Aquarist for @tonystark604
“You two should just fuck already.”
The two Media Overlords turned to shoot Valentino eerily similar unimpressed stares. The moth’s lascivious smirk didn’t falter, his legs popped up and he started kicking like they were at a sleepover.
“What? Am I wrong? And can I film it?”
Alastor rolled his eyes and his neck in the opposite direction. He then crossed his legs at the knee and audibly sighed at the man’s standard behavior. Vox, meanwhile, also immediately groaned in exasperation, pushing away from Alastor’s fun new chair and walking over to his… whatever they were.
“Val, that’s not- Big picture here, babe. He’s just here to eat his words. I don’t want to fuck him.”
“Why not? Don’t get me wrong, Voxxy. I love foreplay as much as the next guy, but it’s only worth it if-”
Alastor tuned them out. He knew Vox might have inclinations towards him, but it wasn’t in his nature to share that kind of victory. His anger tended toward violence of the more traditional sort. Worst case scenario, he’d end up regenerating for a day and have to deal with Vox’s smug gloating over it. No, Vox was at his core, a romantic. He wanted Alastor to want him back and the brief satisfaction he might derive from forcing the issue would be hollow.
Damn, he was tired. It was a shame he hadn’t finished his coffee earlier when Lucifer riled him up. A dramatic exit was all well and good, but the caffeine would have been a plus. He hummed. Come to think of it, he did spill some of his drink on the side table too. He’d have to buy Niffty something soft for her plushine collection of misfit toys to make up for the error.
Something with feathers this time, she’d been oddly preoccupied with textures of the sort since her excursion with the rest of the Hotel’s residents.
Oh, damn it all, he’d forgotten to take his stock off the stovetop before his visit with Rosie! Vivzi, or whatever she was going by these days, might have taken care of it, but he sincerely doubted that. What with all her other duties and ongoing relationship drama.
He slid his eyes around the office, passively noting the horrendous décor Vox surrounds himself with. Industrial minimalism. Cold, clean lines and glaring blue light bouncing off the polished concrete floors. Not even a rug to break up the monotony.
He raised an eyebrow at an oil painting of Vox on a giant mechanized shark as it leapt from an ocean. Ridiculous fancies on his part no doubt. There were no seas in the Pride Ring. But it was a personal touch at least. Almost charming on some level.
Alastor finally looked over the massive aquarium making up the far wall. Multitudes of colorful Hellish fish species schooled and spiraled, the overhead neon flashing on contact with their scales. Hypnotic in their own way and on theme for Vox, but not especially interesting.
He yawned widely, static rising in concert and then falling again.
When he blinked his eyes open at the tank, he gave a start. What he might have first dismissed as a dirty spot on the glass was actually a creature in the water. The dark smudge moved in a visible pattern, tracking the edges of the far side of its enclosure for something.
Alastor squinted, unconsciously leaning in to try bringing the shape into focus. The beast in the water twisted, appearing to gain size and speed as it drew closer from some unknown stimuli. The vibrant fish scattered.
The neon lights bent around a gargantuan, and apparently very real, shark. An odd apparatus was attached to its face and created the illusion of multiple eyes. Its shadow loomed large over the Radio Demon.
Alastor felt his ears gradually lift to sit straight. His eyes flicked from one detail to the next, drinking it in with utter fascination.
‘Sublime.’ He thought. ‘What are you?’
A hand fell hard on his right shoulder and his ear immediately folded again. Alastor tugs himself free for a second time that day, accidentally setting his perch to roll.
Not much was gained by the distance, Vox just grabbed the back of his chair again and wound him against his side. The TV Overlord just theatrically threw out his opposite arm to gesture at the floating behemoth.
“Like him?” Vox asked, practically mooning over the thing. “Isn’t he just the best, biggest, and prettiest demon shark in Hell?” He cooed in baby talk, over the top and obnoxious.
“I’m sure. Barring those deep seas creatures in Envy.” Alastor drawled. He rolled his eyes and folded his legs up onto his seat like he’s riding side saddle. He exhaled slightly at the minor space it appeared to create between them. “Though I doubt it was achieved naturally. What on earth is that thing on the beast’s face?”
Vox tsks at his nonchalant tone, but complied. “It’s a mask to improve his brainwaves. I wanted him to be able to understand me and see more colors. He can actually make sense of them now!”
Alastor sniffed in disinterest. “Seems a waste for something that won’t live more than 12 years at best.”
“You think I haven’t gotten past the limitations on Earth? Shok.Wav here’s been alive for nearly 64 years.”
Alastor blinked and an ear twitched. His gaze traced the shark once more, and then ticked back to Vox who was wearing a smug grin. No. The idea was too absurd. “Surely you don’t mean to imply?”
Vox cackled. “What?! You don’t recognize the poor baby?” He grabbed Alastor by the back of his neck, lighting his nervous system up with something close to pain. He refused to show it. “Want a closer look? Might jog that dusty memory.”
Alastor’s lips peeled back, grin turning far more hostile at the insinuation. “Don’t. You. Dare.” His static peaked.
Vox’s smile only sharpened. “Hey, Val!” He called over his shoulder. “You want to see that thing I told you about?”
The moth paused in picking over his open wardrobe. “Ugh! Voxxy, you’re still on this? I told you the water chumming doesn’t do it for me.”
“No! The OTHER thing.” Vox grit.
Alastor felt a growl rumbling up from his chest. “I swear to God, Vox. I’ll make your first drowning look like a leisure swim in a fucking wading pool.”
Val took a deep drag of his cigarette. “Fine, babe. You want to get the deer wet so bad, I’ll help, but don’t you be complaining about the smell later.”
He swayed over, still entirely nude and unbothered by it. Alastor immediately redirected to the TV Overlord. “This was not in the deal Vox.”
Vox met him eye to eye, wagging a finger in chastisement. “Uh-ah, Tender-hoof! Deal was I get to keep you captive, you never specified where.”
“Don’t-!” The wires binding him abruptly pulled away at his front, catching the buttons of his coat. Most horrifically, Valentino sliced down his top layer at his neck. Alastor was dragged onto the floor, his coat and shirt splitting open and fluttering over his upper arms.
Alastor pressed his arms over his chest now, holding both sides the shredded fabric to maintain cover. He absolutely seethed at his captors, full radio dial eyes and antlers.
Valentino, of course, didn’t pass up the opportunity. “Damn, it really was all shoulder pads and stuffing. I bet I could hold his whole waist with one hand.” He leaned in with a leering squint. “You certainly have a thing for the twig look, amore.” The moth reached forward to take Alastor’s chin.
The Radio Demon took a swipe at his face. Deal be damned, Alastor was not going to tolerate this disrespect from Valentino of all demons.
Valentino jerked back, but it wasn’t necessary. Vox immediately snapped his cables back around Alastor’s arm and pulled him into the air by the limb. Then he went for his shoes.
Aside from some kicking, Alastor was mortifyingly trapped in the confines of his own terms. Every tug just sent him swinging. All he had left was his words. “Figures you would be so pathetic, Vox. Even now? So scared that you can’t win, that you’d-“
Vox pressed a claw on the rough pad of his hoof.
Alastor ground his teeth at the pain, biting down a hiss, but still trying to kick the offending hand away. Vox pressed in again, breaking the skin and taking advantage when Alastor went stiff again. He slipped the other shoe off with a dismissive flick. “Not helping your case, Al.”
Alastor instinctively folded his free leg towards his torso, and then internally scolded himself for the action. Vox gave a self-satisfied hum.
With his claws still curled in warning around the deer’s bleeding hoof, Vox pulled Alastor along the ceiling towards the tank walkways. Shok.Wav swiped along the wall and moved to follow.
The stroll up to the railings was irritatingly swift. Vox, practically giddy with the show he put on, pulled a remote from his pocket and pressed a button. A wide tarp repelled into view and settled just above the water where Shok.Wav circled in excitement.
A veterinary hammock. Vox was treating him like just another animal in his collection.
Alastor wished he could say he reacted with more decorum, but there, hovering over the thinnest barrier between himself and a predator far more comfortable hunting the seas than he was? He abandoned clutching at the scraps of his clothes and instead grabbed for the cable on his arm, attempting to relieve the weight on it and pull himself higher.
The cable uncoiled at the same moment a surge of electricity zapped down the line.
Alastor crashed into the hammock netting, muscles still twitching at the lingering charge. He was only prompted to push through it when the water pooling below started to expand.
Sinking. The mat was sinking.
He tried to climb out, across the mesh, up the rungs, it all fell slack. Shok.Wav lunged for the flailing motion.
With no other options, Alastor jumped for the platform at the edge of the tank. Vox’s pet rumbled and strained against the rough mesh in its teeth instead of prey, attempting to throw it off.
Alastor’s leap fell short, but his head was still dry. He swam. He gripped the metal platform.
Vox grabbed him by the hair.
“Deep breath, Al.” The TV Overlord pushed his head down and held him there.
The water churned around him and Alastor struggled, scratching at Vox’s claws and the flesh of his hands. Bubbles burst from him. He could taste the salt in the water. He fought what he knew was coming.
His lungs burned. He felt his fingers, his hands, his arms, and then his whole body go limp and numb.
He slipped away from the grasp on his head. Alastor took a breath and sank like a stone.
-------------------------------------------------
Vox stood back from the tank’s edge, eyes never leaving the Radio Demon’s form.
Val stood a few stairs down from the platform, an abundance of caution for his poor depth perception. He fluffed the collar of his recently folded wings. “Didn’t realize you were so personally invested in the drowning kink. I’ll have to make a new series.”
Vox kept a bead on their prisoner, but joined Val. He wrapped an arm around his business partner’s waist and walked him the rest of the way down to his office. “Oh, it’s way better than that, babe. Just you wait.”
Alastor continued to fall, seemingly dead for the time being. Shok.Wav, now free from the vet hammock, twisted towards him, but a gesture from Vox returned the shark to its tracking of the glass.
Suddenly, Alastor’s eyes burst with light and his back jackknifed. A scream cut through the water, distorted in an oddly musical way, but unmistakably a cry of pain. The Radio Demon started seizing. Alternately going tense and then curling inwards around his core. Bubbles burst from him as gripped his sides.
He sank faster, slamming into the bottom of the tank and kicking up the sand and silt around him. Alastor was soon obscured, more sonorous sounds filling the space.
To Valentino’s surprise, Vox’s arm pressed him tighter against his side, dampening his ability to interpret the sound with his tympanal membranes. It was only then he realized that he apparently zoned out.
The sound gradually died away and he saw it.
Dots of bioluminescence lit up along the sides of something long, beginning to glow and shift in mesmerizing patterns. Where the Radio Demon had been was now a new shape, its outline only partially visible. With a skittish movement, the thing darted off, hiding among the plaster flora and reefs that Vox lined his enclosure with. Val only caught a flash of red bleeding to navy before it was lost in the artificial cave openings.
When the silt fully settled again, Alastor was nowhere to be seen.
“Un control de la respiración impresionante.” Val purred. “Quick question though. What the fuck was that?”
Vox chuckled to himself. “I told you. I fucking told all of the others and none of you believed me! Ha! Well, lookie there! The Radio Demon is nothing more than an overgrown goldfish!”
Val whistled at his theatrics. “¿Lo de la sirena? Holy shiiiit.~” He smirked, leaning over to use Vox’s shoulder as a kickstand. “And here we all thought you were crazy. Egg on my face.” He squinted into the water again. “Bit of a scaredy-cat like this, huh? C’mon, Voxxy, I wanna see him. Make him do something.”
--------------------------------------------------
Of all the sensations, the way his airway adjusted to the water was the worst.
Filaments in the tissue of his throat waking at the overwhelming moisture, the gills on his sides ram ventilating to expel carbon dioxide. Breathing now a whole new trick to relearn in an environment he was perfectly suited to and loathed all the same.
He always had to fight back the gagging reflex at first, always had to convince himself he wasn’t drowning.
The salinity was higher than he’d usually tolerate, and harder to acclimate to when he had just been thrown in. Not impossible though, he could feel his body trying to balance against this shift. Against the wrongness of the water, so different from that of his bayou.
No, fuck reservation. His chest screamed! It burned and wept! His wound was exposed and open to a god damn floating salt mine! He dug his claws into the artificial grit lining the floor.
He could even feel the differences there.
Alastor’s vision adjusted under transparent lids.
Yes, his claws were longer. Needle-thin with scales the same shade of red cascading up his fingers. Then there was the webbing-
“Come on out, Alastor!” More bubble hissed from his lips in response. The speakers set in his temporary coral hideaway buzzed. “Don’t be shy now! Where’s that showman’s moxie, Al?!”
And that’s really what it was, wasn’t it? A hiding place. Vox was getting satisfaction either way, so what was the point in straining himself further? At least there was some distance now. Let Vox stew while he relived the worst curse Hell bestowed on him.
He took in the other changes forced on him. The long tail that replaced his legs at the naval, the flowing pelvic fins framing it, the spines along what were his ears and the larger one trailing down from his waist. The caudal fin was especially bittersweet.
Beautiful, fan-like, forked in such a way as to increase his speed. Lunate, Vox had called it when he succumbed to his prodding to let him see it in the past.
Unbearably touchy then too.
His tail flicked irritably and he snapped at himself when it sent another plume of manufactured sand into the open. Not that Vox really needed it to locate him. He could feel the prickling sensation of a camera creeping up his back.
Thankfully, his image was imperceivable as ever.
The finlets that took the place of his usual ears clamped down against his hair while Vox continued making a nuisance of himself.
‘Well,’ Alastor thought, crossing his arms under his chin and closing his eyes. ‘I could use the rest anyway.’
---------------------------------------------------
“Oh, he is not-!” Vox snarled into his camera feed.
“Oh, he is not!” Val repeated with far less disbelief and far more schadenfreude at his partner’s expense.
The holo-screen Vox pulled up was predictably corrupted, but even then, the pixilated form of the Radio Demon purposely turned away, apparently perfectly willing to ignore Hell outside of the hole he’d tucked up in to die. And by Hell, he meant Vox in particular.
“I will tear those spines out of your head!” Vox screamed down the speakers.
Alastor adjusted one of his pelvic fins, but made no other motion to indicate he’d been heard. Vox snapped his fingers and the chains of their deal flickered into view before fading again. No dice. He was still a prisoner, but as he had taunted before, Alastor wasn’t required to answer him.
If he were capable of it, Vox might have exhaled hard through his nose, before dismissing his feed. “Stupid red-jewel-scorp-whatever the fuck he is!” The Media Overlord snarled. He spun on his heel and started stomping for the door to his office.
“Voxxy, where you going?”
“To get those idiots in R&D to earn their benefits and build an extra-long taser stick or deer-nip or something!”
With a fond sigh, Valentino wrapped his lower arms around Vox, removed his hat with the upper left hand, and then propped his chin on the top edge of his screen. “Love the energy, Amore, but you’re playing his game that way. Someone that prudish doesn’t respond to toys.~”
He dropped Vox’s hat into the demon’s hands and turned them both back to the tank. “Like you said: Big picture. You want to tame a brat? Give him something to be scared of. Something heavy handed.”
He dragged a hand up Vox’s chest to his screen, tilting it up to Shok.Wav still hovering by the area where Alastor first fell.
Then he dragged both upper hands back down Vox’s chest, tracing along his lover’s arms to cradle Vox’s hands in his own. “And then your hold feels much softer.”
----------------------------------------------------
The only warning he had was a vague interference rolling over his senses.
Alastor felt the force of it knock him into the plaster coral even as his temporary hideaway began breaking apart. Something big slammed into reef and the water pulled with it. Alastor twisted on himself against the shifting tide, trying to remain in one place.
The whole structure started to crumple, speakers and cameras abruptly ceased ambient sound as they exploded under the collapsing weight.
It came again. This time pieces of the plaster actually falling inwards and bouncing off of him. The faux cavern’s opening bent sideways, pinching closed. It suddenly occurred to Alastor that Vox’s proclivity towards lashing out in violence had the possibility of being far more intense when he couldn’t personally act on it.
Bang! Again, the grit under his hands slipped and Alastor lost balance.
Fish from the other crevasses were skittering past the entrance of his hiding spot. If he didn’t move soon, he’d be crushed.
Alastor dissolved into his shadows. The form was less stable than when he was on land, looking and moving more like bleeding ink than oil, but it had to suffice. He slipped out, curling around the reef, something smaller lunged at him. He reacted.
Eel blood drew unwanted attention. Vox’s titanic pet left behind its assault on the architecture and its cybernetic eyes locked on his umbral state.
Alastor bolted for the surface.
His shackles manifested before he could break to the air.
He was forced into his physical form, pulled hard to the side and knocked brutally into one of the tank walls.
A bright light hit him head on and, combined with the slight pain of the impact, instinct took over. He spun down the side of the wall, erratically swiping ahead of himself and swimming blind. When he pushed from the glass, it only led to being stunned from the opposite side with a similar light.
The chase, the lights, the panic, all served to push him to the open water in sight of Vox’s office. Only then did the agitation end. Alastor made a series of short chitters when the lights dimmed, rubbing at his eyes and blinking rapidly. His vision returned.
He was face to teeth with Shok.Wav.
The shark moved even closer and Alastor scrambled away, the swipe of his tail and arms sending him backwards until he bumped into the remaining glass wall.
He blocked, for all the good it would do, head turned to the side but eyes unflinchingly wide.
Then Alastor heard it again.
That interference rolling over him in a clumsy fashion. A signal seeking a receiver. Not behind him in the office, not Vox. It was coming from the animal in front of him. It had paused a few feet away.
The reaching signal came once more. Alastor’s finned ears rose curiously, mirroring their reaction from before, when they had the safety of a barrier separating them. Despite unease, Alastor let the signal connect.
It wasn’t like speaking with another demon. It was rudimentary. Impressions, images, and most notably, sounds. No, it definitely was not conversational, but for lack of another way to describe it: The shark was “talking” to him.
“Shok.Wav” knew its name. It knew Alastor needed to be visible. It knew Alastor was not food. It knew Alastor.
The Radio Demon cautiously let his arms drop, flabbergasted. He tried sending something on the same level to Shok.Wav. A questioning sound. The shark’s shape obscured as a thought.
Shok.Wav nudged its snout into Alastor’s chest. He hissed at the contact with his reinflamed skin. A feeling of “Sharp. Pain. Bad.” An image of himself, of Vox. The impression of safety. He squinted at the creature in confusion.
“Aww! Already making friends?”
Alastor glared down through the glass at his unwanted audience. Vox stood in a self-satisfied way. Hands tucked in his pockets and eyes trailing the length of his tail like he was appraising a particularly expensive showpiece.
He tsked. “Beautiful. All that color and glow, and he insists he was made for radio.”
“Agreed.” Val added. “Do you know how many people would pay to see that? Giving me all sorts of ideas for in-water shoots. Maybe I oughta revisit that ‘Man Overboard’ script?” He held up his hands, fingers in a camera frame pose. “What that tail do, Sirena?”
Alastor clamped his caudal fin, disgusted. He sneered at Valentino.
“Nothing to say, bitch?” The moth prodded with an insufferable grin.
Alastor turned his attention to Vox, noting the identical grin on his screen. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Vox shared that detail of this form as well. A side-effect of his filaments becoming necessary. Sound was limited to that of an ordinary aquatic creature. Nothing that could be interpreted as human words.
Just grunts, chitters, clicks and, of course, song.
With an inaudible huff, he tried to move from that side of the tank again and found his guard dog was there immediately. Herding him back towards Vox, even when he tried to push at the beast’s nose to gain space.
The TV Overlord cooed at his pet once more. “Aren’t you sweet, my lovely baby!” He redirected to Alastor. “Well, Al? Remember him now?”
Alastor squinted at Vox and then back to Shok.Wav. It would have been then… if Vox was telling the truth. If this demonic shark was not merely provided knowledge of Alastor technologically.
He flashed an idea across their signal. What he remembered of open water being. Sounds, scents, sights, and a questioning impulse. ‘Where?’ He asked. Trying to parse where Shok.Wav came from, when Vox acquired him.
What he saw in response echoed with those same feelings from before. ‘Sharp, Pain, Bad!’ The vaguest memory of green seas. Being caught and carried and hurt. Sounds, his own shriek when using his powers in those earlier days. It was scooped up and kept in a long saltwater tank where it could swim in circles. A red blur, that must have been him, moving closer and farther from the tank as he went about his days. Strange food. Not strange now.
There was a conversation he barely remembered with Vox, whom was telling him how to care for the runty fish for the brief time he’d keep it. Voices warped through the medium of the water.
Alastor remembered that tank being shattered before he managed to contract with an Envy Hellborn willing to transport the creature.
Alastor followed the line of his arm to the hand Shok.Wav had pushed his snout into. Those feelings weaved into their signal repetitively. ‘Safe. Sharp. Pain. Help. Bad. Safe.’ They were not new, they were baseline, centered on the circuitry and mechanics wired into its body. Most strongly in the mask.
Alastor’s felt his feedback building, vibrating the glass of the tank until a crack split the wall directly in front of Vox. He and Valentino jumped.
Shok.Wav flinched. It shook its head at the noise, and flicked off Alastor’s touch. ‘SHARP! Pain! Bad!’
Alastor exhaled harshly, ceasing the dangerous reverberation, and turned to glare at Vox. His eyes were sparking with ferocity.
With more effort than usual, he broadcast out to the speakers. His voice was colder and deeper, but musical in some way. His static hissed. “What did you do?”
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
gummygunk
izzy806
