Chapter Text
Entertainment District, 1950s
…
Vox has always been greedy.
“Wait!”
He pulls his hand free, drawing it back into his chest as if he'd kissed fire.
The other man’s head snaps around a full 360-degrees, a series of wet, putrid pops making Vox internally squirm. Devil-red eyes burn as if two lit coals in the dim, halved under lashes like the legs of a widow spider, seducing him to speak.
They've stopped just short of the dancefloor– a segment of the bar beside the stage where all the tables and seats have been haphazardly pushed back, leaving the floors bleached and clearing a space for the rowdy nightlife. In front of Vox, if he looks past the man’s shoulders, Sinners of every form caper about; an ocean of playful, cavorting figures, lifting one another in the air, clasping hands as they spin, their silhouettes intermingled in dark bronze light that highlights the fog of their own sweat; the aroma of malt and drugstore cologne oppressive.
Some of the wires in Vox's head rattle in-beat with the jazz.
“I don't– I don't know how to dance!” he yells through the bass.
Vox is not telling the whole truth. He’s danced before, of course, many times– who in the ‘50s hasn’t?-- and he is quite good, too. But it’s different now. He hasn’t dared so much as toe the floor since his death, too ashamed by the bulky carton riding his neck to give it a shot. His strong jawline has been replaced with pulp plastic, his face made of glass, but when he considers it, he finds the embarrassment from falling would be worse than breaking.
But it’s not entirely about that now. He knows it's not.
One of the tufts on the man’s head flicks to the side– piano somewhere– and something in Vox’s stomach does a somersault.
Vox, in all his essence, is hoping to be wanted.
He wants to be protested. He craves to be guided into the spotlight by a beautiful stranger's cold, dead fingers, taken where the floorboards are lacquered and excuses go to die. He wants to bathe in it like he’s back in the sun, back in his own skin– yearns to be touched, held, spun weightlessly if only to pretend for a night it isn't truly the end of their lives.
‘Ask me again to dance– prove to me you want it. Want me.’
The smile in front of him widens, coiling upwards into a wicked Cheshire grin from some joke he must've missed, backlight turning yellow fangs deep gold.
But Vox has always been so fucking greedy.
“Suit yourself, dear!” The stranger pumps a shoulder.
No– wait.
“A disappointing development, indeed. However, I suppose I’d never refuse a larger audience!”
Wait– I didn’t mean it–
“Wait–”
With a wink, the red pinstripe coat vanishes into shadow, lost to a sea of shifting, cackling faces, leaving Vox standing alone like a lead balloon.
His fingers curl around nothing.
The emptiness is staggeringly cold.
The butterflies in his stomach have been replaced by venomous welts, and he looks around, does a full twirl as if he’s practicing some shitty ballet routine in shittier saddle shoes. Couples meander past him in arms, holding warm, frothy drinks, practically phasing straight through him as if he’s the world’s least intimidating phantom– spilling booze and half-melted ice over his shoes without so much as an excuse because Vox almost forgot he hasn’t already been pissed on enough.
Everybody’s smiling– none of them bottled for him.
His teeth grind behind nonsense lips.
Why does he always need more?
Vox’s hand is embarrassingly naked so he shoves it into his pocket where he retreats to the bar, one antenna hung low. His usual seat is still available, marked by the elm chipped off at the sides– nasty habit– and probably still warm. Immediately, he’s drawn to the figure sitting next to it– their unassuming back to him– somebody new.
His left foot tap-tap-taps exactly four times against the floor before he slides in, grimacing as the glass of abandoned alcohol he wraps his claws around is warm and wet with condensation. It’s a woman, he sees. She has wavy, obsidian hair that rolls down her exposed back in tsunami spirals; all legs and purple luminescent scales that envy her eyeshadow, and plump, cherry red lips like pure fuckin' sex. Her eyes are observing him under long black lashes, anticipating Vox to court her– the exact sort of woman he used to rail absolutely stupid when alive, going ‘til their eyes rolled so far back into their skulls they saw their brains, before coming, and starting again. That is, when he had the money or the status to afford her.
Vok chuckles, shaking his head at the table, his shoulders bobbing.
His fist slams and suddenly there is glass everywhere, spilling over his pants in soggy splinters. When he looks back, the woman has vanished.
Suddenly, whisky smells like shit.
Vox decides to just go home.
He keeps his eyes low, elbowing past a dam of bodies while trying not to lance himself on any horns or whatever other freakish accoutrements might egg his screen for the fourth time this month, ignoring the way his sweater donuts around his elbows as he fills his coat sleeves.
Could it be the way he’s dressed?
He looks down at his outfit. His usual honey sweater is clean for the most part, besides a few stray poufs of dryer lint, which he tries to pick off. The leather on the toes of his shoes is cracked and dull. He hasn't gotten a new pair since he'd died, but Vox wouldn't be counting dimes if he could afford it. Who could have imagined the median rent in Hell, even for a moldy apartment with a perennial roach problem, would be so exploitive?
The status quo down here is gonna eat him alive if the alcohol doesn't outrun him first.
Really, he shouldn’t even be out tonight. He has work first thing in the morning. But it'd been so long since he's done anything for himself, and besides, what’s Hell worth without a little sin?
God, fuck…he misses his Bentley.
Vox pulls his jacket tighter.
Just as he’s almost to the door– a cool breeze trilling through the frame and licking his fingertips– a wave of noise erupts behind him. Hoots and whistles, cheering and clapping loud enough to be heard over the vibration of brass trumpets. He whirls around just as two ghost-eyed demons careen past him, knocking into him as they rush to the door and throwing it open, one of them tripping over their feet as they scramble outside where the harried patter of their footfalls are lost to the night. Vox swivels around, confused.
Through the dim, warm light, he can see that a crowd has packed in a tight ring around the dance floor– the rest bar is abandoned, and practically every patron is on their feet as they stare in either awe or abject terror at something he cannot see past the rise and fall of their heads. Vox furrows his brows and tentatively retreats from the tantalizing safety of the exit, trying to get a closer look at what's happening.
The music jumps faster, running on its toes as he squeezes through the crowd, determined to bully his way to the front. His head is like an excavator, and he uses it to exhume a trail through the stubborn wall of bodies that are obstructing whatever polarizing scene must be on the other end, his heart beating quick enough to remind him of survival instinct but not enough to expunge his intrigue.
On the loud side of the music he pops out, whack-a-mole style, catching himself on the sticky floorboards because his shoe gets stuck between someone's leg or something– he really doesn't have time to check because out of absolutely no-fucking-where something is tossed onto his head and suddenly he can't see.
“Hey!” Vox panics, bungling with the net or whatever the hell is stuck to the corners of his titanic skull until it's suddenly whizzed away and light exists and he can breathe again. And how that even works when his head is a literal commodity, he'll never know.
Actually, as a myopic, borderline-alcoholic white man in the 1950s (does the color of his skin upstairs really matter anymore if it's rotting, though?) Vox, admittedly, doesn't know much of anything. Except maybe for three things:
One: Coffee is better dark,
Two: What a standing ovation sounds like,
And three: He’s straight.
Oh, also,
Four: Vox is a filthy fucking liar.
“Oh-ho! Change your mind so soon, friend?”
He blinks.
What?
“What?”
The man's eyes narrow, flickering like a candle above a smile that never falters. His head is tipped to the side, a few locks of red and black-tipped hair falling over his cheek; curious housecat or predator toying with its next meal, it's far too charming for Vox to give much of a shit besides how fuckin' pretty he looks, especially with his sleeves rolled up like that.
Vox's eyes reverberate in a way only a television can experience when the man's fist raps a few times against the side of his head. “Testing! Is this thing on? Oh, now, don't tell me you've gone deaf! Is that how you explain that egregious dancing of yours? Flopping on the ground like a fruitcake with a coat strewn over your head? Well, at least you weren't fibbing earlier! That was terrible.”
He grins, big and wide. large and mean and yellow, and something behind Vox's ribcage trips.
His tongue goes dry, every letter in his vocabulary getting lodged in his throat as they jumble forward in a colorful horde of displaced consonants and vowels, elbowing each other as they rush to be the first word out of his mouth.
He knows he really should say something , but, oh well.
Televisions aren't supposed to have mouths, anyway. Talking is meant for radio stars.
“All that earlier gab, and now you’ve nothing to say? Hm,” the prettier one of the two chuckles, and Vox could even call it charmed if he didn't know any better.
“Tell you what, I'll make it easy for you, my friend.” The bottom of Vox's screen is tilted up and from this angle it must look like he's praying.
“Let's make a deal. Oh, now don't look so impressed, just a simple one: You get up off this loathsome floor and accompany me in the rest of this swing, and– if you so decide to stick around– I shall buy you a drink afterwards, hm? I think what with the way you interrupted me, it's only fair!”
“Um, I don't–” I don't drink? I don't dance? His mind turns itself in a knot as it scrambles to make sense of what he's trying to say, and only now does Vox realize the tension thrumming through the room. They're trying to act discreet, but it's unmistakable that the crowd’s eyes are on the two; him and this man. It's as if the entire bar is holding its breath, waiting for somebody’s face to get mauled by a bear– or maybe a deer.
“Oh, now don't tell me you can't do it!”
The man grabs his wrists, and then Vox is whisked to his feet.
Well, more like dragged with the rims of his shoes squealing against the floorboards until he gets his act together, but he says potato and tomato or however that idiom goes. He's too shocked right now to figure it out.
The lights are even more bright and hot here than from the bar. They reflect in his eyes, making him squint, and the other man is holding his hands, the tips of his claws prickling Vox's knuckles in the best way; lodged perfectly between that intoxicating hatchet of pain and pleasure, like scratching a mosquito bite.
He swallows, praying it can't be heard above the sound.
“It's really not so hard once you find your rhythm!”
Vox nods before, without forewarning, the music leaps and he's pulled into a spin, his coattails flapping behind him as the man releases one of his hands and he's thrown towards the edge of the swelling crowd before being pulled in again.
The man smiles deviously, and Vox can't keep himself from laughing as they go in for round two, and now that he's prepared he works overtime to keep up, joy fizzling out of him like golden champagne as they use momentum and gravity to throw the weight of their bodies into a full arc, gaining speed as they push themselves to keep up with the music– or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe the music is chasing them.
The crowd has started clapping now, adrenaline and electricity surging through Vox's blood like a drug cocktail. And in a moment of uncharacteristic frivolity he tosses his head back to look at them upside-down, his heart freezing once he realizes his mistake. But instead of the sharp, retaliatory blade of chastisement he expects to feel in his spine for pulling such a reckless stunt, Vox realizes with awe as he pulls himself up, that for the first time in his afterlife, his head is completely weightless.
This must be a dream, he thinks as the other man actually lets Vox grab him in a dangerous move and swing him between his legs. Just some extraordinary, unreachable dream. It’s the only explanation; Vox must be dreaming or passed out, drunk and concussed and bleeding away in some gutter on the corner of 10th and 12th right now– the wind on his back probably just somebody’s piss– because, despite realizing its impossibility ever since his proverbial dick could recognize ‘Evan Cary Grant’ in the Hollywood tabloids, he's fantasized a-million-and-one hopeless times about this exact moment with a man– and sin-sucking fucks like Vox don't win any jackpot realities like these– they just don't.
They pull together, Vox clutching the man's hands so tightly he's afraid he might draw blood, holding onto his partner the same way the sole survivor of a shipwreck holds onto a piece of driftwood.
“Keeping up alright?” the man asks as they move their feet in sync, some of his hair sticking damply to his forehead and reminding Vox he should not remove his coat after this because he is dripping–
“Yeah,” he says, nearly bursting into giddy laughter again when he squeezes the man's hands to check if they're real and the man squeezes back. “Yeah, this is… this is perfect. It's really–”
The crowd exclaims as Vox's body is flung out like an activated parachute before being pulled back in just as quick.
“Good,” the man finishes for him, and Vox needs to know:
“What the hell’s your name?”
“Ah! How terribly rude of me!” The other grabs Vox’s palm, pushing it against his chest, a corpse with a heartbeat.
“Alastor, and what a pleasure it is!”
Vox fumbles through an introduction, he thinks. It’s all he can do to keep himself from salivating.
Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor. Alastor.
“Vox? What a curious name! Quite pithy, isn’t it? Well, Vox, my dear, I hope those dancing shoes of yours don’t have quite as many holes underneath as they do upstairs, otherwise, this may burn, I’m afraid.”
“What do you–”
And for the umpteenth time that night, Alastor– fucking Alastor– leaves him speechless.
Before Vox can finish his sentence his forearms are gripped and his entire body is flung in an arc so fast– and he swears on this next part– a series of sparks blaze from his shoes like fireworks where they chafe the floor, leaving caustic leather smoke in their wake. He's brought to a complete stop at his partner’s side just as the music peaks, and– time crawling on its hands and knees– the crowd erupts in an explosion of beer-spilling applause as Alastor lifts his and Vox's intertwined hands above their heads to the noise as if they're the winning team of some great championship.
It's Vox’s second standing ovation. The only one that will ever matter.
Chest heaving deep, deep breaths and pulse drumming in his head, from the corner of his eye Vox trails the length of his arm, up, up, only stopping once he's reached where his hand is indelibly interlocked with Alastor's to squeeze his a little tighter, push their skin a little closer.
Alastor isn't looking at him though. His eyes are closed and he's looking towards the Heavens, the golden light shooting pinprick stars off his teeth.
At the sight of his partner, something zaps Vox behind his ribcage like a defibrillator.
He has never wanted to eat a heart so badly.
…
Alastor may as well eat his own heart at this rate– what with how hungry he's getting.
He shivers, stomach growling around the absence of. It is so very cold, and sometimes, honest to goodness, he thinks he can smell roasting venison coming from somewhere– from the unusually large space underneath the door, perhaps, or maybe from that large window to the side of him; someone he can sense the presence of but cannot see just on the other side.
He knows his resolve is being tested.
The sound of a fingernail against glass has awoken him before. So quiet but, in a room like this, every sound is gunfire. He had looked over to that pane of glass and– really stared through it like he could see who was on the other side– it had all but abruptly ceased. Silent. Almost like a rabbit bating its breath in the scope of a hunter– except Alastor no longer knows which of the two is bearing the rifle.
When he had realized he was being watched despite the lack of active cameras, a shiver different from the ones caused by cold and hunger had crawled up his spine. He has never had many qualms with having a rapt audience before, but frankly, Vox was just getting creepy.
Oh, but that was many days ago now. Likely was, anyway. Time is not entirely calculable in a room like this. There are no windows to socialize him with the world outside. There is no dawn and there is no night wind. Only the grease piling on top of his hair and sterile light, light, light. All of the time.
That’s another thing– perhaps the most unbearable about this gilded cell– the overhead lights in this room never turn off.
So much for ivory tiles. Ha!
Because of their artificially generated intensity, Alastor is forced to lower his head for most of the day in lieu of any prescribed comfort. His poor neck has been begging for a massage, or any touch at all, really, and he promises it he would, if only he could reach.
His bones are tired, his ears itch, his muscles ache from disuse, everything is wrong, wrong, wrong; and without access to his powers, so is he. It makes him sick. Not the nauseous kind of sick, just, this feeling of inferiority blooming throughout him like a blotch of ink on soggy paper, and…
And…oh, right.
Alastor is also dying.
A sterile truth, really. He had thought it wouldn't come to this, when he first arrived; that he would be able to slip free from Vox's clutches before the threat of his impending demise would begin to poke its head through the door of his sanity. Frankly, he doesn't know exactly when it will be prone to strike, but soul binding contracts are just that– soul binding. And if his dealer gets the impression he's attempting to shirk his side of their written covenant, well…
He’d tried to explain this facet to Vox the last time he’d been around– use the television's sentimentality to his advantage– but that conversation went just about as well as being trapped in a compromising position in front of a possessive ex-friend-turned-obsessive-stalker would for just about anyone.
…
“And what is it you think I want, Alastor?”
Alastor steels his brow. He looks up; meets the source of new light in front of him that's bathing his nose in turquoise because far too close than necessary.
The edge of the chair's metal-plated backside cuts coldly into the nape of his neck.
“Vox…” He sets his chin.
“Where are… what did you do to me?”
Vox smiles, which makes Alastor shiver.
“I asked you first.” He grabs Alastor’s jaw and pulls him forward.
“I want you to tell me what you think I want. Maybe then we can actually get somewhere.”
Alastor’s left eye twitches, which only makes Vox smile wider. It takes all his restraint and a little extra from charity not to tear into his fingers right there and then like a steamy shrimp Po-Boy.
He settles on biting his tongue until he tastes blood instead.
“...you already know, you vile–”
“Tell me.” Vox squeezes his jaw tighter, then whispers with no unrestrained licentiousness: “I want to hear you say it.”
For the sake of his own dignity, Alastor chooses not to answer. By the time his face is released, his cheeks are dappled with blood and he now knows the left eye on Vox’s screen is about eleven millimeters higher than the right, which is forbidden knowledge that will surely not return with a vengeance to haunt him later.
Vox steps back to stand at full height and sneers down at Alastor like he's the flattened paste of a bug he'd just accidentally stepped on and gotten stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
“Your pride is gonna kill you one day,” he spits. “And you better not come crawling back to me when it finally catches up with you…because next time I won't be so nice.”
He turns for the exit.
“I’ll come back when you’re serious about getting out of those restraints,” he says without looking back. “‘Cause I think we both know you aren't–”
“I think what we both know,” Alastor interjects, sparking an idea. “Is, despite your melodramatic threats, you've had plenty of opportunities to kill me. You need me to stay breathing; otherwise this little fantasy of yours wouldn't be as enjoyable, would it?”
Vox freezes.
Got you.
“Tell me, how would you feel if someone else were to take that opportunity from you?”
Vox turns his screen and glares at Alastor over his shoulder. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Alastor's eyes crinkle.
At that, Vox derails his path to the exit and quickly approaches, grabbing Alastor roughly by the shoulders and making him wince. “Oh no, you are NOT about to do this to me, you cryptic asshole! What the fuck are you talking about?!”
“All I'm saying is that it may be in your best interest to return me to the hotel.” In lieu of meeting Vox's burning eyes, he picks at his nails, blasé.
Vox stares at him, searching his face like an increasingly concerning transmission of Morse code he's struggling to decipher.
“Do you recall what you'd asked me on my first night here, chum?”
“I recall you screaming like a–”
“Ah-ah, just a little further back. I believe you had been interested in learning about a certain, hm…business transaction, regarding…”
“...your soul,” Vox breathes.
“Atta-boy. You see…” Alastor lowers his ears, taking on a more uncharacteristically soft appearance he knows will tug at all the right strings, and looks with sincerity into Vox's eyes.
“If I do not make it back to the princess’s hotel soon, I'm afraid I will...ah. Well, you're a sharp man, you know how these things are. I'm really not allowed to disclose much. But it is a very imperative and unfortunate situation, and one I cannot remedy while I am stuck here. I'm sure you understand though, yes?"
Vox is squinting, staring intensely at Alastor.
Then, his eyes widen.
“You're saying you're…”
“Mm, yes.”
“The hotel, the princess. You're…oh, oh no way.” Vox releases Alastor's shoulders and takes a wobbly step back.
“It's all coming together now, isn't it?”
“No fucking way.”
Alastor furrows his brow. Is it really so surprising? “I'm…afraid so. So if you wouldn't mind–”
“Charlie Morningstar owns your fucking soul!” Vox yells, pointing.
Alastor stutters, shellshocked. “P-pardon?”
Vox is laughing maniacally. He tucks his screen into his forearms, grabbing the top of it with his claws as he folds over, squatting on the floor and laughing.
He's laughing so loudly, in fact, it's hard for Alastor to get a word in, but he tries anyway.
“Now hold on, that's not– Vox, you ninny, she isn't– that’s not what I– Vox!”
Vox is on his knees and banging on the floor with his fist, still laughing.
“Vox!”
He's hunched over and his shoulders are shaking.
Something in Alastor pulls taut and snaps.
“VOX, YOU CAD, CHARLIE DOESN'T HAVE IT, IT'S–” He chokes around his own spit. Oh, blast you, non-disclosure clause! He'd been a fool–
“Ah– ahahahaha! Oh, this is just too GOOD.” Alastor involuntarily flinches when Vox slams his fist against the back of the chair, right beside Alastor's head.
“Sure she doesn't, and you're not a pain in my ass. Who the fuck ELSE would make YOU work for some shitty little charity project?…unless you've gone soft.”
Alastor growls. “It doesn't matter, as I told you, I can't stay here or else I'll– Vox you need to let me get back–”
“Alastor, Al…” Vox brackets him in with both arms beside his head, leaning closer.
“You can't pin this on me, not this time. I'm through falling for your cheap tricks. None of this would have ever happened,” too close, “if you hadn't sold out your dignity to some little goody-goody bluenose in the FIRST place. Now would it?”
Suddenly, Vox's face drops.
“Wait. Are you fucking her?”
Alastor blanches. “Vox…”
Vox's face shifts into something mad. He stands back, looking at Alastor for all the world as if he wants to spit on him. He shakes his head.
“No. No! Don't ‘Vox’ me,” he sneers, poorly mimicking Alastor's voice. “You did this to yourself. And I'm…”
A funny expression crosses his face, like somebody has just shot his grandmother.
“...I'm not about to fall for your bullshit again.”
He scowls at Alastor over his shoulder as he storms out.
“NEVER again.”
…
So, Alastor had tried.
Now, here he is: stuck between a rock and a hard place. For each hour that passes a new excuse is added to the roster of why it would be a grand idea to give into Vox’s barely-disguised demands, if not to get out of this chair than perhaps to fill his aching belly. He wouldn't actually have to do anything. Once free of this room with his strength back, he could find a way out from there, slip past him when he wasn’t looking and make a dash for the door. Television isn’t known for its impressive attention-span, after all.
And if he gets caught, well…
Alastor really isn’t too sure what to expect from turbulent Vox were that to happen, but he knows whatever it may be would be better than sadly keeling over in this chair like a limp sack. A horrible stain on his legacy, to be a sack. And he knows he must try.
The only problem is how long it is taking him to find the right words.
He really is doing his best. It's just, every time he opens his mouth, he meets a new flavor of stomach acid he hadn’t known existed. Again and again, going like this for hours. Who knew there were so many unique varieties? Certainly not Alastor!
“Vox…” he grumbles at the floor, practicing. “Vox, I will be your… I will join your… Vox… Vox, I shall…”
“Fuck.”
Ha. Definitely not.
An odd, strained noise escapes his lips. What he needs– what he needs is some good and old-fashioned motivation! A concrete reevaluation of his situation to remind himself of what is at stake.
Alright. He has many options.
“Alastor,” he says to himself. “Alastor, you are dying.”
He waits for his motivation to strike.
Waits for a good while.
Jarringly, he remains unstricken.
Well then! He tries again.
“Alastor… you are dying, powerless, hungry, and… and your coat is gone.”
“...your coat is gone, and– and– and Husker is probably…running low on alcohol. And, little, sweet little Niffty is probably filling your new room with– with sacrificial beetle tributes by now, the poor thing– bless her soul– and Charlotte is…is…oh, Maman wouldn’t wish you to go in such a way, she really…Vox.” He locks eyes with the first camera he sees.
“Vox, listen to me. I will only say this once, television, so listen well.” Suddenly, the back of his throat burns. He swallows; shoves it back down.
“Vox, I will… join you. I will…be your… business partner, Vox.”
“Do you hear me? I– Vox, I will join The Vees.”
Alastor’s ear twitches.
He thinks Vox hasn’t heard him, until something in his peripheral changes. Alastor looks over– some sort of light coming from behind the mirror– then a lichtenberg cluster of cyan lightning sparks in front of him, and suddenly Vox is standing there, too close, far too close.
“Oh, Alastor, ” he says, looking on the brink of digital tears.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that, Al.” Vox bends down to his level with his hands on his knees, as one might do when speaking to a toddler who is shoving a fascinating crayon drawing into their face. He reaches for Alastor's hair and begins to card his fingers through.
“I– god, you’re adorable. Listen,” Vox moves his hand down to Alastor's chin, using it to direct his face gently up.
“I've thought about it– thought about it a lot– and you...you don’t have to join The Vees…” Alastor pinches his brow, confusion rewriting itself as disgust as he is pulled closer.
“You don't have to join The Vees, ‘cause…”
“I think I want you all to myself.”
And then his face is pulled into a kiss. Alastor’s second ever in Hell; both performed by the same man, and both equally out of his control.
Except, this time, he cannot fight back.
…