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It’s dark in Val’s room. Especially when he’s not around.
The walls are thick and purple, oozing with the notion that this is life now.
It’s horrible. All of it is just so horrible.
The chilled long hours pass, filled only by the throbbing silence.
There is nothing to do but think.
Boy, does Vox think.
After all, there are a lot of things to think about: like all the things he’s lost, all the things he doesn’t know, and all the things he doesn’t want to.
It all makes the rounds in his head. It’s horrible, it’s cold.
But despite his disposition to egomaniacal spiraling he keeps coming back to one soured question: What about Val?
Everything was moving so fast when it all went down. Most of life has been like that: fast.
it’s not so fast now though and all Vox can think about is Val.
They aren’t exactly coherent thoughts. He mostly sees flashes of memories.
There’s that time he and Val brought Velvette to the beach in the 2000’s.
They were unknowns back then. At the time Vox had resented it, but now–
Well.
Val had looked wonderful that day. He always looks wonderful, but that day was different.
Val’s sexy, it’s his whole thing.
But he hadn’t been that day though, at least not overtly.
There had been a kind of cheeriness in him.
He’d worn a red bikini, but kept a towel tied around his waist, plus this absurdly long straw sunhat.
Was the get-up conservative for Val? Sure, but that wasn’t where the joy came from.
There had been something in his face that day. His eyes had been wide, glowing.
Vox has a very particular memory from that day. He’s lying on a towel, arms above his head. The sun in his eyes.
Just as Vox begins to close his eyes Val’s head pops up in front of him, blocking the sun.
The light made a warm orange ring after Val’s head. His eyes squeezed in that silly way they do when he’s giddy about something. Baking in the glow, Val’s lips had perked up into a cheeky smile.
There must have been something after that, some slide comment or sexual innuendo, but Vox doesn’t remember that part.
All he remembers are those few seconds.
All he remembers seeing the sun, and then not.
All he remembers is the curve of Val’s glossy lips, the droop of his antenna, the feeling of the sun, and a sense of fondness that had been so overwhelming it had scared him.
There’s that time he and Val went to the Opera.
The whole building had been a dark purple, interrupted only by scarce accents of dark blue.
Neither of them had a good time that night. Vox has no idea why he thought Opera would be a hit with Val.
That night Val had worn this little velvet number that draped over him like a gown. He’d looked regal, if not incredibly comfortable. That’s a rare sight for him.
Vox had gotten one hell of a hummer out of that night, but that’s not what he remembers.
There was a moment before they went in, in the lobby.
Val had turned his head to look up at something. For the life of him, Vox can’t remember what.
He’d squirted his eyes real tight. His lips had been stuck out in this little pout as his neck angled up.
The slight twitch of Val’s eyes played over and over in Vox’s head as the insistent hum of Opera accompanied them in the back of his ears.
He looked old. More his age, really. Val’s almost eighty, it’s easy to forget that.
He couldn’t forget it at that moment, though. In that moment, it was evident in every curve of his face.
Vox saw the years, the horror. It’s hard for pupiless eyes to say anything, but they certainly did then.
They don’t talk about it, but they both know. Years in a basement with no food, no water, nothing. Sex trafficking, the hardcore stuff, is nasty in Hell.
In that moment, covered in jewels and rich as all hell, Vox saw it. He saw the face of a gaunt man half conscious chained to a cement block covered in vomit and cum.
He looked beautiful. He looked like Val.
There was that time in the 80’s.
They used to be very poor. Well, poor isn’t quite the right word. They used to be… burdened.
Vox spent his days slaving away on reports and presentations on barely any sleep only to be slapped around the head for making a typo on a hundred page report.
Meanwhile, Val used to spend his day twirling the pole and choking down sour spunk only to be slapped across the head for being “over weight.”
And hey, this isn’t a sob story. Vox is fully aware they’re hypocrites. He doesn’t blame their old bosses. It’s just the way the world works– doesn’t mean it didn’t suck.
Because they liked to fuck, but also because it saved money, they lived in the same apartment.
Despite this, they barely saw each other. Val worked nights and Vox worked all the time.
But there was this time.
It must have been real late. The room was pitch black except for the glow of Vox’s screen.
They were in bed. You can guess why.
In the glow of Vox’s screen, Val made this face. It was a nasty face, one a child would make at a bug.
The face he’d made was pointed at something on the other side of the room. But Vox couldn’t see what it was, he was too busy looking at Val.
After a moment of staring angrily into the distance Val had whipped around. His expression hadn’t changed. His face was still twisted– angry at the world. But when his eyes met Vox's, the light of his screen filled them.
Val’s eyes widened automatically. He always liked the light.
He hadn't smiled, but something had changed.
Whenever Vox thinks of that night his eyes grow heavy with sleep, but he can’t seem to close them.
He’s not searching for anything, neither of them are. They're too tired.
There was that time in Vox’s office.
They had been fighting, there was broken glass all over the floor.
Val had been huffing and puffing in the middle of the room, spit dribbling down his chin.
The room had been soaked in taut anger and fear.
It was the first time Vox genuinely considered killing Val. He’d fucked some rich guys wife in public. It had been a disaster. Vox had gone off on him pretty bad, which led to the blowout.
Val wasn’t the only game in town, whores with an eye for film were a dollar a dozen down here.
Plus, those whores certainly weren’t bitchy foreigners with the IQ of a fish and eyes that wouldn’t work in a few years. By definition, Val was a liability.
The only risk swapping Val out would pose came from Val knowing all about his dick, and that could be taken care of easily. Val’s strong, but money is stronger. If Vox really needed Val gone, he could.
In the rumble, surrounded by all his shiny things left broken, he considered it.
Val’s wings hung over him like a tarp. He wasn’t pretty in the slightest. He was brutish and bumpy. His fur was matted, and his movements were animalistic.
In that moment, Val was truly out to kill Vox. Not even Val’s own love couldn’t have redeemed him then.
But then Val caught his eyes.
Vox can guess what happened next. Val probably shot at him, and he probably scrambled away.
He doesn't remember that part, though. He remembers the moment their eyes caught on each other.
In the darkness Val was a monster, a violent rapist, a killer, and a liability. He wasn’t beautiful.
In the dark, scared and alone, Vox felt something awful.
He felt sick with the fear of losing him.
There was that time in the city.
There’s no lead up in this memory.
Him and Val are somewhere nice, presumably on a dinner date.
Val’s in a cream shirt that’s unbuttoned down to the bottom of his tits. He’s got a jet black jacket to match and a hefty glass of wine on the other hand.
Val’s got his eyes closed, loose and involuntary.
He’s laughing.
Val’s a big laugher, but it’s usually pretty fake. He makes this uppity white girl laugh. Early on someone in a whorehouse clearly taught him the trick to doing a good fake laugh and he never stopped.
At this point, his normal laugh even sounds like it.
But sometimes something will really catch him off guard. When something does, he coughs up these big snorted gasps that go on forever.
It seems Val got caught off guard that night.
He laughed hard, his hand gripping the table as his wine glass shook precariously.
The candle light made him look soft, but his edges were still so sharp with his exaggerated expression.
The sweet sound of Val cackling too loud rings in Vox’s ears. The image of Val doubled over in black and white burns itself into Vox’s eyes.
It was a good night, and a loud one.
Lastly, there was that time in the early morning.
Val hadn't been wearing anything that morning.
It hadn’t been a special day in any which way. No dates, no setting change, no achievements.
His lips were pushed out as he blew smoke into the cold morning air.
He’d had this look on his face like Vox had just said something silly.
He looked calm, happy.
There was something loose in the air that morning.
It wasn’t a different kind of morning from the day before or the day after. The memory could have been from anywhere in the last half a century.
That was what made it so awful. Val looked incredible and it wasn’t even special.
Over and over would Vox wake up in Hell to the smell of cherry smoke and the feeling of soft wings wrapped around him.
Over and over Vox spent his days parallel to Val, every few minutes flitting his eyes over to a screen with Val on it.
Over and over Vox would have dinner with Val, laughing at bad jokes and dancing in the living room after they got wasted enough.
It wasn’t new, not something he had to think about.
Waking up just meant that feeling.
Now, Vox wakes up alone in an empty bed.
Val goes out every night to sleep with anyone that looks at him funny.
If he does come home to Vox, his burnt wings stay wrapped around himself.
Now Vox’s eyes aren’t filled with Val's soft gaze or pissy glare. His ears are not full of his indigent squeaks or pitchy laughs. His nose is not full of heavy smoke or sugary perfume.
Now, he is left alone in a dark room. Far away from anything real.
All there is are the memories and an ever fading hope that one day Vox will wake up to that feeling again.