Chapter Text
Chapter 1
There was a soft knock on his door.
“Mister Vox?” The sickly sweet voice of Charlie Morningstar called out from the other side.
Vox turned his back to the door and remained silent.
“Vox?” she called again after the silence stretched. “It’s time for our group venting session. You agreed to join us today, remember?”
Vox had promised nothing of the sort.
He had agreed to stay here, so that this sorry excuse of a princess could keep an eye on him. ‘To avoid any further trouble’ as Heaven had so graciously phrased it when they had come back down to Hell two weeks after his defeat, to shred him and his empire into pieces.
He had agreed to become her prisoner, Alastor’s prisoner, for Heaven’s mercy.
Vox felt the bile rise in his throat. He had agreed to this.
Like a miserable fucking failure. He had traded everything he had for a deal that kept him breathing.
Images flashed in front of his inner eye of the battle at V-Tower, quick and violent. Angels, exorcists, attacking from above, disregarding employees and clients, their eyes scanning for Vox, and Vox only. Valentino and Velvette rushing outside the plaza to fight them off.
Vox blinked, trying to shake the vision off, but it only shifted.
He saw Velvette now, on the ground, writhing in pain, cradling the stump of her right arm. The rest of it laid on the floor next to her, cut off by an angelic blade. The one wound that could never heal.
His fists clenched around the blanket that he had wrapped around himself last night, forcing the image of her broken body away.
It was replaced by flashes of Valentino, hurling himself over Velvette’s unconscious silhouette, his wings in tatters, shouting her name at the top of his lungs. Then shouting his. Shouting for his help. Help that never came.
“Vox? I’m really sorry but if you don’t come out by yourself, we’ll have to come in!”
Charlie’s voice dragged him back to the present, to the tacky red room he had been staying in for the past two weeks. Blinds drawn in front of the windows, shutting out the world outside. His stomach twisted, bile still burning in his throat. He had given up his powers, his status as an overlord – and for what? To hang onto this pathetic existence? To be humiliated by the princess for the rest of his days?
He should not have surrendered. He should have just let the angels burn him to a pile of ashes.
“That’s it! I’m done with this!” A different voice on the other side of his door. The princess’s angry angel girlfriend – the one who had held him down while the others rounded in on him. He bet she had enjoyed that. “VOX, if you don’t come out right now, I’ll drag you out myself!”
“Vaggi,” Charlie’s voice was hushed now, deliberately low so he wouldn’t hear. “Don’t… force him. He’s gotta come out by himself.”
“Charlie,” Vaggi didn’t bother lowering her voice. “He won’t come out by himself. He’s a self-absorbed, egotistical maniac who enjoys making other people suffer. He enjoys this. Enjoys that he’s making trouble for you.”
Her voice rose to a louder, even angrier cadence. It reminded him of when Val was talking himself into a rage. Vox bit down on his tongue sharply. He didn’t want to think about fucking Valentino right now.
“We’ve promised Heaven to keep him on a tight leash, and yet, he hasn’t left this room for two weeks. We can’t just… leave him in there. He could be plotting whatever! He’s gotta come out, and he will today!”
He heard the princess sigh but she did not protest any further.
“Won’t you come out by yourself, Vox?” she asked instead. Fucking pathetic. “Please?”
“FUCK YOU!” Vox shouted, static crackling in his voice, stomach bubbling over with rage. “LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!”
Next second, his door crashed open with so much force, it almost sounded like it’d burst into pieces. He couldn’t help a tiny involuntary wince as it collided loudly with the wall. Yet, he forced himself to remain unmoving, showing the two intruders nothing but his back.
“ENOUGH!” Vaggi marched into the room with heavy steps and suddenly his blanket was ripped away from him, taking with it the comforting warmth it had provided. “You are getting out of bed now, and then you’ll join the others downstairs for the group session. Understood?”
He could see her shadow towering over him, the silhouette of her angelic blade casting long shadows over her shoulder. Vox imagined grabbing it, and piercing it through her stomach. Stabbing her until she was full of holes, all that foul angelic blood in her veins slowly dripping out of her, staining the carpet.
“I got this, Vaggi,” the princess muttered in her insufferably gentle tone. “Why don’t you go downstairs and let the others know that Vox will be joining us today?”
Vox kept his back turned on them – but he could taste the tension in the air. Vaggi hovered next to Charlie’s silhouette, throwing glances between her and Vox.
Vox felt a bitter taste on his tongue, a vague ache making itself known inside his chest. As if he were still a danger to the naïve little princess and her shitty hotel. He was an overlord no longer – most of his power had been taken away from him. And the little spark that remained could not harm the princess… no matter how desperately he wished it could.
Finally, the princess’s girlfriend turned towards the door, squeezing her hand on the way out.
“I’ll send Alastor up, in case he causes trouble,” she said softly over her shoulder, Vox’s insides turning at the mention of his name. “See you downstairs in a bit?”
“Thank you, Vaggi,” the princess murmured before her shadow also suddenly disappeared from Vox’s sight. “I’m sure it will be alright.”
Vox threw a suspicious glance over his shoulder, to see where she was going. But she only went to close the door, shutting herself and Vox inside his room. She did not approach his bed again, instead lingering at the door, her hand on the handle.
Vox turned around to fully face her now, quickly rising from his bed to stand. He would not give her the satisfaction of looking down on him.
The rapid movement, however, turned out to be too much for his powered-down senses. He got dizzy, swaying from side to side, before his knees gave out under him. They hit the floor forcefully, his vision blurring, his fans whirring to life to cool his internal machinery down.
Within the blink of an eye, the obnoxious princess was beside him, her hands reaching out tentatively to steady him.
“Get away from me,” Vox hissed, his voice crackling and glitching as he tried to push himself to his feet again. “I don’t need your help!”
The princess took a step back but her hands stayed close, hovering near his shoulders, ready to catch him, should he stumble again. Vox’s face turned into a grimace of cold disdain.
How did one get so miserably fucking kind?
He forced himself back on his feet, his hands grabbing the railing of his bed for support, and this time, he managed to stand. He threw the princess another glare.
“Are you okay?” she asked, seeming obnoxious to his contempt. “Your screen’s kinda… glitching a lot.”
Vox clenched his teeth so hard that his jaw hurt.
If he ripped out her vocal cords, would she stop chirping so fucking much?
His screen flickered, as if to prove the princess’s point, his vision swimming before stabilizing a moment later.
He felt a throb behind his eyes as his anger peaked. His mechanic had meant to check up on him a week ago, to inspect if Valentino decapitating him on a fucking whim had messed with Vox’s power circuits.
It had all seemed to be in order initially – until a few days after they had patched him back together, his screen had begun flickering at random, his knees giving out under him without reason.
Fucking Valentino. It was all his fault.
Vox’s fingernails dug into his palms so hard he drew blood.
“Get out,” he hissed as another violent flicker kicked his systems into overdrive. “I told you, I don’t need your help!”
The look the princess gave him made his stomach turn. She looked like she pitied him.
“Vox, I know this is hard. And I know you don’t wanna be here,” she muttered, her voice sounding exhausted for the first time since she entered his room. “And trust me, nobody here is thrilled that you are staying with us.” She made a small pause. “Like literally nobody.” She sighed. “Myself included.”
Vox gave her a sideways glance, and felt something like a smile wanting to tug on his lips. At least, he had gotten the princess to admit it. That all her sugary words about redemption were hollow. Meaningless.
“I get that you are not looking for redemption,” she continued, her voice losing more and more of that sweet sing-songy cadence. “And with how things went with Heaven, I’m sure they would not to be too pleased to have you up there, like anytime soon.” She took a deep breath. “But we made a deal with Heaven. You made a deal with Heaven – and with me. You agreed to be under supervision here. That means being in our line of sight – regularly. Helping out where you are needed. And participating in activities with the other residents. That was our deal. In exchange, Heaven agreed to spare you.”
“Fuck that,” Vox spat, his voice sputtering and hissing furiously. She made it sound like it had been a fair bargain. As if he would ever chosen this, if there’d been another option. “You can’t make me do anything! I’ve agreed to be your fucking prisoner, and nothing more!”
Charlie contemplated his words for a moment, looking tired and unsure.
“You wanted to live, Vox. This is the price,” she stated quietly.
Her words resonated from the walls of his room, her voice warping into something more powerful. Something more binding.
Vox gasped as the golden chains appeared around his throat, closing painfully around his windpipe. Reminding him of the deal he’d made. Of who was in charge now.
“Oho, there she is,” he sneered triumphantly through his retching. “A proper demon princess after all, aren’t we?” He coughed violently as the chains pulled tighter. “Do you like that? Holding those chains? Forcing me to do your will?”
The princess’s lips pressed into a thin line, the hurt apparent in her eyes as she lightly pulled on Vox’s chains. Fucking precious.
Maybe the pain of disobedience was worth it – if he could make her see what she was capable of. What anyone with power was capable of. He would make her see the monster that he knew was slumbering somewhere within. Everybody had one. For some, it only took a little more coaxing to wake it.
“If you don’t want to uphold your side of the deal, Vox, we can break it right now,” she said quietly, and Vox stilled in his chains, too stunned to speak for a moment.
“Just say the word,” Charlie continued. “And our deal is done. You know what that means.” She gave him a long look, and there was still that fucking pity shining brightly in her eyes. “It’s your choice, Vox.”
Something angry twisted inside him as he heard her words. Did she really think she could force him into submission with her stupid threats?
He would tell her that the deal was off, and then he would go and find his stupid fucking assistant and get VoxTek running again. The angels didn’t fucking scare him. If he only got his ratings back up, there was nothing they could do to him. He would tell her.
Deal’s off, bitch.
But the three simple words, so clear inside his mind, refused to come, frozen on his lips.
Charlie lowered her gaze and released the hold around the chains. The pressure around Vox’s throat vanished as they turned invisible once more. She sighed, guilt plainly written across her features.
“That’s sorted then. You’re coming downstairs?”
Vox swallowed hard, making another attempt to say the words, to fucking get them out already and get out of this stupid deal. He looked down at his feet when he failed again, his hands trembling at his sides.
“Can I take a shower first?” he asked quietly, nausea flooding his systems as he admitted his defeat in front of her.
“Yeah, of course you can,” the princess quickly assured him. “See you in ten?”
Vox gave her a tiny nod before he turned away and headed towards the shower.
The door to the shabby diner opened with a loud creak. Velvette’s head shot towards the door, her good hand clasping around the water glass she had been holding onto for the last couple of hours. It better be him this time.
It wasn’t.
It was another random nobody, slouching over to the bar to bark his order at the sleeping barista.
Fuck, where was he? He’d headed out early in the night today, on the hunt for clients who would pay him more than a couple of coins for his services, and had left Velvette in the shitty diner all by herself.
It was almost four a.m. now. Fucking Valentino.
She released the hold around the water glass and grabbed the corner of the table instead, tentatively putting more weight on her feet. If she used enough force, and then grabbed her crutch real quick, she could probably stand up by herself.
Her eyes fell on the toilet sign at the other end of the diner, so close and yet so far.
Why had Val sat her down so far away from the fucking toilets? Why couldn’t he think properly for once?
He knew how hard it had been to walk for her.
Ever since the angels had come and …
There had been too many to fend them all off. One of the exorcists had managed to wrestle her to the ground. Had sliced her arm off – right above the elbow. She’d fallen to the ground, blinded by the sharp pain – and another angel had taken her chance. Had hacked her angelic blade deep into Velvette’s calves. She had lost consciousness moments later. She remembered Valentino sprinting towards her. Then, the world around her had gone dark.
She had known of course, that it would be a nasty wound. One that would probably bother her for a while.
Reality had unfortunately surpassed even her worst expectations.
When she had awoken in the hospital a couple of hours later, surrounded by fussing doctors and a raging Valentino, demanding they heal her, they’d told him something about lasting damage to her tissue. About angelic steel causing irreparable harm to a sinner’s body, like a poison would. Even an overlord would have trouble recovering, they’d said, although they would heal eventually.
She had stopped listening then. She had already felt it back then, in that cursed hospital bed. That there was something missing within her… something that had been there before.
Velvette bit her lip, her nails digging into the cheap wood of the table.
If she were still an overlord, she could have healed from this. She could have gotten better.
The door to the diner opened another time. It was Valentino who entered this time. Fucking finally.
“What took you this long?” Velvette barked at him angrily.
She earned a couple of glances from the other guests before they turned towards their own business again.
“I gotta go to the bathroom!”
Valentino approached her table wordlessly, just pushed back her chair and wrapped his lower arm around her waist to help her up.
“It’s urgent,” Velvette snapped sharply.
Valentino’s gaze darkened in response. He stopped trying to heave her to her unsteady feet and lifted her up into his arms instead.
“Damn, bitch, no need to take that fucking tone with me.”
“I’ll take whatever bloody tone I please,” Velvette retorted as he rose with her in his arms, carrying her over to the bathrooms with a sourly expression.
“You made us some money today?” she added in a more conciliatory tone while he pushed open the doors to the rest rooms.
“I did,” he answered vaguely, his expression shifting into something other than anger for a minute. Velvette furrowed her brows upon catching the change, trying to decipher it, but it was gone again within the blink of an eye. “You know me, babe. Everybody wants a piece of this.”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, unimpressed. “So we can eat something other than rice and beans today?”
Valentino’s expression darkened further but before he could snap at her, a scandalized voice interrupted their bickering.
“This is the ladies room, sir. You cannot be in here!”
Velvette turned her head to see a much smaller sinner glaring up at Valentino, blocking the way to the bathroom stalls.
“Do I look like I fucking care?” Valentino snarled. “Besides, I got a fucking lady right here, so move, bitch!”
The other sinner looked like she was ready for a fist fight, squaring up in the doorframe like an angry pufferfish or something. Velvette suppressed a sigh. She had no patience left for this kind of interaction today. It already drained enough of her energy to deal with Valentino on a daily basis.
“Girl, I need to piss,” she snapped exhaustedly. “Unless you want me to relieve myself right here, on the fucking floor, you better let us through.”
The words tasted bitter on her tongue, sounding too much like a option than an order. Two weeks ago, she would have killed that bitch on the spot. Two weeks ago, this sinner wouldn’t have dared to open her yappy mouth in their presence.
Alas, it wasn’t two weeks ago anymore. And they weren’t powerful overlords now. Just regular sinners, having to fight with stupid bitches over stupid things, just like the rest of Hell.
“Outrageous behaviour,” the sinner mumbled, shaking her head as she reluctantly let them pass. “You and your daughter’s manners are disgusting!”
Valentino snickered at that, pushing past her to open the door to the bathroom stall, then lowering Velvette next to the toilet.
“You can finally piss now, my sweet daughter,” he said in a mock voice, stupidly wriggling his eyebrows. “Daddy’s gonna wait right outside!”
“Give me a fucking break, Val,” Velvette mumbled tiredly, but she smiled as she shooed him outside.
He closed the door behind her, leaning against the outside while Velvette tried to clumsily peel her trousers off with her one hand that was still working. Her right arm – the one she used to draw her designs with, sow, eat, masturbate – hung limply at her side. Like a fucking disgrace.
Valentino had superglued it back on, even after the doctors had told him that it wouldn’t fix anything – they had been at least half right about that.
No feeling had returned to it since it was sticked back onto her doll joints. Still, she was grateful that Val had retrieved it from the battlefield and put it back where it belonged. It might not function anymore, but at least it fixed her aesthetic.
At least outwardly, it looked like there was nothing wrong with her.
She grunted in frustration when the pants got stuck halfway on her hips, her underwear twisting around the fabric of her trousers.
Fuck, she just wanted to take a piss! Why was everything so much fucking harder now?
Against her will, she felt a couple of tears collecting in the corners of her eyes as she struggled to pull the fabric down and simply…couldn’t. She blinked them away furiously. Fucking ridiculous. Of course, she could pull her fucking pants down. She just needed to…
“Fuck this,” she panted, her voice trembling. “I’m so fucking tired of this useless fucking –”
Valentino cleared his throat on the other side of the door.
“Need a hand, doll?” he asked cautiously, the teasing edge from before vanished from his voice.
“I can do it on my own,” Velvette shouted angrily. “Fuck you!”
There was a beat of silence before the door creaked open and Valentino slipped back inside. Velvette turned her head to the side, blinking angrily and avoiding his gaze.
She was picked up and lowered onto the toilet seat by his two upper arms a moment later, the two lower ones pulling down her trousers in one swift motion. Her gaze darted up towards him, her face burning with shame. He was probably laughing at how pathetic she looked right now.
But to her surprise, she found that his head was turned away, not looking at her but at the dirty walls of the bathroom stall.
“Tell me when you’re done. I’ll pull them up for you,” he said flatly, turning his back towards her and beginning to loudly hum some kind of made up melody.
Velvette swallowed hard, humiliation still burning on her cheeks, as she finally got to take a piss after seven miserable hours of having to hold it in.
Damn right, Val had to help her with this now. After all, he was the reason she couldn’t go sooner.
“Sit me down closer to the toilets next time,” she barked at his back. “Idiot.”
Valentino huffed in annoyance.
“You insisted that you could walk just fine, Velvette,” he snapped. “Apologies that I took your word for it.”
“I can walk,” she insisted moodily. “It’s just that the floor of that stupid diner is way too fucking slippery.”
“Yeah, okay,” Valentino replied and she could almost hear him rolling his eyes at her. Stupid prick. “You ready? I’m fucking done with this day.”
“Yeah, ready now.”
He turned back around and without looking at her, lifted her off the toilet seat and pulled her pants back up.
“You wanna walk back on your crutch?” Valentino asked as he carried her out of the bathroom, towards the table where she had waited for him.
Where her forearm crutch still leaned against the table. She felt nauseous just thinking about that awful thing.
Still, she reminded herself, better than not being able to walk at all.
She threw a glance up at Valentino, noticing the tired shadows around his eyes, how his shoulders slouched forward with exhaustion. They both knew it would take them forever if Velvette took the crutch to limp back home.
Home. Her stomach turned at the thought of calling the rancid shithole Valentino had rented for them home. It was a temporary place to sleep, she decided, not home.
“Velvette?” Valentino snapped impatiently when she didn’t answer him.
Her pride insisted that she could walk home on her own. Her aching legs wanted nothing more than to be in bed already. Today, she let the latter win.
“I’m too fucking tired, Val. I sat on my fucking ass for seven hours, waiting for you. Just carry me, will you?”
Valentino nodded curtly, picked up her crutch at the table and carried it outside along with her.
The air was heavy with smoke when they exited the diner, back onto the dangerous streets of the Doomsday district. Velvette coughed heavily as she inhaled the bad air, her throat burning.
“Someone set a block of houses on fire, a couple alleys down,” Valentino explained with a yawn, while he looked around, scanning their surroundings.
Nowadays, they had to make sure nobody followed them before retreating towards their… not-home.
Velvette couldn’t be bothered to help him check for dangers though. Not today - she was too fucking tired to watch out for the many, many people that were out to get them these days.
Instead she leaned her head heavily against his chest, closing her eyes in exhaustion. She could feel her legs starting to act up again, puckering angrily where the doctors had placed their stitches. She had definitely sat on her ass for too long without changing positions.
She coughed again, silently cursing the constant chaos wrecking through Doomsday.
It was a chaotic, unsafe, dangerous shithole of a neighbourhood and nobody in their right mind came here unless they had absolutely no other choice. Which had been Valentino’s explanation for moving them here – no one would think to look for them in this awful place.
The rents were cheap too. And since they didn’t have nice things anymore, the frequent break-ins were just annoying, nothing more.
Velvette closed her eyes as she nestled closer against Valentino’s chest, focussing on the rhythmic clack clack clack of his heels against the pavement as he walked down the hostile, narrow streets.
“You heard anything from Vox yet?” she asked drowsily.
Valentino tensed, his grip around her tightening.
“I haven’t,” he said in a clipped voice.
Velvette unhappily chewed on her bottom lip. It was unlike Vox to go silent for this long.
“Maybe his phone is broken,” she suggested.
That was probably it. If he had fled from the Entertainment district just like they had, he was probably laying low right now, waiting for the right time to come out of hiding and find them again.
“Maybe,” Valentino said curtly.
“We should try shooting him a message to check in. Let him know we’re doing alright.”
Valentino remained silent.
“He’ll sort this out, Val. You know, he will.”
She peered up at him, catching a deep frown clouding his features.
“I know you’re still pissed at him – I am too. His plan was bloody insane, and it cost us V‑Tower. Like, honestly, what the fuck was he thinking…?”
Silence.
“But… it’s not all gone to hell yet. We can start again. The three of us. We built an empire once – we can bloody well do it again.”
“Ay bendito, por favor… are you fucking done?” Valentino hissed, his tone so unexpectedly vicious, it made her recoil from the warmth of his chest, throwing him a disbelieving glance.
“What the hell’s going on with you, Val?” she asked angrily. “Fuck, you suck today!”
Valentino’s eyes darkened, his claws digging into her skin with barely restrained force now.
“Just give it a fucking rest, Vel,” he snapped. “Yapping about Vox like some broken fucking record. Shut your bitch mouth or you can crawl back home by yourself.”