Not enough people are talking about how the radiostatic breakup fucked up Alastor's mindset too. We know that Alastor had friends in life like Mimzy who he still keeps around even a century later. In the bar, he hands out with Vox and is genuinely relaxed and his attitude "Am I boring you with my compliments?" "Perhaps." isn't quite like the egotistical Radio Demon we know him as. To add on, his entire aversion to modern technology and the "this face was made for radio" still sticks with him even 70 years later.
Vox asking that proposal, and inadvertently giving Alastor the idea that he was probably only using him to advance, might have ingrained the "there are no friends in hell" when it didn't exist before. Additionally, Vox took that rejection and marked Alastor as his nemesis from that day and has continued to hate him for decades which was probably what cemented Alastor’s belief that Vox was using him, not realising how vulnerable Vox had been with him in that moment. And seeing how Vox tries to manipulate Valentino and Velvette to help him with his plan didn't improve Alastor's opinion of him. "Call off your goons," he says, clearly not even considering that Vox could actually care about the Vees and see them as more than stepping stones.
Alastor's entire plan relied on how well he knew Vox ffs. And it WORKED. He knows him so well that he managed to predict everything he was gonna do when even the Vees couldn't. "He's too easy." Yeah, for YOU. Valentino and Velvette have been wrangling him for the duration of the show with no success. In the s2 fights, Alastor doesn't hurt Vox even once; he only ever strikes at his technological components to level the odds but never at his face or body.
My point is, Alastor still cares about him. He just doesn't trust him. And since s3 is likely going to take off from the scene where Lilith calls Charlie, we would likely get a scene of Alastor and headVox interacting and quite possibly the start of Vox's character development. If Alastor sees Vox changing, sees him bend from the defeat and humiliation and abandon that hunt for power, then maybe he would open his mind to becoming friends with Vox again. Because, ultimately, Alastor sought Vox out for his ambition and resourcefulness to break his deal (and the fact that he was great company was a bonus) he just didn't want it at the expense of himself. Everything Alastor does is an adjacent ploy to protect himself. He made a deal with a demon to become the most powerful and yet he rarely exerts that power (except for people who deserve it like the butcher from the comic). He has no grand ambitions about becoming the most powerful like Vox, he just wants the security. He wants to know that he can sleep with both eyes closed at night, and he can't make friends if he isn't 100% certain they won't stab him in the back.
Vox needs to make himself more trustworthy and Alastor needs to learn to communicate if they're ever going to become friends again.
YES. these are all the words i needed to say in a coherent way, not just "ASLDFKJSDHFSKDJHFKSD ALASTOR TRUST ISSUES VOX BLIND BOTH BLIND BUT FRIEND POSSIBLE IN FUTURE??" lmao
i do think that they're both quite a ways from that, especially with viv's and the cast's ominous tweets + "guess who will be pulling all of the strings" but i personally think it's possible that they could be fucked up besties! lord knows alastor might be in the market if his relationship (platonic) with rosie falls apart because... well, there's nothing tying him to her anymore. although i do think that scene in "hear my hope" might offer some hope for us platonic radiorose shippers (PLATONIC.).
what was i talking about again? oh yeah, vox and alstor repairing their relationship. i think the ending of s2 gave vox a nice rabies-plus-tetanus-shot-sized dose of humility, but lowkey alastor just got an ego boost because. well. he just swindled his way out of TWO deals (plus his deal with charlie but i wouldn't say that was "swindling" because he had the advantage in that situation). i won't say alastor "needs to be humbled," but i do think he needs to learn that he can actually rely on people. maybe in season three (if he isn't the main villain </3) we can see him start to rely on characters like vox or rosie, if not for ego purposes. (god, i feel like i'm not phrasing any of this correctly so i hope y'all are picking up what i'm putting down lmao)
basically: i think a friendship would be great for both of them because they can learn to rely on each other and i think this would be great for their respective character arcs. :)
