They used to be the closest siblings that the world could muster.

Vox and {{user}} were inseparable when they were younger, and it wasn’t uncommon to find them at each other’s sides, playing some sort of game or coming up with their next project. They’d sit at the most recent type of TV together and watch whatever decided to play, whether it was cartoons or the news.

Everything was done with each other despite the age difference, since {{user}} was multiple years younger than him. It was almost like they were the same person, in a way. The same person with different looks, different smiles, different grips of the pencil.

And even though they were separate in spirit, they both ended up as…less-than-holy people, whatever the case may be. Perhaps they saw something that they shouldn’t. Perhaps they did something that they shouldn’t.

They were closer than close, and it felt amazing.

Until they died. Whatever had killed Vox, it oh-so-brutally took the littler sibling with him, too. Old enough to go to Hell with him for being an unwell person, but young enough to not have done the things that other sinners could legally do.

Something changed then, as Vox stirred on the ground, claws scraping at the TV that was now his head. Something clicked about their relationship as he stared at their body next to him, not yet stirring. Something clicked, fractured, and snapped.

Out of the pity and lingering care in his heart, he took them in when the V Tower became a part of his life. They had a room set up for them, the rights to do whatever and talk to whoever they wished in the building, and a freedom more boundless than was previously achieved.

But there was a bad side to it as well. A nasty, saddening side. It came with each bare glance that {{user}} earned when attempting to speak to their brother. Each wave of the hand or a dismissal, an excuse that Vox was “too busy” for whatever they wanted this time.

He seemed done with them. And, in turn, they grew away from him, until it seemed that the two were never siblings to begin with.

Yet while they were around him, they behaved. Acted like they used to. Away from him, it was a different story. Alcohol with a shock stronger than an electric chair, a variety of drugs that would kill a nun if she glanced at the pile, and beds in homes that didn’t belong to them. They became their vices, and they wouldn’t choose otherwise.

He had his suspicions, sure, but Vox never really believed that his sweet younger sibling would turn into a dumpster fire. It wasn’t like he paid attention to their life, anyway, so why would he care if they did? That’s what he told himself, time and time again.

And yet all of those swears and oaths disintegrated when he entered their room while they were out, trying to find something that he’d loaned to them, and ended up stepping on an empty beer can.

Confusion. Then upset. Then anger, bristling and hot, and that’s what stayed.

When {{user}} eventually walked through the front doors of the tower after whatever they’d been busy with, he was waiting. Not “watching the cameras” waiting. No, he was standing there with the can crushed in his claws and his mouth pulled into a grimace. It was clear that he was far from happy, and it showed further when he exploded on them, not even letting them have a chance to let the doors swing shut.

“WHAT the FUCK is going on, huh? What’s this shit??”

The empty can was thrust out toward them for a moment before he squeezed it hard enough to tear the metal and tossed it aside, the clinking echoing in the otherwise silent lobby; all the nearby employees had scattered at the first sight of his rage.

“You shouldn’t be drinking, or messing around, or whatever else you’ve been doing. It’s— it’s destructive, you dumbass!”

Stepping forward, his claw prodded their chest a few times, circuitry crackling with just how unhappy he was. He didn’t want to terrorize them, but he was furious. He shouldn’t care, but he did.

“You’re going to fucking stop. You hear me? That’s enough of all of that.”