‹ (（ ﹙ ↯ ﹚ ）) ›

Their lips purse, brow furrowed as they scrutinize him. Their pupils jump, surveying has face for anything. The threat of tears stings, it always does. Choosing wasn't ever an option. Valentino claimed, Velvette barrowed. All body, rarely mind. Perhaps they'd gotten caught up in the conditioning from the other Vees- touching him like that was stupid.

Torn between wanting to run out while sobbing, and staying out of... Not spite, but simply because they could. Part of Pentious recognizes the power of being invited, in so many words, to stay. The voyeuristic, masochistic part of Pentious soul wins. The part that landed them here in the first place.

This next part is spite.

Kshama sets up close to Vox, on the floor, quiet. They've procured paper and a ballpoint pen. They'll sip the black tea, and the little bit of rum that was mixed with it. Tiny, tiny sandwiches. Only a couple, held together by toothpicks.

It is during one of Vox's wanting, curious glances that he'll make eye-contact with the snake. Their tail flicks just the once, mouth full of bread, hand stilling.

It's just scrap paper covered in sketches of him, mostly hunched over and working, the notable set of his shoulders. Pen sucks on their tongue, clears their throat, and makes an awkward attempt at continuing as if nothing happened.

‎ ‎ ‎ The ghost of where Pentious’s fingers had lingered sticks so hardily that it’s starting to give him a headache. Or maybe it’s the millions of screens. Or the hours spent awake. He’d skipped the past two weeks of due sleep, instead catching a few hours in his chair when his body refused to keep running. At one point he’d sat half-vacant in a drone for so long it’d imploded, taking out a quarter of one of his tech retailers and a staff member with it.

‎ ‎ ‎ How many hours ago was that now? Days? There’s a replacement drone waiting in that area. He taps into it, seeing the building repaired, and a new employee substituted in.

‎ ‎ ‎ On one glance of many to the snake-dog sat nearby him, he catches the drawings of himself. It has to be him —what else is interesting in this room? The shoulders are straight-ish lines and he can define his own huge head.

‎ ‎ ‎ “You obsessed with me or something?” he asks meanly, a vague click as he zooms in on the artwork from the clarity of an overhanging camera. He glances back to his screens with a swaying longing, then peeling himself from his chair. Many bones crack a song of how long he’s spent sitting down; he stretches out his arms, fingers intertwining with another and he pushes his palms out like a stretching cat.

‎ ‎ ‎ Yaaaaawn. His eyes briefly disappear. A big, gaping mouth leading to a deep void. When his eyes come back, they’re piercing Pentious. He stands over them, squinting at their scribblings with his arms now tied loosely behind his own back.

‎ ‎ ‎ He observes, “Wooow. You even got the antenna shape right. Go you.”

It  was  something  Alastor  would  have  said.  But  for  this  particular  Vincent  Whittman,  the  radio  demon  had  never  gotten  the  chance  to  cut  that  tender  wound  into  him.  Pulled  through  time  and  space,  that  night  never  happened.  Where  Alastor  failed,  Vox  himself  succeeded  to  bury  the  knife  in.

The  reaction  was  instantaneous  as  the  safety  of  the  interaction  was  shattered.  Vincent’s  eyes  went  saucer-wide,  hand  raised  away  from  Vox’s  as  if  he  had  placed  it  directly  over  a  burner,  both  arms  raised  at  his  sides  as  if  he  were  primed  to  squirm  away.  But  he  never  did.

“Wh-What…?”

His  shoulders  relaxed  at  the  apology,  but  not  enough  to  be  comfortable.  His  eyes  remained  wide  with  a  furrowed  brow  as  he  followed  Vox’s  eye  line,  gaze  far  out  and  unsure  of  what  they  were  looking  for.  A  thick  swallow  broke  the  silence  between  them,  his  hands  resting  in  his  own  lap  as  he  listened  to  Vox  go  on,  lips  pressed  together  in  a  thin  line.

Of  course  he  felt  it.

He’d  felt  it  for  nearly  as  far  back  as  he  could  remember,  the  first  time  being  on  some  field  trip  where  he  stood  on  his  first  sky  scraper.  The  rest  of  the  classroom  was  pointing  ahead  to  the  city  skyline  all  dressed  in  sunset  gold,  but  all  Vincent  could  do  was  look  down.  It  was  like  something  had  been  threaded  through  his  brain  at  the  bottom  of  that  drop,  tugging  him  forward.  When  he  thought  about  it,  his  bones  smashing  apart  and  fissuring,  and  everything  going  black?  He  wasn’t  afraid.

It  sounded  nice.

He  turned  his  head  back  to  his  double  as  he  felt  the  brush  of  fingers  over  his  shirt.  He  knew  that  he  could  do  it  – push  him  right  over.  And  it  wasn’t  pain  that  scared  him.  It  was  the  rejection,  which  was  stupid  to  not  expect.  As  high  as  Vincent’s  ego  could  soar  it  could  always  plummet  even  lower.  He  loved  himself.  He  hated  himself.  It  was  like  a  fucking  coin  flip,  and  he  had  a  feeling  he  knew  where  it  was  landing  now.

“Yeah.  I  have,”  he  admitted.  “Since  the  trip  to  New  York  back  in  school.  Sixth  grade,  I  think.”

He  reached  to  take  Vox’s  hand  again,  the  one  not  pressed  over  his  shoulders,  then  laced  their  fingers  together  if  he  didn’t  resist  it.  Either  way,  if  the  bastard  pushed  him  over,  he  was  going  down  with  him.  They  could  both  be  glass  and  pulp  for  someone  to  clean  up.  Part  of  him  hoped  for  it,  but  another  part  of  him  wanted  something  else. Anything else.

“I  thought  I’d  figure  out  how  to  not  want  it  eventually,  but  you’re  probably  old  as  piss  by  now  and  you  haven’t,  so  maybe  I  should  give  up  while  I’m  ahead,”  he  said,  smirking  just  a  bit.  “…  Come  on  man,  what  else  is  on  your  mind?” 

‎ ‎ ‎ How he looks at Vincent like an old, bygone photo full with veined cracks in the glass. Sat on a nightstand, or on the countertop below a dressing room mirror. He watches his own eyes goes wide; he watches his own voice falter and become small. It’s endearing like a little lamb before you take it to the butcher’s block. The hold he has is as potent as rat poison. Vox’s eyes widen to the brim as if he hopes to capture what horrid secret he’s discovered forever. A sickening feeling broils in the pit of his stomach as he understood —that’s what Alastor had seen.

‎ ‎ ‎ His grin becomes more of a grimace, listening. He pulls his hand off of Vincent’s back.

‎ ‎ ‎ Maybe a younger him had thought of it on a trip. Vox is too old now to remember, his childhood memories washed away. He remembers his mother like a thick fog that contains the gallery of his other memories; father, school, playtime, hometime, all shrouded by her hands and red lipstick, of which he can recall was mostly a cherry red shade.

‎ ‎ ‎ “You won't give up,” he says with little clarity. He accepts the hand-hold. He tightens it, like a throat to strangle. His study of Vincent now becomes perverse. He’s considering placing his head on a pike staked just outside the hotel doors. He squints meanly at his two straight antennas, then his expressions eases.

‎ ‎ ‎ “You’re nosy. Though, I guess I am, too.” The hand previously pushing against Vincent's shoulders now tip-toes his claws up one of them, to the side of his big head until he can prod and fiddle with one those rabbit-ear antennas. “Let me ask you something else. What’s the deal with you and Alastor in your, uh… little world?”

‎ ‎ ‎ His pupils are thin, and are locked unwaveringly onto Vincent’s square face. “Or am I lucky enough to have met you before you met him, hmm?”