#|{ 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞 ;; vox (voxuli) }|

[staticintone]

@voxuli is making a scene again

“And herein lies my point.”

He’s thoroughly amused.

“We both know you’ll never follow through on that, but you blow yourself up over it every time.”

[staticintone]

It takes thirty seconds exactly before Alastor gives himself the room to breathe.

The desire to be entirely out of range of being heard before he allows his body to reject everything about the moment prior. Forcing up petals as if they were bile. As if he had any control over the flower ruining his lungs.

Crushing them in his hands and letting them fall. The bright blue contrasting an otherwise dark room.

Calm otherwise as the time ticked away. Was there any hope that Vox would return? He wasn’t sure. But he promised the fifteen minutes, and he would allow him that.

The bigger concern was what exactly Vox would bring back, should he reappear at all. It wasn’t as if he had willingly communicated, just taken the limit and run off.

Should Alastor be preparing for a fight?

Vox had lost his one chance for a willing sacrifice. No, if he wanted Alastor dead now, he would have to work for it. Unwilling to commit to love, and now unable to commit to hate, either.

Minutes ticked away. Alastor remained steadfast. This was what he understood. What he wanted to be for Vox from the beginning. Trusting, willing to give within proper boundaries. Hard to keep the faith whether he came through the door or not, but for these fifteen minutes, he was dedicated.

It only took 14 minutes and 2 seconds.

If Alastor is surprised, he isn’t showing it. There is something twisted up in his eyes, but shock isn’t it. Closer to withdrawal, surrender even.

“You do as you please.”

An unhelpful comment, perhaps in this context.

The first concern wavered. But now Vox was here, and he wasn’t entirely satisfied with that either. He highly doubted the bag was anything threatening, which had quelled the rest of his worries. That still left an unanswered question.

And he wasn’t going to ask it.

To ruin the smallest peace the two of them had in so long. Selfishly hoping the moment would stay quiet, so that it would never come to pass.

Letting the rest of the remaining seconds pass before finally entertaining a small piece of his curiosity.

“What did you bring?”

A timer for fifteen minutes exactly flashes across Vox's screen; he pushes it into his virtual desktop and jumps into the hotel grid. From there into the VoxTek drone, and from the drone into the electrical supply for the larger city.

Reappearing in his own penthouse apartment takes approximately a minute. His gyroscopic stabilizers flounder for a second or two, leaving him wobbling on his feet.

Vark lifts his head from his dog bed, his thick tail starting to beat against the floor. In the relative quiet of his own space, he notices his own fans starting to skip; his internal readouts indicate temperatures above normal across the board. The desire to stay here and simply collapse on the floor with the hellshark on top of him is an urge that doesn't go unnoticed.

...His thermals are above normal, but only in cautionary territory right now. He tells himself there'll be time for that later. Right now he's on the clock.

He spares a few seconds to create a block in his calendar, simply labeled 'A.' The timer for it goes off instantly (less than fifteen minutes till, of course). All that matters is it creates the obligation.

Okay. Okay.

First a trip down to the tower's in-house pharmacy, to terrorize its employees into dropping everything and bumping him to the top of the priority list. He leaves them scrambling to fill it and jumps back into the grid just over a minute later.

This time he exits in Cannibal Town, right inside Rosie's on the tail end of her closing hour. Normally he's politer than emerging straight into her shop; coupled with a rush order means he will be owing her a favor sometime soon. He can handle that.

A return to the pharmacy while Rosie pulls together his request. Vox swipes the small bottle, taps to confirm the purchase, and zaps up to his penthouse to grab a laptop before the pharmacists can even sigh in relief.

Back to Rosie's. He knows the cannibal Overlord can read his tension in his posture and underneath his words, and she's going to want to know about that later. She doesn't pry though, handing him off the bag and receipt with minutes to spare.

The drone is still waiting at the edge of the city; piloting the damn thing always feels so slow compared to jumping through the grid. He's still got time, even if he's cutting it close. Perhaps it's a good thing; gives him time to remember to cut the lights again as he approaches the hotel. (Something tells him Alastor wouldn't be forgiving if he was late because the Princess's hyper-vigilant guard dog speared him out of the sky.) Vox brings it close enough that he can jump back in through the Hotel's gaudy neon signage, sending the machine to wait behind it after.

When he finally reappears in the room, it's with less than a minute to spare. He hesitates before setting the bag down on the nearest table, the prescription bottle nestled among the food inside.

Truth be told, he hadn't really given any thought past the part where he came back. His eyes shift over the room before he mutters. "...I'll-- I'd like to stay for a while. If you'll have me."

[staticintone]

@voxuli has been changed

It wasn’t ideal.

Leaving Vox behind in any circumstance was… complicated. But this was almost worrisome. Alastor told himself that this was his home, that he would be safe if left alone. It was only temporary, after all.

Seven years had come and gone.

Without a proper introduction to what he had done, what exactly had worked or not during the process. Niffty had been flesh and blood. Vox was not. It made things much harder than they needed to be. But he followed through with it anyway.

So now what exactly was he?

Alastor had to find his way through the same place he left him. Quick and quiet for fear of being noticed after the stir he created from the broadcast itself.

Vox shouldn’t and wouldn’t be that hard to find.

And he wasn’t.

“Vox, my friend. I’m back.”

[staticintone]

@voxuli replied to brutally killing voxxisms

"We are! He *offered!*"

“Ugh. You’re impossible, as always.”

[staticintone]

"You got off kinda lucky, you know? It doesn't even look bad on you." - @voxuli

“Lucky?! I have lost a voice! Filters are down, and the most important part of my body is now larger and more exposed! Have you ever had stitches in your microphone pop filter?! No?! Then don’t say this is better!”

[staticintone]

♡ from @voxuli! hanahaki verse ofc

See What My Muse Thinks Of Yours

●●●●● | ATTRACTION

●●●●● | AFFECTION

●●●●● | INTEREST

●●●●● | LOYALTY

○○○○○ | TRUST

“… I don’t know what to say, but I think you understand. Or do now, at least.”

[staticintone]

@voxuli is a toilet

“I—How? H—”

He’s lost control. This is hilarious. He’s doubled over laughing.

[staticintone]

❛ i'm sorry,  okay?  i just can't give it up. ❜ from @voxuli!

“You’re not even in love.”

There was a bite back to Alastor’s tone that he had done so well to keep under wraps. Finally pushing the issue since that damned flower made an appearance; it was hard to ignore the outright disdain he felt.

Vox had been using him for his business for decades. All with a story that was provably false.

If this was love, it had been requited.

And rejected.

“I won’t tell you to get rid of it for my sake, because I know what your answer will be. But this fabrication—this lie—needs to end.”

The importance of the flower itself was a shallow one in Alastor’s mind. Keep up appearances for the sake of his business.

But there was something else too. A sting that should have healed long ago. It ignited a fire that he wanted to spread. Hurt Vox back. So Alastor was determined to win at any price to his own sanity. So he was honest… to a fault.

“If it doesn’t, at this rate, you’re going to get me sick.”

[staticintone]

“Thank you for that.”

There’s a laugh in there somewhere, hidden behind irony and disdain. A humor in a situation that had begun with spite and resentment. Only fair that the two of them could not meet in the middle.

Maybe there was a time this would have been satisfying, but not now. Not like this.

“Thank you for proving my point.”

It’s so hard to argue with text, isn’t it? To miss tone and pitch and breath support and even facial expressions.

Alastor had made this demand to prove, beyond all doubt, that Vox either lied or didn’t. And somehow—somehow—he had weaseled his way around that too.

Perhaps the visual was some sort of metaphor in and of itself. To have the media overlord broadcast his feelings where the cameras could catch. But… to the one who viewed the world through sound?

It felt like an evasion, a subterfuge, a cop-out.

“Sign me up for your services, Vox, because I do believe we will be seeing some pretty blue flower buds soon.”

There’s a part of him that is so, so angry about how much it hurts. The rational pieces that can’t come together well enough to justify Alastor walking away. It was a mistake to come here. It was a mistake to speak to Vox. It was a mistake to think that he would have gotten anything else.

Most of him just ached.

It was most likely obvious. Hand to his face to prevent any stitches from pulling against his lips. Wounded eyes locked on a blank screen save for those worthless words, the pointless letters and punctuation that spelled out a total lie.

He should have ripped out that flower when he had the chance.

It would certainly feel better than having his own heart turned inside out.

“But don’t worry, I’ll do what you can’t. I’ll say the words aloud. It’ll be up to you whether you believe them.”

No, if Vox is so insistent on flipping the script and laying things bare without saying a single word, the least Alastor can do is follow through. Actions weren’t enough. Perhaps taking the high road is all that’s left.

“I love you.”

Or maybe that’s just a different version of the low road. Either way, he’s being honest.

… “Best of luck out there in the world. You’re going to need it.”

Flicker. A subtle shift first before light floods the camera sensor on his chest. Another brief glimpse of Alastor, the color red pouring back in like sunrise. It stuns him just long enough. And then somehow everything happens too fast for the machine.

It must be strange to not have a skull to grab. No hair to thread his claws into and pull. Only the smooth joint where Vox's neck joins to the base of the TV. It should be ungainly, awkward to direct him, but Alastor does so much more than manage; he guides like he's practiced, like he's done this time and time before.

Later Vox will think that very unfair, but the radio demon always managed to make everything seem so effortless.

Was it really a surprise it would be true here as well?

He doesn't feel it. Not quite in the same way as he might have when he was alive, but he feels Alastor's claws on his case and he feels his wiring move with the motion and he feels the pressure of Alastor's lips just barely bowing his screen.

Alastor pulls a quiet, strangled whimper from his speakers, pulls his drivers back into rebooting without even a conscious thought from Vox. He reaches up, desperate to lay hands on the radio demon and pull him closer, but for all his speed he's not fast enough.

Alastor slips back out of his grip with the same ease he'd managed to lay hands on him. The moment he steps away Vox wants nothing more than to disappear into the network to escape the other's gaze. He doesn't want to see the contempt in his gaze, doesn't want to hear what the other is saying. He doesn't want to acknowledge that his worst hopes are true, because it would mean acknowledging that the only thing standing between them is himself.

Himself and his own damn cowardice, and his inability to figure out why this of all things scared him. Why the thought of expressing what everyone knows to be true about him still produces the phantom sensation of wanting to throw up. His mouth doesn't exist right now and he still feels it in the back of his throat.

He'd thought many years ago that it couldn't get worse. Now he sees that just because he couldn't perceive it didn't mean it couldn't happen.

"Wait," he begs hoarsely, reliant on the desk to keep him upright with Alastor gone. His claws go up of their own accord, traced over his screen before they go to his own neck; the other hovers around his abdomen, unsure of what to do with either. "Wait, I, just--"

His screen flickers with a dim glow, illuminated black. Surely he can do this. Surely he owes Alastor this. Surely it's just--it's not anything, he cajoles himself, it's not a big deal, it's just what he owes, and Vox... If nothing else, he pays his debts, he reminds himself.

It's fine. It's just words.

He uses them all the time.

To lie, to cheat, to manipulate, to mean nothing at all.

Hurry the fuck up, Vox, you know he's not going to wait forever.

Fifteen letters, three spaces, a comma.

A couple lines of text appear on the screen, the standard header for his command line. The cursor blinks.

He spells out those fifteen letters, three spaces, and a comma before he can psyche himself out again.

It's not said, in the sense of spoken out loud, but... Rosie had said once that it was written all over his face. He's the one who put it there, and even once it gets erased, he won't be able to take it back.

It feels woefully inadequate, even to him. But... better something than nothing.

[staticintone]

“Knowing you, you’ll forget to remove it from your body.”

… “Unless that’s the point, in which case you’re a bigger idiot than I presumed.”

“Please do not make bombs out of your own heads…”

These are the two Voxs he fell in love with? Great.

[staticintone]

Muscles tensing and relaxing with every movement, every word Vox said.

Vox being erased from his heart was not the most prevalent issue on his mind. It ached to think about, but not because he wasn’t willing to give it up. No, that poison had not infected him so deeply.

It was only the idea that it could have been so easily rectified. That twenty, thirty years ago this could have been different. That it could even be resolved now, if Vox was willing to push past his own habits and paranoia.

Give himself permission to find what he might have been looking for all along.

But that was never a possibility. And as Vox pulled him closer, justified his actions as if it was ever the only option… Alastor’s smile became a sneer.

Vox was not in love with him.

Vox was in love with the flower itself.

He could feel the heat of the electricity building. And while it hadn’t been quite a bluff before, he still was surprised and horrified to learn that Vox intended on following through. There was still that last bit of faith that was now dying a slow and agonizing death.

Swallowing hard to keep anything else from coming up. Static filling the room, but Alastor himself stayed silent. Forcibly stilling every part of his body in anticipation.

But it never came.

Vox caught his eyes—full of fury, contempt, distress, grief, dejection—and pulled away.

Alastor didn’t know whether to be relieved or enraged. The hints of hope surged back with such a force that he had whiplash. Reeling from the possibility of death—something he had almost allowed.

And now Vox moved to make his escape. Alastor couldn’t trust the motivations. Was he planning to return with tools to better tear him open? It seemed possible.

Why else would he leave? Just for the sake of it? That seemed just as likely.

The plant seemed to feed off the threatened abandonment. Screaming inside of him, reaching for Vox by pressing against his tissue.

Don’t go. Don’t leave. I’m right here. I’m still right here.

“Fine.”

He believed him, yes. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Odd enough as the moment had just been, Alastor didn’t exactly appreciate being left in the dark about his motives.

“Fifteen minutes.”

He’d keep track.

Vox is still and malleable under Alastor's grip, his attention on the petals on the floor. His distant gaze sharpens just a little at the other's touch, as though grounding himself.

He spreads both sets of claws wide over the red fabric, sensitive to every little detail of the cloth. Dimly aware to keep his touch light lest he puncture the threads. There he stays for a moment, his screen tilted just enough to focus on Alastor's chest, as though he can see through layers of garment and flesh to the infected lungs underneath.

He can't, but he can imagine.

He supposed he had in some sense wanted to destroy Alastor; mostly for the sake of getting him out of his head. Because it wasn't enough in this case for him to have refused the other as he had, no; he knows he was obsessive. Is. Letting go, but unable to leave him be.

Hearing Alastor say as much makes his gut curdle further.

He's made it clear he doesn't want this, and nor does Vox. But--shouldn't he anyway? Wouldn't it be better to carve out the flower and disconnect Alastor from him completely, since he was incapable of doing so to himself?

Vox has grown familiar with that reasoning over the past forty-odd years in particular.

One hand remains splayed over Alastor's sternum, feather-light. The other comes around his back to pull him in with a firmer touch. Closer, intimate.

"This was the simpler solution, for me," Vox says, dragging his voice out after a beat of silence. Still staring at his own hand, digging into himself first to try and find some kind of strength. "I'm not--I know that sounds like an excuse. It's not."

He should. Other people with far less experience than him do it for a job. He's a fucking Overlord. He's done worse to people.

"It would be better. You--I know what I'm like. I could free you of it."

He's trying to convince Alastor, maybe. He's not sure. Maybe just himself.

He even remembers when it made him feel sick, the first couple of times. Electrocution was never pretty. He'd gotten used to it.

Wouldn't it be a kindness?

His claws tremble, and yet he can't bring himself to fire off the circuit. Vox's eyes flicker up to Alastor's gaze, and whatever he sees there makes him pull back.

Selfish, perhaps, but that's not unusual behavior for him.

"I--fuck." Vox clamps his hands tightly over his own biceps, digging holes into his own jacket instead. Just enough distance between them to keep his hands to himself. He can feel his own charge tickling his circuits under his skin.

"I'm... Fuck. I'm just gonna. Go back to the Tower for a minute. I'll be back. You have no reason to believe that, I know. But I will. Ten, fifteen minutes."

[staticintone]

Finally opening his eyes at Vox’s final statement, the agreement at what never should have been a possibility.

Eyeing the perpetrator of his defeat, the cause of his agony, the only man he had ever loved. It was no surprise that the conversation had taken such a turn, but hearing Vox consent was… something else.

Vines wrapped and coiled around themselves and buds blossomed as Alastor made connections that ached much lower than where it sat. Stomach twisting as if he’d been poisoned.

Moving his hand from his face to feel a stitch snap. Quickly replaced and ignored. A small laugh escaped him. Or was it a cough?

“It’s rather telling that your first reaction was to ask me to get rid of it.”

Alastor’s voice distorted slightly as he allowed the microphone to quiet. Speaking to Vox alone, no trick or gimmick between them. Personal. Harder to interrupt a broadcast when it came from your own vocal cords.

“The simplest solution did not even cross your mind, did it?”

The switch did not allow him the control over every tone or pitch it usually would. And while the most obvious emotion his voice expressed was absolute and total resignation, some things could be noticed if Vox was listening.

If he ever did.

“You would rather gut me like a fish than to actually say it—or risk the chance of losing your own… is that it?”

Traces of sorrow, of disbelief, of frustration, even fear hanging in the air in ways they never have before. Matched in his eyes. The smile present but off, tense and uncomfortable.

“You’re willing to kill me—and yourself—before even considering being with me. Loving me the way I have been asking for.”

Maybe that was the point after all.

“You win, Vox. I suppose you get to be the one to take me down. I could have told you that decades ago… that you would be my downfall.”

Retching suddenly. The tickle in his throat had become a burn with every word, with every realization that had left his lips. And now bits of blue littered the floor between them. Whatever little space had been there, the petals now created a boundary.

Oh, the plant had a strong sense of irony.

He sealed his throat with a hard swallow, and once again his intonation was controlled and contained. Unwilling to risk another embarrassment that openly. Very nearly wanting to close his mouth entirely, not allow the parasite an escape or exit at all.

“Set it up then, and I will be there. Ready to be cut open and dissected.”

Without a second thought, his hands pull Vox’s against his chest. As if he thought it possible that Vox would crack his ribcage then and there. The wildness back in his gestures. The mania returned to his expression, both visual and auditory.

“Or will you tear me apart here? I suppose it’s your choice.”

Then again, it was always his choice.

“You have me right here, right how you wanted. Weak, and sickeningly in love with you. And now you get to destroy me.”

And oh, doesn't Vox know it.

Vox could forever flaunt the disease. It bridged that gap between himself and the public; overlord and common sinner, machine and the dregs of mankind. He'd grown and flourished and bloomed alongside the very flower, the sort of shining story of success that captured the minds of millions and endeared him to each and every one. He'd built himself into the perfect poster boy for every lonely heart in Hell, and there were certainly no shortage of those.

The infamous Radio Demon was another matter entirely. Even if Alastor's only just voiced it, the weight of the sword of Damocles has been hanging over Vox's head for far longer. It kept him favoring petty jabs over more personal insults when they had their public spats. Reputation was nine-tenths of any overlord's power down here.

He's run those sorts of predictions late at night before, when he's a mess and feels like hurting himself: what would happen if the public caught wind of them, if Hell found out who his parasite had grown for all these years, if the Radio Demon was thought to have a weakness. None of the outcomes have ever been particularly encouraging, though they certainly served to feed his own list of excuses.

Vox's eyes fall and his mouth pulls in a small, taut line. For a moment, he fancies he feels the phantom sensation of his heart racing, despite it being long gone.

It takes him a couple seconds to answer; an eternity to him in some ways, giving that question all the consideration it deserves and more.

It's not hard to fathom letting go. It wouldn't be very fair of him to expect anything else.

...He's good at letting go. Cut your losses, don't count your money at the table, always toe that line between good for the business and good for the customer.

"...I can get you an appointment," Vox mutters. "Free of charge, off the books. Doctors under contract. It'll never leave the building."

That doesn't track with everything else, does it? He knows that's not what Alastor is asking for. He'd been very explicit in his rejection of Vox's money, Vox's business, Vox's connections.

...He could do it himself. He's no surgeon but all he would need to do would be to ensure every bit of the parasite was removed.

He knows what the tissue looks like. He knows where it usually likes to take root. He knows what it looks like when it infects other organs. Unlikely at this point, since it doesn't seem to have progressed so far.

His breath can't catch because he doesn't have lungs of his own anymore. It's only memory that tells him he should be feeling sick right now; the gag reflex that his dimensional mouth produces pales in comparison to the real thing.

He could do it.

Why does he feel like he's trying to confess all over again?

He should do it, since Alastor asked. It was only fair.

Doubtlessly it would kill him, but sinners regenerated.

"...If that's what you want." No longer referring to a scheduled appointment. The urge to run nearly overwhelms him for a moment before it fades. Electricity arcs between his antennae before racing down his spine, drawing a slight shudder from him.

Surely he owes Alastor this much.

[staticintone]

This was not the offer of a dance.

For as still as the two of them are, unwavering as Alastor may be, Vox still steps and spins around the situation. No grace in it, not compared to usual.

It could have been so different.

Alastor was a constant; an unchanging force in an ever expanding world. Vox went with the wind, bending and moving and always in motion, to his detriment. If only the conversation had been taken in earnest back then, had been smoother now.

Alastor would have been his rock. Would have continued to be a safe harbor in the raging currents. He didn’t need to cling to the flower to find his roots. He could have found that in Alastor.

Why was he so resistant to peace instead of a curse? Why hold onto infection when the antidote is right here?

The answer is no. It isn’t obvious.

The meandering hadn’t served to make Alastor doubt. No, his doubts in Vox ran much deeper than a shallow conversation. Vox could convince himself of just about anything—that was how they were here in the first place.

This was no longer a productive conversation. Alastor wanted to be spiteful, to rub this cacophony of emotion and deception right in Vox’s now darkened face.

He moved his hand to pull Vox up by the back of his neck closer to him.

And kissed him.

His face may have flickered out, but he must feel it in some way, right? The symbolism of the gesture even more potent if Vox cannot kiss him back. Ever trying to get through a permanent buffer. Vox resigned to shut down instead of facing Alastor head on.

Now releasing him entirely, Alastor brought his hands to himself. Putting distance between them as fast as he’d closed it.

“When you’re ready to finally come to me, as you really are, you know where to find me.”

He wouldn’t say it, but he was ready to give up.

“I won’t hold my breath.”

It should be a simple matter.

He knows what Alastor wants; he's not blind to it, so to speak, even as he's been reduced to just his namesake.

But if it was, well—he would have said it by now, wouldn't he?

"You don't—Al, please. You don't know what you're asking from me."

"Why does it even matter so much?" A question as much for himself as Al, if not more so, because the answer was obvious. It could only be for the same reasons as he couldn't bring himself to say it.

The words sit in his buffer. Just three, plus his name. Eight letters, two spaces. Fifteen if you included the name, and three spaces then, and a comma. All he has to do is process them, speak them aloud, and yet—and yet. Here he is, frozen by a fear that he can't put a name to.

Only certain that for all that he's hurt the both of them over the years... To have Alastor know him—only to lose him—would be worse. How could it not be, when it had already nearly destroyed him to lose him as a friend? To sour slowly rather than combust? Vox had only barely survived, and it certainly wasn't because of the flower.

"I—"

I tried, in my own way, he wants to say. Tried to make up for what he couldn't give. The business proposal. A frantic attempt to try and offer Alastor something of worth, in lieu of what his own cowardice wouldn't permit.

"It's so hard. I know it's not an excuse. I'm not trying—I don't—I never wanted to hurt you, I never wanted to end up like this, I just can't—"

He doesn't understand. Hasn't it been evident in everything he's ever done? It sure feels that way to him. Even now. He could simply teleport away, after all; he could return Alastor's touch with enough voltage to kill, but he does neither. He can't. He can only wilt, going round in logic circles as he tries to find a second answer to a puzzle that only has one solution: fifteen letters, three spaces, and a comma.

"... Isn't it obvious, Al?"

[staticintone]

The shrill sound of Vox nearly ruining his own speakers doesn’t seem to affect Alastor. As if he was expecting it. Maybe he was.

He knows all of these noises.

Pinpointing where Vox’s mind is as though he were the predictable one for once. Stunned and angry and losing focus. Perhaps even self-reflective now.

He doesn’t know exactly what is running through those processors that make up his closest friend. He can’t make him speak it out loud, no matter how much he wishes he could force his tongue. Look where that landed them, after all.

If there was some way to bridge the gap, he would have. Despite his frustrations, his own pain, he would give up the information without a fight.

No, you don’t have to be useful, Vox. Not here. Not in this room.

Because what makes Vox is not the pieces that build your body.

Alastor could recall every single instance that endeared him to Vox, and very little of it had to do with his productivity. Conversations, activities, beautiful little moments. Meaningful and intimate beyond just what he can do.

More than just the machine itself. The creativity, eagerness, and even stubbornness unable to be replicated or replaced.

And there were consistencies. Things Vox never would have bothered to notice but Alastor had committed to memory. The way his voice would pitch up slightly when Vox was particularly excited. The exact noises when he slipped while dancing. The tone shift between dealing with one of his employees and Alastor himself.

Oh, Vox, they’re all there. Just ask.

But that was never a thought, was it? Forever condemned to a pitiful assumption that Alastor could never truly love him, wasn’t he? But he could, and he did. Too ignorant and cruel to even ask the most basic of questions. To ask why Vox, of all people.

But it doesn’t matter now anyway. Not with roots taking form in both of them. Doubt running so deep that it had planted seeds unable to be removed. Fights watered them and grew the stems. Leaves and buds appearing with every harsh word and dismissive gesture.

Too little too late, indeed.

The both of them so engrossed in their own heartbreak that it was hard to comprehend the other’s.

Even as Vox seemed to process what Alastor had been attempting to ignore—he still denied the proof in front of him. And Alastor felt his smile strain. To be perceived as weak, especially by Vox…

It only cut deeper as Vox expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that Alastor had caught the parasite at all. Disappointed, even. That Alastor was just as human as he was.

His eyes closed, his hand on his mouth to prevent any pulling on the stitches. He didn’t need it to speak anyway. Trying to even his breathing and slow the irritation in his throat before they saw more petals.

“Are you willing to rip it out of me?”

Quieter, gentler. But still unmoving, a weight attached. Vox had threatened the same thing, and he had thought about it. Except that Alastor meant it. He would happily let Vox rip the plant from his core if it took the itch from his lungs.

“Because you’re right—”

The microphone seemed to whine on the word. A slight betrayal of how Alastor actually felt in the moment.

“—I shouldn’t have this. And being seen with it will destroy me far worse than the flower ever could.”

“Well, that makes two of us, doesn’t it?!” Vox’s answer borders on loud enough to edge blowing out his speakers, a wild look in his eyes and smile as it flickers between working and not.

“That’s why I didn’t—” he cuts himself off and reaches up to fiddle with his antennae instead; he wraps his claws around one and pulls it back and forth. He’s going in circles, his words building a recursive loop in his own code. All this time and he thought maybe Alastor simply didn’t understand. Vox, in some small way, had been trying to do this for Alastor’s own good, convinced that the inevitable crash would be worse than never having tried in the first place.

No, Alastor understands perfectly; he just isn’t satisfied with it, is he?

And why should he be?

The bizarre measure of relief he gets from knowing is at odds with the rest of his apprehension.

“Fuck. Fucking—”

Spindly vines reach the fans mounted on either side of his lower ribcage, drawn in by the movement of the air current. The first tips are shredded by the blades, barely a hiccup in the ambient whirring; yet it continues to press forward incessantly and shred more of itself into a green pulp, as though longing to reach Alastor itself.

Words are starting to fail him. He despises this part, falling apart past a certain level of anger, reduced to swearing and short-circuiting.

He tries to fumble through anyway.

“You should need me to be useful. I need me to be useful-”

He drops his hands back down to his sides when he realizes he has nothing else to offer. Alastor is right.

Alastor is right. Vox knows his music tastes and the dances he’s best at. Vox has profiled the blood types he prefers and knows what his favorite thing is from Rosie’s Emporium—or at least, he did, once upon a time. But Vox doesn’t really know him.

The idea that Alastor could see some thread in him, something of value from when they were still friends, is so fundamentally foreign. Every single component of Vox’s body has changed since those days. Not just the television that acted as a facsimile of his face; earlier processors changed out for more cores, more clock speed. Hard drives written and rewritten so many times until they could barely function, their information transferred and the drives discarded when solid state drives had arrived. Sticks of RAM no longer suitable for working memory, replaced with more and larger models. All of it old hardware, stored deep in the tower’s vaults and untouched for decades.

All pieces of him that had outlived their usefulness.

It hasn’t occurred to him because there is nothing of his old self left in Vox’s eyes.

What connection could Alastor see that he couldn’t?

The fight he had a second ago is draining out of his carcass as though he's been hung up to dry. His cameras linger on Alastor, rare footage uncorrupted. Alastor has barely changed in almost a century, and Vox is now unsure if he ever really did know him in the first place—

Thermal readings indicate a body temperature slightly higher than average. There’s a ghost of heat imprinted around Alastor’s drawn lips and aggressive smile, little flecks wiped away, their imprints already cooling. Vox blinks, one of his hands twitching and raising halfway. A soundless cough that only manifested as a tremble of the shoulders. The refusal to face him these past few minutes.

Oh.

Not a threat or an insult or a cruel joke or any of the other alternatives Vox had applied to Alastor’s words over the past couple of weeks. A premonition.

Vox sees everything. It’s never enough and it’s always too late.

“No,” he says dumbly, even as his circuits switch from a stream of disbelief to that of frustration. His eyes widen, brow furrows, mouth pulls in a tight line. “No. No. You won’t. This isn’t how... Alastor, you were supposed to be—”

Above this. Better than this. Beyond this.

Something that would ease Vox’s ghost of a heart a little. Anything that would let him think that no matter how much he may hurt Alastor, it wouldn’t be the worst. He was supposed to be—ethereal. Ineffable. A wildfire that lived independent of anything else, not just surviving but thriving. A force of nature, unbeholden to anyone and unaffected by anything. Indestructable.

Not—this. Not like everyone else.

Above heartbreak.

Vox crosses the distance again, stopping just shy of touching the other. Takes note of the petals, reminiscent of a certain pale blue carnation he’d gifted the other for his return. The meaning of frigidness curls deep within his circuits. Barely a glance before his gaze slides away, the parasite in his insides slithering against his guilt. He’s well aware of the hypocrisy he’s about to speak.

“...If I told you to get rid of it… Would there be any point?”

[staticintone]

Oh, the irony in that statement.

The truth was that Vox could still be what he wanted. Still was, to an extent.

Long had Alastor accepted his various quirks. Vox lies. Vox pushes. Vox changes. All tolerable enough. Even the indecisiveness, the cowardice, he can take it. Vox is adaptable, and if there is one thing Alastor learned from him, it was that.

This, however?

To be unyielding in the face of confrontation, especially from Alastor, that was unacceptable. Even now, as Vox cracks under the pressure of his fingers, he still tries to hold onto some power. Even as Alastor breaks his walls down to confess in so many words.

“Apologies don’t matter. Not when you do nothing to correct your behavior.”

He refuses to move, both out of desire and necessity. His grip is caught; he is still fighting an urge so foreign. It would be easy to pin Vox right here, tear the flower from his body with the roots intact.

“You’re avoiding my question. You’re deflecting, trying to appease me with worthless talk. I don’t want your regrets, Vox. I want the truth. I want to hear it explicitly.”

Say it, Vox. Say that you’re in love.

Alastor will know when you lie.

Finally, he manages to overcome the bitterness long enough to retract his claws. Still keeping his hand in place, but it now lays flat.

A deep breath that is the first audible hint to his mindset. Settling into ragged ones as if he’s been yelling rather than whispering.

This feels like a loss. He is grieving, suddenly. Or perhaps he has been grieving for decades. Perhaps this was the first step towards resignation.

“I can’t believe I let you break my heart again.”

Vox tenses under his grip, his gyroscopic sensors spinning and his fans kicking up a sharp gust as he's spun around. For a moment, his view is entirely Alastor looming over him, his fury bleeding through every available pixel of the camera and then some. It seems almost too much for its tiny resolution, distorting around the edges as if straining to keep the radio demon's image at bay.

Alastor stares directly at it, and Vox realizes at the exact same moment his hand comes down to block it all out.

Four tiny punctures in the silicone skin over his left breast, cutting through both the coarser fabric of his vest and the thinner of his shirt. They stop just shy of the pseudo-musculature underneath, masses of fiber-optic cables pulsing with soft, flickering light and interwoven with the occasional root.

None of it bleeds.

Vox's fans kick into high speed once more, producing a soft but tell-tale whirring as they aim to keep his processors cool. He's tense again, frozen in place just by having Alastor's hand over his heart. Actual bindings couldn't have been more effective.

"Up until I couldn't be what you wanted, I suppose."

Fighting to keep his voice from betraying him is costing him. A small alert pops up in his virtual space; his CPU temperatures are rising to cautionary levels. The flower shifts and slithers inside, trying to pull away before its leaves get uncomfortably hot. His composure falters further, hysteria creeping into the edges.

"What do you want me to tell you, Al? That I'm sorry? I would if I thought for a moment that you might believe it. I'd apologize for everything I am in a heartbeat, but it wouldn't change what that is."

"If you want truth, well... I truly never wanted to disappoint you or Carrie or anyone else. I was trying to do the opposite, but that doesn't stop it from happening."

He'd hoped it would be enough. He understands why it never has been.

He's not sure he knows how to do anything else.

[staticintone]

Vox is a liar.

Alastor knows this inside and out. He picked up so many tells over the years, audible and otherwise. Even this now is a deflection rather than an outright statement. Casting doubt rather than denying.

Another thing Vox must have learned from him.

“I wish I could believe you. It would make it so much easier to leave you in the dust.”

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. Carry a weight. Because even if Vox is lying, he does it with a purpose. Saving face, building himself higher… not this time. It’s based in desire.

Vox wishes it weren’t true. And that is enough.

“Tell me the truth, for once in your miserable existence. Tell me.”

The calm tone in his voice betrayed by his actions. Grabbing Vox by the shoulders and pulling him to face him. Whipping him around and backing him into the desk hard enough to shift it.

He’d stopped looking at his face before it went black, but now his attention went to the light on his chest. So there was what was left of his eyes. Covering it with a hand as Alastor got closer to Vox than he had in decades.

With his eyes covered, Vox would have to finally hear him.

“You have become everything I hate about this world. Do you know that? Do you know how explicitly you’ve shaken my faith?”

Soft whispers, as if the words are gentle. As if his loathing isn’t so potent. As if it wasn’t obvious how much he was holding back his hands.

But a claw sinks into Vox’s chest anyway. Tempted to go digging.

He won’t.

He knows he won’t.

But isn’t it so sick that he wants to?

“Do you know how much I loved you once?”

Vox's screen flickers before going dark.

He considers loading in something else—one of his prerecorded expressions. For someone else, maybe he would have; but he knows it wouldn't fool Alastor.

It's not worth the electricity, then. Better off devoting that power to controlling his vocal processors.

"Maybe you're right." He sure didn't think so, but he had a track record a century long that said otherwise. And it had far more names than just Alastor's attached.

He'd learned over the years how to manipulate data, draw attention to parts and obscure others in such a way as to never be actually lying. That one, however? The only person he needed to convince was himself, and his own history has stacked the deck against his favor.

"... But let's be clear about one fucking thing. I may have built all of this, but I have never said it was you."

"You know. I know. The public sure loves to fucking speculate, and maybe they all think it's hell's worst-kept secret. But that's all they've ever gotten to do."

He's certain that he started out keeping that secret because he thought that it was what Alastor would want. He'd been naive, thinking that maybe Al would be impressed with what he'd achieved, and that maybe, just maybe, Vox could build something that would be worth Alastor's while to stick around. And they wouldn't have to talk about the big, unrequited elephant in the room.

He realizes he'd long passed the point where he should care with everything else he's done, every other misstep that's driven Alastor away. Even he can't harbor a guess if it comes from a tired memory he's clinging to, or if the flower is simply on a completely artificial life support.

Defining the nebulous nature of the source had always paled in comparison to the very real, very physical parasite.

Vox leans forward onto his desk, resting his screen on one hand. Even now he can't seem to stop lying. His screen tilted up as though he's still looking at Alastor while his backup camera is trained on his desk, a grainy black-and-white feed that doesn't show much at all.

"I'm not going to fucking get rid of it. You want it gone, why don't you pull it out of me yourself?"