should have been entirely delighted with this spectacle but... he wasn’t. Because Vox’s performance…
It was doing something.
Something that prickled along Alastor’s spine, something ancient and territorial and hungry.
The Camera Cut #4 displayed a full-body shot of Vox, hips angled forward, shoulders thrown back, that glitching smirk flickering like static-laced sin. His gestures were precise, calculated, yet dripping with wild charisma. His voice boomed through the stadium with such controlled dominance that the walls of the room Alastor was trapped in practically vibrated. Vox preened, reveling in the spotlight with the shamelessness of a performer who knew the world adored him and Lucifer, King of Pride, Fallen Morningstar looked small. Beautiful, yes. Magnificent, yes. But small.
The crowd noticed. The cameras caught it. The screens amplified it. Vox circled Lucifer like a predator in digital skin. Everything was designed to humiliate and Alastor felt the first tremor inside him. It was not sympathy for Lucifer. He would sooner eat his own microphone cord. It was a flaring, crawling sensation beneath his sternum, like static being fed directly into the marrow of his bones. Vox threw his head back as he hit word by word with perfect cadence, lights strobing behind him. His laugh crackled through the speakers like an electric whip. Lucifer’s scowl deepened; the crowd drank it like wine. Alastor’s breath slowed.
He watched Vox’s every movement.
How he commanded space. How he devoured the stage. How he performed not simply at Lucifer, but around him, over him, through him, like he was rewriting the very concept of dominance. The ropes tightened around Alastor’s wrists. No… his wrists tightened against the ropes. There was no pleasure in seeing Lucifer humiliated because Vox’s performance was too enthralling to leave room for petty schadenfreude. Alastor’s stomach twisted with a realization he refused. Vox was...
No.
He would not finish that thought.
Vox pointed directly at Lucifer, screen glowing hot, voice booming through every speaker with the line that shattered the stadium: “YOU WON’T DO IT, YOU’RE WEAK.”
The crowd erupted. Lucifer trembled and Alastor’s heart betrayed him. A single, sharp thump against his ribs. Hard enough to feel. Hard enough that his breath hitched.
He couldn’t stop watching Vox. The cameras zoomed in on his grin. The curve of neon light across his face, lit like desire or malice or both. Alastor’s fingers flexed against the restraints. The ropes burned. He liked it. Hated that he liked it. His smile didn’t break, it faltered, just a flicker, a millisecond, a glitch. He felt heat coil in his gut, something foreign and unwelcome and dangerously alive.
“Damn you,” he whispered, barely audible, his radio voice cracking beneath the words. Because Vox wasn’t simply humiliating Lucifer. He was enchanting the crowd. Alastor, bound, forced to watch, utterly powerless, felt every inch of it like a hand wrapped around his sternum and squeezing gently. He hated this feeling. He hated that it made him aware of the way the ropes pressed against his skin, the way the chair’s back dug into his spine, the way the screens’ glow stroked his cheekbones like the caress of someone he should not want. He hated the spark dancing just beneath his ribs, that traitorous flicker of want.
Vox moved with precision sculpted for devotion. His gestures were too smooth, too seductive. His voice too rich, too triumphant, too intoxicating. And Alastor...
Yes. He desired him. He desired him and despised the desire in equal measure.
Lucifer flinched as Vox sang another line that cut directly at the core of Pride’s ego. Alastor exhaled sharply. A hiss. Almost silent. The cameras caught Vox’s smirk as he leaned into Lucifer’s space, close enough to kiss, but with the cruelty of someone who preferred to push instead of pull. The ropes bit into his wrists as he shifted, just barely, just enough to feel the pressure dig in. The sensation grounded him and infuriated him. Desire, he realized, was territorial, violent, disgustingly alive. Vox threw a final, devastating gesture toward Lucifer, voice booming through the climax of the speech, a declaration of supremacy that shook the arena and sent shimmering static across every screen.
Alastor’s breath caught. The final note hit and Vox stood victorious, neon crowned, breathing hard, glowing bright. For a moment, just one, Vox looked godly and Alastor was undone by it. Something ancient and ravenous inside him whispered: Mine.
He crushed the thought instantly.
No.
No, no, no.
He dragged his smile back into place, trembling, furious but the truth echoed inside him anyway, impossible to kill: Vox was irresistible. The realization cut through him like a blade wrapped in velvet and Alastor, Master of Composure, broke character for one impossible heartbeat. His grin softened, his eyes darkened. Vox stood on the stage, shimmering, victorious, luminous. Alastor whispered: “…damn you.”
But it wasn’t anger.
Not anymore.
Backstage was always chaos after a show, but tonight it had teeth.
The air dripped with sweat, static, perfume, cheap cologne, and the aftertaste of electric triumph. The dancers were already peeling off costume pieces, tossing jackets, gloves, LED accessories to the floor while stage techs rushed past them, unplugging cables, coiling wires, shouting over one another. Someone was laughing too loudly. Someone else was crying because their cyber-lashes had fallen off mid-number. And a cluster of demons were trying to pry a malfunctioning spotlight off the ceiling before it crashed onto someone’s skull.
And through all of that, Velvette stood at the console like a general on a battlefield. Screens hovered around her in a halo of pink and glitching filters, all reflecting the final analytics of Vox’s performance; numbers skyrocketing, hashtags trending, algorithms bending themselves in ecstatic obedience.
She was smug. No, more than smug. Smug enough to crack her gum in a slow, satisfied pop without even bothering to look up.
Valentino strutted beside her like he owned the place which, in his mind, he did. Scarf thrown over one shoulder, jacket undone to reveal his chest, cigar hanging from his teeth as he barked flirtations at dancers passing by. His grin stretched fox-wide as he watched the metrics rise.
“Holy shit, papi,” he said, clapping Vox on the back as the overlord returned backstage, “you fuckin’ ate. You see those numbers? You fucking ate all the way down to the bone.”
Vox didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. The energy radiating off him was enough to make Valentino’s eyes widen in delighted recognition. He was manic. His face glowed incandescent white, the lines across his screen flickering like a heartbeat gone wild. His laugh echoed through the backstage hall; loud, deranged, glitchy, shivering with adrenaline. Sparks crackled off his form, dancing across his fingers as he pushed past the crowd without even noticing when demons stumbled out of his way.
“Holy FUCK!” Vox barked, voice ricocheting off the metal walls. “Did you SEE that shit!? Did you SEE HIS FUCKING FACE?!?”
Velvette, still scrolling through data, smirked. “Babe, you trended in every ring. Even the boring ones. Hashtags are melting.”
Valentino flicked ash from his cigar and winked. “Told ya. Big night calls for a big celebration. And I’m talkin’ big, sugar.”
Vox didn’t hear him or maybe he did, but the adrenaline drowned it out. He stormed through the backstage hallway like a neon thunderbolt, arms thrown wide, still half-singing lines of his own damn song because he hadn’t come down yet.
“I HAVE NO CHAINS IN ME!’” he belted, pointing at a dancer who shrieked in excitement. “HA! That fucking IDIOT couldn’t even swallow his pride long enough to PRETEND he wasn’t pissed! Oh my GOD what a pathetic—”
He cut himself off with another laugh; sharp, unhinged, static-drenched. Some demons cheered. Some flinched. Some backed away because Vox looked like a nuclear reactor having a religious experience. He didn’t care. None of them mattered. He had something, someone, else on his mind.
Vox shoved open the door to the private backstage corridor, the one reserved for the overlords and their… arrangements. The hallway lights flickered in response to his mood. Screens lining the walls replayed moments from the performance, and Vox slowed as he walked past them, savoring each replayed humiliation of Lucifer like a piece of candy he let melt on his tongue.
“Look at that! LOOK AT THAT!” Vox snarled joyfully at one screen. “That’s what happens when you fuck with me, asshole! That’s what happens when you think you’re still relevant!”
He dragged a hand down his face with a shuddering exhale. Ego and power high and beneath all of that something already turning toward a single thought: Alastor saw this. Alastor watched the whole goddamn thing. A tremor of satisfaction rippled through Vox’s body, glitching his outline for a split second.
He kept walking.
The hallway turned a corner and there, where he had left him, sat Alastor. Still tied to the chair. Still upright, elegant even in restraint. Still smiling in that way that would piss off a saint, let alone Vox. But his eyes… Vox noticed the eyes instantly. Too bright. Too focused. A predator pretending he wasn’t rattled.
Perfect.
Vox pushed the door closed behind him with his foot, not looking away from Alastor for even a second. The dancers’ chatter faded. Velvette’s giggling slipped out of range. Valentino’s sleazy promises were muffled into nothing. The room shrank, centered itself entirely around two forces that should never have been near each other, let alone locked together inside four walls with one of them unable to move. Vox approached with a grin that was far too wide for one face.
“SO,” he boomed, pacing in front of the tied-up demon like a showman returning to his best audience, “did you see that shit!? Did you fucking SEE how that prick almost SHIT his feathers on stage!?”
He jabbed a finger toward one of the monitors replaying Lucifer’s flinch.
“LOOK AT HIS STUPID FACE! LOOK AT IT! Fucking PRICELESS!”
Alastor’s eyebrow twitched. Vox saw it. He leaned down a little too close, neon glow bleeding over Alastor’s lap and chest like spilled paint.
“Go on,” Vox said, voice dropping into a dark, electric purr. “Say it. Tell me I fucking NAILED him.”
Alastor chuckled softly but his voice, when it came out, was slightly tighter than usual.
“You certainly… made an impression.”
“An impression?” Vox barked. “CALL IT WHAT IT FUCKING IS, RADIOHEAD! I ruined that bitch!”
He slammed a hand onto the armrest beside Alastor’s thigh, not touching him, but close enough that the wood vibrated. The ropes tightened around Alastor’s wrists from the sudden jolt.
Vox leaned in, face inches away, face glowing so hot it bordered on white.
“I made the King of Hell look like a fucking roach,” Vox hissed, voice glitching into static. “I stomped him into the floor and then pissed on the remains. And the crowd? They fucking WORSHIPED me for it.”
Alastor met his gaze and Vox saw it then; that flicker behind the smile. Desire. Irritation. Control cracking like ice under pressure. It made Vox’s grin sharpen.
“You liked watching him fall,” Vox taunted. “Didn’t you? You liked seeing that stuck-up piece of shit get taken down. Bet it made your fucking century.”
Alastor’s voice dropped a note. “I can’t deny it was… gratifying.”
“Oh?” Vox asked, leaning even closer, too close, close enough that Alastor could smell ozone on his breath. “Which part did you like best? When he choked on his own fucking ego? When he tried to smile through the panic? When I told the entire world he was POWERLESS?”
Alastor didn’t answer but Vox saw the pulse at his throat. The ropes creaked again from Alastor’s wrists flexing or from the chair bowing under tension, it didn’t matter. Vox saw it and fed on it like voltage through a wire.
“Holy shit,” Vox whispered, voice dropping into something low and almost reverent. “You did like it.”
Alastor’s smile widened, but the edges were razor-thin now.
“You are… enthusiastic this evening.”
“Fuck yeah I am,” Vox snapped. “I just humiliated the biggest egomaniac in Hell. Of course I’m fucking enthusiastic.”
He dragged a hand through his face, sparks spilling off his fingertips, before stepping close again. “But you…” Vox pointed at Alastor’s chest, electricity crackling at his fingertip. “YOU watched me do it. From up close. From front row.”
Alastor tilted his head.
“There were certainly… many angles.”
“Damn right there were,” Vox growled, leaning forward again, both hands gripping the back of the chair now; caging Alastor between his arms. “And you watched every single one.”
Vox’s grin turned feral.
“You know,” he murmured, “when I was out there… while I was fucking ending him… I kept thinking about you.”
Alastor’s eyes narrowed.
“And what,” he asked carefully, “was so compelling about me in that moment?”
Vox leaned in until Alastor’s nose almost touched his screen.
“That you were tied to that chair,” he whispered, smug and electric. “Forced to watch me win.”
The words hit harder than he intended. Alastor’s smile froze and Vox felt the shift, the ripple of emotion Alastor did not want him to detect. He leaned in closer until the neon glow washed over Alastor’s face like a caress and every rope seemed suddenly too tight.
“I bet you fucking hated that,” Vox whispered, voice low and sharp. “And I bet that pissed you off even more because—” He smiled. “Because you couldn’t look away.” Alastor’s breath stopped. Vox’s voice softened, hungrier. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I fucking saw that.”
The screens replayed Vox’s triumph again and again and between them, in that charged, suffocating, electric silence Alastor whispered: “Vox.”
A sound Vox had never heard from him and one he wanted to hear again immediately. Vox’s grin softened into something sharper, crueler, curious. “Yeah?” he answered.
Alastor swallowed once then said, voice low and dangerous: “Stop this heaven madness.”
Vox laughed. Then he leaned in, screen almost brushing Alastor’s ear, and whispered: “Not a fucking chance.”
Alastor’s smile didn’t waver but the corner of his mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly, as if caught by a current he wasn’t expecting. “Nonsense.”
“Bullshit.”
Alastor attempted to look away but Vox followed, like a magnet drawn to a buried current.
And inside Alastor, a quake trembled.
He had watched Vox’s performance from the screens, every ruthless word, every mocking gesture, every thunderous note aimed like a weapon toward the King of Hell. Vox’s confidence had radiated with the force of a solar flare; terrifying, radiant, irresistible. And though Alastor despised Lucifer, though he despised the arrogance and entitlement, though he reveled in seeing him dragged through neon dirt… the moment Vox stood triumphant before that roaring crowd, something deep in Alastor’s chest had clenched hard enough to bruise.
He told himself it was hunger for opportunity, for weakness, for a chink in Vox’s armor but as Vox leaned in now, pupils sharp, smile sharp, energy sharp, Alastor felt the truth burning through his ribs like a brand.
Vox tilted his head, studying him with vicious amusement. “You’re staring too much.”
“I do not stare at you,” Alastor replied smoothly.
“You’re tied up. You can’t do shit but stare.”
Alastor’s smile deepened. His voice lowered. “Be that as it may… you are quite the spectacle tonight.”
Vox blinked, momentarily stunned by the softness; by the honesty. “Oh? Compliments now? What, did my little show put you in rut or something?”
“Vox.” Alastor’s voice dipped, velvety warning.
“Oh, don’t give me that tone.” Vox leaned even closer, breath brushing Alastor’s ear. “I know that your eyes were glued to me like you were starving.”
Alastor’s breath hitched, so lightly he prayed Vox didn’t notice.
Vox noticed. His grin sharpened. “Yeah. Thought so.”
Alastor tried to steady himself, tried to anchor against the ropes biting into his wrists. He reminded himself who Vox was; an enemy, a nuisance, a blight of neon and static that he had sworn to dismantle piece by piece the moment his contract expired. He should not want this. He should not want him. He should want to fracture Vox’s empire, to tear the broadcast titan off his throne, to watch his circuitry short and spark beneath Alastor’s heel. That was the logical thing. The safe thing. The predatory thing. Desire was a weapon, and Alastor always wielded weapons; he never succumbed to them. But Vox was standing so close now that Alastor could feel the electric pulse of his chest, the phantom rhythm of his machinery, the feverish breathless high of victory humming through him.
Alastor realized, horrifyingly, beautifully, that the path to Vox’s ruin might not be through violence. It might be through every soft thing Vox secretly craved. Through every vulnerability he denied. Through every romantic gesture Vox pretended he was above. A curse disguised as affection. He almost laughed and Vox must have sensed that shift because he dragged his thumb along Alastor’s jawline, a daring, taunting touch that sent a jolt of static down the demon’s spine.
“Well, damn,” Vox murmured. “You really are looking at me like that, huh? I knew it. You’re fucking hard for this.”
Alastor inhaled sharply, eyes flaring. “I would advise caution.”
“Or what?” Vox taunted. “Gonna glare at me harder? Gonna twitch those pretty fingers?” He smirked. “You’re in heat for me, Radio Rat. Just admit it.”
Alastor’s teeth clicked together; half snarl, half need.
Vox bent down. Closer, closer, closer. Alastor’s breath fanned against his neck. Vox’s static crackled against his cheek. Their lips hovered in that unbearable space where enemies forget themselves, where desire slips a knife between ribs and twists. Alastor’s pulse thundered.
Vox whispered, “Say you want me.”
Alastor whispered back, “Never.”
But he leaned forward and Vox did too, their mouths were a hair apart.
The air between them crackled when the door slammed open.
“HEY, VOX!” Velvette barked. “You coming or what? We need you for post-show shit—oh.”
She stopped dead.
Valentino leaned in behind her, blinking. “Ohhh…? What’s all this?”
Vox jerked back like he’d been splashed with cold water. Alastor exhaled, sharp and breathless, hiding the tremor behind a razor smile.
Velvette’s eyes darted between them, then she grinned like a shark. “Oh my god. You two were about to—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Vox snapped, straightening violently.
Valentino snorted. “Should we leave you alone to… finish?”
Alastor let out a bright, polite chuckle, as if he weren’t seconds from kissing his worst enemy. “My, what imaginations you both have.”
Vox glared at him; furious but wanting.
Velvette crossed her arms. “Come on, hotshot. Debrief now. And then Val gets you for his gross little afterparty.”
Valentino purred. “Can’t wait.”
Vox groaned, rubbing his temples. “You two fucking suck.”
“Love you too,” Velvette chirped.
They dragged him by the arm but as Vox was pulled away, he twisted back just enough to meet Alastor’s eyes one last time; static simmering around him like a storm struggling against its leash and Alastor held his gaze, smile soft, predatory, unbearably knowing. Because now he understood everything and so did Vox. The next time they were alone that kiss wouldn’t be interrupted and it wouldn’t be innocent.
Vox’s private room was quiet in the way thunderstorms were quiet; an oppressive hush, thick with static waiting to snap. Neon shadows flickered lazily across the walls like ghosts, the remnants of a long night still bleeding through each screen. The city beyond the window blinked and stuttered with sleepless lights, Hell’s eternal nightlife humming faintly like a broken lullaby.
Alastor sat bound to the familiar reinforced office chair, placed intentionally, almost mockingly, next to Vox’s oversized bed. The absurdity of it would have amused him if he weren’t so tired. If his wrists didn’t ache from the rope. If the room didn’t feel so strangely intimate when stripped of show lights and spectators.
But tonight felt different.
Valentino wasn’t here. The absence was a relief so sharp it almost startled him. No flamboyant moaning, no cheap cologne clouding the room, no lopsided theatrics that lasted a laughable two minutes. Vox always ended those encounters the same way: panting, flushed, scrambling to hide the way he would accidentally look—no, stare—at Alastor afterward, as if ashamed of something he hadn’t yet admitted even to himself.
Tonight, Vox stood alone; pajama pants hanging low on his hips, t-shirt clinging to him from the humidity of the room. He was pacing between screens, muttering at them, tapping out final commands, reviewing numbers for the thousandth time. He looked… human. Exhausted. Even his neon glow dimmed at the edges, flickering gently like a candle trying to decide whether to keep burning.
Alastor watched him quietly, every little detail slipping into him like threads weaving a trap. Not for Vox. No; this web was forming inside Alastor himself, strands twisting in ways he didn’t like, tugging at him whenever Vox passed in front of the light.
“Well,” Alastor finally hummed, voice soft and warm with mockery, “it seems Valentino abandoned you tonight.”
Vox froze mid-step. His head snapped around, glare sharpened by the glow of a dozen screens reflecting off his face.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he barked.
“Oh, nothing,” Alastor replied, smooth as honey. “I simply assumed he would continue your little… nightly routines.”
“You’re really gonna start this shit right now?”
Alastor tilted his head, smile carved with too much sweetness to be anything but lethal. “How tragic. Left alone after such a triumphant performance.”
Vox stalked toward him. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“On the contrary,” Alastor purred, “I’ve had front-row seats.”
That did it.
Vox threw his hands up. “Christ, fuck! Yes, okay?! We usually spend the night. Big fucking deal.”
“So why not tonight?” Alastor asked lightly. “Performance anxiety?”
“Shut the hell up.”
Alastor chuckled. “It’s only a question.”
“No,” Vox snapped, leaning over him, palms braced on either side of the chair. “It’s you being a smug little shit.”
Alastor met his eyes through the screen. “Am I wrong?”
Vox inhaled sharply through his teeth.
The neon light behind Vox’s head flickered softly, outlining him in a halo of glitching blue. Then he exhaled, the anger draining into resignation. “Look,” he muttered. “Val had… business. Okay? I didn’t need him around tonight.”
“Mm.” Alastor’s smile thinned. “Or perhaps you didn’t want him around.”
Vox’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would I—”
“You tell me.”
Another beat of silence. Vox’s voice dropped. “…Because you’re here.”
Alastor’s breath caught so quietly, but Vox seemed to sense it nonetheless because his posture changed. His glare softened into something more dangerous. He sank onto the edge of the bed, staring at the floor, letting the silence settle like dust around them. The glow of the screens washed over his face, giving him a strange vulnerability; one Alastor wasn’t sure Vox had ever shown anyone.
When Vox finally looked up again, his voice was low. “So.” A pause. “What the hell was that earlier?”
Alastor blinked, maintaining the smile though his pulse thrummed like a plucked string. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific.”
“No.” Vox stood again, stepping closer with slow, deliberate intention. “Don’t play dumb. Not after you nearly kissed me.”
Alastor’s smile faltered; just a fraction. Just enough for Vox to notice.
Vox’s grin spread, triumphant and almost cruel. “Yeah. That. What the fuck was that, Al?”
Alastor swallowed. “That was nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Vox placed a hand on the back of the chair and leaned in. His chest brushed Alastor’s shoulder. His breath touched Alastor’s cheek. Static buzzed faintly between their skin.
“You wanted to kiss me,” Vox whispered. “Don’t fucking deny it.”
Alastor’s heart thudded wildly inside him, pounding against its cage like a trapped animal.
“I assure you,” he murmured, “I wanted no such thing.”
Vox chuckled, low and disbelieving. “Then why do you look like that right now?”
Alastor stiffened. “Like what?”
“Like you’re trying not to lunge at me.”
Alastor forced a scoff. “Hardly.”
“And like you’re pissed Val isn’t here,” Vox went on. “Because it means you can’t pretend you don’t care who I go to bed with.”
Alastor’s breath shivered and Vox leaned closer until Alastor could see the faint static trembling along the edge of his jaw.
“You hate that he touches me,” Vox murmured. “And you hate even more that I look at you while he’s doing it.”
Alastor tried to laugh but the sound snagged in his throat. Vox’s hand lifted, slow, hesitant, unsure but undeniably reaching. He brushed his fingertips against Alastor’s cheek. The touch was feather-light. Barely there. But it felt like fire. Alastor inhaled sharply. “…There it is,” Vox whispered.
Alastor shook his head, as if trying to break a spell. “I have no interest—”
“Stop lying.” Vox’s voice cracked with something raw. “Just fucking stop.”
Alastor’s eyes flickered; conflict, desire, fury, fear… all tangled.
Vox moved closer. “So tell me,” he whispered, “were you actually gonna kiss me…” His lips hovered inches away. “…or were you just trying to fuck with my head?” Alastor parted his lips slightly, breath trembling. And then Vox leaned even closer, voice dropping into a rough whisper. “Because I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
That was when Alastor broke. “…You presume far too much.”
Vox smirked. “And you pretend far too much.”
“Vox…”
“What would’ve happened,” Vox whispered, “if Val and Velvette hadn’t walked in?”
Alastor shut his eyes. A mistake. Because now he could feel Vox’s warmth, could feel the faint electric pulse of him, could imagine the moment their mouths would have met, the static-laced taste of him, the shockwave it would’ve sent through both of them. His voice trembled when he answered.
“Nothing,” he lied.
Vox huffed. “Liar.”
He leaned in. Alastor’s breath hitched. His shoulders pulled taut against the ropes. His pulse hammered. He could almost feel Vox’s screen brushing his lips.
“Tell me the truth.” The silence between them cracked like ice. Alastor opened his eyes and Vox saw everything.
Desire.
Hunger.
Denial.
Fear.
And a plan forming behind it all; dark, devastating. Alastor exhaled shakily and Vox inhaled as if the sound burned him.
“…Say it,” Vox begged softly, almost desperately. “Just fucking say it.”
But Alastor didn’t. Instead, he smiled; small, thin, agonizing. And whispered: “Goodnight, Vox.”
Vox stared at him; hurt, furious, unbearably drawn in. Static crackled off him like sparks from a frayed wire. And he whispered back, voice breaking: “Fuck you.”
The room had gone quiet, too quiet for Vox’s liking. The kind of quiet that wasn’t silence so much as it was pressure, like the air itself was thinking too loudly. He lay stiff under his sheets, staring up at the ceiling, replaying the near-kiss over and over until it burned like static behind his eyelids. Valentino and Velvette had laughed themselves out of the doorway hours ago, the dancers had left to drink or collapse somewhere backstage, but the tension remained, coiled tight around Vox’s limbs like a live wire. He tried to sleep.
He really, truly tried but he could feel him.
Alastor.
A demon whose presence was a gravity. A promise tied to that chair, wrists bound behind the plastic frame, legs crossed elegantly as though he were lounging in a throne rather than held captive by a bargain. And even motionless, even silent, Vox could feel the pull of him like a hand fisted in his collar. Vox turned onto his side with a frustrated grun and nearly yelped because Alastor was staring at him. Wide-eyed. Polite. Patient. Eerie. Like a portrait that always watched. Vox’s breath caught in his throat.
“Do you—do you ever sleep?” he blurted out, voice pitching high, embarrassing him immediately.
Alastor tilted his head. The rope gave a soft creak behind the chair.
“Not particularly,” he hummed, as though the question amused him. “It’s terribly dull.”
Vox groaned and flopped onto his back again, covering his face with both hands. His whole body felt too tight, too warm, as if some invisible rope had cinched around his chest, around his ribs, around his hips and thighs. A rope woven out of want. Out of the near kiss they didn’t talk about. Out of the way Alastor said “darling” and made it sound like a threat wrapped in silk.
“Stop staring at me,” Vox muttered through his palms.
“Why?” Alastor asked, genuinely curious. “You’re quite entertaining.”
Vox made a strangled noise, somewhere between a whine and static feedback. He kicked at the blankets, agitated, then turned sharply again. Alastor hadn’t moved but the air around him had. Like the whole room tilted in his direction, magnetized.
Vox sat up suddenly, glaring. “That chair,” he snapped. “It’s making noise.”
“Is it?” Alastor asked, lifting one leg and crossing it over the other with a creaking flourish. “Terrible craftsmanship. Very unkind to the joints.”
“Oh my God,” Vox groaned, dragging his fingers down his face. “You’re doing it on purpose.”
Alastor smiled wickedly. “I would never.”
“You are! You’re… you’re sighing and creaking and humming and staring and… fuck, how am I supposed to sleep with you sitting there acting like some kind of… seductive metronome?!”
Alastor blinked, the picture of innocence.
“Seductive, you say?”
Vox nearly choked. “That’s… that’s NOT the word I meant!”
A soft, breathy laugh drifted across the room like incense. Vox kicked the blankets again. He was overheating, and not because of the fabric. He tried lying down, tried turning over but then Alastor shifted, just the slightest movement, just the faintest drag of rope over plastic, and Vox’s entire body jolted like someone had plugged him into a faulty socket.
“Holy shit,” he hissed into the mattress. “I can’t— I can’t with this. This is torture.”
Alastor’s smooth, warm voice floated over him. “If you wish, I could hum a lullaby.”
“NO.”
Another soft laugh. Another creak of the chair. And then: quiet. Too quiet again.
Vox squeezed his pillow like he wanted to strangle it and let out an explosive:
“…Fine!! Fine!” He sat up violently. “If you’re gonna keep doing that all night then—then just… JUST COME TO BED, ALRIGHT? There! I said it!”
The silence afterward was devastating. Alastor didn’t move. He only raised a brow, smile slow and dangerous.
“Oh?” he purred. “Inviting your prisoner into your bed, Vox? What will people say?”
Vox’s face flamed so hard sparks shot off his cheekbones.
“It’s not—It’s… It’s because you’re NOISY!”
“Am I?”
Vox grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. Alastor laughed softly, and Vox heard the faint, tell-tale shift of weight. The rope slid against the chair legs as Alastor leaned forward.
“You’ll have to untie me first.”
Vox’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“Unless you’d like me to crawl?” Alastor offered, utterly amused.
Vox’s heart shot into his throat. He scrambled out of bed, marched across the room on unsteady legs, and began untying the knots with shaking hands. The rope slackened. Alastor’s wrists slipped free. His fingers flexed; long, elegant, predatory. When Vox finally stepped back, panting, he pointed fiercely at the mattress: “Bed. Now. And—and no funny business!”
Alastor stood slowly, stretching his arms above his head. His back arched. His ribs extended. His waist narrowed. Vox swallowed a sound he refused to name. Alastor’s smile sharpened as he watched him struggle.
“As you wish.”
He didn’t move. Vox’s eye twitched.
“Well?!”
Alastor hummed thoughtfully, tapping a finger against his chin. “I’m considering it.”
“CONSIDERING IT?!” Vox sputtered. “What the hell?! I’m literally offering… I—JUST GET OVER HERE!”
Alastor let the moment hang. Drawing it out. Letting Vox stew in it until he was practically vibrating. Then he walked, each footstep was a countdown. Vox’s breath hitched…1, 2, 3 and then Alastor planted one knee on the mattress. Paused, tilted his head with a grin and launched himself onto the bed with a dramatic, full-body flop, bouncing Vox so hard he nearly fell off the other side.
“ALASTOR!!”
“You invited me,” Alastor sing-songed, already settling into the pillows like a smug cat. “I’m merely accepting enthusiastically.”
Vox clutched a handful of blankets, speechless, scandalized, overheated, and painfully, humiliatingly aroused. Alastor rolled onto his side, propped his head on his hand, and gazed at Vox with that same unreadable, hungry softness from earlier.
“Feel better?” he asked gently.
Vox exhaled like someone punched him in the lungs.
“…No,” he whispered. And then, weaker: “…Yes.”
Alastor smiled. It felt like being swallowed whole. Vox lay stiff beside him, staring up at the ceiling, every nerve alive, every muscle trembling but slowly, very slowly, Alastor inched closer. The heat of his body seeped through the sheets. The mattress dipped. A breath brushed Vox’s shoulder. He didn’t dare move. The rope of lust tightened around him again, pulling, dragging him toward the demon he’d sworn to hate. And yet; here he was, desperate for a warmth he’d never admit he wanted. Alastor’s voice drifted through the dark, soft as velvet, warm as a hand trailing down Vox’s spine.
“Shall we try sleeping now?”
Vox swallowed, chest tight, eyes burning.
“…Yeah,” he whispered.
But neither of them closed their eyes and neither of them slept.
The room was painted in half-darkness, the monitors dimmed into soft-blue breaths, and Vox could feel every inch of his own skin; too tight, too warm, too aware. Alastor lay beside him like a storm pretending to be a man, still as a blade, eyes gleaming faintly like foxfire in the shadows. Vox turned onto his side, slowly, carefully, as though trying not to wake a sleeping animal even though Alastor was unmistakably awake. Their faces hovered closer than they should have been. That unnatural, perfect calm of Alastor’s expression made Vox’s chest seize. Vox swallowed. Once. Twice.
“You could,” he began faintly, then cleared his throat and tried again, hoping it would steady him, “you could at least change into something… comfortable.”
Alastor blinked, lashes feathering. “Comfort,” he murmured, “is such a mortal thing.”
“It’s—” Vox gestured helplessly at the stiff, formal clothes Alastor still wore “—it’s pajamas. Just pajamas.”
Alastor tilted his head, mouth quirking.
“Do you wish to dress me, Vox?”
Vox made an undignified strangled noise.
“NO. God. No. I just— look, I have an old pair in the drawer. They’re black. They’ll fit. Just—” he gestured again, static popping over his knuckles, “—put them on so I stop hearing your fabric crinkle every time you breathe.”
Alastor’s smile sharpened and Vox immediately regretted every syllable.
“Of course,” Alastor purred, “if it pleases you.”
Vox froze. He meant to say that’s not what I meant. He meant to say don’t say it like that. He meant to say stop looking at me like that. Instead, he managed:
“…Okay.”
Alastor rose from the bed in one elegant, unhurried movement. Vox’s dead lungs forgot their purpose.
The Radio Demon walked toward the dresser like a man approaching a stage he already owned. He opened the drawer Vox pointed to, inspecting its contents with a small, pleased hum.
“Black silk,” Alastor noted, brush of admiration beneath the words. “You had truly exquisite taste long before your… upgrades.”
“Just—just change,” Vox muttered, face burning.
Alastor turned his head just enough to let his eyes find Vox’s over his shoulder. Slow. Smoldering. “As you wish.”
He slipped his coat from his shoulders. Vox’s heart leapt into his throat. The coat fell to the floor silently, like ink spilled over velvet then Alastor’s fingers moved to the buttons of his vest; those pale, long fingers, deft and unhurried, undoing each clasp as though savoring the undoing itself. Vox’s breath hitched. He hadn’t thought this through. He hadn’t thought any of this through. The vest slid away, revealing a white undershirt stretched neatly across Alastor’s chest, the faint definition of him hinted at but not exposed. And yet Vox swore he could see every line, every contour, every imagined sin beneath the fabric. Static crawled over his arms. His antenna twitched violently. His processors hummed. He was fucked.
Alastor didn’t rush.
He lifted the hem of his shirt, and Vox grabbed a pillow and slammed it over his own face to stop himself from making a noise so humiliating he’d never recover. Fabric rustled. Then a faint, teasing chuckle. “Are you hiding, Vox?”
Vox ripped the pillow away, glaring. “No! I’m—I’m just—just resting!”
Alastor’s smile said liar. The undershirt joined the pile of clothing on the floor and Vox bit down on a gasp. Alastor wasn’t bulky; he wasn’t Valentino or any other demon whose ego needed the armor of muscle. His frame was lean, defined like something carved with patience. His waist narrow, his chest sculpted lightly beneath smooth skin. Vox gripped the sheets until sparks shot between his fingers.
“You’re taking your time,” he snapped, too breathless to sound convincing.
“One shouldn’t rush art,” Alastor replied sweetly.
Then he took the black silk pajama top from the drawer and slipped it on, letting it glide over his shoulders like smoke. The color clung to him, an inky shadow that framed every line of him. He didn’t button it fully (of course he didn’t) leaving the top two open so Vox could see the delicate dip between his collarbones, the warm, dangerous skin beneath. The pants followed, soft, loose, satin-like, and Vox wanted to die. Quite literally die. Alastor turned slowly, smoothing the silk down his thighs, and it hit Vox like a physical blow.
Alastor’s grin said he knew. He fucking knew.
“Well?” he asked. “Do I pass inspection?”
Vox’s voice abandoned him entirely. Static flickered down his spine. His mouth went dry. His legs went weak despite the fact he was still sitting. All he could do was stare. Alastor stepped closer until he stopped right beside the bed, one hand resting lightly on the mattress, close enough that Vox could feel the heat radiating off him.
“Cat got your tongue?” Alastor teased, voice low.
Vox managed one word. Barely.
“…Fuck.”
Alastor’s eyes glowed, hungry and delighted.
“Exactly.”
Vox’s self-restraint was seconds from snapping. He knew it. Alastor knew it. Hell itself probably knew it.
But the Radio Demon only leaned down slightly, letting the silk brush Vox’s shoulder like a feather and whispered, “Thank you for the pajamas, Vox.”
The words didn’t sound polite. They sounded like a promise. And Vox’s sanity cracked, quietly, beautifully, like glass under heat.
Vox had barely recovered from the sight of Alastor sliding into his old pajamas; black, soft, clinging in all the worst and most devastating ways, when the other demon crossed the room with that unhurried, predatory glide that always made Vox feel like his circuitry was overheating. Alastor prowled, as though the floor itself sought him, as though the shadows begged for his attention and he denied them with every smooth step. When he finally reached his side of the bed, he simply lowered himself onto the mattress with a lazy fold of limbs, settling beside Vox like a problem the TV Demon couldn’t debug or delete.
The mattress dipped just slightly, just enough to make Vox’s breath catch. His antennas flicked once, betraying him, before he slapped them down and forced himself into stillness. Alastor lay on his back, hands folded over his chest, ankles crossed, face turned toward the ceiling with a serenity that made Vox feel homicidal and lovesick simultaneously. The bastard. Vox tried to focus on the darkness above him, the blueish glow of his own screens across the room, the faint hum of his tower of monitors as they fell into sleep mode; anything except the warm, living, patiently waiting creature beside him.
For a moment he managed then he turned his head. Alastor was already looking at him.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ—!” Vox jerked, hand flying to his chest. “Stop staring at me like that! You trying to make me flatline right here?!”
A soft, pleased hum rolled out of Alastor’s throat, warm as molasses and twice as thick. “You frighten easily tonight, darling.”
“Darling—” Vox sputtered. “Don’t. Don’t you start with that shit.”
Alastor only smiled, that horrible, devastating, perfect grin, and if Vox had functioning lungs they would have collapsed again. The red of his eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, reflecting on the black satin of the borrowed pajamas. It made him look unreal. Untouchable. Designed to torment. Vox swallowed. Then he saw the slice across Alastor’s chest, peeking from where the pajama top had slipped open slightly. A pale cut, clean but angry, like someone had tried to take a piece of him and failed.
“Hold up,” Vox muttered, voice dropping. “How’s that?”
Alastor glanced down slowly, like he’d forgotten it existed. “Oh. That.”
“That?” Vox repeated, incredulous. “You’ve got a chunk taken out of you and you say that?”
Alastor shrugged one shoulder, infuriatingly elegant even in dismissal. “Adam was… enthusiastic. It happens.”
Vox stared, his irritation folding into something darker, heavier; something he didn’t want to examine too closely. “That prick…”
Alastor raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re worried.”
“I— shut up!” Vox snapped automatically, heat flaring under his skin. “I’m not worried, I’m just— I’m just asking because you look like a fuckin’ idiot walking around with your shirt hanging open like you’re posing for a magazine cover!”
“Oh?” Alastor tilted his head, eyes glinting. “And yet you’re staring quite intently.”
Vox’s voice cracked. “I— I’m not staring!”
“You’ve barely blinked in thirty seconds.”
“Well— I— it’s— it’s because you look stupid!”
The Radio Demon rolled onto his side, propping his head on his hand, elbow sinking into the mattress as he leaned closer. Too close. Breathlessly close. The kind of close that made Vox’s entire frame buzz like someone had plugged him into a faulty outlet.
“Do I?” Alastor asked softly, that smile stretching; wide, wicked, knowing. “You seem… captivated.”
“Captivated my ass,” Vox growled, but it came out strangled. “I just— can you button your damn shirt?”
“I could.” Alastor tapped a single finger against his own sternum. “But you seem so entertained.”
“I’m not entertained!”
“Hm.”
The hum slid over Vox’s nerves like a warm hand.
Vox gritted his teeth. He could feel his face heating up like his screens when they overloaded. “Quit makin’ that sound.”
“What sound?”
“You know what sound!”
“Ah,” Alastor purred, eyes narrowing. “The one that makes you squirm?”
Vox nearly combusted.
“No one’s squirming!” he snapped, shoving at Alastor’s shoulder. Alastor didn’t move an inch. He just watched, enjoying Vox’s unraveling like he was tuning into a late-night show.
“You hate me,” Alastor murmured, eyes burning bright. “Isn’t that what you always say?”
“Yeah,” Vox shot back, voice thick, electric. “I hate you so much I— I can’t even— I can’t stand lookin’ at you.”
“Then look away.”
Their faces were inches apart. Neither did. Vox’s breath came unevenly. He couldn’t drag his gaze off Alastor’s eyes: liquid crimson, warm and cold at once; or that impossible smile, or the stray curl that had fallen across his forehead. He wanted to shove him. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to rip him apart. He wanted to drag him close until the ache inside him stopped feeling like breaking glass. Instead he whispered, voice cracking down the center:
“Why the hell are you in my bed?”
Alastor’s smile softened; barely, but enough to make Vox’s heart glitch, stutter, skip.
“You invited me,” he said simply.
“I—! Well—! That was—!”
“Kind,” Alastor finished for him. “Generous. Vulnerable.”
Vox choked. “Vulnerable?! I was being merciful, you— you—!”
Alastor’s laugh was quiet, low, devastating. Vox hated that sound. He hated how much he loved that sound. Alastor knew it. He knew it the way he knew every button on Vox’s body, every switch to flip, every wire to twist. He leaned in just slightly, letting his knees brush Vox’s beneath the blankets, letting heat spill off him in waves.
“Vox,” he said, velvet-soft, smug and tender all at once. “You’re staring again.”
Alastor must have sensed the moment Vox’s restraint thinned to a single trembling thread, because he rolled away with deliberate slowness; turning his back, shoulders shifting beneath the loose, open pajama top, the exposed cut on his chest catching a faint sliver of blue light from Vox’s screens. It was theatrical. Vox felt it like a door slamming shut in his face.
“Seriously?” he hissed, propping himself up on one elbow. “You’re turning around now?”
Alastor hummed, a soft, maddening vibration of sound as he adjusted the blankets around his waist. “What? You expected me to stare into your eyes all night? Even I require rest, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling.”
Another hum. Another taunt wrapped in silk but then, just when Vox’s nerves began to spark and spit like a frayed wire, Alastor spoke again; quiet, casual, devastatingly cruel in his sweetness:
“Tell me, Vox… is that why Valentino isn’t here tonight? Because I’m in your bed?”
Vox’s entire system short-circuited. A burst of static snapped off his fingers, lighting the dark like a tiny storm. His antennas jerked, the monitors behind him flickered, and his voice came out too fast, too loud, too hungry:
“What the hell makes you think that?!”
Alastor shrugged; a small movement, buried under the blankets, but somehow smugder than any grin. “Just an observation. He rarely misses a chance to… indulge himself. Yet tonight…”
“Shut up.”
“…he isn’t here. And you seem rather relieved.”
Vox’s breath jammed in his throat because he was relieved. Because the idea of Valentino crawling over him while Alastor sat in the corner had made him feel sick, seen, flayed open. Because he couldn’t stand the way Alastor watched everything and because Vox could not bear being wanted by one and wanting another in the same room. Alastor’s ear flicked, just slightly, visible from where it poked through the dark slick of hair against the pillow. Something inside Vox snapped.
Before he even realized he was moving, his hand was reaching out; electricity pooling in the palm, soft static whispering, not violent, not painful, but warm, like a promise held against the skin. His fingertips brushed Alastor’s ear. Just enough to feel the fur flick under the touch. Just enough to send a shiver through both of them. Alastor froze. Vox’s voice crawled out of him like molten glass, slow and trembling:
“Don’t ask me shit you already know the answer to.”
Midnight pressed down on them like a held breath.
Alastor didn’t pull away; which was, for him, the same as collapsing into Vox’s arms. He lifted his hand just an inch, resting it near the pillow, fingers curling into the sheets as if anchoring himself.
“You’re bold tonight,” he murmured, voice low enough to drag sparks down Vox’s spine.
“Bold?” Vox leaned closer, static humming softly as he let his thumb trail the edge of Alastor’s ear again. “Trust me, sweetheart, midnight hasn’t even seen bold yet.”
“You said not to call you darling and yet…” Alastor said, barely audible now because the quiver at the end wasn’t irritation. It was anticipation he couldn’t disguise quickly enough.
Vox smirked, breath brushing Alastor’s neck.
“Then stop playing hard to get.”
“I’m not—”
“Oh, really?” Vox’s fingers slid down, tracing the line where hair met skin. “Because you turned your back on me like you wanted to be hunted.”
That earned him a sharp inhale from the Radio Demon; soft but unmistakable. A sound Vox had never heard from him. Alastor’s voice dropped into something dangerous, breath darkening with every syllable:
“If you’re hunting me, Vox, then be very sure you understand what you’re chasing.”
“I do,” Vox whispered, leaning forward until his forehead brushed Alastor’s shoulder. “I’ve known for years.”
Alastor turned his head slightly; just enough for Vox to catch the faint shape of his smile in the dark. “Then we may both be doomed.”
“Oh, babe,” Vox murmured, static slipping across his fingers again as he stroked Alastor’s ear once more; slow, intentional, possessive. “We were doomed the second you put on those pajamas.”
Alastor let out a low, trembling laugh as he shifted beneath Vox’s touch; not away, but deeper, settling into the mattress with the slow, inevitable gravity of something dragged into orbit. He tilted his head just enough to let one eye meet Vox’s in the dim halo of screenlight. That grin appeared; slender, wicked, glinting like a blade catching moonlight.
“So tell me, Vox…” he whispered. “Should I call Valentino in? Have him sit in the corner while you… cling to me like this?”
Vox’s hand, the one still cupping the back of Alastor’s ear, tightened. Static snapped across his palm.
“Don’t you dare bring him into this,” Vox growled, every syllable vibrating against Alastor’s spine.
“Oh? Why not?” Alastor purred, voice velvet-dark. “He’s usually invited, isn’t he? You seemed so willing to share the stage tonight. Surely you wouldn’t mind an audience while you—”
“Shut up.” Vox pushed closer, chest pressing against Alastor’s back in a hot, electric line. “You think I want him anywhere near you like this?”
His hand slid from Alastor’s ear to the nape of his neck, palm resting there with shocking gentleness. A warning disguised as need.
“My, my,” Alastor murmured, attempting lightness but failing; the tremor in his voice betrayed him. “So possessive all of a sudden.”
“You drive me insane,” Vox hissed against his shoulder. “Worse than any fucking glitch.”
“Then fix yourself,” Alastor said, words trembling just enough to give him away.
“I’m trying.”
Vox’s fingers curled into the fabric at Alastor’s shoulder, tugging him closer; bodies locking together like two pieces from machines that should never have fit but somehow did, disastrously well. Vox pressed his screen against the back of Alastor’s neck. Alastor stiffened instinctively, but only for a heartbeat. Then some deeper, ancient instinct cracked open inside him, letting heat coil low and slow, winding like smoke.
“You’re quiet,” Vox murmured. “That’s not normal for you.”
“I’m contemplating something,” Alastor replied.
“Like what?”
Alastor swallowed. A faint flicker of static danced down his spine from Vox’s breath, making his shoulders twitch like a deer shivering off snow.
“Like whether you might be right,” he said slowly. “About what you said earlier.”
Vox blinked. “About… what?”
“That your performance put me in heat.”
Vox froze. His grip on Alastor’s neck tightened; not painfully, but with the shock of someone touching a truth they never expected the other to admit. Alastor felt it. Felt Vox tremble against him. Felt Vox’s breath stutter and something inside him flooded with warmth at Vox’s reaction.
Vox’s voice came out low, cracked, nearly pleading: “Say that again.”
Alastor closed his eyes, sinking back into Vox’s chest, letting himself feel the electric hum beneath the skin. It vibrated through him, rattling loose pieces he didn’t know he had.
“Don’t get greedy,” he whispered.
“I’m past greedy.” Vox’s hand slid up Alastor’s spine, slow, possessive, reverent. “You don’t get it. I’ve been losing my mind over you for hours.”
“Hours?” Alastor teased faintly. “Only that?”
“Try years.”
The air split open between them. Alastor’s breath caught. Years. The word lodged under his ribs like a hook. Vox pressed closer, until there wasn’t a centimeter of space left between their bodies. His arm wrapped around Alastor’s waist incandescent with a desperation he didn’t bother to hide anymore. Alastor felt the static seep into him like warmth from a fire. Felt that something inside him, low in his stomach, spark and coil again. He wouldn’t name it aloud yet, not fully, but the animal part of him recognized the truth.
The way Vox’s touch made him tense and melt in the same breath. The way being held, actually held, made something primal in him respond.
“Alastor…” Vox whispered against his neck.
The Radio Demon exhaled, slow and shaking despite himself.
“Vox,” he murmured, voice lower than he meant it to be. “If you keep touching me like this, I might stop pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
“That I don’t want you,” Alastor said.
Vox’s entire body shuddered before his hand slid from Alastor’s neck up to his jaw; fingers trembling, electricity whispering across the Radio Demon’s skin in threads of blue fire. He used just enough pressure to turn Alastor’s face toward him, slow and deliberate, as if unveiling something sacred.
Alastor let him. He let Vox guide his chin, let Vox tilt his head, let Vox drag his gaze into alignment with his own and once their eyes locked, neither of them could look away. Vox swallowed, throat clicking audibly in the quiet. Alastor watched the movement like a predator watches the ripple of prey beneath the grass.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Vox muttered.
“Like what?” Alastor asked, voice soft, amused, ruinous.
“Like you know what I’m thinking.”
“Oh, but I do,” Alastor purred.
Vox’s thumb brushed the corner of Alastor’s mouth, barely a touch, but enough to leave both of them trembling. Alastor leaned in just a fraction, enough to make Vox’s breath stutter, enough to make the air between them shrink to a thread pulled dangerously taut.
“Don’t,” Vox whispered.
The static around him built, humming like an overheating circuit, like something ready to spark into flame.
Alastor turned, fully this time, twisting his body beneath the blankets until he faced Vox completely, chest to chest, breath to breath. The shift dragged the soft fabric of the pajamas along his waist, exposing a sliver of his hipbone, a ghost of pale skin catching the blue light. Vox cursed under his breath.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” he growled.
“Oh, absolutely,” Alastor responded, pleasant and cruel.
“You’re such—”
“A delight? A menace?” Alastor arched a brow. “Your favorite bad idea?”
“You’re impossible,” Vox snapped.
“And you’re predictable,” Alastor countered sweetly.
“Predictably what?!”
“Desperate.”
The word detonated between them. Vox lunged forward half an inch; not kissing him, but close enough that the electric hum between their mouths felt like a live wire. Close enough that breath touched breath, mingling in the space they refused to close. His hand tightened around Alastor’s jaw, thumb stroking once, involuntarily, as if his body betrayed him.
“You don’t know a damn thing about me,” Vox said, voice low, sliding toward a growl.
“Don’t I?” Alastor replied, tilting his head into Vox’s hand with deliberate provocation. “Your grip, for example; so tight. As if you’re afraid I’ll get away.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Oh, Vox,” Alastor whispered, leaning closer still, his nose nearly brushing the screen. “You’re terrified.”
Vox’s breath shook. Static climbed his throat like a prayer he refused to say out loud. Their bickering crackled, sharp and hot, but their bodies moved in perfect contradiction; leaning in, closing distance, pulling at gravity as if both were tired of pretending they weren’t orbiting the same inevitable point. Vox opened his mouth to snap something back, something cutting, something to restore even a fragment of control but Alastor beat him to it. He raised one hand and he placed his palm flat against Vox’s chest. Right over where his racing, glitching heart should’ve been. Vox inhaled sharply; a ragged, broken sound.
The static burst out of him uncontrollably, lighting the darkness for a split second. His fingers, still holding Alastor’s jaw, trembled so violently he had to tighten his grip just to keep from pulling away in shock. Alastor’s smile softened; devastatingly intimate. “There it is,” he murmured.
“There what is?” Vox breathed, barely managing the words.
“Your surrender.”
Vox’s breath hitched again, chest rising under Alastor’s palm.
“I’m not—”
“You are,” Alastor whispered, leaning even closer. “And so am I.”
Vox’s eyes widened.
Alastor’s fingers flexed slightly against his chest; a slow, deliberate caress over the place Vox was weakest. The monitors behind them flickered, the lights in the room dimmed for a heartbeat, and Vox shuddered with so much intensity he nearly dropped his hold on Alastor’s chin.
Alastor tilted his head again; an unmistakable invitation disguised as a taunt.
“You see?” he murmured, voice warm and decadent. “No Valentino. No audience. Just you and me… and this.”
“Don’t,” Vox whispered again; but this time it was a plea. Alastor’s smile widened, slow and wicked, beautiful in its cruelty.
“Oh, Vox,” he breathed. “We passed don’t a long time ago.”
The space between their mouths thinned to nothing. The moment broke like a fever. Vox leaned in first—no, Alastor did; it was impossible to tell. One second there was only breath between them, the next the air detonated as their mouths collided in a kiss that was nothing short of catastrophic. It was a collision, a crash of teeth and heat and years of hatred sharpened into desire so violent it felt radioactive. Static burst under Alastor’s fingertips the instant their lips met. Vox jolted against him, not pulling away but surging forward, as if all the control he’d clung to had evaporated the moment he tasted him. His hand on Alastor’s jaw tightened, dragging him closer, claiming the kiss with the desperation of a demon who had waited far too long and refused to wait a second more.
Alastor inhaled sharply; Vox’s electricity swept into him, flooding every nerve ending, racing down his spine like a lightning strike. It made his bones hum. It made his knees weak. It made the world tilt. He felt alive in a way he hadn’t in decades and it enraged him.
He kissed back harder.
Vox made a noise: low, strangled, half snarl, half gasp; and Alastor swallowed it like a reward. Their mouths moved with the rhythm of two storms clashing, chaotic and inevitable. Vox’s static crawled across Alastor’s cheek, crackling through his hair; Alastor responded by gripping Vox’s shoulder, fingers digging in, pulling him closer with arrogant ease.
The kiss deepened. Their tongues tangled, a wet, intimate intertwining. Vox’s tongue, cool and electric, tasted faintly of ozone and something sweet. Alastor’s own tongue, usually so precise, so controlled, met it with a desperate hunger, a shocking, undeniable need. He moaned, a low, guttural sound that vibrated deep in his chest. His hands clenched and unclenched. The tension that had coiled for hours, months, years, finally snapped, unleashing something hungry and feral between them.
Vox broke away for a breath, just one, eyes blown wide, chest heaving against Alastor’s palm. He looked stunned in a way that bordered on obscene; Alastor had never seen him so undone.
Alastor’s grin unfurled slow and lethal.
“Well,” he drawled, voice rich and velvety, “that answers one question.”
Vox blinked, still reeling. “What— what question?!”
Alastor let his hand slide deliberately down Vox’s chest, feeling the shiver that ran through the TV Demon’s frame at the touch. He leaned in, brushing Vox’s lower lip with his thumb, savoring the residual static that jumped between them like wild sparks.
“Oh, Vox,” he murmured. “Your body reacted so loudly I’m amazed the entire tower didn’t hear it.”
Vox’s face flashed neon red; literally; the glow of his circuits flickered chaotically across his cheeks. He tried to jerk back, but Alastor caught his chin again, turning his head with a quiet, unshakable authority.
“Don’t run now,” Alastor teased softly. “You kissed me like you meant to break something.”
“I— shut up—”
“Ah-ah,” Alastor whispered, leaning close enough that their noses brushed. “You wanted this. You wanted me.”
Vox’s breath hitched; he trembled, just barely, but Alastor felt it.
“I hate you,” Vox muttered, but his voice was wrecked, trembling with desire, not disgust.
“Of course you do,” Alastor purred. “I hate you too.”
Then he leaned in again, slow this time, achingly slow, hovering over Vox’s lips, letting the anticipation burn them both alive.
“And it’s delicious.” Vox’s hand fisted in the front of Alastor’s pajama shirt.
And the second kiss… if the first had been a storm, this one was the eye of it. A surrender disguised as war, a war disguised as surrender. Alastor felt Vox’s reaction again; unmistakable, undeniable, embarrassingly human, and pulled back just far enough to laugh, low and intoxicating, right against Vox’s mouth.
“Oh, darling,” he whispered, amusement dripping like honey. “You’re ruined.”
And Vox, breathless and trembling, couldn’t deny it.
He barely had time to think before Alastor moved; slow, decadent, theatrical in the way only a creature who knew the effect of his own body could be. Their mouths were still tasting one another when Alastor slid back, lounging across the mattress like he’d been built for it, long limbs draped in insolence, one knee raised just enough to spotlight the curve of his thigh beneath the pajamas. His grin was wicked, his blush even more so. He knew exactly what he was doing and Vox, damn him, could only stare.
Static crawled across his screen-face, a harsh crack of interference, as if the sheer sight of Alastor stretched out in his bed corrupted every frequency he operated on. Alastor tipped his head, a picture of smug decadence, one hand lazily tracing the edge of his pants like he was deciding whether or not to unlace himself further.
“Well,” Alastor purred, voice soft and venomous, “are you going to stand there gawking, or do you plan to do something useful for once?”
Vox sucked in a sharp breath that turned to glitching static. “You—” He swallowed, almost visibly. “Get off my bed.”
Alastor arched his back ever so slightly, the motion sinful in its restraint. “Why? I’m rather comfortable.” His smirk sharpened. “Besides… I thought you liked seeing me here.”
Vox’s pupils widened into dark, electric wells. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The brat posed even harder; propping himself on his elbows, head tilted back, throat exposed in a long line of pale, glowing skin. His legs shifted apart with infuriating, intentional subtlety. Playful cruelty. Seductive mockery. Everything he was best at. Vox’s whole chassis shuddered. Alastor laughed delighted by the effect he had.
“Oh my,” he whispered, tasting the air like it was a private joke. “That reaction was certainly not from my kiss alone.” He pointed at Vox’s evident erection.
Vox snapped his gaze away for half a second, static bursting behind his eyes. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
The words were a purr and a dare, and Vox’s breath stuttered. Alastor stretched a little further, draping himself sideways on the mattress like a decadent painting, one leg bent high, the other extended in a line of dark silk and impossibility. His smile gleamed like a blade catching moonlight.
“Come now, Vox,” he teased, voice syrup-slow. “Surely you can handle a little… proximity?”
Vox moved forward before he realized he’d moved. Then again. Then he reached the space next to the other demon, staring down at Alastor like he wasn’t sure whether to devour him or throttle him.
Alastor tilted his head, lashes half-fluttered. “You look starstruck.”
“You look insufferable.”
“Mm. You love it.”
Their bickering danced between them like sparks trying to catch fire, playful and sharp, but underneath it was a pull; obsessive, magnetic, gathering heat with every breath. Vox climbed onto him, his hand catching the sheets beside Alastor’s hip as he leaned in. Alastor lifted a single finger and tapped Vox’s chest; right over the glowing circuitry beneath his shirt, right where Vox had sworn no one could ever touch without permission. Vox’s breath hitched. The deer demon’s grin bloomed slow, wicked, unbearably confident.
“There it is,” he hummed. “The moment you stop pretending you’re in control.”
Vox shuddered visibly; violently, and Alastor watched him with a look that was half-victory, half-hunger.
They collided again, mouths meeting in a kiss that felt less like lips touching and more like despair and ruins, all hatred sharpened into desire and desire sharpened into need. Their teeth scraped, their breaths tangled, their hands grabbed without thinking. It was messy, obsessive, impossibly precise in the way only two creatures who hated losing could be.
The kiss was rough, bruising, his teeth scraping against Vox’s, a metallic taste blooming in his mouth. Vox’s tongue explored every crevice, every curve, relentlessly. Alastor’s head swam, a dizzying rush of sensation, of anger, of a strange, terrifying pleasure. His body, against his will, responded, a low groan escaping him again as Vox’s tongue tangled with his own, a fierce, desperate dance.
Vox pulled back, a thin string of saliva connecting their mouths, his red eye blazing, a triumphant, savage gleam. Alastor’s lips were swollen, bruised, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He stared at Vox, a mixture of hatred and a bewildering, horrifying arousal swirling in his crimson eyes.
“Still think I’m a pathetic excuse for a demon, Alastor?” Vox’s voice was a low growl, his digital face inches from Alastor’s.
Vox pushed himself closer, pinning Alastor beneath him. Only for Alastor to laugh against his mouth, twist his hips, and roll them right back, straddling Vox in a fluid motion that made the TV Demon glitch. Alastor leaned forward, palms flat on either side of Vox’s head, hair falling like a curtain around them.
“You really should know better,” he murmured, drunk on the thrill of control. “I always win the first round.”
Vox stared up at him as though stunned, truly stunned, by the sight of Alastor perched on his waist, flushed and smirking and beautiful in a terrible, impossible way.
“Holy hell,” Vox whispered, voice broken by static. “How are you real?”
Alastor’s grin softened just enough to be dangerous. “Flattery? My, you must be falling apart.”
“Shut up.”
“I said make me,” Alastor repeated, leaning closer, letting his breath ghost over Vox’s mouth in a slow, taunting exhale.
Alastor’s chest heaved. He wanted to spit, to curse, to lash out, but his body was betraying him, every nerve ending screaming for more, for the release that only Vox, the architect of his torment, could provide. His lower body throbbed, a relentless ache that demanded attention.
The Radio Demon shifted with the same languid arrogance he used for everything designed to torment Vox; lifting his hips just enough to slide forward and settle directly atop the TV Demon’s crotch. The motion forced a rough, involuntary sound out of Vox, something half-static, half-groan, and fully humiliating.
Alastor basked in it like a cat in sunlight. He perched there with perfect balance, thighs framing Vox’s hips, back arched in a show of deliberate superiority. His smile was all sharpened sugar and slow cruelty.
Vox’s screen flickered with a triumphant grin too as he pressed harder, his non-existent tongue, or perhaps a simulated one, tracing the seam of Alastor’s lips. The cool, smooth surface of his screen contrasted sharply with the warmth that was beginning to radiate from Alastor’s mouth. He could feel the tension in Alastor’s body, a taut string ready to snap, and he reveled in it. He wanted to push Alastor to his breaking point, to see the pristine facade crumble. Alastor arched his back, a desperate, involuntary movement, his head falling back, exposing his throat, his pulse throbbing wildly.
“Such a pretty sound, Alastor,” Vox murmured against his skin, his voice a low, seductive hum. “Tell me, does it feel good?” He bit gently at Alastor’s ear, sending another jolt through his already hypersensitive body. Alastor moaned, a low, desperate sound, his hips bucking, a silent plea for more
Vox’s hand moved lower, pulling down Alastor’s pants, then sliding inside, his fingers brushing against Alastor’s straining erection. Alastor cried out, a sharp, involuntary sound, his body arching, his hips pushing forward, seeking the contact. The pressure, the cool touch against his burning skin, was an exquisite torment.
“Oh, you’re so hard, Alastor,” Vox purred, his voice thick with satisfaction. He wrapped his fingers around Alastor’s cock, his thumb brushing over the sensitive tip. Alastor hissed, his breath catching in his throat, his eyes rolling back in his head. The sensation was overwhelming, a pure, unadulterated pleasure that obliterated all thought, all resistance.
Static cracked through the room like lightning struck the walls. Vox grabbed without thinking, his free hand latching onto Alastor’s right deer ear, tugging hard. Alastor gasped; sharp, breathless, an involuntary tremor rippling through him as though the pull yanked loose a nerve he’d kept tightly guarded. His claws curled against Vox’s chest for one stunned heartbeat.
Then he laughed.
“My, my,” he purred through that trembling exhale, “someone’s getting bold.”
Alastor’s hands found themselves gripping the fabric of Vox’s shirt, holding on, as if for dear life. A low moan, barely audible, escaped Alastor’s throat as Vox’s tongue, or whatever passed for it, slipped past his lips again, a shocking invasion. The taste was still electric, but now there was a hint of something else, something sweet and cloying, like burnt sugar. Alastor’s mind reeled. This was wrong. This was utterly, completely wrong. Yet, his body, betrayed by his own rebellious urges, leaned into the kiss, a soft give that Vox immediately capitalized on.
Vox’s tongue explored Alastor’s mouth with a ruthless thoroughness, tracing the line of his teeth, swirling around his own tongue, which, much to Alastor’s humiliation, had begun to respond. A soft, wet sound, a schlick of their mouths meeting, echoed in the otherwise silent room. Vox’s hands tightened now on Alastor’s hips, pulling him even closer, so close that Alastor could feel the distinct, rigid outline of Vox’s cock pressing against his own pelvis, a thick, unyielding presence that sent a jolt of something akin to fear, and something undeniably like excitement.
“You’re adorable when you think you have leverage.” Alastor leaned down, letting Vox think, for a fraction of a second, that he had control. His lips hovered just above Vox’s face, close enough for the demon beneath him to feel the vibration of every syllable. “But we both know who’s winning, darling.”
Vox’s breath stuttered, and the grip on Alastor’s hips faltered for only a blink but it was enough. Alastor slid one hand up Vox’s throat, palm gliding along the glowing circuitry beneath the skin. His touch was deceptively gentle, fingertips tracing slow circles at the hinge of Vox’s jaw, like he was petting a dangerous animal into submission or studying the best place to bite.
Vox's voice dropped an octave; static-rough, unsteady. “What… what are you doing?”
Alastor tilted his head, smile widening. “You pull,” he murmured, thumb brushing Vox’s pulse-point with impossible delicacy. “I soothe.”
He leaned closer, breathing in the faint metallic tang of Vox’s synthetic skin like it was perfume crafted for him alone. His hand slid slightly down the column of Vox’s throat, the caress lingering, lazy, predatory. “Though,” he whispered, lowering his lips to Vox’s ear, “I suppose soothe isn’t the word you should be worried about.”
Before Vox could snap back, before he could even summon another insult, Alastor struck with teeth. He lunged forward, mouth closing around Vox’s neck just above the circuitry, biting down with a slow, calculated pressure meant to bruise and claim and thrill all at once. Vox’s breath shattered into a glitching gasp, back arching right beneath Alastor’s weight. His hands slipped to Alastor’s thighs, fingers sparking uselessly against the silk as static pulsed out of him in a helpless wave.
Alastor hummed against his skin, a pleased, wicked sound, before dragging his lips up the line of the bite, savoring the way Vox trembled under him.
“Oh, Vox…” he murmured against his throat, voice dripping with smug seduction. “Losing patience already? How unfortunate.” He licked the edge of the bruise, slow and taunting. “Because I’m just getting started.”
Alastor didn’t give him time to recover, not from the bite, not from the tremor that rattled through Vox’s frame like an overloaded circuit, not from the static still fizzing against the pillows. He lifted his head only long enough to admire the chaos he’d made; Vox’s pupils blown wide, his glow flickering, his chest rising too fast beneath someone else’s weight. Then he kissed him again.
It was an onslaught. Vox pushed Alastor’s pants away and increased the pace of his strokes, his fingers working Alastor’s cock with a practiced ease, drawing forth gasps and whimpers from the Radio Demon. Alastor’s entire body trembled, his legs twitching. The friction, the warmth, the relentless pressure, built to an unbearable crescendo.
Alastor tightened his thighs around Vox’s clothed dick, locking him in place with an ease that bordered on obscene, sinking his weight lower as if daring Vox to push back. The pressure made Vox choke out a glitching gasp, something half-moan, half-snarled protest. His screens stuttered with bursts of white noise, pixels scattering across his own vision like snow.
And above him, Gods, above him, Alastor looked like ruin carved into the shape of a man.
His cheeks were flushed a warm, impossible pink; his hair had fallen from its perfect wave and now curled in messy strands over his forehead; Vox’s old black pajamas hung off one shoulder, exposing the long line of his collarbone like an invitation written in sin. His lips were redder than Vox remembered lips could be, bitten from their earlier kiss; the Radio Demon’s smile splitting through them with unbearable, wicked satisfaction. He looked like every vice Vox had ever sworn he didn’t have.
Vox’s chest heaved, the sound of his breath clashing with the buzz in his throat. Alastor pulled back to undress him and to watch him unravel; eyes half-lidded, pupils thinning to crimson slits as he drank in the sight of Vox’s trembling composure.
“My, my,” Alastor murmured, voice velvet-wrapped mockery, “you glitch so prettily.”
Vox grabbed him again without thinking, fingers digging into Alastor’s hips, hauling him closer as if trying to anchor himself before he completely dissolved. Alastor’s laughter spilled over his lips, breath ghosting against Vox’s mouth, teasing him with the closeness, denying him the kiss he was too proud to beg for.
“You’re…” Vox tried, voice cracking into static, “you’re doing that—on purpose—”
“Oh?” Alastor tilted his head, messy hair brushing Vox’s cheek. “This?”
He rolled his hips forward, their dicks touching and it sent a shock through Vox so violent his screens warped. Enough to make his hands clutch Alastor’s thighs with something dangerously close to desperation. Enough to make a strangled, broken sound tear from his throat before he could swallow it. Alastor’s smile sharpened, pleased and cruel and unbearably beautiful.
“You look like you’re drowning,” he whispered, leaning in until their noses brushed. “Tell me, darling… does it feel like sinking into poison?”
Vox’s breath trembled. “Y-you—”
Alastor kissed him again, cutting off the sentence, swallowing the rest of his pride. This kiss was different. Messier. Fiercer. Desperate in a way both of them would deny until their last breaths. Vox felt it everywhere, his static losing rhythm, his vision going bright and white around the edges, the room shrinking down to nothing but the weight above him and the taste of Alastor’s mouth.
Alastor kissed like he wanted to ruin him. Vox kissed back like he wanted to be ruined.
When they finally tore apart, Alastor’s lips glistened, his chest rising and falling in a pattern he pretended was entirely controlled. Vox stared, unable to stop, unable to blink, unable to reboot the part of his brain that had just shorted out. Alastor looked down at him, pajamas slipping even lower, exposing the curve of his shoulder and a hint of the cut Adam had carved across his chest. His hair fell wild against his cheek, shadows softening the dangerous beauty of his face.
He was breathtaking.
Vox’s hands moved from Alastor’s hips, sliding down to his ass, cupping the firm, rounded cheeks. He squeezed, a slow, deliberate pressure that made Alastor gasp, a sharp intake of breath.
“Such a delectable ass,” Vox purred, his voice a low rumble. “Just begging to be filled.” He began to knead the flesh, his fingers digging in, exploring the contours of Alastor’s backside.
Alastor smirked, leaning just close enough to ghost his lips over Vox’s jaw Vox quickly pushed his pants low enough to free his erection and Alastor’s eyes widened as he saw Vox’s cock, thick and veined, already hard and glistening with pre-cum. It was even bigger than Alastor had anticipated, a formidable weapon.
Vox reached next to him, pulling out a small, metallic tube from the bedside table. He squeezed it, and a dollop of clear, shimmering lube appeared on his fingers. He then turned back to Alastor, his screen displaying a knowing smirk.
“Ready for me, darling?”
Alastor swallowed hard, his throat dry. He nodded, a barely perceptible movement of his head. He was beyond humiliation now, beyond pride. All that mattered was the desperate, aching need that consumed him.
Vox caressed Alastor’s entrance, his fingers already coated in the slick lubricant. His touch cool and clinical as he applied the lube to Alastor’s tight asshole, spreading it generously. Alastor gasped, a sharp intake of breath, as the cool, wet sensation spread across his sensitive flesh. He felt a strange combination of fear and anticipation, his body clenching in preparation.
Vox’s fingers then probed gently, testing the entrance, slowly easing one digit inside. Alastor cried out, a sharp, surprised sound, his body tensing instantly.
“Easy, easy,” Vox murmured, his voice surprisingly gentle, though his screen still displayed a predatory grin. He pressed deeper, slowly, deliberately, his finger stretching Alastor’s tight sphincter.
Vox tightened his grip on Alastor’s ass before pushing two fingers inside, pulling him even closer, until their bodies were pressed together from chest to thigh. Alastor could feel the heat radiating from Vox’s body, the hard, unyielding form of his cock pressing insistently against his own. A low groan escaped Alastor’s lips, a sound of pure, unadulterated frustration mixed with burgeoning desire.
“There it is,” Vox murmured, his voice a low, seductive rumble. “That beautiful sound. I knew you had it in you.”
He began to grind his hips against Alastor’s, a slow, rhythmic movement that sent waves of pleasure and agony through Alastor’s body. The friction against his engorged cock was almost unbearable, a delicious torment.
Alastor’s head fell back, his neck arching, his eyes squeezed shut. He felt a scream building in his throat, a primal cry that threatened to tear free. He hated this, he hated himself for responding, but he couldn’t stop it. The sensations were too overwhelming, too intoxicating. He felt himself teetering on the edge of something immense, something terrifying and exhilarating
Alastor’s laugh rolled over him in a low, decadent hum. Vox glitched beneath him again, wanting more, needing more, losing himself piece by piece as Alastor’s thighs tightened around him like a promise he couldn’t survive but also couldn’t refuse.
“You’re so hot for me, Alastor,” Vox breathed, his voice a low, seductive hum. “So desperate.” He continued to grind against Alastor’s weak spot, his hips moving with a relentless rhythm against his, the friction between their erections building, building.
Alastor’s breath came in ragged gasps, his body trembling uncontrollably. He could feel the pressure building in his groin, a tight, exquisite ache that demanded release. His hands, which had been gripping Vox’s chest, now clawed at the wall behind him, leaving faint scratch marks on the polished surface. He was losing control, rapidly, irrevocably. The thought terrified him, but also, in a dark, twisted way, excited him.
Vox added a third finger, slowly working them in, stretching Alastor’s ass wider and wider. Alastor moaned, a low, guttural sound, his hips instinctively thrusting back against Vox’s hand, a desperate plea for more, for something to fill the aching void. The sounds of his body, the wet squelching of Vox’s fingers sliding in and out, filled the room.
“That’s it,” Vox whispered, his voice a low thrum against Alastor’s ear. “Open for me. Let me in.” He continued to work his fingers, stretching, preparing Alastor’s ass for his cock. He could feel Alastor’s internal muscles clenching and relaxing around his fingers, a promising sign of readiness.
Finally, with a soft pop, Vox pulled his fingers out, leaving Alastor’s asshole slick and gaping. Alastor whimpered, a soft, needy sound, his body trembling with anticipation. He felt ready, desperately ready. Vox positioned his hard cock against Alastor’s wet, open asshole. Alastor could feel the heat radiating from Vox’s cock, the thick, unyielding shaft pressing against him, promising both exquisite pain and unimaginable pleasure.
“Here we go,” Vox murmured, and with a slow, deliberate push, he began to enter Alastor.
Alastor cried out, a sharp, piercing sound, as the tip of Vox’s cock breached his opening. The pain was intense, a searing burn that made his eyes water, but it was quickly overshadowed by a profound sense of fullness, of being stretched to his absolute limit. He gasped for air, his body arching, his hands gripping the sheets beneath him.
Vox pushed deeper, inch by agonizing inch, his cock slowly, relentlessly, filling Alastor’s ass. Alastor’s muscles clenched around him, tight and resistant, but Vox was unyielding, his determination absolute. He felt the thick middle of Vox’s cock push past his sphincter, a sudden, intense pressure that made him cry out again, a raw, animalistic sound.
“So tight,” Vox grunted, his voice strained with effort and pleasure. “So incredibly tight.” He paused, allowing Alastor’s body to adjust, to stretch around his invading cock. Alastor whimpered, his body trembling, tears streaming down his face, a mixture of pain and desperate arousal.
Then, with a final, powerful thrust, Vox buried himself completely inside Alastor.
Vox’s grin widened as Alastor stared down at him with lust, hatred and fury. “There we go,” he purred, his voice thick with satisfaction. He reached down, his fingers brushing against Alastor’s throbbing cock.
Alastor moaned, a long, drawn-out wail that echoed through the room. His body convulsed, every muscle clenching, his ass clenching around Vox’s thick cock with an almost painful intensity. He felt completely impaled, utterly filled, the sensation overwhelming, consuming. He could feel the base of Vox’s cock pressing against his perineum, the heavy weight of Vox’s balls slapping against his ass cheeks.
Vox let out a deep groan, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure. He rested his head against the pillow, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Oh, Alastor,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “You feel incredible. So fucking good.”
Alastor’s breath came in short, ragged gasps. He was still trembling, his body spent, but a strange, unfamiliar pleasure was beginning to bloom in his core, slowly overshadowing the initial pain. He could feel the warmth of Vox’s cock inside him, the subtle throbbing, the way it filled him completely.
Vox began to move, slowly at first, a gentle rocking motion that sent ripples of sensation through Alastor’s body. Alastor groaned, a soft, needy sound, his hips instinctively tilting, inviting deeper thrusts. The rhythm increased, becoming more insistent, more demanding. The wet, schlicking sounds of their bodies meeting, the soft thwack of Vox’s balls against Alastor’s ass, filled the room.
Alastor was crying out now, no longer in pain, but in pure, unadulterated pleasure. He felt himself rising, soaring, his body a vessel for Vox’s relentless thrusts. He could feel his own cock, still engorged, pressing against his stomach and squeezed by Vox’s fingers, slick with pre-cum, aching for release.
Vox’s thrusts grew harder, faster, more desperate. He gripped Alastor’s hips, pulling him back against his own body, driving into him with a primal intensity. Alastor’s back arched, his head thrown back, his eyes squeezed shut, a low, continuous moan escaping his lips. He was completely lost in the sensations, swept away by the raw, animalistic pleasure.
Vox roared, a guttural sound of pure ecstasy. He pounded into Alastor, his hips slamming against Alastor’s ass with a relentless force. Alastor felt his orgasm building, a tidal wave of sensation, his body clenching and unclenching around Vox’s cock. He felt himself nearing the edge, the point of no return.
“Vox—” Alastor shrieked, his voice cracking with the intensity of his pleasure.
“Cum for me,” Vox roared back, his voice thick with desire. He pounded into Alastor one last time, a deep, powerful thrust that sent Alastor over the edge.
Alastor screamed, a long, drawn-out cry that was swallowed by the opulent room. His body convulsed violently, his own cock spurting thick, hot cum onto his stomach and the demon beneath him. He felt himself shatter, his senses exploding in a kaleidoscope of pleasure. He collapsed forward, his body spent, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Vox groaned, a deep, guttural sound, as he felt Alastor’s ass clench around his cock, milking him dry. He thrust a few more times, a final, desperate push, and then, with a shuddering groan, he too came, filling Alastor’s ass with his hot, thick cum. He collapsed against the bed, his body heavy, his breath ragged.
Alastor’s smile quivered with hate. Vox was supposed to be underneath him, pinned, helpless, glitching like a broken broadcast. That was how this was meant to go. That was how Alastor had planned it. But somewhere between the frantic kiss and the static burning the air, Vox’s hands found purchase. Real purchase.
A grip on Alastor’s waist; firm, startlingly sure and then, the world flipped.
Alastor hissed as he was shoved onto his back, the mattress dipping, Vox braced above him like a storm given flesh and neon circuitry. Alastor’s hair fanned out across the pillow, messy and luminous in the screenlight. For once, his smile faltered; not gone, but trembling at the edges, like he couldn’t decide if he should snarl or laugh.
Vox leaned over him, static whispering against Alastor’s throat, his chest, the hollow beneath his jaw.
“Oh,” Vox breathed, voice rough silk over electricity, “you didn’t see that coming, did you?”
Alastor’s grin reappeared; wider, sharper, dangerously delighted. He did not answer. He only gave a soft, maddening hum.
Vox drank in the sight: flushed cheeks, pupils bright crimson, chest rising far too fast to be dignified, cum all over his spent cock. And those pajamas, those damn, traitorous pajamas, still fallen off one shoulder, exposing the sharp line of his collarbone, the faint shimmer of the cut Adam left on him.
Alastor looked ruined.
Vox slowly pulled out of Alastor, a soft, wet sound accompanying the separation. Alastor whimpered, a soft, needy sound, feeling the sudden emptiness, the loss of that intense fullness. Vox then displayed a soft, almost tender expression. He reached out, his hand brushing a stray strand of hair from Alastor’s forehead, his touch surprisingly gentle.
Alastor looked up at him, his eyes still hazy with the afterglow of his orgasm, a mix of defiance and exhaustion in their depths.
“Well?” Vox murmured, his voice softer now, devoid of its usual taunting edge. “Was it everything you hoped for?”
Alastor glared at him, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks. “Well…” he spat, mocking, his voice still hoarse, but with a hint of his usual venom. “It was… adequate.” He tried to sound dismissive, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him.
Vox chuckled, a low, amused sound. “Adequate, he says.” He leaned down, his screen brushing against Alastor’s forehead, a soft, lingering touch. “Your body tells a different story, Alastor.” He then moved his hand, tracing the line of Alastor’s jaw, his fingers lingering on Alastor’s lips, which were still slightly swollen from their kiss.
Alastor averted his gaze, a fresh wave of humiliation washing over him. He couldn’t deny it. The memory of his own desperate cries, his raw pleas, was still too vivid, too recent. He felt utterly exposed, his pride shattered.
Alastor tried to keep control; tried to hold onto the smugness in his smile, the smooth cadence of his breath, the deceit of composure. But Vox felt the way Alastor’s fingers curled into the sheets, the way his back arched a little too sharply, the way a shudder ran through him like a snapped violin string. The tension built and built until it crackled through their bodies like an electric storm, not obscene but overwhelming; two forces colliding, folding into each other, unraveling in a shared, breathless crest of sensation that left the air thrumming.
Alastor’s breath hitched; audible, shivering. His grin grew crooked at the edges, the kind of grin that only appeared in the rarest, most dangerous moments, when something actually managed to disrupt him. His eyes opened slowly. Vox watched the realization dawn. Alastor had let himself feel something. The Radio Demon’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, pretending it was nothing, pretending he was unaffected, pretending the trembling in his breath was amusement and not something far more damning.
Vox smirked.
“Ohhh…” he purred, lowering himself just enough to speak directly into Alastor’s ear, “that got you.”
Alastor's grin twitched; fighting to hold its shape.
“How adorable,” Vox murmured, brushing Alastor’s hair off his forehead with a taunting gentleness. “The mighty Radio Demon… unraveling.”
Alastor’s voice, when it finally came, was a low, strained hum; beautiful, dangerous, shaken.
“My dear Vox,” he whispered, “if this is your idea of victory… you are gravely underestimating me.”
Vox laughed breathy, wicked, trembling with triumph.
“Sure,” he said, leaning close enough for their noses to touch, “keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
His thumb dragged gently across Alastor’s flushed cheek.
“Because that?” Vox whispered. “That was just the beginning.”
Vox didn’t give Alastor a second to recover. Didn’t allow him even a flicker of composure. Didn’t allow the grin to fully settle back into place. He pushed his dick forward; slow at first, deliberate, as if savoring the way Alastor’s breath stuttered beneath him as he entered him one more time. Then harder. Closer. Bodies aligned so tightly it felt like pressure and heat and danger were now the same thing. Alastor exhaled sharply; a sound between a hiss and a laugh as Vox’s weight pressed him into the mattress, as the television demon caged him with both arms like he was the only signal Vox could tune into.
“Well,” Alastor murmured, voice trembling beneath mocking velvet, “aren’t we enthusiastic?”
Vox smirked, leaning down until their foreheads brushed, electricity humming between their skin like a living thing.
“Don’t start,” he growled, the static in his voice resonating through Alastor’s ribs. “You’re the one who climbed into my bed.”
“You invited me,” Alastor countered, tilting his chin defiantly.
“You could’ve said no.”
“Now why,” Alastor purred, lips brushing close without touching, “would I ever do that?”
The mattress springs groaned a protest under Vox’s shift. He surged upward, a triumphant smirk stretching across his pixelated face as he straddled Alastor’s hips. The air in Vox’s private chambers, usually crisp with the hum of electronics, now hung thick with the cloying scent of sweat and something else, something sharp and metallic that clung to the back of Vox’s throat.
“So… round two, darling?” Vox’s voice, a low rumble, vibrated through Alastor’s chest. He leaned down, his screen flickering with a playful static, the blue light casting dancing shadows on Alastor’s skin.
Alastor’s eyes, usually gleaming with malicious amusement, narrowed. “Don’t flatter yourself, old pal. I doubt you can keep it up for one more.” His voice, usually a smooth baritone, held a ragged edge, a tremor that betrayed his carefully constructed composure. His ears, usually stiff and proud, dipped slightly, a tell-tale sign of his emotional state.
“Doubt, you say?”
Vox chuckled, the sound distorted, a low growl of satisfaction. He shifted his weight, his balls, heavy and full, pressing against Alastor’s inner thigh. A shiver ran through Alastor’s lean frame. He seized Alastor’s wrists, pinning them above his head with one hand. His grip was firm, unyielding. He lowered his head, his lips brushing against Alastor’s ear.
“Don’t deny it, deer. You want it too.”
A growl, low and guttural, escaped Alastor’s throat. “I would rather be torn limb from limb than admit that…” His hips arching involuntarily, a desperate attempt to create movement, but only succeeding in grinding their bodies together. His dick, still semi-hard, throbbed against Vox’s stomach.
Vox’s screen brightened, a wicked smile splitting his pixelated face. “Such passion, such fire. It truly is a shame you waste it on denial.” He leaned back slightly, his eyes tracing the curve of Alastor’s jaw, the pulse fluttering at his throat. “But I suppose that’s part of your charm, isn’t it? Always the brat.”
He let go of Alastor’s wrists, his hand sliding down to cup the Radio Demon’s jaw. His thumb stroked Alastor’s cheek, feeling the heat emanating from his skin.
“You’re practically melting beneath me, Al. All that hatred… it’s a thin veil, isn’t it?”
Vox chuckled again, a deep, resonant sound that vibrated through Alastor’s bones. He began to move his hips, slowly at first, a gentle grind that sent a jolt through Alastor’s system. His cock, still wet from their previous encounter, nestled now against Alastor’s entrance.
“Like that?” Vox murmured, his voice laced with amusement. “Or perhaps… you need one more to figure it out.” He pressed down, just a fraction, the head of his cock nudging against Alastor’s hole. Alastor gasped, a sharp intake of breath.
Vox pressed their bodies even closer before starting a slow pace, the sensation made Alastor gasp softly at the sudden heat coiling in his groin again. Their bickering overlapped with feverish closeness, every thrust tangled with the press of Vox’s chest against Alastor’s, every insult softened by the electricity prickling along their skin.
“Oh… look at you,” Alastor taunted breathlessly, “acting like you’re in control—”
Vox cut him off by fucking him harder, intense enough to draw another involuntary sound from Alastor’s throat. Alastor’s hands slid up Vox’s arms, gripping him, pulling him closer despite himself. His smile flickered, unsteady. He turned his face to the side, his hair covering his gestures. Vox saw it.
“Ohhh, no,” Vox breathed, delighted, manic, leaning closer until their noses brushed. “Don’t you dare try to hide that.”
Alastor snarled in response but the sound lacked its usual bite. It was rougher. Too close to a plea.
“That little gasp you made,” Vox continued, voice glitching with dangerous glee, “you think I didn’t hear it?”
Alastor turned his head away in denial but Vox followed, lips tracing the curve of his jaw without touching it fully, like a threat disguised as a caress.
“Try not to melt on me, Vox,” Alastor whispered, his voice thin with strain. “You’re giving yourself away.”
“Melt?” Vox pressed in until their breaths tangled. “Please. You’re the one trembling like you want me to ruin you.”
Alastor’s fingers tightened on his arms. Hard. As if to ground himself. As if to keep from shaking apart.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Alastor rasped.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Vox murmured, his smile feral, “I don’t need to. You’re doing that for me.”
Alastor’s breath caught.
The mattress creaked under them, their bodies locked so tightly that air itself struggled to fit between them. Every breath mingled. Every shift sent a jolt through both of them. Alastor’s grin returned; tilted, glass-edged, unsteady with every thrust that hit his sweet spot. Vox leaned closer, lips nearly grazing Alastor’s; close enough that the Radio Demon’s pupils split into sharper, hungrier slits.
“You’re so tight, fuck…” Vox whispered.
Their voices came out like matching weapons, low, trembling, poisoned with desire and hatred and something far more dangerous.
“You can’t hold it any longer, can you?” Alastor breathed.
“Neither can you,” Vox growled.
Their mouths hovered, a trembling heartbeat apart, every nerve in their bodies singing with the inevitability of collision. And then, Alastor tilted his head, smile wicked and dazed.
“Ruin me,” he whispered.
Vox’s entire body glitched and he did. Pressing closer, harder, deeper into a spiral neither of them had any hope of escaping, their words still sharp, still venomous, but their bodies betraying everything they refused to say aloud: they had fallen past the point of return and both of them knew it. Vox had him, sure, but Alastor wasn’t about to act like it.
Vox lifted him and then he hit the bed hard, the impact rattling through his ribs, cheek scraping against silk. Vox slammed into place over him a second later, all weight and victory and smugness. His knee pressed between Alastor’s thighs, pinning him down and spreading them as he yanked both of Alastor’s wrists behind his back. Pain flared and Alastor only laughed.
Vox growled, fucking him harder as he stared at the demon under him on all fours. He’d meant to hold Alastor down, remind him who won, grind that victory along with the smugness he wore like a second skin. But the moment he had the demon pinned, ass up and wrists crushed together behind his back, Alastor’s body stretched out beneath him in a long, tense line that stole every coherent thought from Vox’s head.
Gods, he looked good like this.
The rough switch of positions had pushed his pajamas just enough to reveal glimpses of pale skin beneath the fabric: the hard curve of his shoulder blade, the subtle shift of muscle along his spine, the way his ribs expanded with each irritated, bratty breath. Even pinned, even forced face down against the mattress, he held himself with a kind of coiled elegance; like a creature built for grace even in defeat. Vox’s grip faltered for half a second as he drank it in.
Alastor noticed, once again, as he always did.
“Oho,” he hummed, cheek pressed to the pillow, lips curling sideways into a wicked little smile. “Admiring the view?”
Vox tightened his hold again, not out of control, but because he needed the anchor. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he muttered, voice low, rougher than he meant it to be but it was a lie because Vox couldn’t look away. The line of Alastor’s throat was exposed, long and elegant. His hair was a mess, dark red strands falling across his face, sticking to the faint sheen of sweat from their night. His body shifted beneath Vox’s hold, restrained but not subdued, every motion a slow, taunting roll of muscle that made Vox’s breath catch in his throat.
He was beautiful.
Vox leaned closer without realizing he’d moved, shadow falling across Alastor’s back, eyes drinking in every small movement; every twitch of irritation, every faint shiver of exertion, every deliberate, teasing arch of his spine.
“You really can’t help yourself, can you?” Alastor purred, voice soft and venomous. “I asked you to fuck me and ruin me, and suddenly you’re staring like you’ve forgotten how to breathe.”
Vox swallowed hard. His hands tightened on Alastor’s wrists.
“Don’t tempt me,” he said, and it came out almost like a confession.
“Mm, demanding now? How charming.” Alastor tilted his head just enough to flash a grin, hair half in his face, one fang scraping the bedsheet.
Vox’s grip on his wrists tightened, a pulse of irritation shooting through his hands. “You’re mine now. Try acting like it.”
“Oh, but where’s the fun in that?” Alastor purred, wriggling just enough to be annoying, not enough to actually escape. “If anything, you pinning me like this is the most excitement you’ve shown all week.”
“Keep running your mouth,” Vox warned, leaning down until his breath grazed Alastor’s ear, “and I’ll make this a whole lot rougher.”
“Oh, promise?” Alastor laughed again, breathy, defiant, utterly infuriating. Even face-down on the bed, with his arms twisted behind him, he radiated confidence like he’d somehow won a different game entirely. “By all means, Vox. Show me what winning looks like.”
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “You’re pinned, you’re beaten—”
“And I’m still in your head,” Alastor cut in sweetly. “How tragic for you.”
Vox did not relinquish control.
He began a quick, demolishing pace that had Alastor moaning against the pillow after a few thrusts. He kept it and refused to settle down. Not when Alastor clawed at the sheets, not when their bodies tangled in a rhythm that felt doomed and divine, not when the world blurred into static and scarlet and breathless sound. He held Alastor down with both hands splayed over his hips now, fingers digging in as if the Radio Demon might evaporate if not anchored. Alastor writhed beneath him and Vox had never been more alive.
Their momentum surged again, a rising tide neither could stop even if they wanted to. It built and built until sensation turned sharp, then bright, then unbearable; the kind of overwhelming collision that felt like drowning in a storm made of want and hate and something terrifyingly close to worship.
Alastor’s breath cracked like a faulty transmission. Vox’s static pulsed like a heartbeat trying to break free of his chest and when the second rush hit, when the tension snapped, when their bodies arched together as if pulled by the same brutal wire, it felt like a tidal wave swallowing them whole. Alastor gasped loud, involuntary, ruined; eyes wide and glassy as if Vox had carved something open inside him that had never been touched before. The Radio Demon went utterly still. Then he laughed like the world was tilting and he was too proud to admit it.
“Oh, dear…” Alastor murmured, chest rising too quickly, his smile crooked and shimmering at the edges, “you are… persistent tonight.”
Vox collapsed beside him, breathing hard, screens dimming and brightening in uneven pulses. He didn’t touch Alastor now; not because he didn’t want to, but because he needed the world to stop spinning for at least five seconds. Alastor turned his head toward the ceiling toward the cameras. He smirked.
“My, my,” he purred, voice still shaking, “I do hope Valentino is enjoying the show.”
Vox’s static spiked so hard the lights flickered.
“Shut up,” he snarled, bolting upright, “Val isn’t—he wouldn’t—he’s not—”
“Oh, but he would,” Alastor sing-songed, stretching in a slow, lazy arc against the pillows, still breathless but delighting in the chaos. “You two never could resist an audience, could you?”
Vox grabbed a pillow and threw it; Alastor dodged instantly, laughing.
“Stop acting like you’re not loving this,” Vox growled, pointing up at the camera with a furious jab. “He’s not watching.”
“Oh?” Alastor lifted a brow. “How comforting. So he’ll simply save the recording for later.”
Vox glitched. “Alastor…”
“Don’t pout, darling,” Alastor cooed, patting Vox’s cheek with infuriating gentleness. “I’m sure he’ll be very impressed with your performance. Much better than your usual two-minute routine.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“You’ve been trying,” Alastor hummed, “and yet…” He picked up the rest of his seed that remained around his abdomen lightly. Vox’s eyes followed the motion “…here I am,” Alastor finished, smile a razor dipped in honey as he sucked his fingers.
Vox growled, lunging across the bed again, grabbing the Radio Demon by the front of his fallen pajama top. “Don’t test me.”
“I do nothing but,” Alastor whispered.
Their faces hovered close, electricity buzzing against breath, hatred braided with desire, their chests still heaving from the last, dizzying crescendo. A new tension coiled beneath the sheets, impossible to ignore. Alastor tilted his head, eyes gleaming like polished blood.
“Tell me, Vox,” he purred, “are you tired already?”
Vox’s screens flickered violently. He rolled back over Alastor in one sharp, frustrated motion, a blur of static and neon heat, and his hands found the demon’s shoulders with a grip that was far too eager to pretend it meant restraint.
“Turn off the commentary for five minutes,” Vox growled, half-plea, half-threat.
Alastor, of course, did the opposite. He let his body go pliant beneath the sudden shift of weight, sinking into the mattress with deceptive submission, his grin cutting bright and sharp across his flushed face. His pajamas had slipped almost scandalously off one shoulder, and the sight alone made Vox’s core short-circuit. Then Vox pushed him with purpose, forcing Alastor’s face into the pillow again. A desperate attempt to muffle him. Alastor simply turned his head to the side, cheek pressing into the silk, smile widening like a slash of red. His voice poured out in a velvet purr, unbothered, intoxicating.
“Oh? Resorting to silencing tactics already, darling?” His laughter was light, airy, cruel. “You’re getting awfully predictable.”
Vox’s breath hitched. Static crackled along his fingers.
“Predictable?” he snapped, leaning down until his mouth hovered dangerously close to Alastor’s ear. “You’re the one shaking every time I—”
Alastor cut him off with a low hum, thighs shifting beneath Vox’s hips, he lifted one leg and put it on Vox’s shoulder, his body arching just enough to communicate exactly how very not silenced he was. Vox’s control faltered for a heartbeat.
“You’re glitching again,” Alastor whispered, voice dripping with delight. “It’s adorable.”
Vox touched himself, almost desperate now, he needed to be at least half-hard to penetrate Alastor again. Alastor only laughed: soft, breathy, wicked; the kind of laugh that dug under skin and rewired circuitry.
“You need help with that?” His eyes glinted sideways, lazy and bright. He reached one hand as he stroked Vox’s dick, one single touch was enough to have the TV Demon erected in seconds. “Dearest Vincent, you should know by now… I only get worse when you try to shut me up.”
Vox’s patience snapped like a fraying cable.
He dragged his hand down Alastor’s tight as he pushed his hand away and pressed his tip against his used, leaking and reddened entrance; heat and static blooming where his fingers traced. Their bodies were flush again, every breath shared, every shift electric.
Alastor’s voice dipped lower, more dangerous. “Haven’t you filled my hole enough?”
Vox bit back a sound; something between a growl and a stutter. Alastor smirked, eyes half-lidded, hair messy, cheeks still flushed that impossible shade Vox could drown in.
“Oh,” he murmured, slow and delicious, “you are enjoying yourself.”
Vox leaned down, jaw tight, eyes burning blue. “Say one more thing,” he warned.
Alastor’s grin widened to impossible proportions. “Gladly.”
Vox didn’t let him finish whatever razor-tongued provocation he had lined up next. He pushed inside him again with a precision that felt almost old-world, almost courtly, as though somewhere beneath all the neon spite and digital fury lived something like chivalry warped into obsession. His hand slid up, fingers threading through Alastor’s hair, guiding, not forcing, until the Radio Demon’s head tilted back just enough for Vox to lower his mouth beside his ear. One soft exhale and Alastor’s next sentence dissolved into a startled sigh.
Vox froze then moved again. Slowly. Carefully. Like a man discovering a secret he wasn’t sure he deserved. Whatever he did: pressure, angle, touch, rhythm; it unraveled Alastor with humiliating efficiency. The sharp, taunting lines of the demon’s voice melted into something breathier, thinner, broken at the edges. He laughed once, half-formed, as though trying to cling to the upper hand, but it came out ruined. A gasp tangled with it, betraying how thoroughly Vox had found the chink in his armor.
“W-well,” Alastor managed, but the word was barely sound, more like a tremor shaped into a syllable. “That’s… cheating.”
Vox’s answering smile was slow and devastatingly smug.
“Cheating?” he murmured, brushing the pad of his thumb over the delicate line of Alastor’s jaw; a gesture far too gentle for the situation. “I’m being generous.”
Alastor tried to glare at him. He really did. But Vox repeated the same motion; that maddening, exact touch and the glare collapsed into another quiet, shuddering sound. A sigh rolled out of him, velvet-soft, unintentional, and Vox felt the triumph like static bursting under his skin.
“Beautiful,” he whispered before he could stop himself. The word slipped out like a glitch, a confession, a prayer.
Alastor choked on a laugh, eyes flashing. “Don’t— don’t you dare romanticize this.”
Vox leaned in, pressing his forehead to Alastor’s temple, his voice low and steady, like a vow spoken through clenched teeth.
“You’re the one melting under my hands,” he breathed. “Tell me again how I shouldn’t.”
Alastor tried to reply, Vox saw the spark ignite, saw the mouth twitch into a smirk but the demon’s breath caught halfway through the first sound. His fingers scraped weakly across the sheets as he arched just a little too eagerly into Vox’s hold.
Vox’s grin sharpened, delighted. “There it is,” he whispered. “Finally shutting up.”
Alastor swatted at him, uncoordinated, indignant, and Vox caught his wrist mid-air, pinning it to the mattress with a gentleness so precise it nearly counted as affection.
“Fuck,” Alastor breathed, voice thin, ruined, trying so hard to retain dignity. “If you keep this up, I might—”
Vox shifted again like he was guiding a dance. The rest of Alastor’s sentence fell apart in a broken laugh, the kind laced with surrender. His eyes fluttered half-shut, lips parted, every line of sarcasm drowned in the tide Vox had finally learned how to summon.
“Thought so,” Vox whispered, triumphant but strangely tender. “That’s better.”
Alastor huffed, breathless, but there was no venom in it; only exhilaration, only the shock of being disarmed so thoroughly. His grin returned, crooked and dizzy.
“You,” Vox said, lowering himself fully over him, their foreheads brushing, their breaths mixing like heat and ozone, “are finally quiet.”
Alastor laughed again; low, defeated, exhilarated. "Only for a moment,” he warned.
Vox brushed his lips along Alastor’s cheek in an almost courtly gesture, something intimate dressed in mockery.
“Then,” he murmured, “I suppose I’ll just have to keep earning the silence.”
The room felt too small for what they had become; two monsters devouring each other’s breath, two storms looping around the same shattered moon. Vox had Alastor pinned beneath him again, the mattress groaning under their feverish movements, their silhouettes tangled in a violent sort of harmony. Every time they drew closer, something in the air cracked, like static overloaded beyond its circuitry and then Vox spoke, voice unsteady, glitching at the edges.
“This feels like a fever dream,” he whispered, and it wasn’t taunting this time. It wasn’t a game. It was bare, almost mortal. “You— in my bed, in my clothes, looking at me like that— I swear I’m dreaming you.”
Alastor laughed softly, cruelly and breathlessly.
“Darling,” he panted, head thrown back against the pillow, hair a disheveled halo, one shoulder bare where the pajama top had slipped. “If this is your dream, it’s a very poorly regulated one. You’re overheating.”
Vox groaned pressing his tip to Alastor’s sweet spot as though grounding himself before the world tilted off its axis.
“Of course you’d mock me,” he murmured. “Even now.”
“Especially now,” Alastor corrected, voice trembling with manic glee. “You’re so easy to provoke. It’s almost endearing.”
Vox answered by fastening his thrusts, pulling him closer, moving with a kind of desperation that bordered on reverence. Alastor’s breath hitched, the first crack in his composure. He tried to weaponize it into a laugh, but it broke midway through, dissolving into something raw and involuntary.
“Wh-what— Vox—” His voice frayed, fragmented, slipped out of his control like loose radio wires sparking.
Vox lifted his head; their noses brushed. “You can feel it too,” he said, voice fraying like corrupted audio. “Don’t pretend.”
Alastor tried. Oh, he tried. He curled his fingers into the sheets, he arched in defiance, he even managed a grin sharp enough to cut glass then the moment detonated. It was more of a strangled gasp swallowed against Vox’s throat, his entire body arched in a violent, helpless tremor, as though lightning had struck him from the inside. Vox wasn’t much better; a glitching exhale, a shudder that rippled through him like a power surge gone sentient. For a few suspended seconds, neither of them could speak.
Alastor was the first to move, or try to. His arms gave out beneath him, trembling too much to support his own weight. He collapsed back against the pillows, chest rising and falling like he’d run miles. His grin returned, but it was warped, tilted, soft at the edges, exhausted enough to be sincere. Vox looked down at him, saw the trembling, the glazed, shattered eyes and he laughed.
“Oh, you look like a Bambi,” he whispered.
Alastor’s eyes snapped open wider, scandalized fury battling bone-deep exhaustion.
“Absolutely not,” Alastor hissed, voice cracking, breath unsteady. “You are not calling me—”
“Bambi,” Vox repeated, softer, delighted, drunk on the sight of him.
Alastor tried to sit up and failed. His glare weakened, dissolving into a tired, involuntary shiver.
“You insufferable neon buffoon—” he managed, but it lacked bite, lacked stability, lacked the venom that usually dripped from every syllable.
Vox leaned down, kissed the corner of his jaw too gently, too tenderly and grinned against his skin.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Rest your legs.”
Alastor growled. It came out more like a breathless, trembling whine.
Vox smiled like he’d won a war but he refused to let him rest. He was running on adrenaline, on triumph, on the giddy, electric high of having Alastor undone beneath him. His circuits were buzzing, overclocked, overstimulated; he felt as though any attempt at stillness would simply make him combust. And Alastor lying there with that tilted grin, that exhausted amusement, that trembling defiance, was far too tempting a target to ignore.
Vox leaned over him again, bracing one hand beside the demon’s head. “Don’t get too comfortable,” he murmured, voice low and glitch-soft. “I’m not done with you.”
Alastor let out a breathless laugh, half mockery, half tremor. “You can barely stay upright, old sport,” he purred. “And yet you think you—”
“Oh, I think,” Vox cut in, “that you still talk too much.”
Alastor’s grin sharpened but before he could release the inevitable retort, Vox leaned closer, breath brushing Alastor’s ear like a dangerous promise.
“And I know exactly how to shut you up.”
Alastor’s inhale stuttered. Just slightly. But Vox caught it… devoured it, even. He pulled back enough to meet the demon’s eyes. Those eyes, crimson and gleaming, widened a fraction; just enough to betray recognition. Submission, even if only for a second. Vox smiled like a devil born of static and sin and then he moved. He pressed his still hardened cock against Alastor’s lips and pushed past his rosy lips. He began to fuck his mouth messy, desperate, unrestrained; a neon storm collapsing into a single purpose. Alastor’s laughter died mid-breath, knocked out of him in a startled gasp that turned into something softer, something unguarded. His fingers curled into the sheets, gripping them with surprising fervor, head tilting back as though offering himself to the dark. He tried to speak but the words dissolved into ragged sighs, frayed at the edges.
Vox’s plan was perfect. Alastor couldn’t talk, he could barely breathe in full sentences. He surrendered with shocking ease, body bowing, back arching like a marionette pulled along silk strings but Vox came undone far, far too quickly. It hit him like a short circuit, like a fuse exploding behind his ribs. He jerked, glitching violently, a stuttering movement against Alastor’s tongue. His fingers dug into Alastor’s hair for balance as the shock ripped through him, leaving him shaking, blinking, breathless.
“Fuck—” he gasped, voice corrupted, cut in half by static. “I— fuck—”
Alastor laughed as Vox pulled out his leaking dick. A low, ruined, breathy sound that sent shivers down Vox’s back.
“Well,” the Radio Demon purred, struggling for composure as he lay sprawled and flushed beneath him, cum dripping from his lips before he licked it with grace, “that was… astoundingly quick.”
Vox wanted to be offended, really, he did, but his brain was still shorting out, buzzing, drowning in neon-white aftermath.
“Shut up…” he managed, face pressed into Alastor’s chest, voice still shaking with residual tremors.
“Darling,” Alastor crooned, running a lazy hand through Vox’s back, claws dragging lightly against the nape of his neck, “if this is how easily you unravel from simply shutting me up…” He grinned, teeth sharp, eyes smug and half-lidded. “…I can’t imagine what would happen if I actually put effort into it.”
Vox growled weakly.
Alastor only laughed again, soft, delighted, breathless, and Vox realized with horror that he wanted to hear that sound again.
For a long, shivering moment, Vox simply stayed folded over Alastor’s chest, breath glitching, hands gripping the sheets like they were the only things keeping him from collapsing entirely. His static still crawled faintly across Alastor’s skin, intermittent sparks that felt like the ghost of a confession he would never say aloud. Alastor watched him with the arrogant serenity of someone who knew he had just witnessed another creature’s ego melt into a puddle.
“Well,” he intoned delicately, “now that you’ve… short-circuited, perhaps we can—”
But then Vox lifted his head.
“Oh no,” he murmured, his voice velvetly. “You don’t get the last word tonight.”
Alastor’s fingers curled tighter in the sheets. A single, involuntary swallow slid down his throat.
“Vox?” he said, tone drifting toward apprehension, toward anticipation, toward something dangerously in between.
Vox didn’t answer. He simply lowered himself with the messy, unrestrained tenacity of someone who had just discovered a new addiction and fully intended to drown in it. The moment Vox’s breath hit his dick, Alastor inhaled sharply; a quick, startled break in composure that shattered into a stuttering laugh.
“Oh, how adorable,” he breathed, eyes widening in wicked delight. “Returning the favor?”
Vox didn’t dignify that with words. He took a step back, his screen displaying Alastor’s full, naked glory from the waist down. He savored the sight, a slow, appreciative hum emanating from his speakers. He reached out, his hand circling Alastor’s cock, his fingers gently stroking the sensitive tip, causing Alastor to moan, a deep, guttural sound that he barely recognized as his own. Vox’s grin widened. He leaned down, his mouth opening, and Alastor’s eyes snapped open, wide with shock and a sudden, intense fear. Vox’s cool, smooth lips, or rather, the edge of his screen, surrounded Alastor’s cock, a strange, alien sensation. He began to suck, slowly at first, then with increasing intensity, his throat working around Alastor’s length.
Alastor cried out, a high-pitched sound of pure pleasure. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced, a shocking blend of cool pressure and intense suction that sent waves of exquisite agony and delight through his entire body. His hips instinctively bucked forward, pressing his dick deeper into Vox’s mouth. He gripped Vox’s head, his fingers tangling in the wires and cables that sprouted from Vox’s neck, pulling him closer, desperate for more.
Vox continued to suck, his throat working, a soft sound accompanying each pull. He took Alastor deeper, his mouth stretching, until Alastor’s balls were pressed against Vox’s chin. Alastor was practically crying now, his body trembling violently, his legs threatening to give out. He felt himself nearing the edge, the precipice of an orgasm so intense it threatened to consume him whole.
Vox pulled back, just as Alastor was about to cum, a triumphant grin flashing across his screen. Alastor groaned, a frustrated, agonized sound. He arched against the pillows, teeth gritting on a sound he refused to release. For all his elegance, all his polished cruelty, all his smug composure, the demon’s body betrayed him: trembling, tightening, responding with an instinct older than pride.
“You’re rough,” Alastor managed, voice thinning into something airy, strained, “but you can handle… ngh! Hell, you can handle everything, can’t you?”
Vox hummed as he pushed Alastor’s dick back inside his mouth again, and the vibration alone ripped a sharp gasp from Alastor’s throat. The radio demon’s fingers flew to Vox’s head, not to push him away, as pride would demand, but to anchor himself, like a creature clinging to a lifeline while pretending he wasn’t drowning. Static skittered up his spine. Vox looked up at him, eyes glowing bright enough to burn through Alastor’s last threads of composure. Alastor’s laugh broke, his pupils blew wide, swallowing red in the wake of something deeper. His head fell back against the pillow, exposing his throat.
A surrender.
His world blurred into a haze of static and heat and pressure, narrowed to Vox’s determination; sloppy, demanding, earnest in the most infuriating way imaginable.
“Vox…” he gasped, breath trembling, voice trembling, dignity trembling. “If you… ngh… if you continue like that…”
Vox continued and Alastor’s breath hitched: “Ah!”
He clapped a hand over his own mouth to muffle it, tilted sideways like a puppet whose strings had all snapped at once. Vox pulled back to receive Alastor’s seed on his face, voice glitching with satisfaction.
“You’re adorable when you break.” Alastor’s laugh was shredded, breathless, shaking. Vox’s grin widened, wicked and triumphant. “That was nothing,” he whispered. “You haven’t even heard how bad it’s going to get as long as you remain my captive.”
Alastor’s eyes fluttered, his body shuddered, caught in the haze Vox had dragged him into; a haze too hot, too tight, too electric to fight. For a moment Alastor looked almost human. His grin faltered, his breath stuttered, and something ancient and furious and helpless flickered behind his eyes. Vox pulled back only enough to see it, to savor it, to let the sight burn itself into every corrupted line of his circuitry. He reached for Vox, his arms wrapped around Vox’s shoulders with startling, trembling force, dragging the demon upward, pulling him flush back against his chest as though closeness was the only anchor he had left in the world.
Vox gasped, a glitching hiccup of breath, startled and overwhelmed, as Alastor buried his face against his neck, laughing in a way that sounded like surrender disguised as hysteria.
“You…” Alastor choked, voice trembling with something too raw to sculpt into words. His fingers dug into Vox’s back, sharp enough to leave crescents, sharp enough to bruise. He dragged Vox upward, their bodies snapping together like they were resuming a position they’d spent decades resisting.
Vox climbed easily onto him, over him, around him, like gravity itself had chosen a direction and it was straight into Alastor’s arms. He framed Alastor’s face with both hands, thumbs brushing the flushed, trembling edges of the Radio Demon’s cheekbones.
“So that’s it,” Vox whispered, his voice rasping with static and awe as he pressed their foreheads together. “All this time… all these decades… you wanted this badly enough to go insane.”
Alastor’s laugh cracked in half.
“I didn’t… that was only you, old pal.”
“Yes, you did.” Vox’s breath ghosted his lips, too close, too hot, too honest. “Seventy years of circling each other like predators starved of the kill. You wanted this. You wanted me.”
Alastor’s grip tightened cruelly, desperately, like he needed Vox to stop talking or keep talking or do both at once.
Vox leaned in closer. “Say it,” he whispered.
Alastor’s voice dropped, too soft for a creature like him, too honest for a demon at all. “You think I wanted you?”
Vox smirked but it faltered at the edges, the confidence cracking into something vulnerable and ravenous. “I know you did,” he murmured, pressing his mouth against Alastor’s cheek, jawline, throat; a trail of half-kisses, half-claims. “Because I did too. For seventy fucking years.”
Alastor’s breath stopped.
“You drove me mad,” Vox whispered against his skin. “Every day. Every year. Every damn decade.”
His hands slid across Alastor’s shoulders, down his sides, gripping him with reverent ferocity.
“And now…” Vox breathed, voice glitching with emotion he’d never admit aloud, “I finally have you.”
Alastor shuddered violently, mind fracturing under the weight of the moment. He let out a broken noise and Vox held him through it. They clung to each other like two creatures who had starved themselves deliberately for seventy years just to make the feast catastrophic. They were losing themselves willingly in each other’s arms, in each other’s mouths, in each other’s breath. They collapsed together in a heap of tangled limbs and unravelled breaths, a pair of demons who had finally stopped pretending they weren’t starving for one another.
The room seemed to tilt, or maybe that was just Vox’s perception; skewed, overloaded, his static still crackling in the air like faint aftershocks. Alastor lay beneath him, half-draped in shadow, half-illuminated by the bleeding glow of the TV Demon’s flickering circuitry.
And God, he was a sight. Alastor’s hair was a complete catastrophe: curled, mussed, sticking to his cheeks as though even gravity had given up in the face of their delirious chaos. His pajamas, once pristine, now clung askew to his body; the collar hung loose, one shoulder bare, pale skin flushed in splotches that looked like the aftermath of a wildfire. His grin remained wide, tilted, wicked, but softened, barely held together by the remnants of his breath. He looked undone. Beautifully, impossibly undone.
Vox lifted an unsteady hand and traced a knuckle along the edge of that exposed shoulder, following the curve downwards as if mapping the fragile reality before him. He felt drunk on the sight, on the proof of what they had done, of what they had finally allowed themselves to admit through touch and breath and wordless surrender.
“You look…” Vox started, but the words fractured. His processors glitched, overloaded by awe.
Alastor tilted his head with a lazy satisfaction. “Ravishing?”
“Ruined,” Vox corrected, voice thick with pride. “And you’re welcome.”
Alastor only laughed. It was barely laughter at all, more like a tremor disguised as amusement. Vox wanted to bottle the sound. Archive it. Replay it forever.
He shifted closer, chest pressed to Alastor’s, feeling the Radio Demon’s breath hitch and then steady under the contact. Alastor’s arms, normally so poised, so deliberate, slid up around Vox’s back in a loose, instinctive embrace. There was no swagger left in the hold, no performance. Just closeness. Just the reflexive need to keep Vox from drifting even an inch away. Seventy years of hatred, rivalry, desire, denial; all of it hummed beneath their skin like a shared fever and now it was quiet. Finally, mercifully quiet.
Vox nuzzled into the crook of Alastor’s neck, drunk on the warmth radiating from him. “You’re a mess…” he murmured, tasting the words like they were something he wasn’t supposed to say aloud.
“I’m not the only one,” Alastor replied, voice low, ragged at the edges. “Look at yourself.”
“I am,” Vox whispered. “Only because you’re the one under me.”
Alastor’s grin twitched; he attempted to summon that theatrical arrogance he wore like armor, but he was still too dazed, too wrapped in Vox’s hold to pull it off. His eyes softened instead, dark and glossy, pupils wide as if trying to take in every particle of the demon above him.
Vox felt it, the weight of that gaze. The familiarity and strangeness of it. Like being seen for the first time by someone who had been staring at him for decades.
He cupped Alastor’s face, thumb brushing over the flushed cheekbone. Alastor didn’t flinch away. He leaned in.
“You’re incredible,” Vox said, almost in disbelief.
“Flattery… is beneath you.”
“It’s not flattery.” He swallowed. The admission was too real, too heavy, but he didn’t stop. “It’s just the truth.”
Alastor blinked slowly, lashes heavy. His grin finally softened; not disappeared, never that, but softened into something dangerously intimate. A curve of the mouth reserved only for Vox, whether either of them understood it yet or not. Static hummed under Vox’s skin again, but this time it was gentle, like the soft crackle of a record’s needle dropping. They didn’t move for a moment. Just breathed each other in; the closeness, the warmth, the dizzying reality of what they had finally allowed themselves.
Alastor’s fingers dug lightly into Vox’s back, as though anchoring him. Vox pressed their foreheads together, feeling the small, impossible quiet of it echo through him. They were both disasters. Both wrecked and glowing, still trembling from what they’d unleashed. And Vox—obsessive, stubborn, hopeless Vox—couldn’t stop staring. Alastor was everything he shouldn’t want. Everything he had wanted anyway. Everything he had crushed down for seventy long years until the desire had rotted into obsession. Now, with the Radio Demon beneath him like a storm finally spent, Vox felt something terrifying and soft unfurl in his chest.
He whispered, almost reverently, “You’re mine.”
Alastor’s grin sharpened, but the exhaustion softened it again. “Bold of you to assume,” he murmured, but his voice was gentle, pliant, threaded with the truth neither of them could deny. “…when you’re very clearly mine as well.”
Vox’s breath faltered. Static surged behind his ribs. Vox settled back onto the mattress, one arm still draped around the demon’s waist, the other supporting his own weight as he leaned over Alastor; ready to keep talking, ready to keep basking in the afterglow of what they had done, of what they had finally allowed themselves to want. His voice was still low, still warm with static and leftover adrenaline. He spoke as if Alastor were listening, as if his half-lidded eyes were still open.
“You should’ve seen Lucifer today,” Vox murmured, pride coating each word like lacquer. “He walked in thinking he could intimidate me. Me. As if a fallen celestial with a kingdom in decline can hold a candle to what I’ve built.” He brushed a knuckle under Alastor’s jaw, savoring the slight twitch the demon made even in sleep. “I made him kneel without touching him. Just a well-placed threat… a reminder that Hell doesn’t need a king when it has me.”
Vox chuckled under his breath, the sound lazy and self-satisfied. “He tried to keep his pride. You would’ve enjoyed it… how his face twitched, how his wings curled. I could practically hear the bones grinding as he swallowed his dignity.”
His hand drifted to Alastor’s chest, splaying over his sternum where the faint, steady rise and fall betrayed the truth Vox hadn’t yet processed: Alastor was asleep. Fast asleep. Completely, absolutely, thoroughly unconscious. He frowned. “Are you—? Seriously?”
But there it was. The demon’s lashes lay still against his cheeks, lips parted faintly with that eerie smile, breath soft and even. His arms were still loosely wound around Vox’s torso, but the grip had gone slack; gentle, unconscious, trusting in a way that felt… dangerous and in a way Vox found himself unprepared for. He brushed Alastor’s hair back from his forehead, fingers catching in the curls he’d destroyed only minutes ago. Alastor didn’t even hum in his sleep as he often did when pretending to rest.
He was gone.
Vox softened despite himself. “Oh, come on,” he murmured, voice dipping into something almost fond. “You lasted through an entire century of pretending you weren’t obsessed with me, but you fall asleep in the middle of my monologue?”
He let out an incredulous breath, static buzzing faintly from his chest.
“I was getting to the good part.” Still no response. Vox leaned closer, nose brushing against Alastor’s temple. The Radio Demon smelled like static after rain, warm spice, and something older than Hell, older than radio waves. Something Vox had chased for seven decades.
“Al,” he whispered. “You’re unbelievable.”
Vox’s chest warmed. He stroked Alastor’s shoulder, thumb gliding over the exposed skin. The flush had barely faded, his body was still limp with exhaustion, still warm, still clinging faintly to Vox even in unconsciousness.
“What am I supposed to do with you like this?” Vox whispered, more to himself than anything else.
He adjusted slightly, pulling Alastor closer so the demon’s head rested against his collarbone. Alastor fit there far too easily. Vox’s circuitry hummed in response, a soft, involuntary pulse as if his entire body was tuning itself to the Radio Demon’s breathing. He swallowed then he kept talking. Soft. For Alastor alone; even if Alastor wasn’t awake to hear it.
“I humiliated Lucifer today,” Vox repeated, quieter now. “I made him bend. I made him remember who actually runs this place. And the whole time I was thinking about…” His voice caught. “…about how you’d react.” He looked down at the sleeping demon, at the mess they had made of each other, at the softness clinging to Alastor’s features even in unconscious surrender. “And now you’re not even awake to hear me brag,” Vox grumbled, but the complaint was too gentle to be genuine.
Alastor shifted in his sleep, nuzzling instinctively closer. His fingers brushed the back of Vox’s ribcage, as if searching for something familiar even while unconscious. Vox froze then melted.
“Fine…” he whispered, dipping his chin to press the faintest kiss to Alastor’s forehead. “You can sleep. This once.” He pulled the blanket over them with one hand, the other still resting on Alastor’s back, anchoring them together. “You owe me for this,” Vox murmured, but his tone was soft, reverent, almost worshipful. “And when you wake up, I’m going to finish telling you about Lucifer… and about how I kept imagining your smug little face the whole time.”
Alastor breathed in, breathed out, utterly lost to sleep. Vox held him a little tighter.
“Goodnight, Bambi.”