It wasn't the first time Vox had left Alastor in the care of one of the other Vees. There always had to be someone breathing down the Radio Demon's neck, lest he forget who owned him. Rosie. But not for long. He thought it was rather funny, really, that Vox was so desperate to make it clear he was the one in control that he had to have a warden looming over every waking moment, reminding Alastor of his position. He couldn't be left to his own devices for more than a few seconds without someone to keep track of him.
Which might've been smart, if Alastor hadn't willingly handed himself over to this deal. They didn't need to know that if they hadn't noticed already. They should have, he thought with amusement; he'd never even raised a hand to them in the fight. Not actively. His tactics had been defensive, at best.
Velvette, at least, was the sharpest of the lot.
Valentino was... distasteful, in his mind, and Vox, while entertaining, was predictable. At least he had been before all of this... but those two were all too easy to rile up. It was easy to pit Vox against Valentino, or vice versa, to get under one's skin or the other. But Velvette? Velvette was something different. Harder to needle, harder to get under the skin of. Like she knew the game he was playing. He could respect that, even going as far as to think they might be more similar in that regard than he had at first thought.
All it meant was that he had to approach her with a different strategy.
He could do that. Alastor was nothing if not adaptable.
What he hadn't expected was the offer, after she'd dragged him here. [ Well, perhaps dragging wasn't the right word. It was more having an assistant push him along, but the point remained: he had been moved. ] He'd been watching her get things out of the cabinet with what would have outwardly been indifference, if he wasn't currently high out of his mind... because of that, it was easy to tell he was interested in what she was doing by the way he was tracking her movements, red eyes a little too sharp as he watched what ingredients were being set out, what tools.
Then the offer, and ears that were pinned low snapped up with attention.
Abruptly, with all the manic energy he had been suppressing since he was handed off to her [ he could behave! ], he twisted in the chair and jammed his heel into the floor, sending the chair careening across the kitchen. It was an absolutely unnecessary amount of theatrics. He used the momentum to turn the chair and plant his foot, stopping himself just shy of crashing into the counter itself. It was an impressive level of coordination for the state he was in, in all truth.
This close, he leaned forward, ignoring the pain of the tight cables cutting into the wound beneath his clothes so he could get a better look at what had been set out, trying to puzzle through what it was she'd be teaching him to make.
"Far be it from me to turn down a chance to learn a new recipe! What are we making?" He looked up at her, giving her a grin full of daggers as he followed with what was probably a predictable question; "does this mean I can get out of the chair?"
Alastor raised a brow at her, equal parts teasing and conspiratorial. He was expecting a no, if she were loyal to Vox's desires. But if she were more alike him than he'd initially thought her to be, well... a small giggle made his shoulders rise at the thought.
The first time Vox had forced her to babysit...because, let's be honest, that's exactly what this was...the Radio Demon, Velvette had argued against it. Ferociously. While she understood that the Media Overlord was even busier than the usual, with their plans to invade Heaven in the cooking, that didn't change the fact that she too had her own schedules and engagements to handle. She didn't have time to step in and play house in the asshole's place whenever it suited him.
As she had adamantly told him, she refused to let him act like her work was less important than his. They were a team, they were all equals, and thus what they did was equally important. To hell with the fact that Vox sometimes acted like it wasn't true.
In the end, he had managed to talk her into it, because he knew her that well and because he was just that persuasive, and she had ended up watching Alastor...only to find out that the creepy deer wasn't as bad as she had thought. By the time Vox had come back to grab his hate-boyfriend from her care, she had come to the conclusion that she didn't really mind his company.
Thus why, when her best friend had asked her for the same favour again, she had been much less reluctant to accept.
Sure, Alastor's humour was either a little too on the nose or a little too cryptic, but he was funny. He was full of himself, but he had all the honest reasons to be with how smart, witty and powerful he was. Besides, she lived with Vox, she was used to dealing with megalomaniacs. She wasn't overly fond of his edgelord act and his haircut was an insult to everything stylish, but he was a good conversationalist and he had good tastes, for the most.
So, she would have lied if she had claimed that babysitting him was such a chore for her. Not to mention that, with how things were going between the Radio Demon and the TV demon lately, the more breaks Vox got from Alastor, the better. Her best friend was insane, she had known it since day one, but nothing and no one could get under his skin as the red prick did. And it was causing the Media Overlord to spiral more and more.
She was worried underneath her annoyance, hell, she was even a little scared, even if she wouldn't have admitted it even under torture.
The fashionista rolled her eyes as she watched Alastor trying and failing to hide his curiosity as she rolled him into the kitchen. It was a little funny witnessing how much the drugs kept him from being his usual unreadable self. It made him more approachable and less of a handful, even if he was still plenty creepy and smug.
Doing something normal with him, as normal as it was possible considering their circumstances, had been born also from that. The need to shove the Radio Demon in settings and situations that could show what he was, underneath all the dark magic bullshit and his evil radio host persona. He was a guy, and she had sworn after her death to never let any other man walk over her or use her for his goals.
Then, the moment the reality of her offer had hit, he all his pitiful acts of fake nonchalance had fallen and she had found herself leaning with one hip against the counter, watching him spin around the room like a mad top.
"You act like you're tough shit, but the truth is that you're just one big dork with a lot of scary toys at his disposal," she deadpanned, giving him her best unimpressed look. "You done, darlin'? Or do you wanna roll around some more? Get that restless energy all out before we get down to business?"
She knew better than to underestimate him, especially when this whole weird ass situation was effectively his doing, but it was really hard to take him seriously when he acted like that. It also helped knowing that he couldn't hurt her, even if he had wanted to, Vox's hold keeping him on a very tight leash.
"You and V are truly a match made in Hell. That was exactly like watching him doing one of his manic dances." An eyeroll. "You two seriously deserve each other."
With that, she reached out and tagged firmly at the cables that held the Radio Demon tightly attached to his seat. Her best friend would have given her an earful for what she was about to do, but she couldn't have cared less. With how badly Vox had been treating her and Val lately, she had earned a bit of a payback for herself.
"But yes, you can get out of this thing," she confirmed then, watching as, after having offered some resistance, the wires began to loosen. "But no leaving this room. If you even just think about it, it's back in the chair for you right away. Got it, bowlcut?"
After having fully uncoiled from around Alastor's torso, the cables fastened back around his waist, acting like a belt of some sort, one of their ends merging itself with one of the wall sockets, leaving the stag enough room to wander freely around the kitchen but no further.
Velvette rose an eyebrow at the scene, a little impressed and also a little creeped out. Something in the way the wires squeezed Alastor's middle gave off a weird possessive vibe and she briefly wondered if Vox could actually feel through them.
Ew. Yeah, she was better off not knowing.
"We're making pastel de tres leches," she explained, abandoning those thoughts. "Val mentioned it being one of his favourites some time ago and I decided that he's long overdue for a pick-me-up, so we're preparing him one."
She swiped a finger over her phone, activating projecting the page with the recipe on a floating screen, so that they could both easily read it.
"You're great at this, right? Kitchen stuff, I mean."
According to drunk Vox, Alastor was the best cook to ever walk under the Pentagram. It had made her curious to find out if it was true herself, even if she hadn't exactly been thrilled to learn that, apparently, her best friend didn't mind indulging in casual cannibalism.
