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Vox had always known Alastor would be the type to go for 'cruel and unusual' punishment, and he should have figured that same logic would apply to the concept of revenge. He had tried to wipe the guy off the face of Hell, after all. It was hardly any argument that Vox was fully prepared to murder-suicide his way into that success, because he knew Alastor had never seen the merit in Vox's 'if I can't have you, nobody fucking should' argument.
Oh yes, he'd always known Alastor was a fucking psychopath. It was part of what made Vox's heart beat just that little bit faster, just being close to that level of insanity. Somebody who could not only match, but exceed his freak.
He probably should've said 'had made' his heart beat faster – given... you know. The whole 'head without a body' thing. Except Vox had a body. Or, to be more accurate, Alastor had Vox's body, which brought him around full circle to 'cruel and unusual punishment'.
“Why the fuck did you bring me here?” Vox groaned, more concerned about the fact he was missing his favourite show than he was about anything Alastor might do to him. He'd already been decapitated by his lover; how much worse could things get?
He definitely should have known better than to consider such a question.
Alastor glanced up at him, tilting his head in that curious way he had. Vox's body was sprawled on his bed, and if Vox had been in possession of it, he was sure a shiver would have coursed down his spine at the very idea. Ironic, wasn't it, that he finally managed to end up in Alastor's bed – and he couldn't do anything but run his mouth and glower? He was propped up on the nightstand, the back of his screen resting against the wall, and Alastor took a seat on the edge of the mattress. He folded one knee over the other, lacing his fingers together as if this was nothing weirder than a Sunday brunch.
“I was curious. I'd figured 'waste not, want not', and it seemed ridiculous to let a perfectly good corpse go to waste. I was planning on harvesting you for parts...” Alastor muttered, reaching back to walk his claws up one of Vox's legs.
Vox stared at the movement, at those spidery fingers pressing into his thigh. How many times had he fantasised about that exact sort of touch? He could imagine what Alastor's claws would feel like, sharp and dangerous where they hovered over veins Vox should definitely feel more protective of. But imagining was all he could do. Alastor's smile widened a fraction, and Vox fought to erase the longing from his expression, furrowing his brows back into a deep scowl.
“And? You wanted me here to tell you the best parts to butcher? You worried I've got a couple of poison sacs to go with my gills?” Vox asked, his voice a low growl. Canned laughter rang around them, filling the room with mirth even as Alastor's gaze glinted with something far darker. Again, Vox wished his spine was still connected. The chills racing down it must be electrifying.
“Hardly. I know perfectly well which parts of you I'd eat first. I've considered it carefully.” That answer shouldn't be making the circuits in Vox's screen warm, the fans that cooled his head sputtering to life. Fuck, he was just as fucked up as Alastor was. “My curiosity was sparked largely thanks to a certain part... or lack thereof.”
Oh. Oh.
Vox swallowed, though the motion was pointless. His saliva vanished into the void of his throat, dread tapping against the back of his mind.
“I must say, I was surprised. Was this here when you forced me to witness your lacklustre efforts at fucking that ridiculous partner of yours? Though I'd mostly tuned out by that stage, I could have sword you were... packing... something a little more specific.” Alastor stressed the word, and Vox let out an indignant yelp when those red claws finished their trek up his thigh, palm splaying over the crotch of his slacks.
Fuck, he couldn't feel it. He watched helplessly as Alastor pressed down, a considering hum echoing in his throat. Vox's eyes went wide, his mind already squirrelling away the image. Maybe one day he could replay it; could try to imagine the sensation.
“I didn't think wearing my cock was a good idea. And considering how much you ripped out of me, I'm thinking I made the right choice. Besides, how embarrassing would that be? Getting a hard-on after blowing Heaven's gates off?” Vox tried to sound casual, like it didn't matter. It mattered.
A breath, then. A huff of laughter, the barest sign of amusement. Vox clung to it, his mouth watering at the way Alastor's hand lingered. Alastor was touching him. He could savour it just a little longer, as pale an imitation as it was.
“And I probably would have, you know? I'd never felt so fucking powerful. You know what that's like, right. Feeling powerful?” Vox hazarded a guess. Alastor's thumb moved absently against the crease between Vox's thigh and groin. “I mean, you've got to. That's why you brought me here, isn't it? To show me you're... on top.” His voice faltered when Alastor's gaze snapped up, eyes narrowing Vox's way. His smile had gone close-lipped, but his teeth flashed when his lips suddenly parted.
He'd known his jabs at Alastor had been hitting his pride. No Overlord wanted to be called somebody else's bottomest bitch, regardless of their actual preferences between the sheets. Alastor had hated the way Vox had dragged him around, showing him off like a prize calf. He'd hated the way Vox put his hands on his shoulders, grabbed his ears, his hair. A part of Vox had always known that, even before Alastor's outburst on stage. That knowledge was a little easier to reach, now, without the rapid pounding of his heart or twisting of his guts that had always made him so awkward around Alastor.
“Look at you,” Alastor murmured, the radio-filter over his voice strong enough that his words could almost be called a croon. “Here you are, completely at my mercy, and you can't keep your mind out the gutter for two minutes. I ought to throw your head into a sewer, where it belongs, ha!” Alastor cackled.
He didn't move his hand, though, and despite his apparent amusement – there was still a shrewd, curious glint in his eye.
Vox didn't know whether to shut up or to taunt him some more. Didn't know whether he wanted Alastor to stop whatever fucked up game this was and send him home – or keep going. His screen brightened, shame coiling around his circuits. God, he really was fucking pathetic. Val was right.
Silence stretched for far too long, broken only by the soft chirping of insects. Alastor had always had a thing about the bayou, as long as Vox had known him. And that had been a long fucking time.
Finally, Alastor's gaze dropped. His eyes raked over Vox's body – still dressed in the torn suit he'd worn for his aborted rise to godhood – and his tongue darted out over his teeth, ears lowering a fraction.
“I've always been curious,” Alastor said lowly. Before Vox had a chance to ask what he meant, Alastor slipped his hand lower, and Vox groaned at the sight of it between his thighs. “Why is it that you've always craved this from me? Because you have craved it, haven't you? You've always harboured a poorly hidden desire to have me touching you.”
He had. Vox had pushed his luck whenever he could, putting his hands on Alastor's shoulders, around his waist – but Alastor had never really done the same. Vox had spent plenty of sleepless nights, staring at the ceiling, dreaming of the day when Alastor might realise his interest. When he might admit he felt likewise.
Dead dreams. Stupid dreams. Vox scowled.
“I've imagined a lot of people fucking me, so what? That doesn't make you special.”
Alastor's brows lifted, ears perking up again. If Vox had control of his body, he would have kicked his own head right through the window. There had been something there, hadn't there? And he'd just fucked it up again.
“Who said anything about me fucking you? Really, Vox. You do put things in the most vulgar light possible.” There was an air of condescension to his tone, a superior dismissiveness that had Vox seeing red. His temper flared, circuits at the back of his head sparking.
“Well you're the one fondling my cunt, so which one of us is the pervert here, huh?”
He'd snapped out the words before he had a chance to consider them, glaring at Alastor – at his hand. He'd expected his outburst to spark a realisation in the other man, a recognition that the toy he was fidgeting with was in fact Vox's body – but Alastor only paused. His lids lowered, and he uncrossed his legs, turning to face Vox more fully.
“You know, Vox – I always disliked how reactive you were. Whenever I touched you, you couldn't help but spark against me. This is far more pleasant.” He nodded to Vox's body, and Vox sputtered.
“My headless corpse is more pleasant?”
“It is,” Alastor confirmed placidly, waving his other hand. A swell of shadows swept over the bed, and Vox let out a choked sound when they dissipated. His body was still there – completely fucking nude. And Alastor was staring at it – staring at Vox, kind of – with the sort of morbid fascination a scientist might display when examining a particularly interesting new beetle.
The hand between Vox's thighs shifted, and as much as Vox fucking hated this – as much as he wanted to spit and curse and swear to the Heavens he'd tried to take over that he wasn't this fucking pathetic – he couldn't stop himself from trying to crane a neck he didn't have, groaning at the sight of Alastor pushing his thighs open a little further.
“What are you doing?” Vox demanded, because he couldn't fucking see. Was Alastor already finger-fucking him? Was – did his body respond? His mouth went dry as Alastor lifted his hand, spreading two of his fingers apart and staring at the sticky residue clinging to them. Okay. Vox's body was definitely responding. Alastor hummed, cocking his head, and Vox tried to claw back the words struggling to burst from his tongue.
He swallowed – but all he managed to choke down was his pride as Alastor's other hand skimmed over his stomach, fingertips brushing over his gills.
“Let me see,” he blurted out. He couldn't even dredge up the embarrassment he should be feeling at the way Alastor chuckled, his hand disappearing between Vox's thighs again. Fucking fuck all of everything and everyone in Hell. “Come on!” Vox demanded, hating how easily his voice slipped into pleading. “You can't fucking – you can't tell me you're finally fucking touching me, and I'm not even allowed to see it? I already can't feel it.”
The smile Alastor shot him was fond – or perhaps Vox was imagining it. Seeing what he desperately hoped to see, when in actual fact any sane person would call it what it was. The sick grin of a sadist. But fuck it, Vox had slept with sadists before.
“Please?” Vox tried. Hopeful, and unable to disguise it. Alastor sighed, lifting his hand again – his fingers shining where they caught the light – and stood. He crossed the room to where Vox was propped against the wall, bending down to look him in the eye.
“Why?” He asked. Curious. Always fucking curious.
“Because – because I want to see it? Come on, Alastor, is that so fucking weird? You're the one sticking your fingers in my cunt like you're stimming with a tub of slime. Don't take this from me, too.”
Alastor stared at him a moment longer, one ear flicking at the way his voice cracked. His static popped, feedback humming in the air – and he straightened, abruptly picking Vox up with one hand, thumb digging into the front of his screen. He dropped him onto an armchair, shadows dragging it over so that Vox had an unimpeded view of the space between his own thighs.
Fuck. His cunt was definitely reacting to the way Alastor was touching it, slick shining on the dark blue of his folds. As much as he liked wearing his cocks – and they were all perfectly functional, thank you very much – there was something about seeing Alastor's claw skimming over his entrance that had his mind spinning. Spiralling far faster than it might have if those same fingers were wrapped around his cock. A different kind of intimacy, and Vox groaned when Alastor shifted – delicately pressing one of those long fingers between Vox's lips, disappearing up to the knuckle.
“This is fucked up,” Vox muttered, and Alastor hummed an agreement. He snapped his fingers, withdrawing his hand – and Vox blinked as an odd collection of toys and lube fell to the bed. Plugs, dildos, vibrators – his mouth flooded with saliva. If Alastor wanted to experiment – if he finally wanted to give sex a go – then Vox would be an absolutely willing subject. “Fuck.”
“That does seem to be the topic of the moment,” Alastor remarked, as carelessly as discussing the weather. 'Will there be acid rain later today?' 'Do you think I ought to wear a coat?' 'Should I fuck your headless, lifeless body while you watch?' Vox could have strangled him.
If he'd, you know. Had hands.
“Is that what you want, then? Would that sate your curiosity once and for all?”
“Would it sate yours?” Vox fired back. He didn't miss the way Alastor's ears briefly pinned, his gaze darting to some meaningless corner of the room for a second as the edges of his smile twisted. “Come on. Don't pretend you've never felt it.”
Alastor opened his mouth – then closed it with a snap. He picked up a bottle of lube and dripped it onto his fingers, and Vox was about to ask him why he was bothering – when the words vanished right out of his motherboard at the sight of Alastor's hand dipping lower than before, two fingers pressing into Vox's asshole without so much as a pause.
“I've felt... something,” Alastor admitted. The situation was bizarre. He was talking about whatever he had that passed for human emotion while Vox could see his own rim stretching around the press of Alastor's fingers. “You used to be pleasant to be around. Enjoyable enough, in your way. Would this put an end to things?”
He didn't add the rest of his question. He didn't need to. Vox avoided his gaze, deliberately staring at the way his own tightly furled hole was gradually loosening. What exactly Alastor had planned, Vox didn't know. Maybe he thought he might as well just try everything while he had the chance.
“Did you really bring my body back here to harvest it for parts?” Vox asked instead of answering, and Alastor's static hissed and sputtered. He pressed another finger into Vox's hole, in a way that Vox might have protested – if he could feel it – and abruptly pulled them out. He wasted no time picking up one of the plugs and pushing it into Vox's body, and Vox's lids fell to half-mast as he watched his own greedy hole stretch around the thickest part of it, swallowing up as if it were desperate for more.
Alastor's red gaze met his, and there was an answer in there. Somewhere. If Vox could just figure it out, could just pick it out amongst the riddles Alastor spoke in. If he could just get a speck of honesty, could get him to say something. Something to prove Vox hadn't been insane for thinking there was a chance.
But Alastor bared his teeth in a snarl, ears pinning to his skull as his hands fumbled with his zipper. His movements were jerky and agitated, and Vox barely got a chance to look at his cock as he dragged it out – before he was rounding on Vox's body, hips nudging his thighs apart.
“If you want me to fuck you, I'll fuck you. But I want to make one thing clear, Picture Box–” Alastor hadn't used that name in decades, and he must have realised it, because he paused. Then his hips slammed forward with a blat of static, his hands braced either side of Vox's body, his legs blocking Vox's view. “After this, we are done. Take it–” his hips jerked, a faint squeak echoing in his throat. “Or leave it.”
“I'll take it,” Vox managed to get out. As if he had a choice in the matter. The frustration coiling in his head was hot enough to set the cushion behind him smoking, his screen sparking as he watched Alastor's hips rocking between his own limp thighs. He could have cried, knowing that mere feet away, his body was getting everything he'd ever wanted – and he couldn't feel a single damn part of it. Couldn't even see it, and he wished he hadn't asked Alastor to move him. At least if he was still on the nightstand, he could have watched Alastor's face.
Or what was visible past the way it was buried against his body's chest, at least. Alastor's hair swayed as his movements quickened. He wasn't talking any longer, wasn't taunting Vox for this. His breath was stuttered, his static echoing in ragged gasps, and Vox bit into his own lip when he saw Alastor's claws bunch in the sheets, his hips snapping forward. Trembling where they pressed against his body, a whine of feedback escaping Alastor's control.
Over? Not quite. Alastor pulled back, picking up another plug. His cock dangled from his open fly, but he no longer seemed to care. There was a glaze to his eyes, a rigidity to his grin, that almost stopped Vox from barking out a protest. Almost.
“That toy's not meant for–” he stopped. Alastor's eyes flashed, his cheeks flushed and his hair sticking to his forehead. There was an oddly possessive gleam to his expression as he pressed the toy into Vox's cunt, and Vox's screen glitched at the sight of it.
“You'd be surprised at what a creative mind can accomplish. Now–” Alastor's power flashed around his antlers, shadows tangling with green streaks of light. He shuddered, his cock slowly filling out once more. A misuse of demonic abilities like that could have gotten him a job on Val's sets, but Vox knew Alastor would never have gone for such a thing. “How much of me would you take, Vox? Given the choice?”
Vox swallowed. It wasn't so much a question of what he was willing to take from Alastor as it was an admission of the hold the other man still had over him. They both knew it. Vox let his eyes close for a moment – just a moment, mind, he didn't want to miss too much – before he fixed Alastor with a pointed stare. Alastor tugged almost lazily at the plug in Vox's ass, his smile as fixed on his face as ever. Even now, it was impossible to shatter. Something in Vox snapped.
“Everything,” he admitted, half-whispering the word. His screen burned where a tear ran down his glass, and Alastor tilted his head at the sight of it. His smile turned close-lipped, eyes darkening as he turned back to Vox's body.
“Good answer.”
* * * * * *
Vox didn't know how long he'd been here. Alastor didn't spend the entire time fucking his body – and even when he did, he seemed about as invested in the activity as he was in sticking his claws under the membranes covering Vox's gills or fiddling with the wires hanging from his neck. He watched his spend drip down Vox's navel with a detached sort of air, and although Vox had considered chewing his own tongue off just to stop himself from begging, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
“Again,” he stuttered, utterly lost. “Please let me see it again.”
It seemed as though even Alastor's demonic recovery had its limits, for he shook his head. He was stretched out along Vox's side, one hand dragging a claw over his sternum. Every so often he pressed down hard enough to break the skin, Vox's blood and coolant mixing with everything else clinging to his body.
“That's enough. Come, Vox. Oh – now there's a thought!” Alastor brightened, ears perking towards the ceiling as he glanced at the stump of Vox's neck. Before Vox had a chance to ask him what he was talking about, Alastor had bounced to his feet, tucking himself neatly away and strolling over to pick up Vox's head. A distressed noise echoed from Vox's speakers, but Alastor hushed him. “Now then, old friend. I think we can agree on one thing, at least.” He set Vox's head down on the bed, lining up the bottom of his screen with the stump of his neck. Vox was forced to stare up at Alastor's forearms as they reached in front of his face, doing something unseen below his casing.
“What's that?”
“Whatever we feel, it's certainly – in your own words – 'fucked up'. Ah, here we go. Red to red, yes?” Alastor murmured, as soft as Vox had ever heard him. He could convince himself it was fondness, he could. He'd done it before, and he had no reason to pretend otherwise. Not any longer. There was no pride left for him to salvage.
“Wait–” Vox realised what Alastor was doing, a spark of sensation firing through his network as his systems tried to come online. Everything at once, running diagnostics on his body, and he dismissed the safety checks. He could feel, he–
His sense of touch returned in a simultaneous burst of overwhelming pleasure and unbearable pain. Vox abruptly grew aware of several sensations all at once, his eyes rolling back as he groaned.
The raw, used feeling of his cunt, clenching around the toy Alastor had left in him, dripping come down the cleft of his ass anyway. Alastor's come. The same come that trickled from his aching hole, smearing over his thighs, his ass throbbing with a dull sting. He didn't even move – he didn't need to. A whimper caught in his throat as his synapses and nerves fired – nerves that had previously had no destination, nowhere to send their messages, flooding his motherboard with the hot, aching glut of his trapped climax.
Trapped no longer, and Vox gasped as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through him, his body writhing in uncoordinated spasms against the bed. He was going to blow a fuse, his fans couldn't manage this, he was–
FATAL ERROR.
No – no, he was going to blue-screen, and he forced his eyes open, desperately looking around for Alastor. Trapped in the throes of an orgasm that wouldn't end, he found the other man still leaning over him, watching him with a kind of sadistic hunger in his eyes.
The final straw.
A light on Vox's head flashed, and he let out a shout, his back arching as every muscle he had tensed – and he dislodged his screen, knocking loose the makeshift wiring job Alastor had done just as his systems failed. The world narrowed to a pinprick of light, and Alastor's teeth glinting was the last thing he saw before he shut down.
Fuck.
* * * * * *
In the days to come, Vox might have thought he'd dreamed up the whole thing. He'd woken up back in his tower, and neither Val nor Vel seemed to have noticed his absence. But his body was missing, they said, so he was just going to have to stay the way he was until they built him a new one, and it certainly wasn't a priority right now.
Vox could only imagine – and be jealous of – what his body might still be getting up to.
~fin~