Chapter Text
His head hurts. The lights are too bright. Those are the first things he noticed when he finally wakes up after what feels like a hundred years. There's an almost crushing weight on his neck that makes it hard to breathe, like his entire face has been squashed and suffocated into a box that he can't shake off, no matter how hard he tried.
The floor was hard underneath him, his back felt stiff as he tried to force himself up, only to be met with a shocking stab of pain that hit him through his senses, making him wince and cry out.
His memory was foggy, he remembered water, he remembered the adoring eyes of followers that hung onto his every word like he was the second coming of Jesus, a sort of power that made him feel drunk and dizzy and absolutely insane. His words were like a vice, a snake's bite as his empty promises and false hopes filled his followers with a sense of ease that made him feel giddy with overwhelming power. He remembered his name, vaguely, Vincent. He repeated that, just so he didn't forget. He didn't trust himself to not forget right now.
Vincent, Vincent, Vincent. Each reminder held thick as a jolt of pain ran though his neck as he tried to lift himself up. It was a static pain that made his limbs jolt out in a way that he couldn't control as he stumbled against a wall soaked with blood and other fluids that Vincent wasn't sure he wanted to identify. He scrambled against the wall, heaving, nothing came up but his stomach felt tight and his vision felt blurry and his head was throbbing against the overwhelming lights.
He remembered it falling. He knew that it would, he knew it wasn't safe, that the wires would snap, but he was so, so sure in his fogged daze to achieve Godhood that he would have just enough support that he'd have just a few seconds longer to get out the way, to avoid the demise that would befall his followers once the electric had hit the ground. He'd been too confident though. Maybe that was his first mistake.
The wire had snapped too early, just as he was reaching the crescendo of his speech, and before he could react, he was crushed, and the wires fell into the water, taking everyone in that room down with him. He could still feel the burns, fresh on his skin, the piercing sensation that made his muscles spasm in a way that he couldn't control. He couldn't control his own body as he fell into the water, the glass of the TV piercing into his skin, blood mixing in with the water as the smell of burning flesh overwhelmed his senses.
When he finally managed to pull himself to his feet, he only managed to stumble forwards a few feet before the weight on his neck made him almost topple over into another nearby wall. He scowled and scoffed as he tried to steady himself, reaching a hand up to his head-
And stopping.
Where his head had been, was a box. A metal box, and a face made of glass. Not skin, not flesh and bones, but glass, metal and plastic. How fucking ironic. He could still see the blood covering his eyes, blinding him for a few seconds before the pain finally overtook him and all that was left was the overwhelming pain as electric static coursed through his veins.
No matter how hard he pulled and tugged, the box just wouldn't budge. He tried to pull, tried to disconnect it from his neck with the wires that he'd managed to brush across with his fingers in the back of his neck. He tried to pull them away but was only met with a blinding pain that made him shake and cough, with tears threatening to fall stinging his eyes.
It was stuck there.
How fucking ironic. That now that he was here, dead, in Hell, he assumed, he was stuck with a head of the very thing that caused his demise.
It suited him, though. His own hubris had been the cause of his demise. He'd wanted more, more, more and his greed had given him more but also taken everything from him. He was so close to the top, he could almost taste the power and it was delicious. He dominated the network, he was everywhere, on every channel. News, weather, his fingerprints lingered on everything he touched.
He wondered if his influence was still there now that he was dead. He wondered if anybody cared, maybe not in the traditional sense, he didn't expect tears and fake signs of sympathy from men he'd never known nor cared for, but cared in the sense of being remembered. All anybody ever truly wants is to be remembered.
Some people were just too weak to seek it out.
He hoped he wouldn't be remembered as one of them.
Getting a better look at his surroundings, Vincent could immediately tell that this wasn't the sort of Hell that had been preached in sermons, this wasn't a dark, flaming pit of endless falling, nor was it a cavern of lava with tortured souls chained to each other while little demons with pitchforks led them to their eternal suffering. He'd been preached to about eternal flames and various methods of torture described in such a way that little kids were left with nightmares for weeks.
Scaring them out of sinning, he had overheard the pastor say once, when he was a child. Nobody wants eternal damnation. This wasn't anything like what had been described to him.
He almost felt like a fool for being so afraid.
Vincent could still remember the first time he had been sat down opposite the pastor, when his parents had the slightest inkling that he might be even the slightest bit of a deviant. He tuned out the majority of it, deciding to focus on a poster behind the pastor's head that had suddenly become incredibly interesting while his mother paced back and forth behind them and said pastor burbled nonsense into his ear that Vincent almost immediately forgot.
The lesson had been learnt though, and when those feelings came back, he learnt to suppress them, to push away the men who shook the bottle of sin until it was almost bursting at the seams. He'd learnt how to pretend, how long was acceptable to stare, what was right to say and how he could stay under the radar.
He was here now though, so perhaps he should've listened closer to the pastor's words, or maybe he should've prayed harder. Maybe he shouldn't have kissed a boy. There were so many maybes, ifs and possibilities that landed Vincent where he was right now.
Regardless, what he was seeing looked nothing like the horror stories that were preached. It looked more like he had fallen in the middle of a city, with various demonic looking figures roaming the streets. Blood splattered across the concrete and some of the demons were actively picking up the pieces and either shoving them in buckets or tasting them. Vincent couldn't help but gag slightly at the image, the motion making him feel far dizzier than he thought he would be. If this was Hell, then these people, demons, whatever they were looked nothing like he thought they would. There wasn't one particular theme amongst them, like he thought there would be, some of them looking like animals, some of them looking like objects. All together it looked like some awful Halloween party that hadn't decided on a theme. They were eating things that looked like human flesh and innards, fighting over scraps with such desperation that Vincent saw one demon shove what looked like a shiv into the guts of another just to tear the meat out of their hands. That's when he decided to walk faster.
He gagged at the smell, shuddering at the overwhelming spark of electricity that shot through his body as he forced himself onto the streets. It felt like he was holding onto an electric fence, or like he was an livewire that was threatening to blow up in a spectacular explosion of sparks and electricity. It felt like there was power in his veins, running through his wires in a way that made him tremble. It felt like he was hopped up on substances that he couldn't cope with, the feeling very similar to the various mornings when he had the bright idea to come in early to work with nothing but three cups of coffee downed back to back that were more caffeine than anything else.
He tried to stay out of people's way, only going so far to interact with anybody to barge through them in his distracted state, ignoring the sour words they threw in his direction. None of them made any action to actually try and hurt him, too caught up in their own lives, or afterlives would've been more accurate in this case. Lucky for Vincent, honestly, because he wasn't sure he would be able to hold up a fight when it took all of his concentration just to not trip over his own feet and balance his head on his body. It was lighter than he thought it would be, but still heavy.
It would take some time for him to get used to all of this.
Time wasn't something he really had right now however, walking down the streets of Hell, seeing homeless demons almost latching onto the legs of those passing by with pleading, begging eyes and even worse words of begging and hopeful sympathy. They looked as if they had been here for years, already knowing who exactly to latch onto to get the best results and who would kick them in the stomach if they even dared to try. In one sense, it was smart, knowing who would pity them and give them money that Vincent could tell they would immediately turn to waste on drugs and booze before starting the cycle again.
He wasn't going to end up like one of them, he'd decided that immediately.
He wasn't going to be a failure in his afterlife. Not when he'd been so close to being a success in life. That fact still felt like a dagger had been jammed deep into his gut, a sickening feeling that made him curl his hands into fisted balls so hard that his claws broke skin. His blood was blue, and smelled oddly like diesel. He remembered the way his father had looked at him when he'd announced his promotion, from intern to weatherman, the pitying gaze that his mother had given him as she'd rubbed his father's shoulder. The way his brother had snickered at the table in the silence, not even bothering to try and be discreet about it. His father had shaken his head before clearing his throat and saying the words that had managed to root their way into his brain for worse.
"Do you even try, Vincent?" He had asked, ignoring the quiet pleas from his mother to try and go easy on their son, "I expected better from you. If I had known you would turn out as such a failure, maybe I wouldn't have put so much hope in you."
Something had cracked in Vincent that day, as his brother just tried to stifle a laugh, a laugh that went unnoticed bar his mother's side glance that quickly faded back into a disappointed gaze at her youngest son.
"It isn't that we aren't happy for you, honey-" She had started saying, clearly wanting to do some kind of damage control after seeing the hurt in Vincent's eyes that he hadn't been able to cover up.
"You just expected more." Vincent had finished her sentence bluntly, which had resulted in nothing but a nervous cough from his mother and a nod from his father.
"Your brother is starting up his own business." His father had said, gesturing to where Vincent's older brother was sitting, now puffing his chest out with pride. That pride would be the death of him, Vincent had thought with a clenched jaw, "And you're, well, you're a weatherman, Vincent. That's not exactly impressive."
He'd mulled over that conversation for at least a month before finally deciding to do something about it, knowing that he wasn't going to rise through the ranks if he just sat there and waiting for a promotion, or a chance to prove himself to fall at his feet. He had to take fate into his own hands. That was exactly what he had done.
Maybe there were better ways to go about rising through the ranks, but none were quite as fast as the route that Vincent had decided to take. Along with that, he was never caught, which was something that he still thought was a miracle, considering how he started becoming sloppy, unfocused, relying more and more on luck rather than his smarts to get him away with his crimes.
The first time, he barely remembered, it was nothing but a sudden rush of anger, of his father's voice ringing in his ears, his brother's laughing surrounding him and his mother's pitying gaze in the back of his mind that drove him to slash that man's throat in the dead of night. He remembered panting, tears prickling at his eyes as he stared down at the body with shaking hands and blood decorating his shoes in splatters. He felt like a man crazed, a man possessed by his own emotions. The body wasn't hard to hide, and nobody suspected him, not really, some of his co stars gave him raised eyebrows when the promotion came in, sure, but outside of that nobody ever suspected him.
Maybe that was what made him cocky, planted the idea in his head that this was what he needed to rise higher. He just needed control, and as long as there was someone higher than him, better than him, more important than him, he would never have that control. All he needed was control, but it never felt like enough, there was always someone higher than him on the ladder to success, always someone who had more eyes on them, more smiles, more congratulations, more of anything.
"Your brother is getting married." Was the next complaint Vincent was subjected to, this time by his mother, "I do wish you would settle down."
He had just nodded and sipped on the coffee that had been his lifeline for God knows how long at this point. Maybe she was right, maybe he should've settled down, found a nice lady that he could pretend and play house with to keep his mother happy, but when success is just inches away you didn't have time to go out looking for damsels to woo over.
Vincent regretted it now, not having settled down back then, knowing that his brother had once again surpassed him at something.
Reaching as high as he had at the peak of his life, he'd thought maybe, just maybe he would finally be enough for them. Maybe now, that he had all eyes on him, all cameras pointing towards him, now that he had finally made it in the newspaper, now that he had his own Network, he would finally be seen as something. That he would finally find his way out of the shadows and finally feel light, feel sun, feel free.
Yet, the success just made him feel even more trapped. It wasn't enough, it was never enough.
He'd found success but it had just made him even more of a failure.
Vincent shook his head to himself, crossing the street with barely a second glance, causing for some swears to be thrown his way as he narrowly avoided being hit by a car. Not that said car even tried to avoid him, but he shouldn't be surprised. This was Hell, everyone here was scum, and at the moment, he was at the same level as the rest of them.
He promised himself that wouldn't always be the case, as he was turned away from the third Hotel in the hour. Landing in Hell had apparently also left him completely broke, annoyingly enough, and charity work was non existent here to nobody's surprise. His attempts at persuasion were also left with him learning that being shot still hurt in the afterlife, and pulling himself back together after having his guts splattered across the road hurt even more.
Despite this, he needed to keep moving. That was how he would survive. Like a shark, he felt if he stopped moving he would suffocate and drown. So moving forwards was the only thing on his mind as he roamed the streets of he had learnt from eavesdropping on a conversation to be called the Doomsday District.
Interesting name, and Vincent didn't particularly want to stick around to find out why it was called that.
It took him a long while, but he'd finally managed to find a spot out of the reach of sharpened claws and violent demons that were willing to tear his head off his body just for whatever scraps they could possibly harvest from his body before he pulled himself together. It wasn't what one would call cosy, per say, just a small room in the back of a store that stunk of dried weed and rotting flesh. Moreso than how the rest of Hell seemed to smell.
He managed to get around the broken glass, stepping over bodies that hadn't respawned just yet with a grimace. He'd found makeshift blankets out of curtains that had been torn and pulled from the windows, and had just cut and balled up said curtains to make a makeshift pillow for some semblance of normality.
It probably wasn't really, truly safe, but this was Hell and Vincent didn't have to be a genius to come to the conclusion that nowhere in Hell was safe, especially not the back of a looted store in a dark corner of the district Vox had fallen into, but with his back to the door and his claws holding onto the curtains hard enough to rip, he decided that for now it would be good enough to cope with.
Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd wake up and find that this was all some really weird, fucked up fever dream from the result of doing too much of anything. He zoned out and found his screen flickering off, resting against the door with a false sense of relaxation. Just a little sleep, that couldn't hurt.