#radiocult

It's difficult for Alastor to keep this up, but eventually, something breaks, and only because Vincent is starting to put some of the puzzle together. There's something trying to either get him, kill him, or contact him. He finds Alastor's old occult books, but Alastor's lessons didn't stick as well as he'd hoped (he'd started learning too late and thus didn't have much exposure.) But Vincent is still smart, still curious, still impulsive, and so he works at it.

So he experiments. And at first it only makes things difficult for Alastor, because Vincent's initial experimentation veers into protection--which, if it weren't Alastor haunting him, Alastor would be a little proud of him. But it's an issue, so all he is is inconvenience that Vincent is making this harder than it needs to be.

So, Alastor pushes the boundaries he's been given. He can't be his old human self? Fine, he'll be his demon self--Vincent can handle a little terror, they played with that before, right? He can't be seen? Well, he'll just hide in the shadows, that strange in between where things aren't quite sure they're things in the dark. He can't say who he used to be on Earth? Well, Vincent can put the pieces together if Alastor gave him enough clues!

What eventually happens is that Alastor becomes Vincent's sleep paralysis demon. The thing that hovers over him in the dark. The thing who misses Vincent so much that he lays across him as he used to do as a human. Surely, he can't be that heavy as a demon, right?

To Alastor, he regains a little bit of normalcy and closeness to his yappy entertainer. He spends the deep, dark late nights a shadow, spread out across the bed sheets and his deer ears listening to his love's heart like he used to.

To Vincent? It's more like: who the fuck cast a hex on him? Who sicced a demon on him? Who did he piss off this badly? What is with this nightmare fuel?? Those eyes glow red and gold and a weird animal shine above him, watching him, whispering nonsensically in his ear while Vincent remains frozen, unable to move, the hair across his body rising in pure terror.

It goes on like this for months, years, the bags under his eyes get harder to hide, infuriating Alastor, igniting his possessiveness, his protectiveness, his want because no one is taking care of Vincent--of course not, it was his job! Vincent was his to hold, to cradle close despite their height difference, to encourage and laugh with and to slit throats and strangle and bury the evidence.

Until one day, Vincent sees Alastor's notes on contacting Hell. Eyes the old radio that Alastor had taken with him from place to place before Vincent had even met him. And one night, he spends the night listening to music on it, and doesn't turn it off. Alastor, as he slips across the floor and spills his shadow across the bed, thinks that Vincent only forgot.

As he does every night now, he murmurs to the human, rubs his cold, misty cheek against Vincent's own, brushes his freezing lips across the scratchy stubble along his jaw. "You've done well, my dear. I watched you from the audience as I always have, my dear. Vincent, my love, I miss you catching my eye in the crowd. I miss when you used to sing on stage and I could know that it was all for me. It is still for me, isn't it? You look so tired, darling, didn't I say you weren't allowed to lose sleep over me? It's been one, two, so many years, Vincent, I miss being warm with you nearby."

And Alastor whispers these sweet nothings, these things that he wishes this man could know, and doesn't realize the radio has begun flipping through channels. That it's been picking up his voice, distorted, monstrous, but endless and yet...somehow familiar.

Vincent's pupils blow wide and dark as he recognizes the tone, the words, the voice. It's Al. It's Alastor. It's him him him. His eyes desperately try to take in the features of what-this-thing-is, to put a face to the voice, to the hope shaking in his chest.

"Al," he gasps. The thing's head lifts, and it's still all mist and smoke and shadow, but the antlered head tilts just so, and that's all Alastor, that's his lover, his husband in all but name and ring, his other half--

The shadow is barely substantial when he lays a hand against the thing's cheek, but the being's head leans into the touch regardless and suddenly the world is a blur, Vincent's face is wet, he tastes salt and his chest is heaving, heaving, heaving erratically.

He can't breathe. His heart is beating so hard, so fast, and there is a weight on his chest, compressing panicking ribs and lungs. He can feel Alastor's gaze, a living, possessive thing that seeks to crawl under his skin. And on the radio, he hears Alastor coaxing him, "Oh, darling, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, hello my love, I've missed you, you clever little man, you're mine, mine, mine..."

The world fades, darkens.

Alastor hovers a foot over Vincent as the human regains his breath, and his heart regains its normal, steady rhythm. He watches life return to his love's human body with a decidedly non-human interest, and considers just how much longer he was willing to wait for the inevitable to happen.

Surely, comes the thought, there'd be no harm in speeding things along? They both miss each other; Alastor, with a endless pit of proprietorial hunger, and Vincent with the covetousness he's always embodied. Surely, Vincent wouldn't mind...