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Alastor leaned heavily into Angel, too wrung out to muster even a token complaint as they crossed the hotel threshold. Charlie was on them instantly, questions flying so fast they barely had time to breathe. Angel shot her a look sharp enough to cut glass. "Charlie! Back off. He just burned down the Vee Tower."
Alastor wiggled out of Angel’s arms, “I’m gonna go change…”
Angel let him, “Give me the robe when you’re done so I can clean it.”
Alastor nodded, not really listening, and dragged himself up the stairs. Every step felt like wading through wet cement. At the landing, he stopped, breath catching, the weight of exhaustion finally sinking in. The hallway was hushed, hotel noise muffled and distant. He hovered at his door, hand unsteady on the knob, before finally pushing it open.
Nothing in his room had shifted. He stood in the doorway, letting the hush settle over him, the distant chorus of cicadas and frogs threading through the walls. The air still carried that faint, stubborn trace of sandalwood and bayou—his own little swamp, courtesy of the last remodel. He slipped inside, closed the door, and let his forehead rest against the wood, cool and grounding. Only then did he move, drifting toward the dresser like a ghost.
He caught his reflection in the mirror and stopped cold. Hair wild, streaked with ash and something he didn’t want to identify, soot smeared across his cheekbones, the robe hanging off one shoulder like it had given up. He stared, chest tight and breath shallow, until he couldn’t stand it and looked away.
He reached out, fingertips brushing the glass. Wait.
He glanced behind him, frowning. There — a photo of him and Vox sitting on his desk, grinning like idiots. He was pretty sure he’d thrown that out ages ago. He walked over to the desk and grabbed the photo before looking at the papers he left.
They were all blank.
His stomach twisted. None of this was real.
Alastor gasps as his eyes snap open. He looks around. He is back in the lab, still tied to the chair. He looks at the table, Vox’s phone lying there, unharmed. He has tubes attached to him, and wires were stuck to his head with sticky tabs.
He looked around, panic prickling under his skin, catching fragments of a scientist’s conversation about his brain activity and hallucinogens.
Hallucinogens? None of that was real?
He started to struggle, and a scientist walked over, “Finally awake?”
Alastor looked at him, “What’s going on...” he pulled at his bound wrists.
The scientist rambled on about sedatives and injections, how they’d knocked him out the second Vox put him in the chair. Something about compliance, about making sure he behaved. Alastor barely caught half of it; he just felt like crying.
Vox came over a few minutes later...or was it hours? Alastor didn’t know.
He snarled at Vox, “Let me go! I know Charlie’s been freaking out, calling you; she is worried about me.”
The TV demon just smirked as he picked up his abandoned phone. “Oh yeah? Let’s see that.” He unlocked his phone and showed Alastor his text history with Charlie... there’s nothing after she contacted Vox for the hotel interview. “Oh, if you want call history too, we can do that.” He looks at his phone, which shows the last time he had a phone call with Charlie, and he was the one to call her. It was the day of the interview.
Alastor stared at the little screen. It wasn’t true? Vox wasn’t lying to keep Alastor. Alastor looked up at Vox, eyes wide.
Vox snapped at a scientist, “Untie him, he’s on too much. I’ll take him to bed, and we can continue this science experiment tomorrow.”
The demon obeyed, untying him without a word. Vox scooped him up and carried him to the elevator.
When the door closes, Alastor sniffles and buries his face in Vox’s shoulder. Vox let him; he doesn’t console him.
When he gets off the elevator, he walks to his bedroom and lays Alastor down, “I’ll give you an hour, I’ll lock the door for you. Break. Scream. Come to the acceptance you’re not leaving. Meet me in the living room when you’re done.”
Vox locked the door before closing it.
Alastor lay flat, staring up at the ceiling. Neon from VoxTech bled through the curtains, painting the room in sickly color. He didn’t move. Not for a long time.
Then his breath hitched.
Once.
Twice.
And then he broke...like he was told to.
A sound ripped out of him, raw and animal, nothing like the smooth radio-host voice he wore for the world. He curled onto his side, claws twisting the sheets, shoulders shaking as the truth finally forced its way in. Vox hadn’t fabricated it. The phone showed Charlie hadn’t reached out. She hadn’t tried, and she hadn’t come looking.
She had probably moved on.
Alastor laughed, high and broken, the sound splintering into a sob halfway through. He shoved his face into the pillow, trying to smother it, but the room heard anyway. The walls didn’t care.
The cameras probably did, Vox would probably get off his breakdown later.
He screamed anyway.
When the hour passed, it didn’t announce itself. The room didn’t change. Alastor just… ran out of breath...ran out of denial and ran out of places to hide the ache that he cared for everyone in that hotel, and they didn’t reciprocate. He really was right.
Friends don’t exist in Hell.
He sat up, hair a tangled mess around his face, eyes red and empty. "I’m not leaving," he whispered, tasting the words like poison.
When he finally stepped into the living room, Vox was already there, lounging like he’d been waiting the entire time. The TV screen flickered lazily in front of him, soft blues and purples, tuned down low. He didn’t look at him right away.
Alastor stopped a few feet away.
“I’m here,” he said quietly.
Vox turned, screen-face taking him in — rumpled, hollow, all the bravado gone. He nodded once.
“Good,” Vox said. Not gentle or cruel. Just certain. “Now we can move forward.”
He gestured to the couch.
“Sit.”
Alastor obeyed and sat next to him, and if he didn’t fight when Vox pulled him close, if he leaned in. Who would he deny it for?