#thought abt this while i was writing my radiosilence fic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rubra-wav · 1 month

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"Both Sides Of Silence" - Radiosilence fic

Word count: 3.5k

A/N I made a rant abt this (here)and decided to write it and ended up getting swept up in it haha.

This is my personal headcanon on how Alastor reacted when his friendship with Vox ended

Cw: SFW, angst

The state of Alastor's room was horrendous. The radio host's quarters could normally be described as rather unnerving due to their decor, however the space now looked like a downright horror show.

It was as if a storm had raged within with furniture overturned and scratched up, vases and photo frames broken - all of this leaving a hazardous mixture of glass fragments, splinters and lounge stuffing strewn everywhere.

In the middle of the mess, said demon’s form crumpled against the floor. Alastor's claws gripped at his hair, pulling hard upon it as he shook with heaving breaths, a mixture of despair and boiling rage inside of him, making him even more volatile than usual.

The object of his plight's photo sat before him. An unwanted reminder of the first time he and his former friend met.

Allowing Vox to take a photo with him had been an olive branch he reached out to the other demon, rarely offered outside of special circumstances.

Seeing it now stung him deep, bringing inner turmoil unlike anything the cannibalistic overlord had felt in a long long time.

An actual, real bond with someone had become an estranged concept to him during his time in hell. After his mother died, he'd severed every last attachment to anyone else, only really playing into superficial, shallow attachments to others. Nothing that couldn't easily be brushed off.

Or at least, he thought he had.

The snapped cord of his friendship with the TV demon truly cut him deep in a way that he thought was not possible.

The fact of the matter filled him with such visceral self-disgust that he fought the need to dry heave as his claws sank into his scalp in an attempt to ground himself. It inevitably failed as his mind once again revisited the damned situation that had unfolded just hours before for the umpteenth time that night.

A friendly get-together with Vox, just a drink at a quiet bar they often met at when they had time to do so just like any other.

Through the whole night the TV demon had seemed as if he had been stressed about something. They conversed as usual, backed by soft jazz music in the cozy wooden interior of the joint, however it was obvious to Alastor that his companion was out of sorts.

Vox's blue claws fidgeted from where he gripped at his drink - a nervous tell which Alastor had long ago picked up from his first meetings with him in the old days - his shoulders hunched in the orange turtleneck sweater he wore.

“You have been shaking like a leaf this whole time. What seems to be the matter, my friend?” Alastor asked after taking a sip of his whiskey, gently tilting the glass back and forth causing the amber liquid to swish around.

His red eyes looked to the side at the other demon with a casual half-lidded stare, drinking in every small reaction the TV demon gave with a finely tuned expertise despite his exterior.

Vox visibly flinched, caught off guard by the sudden call to his behaviour. His CRT head coyly tilted in Alastor's direction, small pupils looking to the side at him and shoulders hunching further and making himself even smaller where he sat as if in an attempt to give himself more security.

A rather peculiar response. Not something unexpected to the deer demon at all however, Vox's unique responses and attitude was something Alastor quite enjoyed about him, it was what made him interesting.

“It's nothing. Well not yet at least..” Vox mumbled quietly, trailing off vaguely. Alastor hummed curiously while quirking a brow. Vox flushed nervously, his heart rate picking up.

Vox had long since discovered his feelings for Alastor but had stayed quiet in fear that it would ruin their friendship. In the beginning, he was content with that, just letting their relationship stay how it always had been - purely platonic. That was the safe option.

It just grew more intrusive the longer he didn't say anything though.

Alastor didn't like to be touched, but was far too content in getting in others’ personal space if it was on his own terms - including Vox’s own. Every time his shoulders or arms or god forbid face were touched briefly by the deer it sent his heart aflutter and he could barely keep himself together.

Even the memory of the last time almost sent him sparking. When he thought of those red eyes looking down at him, claws on either side of his face, he knew that he would surely burn himself up if he didn't finally say something. It was agony to stay silent.

What was the worst that could happen? A rejection? It wasn't like that would end everything they had worked for. In his mind, he knew Alastor enough to surely say he wouldn't up and leave him over this. They'd known each other too long for all of that to be ruined by this... Right?

Alastor watched Vox’s internal strife with amused curiosity as he casually fidgeted with the lip of his glass, waiting expectantly.

Vox cleared his throat, straightening up and trying to put on a confident and sure face. “Alastor, we have known each other for years now. And.. I'd argue to say that we are quite good pals at this point,” Vox began strongly, grinning at Alastor. His grin faltered a bit and his cheeks flushed as he watched the radio demon's eyebrow only raise even further. Vox coughed into his hand. “I would also argue that we would work well together as more than just.. friends… who occasionally work together as purely business partners.” Vox finished, looking at Alastor and trying to find some kind of reassurance.

He didn't find any.

Alastor's ear twitched slightly as if he was trying to better process what he'd just heard. He felt a stab of unsureness that mixed with his stomach dropping inside of him. He didn't show it yet however and instead laughed. “Apologies darling! I'm not quite sure I follow. Are you asking to become permanent business partners?” He hoped that was what he was on about, and not the alternative which had his hackles rising.

Vox gulped, taking the question as genuine confusion about his rather vague choice of words. “N-not quite just that.. listen.. I,” Vox glanced at Alastor's other hand unoccupied by his drink just resting on the bar and tentatively reached out his hand to gently take it in his own. “Alastor, I don't want to just be business partners. I want to be partners in general. I'm in.. Jesus,” Vox gulped, trying to will his mouth to stop being so damn dry. “...I'm in love with you.” Vox’s brow furrowed as he gently squeezed Alastor’s hand in his, looking up at him with a soft expression, vulnerable in a way Vox would normally have squashed instantaneously.

Alastor’s eyes blew open wide making him ironically resemble a deer in headlights, lip curling as he processed the interaction and confession. His usually wide pupils shrunk as he looked down at his palm in Vox’s, utter disgust rocking through him at the sight.

Vox felt his heart break at the way Alastor was looking at him holding his hand, and awkwardly laughed in an attempt to fight the pit of absolute mortification consuming him, making him want to melt into the ground and disappear.

“I- s-sorry I just thought you may have understood. Maybe even felt the same- I mean we've known each other so long and have been close for-” Vox began to say, voice glitching out with heavy emotion. He flinched hard, silenced as Alastor suddenly ripped his hand away hard in contrast to his soft hold.

“No.” Alastor sharply, turning his nose up at Vox with a sneer, irritation filling him at the assumption.

Vox's humiliation at the nature of his rejection grew as Alastor quite literally looked down upon him. “right… sorry. I should have known,” Vox apologised, looking to the side with his cheeks burning under the weight of his gaze. “We have been close so long that I should have known better-” He was cut off by a cold bark of laughter.

“Stop saying that,” Alastor’s anger raised quickly, loud, angry static seeping through his usual facquade of uncaring. “If you think that you know me that way, then you severely overestimate your worth to me, my ‘friend’.”

Alastor was disgusted enough by the declaration, but his insistence that they were ‘close’ was what got under his skin the most. The reason for this? He couldn't quite grasp it at that exact moment. It would of course come later.

Vox let out a laugh this time, disbelief turning into him being more angrier than anything - a laughably similar response to the one Alastor was having simultaneously. “Oh you have to be kidding me! Don't act like we aren't best friends just because you don't like that I have feelings for you, you pompous old-timey radio fuck! We are close friends and you know damn fucking we-”

“No,” Vox felt the statement in every part of himself, it finally being the thing to break his steadily cracking heart into pieces. Vox fell silent, a look of struck anguish written all over his face.“You serve as occasional entertainment for me from your hollow, far lesser medium. Don't you dare act like we were, would be or even could ever be equals.” Alastor spat, rising from his seat.

Vox didn't even react to the insult to his work, feeling all encompassing numbness as the lights overhead flashed once, then twice, then clicked off as Alastor began to grow in size, more substantial antlers growing from his head and flashing green symbols surrounding him threateningly.

The TV demon shook, frozen in place on the bar stool, eyes wide and terrified despite the pervasive feeling of emptiness within him, blue pupils impossibly small as he looked into the rapidly spinning dials in his former best friend's eyes.

Alastor hunched over him and slowly raised his claws to grip either one of Vox's shoulders hard, digging into his turtleneck and skin below painfully, causing the TV demon to wince.

Alastor lowered his face, moving it close to Vox's screen and breathing out deeply, relishing in the way Vox shuddered at his hot breath fanning across his face with a grin that did not reflect his tone or true expression in the slightest.

Alastor then proceeded to stomp upon the shards of years of friendship seemingly with no care at all in one last statement, which brought tears to the already mentally crushed TV demon's eyes.

“You are nothing to me.”

But that wasn't true at all.

Alastor had disappeared in a flourish afterwards, leaving Vox shaking and alone in the bar, stalking home, and then absolutely losing his mind in private.

Alastor’s hands shook, slowly ripping through his hair and pulling out a few strands as he snapped back to reality and grit his teeth, lips twitching out of his perfect, unwavering grin for a second again as he looked at the smiling image of them together.

The truth was that he undeniably cared for Vox.

All these hollow, surface-level friendships which served as temporary entertainment that he held with demons like Mimzy paled in comparison to what they had.

Although still seldom, Alastor had shared much more of the truth with him than he had with others; about the same as with Rosie. The difference of course being their public rivalry unlike with Rosie. More even ground in which they were equal threats to one-another's power over the people of pentagram city.

He shuddered at the thought.

They were rivals, and with horror, he realised that he almost did regard Vox as his equal in their friendship. Enough to form a genuine care for him that wasn't solely him simply using Vox to meet his own ends.

They were close, and the fact of that hit him in a terrifying way as his old friend's absence burned an empty pit within him.

He was such an utter fool for letting it get to this point where he needed to destroy every last tie to stay powerful but simply couldn't.

His hands shook as he looked down at the photograph taunting him once again; him knowing he had to destroy it but not being able to.

Shameful weakness.

Alastor let out a frustrated growl, squeezing his eyes shut as he gripped at the photograph and ripped it down the middle.

He slammed either half of the photo on the floor in either hand, looking at the damage done. A literal physical manifestation of the relationship he'd metaphorically ripped down the middle.

Alastor would scoff at the symbolism normally with laughter, thinking it a stupid display of weakness of those far lesser then he if there weren't currently tears falling from his eyes onto the patch of wooden floor in between where either half of the photograph now sat apart.

He grit his teeth at the realisation that he was crying. For the first time since his mother died, he was actually weeping for another. The revelation curled as nauseating disgust for the demon, and he cursed the TV demon more than anything for making him this weak. Weak like him.

He needed to sever ties.

He needed to stop caring.

He needed to erase the TV demon from his life completely.

He knew all of that and yet…

Alastor laughed now - a sound without a lick of sanity behind it-, smiling as he gripped the half of the photo with Vox on it, falling back onto the floor and holding up the torn photo, looking up at it in the dim light of his room

The wooden floor uncomfortably dug into his back, but he didn't care at all. Alastor's laughing slowly died out, turning instead into a sound much like breathless sobbing.

“You will pay for doing this to me.” Alastor's red eyes shook, fluttering between his normal pupils and the dials as he regarded his next action with shaky euphoria, the emotion stretching itself over the logical side of himself screaming to let it go.

Alastor's anger of also being caught up in the silence he was supposed to have control over won over all rational decision making.

I will make sure that you need me just as much as I need you, you new-age trash.

Alastor's lips quivered around his wide grin as he gave a chuckle that was all too forced, pressing the back of his hand across his eyes and wiping away his tears, internally squashing his insecurity down and pretending he didn't care.

Even if he knew he did deep down, all that mattered was that onlookers, and especially Vox, didn't see that.

He would remain unbothered externally while locking the truth up deep inside that in the end the radio demon would be just as obsessed with Vox as he is with him.

After a long night of drowning his sorrows, the last thing Vox wanted was to answer the front door and face anybody. He of course, did anyways. If it was a business opportunity, it would hardly be wise to skip out on it. Especially after…

Vox shook his head with a hissing breath, trying to will the memory of the walk of shame he'd done away after apologising to the bartender who'd come out from behind the bar finally after Alastor had gone berserk for the disturbance.

Despite his picture perfect expression that never really fully dulled in the same way others experienced - the perks to having a TV for a head - it was clear that he was still struggling by the way he slumped and his brow was furrowed, eyes squinted; open just a crack to try avoid the thudding stabs of pain through his head with the hangover he was nursing.

It was bullshit to him that even with a flatscreen for a face, he still could manage to get hungover.

The tile floor of his tower, which he had bought recently, clicked under the heels of his shoes, dim fluorescent lights painting everything in a sickly, lifeless glow. It only sought to make his mood even worse.

He grumbled to himself as he reached the door finally, dodging all the unpacked boxes as he went and forcing himself to smile before swinging the heavy door open to greet whoever was there.

Dreams of new business partners and an underlying, pitiful hope that it could even be Alastor coming to apologise or pretend like nothing happened yesterday like after their usual arguments were immediately squashed as he was revealed nothing behind it.

Just the barely inhabited entertainment district he had been working on for a little while now. On the other side of the street a line of TV's, each with a monochrome display playing an ad for a cereal he had gotten a sponsorship with blared monotonously behind their glass displays.

It was clear none of the few people staring blankly at the screens had rung the bell so he could hear the door all the way in his room.

Vox's smile dropped and he then blankly stared into the empty air, tired eyes squinting as he deeply exhaled. He'd kill whatever asshole had rung and run for messing with him on the cameras positioned everywhere later, maybe that would lift his spirits a little bit.

He shut the large glass doors, once again locking them. As he did so, a piece of paper fell to the ground; formerly suspended in the door jam and dislodged by its movement.

Vox watched it flutter to the obnoxiously white tiles of the floor with a raised brow. He could see it was torn, seemingly a face-down picture of some kind from the different colour peaking through from the back under the lights.

“What on...” Vox said, unamused as he leaned down to pick it up.

Another cold wave of sadness that he thought he had numbed out already after last night swept over him as realised it was the first photo that he and Alastor had ever taken together - ripped down the middle so that Alastor was clearly present, a bit of his own face visible in the corner.

Vox’s screen glitched into a line of broken pixels, blurring his quickly souring expression as he realised that Alastor had just been here to deliver half of the photo.

He had been here and left wordlessly. So it really was over. His clawed hands shook as he pressed one against the wall of the entrance hall to steady himself, squinting his eyes shut.

His head spun; a dizzying mixture of his hangover, the overbearing lights all around him, and the god awful feelings of self-hatred, tiredness, heartbreak, and worst of all betrayal all mixing together. The fact that this is how their years of friendship had ended was a crushing weight on his shoulders. It was ridiculous.

In that moment as he had finally decided to confess he swore that they would still stay together even if it wasn't as lovers. That even if Alastor rejected his feelings, they would still maintain their friendship.

He was wrong, of course.

Him keeping his silence had hurt before, but it rang far more now he was all alone.

Vox’s eyes cracked open again despite the way his headache protested, looking back to his other hand which still held the torn photo delicately to avoid any further damage to it.

His blue pupils passively drank in the image of Alastor's smiling face again.

It was all ridiculous.

A screeching sound rang out in the entry room, echoing in an unnerving way through the mostly empty building as his claws dug into the wall he was leaning against, raking deep nail marks into the plaster as just about the most potent wave of anger he thought he had probably felt ever swept itself over every other conflicting emotion inside of him.

He had given so much to that asshole. His time, his dreams, and worst of all his secrets.

All of these were treated like nothing in Alastor's hands.

He was treated like nothing.

Alastor even said it; Vox was nothing to him. Nothing but a past-time.

'Occasional entertainment'

Vox’s chest clenched with burning anger at the insult to how much he was worth as a demon. He was worth far more than most of the pathetic low-lives in this city. Heck, all of them.

He was too good for Alastor even, and yet that snobby hazbin radio announcer had the audacity to treat him in such a way?

Ah yes, the delusionally grandiose rug over his kicked-in ego. A bitter thought which tugged at the back of his mind but got inevitably drowned out by everything else.

The lights overhead hummed louder and louder with the passing seconds.

He let out a growl that petered off into a yell interrupted by glitches, air filled with crackling electricity coming off of him in waves the longer he dwelled upon the state of everything.

From down the street, Alastor let out a satisfied chuckle as he saw the lights within Vox's tower flickering aggressively.

The deed was done, and although some pathetic part of him weakly protested, it was crushed where it stood. He turned on his heel, arms folded behind his back while he strided in the opposite direction.

He made his bed and now he had to lie in it.

His eye twitched slightly as a stab of regret once again made itself known.

As cold as it was.

Damn did my ass get carried away writing this one haha

#radiosilence #onewaybroadcast #complicated and sad #voxal #radiostatic #one sided radiostatic #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel alastor headcanons #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel vox #vox #alastor #hazbin hotel vox headcanons #accidentally hit post on this one early but it should be fine hopefully

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