Chapter Text
“You know,” Husker mutters around his smoke, “I don’t think he’s looked away from you since you walked in.”
Alastor hummed, his grin stretching slow and catlike as he swirled his drink. “Mmm… how flattering,” he said, his voice coming out with a slight purr beneath the faint crackle of static. He was on his fourth drink now and he was starting to feel the tiniest bit tipsy. “Though I can’t imagine what’s so fascinating about little ol’ me.”
Husker snorted as he polished a glass that clearly didn’t need it. Alastor suspected that it was something to keep his hands busy. “You’re loud, dramatic, and you light up a room without trying. Kinda hard not to look.” And most sinners think you to be more dangerous than the devil himself, went unsaid.
Alastor couldn’t help but laugh, resting his chin on his hand as he looked at the Overlord. “My dear Husker, that sounds dangerously like a compliment!”
Husker rolled his eyes, taking out his cigar to flick ash into the tray beside him. “Don’t get used to it,” he grumbled. “Just calling it how I see it.”
Alastor’s grin softened to something more genuine, for just a heartbeat. Then the familiar playfulness returned, “Careful, Husker. If you start complimenting me too often, people might think you like my company.”
“Yeah, well,” The older cat muttered, setting the glass aside and taking a long drag of his cigar, exhaling a slow trail of smoke that curled towards the ceiling. “At least you pay your tab.” Once he was done, he put the cigar out in the ash tray. “Though I still don’t know how you drink that much sugar in one sitting. Makes my teeth hurt just lookin’ at it.”
Alastor chuckled, lifting his empty glass in mock salute. “Oh, Husker, my dear fellow, the sweetness makes the bitterness easier to swallow.”
“Yeah? Try tellin’ that to him,” Husker muttered, jerking his head subtly toward the far end of the bar.
This time, Alastor followed the motion lazily with his eyes.
There he was.
In the corner, wearing a yellow sweater and a black blazer and matching slacks, was the demon who had been watching him. He was… unique, if Alastor had to put a name to the other's appearance. Most demons were more commonly animal based, but it also wasn't unrare for a demon to be more object based.
This one just happened to have a picture box for a head.
When the other noticed that the two demons were looking over, he stiffened ever so slightly. He tried to play it off by reaching for his drink with a too-casual motion and drowning it.
“Ah,” Alastor mused, letting more weight rest in his hand as his other gently tapped his staff on the bar's side. “He’s shy. How adorable.” He might be more drunk than he thought. Thank Lucifer that Mimizy wasn't here or he would have to deal with her teasing.
Then again, if Mimizy was here, he would probably be on his tenth drink.
“That’s the new wannabe Overlord. Well, one of them. But he’s the one that everyone’s been talking ‘bout,” Husker muttered, gesturing subtly with his cigar toward the corner booth. “Calls himself Vox, I think.”
When Alastor didn’t say anything or even look surprised, Husker gave him a look, “You two met before?”
“Not officially,” Alastor said, setting down his glass with a soft clink. He was starting to become terribly curious or terrible and curious?
“Now don’t go causin’ trouble,” Husker warned once he saw the slow grin starting to stretch from ear to ear on the other demon's face. Whenever the older man saw that grin, it never meant anything good. And more often than not, it led to his bar, or whatever establishment they were in, in some type of disarray.
Alastor pushed away from the bar, placing a hand on his chest and twirling his staff in the other dramatically. “Trouble? Dear Husker, you wound me.” He straightened his tie, the faint hum of his radio static buzzing grew a pitch louder. “I’m simply going to introduce myself. It would be rude not to, don’t you think?”
Husker sighed. “You’re gonna eat him alive, aren’t you?”
Alastor’s grin widened. “Only if he asks nicely.”
With that, Alastor stepped away from the bar, watching as Husker rolled his eyes and checked on his customers with a roll of his eyes.
That action made him pause, just a little. Alastor let himself watch for a moment, a few seconds really.
While Husker was an older man then himself, he was a younger demon then Alastor. Maybe that explains why it was almost impressive that Husker had been able to claim the Overlord in that short time. Not that it was hard to do nowadays, but to keep it was a victory in of itself. He had gained notable notoriety, especially since he cared a good little niche for himself in hell. That led the cat Overlord to gain a couple of nicknames from the papers, like the Gambling Demon or the Card King. Hell’s appalling lack of imagination aside, the titles did fit. The man was good at what he did.
But despite all that, he still didn’t know the rules like Alastor did.
The reminder made his teeth ache.
It would be so very, very easy to claim his soul for own. Especially since Husker had many exploitable vices himself. All it would take would be night of drinking and gambling.
But as Alastor watched, Husker manifested a stack of cards and started to play some tricks for two female imps perched at the bar, he used his tongue to soothe the back of his teeth.
Husk was one of the few in Hell who didn’t cower or grovel. He’d stare a demon down, deal the cards, and let fate decide who burned. He also was one of the few who could keep up with Alastor when he played on the piano.
If the deer demon were to take the other’s soul, he would become a, well, a husk, of his former self. That wouldn’t do, not while he was still so entertaining.
If that ever changed, well, Alastor would cross that delightful little bridge when he came to it.
For now, there were other amusements to be had.
The music from the gramophone warbled into a slower, lazier song. Alastor adjusted his collar before striding across the bar, letting his cane tapping in time with the beat.
At the corner booth, Vox was pretending very hard not to notice him.
He had his chin propped on one hand, fiddling with the rim of his glass as though it was the most fascinating thing in Hell. Alastor could also hear the faint hum of static from his screen, which betrayed him as every few seconds, the sound grew and then dimmed, like a pulse quickening under scrutiny.
The Radio Demon couldn't help but wonder if only he heard that last part.
Alastor stopped just short of the booth, head tilted. “Well now,” he said at last, keeping tone smooth as he talked, “you make a rather poor statue, my good man. Blink and you’ll give yourself away.”
Vox froze for a half-beat, then chuckled awkwardly. “Guess you caught me,” he said, turning his screen toward him fully now. The blue light of it reflected faintly off Alastor’s green eyes. “Didn’t realize I was that obvious.” The tone was almost bashful, almost boyish even, but there was a faint tension behind it. Like he was trying to play off being caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
Alastor hummed again before he answered. “No need to apologize,” Alastor said finally, sliding into the seat across from him without asking. A little rude, maybe, but most would considered staring rude so it canceled out. “I tend to find curiosity to be a rather endearing trait. It’s one of the few things that keeps this place from being so dreadfully boring.”
Vox’s had screen flickered faintly when Alastor sat down across from him. He coughed and as scrambled for composure, straightening his blazer and setting his empty glass a little harsher than more then likely intended. “I just meant it’s… not every day you meet a legend,” Vox finished lamely.
It wasn’t quite the smooth, charismatic tone Alastor was expecting from a supposed rising Overlord. Vox looked like he was trying to be suave, to maintain a certain polish, but his words kept tripping over themselves. It was oddly… genuine.
Alastor blinked once, tilting his head as he looked at him. As he did so, a faint sound of a radio turning onto a new frequency played. “My, my, how flattering. But I do think you're overselling it a touch, don’t you think?”
The other demon gave a small, embarrassed chuckle. “Maybe,” Vox admitted, drumming his fingers once against the table before stilling them. “But it’s true. Everyone’s heard of you, you know. The Radio Demon, just appearing out of nowhere, tearing through half the city like it was nothing.”
Alastor waved his hand, “Ah, yes. The stories do tend to… embellish a bit, don’t they? You conquer one or two egotistical Overlords and suddenly you’re a monster!” He laughed lightly, alongside the laugh track that accompanied it.
Vox smiled, well, the pixelated approximation of one. Alastor had to wonder how the other ate. “You don’t think you are?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Alastor replied smoothly, resting his chin on his hand again. His head was still a bit woozy, if anything it seemed to be getting worse. “I’m simply saying that perception and truth rarely hold hands for long.”
Vox tilted his head slightly, the faint buzz of static coming from his screen. “Guess that depends on who’s telling the story,” he said, leaning back with a practiced air of nonchalance that didn’t quite land.
“Precisely!” Alastor's sudden increase in voice was enough to make a nearby demon jump. “A story is only as powerful as the teller. And I’ve always found it far more fun to let others do the telling.” His grin almost seemed to glimmered in the bar's lighting. “They make me far more interesting than I ever could on my own.”
That earned a real surprised laugh from Vox. That made his grin turn into something between sharp and genuinely entertained. It was enough to make Alastor continue.
“Well, Vox, was it? You’re quite the curiosity yourself. An ambitious little broadcaster trying to carve out his niche, hmm?”
Vox’s screen flickered faintly at that, annoyance Alastor clocked easily. “Something like that,” he said, his voice was confident enough to make the other sudden irritation. “I’ve got ideas. Big ones. Just… haven’t gotten the reach yet.” Then he looked at Alastor with almost nervous eyes. “Have you seen any of my broadcasts?” Vox asked, his tone casual, but the tension in his shoulders said otherwise.
Alastor leaned back in the booth, wishing he still had a drink. “Mmm, I can’t say I have,” he said, a bit more detached then he met too. “Radio’s always been my preferred medium. But I will say that I might have caught a few ends of the broadcasts around town. You're very… expressive.”
Vox chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well… gotta get people’s attention somehow,” he said. His voice carried a spark of defensiveness as he continued, “Some of the… other networks don’t exactly play nice.”
“Rivals, then,” Alastor mused. “Competition breeds innovation, or so they say.”
“Yeah, well, I’m working on the breeding part,” Vox muttered, bitterness creeping in despite his attempt to stay smooth. “The bastards keep trying to steal my frequencies. Half of ‘em can’t even run a proper signal, but they’ve got the power to drown me out.”
Oh, and how Alastor could understand that. When he had first arrived in Hell, after his "adjustment period” so to speak, Alastor had worked tirelessly to claim his voice, and only his voice, across the airwaves. There had been other radio hosts, of course, but they had no class, no style with no direction or idea to what they were really doing.
It had been fun to use their annoying artless voice for his own shows. Their screams almost made up for the lackluster work.
Almost.
“Ahhh,” Alastor said with mock sympathy, resting his chin on his hand again. “So the bright young entrepreneur finds himself beset by the cruel world of business.” His grin turned razor-edged. “How dreadfully ordinary.”
That made Vox chuckle, and this time it sounded a little less forced. “Yeah, maybe. But that’s how you start. You tear down the competition, build something better. Bigger.”
There it was. His ambition. Wasn't that a such a delicious little character trait.
This sinner could be very entertaining to watch. Would rule or would he fall like Icarus?
Still, despite this conversation being one of the most engaging he’d had in weeks, Alastor had always known when it was best to step away.
Always leave them wanting more.
He rose from his seat in one fluid motion, twirling his cane as he did so. “Well, this has been delightfully diverting,” he said, straightening his jacket. “But alas, the night wanes, and I fear if I linger much longer, dear Husker will charge me for loitering.”
Vox blinked, “You’re leaving already?”
Alastor smiled, but it gave nothing away for how he really felt. It didn't help that he also had another… arrangement this evening. “Ah, you say that as though you’ll miss me.” The pixels on Vox’s face glitched faintly, which caused Alastor to chuckle. “I do hope that you won’t let my departure ruin your evening.”
Vox opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, but this time something in his posture shifted. Less jittery. He straightened, “No,” he said, voice steadier. “I just wonder if… you would like to meet again. At some point. To talk.”
Alastor paused. Just a blink. Barely even a moment.
To his credit, the picture box didn’t shrink as the other demon stared him down in that brief pause. In fact, he made sure to hold Alastor’s gaze.
Interesting.
Alastor tilted his head, just slightly. “To talk…?”
Vox nodded once. “Yeah. Just talk. Or, maybe, I dunno, ” He hesitated, but didn’t look away. “Get dinner or something.”
Dinner.
A harmless suggestion for most.
For Alastor?
Alastor’s smile sharpened.
It sparked an idea.
“Well,” he said lightly, “I suppose I could be persuaded.”
Vox’s screen flickered brighter. “Really?”
“Certainly,” Alastor replied as though it were the simplest thing in the world. “A bit of conversation over dinner might be… enlightening.”
Vox sat up straighter, almost energized. “Great. Good. I can, uh, I can plan something, if you’d like?”
Alastor tapped his cane once against the floor. “No need. I’ll contact you.”
Vox nodded, relieved and maybe a bit proud. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll be ready.”
Alastor’s grin widened.
“I expect you will be.”
With that, he turned away. He made sure to place his money onto the counter before he teleported away.
And just like that, he was gone.
Vox lingered in the booth a few seconds longer, screen flickering faintly.
Then, he murmured to himself:
“…Holy shit.”
And downed the rest of his drink.
When Alastor rematerialized in his own home, he nearly collapsed. He grasped one of the arms of the velvet armchairs to not fall to the ground. His legs buckled the moment reality solidified around him, but he stayed standing.
Using his other hand, he ran it over his face. He turned, letting himself sit on the arm and rubbed his hand up again, reaching up and roughly pulling at his hair.
So the woozyness wasn’t because of the drinks was it?
After a few minutes of hunched over the arm of the chair, making sure that the room stopped spinning, he finally let out a long, low breath. It trembled near the end of it despite his attempt to steady it.
He hated that.
But it was no matter. It always passed.
He straightened himself, placing his hand on his chest for a second before standing fully. “Yes,” he murmured to the quiet room, almost dismissily, “quite manageable.”
Once he was certain his legs would obey him again, Alastor finally pushed himself fully upright. His posture snapped back into its usual poised sharpness, nothing betrayed his momentarily weakness.
But his hands…
His hands still trembled. Only slightly, but enough that he tucked them behind his back before the sight could irritate him further.
He rolled his eyes as he summoned one of his shadows to him, a sharp grin on its face stretched across its inky face as it curled around his shoulder, awaiting instruction.
Alastor exhaled slowly, letting that last shred of unease slip from his expression as the shadow loomed over his shoulder, its grin reflected his own. “Keep watching him,” Since he was alone, he let the normal static that accompanied his voice die down. “Patterns, habits, anything that stands out." He waved a dismissive hand made his way to his bedroom. He ignored the shadow when it gave a look. "He’s not subtle.”
The shadow watched its master for a moment, almost too knowing.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he chided lightly. “I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to my own shadows."
The shadow only tilted its head slowly.
Alastor clicked his tongue and turned away, unwilling to be studied in his own home by a creature that was technically a part of him. Or well, more like summoned by him. This shadow was not his own, only something he had worked hard to summon and use for his own uses. Where Alastor's own shadow was an enigma to him at the moment. He could easily call it to his side, the shadow like to explore. Just like it's owner, it did not like to be kept still.
Alastor didn’t bother to watch as this shadow left. He could feel it leave as he took off his coat when he did get into the bedroom. He draped the coat over the back of the vanity chair with less care than he normally had before settling into the chair himself.
He might have told a little white lie here and there in the conversation.
In truth, Alastox had already known who the TV demon was when he first walked through the door. How could he not? The Radio Demon could pinpoint the moment Vox had manifested in Hell. The radio frequency he had been living in alone suddenly had a new signal cutting through the static. It was unmistakable. Jarring. A new voice on a wavelength that had once belonged to him and him alone.
Alastor had sent his own shadow at first to investigate, to see what this little upstart was about. And the reports had been interesting enough to keep him listening.
So very, very interesting.
An ambitious thing with far too much spark for his own good. Much like Alastor himself when he first arrived in Hell, he took one look at how lacking his industry was and decided to take it all over for himself. Despite talking how his competition was trying to crush him, Vox had already taken over half of the TV industry.
For someone so young in demonic years, Vox was already clawing his way into relevance with the intensity of someone who refused to back down.
Alastor still didn’t know if he found it endearing, irritating, or fascinating.
He rested his elbows on the vanity, folding his hands beneath his chin. The tremor was only in his fingers now. Tsk. How undignified.
When he looked back into the mirror, his own shadow was curled around his shoulders now. “I should have ignored him,” Alastor murmured as he finally started on fixing his face. His night out this evening wasn’t that crazy to upset his appearance too much. “It's hardly worth my attention.”
But they both knew that wasn’t true.
His shadow stared at him in the mirror.
Alastor’s ear twitched.
“Oh, don’t you start,” he muttered, dabbing a bit of tint that matched his skin tone onto his cheekbone. “You are a fragment of me. You should be agreeing with me.”
A beat.
He clicked his tongue sharply. “Not… hovering.”
His shadow only curled closer as though listening to a confession he refused to give.
“Tsk.” He set the brush down with more force than necessary. “You are insufferable.”
His shadow only tilted its head, as if to say: You’re deflecting.
Alastor smoothed a claw beneath his eye, neatening a line. “I am not interested. It’s a little curiosity. Nothing more,” he continued, “A new arrival with an unusual make. A… strange little anomaly.”
The shadow’s grin widened in the mirror.
Alastor inhaled sharply through his nose.
“Fine. Slightly compelling,” he allowed, just barely. “But only because novelty is so dreadfully rare.”
The shadow continued to stare.
Alastor narrowed his green eyes at his own reflection. “You are awfully bold for a creature whose existence depends entirely on my good will.”
The shadow didn’t flinch nor did its grin didn’t fade.
Alastor jaw tightened, “Oh, stop that,” he snapped, flicking his wrist. “I do not brood.”
The shadow arched a brow it didn’t technically have.
Alastor inhaled sharply through his nose, picked up the brush again to finish his work. His hands had finally, blessedly, stopped shaking.
“He is ambitious,” Alastor conceded quietly, as though admitting it was a minor inconvenience rather than what it truly was. The spark that had unsettled him from the first moment that new frequency tore through his broadcast waves. “Ambition breeds unpredictability.”
He dragged the brush across his cheekbone, satisfied with the symmetry.
“That,” he murmured, “is all that interests me.”
He stood, making sure to adjust his belt vest before making his way to his closet. He reached into his closet to grab an identical coat, one of several, in fact, and put it on. Once he was finished, he took one last look into the mirror.
His smile was, of course, perfect.
Alastor had needed those drinks tonight, and the conversation with Vox had been a convenient distraction, but now, but now the last buzz of alcohol had faded into a dull aftertaste…
He remembered why he’d needed the distraction at all.
If he was someone lesser, he would have sighed. Instead, he summoned his staff and gave it a twirl.
It wouldn’t be best to linger, Alastor thought as he let himself slip into the shadows.
Queen Lilith was not one to be kept waiting.