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To be perfectly clear: Alastor isn’t afraid of dogs. He has never and will never feel something as pedestrian as fear towards anything, let alone some pathetic mongrel.
Alastor does, however, loathe dogs.
They are simple-minded, blindly loyal, disgusting little creatures who would sooner die than become useless. Their entire existence revolves around the service of their master, and they pursue fulfillment in scraps of food and affection. They just as happily eat from the very hand that beats them and come back for more, as it is hardwired into their very existence to prove themselves worthy of approval, of praise, of love.
Dogs are at their happiness when they are under someone’s heel, and how could Alastor be expected to admire such a wretched little thing?
So that is why, when Vox introduces Alastor to his latest pet –shipped all the way from the Envy ring— he isn’t able to offer the lad much else other than a faint, “oh.”
“Oh?” Vox repeats, clearly affronted by Alastor distinct lack of praise.
But what else could Alastor say but the barest of acknowledgements to the panting thing sitting on Vox’s right foot?
It has a wide head with an eye on either side gives it a rather dopey expression, helped in no way by the underbite peeking out from behind the long, wet tongue lolling out from its overstretched maw. Its tail wraps around Vox’s legs and thumps, unrhythmically, against the hardwood floor and is in syncopation with the high yips and pitchy whines it lets out as it periodically lunges, as though testing Vox’s grip on its collar.
Alastor subtly tightens his grip on his cane. Just in case that thing catches Vox slacking.
“His name’s Vark. He’s really friendly.”
Alastor hums dubiously as he eyes the beast. Despite Vox’s grip, its forward progress has been incremental, and it is now close enough to smell Alastor’s leg. It tries to jump but Vox yanks him down.
“Vark, this is Alastor. Okay buddy? Alastor. We like Alastor.”
The pitiful creature whines and rams its snout against Alastor’s shin. There’s weight behind its nudge, a deceptive strength hidden behind its sloppy demeanor.
Alastor keeps his guard up.
“You, uh, you wanna say hello? He won’t bite. Promise.”
Alastor considers the slobbering beast at his feet. No longer lunging at him, but crowding him with an unfounded eagerness that puts Alastor on edge.
“Perhaps another time.”
He ignores Vox’s crestfallen little “oh” and heads for the couch.
Alastor sits and pulls out a cigarette, lighting it as Vox joins him on the other cushion. That thing treads clumsily in Vox’s wake and places a paw on the couch, like it has half a mind to clamor on after them. Alastor nudges it down to the floor with his foot. Does Vox normally let that thing onto the furniture?
“So then,” Alastor takes a deep drag. “Why the pet?”
Vox smiles down at the thing as it rests its wide head onto his lap. He pets it, giving it a few scratches under its chin, and shrugs. “I dunno. Just always wanted one.”
Alastor hums around his cigarette and takes it out to tap the ashes into the tray on the coffee table. “Aren’t you always complaining about your schedule though? Your studio, your meetings, your “grand plans”. Can’t imagine why you’d add pet care to that list.”
“Pretty rich coming from you, Alastor. Remind me, how many alligators do you have?”
“However many the bayou feels it needs that day. Louis is always there, sure, though I’d hardly call him a pet. He’s rather more independent than that.”
Vox’s pet wriggles out from under Vox’s hand and shuffles over towards Alastor. It bumps its snout into Alastor’s knee and stares up at him expectantly.
“Feel like saying hi yet?” Vox asks.
“Not particularly.” Alastor huffs as he takes another pull. “And I’m no more inclined just because it begs.”
Vox smiles and leans into Alastor’s space. “Mmm, I dunno, I find begging to be pret-ty effective when it comes to you.”
“As with most things, you are the rare exception, my dear.”
Alastor caresses the side of Vox’s chassis and, with a gentle nudge, coaxes him closer. Until he’s close enough for Alastor to hear the soft buzz of cathode tubes, to feel the tingling static of his screen, to anticipate the pressure of lips, of teeth, of tongue against his own.
Only for the sudden interjection of a heavy, wriggling body atop his lap to bring the thrilling crescendo to a slamming halt.
Alastor jerks away from the slobbering mouth barking up at him and feels his cursed body momentarily freeze as those sharp teeth glint under the lamplight. It crawls up Alastor’s body and stretches to lick his face, desperate for a taste.
Spittle lands across his cheek, warm and slimy, and Alastor’s body springs back to life to shove that thing down onto the floor.
“Hey, Alastor, careful!”
Vox looks like he’s about to stand before his pet perks right up, and he relaxes back into the cushions. He glares at Alastor reproachfully. “He’s just a puppy.”
“He’s a nuisance!” Alastor adds, feeling entirely justified as he’s forced to push the infernal thing away before it weasels between his legs.
“He’s affectionate.” Vox argues back. “Just because your alligator doesn’t do jack shit doesn’t mean my pet’s a problem.”
“How dare you. Louis is discreet.”
“How the fuck is an alligator discreet?”
“Well, he doesn’t shove his snout into everyone’s business for one.” Alastor shoves that damned thing away from his groin again. “Especially their private business.”
The hideous beast simply stares up at him with its wide set eyes and floppy tongue. A long stretch of drool seeps out, and Alastor moves his shoe to avoid it.
Then it gives its head a shake and renders Alastor’s due caution entirely pointless.
He wipes the slimy spittle off his pantleg with a grimace.
Vox, meanwhile, speaks at it in a sickeningly sweet coo. “Aw, are you trying to say hello to Alastor? Such a good boy, yes you are, yes you are.”
The thing whumps its thick tail against the floor as Vox scritches its head. Alastor surprises himself with the flinch he must suppress when it suddenly barks after Vox tries to pull his hand away.
“Besides, can your gator do tricks?”
“What would possess me to even try that?”
“No, no, it’s great. Watch. I’ll show you.”
Vox jumps to his feet and heads for his kitchenette, his eagerness matched only by the creature that seems dead set on squirming its bulky body underneath his every step. From a glass jar on the counter, Vox pours out a handful of jerky pieces. The drooling beast barks and slams into the nearby cabinets in its writhing excitement.
Vox practically has to fight his way back to the couch with how closely the animal crowds him.
“Alright Vark, you ready? Okay, spin.”
The creature simply stares up at Vox with a certain empty cluelessness.
“Come on boy, spin.”
Vox tries to help it with a demonstrative twirl of his arm, but the thing only follows Vox’s guiding hand with a floppy, graceless spin of its head.
“We’re, uh, we’re still learning that one.” Vox laughs, nervously, like he’s the one who’s failing so spectacularly.
“How about this. Vark. Paw.
The shark-dog-thing stares down at the open palm Vox is holding out. It sniffs, perhaps looking for the treat Vox has in his other hand, and gives Vox’s empty palm a probing lick.
“Paw,” Vox repeats, cajoling, as he gives his proffered hand a little shake.
The beast licks it again, this time more vigorously, and Vox’s hand is left glistening with drool.
Vox, predictably, changes tactics. “Vark. Sit.”
The thing blinks at Vox. One eye after the other.
“Vark. Sit.”
It makes some noise in its throat, deeper than a whine but higher than a growl, and shuffles its stance. But it doesn’t do anything remotely close to sitting.
“SIT.” Vox repeats, with a firmness that would be nearly impressive, were it not diluted by repetition.
The beast yips before flopping onto the floor and rolling over, belly up. It wiggles and pants excitedly, never stopping its vacuously devoted stare towards Vox.
“Alright, close enough. Good boy,” Vox praises as he kneels to feed the little failure a piece of jerky.
Alastor watches it roll over to eagerly lap up the scrap of meat from Vox’s palm. Its tail thrashes to and fro vigorously when Vox gives him another for no apparent reason.
“Does he know how to do anything?” Alastor laughs.
“He usually does it.” Vox huffs as he feeds his pet another unearned treat.
“Oh, so it’s perfectly capable, but chooses not to? What’s that they say about pets reflecting their owner? Must take after you in more than just looks, my dear.”
Vox opens his mouth before frowning, perhaps realizing that defending himself would not only besmirch his beloved pet, but argue that he is in any manner proficient at submitting to commands. A fact that Vox, stubborn brat that he is, has yet to outwardly admit.
So he simply ducks his head back down to avoid the barb entirely and gives his pet one final, mildly aggressive rub across its upturned belly before standing back up.
Alastor considers the drooling beast lying limp across the hardwood floor. “All jokes aside, I had thought the whole point of these things was their obedience.”
Vox places his hands on his hips and rolls his eyes. “They’re for companionship too.”
“Is that so? Are you saying I’m not enough?”
“Mmm, that depends,” Vox smirks as he climbs onto Alastor’s lap. “Is your love going to stop being conditional anytime soon?”
Alastor hums and takes Vox’s right hand in his. “So harsh of you to call my inclinations a ‘condition’. Besides, it can hardly be called that when you give so willingly.”
Alastor brings Vox’s hand up to press a kiss on the palm. Warm and thrumming with life just underneath the surface, he chases the sensation to Vox’s wrist and sweetly kisses that tender skin.
“So pliant. So good for me,” Alastor purrs. “Perhaps that’s why I can’t see the appeal in a pet. Why bother when I’ve got you already?”
Alastor kisses Vox’s inner wrist again, the careful scrape of his incisors against the flesh a gentle warning of his intent. Vox croons approvingly and leans closer, presumably to kiss Alastor, but is distracted by that creature butting its head against his thigh.
“Not right now buddy,” Vox mildly cajoles him.
The animal whines, its pitch high and insistent, and tries to climb up into their joined laps.
“No, Vark, off.”
When Vox speaks, it’s less command and more suggestion, and when his hand slips from Alastor’s to gently nudge the thing back onto the floor, Alastor clutches Vox’s monitor in a firm grip to steer Vox back to where his attention should be.
“Why don’t you show it what a good pet looks like, hm?”
Alastor places his other hand across the back of Vox’s neck. “Vox. Sit.”
Vox glances down at where they touch and, before he could ruin anything with a question, Alastor pilots Vox down to meet his lips with a quick kiss. “Good boy,” he compliments.
He can feel Vox’s pulse flutter beneath his fingertips.
“Now, Vox. Stay.”
Vox freezes above him, his legs flexing around Alastor’s hips to remain immobile.
“Good boy,” Alastor praises before tugging Vox down for another kiss.
Then he raises his hand, the one Vox had so thoughtlessly abandoned moments ago, and offers the palm to Vox.
“Vox. Paw.”
Vox takes a second. To register the command. To stare at his hand. To worry his bottom lip. But Alastor doesn’t rush. And he doesn’t repeat. He merely waits for Vox to make the correct decision and hums approvingly when Vox’s palm slots against his own.
Alastor brings Vox’s hand to his lips and tenderly kisses each and every knuckle.
“Good boy.”
Alastor can hear that infernal beast whine again, but Vox’s eyes remain firmly fixed on Alastor as he opens his mouth. When Alastor’s tongue slips out to delicately trace the latticework of veins nestled beneath his sensitive wrist, Vox’s breath hitches. As light and airy as the rustle of leaves on weeping willow.
But the moan Vox makes when his teeth drag across that flesh is deep and sinful, a thing of rumor, of scandal; a sound that would unquestionably condemn its creator.
Alastor can feel that clumsy animal bumping into their legs, but Vox doesn’t look away, doesn’t even blink, as Alastor gives his wrist one final kiss before sinking his teeth in.
Vox’s blood floods across his tongue. A symphony of flavors –bitter iron and bright acidity and buzzing electricity— plays across his tastebuds and raises a shiver similar to that of hearing a perfect pitch ring out. Above him, Vox’s sharp whine from the initial pain quickly swings down into the low, throaty groans of pleasure. His free hand alights upon Alastor’s shoulder and squeezes as Alastor welcomes another pulse of blood into his mouth with his tongue. And Vox starts to growl when-
No.
That…that isn’t Vox growling.
Alastor takes his lips off Vox’s wrist to look up just as a mass of something slams into him and a blinding agony erupts from his arm.
Between the waves of sharp, stabbing pain, Alastor can feel his arm get yanked. His skin rips like tissue paper, his muscles are shred. Distantly, he hears the snap of bone, but his mind is spiraling too quickly to translate the feeling.
“Vark! Vark no! NO! Off! OFF!”
Alastor can feel the pull, but whatever’s latched onto his arm won’t go easy. His body lurches forward as whatever’s got him is drawn back. He hears another crack, can see the bone glistening beneath the gaps of his flesh. He tries to blink through his swimming vision and barely makes out teeth.
The sharp teeth of a mongrel.
Alastor blinks for a bit too long and then registers that both his lap and arm are now bare. A chill begins to descend upon him, creeping in with the same startling speed as the blackness encroaching on the edges of his vision. His hand twitches erratically while his arm throbs, each wave carrying a new message of pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain-
Alastor gasps for air, and the ringing in his ears grows louder, sharper. A piercing shriek that seeps into his mind with all the ease of a serrated blade.
He looks up and sees Vox speaking to him, but can’t hear what he’s saying. In Vox’s arms is that ghastly beast, lunging and snarling, its teeth glistening scarlet with blood, his blood. Its eyes are wide, pupils blown. Wild. Savage. Vacant.
Alastor’s weakening pulse still manages to thrum hard enough to make his head spin, and Alastor can feel his sense of balance tilt, even as he sits there on the couch. Before he can tip over and lose to gravity, Alastor summons the shadows and allows their cool comfort to cradle him in their darkness and spirit him away to safety.
---------------
Vox surprises Alastor with both the patience to wait a full week before calling him and the good sense not to mention Alastor’s prompt retreat from that evening.
“So, you know, if you’re available, that is.”
As Vox stutters through his invitation, Alastor can imagine him coyly wrapping the phone cord around his forefinger. That same anxious habit that has him clicking pens and tearing bar napkins and bouncing his knee. Alastor can picture it so vividly, and this version of Vox softens his reticence.
“Alright.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I can be over there shortly, my dear.”
“Yes! Okay, okay, just give me, uh, five minutes. Okay? I’ll be ready then.”
There’s a click of the receiver as Vox hangs up, and Alastor relaxes into his armchair for a few moments of silence. A faint tremor echoes down his arm, but he ignores it. The bite healed the same day he’d received it, and yet the memory of this minor injury lingers with frustrating persistence. Maybe an uneventful visit to Vox’s apartment is exactly what his body needs to reset and forget.
After five minutes, Alastor shadow travels across the city towards midtown. He rematerializes at the foot of Vox’s apartment complex and briskly climbs the stairs to the fourth floor. Alastor delivers several crisp knocks on Vox’s door and feels a warm curl of satisfaction when it is opened so quickly that Vox could only have been waiting there on the other side for his arrival.
He smiles approvingly at Vox and steps into the apartment. As they enter the living room, Alastor surreptitiously scans the area. There, in the far corner near the window, lies the unruly pet inside a cage. It’s sleeping, and Alastor watches one of its hind legs twitch before it gives a little yip and rolls over.
Alastor turns back to Vox, who is pretending like he isn’t watching Alastor and is instead far more invested in the furnishings of his own apartment.
“So then,” Alastor asks, “is the mutt going to behave?”
Vox sighs with relief and gestures towards the cage with a smile. “Yeah, he’s got food and water and some toys in there with him. So he should be fine.”
Standing there in Vox’s living room, the phantom pain from last week still echoes faintly in his arm. But when Alastor considers the preparations Vox has made for him, without even being asked, the sensation becomes hardly more than a memory as everything neatly slides back into place. Once again, Alastor is the first and foremost of Vox’s thoughts.
Just as he should be.
Alastor reaches out to cradle Vox’s head between his palms, feeling the warm purr of the machinery inside intensify as he leans in.
“Actually, I was referring to you.”
“Oh…oh. Y-yeah, I can, ahem, I can be, uh, yeah. Definitely.”
“Excellent,” Alastor whispers across Vox’s mouth before chasing his words with a kiss. “Though, perhaps this time, it’d be better without the audience.”
Vox’s brows furrow before his gaze flicks over to the cage and back. “Right. No yeah, makes sense. Bed’s better anyways.”
Vox takes Alastor’s hand in his and, though the apartment is small and he knows the way, leads Alastor to the bedroom. Their clothing is swiftly divested at the foot of the bed and hardly any time has passed until Vox is splayed out atop the cushions and Alastor is mouthing along the seam of where Vox’s thigh meets his hip.
Alastor drags his tongue along the crevice of skin, chasing the salty sweat down towards the warmth of Vox’s groin. He plays coy as he traces his tongue around Vox’s folds. Close enough to please, yet far enough to tease.
“A-Alastor, please just,” Vox yelps when Alastor blows air across his sex.
“Now, now, dear, patience is a virtue.”
“I’m sure it is,” Vox pants, “too bad we’re in Hell.”
“Which only means you could really do with a lesson.”
“Al, fuck, if you don’t put something in me, I think I’m gonna combust,” Vox whines as, true to his word, his overworked hardware gives off high-pitched squeals that have Alastor’s ears twitching.
“Well that certainly won’t do, will it?” Alastor teases before, finally, ducking his head down and dragging the flat of his tongue across Vox’s lips.
Vox cries out and his heels dig into the mattress. His legs shiver on either side of Alastor’s head as Alastor carefully slips his tongue into Vox and slowly draws it back out.
“Fuck, Alastor, Ala- OH!”
Vox spasms as Alastor goes deeper, probing warm walls with firm strokes of his tongue as he dives in.
Somewhere along the ceiling of this cavern, is that spot that always has Vox singing. Alastor swirls his tongue in tight circles directly over that area, stimulating from the inside while rubbing the bridge of his nose against Vox’s bud on the outside. He takes great delight in the reverence with which Vox whimpers his name and, as thanks for his fervent prayer, Alastor seals his lips around Vox’s sex, engorged and throbbing from the blood flow, and sucks.
“Arf!”
Alastor jerks his head up.
“ARF!”
Alastor flinches, squeezing his fingers into Vox’s hips.
“Shit,” Vox moans below him. “I think he got out.”
Alastor swallows his heart back down into his chest before he speaks. “Does he do that frequently?”
“His jaws are just too strong. This is the fourth cage he’s chewed through this month. But don’t worry, I locked the door.”
Something heavy slams against the door, rattling it in its frame. Alastor is suddenly very aware of how old and cheap Vox’s apartment is.
But the taste of Vox lingers sweet across his tongue, and the pulse of his femoral arteries on either side of Alastor’s head pound like a war drum.
Alastor caresses Vox’s thighs, delighting in the way Vox shivers beneath his touch, and turns his head to steal a bite. The tender flesh of Vox’s inner thigh gives way easily under his teeth, and Vox gasps sharply as he digs his hands into Alastor’s hair and clutches like he’s trying to stop Alastor, whether from going further or going away.
“Alastor, Alastor, Alastor,” Vox whispers with mounting desperation.
Alastor laps until the flow stills and crawls up Vox’s shaking frame to kiss him. Vox’s moans aren’t loud enough to cover the banging just outside the door, but they are beautiful enough to distract.
Their kiss continues, unbroken, as Alastor blindly reaches down to take himself in hand and line himself up at Vox’s entrance.
He slides inside and Vox moans ever so sweetly. “Oh, Alastor.”
Alastor gives a testing roll of his hips and shivers when Vox clenches around him with a shaky hitch of his breath. He dips his head down to Vox’s neck, panting against flushed skin as he thrusts in, harder. Vox gasps above him, his warm breath carding through Alastor’s hair like a gentle hand, and Alastor fucks into him again to feel that tender caress.
And yet he can’t fully escape into that lovely sensation. Not with that wretched beast slamming into the door and wailing so pitifully.
His pace falters as the door shakes in its frame.
“Ah, fuck, Al, don’t stop, please, don’t,” Vox gasps beneath him.
Alastor’s heartbeat thunders against his ribs, and he pretends it’s from the way he fucks into Vox. He tells himself the banging is only from the headboard slamming into the wall. And the heavy bloodlust permeating the air was simply his own.
He pounds into Vox, harder, but it’s not enough. The squeak of the box springs. Vox’s mounting cries. Their joining flesh. It wasn’t enough to block out that incessant howling just beyond the flimsy door.
Alastor bites into Vox’s shoulder, grounding himself in Vox’s flesh and bone, and drills into him. Vox clutches his back tightly and finds his own purchase with his claws as he’s driven into the mattress.
“Alastor, Alastor!”
Vox tightens around him.
Alastor bites down harder.
The door breaks down.
Alastor whips his head around and sees a blur. His arm throbs while Vox moans beneath him tellingly. A charging beast barrels into the room and launches onto the bed with a snarl. Spittle flies across the bed as jaws open wide, teeth gleaming in the light. Alastor meets eyes that are deep, dark, black pits of absolutely nothing.
And he disappears into the shadow just before those gnashing teeth could sink into him again.
---------------
No matter what they do or where they go, that damned pet is determined to keep Alastor away from Vox. They can’t be alone in the bedroom, the bathroom, the hall closet. Vox can’t wrap his arms around Alastor as he cooks in the kitchenette. Alastor can’t rest his legs across Vox’s lap on the settee. They can’t even hug hello or goodbye in the foyer without that stupid beast growling and bullying its way between them.
Alastor could take or leave their physicality, for the most part. And while he does miss the tender flesh and static blood of his darling Vox, he can go without for as long as it takes for that mutt to die (as all hellborn eventually do). The real problem is Vox himself, who’s inability to keep from getting handsy in his apartment poses the very real threat to Alastor getting maimed again.
Meaning there is just one solution going forward: dalliance will occur only at Alastor’s residence.
However, it’s a…less than ideal situation for a few reasons.
Alastor’s home is further away from the city center, making the transition from their nights out to private time more complicated and time-consuming. Vox often gets motion sick if he shadow travels with Alastor. Alastor, meanwhile, can’t travel the electrical lines like Vox. And while drunk driving in Hell isn’t illegal and neither of them are against it morally, they simply don’t have a car.
Not to mention Alastor’s hobbies usually lend his home a certain…odor that most find unpalatable. Alastor still remembers the shriek Vox let out when he stumbled upon the body he was draining of blood in his mudroom. Or that hilariously queasy expression Vox made when he noticed the hand in Alastor’s bone broth had opposable thumbs.
And it was the day Vox threw up, after he walked in on Alastor experimenting with eyeball fermentation, that Vox gently suggested they start meeting at his apartment. Exclusively.
Which, until now, worked out for the better anyways.
“What do you mean stay off the bed?” Vox argues as he stands, shirt in hand, in Alastor’s bedroom.
“I mean just that. I don’t want to make a mess there. That’s where I sleep.”
Vox’s brows furrow as he stares at Alastor, then the bed, then Alastor, then his shirt, then the bed, then Alastor before throwing his shirt down in a huff. “Are you serious? You never cared about making a mess at my place.”
“Yes, well, that wasn’t my bed, now was it?”
“Oh, you dick. Fine then. How’s about,” Vox scans his room with a keen eye, “oh! We could go into your bayou.”
Alastor considers the expanded area. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah! The grass beneath us, the stars above us, the Spanish moss swinging in the breeze, the lightning bugs twinkling all around. It’ll be romantic!”
Vox wraps his arm around Alastor’s shoulder as he paints this idyllic picture in a way only a chronically indoor Northerner could, and it has Alastor rolling his eyes at the fantasy.
“Yes, not to mention all the ticks and mosquitos and the sweltering heat and soggy ground. Darling, have you ever actually had sex outside?”
“No, but have you?”
“No.”
“Aw, another first for us.” Vox smiles as he gently thumps his forehead against Alastor’s.
Alastor would grumble about such saccharine sentiments if the look Vox gave him wasn’t so utterly devoted and the intermingling of their wavelengths wasn’t so viscerally soothing. So he holds his tongue about the itchy grass and biting gnats and pungent waters and instead sweeps Vox off his feet to carry his giggling paramour into the swampy depths.
He doesn’t go too far in. Just enough for the confines of his bedroom and noise of the city to be lost.
Alastor finds a promising spot by the water’s edge, where the cattails grow tall and the croak of frogs will serve as their soundtrack. He lays Vox down on a bed of clover and helps him get out of his trousers.
“See, isn’t this nice?” Vox asks between the chaste kisses he plants down Alastor’s chest as he unbuttons his red shirt.
Alastor hums and absently toys with Vox’s broken antenna. “It’ll do, I suppose.”
“It’ll do, he says,” Vox chuckles.
Alastor shrugs his shirt off while Vox, impatient brat he is, already starts unbuckling his belt. He only gets one leg out of his trousers before Vox surges up and rolls Alastor onto his back.
“Needy little thing aren’t you,” Alastor chortles as Vox grinds down onto him.
“You can’t- it’s been weeks,” Vox whines.
He wraps his arms around Alastor and clutches him tight. His hips start to roll furiously, rushing to get Alastor as far along as he already is. Vox moans before tucking his bulky head beneath Alastor’s neck, as far as he can, and his panting ghosts across the hollow of Alastor’s throat. Warm and damp, his breaths mirror the hot and dry air pouring from his vents and heating Alastor’s core.
Vox rocks down against Alastor’s hardening length, wetting the shaft as it slides between his folds. It’s a delicious torture, feeling the warmth of Vox beckon him without permitting entry, but Alastor sits back and duly savors this appetizer before they move on to the main course.
Afterall, what’s a good performance without a little bit of anticipa-
An alligator lunges from the cattails and latches its jaws down around Vox’s midsection, ripping Vox off Alastor’s lap and thrashing him against the ground. Blood splatters across the grass in wide arcs while Vox's screams pierce through the bayou.
“Louis! No! Spit him out now!” Alastor is on his feet instantly, but Louis dodges his hand and crawls toward the water’s edge.
Alastor scrambles to grab his tail and yank him back before he can slip into the water and drown Vox in a death roll. Once he wrestles Louis away from the water, Alastor summons his shadows to start prying open Louis’s jaw. The instant there is enough space to do so, Alastor tugs Vox free and drags him away from Louis, whose only protest is a low rumble and lazy flop onto the bloody grass.
Alastor leans Vox against a tree, this one further back from the water, and assesses the damage.
His screen is broken. A fractal ray spreading like a spiderweb from the corner that slammed into the dirt moments ago. Sections of his screen have gone black entirely while other snowy slivers fizzle and pop with sparks. His left eye, at least, is mostly intact, and shimmers beautifully with tears that threaten to fall at any moment.
Vox whimpers wetly and the hand he has pressed against his stomach jerks as his muscles cascade into a shaky, panicked mess. Alastor grasps Vox’s arm, his thumb automatically moving in soothing strokes across his wrist, and gently pries it away.
There are deep puncture wounds across Vox’s abdomen, from which blood spills in successive pulses, and there is a nasty gash on his right side where his body sat back further in Louis’s mouth. His flesh is torn open there, enough for Alastor to see the dull-grey sheen of a liver and the intricate tubing of intestines that still pulse and wriggle with peristalsis.
Alastor ignores the stabbing wave of hunger that washes over him at the sight and instead gently nudges the intestines back into the cavern of Vox’s gut. Shadows are summoned and wrapped snuggly around Vox’s torso to stay the organs, the bleeding, and Alastor’s appetite.
Vox coughs wetly and blood spurts out from his screen to drench his shivering neck. “So,” his head jerks with a spark, “he’s discreet, huh?”
“Shut up.”
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“Thank you and enjoy your stay!” The front desk clerk says with a certain zeal of a minimum wage worker who still believes in upward mobility.
Well, at the very least Alastor could watch her work ethic and spirit degrade in real time, if this is going to be how they conduct their liaisons for the foreseeable future.
He accepts the proffered key with an insincere grin and tries not to stomp towards the elevator where Vox waits with an overnight bag. The ride up is silent. Perhaps Vox is also contemplating the absurdity in two grown men with their own living spaces being forced to rent a hotel room to have sex with their monogamous partner.
Their walk down the carpeted hallway is equally silent. When the room 506 ends up being on the left, where Vox is, Alastor wordlessly passes the room key to him.
“So, do you think she recognized us?” Vox asks over his shoulder as he unlocks the door and uses his hip to nudge it open.
He follows Vox into the room and closes the door while Vox hits the lights.
“I think we can only hope this establishment honors its commitment to discretion.”
“And if she talks?”
Alastor considers his options and the expanse of Vox’s back as he shrugs his jacket off. Already he can feel his mouth water as his long fast finally approaches its end.
“I think…it won’t really matter what she does,” Alastor hums as he pulls Vox close and traces the delicious swell of a bicep beneath his shirtsleeve, “because no matter what rumor she tries to start, no one will look upon our aftermath and think anything remotely close to loving happened here.”
Vox shivers under his grip. “Oh fuck, baby, you promise?”
“You’re not the only one who’s been pent up, Sweetheart. Now get on the bed.”
Vox scrambles up onto the covers and stares up at Alastor with wide eyes that beg for praise. Alastor meets those pleading eyes with a wide grin, speaking through bared teeth that are aching for a bite.
“Good boy.”