Chapter Text
Vox’s POV
2000s
“It’s done,” I breathed, beholding the tower looming. It needed flare, perhaps bright lights to line the framing, but the details would come with time. What mattered was no building in Pentagram City cast a shadow quite as large. Puncturing the scarlet sky, its pointed roof was a beacon among the damaged and deprived structures that littered the streets. I placed my hands on my hips, puffing my chest.
Alastor stood at my side, focusing on the front door I’d left ajar. Its position was a silent invitation. He tilted his head.
“If you wanted to live in such a large building, the least you could have done was not make it such an atrocity.” The Radio Demon leaned on his microphone staff, averting his gaze from the tower in favor of grinning in my direction. I chucked, facing him.
“Are the pink-tinted windows too much?” Alastor’s eyes narrowed, and I laughed harder, clarifying, “Val designed them.”
“Ah. He will be living with you.”
“Yeah.” I tugged my jacket sleeves at the irritation in his tone. “You know we’ve been working together.”
“You don’t have to live with everyone you work with,” he mentioned. I sucked in a breath, slipping a finger under my turtleneck to pull the fabric from my neck, the fleece suffocating as anxiety bubbled in my gut. It threatened to burst, shooting tremors through my limbs. My shoulders raised as I reached out a hand.
“I could.”
He co*cked his head, a strained smile wrinkling his cheeks.
“Vox.”
My name was a dam on his lips, but it was too late to stop the flood.
“We’ve been partners for a while now and visit each other all the time. I didn’t just build this tower for me.” I extended my hand further. “I built it for us. For what we could do together.”
Al’s eyes narrowed while he gripped his staff tighter, holding his ground. My fingers spread, desperation tingling in each digit. When he said nothing, only watching my hand tremble, I rambled, “Don’t you want to be something more? I know you don’t like change, but this could be a good one! We’d be much stronger as a team.”
“It’s not change that I don’t like.”
My arm sagged.
“Al, don’t be ridiculous. You talk all of the time about–”
“You want to tie me down,” he growled. Despite the distaste in his voice, his face was still plastered with the same, golden-toothed smile. My heart sank.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to, my dear.” When he reached out his hand, my heart skipped a beat. I imagined he would interlace his fingers with mine and I could drag him through the tower doors. Never letting him go. My head buzzed, static popping between my antennas until he pressed his palm against my fingers, lowering my hand to my side.
A silent, gentle rejection.
Yet the reality of it set my insides aflame, anxiety, admiration, anger, and all.
“Al, please.” I hated how my voice cracked, every emotion clouding my judgment as I reached for him again. “I just want you to be with me.”
“And why is that?” he asked. The tufts on his head folded back, brows furrowing. My heartbeat quickened, sending my pulse through each shaking limb. While I quaked, my body threatening to collapse at any moment, Alastor was still, a steady pillar of effortless ease. I lowered my head, clutching my chest while my other hand remained extended.
“I love you.”
The air stilled.
Alastor’s eyes widened. He approached. Shadows followed each step and coiled around my frame when he neared. My lip quivered from the contact, his cool power brushing against the back of my screen and seeping into my ports. He peered up at the tower, eyes following a moving figure in the window, yet when I turned to look, he grabbed the side of my face, forcing me to watch his grin falter. It was so slight, yet I froze at the collapse of his smile.
He curled his fingers around my left antenna. I shuddered, releasing a ragged exhale. While his nails scratched the metal, I jolted, but couldn’t escape his grasp on my head. His smile returned, more wicked than ever.
“How awful.”
I wailed as he bent my antenna. He clutched my most fragile appendage with demonic strength until the metal squeezed between his fingers, forming a zig-zag shape. The signal in my head distorted, my screen obscured by fuzzy dark lines as crackling echoed in the still air. He was breaking my body, but also destroying my very being as my legs gave out, knees groaning as I landed hard on the pavement. I whimpered once he released me, hunching over while wrapping my arms around my torso. The antenna ached, but its pain was incomparable to the void swallowing my heart whole, breaking pieces of my soul and chewing them until they were bitter mush.
“Alastor, please, don’t do this.” My voice was a signal devoid of purpose. Pleading only worsened the aggravation darkening Alastor’s eyes.
I was losing him. With three horrible words, the man I’d believed would remain by my side for all of eternity was walking away. I crawled, crying out as with each movement, my mangled antenna jolted. The motion sent shooting pains down my spine, building tension in my lower back that made my body give out.
“I can’t… I need…” My voice was interrupted by buffers from my obscured signal. Words were impossible to form as my mouth filled with static that dripped from my lips in scarlet streams. As he turned to walk away, my heart ached to reach for him one last time, but my body protested, caving in on itself as I curled into a pile on the street beside the curb. Like a sack of trash, the rejection had discarded parts of me I’d never be able to replace.
Valentino was waiting for me when I stumbled into the tower. He’d been standing by the window, arms crossed until I’d burst through the door, almost collapsing on my way inside. Upon noticing my disheveled appearance, my crooked antenna sparking while I tried to grasp a signal through the broken metal, Val’s wings unraveled from his body, streaming behind him as he rushed to my side.
“Vox, what happened–”
I grabbed the fluff framing his face and shoved him against the window.
He wriggled as my grip tightened, gasping when I pressed his frame hard enough to crack the glass, pink-tinted panels groaning until our weight. He knew what happened, he’d seen it all through the window but still had the gall to act surprised. It was irritating.
I was empty, clawing at his softness for something to grasp, to tear apart. With each fistful of fluff, he whined, pushing me with his top arms while tugging me closer with the lower set. It didn’t matter if he cared about what he’d witnessed– he’d often scorned me for my admiration of Alastor– because my mind was overflowing with anguish. I couldn’t consider what he was feeling.
For today, he was a vessel I could fill.
“Upstairs,” I growled.
Val didn’t need further instructions, trailing behind me as we entered the elevator. I didn’t wait for the doors to close before pressing my screen against his face, shoving my tongue down his throat. He gagged, but I held him steady against the wall, pinning his lower set of arms behind his back. I needed to consume something, needed to replace what had sunk into the void growing inside my gut. When Val reciprocated the kiss, intertwining his tongue with mine while brushing his fingers against my ventilators, he wasn’t enough. My chest continued to ache. The defeated aching in my knees worsened.
He gasped when my mouth engulfed his lips, my tongue reaching further down his throat for salvation it would not find. Cerise saliva dripped down his chin when he coughed. He tried to say my name, but my mouth made it impossible for his teeth to reach his bottom lip. The noise he made instead sounded like a guttural groan, a plea from the depths of his desire.
“-ox!”
Whether it was a plea for me to stop or to continue my onslaught, I didn’t care.
The elevator bell tinged when we reached my bedroom floor, and I parted from him, storming into the room. It was dim, curtains drawn to only allow dappled pink light to filter through. My bed was made: two pillows and one blanket. No decor. A singular lamp on my nightstand illuminated with the snap of my fingers.
Val panted behind me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Wow, you’re riled up, baby,” he purred. “Did you bring me up here to–” His eyes widened as I unfastened my pants, pulling them down to my knees. My arousal was hard and beckoning. I pointed at the bed.
“Get over here.”
Val smiled, and guilt twinged in my gut at the warmth of his expression. As he peeled the dress off of his body, he was gentle, sliding his hands along his lavender skin like it was glass.
And I was going to break it.
Guilt swirled with my anguish, combining into a monstrous desire to let myself go completely. If I didn’t release these feelings from my crumbling body, they would consume me until I was nothing more than a broken machine. Totaled.
Once Val undressed, he sauntered to me, bouncing on his tip toes as he kissed my head. There was a giddy joy in his movements that irked me. I didn’t need pity, but he was too happy to see me wrecked. His feathered antenna brushed against my broken one.
“So demanding, huh?”
The gesture was too affectionate, static popping above my head from the contact. I grabbed his waist, shoving him onto his hands and knees on the bed. He groaned, then wiggled his behind, looking back at me as I positioned myself at his entrance.
“Is this what you want?”
I could never have what I truly wanted. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch as I thrust myself inside.
Val winced, tightening around me as he raised his back. His discomfort did not deter me, and I pressed his tailbone down until my pelvis pressed against his ass. He was so tight. My head spun from the pressure. As I pulled back, Val sighed only to whine as I shoved back inside.
It took a few minutes before he loosened enough for me to quicken my pace, his dick dripping onto the duvet as his pain subsided into pleasure. Moaning, he pleaded my name, begging me to go harder, faster, and I obliged with no hesitation, but it wasn’t for him. I needed the distraction, the challenge. The sound of my arousal smacking into him echoed in the room, but it wasn’t loud enough to silence the static in my head that kept repeating–
How awful, how awful, how awful, how awful
Val tensed as I braced myself with his back, allowing my dick to collide with his sweet spot even harder. His head shot back, neck squeaking from the swift movement. As I pressed down with my hand, his upper arms gave out and he landed on his forearms. His fingers clawed at the sheets, tearing holes in the fabric while I pulled him in closer, wrapping a hand beneath his stomach to increase my speed. Grabbing at himself with his lower arms, I thrust him around erratically enough to where he couldn’t get a good grasp.
“Ah, Voxy, yes! Harder! Let me touch– AHN! I want to touch myse– OOH!”
His pleading irritated me. I pulled out of him.
His face buried in the bed, not moving from his position as he held his reddened ass high in the air. My dick twitched from the cool air, dripping a trail of satisfaction onto the floor as I wandered to my nightstand, clutching the lamp with both hands. I yanked its plug from the outlet, then tore the cord from the lamp altogether. It hissed one final buzz before I took away its ability to glow.
Returning to Val’s motionless frame, I pinched his lower arms behind his back, then tied them together with the cord. If he physically couldn’t touch himself, maybe he wouldn’t be so loud. He groaned from my touch, voice hushed by the duvet, and when I thrust inside him again, he hardly made a noise, the pain and pleasure caught in his throat.
I continued at my vigorous speed from before with one hand on his tailbone and the other wrapped around his stomach. He was hardly exerting any energy as I pushed and pulled him like a rag doll. The tension in his body was building, his hole squeezing tighter around me while the fingers on his lower arms fumbled with the cord keeping him from pleasing himself.
He dropped to his shoulders, face pressed harder into the bed. I only went deeper. It wasn’t enough. I was yelling, sweat dripping down the back of my neck as relief was nowhere to be found. Val wheezed, the hiccups that escaped his lips causing his body to convulse around me. He turned his head to the side, releasing a forced exhale.
“Voxy, please. Please touch me.”
The desperation in his voice was an unwelcome reminder of the way my voice had faltered and trembled. My gut wrenched.
I leaned forward, and while grabbing his antennas, shoved his face back into the duvet.
“Shut the f*ck up.”
He didn’t make a noise, completely silent when I finally reached release, spilling into him with a sharp cry. I remained inside for a moment, panting as the rush of my org*sm cooled down. Val turned onto his side once I backed away, pulling my pants up. His face was red, cheeks marred. Rubbing the fabric so violently had burned his skin. Yet despite it all, he was smiling. That same goddamn smile. Like he’d gotten what he wanted.
While I was stuck feeling empty.
“I don’t think you’ve ever gone that hard before,” he said, blowing his antenna from his face. “Why don’t you untie me and we can do some aftercare? It seems like you need it.”
I wasn’t listening to him. I didn’t meet his gaze as he watched me walk past. The levity in his tone faltered. “Voxy? Aren’t you going to untie me?” I continued stepping toward the elevator. “VOX! WHAT THE f*ck!” I pressed the button to go down to my office: an expansive space I’d designed just for me. “YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS!” His voice was cracking. I squeezed my eyes shut. The doors began to close. “VOX!”
I pressed my back against the wall and slid to the floor as the elevator descended into my own personal Hell.
✢✢✢✢✢
Present Day
The previous night was the longest, most miserable eight hours of my afterlife. I’d waited in Val’s bedroom for him to come home, giving up on spying after he broke all my cameras. Sitting atop his tangled sheets with a bottle of water and his pajamas pressed and folded neatly on my lap, I left him voicemail after voicemail, begging for him to pick up the phone, to return to me.
I’d f*cked up. Badly. As much as I tried to convince myself I did the right thing, when I woke up the next morning cuddling Val’s satin gown in the empty bed, only regret remained to stew in my gut.
What good was protecting myself from harm if rejection hurt no matter what?
It was still early when I rose, yawning as I wandered into Val’s bathroom. Flicking on the light, I blinked from the brightness, then sighed at my exhausted figure in the mirror. My bowtie was lopsided and only my left arm remained snug in the sleeve of my suit jacket. As I fixed my appearance, wiping the drool smudges from my screen, for the first time, I realized how much I looked like…
Him.
The pinstripe suit, bowtie, and even the soulless look in my eyes. It wasn’t me. I slammed my fist against the counter at the realization, wondering why it had taken so long for me to see it.
As much as I raved about the future, I was forever an artifact of the past.
“sh*t,” I muttered, tugging the tie from my neck and allowing it to fall to the floor. Unbuttoning my jacket, I slid the article from my body and draped it over the counter. With my sleeves rolled up past my forearms, the redness of my waistcoat was all I could focus on, the stripes like slashes across my chest.
Alastor’s note enraged me so much that I’d overreacted to Val’s confession, hurting the one person I couldn’t afford to damage. I couldn’t allow Al to have such control over me, not anymore. I took off my waistcoat and slid my pants down to the ground, leaving my body bare as I slumped onto Val’s toilet, holding my head in my hands. The walls were adorned with hearts. They mocked me with their joy.
I zapped through the camera dangling from the ceiling, translocating into my room. My box of Alastor and I’s keepsakes sat on my bed, and my face scrunched. I didn’t remember putting it there. When Val had confronted me yesterday, he was coming from–
My heart sank. He’d seen the note.
Whether or not it was the cause of his confession, the words had compelled him to open up. He was only trying to help my fear of abandonment and I’d shot him down. My guilt was worsening by the minute.
Don’t talk to ME about rebounds! Remember humiliating me after Alastor rejected you?! You were so distant and f*cked me like a maniac just to leave me strapped to the bed!
He’d reminded me of the day I used him, which just so happened to be the day our complex sexual relationship began. Before then, I’d taken him to bed, but there was no emotional devotion in our lovemaking. He was seductive and a compulsive flirt, while I was intrigued by his allure; it was inevitable we would tumble between the sheets together eventually.
Yet I never could have imagined I would grow attached to him as I had with Alastor. The two seemed nothing alike, but both had a certain self-assurance that I craved to emulate.
I couldn’t stand the idea that Val was upset, likely wanting nothing to do with me while he got drunk off his ass who knows where. I didn’t consider the possibility that he was somewhere unsafe.
Or that he wasn’t planning on returning. I’d rip both antennas from my head if I lost someone again.
The shopping bag from Velvette and I’s trip to the mall yesterday morning slumped against the wall in the corner, a tuft of purple peeking over the side. I lifted the violet jacket, and the black turtleneck and cargo pants tumbled onto the floor while I held the puffer to my chest. As I slid the outfit on, its thick fabric clung to my neck, stirring nostalgia in my gut. It had been years since I’d worn something so reminiscent of the man I used to be, and even though the style was modern rather than vintage, it embodied who I was: a man of the past constantly reaching for the future. Velvette truly did have a way with fashion.
I planned to stop by Vel’s studio to show her I was wearing her design– she’d been upset at me, and I thought it would lift her spirits– and then return to my surveillance office to look for Val on my camera feed.
When I stepped out of the elevator and into the foyer, I saw Val crumpled in a heap on the floor. My heart stopped.
“Val!” I rushed to him, although I stopped before getting too close. He was surrounded by a puddle of miscellaneous fluids that he’d likely expelled at some point in the night. It was a blessing I couldn’t smell. I knelt, brushing his full antenna from his face and sighing with relief when his mouth inhaled and exhaled naturally. The massive bruise and black eye on the side of his face took me by surprise. Rage and concern roiled in my gut. “What the f*ck happened?!” One of his eyes blinked open, only a slit of red visible as he lifted his eyelid.
“-ox?” He tried to say my name, but couldn’t press his lips together, his mouth open while his tongue lolled onto the floor, dipping in the puddle he’d made. My brows knotted.
“f*ck, you look awful.”
“Uh?”
I crawled closer, ignoring the sloshing sensation beneath my knees as I sunk into his mess. My hands gripped his armpits, then lifted him into a seated position. He leaned against my chest, head over my shoulder as he coughed. Blood dripped from his lips onto the back of my jacket. Despite his wrecked state, I sighed with relief that he was here, that he had come home. To me.
“Who did this?” I murmured, rubbing his back. His dress had ridden over his hips, exposing all that was soaking beneath, and I adjusted his position to force his legs to close. A piece of paper fluttered from his hand onto the floor, and when it landed face-up, my body tensed at the sight of myself in a torn photograph.
It was the other half of my first photo with Alastor. I clutched Val closer.
“Did Alastor do this?!” Perhaps Alastor’s note had been a warning, a vague riddle I hadn’t understood.
“Guh…” Val groaned, nuzzling his face into my neck. I assumed he was confirming my suspicions: Alastor had attacked Val, then left him with the other half of the photograph as a threat.
I was done with his torment.
I laid Val on his side out of the putrid puddle, then stood, brushing myself off.
“That f*cker needs to be put in his place once and for all,” I growled, making my way toward the door. Val reached for me as I opened the door, hand extended with his fingers spread.
“-ox…no…”
