Work Text:
It’s dark in the penthouse.
With a sigh Vox flicks on the lights and shrugs out of his suit jacket. He tosses it over the back of the couch and zaps himself behind the bar. What a day.
Fishing out the bourbon, he can’t help but go through his workload again. Approve the specs for the new voyeurscope models. Reschedule the interview with Katie Killjoy. Go over the most recent P&L for Voxflix. Sometimes it feels impossible to think of anything but work, and the more stressed he gets, the more he runs through the list, like picking at a scab. He has to remind himself to breathe, to relax. It’s so hard to relax.
Across the room, the cityscape glitters outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Vox is so tired the lights swim in his eyes, gaudy and bloody. V Tower is the tallest building in the plaza, and Vox feels a flicker of comfort at the thought of being in here instead of out there.
It’ll be better once Val gets here, he thinks, pouring himself two fingers. He should be wrapping up filming soon, and Velvette was busy preparing for a launch. Good. They could use some one-on-one time.
He tries not to grind his teeth in frustration when he remembers the only reason they had so little these days was thanks to Angel. Vox swears that crackwhore has a vendetta against him.
Whatever. He should try to relax. Clear his head.
He decides on a game of pool while he waits for Valentino, but finds his mind drifting back to work as he racks the balls. Something irks him. He has next season’s syndicated programs set to air, development on the newest VoxTek watch is coming along smoothly. What is he missing?
He shrugs it off as he looks for the chalk, then breaks. There is a small satisfaction found in the simple repetition of aim, shoot. He’s halfway through the game, lost in thought of Val’s arms, the feel of them around him, when the moth explodes into the room.
Vox practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of the door slamming into the wall. “Hey babe, what’s-“
“Don’t ‘Hey babe’ me!” Valentino snarls, storming across the room.
Vox’s heart skips a beat. So it’s going to be one of those nights.
He swallows, tries again. “What’s wrong?”
Val folds his arms, angrily sucking on a cigarette.
“Did you finish the code?”
Vox blinks.
The code.
Oh.
Oh no.
That was it. He forgot to finish coding the update for the equipment in Valentino’s studio - the cameras, the monitors, some of the lights. He feels his blood turn to ice as he remembers it was supposed to be finished yesterday.
He tries to find his voice.
“Fuck, Val…it’s…it’s not finished. I forgot about it.”
“What do you mean you forgot?” Val snapped the cigarette in his fingers in two. He was shaking with rage.
“I had a lot to do and—”
“We only had one working camera, Vox! We got barely an hour of usable footage!”
Val takes a menacing step forward, hands clenched at his sides. The discarded cigarette lay forgotten on the floor.
“Didn’t you say it’d be done last night, hm?” There’s a dangerous edge in Val’s voice. “Isn’t that what you fucking told me?”
Vox, for once, holds his ground. The night can still be salvaged, he’s sure. He just has to apologize, make it right. He just wants Val back - his Val - and he can have him, he knows it. He just has to fix this.
“Val, baby, I’m sorry. I got so busy, I forgot—”
“You don’t think I’m busy?” This time Vox can’t stop himself from taking a step back as Val advances on him. “What, my work’s not as important?”
He backs right into the pool table. “I—”
“Is that what you think?"
Val’s eyes are bright with anger. Vox can tell he’s not far from a tantrum - the hard set of his jaw, the cold fury in his voice - entirely different from the sassy whine when he simply doesn’t get his way.
You can do this. Just get him to calm down, come on.
If this turns into a fight, Vox knows the night will be ruined. Spent in a screaming match or worse, looking for the first aid kit. Val stalks towards him, scowling furiously, and Vox backs away, skirting the pool table.
“Of course not.”
“If you’re so fucking busy, why didn’t you hand it off to an assistant, like I said?”
A wave of self-loathing hits Vox, sudden and sharp. This is his fault. He could have handed it off to an assistant or two, sure, to code a routine update. But in an attempt to please Val, to get his attention from Angel for once, he had insisted on doing it himself. To fine tune the programming to make it extra special, include extra features. That, of course, required specific coding instructions which only Vox could write. Vox was actually fairly proud of what he came up with, but it had taken much longer than expected, and after two days of back-to-back meetings he had forgotten to go back and finish it.
And now, here they were.
Just stay calm. You’re in control. Stay. Calm.
“I wanted to do it myself, they—”
“And look how fucking well that went! What kind of CEO doesn’t know how to manage his own employees, huh?” Val yells, following Vox as he rounds the corner of the pool table.
“It’s my code, Val.”
“That you didn’t. Fucking. Finish.” Val’s voice seems to grow more threatening with each word. “And now, I have almost no usable footage from today’s shoot, Vox.”
His hand suddenly darts out, and Vox only barely manages not to flinch, but it’s only to rip the pool stick away from him and toss it aside. He hadn’t noticed he’d been gripping it with both hands.
You little bitch.
Vox pauses, regroups. Folds his hands behind his back. He can still fix this.
“Look, Val, I’m sorry, okay? The code’s almost finished, I promise. I looked at the schedule, and the next film isn’t supposed to go out until next week, that’s more than enough time to—”
“Nope - wrong answer.” Val barks out.
Quick as lightning, Val’s hands grab fistfuls of Vox’s sweater vest and yank him forward so harshly he hears the fabric rip.
“Fu-u-ck!” he stutters out. “Val, come on, let go of me.”
“You think I want to do this?” he’s screaming right in his face now, shaking Vox with each word. “Do you know how frustrating it is, constantly having to stay on top of my shit and yours because you fucking can’t?!”
“Val, I’m going to fix it, I swear.” Vox hears the desperation on the edge of his voice and tries to ignore it. His hands grip Val’s, trying vainly to pry his fingers off but he may as well try to pry the building from its foundation.
“And what the fuck am I supposed to do in the meantime, huh?” Val shakes him again. “How many times are you going to fuck up like this?”
And because it had been a long day, a long week, of meeting after meeting, of stressing over the code and trying to get it just right so Val would take his eyes off Angel for once, and because he was tired of fighting for even a scrap of affection but also just tired, Vox finally snaps, in panic, in anger. “Why the fuck are you acting so crazy Val, I didn’t do anything!”
Valentino stops, cocks his head to side, almost playful. “You want crazy?” he asks simply.
Vox is reeling from the punch before he even fully registers it. He hears it before he feels it, shattering glass and plastic followed by a searing pain behind his eyes. He instinctively reaches up to cradle his screen but the pain is overwhelming, and his vision is glitching so badly it’s making him nauseated. He manages to catch his balance but the room still feels like it’s spinning.
It’s a minute before he gets his vision stabilized in his one good eye - the entire right side of his screen is destroyed - and glares up at Val.
“Well?” he snaps at Vox. “Are you going to do your fucking job now?”
There’s a moment, just a beat, where Vox is too stunned to speak. And then -
“F-fx-uck you.”
So much for salvaging the night.
He means to march past Val, out of the penthouse, but Val blocks his way.
“Fuck you,” he says again, shoving him with both his hands but Val barely moves an inch. Instead, he grabs Vox’s forearm in one hand and with the other punches him again, hard and fast, just below the ribcage.
Vox clamps his mouth shout to muffle a cry of pain. It doesn’t quite knock the wind out of him but he can already feel the bruise.
“Fine, have it your way.” Val says with a smirk.
With that he marches across the penthouse to the bedroom, Vox in tow.
“V-vz-al, w-wait - stop!” He’s still dizzy from the throbbing in his head, made worse by the blossoming pain in his side, stumbling over his feet so badly he isn’t sure where they are headed.
“Va-a-a-l, cx-come on, let go!”
But Val just ignores him as he stomps right up to the bedroom door and kicks it with considerably more force than necessary, and for the second time that night Vox cringes at the sound of a door denting the wall. Val doesn’t bother with the lights and he doesn’t need to. Even half-blinded Vox can see the bed in the glow from the city lights and his stomach drops as he realizes where this is heading.
Val’s grip loosens just for a moment and Vox tries to slip out, to bolt, but Val catches his wrist and violently jerks him back. Vox hears a sickening pop and can’t hold back a gasp of pain this time.
“Val, stop!” he yells, and he can’t help but shrink at how helpless his voice sounds to his own ears.
“Shut the fuck up, Vox!” Val snarls as he roughly drags the smaller demon across the room, unaware or uncaring of the tears in Vox’s shirt.
He shoves Vox onto the bed and begins to unfasten his belt. Vox winces at the pain in his wrist as he tries to catch himself. His one good eye catches on Val’s undone belt and he scrambles backwards, but Val is on him in a second, grabbing the front of Vox’s waistband and yanking him back towards him.
“Val, please, don’t—”
His voice is so quiet Vox wonders for a moment if he even spoke aloud. Because this can’t be happening. There’s no way this is happening.
Val’s hand finds his fly and Vox kicks - more instinct than anything - the heel of his shoe connecting with Val’s kneecap. Val yelps, falters, but only for half a second, maybe less, and then the anger flares anew in his eyes.
“You worthless piece of shit,” he growls, hands wrapping around Vox’s throat, pressing him into the mattress. It’s not enough to cut off his airflow, but it hurts, and Vox’s hands claw desperately at Val’s trying to pry them off.
But it’s as useless as it is exhausting. Vox has two arms and Val has four, and while his top two keep Vox pinned like an insect, his bottom two make quick work of removing his suit pants. Val’s knee darts forward to knock Vox’s legs apart before roughly shoving himself in.
Vox’s whole body seizes with pain as fear, cold and bone-chilling, floods his system and error warnings flash on his screen.
This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening.
Val begins to thrust at a merciless pace and Vox’s vision momentarily blacks out as his screen glitches from sensory overload. The adrenaline in his veins makes him so nauseous there’s a horrifying moment he feels he might vomit. He can breathe, but just barely, and his brain scrambles at which emergency to address first: maintaining airflow, avoiding throwing up, the pain in his abdomen, his glitching vision, what the fuck Val is doing to him right now.
He’s pressed into the mattress even more as Val shifts into a steady but unforgiving rhythm, and with no ability to adjust Vox hears his the hitch in his breath at the sharpened pain.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he vaguely recalls that he and Val had sex in this same room only last week. A moment briefly flickers in Vox’s memory - Val had said something that made him laugh, then affectionately pressed a kiss to the pulse point on his neck, tightened his arms around Vox’s waist. How right that had felt then, how immensely wrong this feels now.
Vox abandons trying to pull Val’s hands from his throat to push himself up from the bed, to move at all, to even adjust his hips so it doesn’t hurt as much. When he tries to speak it comes out as a choked whisper “V-vx-al, please—”
“I said shut up.” Val growls, low and angry through his teeth. To make a point of it he pulls himself out of Vox only to slam himself back in, impossibly harder, the claws of his lower hands digging into the skin on Vox’s hips. With a choked gasp Vox feels his body go rigid and tears spring to his eyes as he jolts in pain. Another wave of gut-churning fear and nausea and sheer confusion rolls over him because why is this happening this can’t be happening it can’t be it isn’t happening stop stop stop-
Val continues pounding into him, hard and fast, unhindered. There’s a slickness where they are connected and Vox’s face - what’s left of it - burns with mortification as he realizes Val has torn something inside of him. He tries again to get out from under Val, to throw off his balance, his head screaming with pain and his vision going spotty with effort as he thrashes desperately against Val’s chest.
“Knock it off!” Val snaps and backhands him, not even bothering to slow his pace. The hands on Vox’s throat squeeze tighter and Vox stills with a strangled gasp. Yet another hand appears to pin one of Vox’s - not the one with hurt wrist, thank fuck - to the bed.
Val pauses but doesn’t pull out. Leans down to face Vox.
“Stay. Still.” he says. Quiet. Dangerous.
And then, with a scoff.
“It’s the only thing you’re good for anyway.”
And with that, something within Vox dies, the fight going out of him instantly. He doesn’t still so much as he freezes, his body calcifying into something unfeeling. His mind, so frantic to make sense of whoever this thing impersonating Val was and whatever the hell it was doing to him, suddenly goes blank.
Val continues on unimpeded, lost in his anger, which eventually morphs into pleasure. Sometime later - a minute, an hour, Vox can’t tell - his claws suddenly dig in tighter at Vox’s hips and Vox grimaces slightly at the torn skin. Val finally shudders, slows, and collapses beside Vox, panting quietly.
Neither of them speak. Vox can still faintly hear his own system overload alerts.
After a few moments, Vox sits up, arms trembling, and when Val doesn’t reach for him he gingerly makes his way towards the edge of the bed. His legs are wobbly when he tries to stand and once he’s sure he won’t collapse he sets to looking for his pants. He’s only vaguely aware that every muscle is screaming in pain. He feels oddly disconnected from his body, like he’s remotely piloting a robot with slippery controls.
He feels his fingers finally brush against the fabric, crumpled on the floor, because he can still barely see. He wordlessly slips them on, his head swimming, when he hears Val’s voice.
“Vox?”
Eyes wide, his head snaps up so hard a wall of white hot pain smacks him in the face. Val is sitting up, a curious expression on his face.
“What’re you—”
Barely thinking, not even bothering with the fly, Vox stumbles away, practically tripping in his haste to leave the room. He considers zapping himself into the electrical grid but doesn’t think he can manage it with the damage done to his system. He hears Val calling after him, more confused than anything, like he isn’t sure why Vox is leaving so suddenly. But Vox doesn’t answer. He simply runs out of the bedroom and out of the penthouse, heart racing.