The one taking notes taps away at her screen for a moment before she answers, “In the elevator with Mister Valentino. He’ll be here in just a moment, Mister Vox.”

“Fuck do those two have to talk about?”

A quick system check finds them in the main elevator, Val crowding over Baxter with an unsettlingly large grin, while the doctor seems far more interested in the screen of his tablet than whatever Valentino’s trying to convince him of. He doesn’t bother to tune into the audio now- they’ll be in the lab any second, and he can always rewatch the security footage later if he feels the need. The Voxtek servers store everything for 48 hours by default. Longer if he saves it himself.

Val is still talking when the elevator doors whoosh open. “-if you know what I mean. You have his measurements, right?”

Vox clears his throat.

“Because I actually drew a mock-up this morning,” Val continues, not even glancing at Vox. Baxter, for his part, climbs straight onto the table to flick open the maintenance panel on the back of Vox’s head. “Do you do texts? Or is it still fax city down here, or something.”

“What the hell are you doing down here?” Vox asks.

One of the techs uses a handheld baster to blow air into his ports, clearing out the dust with remarkable patience considering how hard Vox jumps at every blow of air. Usually Val would have a salacious comment on hand. Now, he swoons around the table to shove his sketchbook on top of Baxter’s tablet, like his stupid sketches are more important than Vox operating at peak condition.

“It can’t be that hard,” whines Val.

“It’s not,” Baxter answers, his first words since entering the room. As he speaks, his thin fingers fish into Vox’s head for the data cable. “I’ve made much more difficult prosthetics than that.”

The surge of electricity from his tablet forces a glitch across Vox’s face and he finally loses his patience. “Hi, hello, I’m right here!”

“And I’m in the middle of a conversation,” Val snipes back. “As I was saying-”

“Can’t this wait?”

“No. It’s urgent. I had an idea for Baxter, and since you never take my ideas into account-”

“What ideas, Val?” Vox sneers, leaning forward enough to pull on the cord connecting him to Baxter. “You only think with your dick, and let me tell you, it’s not a good look.”

For once, Val doesn’t have a quip or complaint back; instead, he rolls his eyes and snatches his sketchbook back. He has to be starved for attention to bother coming all the way down here, but Vox truly doesn’t have time to coddle him right now: he has that scheduled for quarter after midnight, after they’ve both wrapped filming for the day.

“Goodbye,” Vox says pointedly.

Then Val leans against one of the computer consoles and extends his cigarette holder like he expects Vox to light it for him.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Vox summons a cable to knock it out of Val’s hand. “You can’t smoke in here. This is- do you-” his screen flashes pink and blue, “I- I’m getting maintenanced right now. Knock it off.”

“I was using that,” Val bites, making to retrieve his cigarette.

Before Vox can get more wires to restrain Valentino with, Baxter drops his tablet with a jittering curse. Routine maintenance usually doesn't set off his system this badly, but the added strain of Valentino tap dancing on his last nerve seems to be enough to have the techs stepping back nervously.

“We’re on a schedule, here,” he reminds them.

Baxter hums. “Then it might be time for your injection.”

As if he wasn’t enough of a nuisance already, Val perks up at the mention of drugs, swanning over to the observation table with bright eyes like he’s about to watch the show of a lifetime. Vox just ignores him. Eventually, he’ll get bored.

A couple of the techs help Vox out of his blazer, another tugs off his bowtie, and a fourth makes quick work of his button down. They usually give him PainKiller through his forearm, which he could just roll his sleeves up for, but it’s more efficient to go the whole nine yards when Baxter has to take a look at his gills anyway. This routine is so well-practiced, so familiar, that Vox doesn’t so much as twitch when the tourniquet wraps around his bicep. He expects the gloved fingers tapping his vein to bring it forward. Even the needle is ingrained in his memory, the gauge perfectly to push through the layers of semi-silicate skin and the dual coated plumbing that makes up his vascular system: too narrow and it bends or snaps in his arm, too wide and it takes a cookie-cutter chunk out of him.

“One and a half in,” Baxter verbalizes for the scribe.

The drug works nearly immediately, washing over Vox like a wave of calm. He slumps forward slightly as the needle withdraws, but the techs hold his arm steady to prevent injury before lowering him back onto the table with learned precision. A hand stays under the back of his screen to keep it off the hard metal. His data cable is positioned to keep it from kinking. Both his legs are lifted onto the table so he can lay comfortably.

When Baxter hands off the tablet to assess Vox’s gills, the gentle touch registers as little more than an annoyance. “How much more smoke than usual?” he asks, lifting the muscle slightly on each to check for obvious discoloration. “And have you felt any symptoms, or is this precautionary?”

“Nothing notable,” Vox slurs out. The dose is always higher when the maintenance is invasive like this. “I think.”

“No, not on the right. Everything looks healthy.”

Baxter pats his ribs almost affectionately before moving to his other side to repeat the process. Just over his shoulder, Val squints through his glasses as if he’s actually paying attention. Vox doubts he’ll retain anything if he is, but it’s still somewhat of a novelty to have him down here in the bowels of the R&D department, in the most secure lab Voxtek has. This room isn’t on any schematics besides Vox’s internal processors.

“Does my smoke actually fuck with him?” Val asks. “He doesn’t even get high.”

Vox’s speakers fuzz with static before he gets his words out. “Sure, pretend I can’t fucking hear you. Real mature.”

“In high concentrations,” answers Baxter, evidently not concerned with including Vox in the conversation either. He remains gentle with Vox’s gills though, only tugging at them enough to tickle as he peers into each one. “They’re more sensitive than his lungs, or yours for that matter. Usually they regenerate on their own, but too much at once can irritate them.” He smooths his cold palm across Vox’s stomach after his exam. “Everything seems to be in working order today, however.”

Baxter retrieves his tablet to study the diagnostic report without Val’s incessant distractions. Based on his own internal surveys, Vox knows there’s nothing of note beyond the usual bugs, which are easily solved by the quick hands of his hardware team at these weekly meetings. It should be a simple all-clear so he can get back to work.

“But you’re not processing out the PainKiller yet,” Baxter says thoughtfully. “There’s nothing special about the dose, but…” he looks between Vox’s face and his screen. “Hmm. Run his blood, see what’s wrong with it. Did you take anything new this week, Mister Vox?”

Val scoffs Vox’s arm is tourniqueted again, this time for a blood draw. “He’s been all over that little deer bitch. Maybe the radio waves are fucking him up.”

“Pretty sure I’d know by now if that was the case,” Vox mumbles.

“Interference causes other problems,” Baxter says dismissively, unconcerned with what Val might do with such information. He stills for a moment when his tablet chirps with the delivery of Vox’s test results. “Simple exhaustion. You’ve been overworking yourself and you need a break.”

Vox groans. “Who has the time?”

“You do, unless you’re aiming for a system crash.”

He instinctively digs his claws into the table in frustration, but the PainKiller weakens him to the point that they merely scratch across the metal with an ear-splitting screech. “Just reverse it, or whatever. I have meetings to go to, I can’t- can’t-” his screen sharply cuts into technicolor as his voice catches and stutters.

“My point in case,” sniffs Baxter. “If it would make you feel better, we can use the downtime to calibrate some of your newer attachments. You missed your last three appointments to test upgrades.”

“Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?”

Baxter shakes his head, his dangling light swinging with the movement. “Not necessarily. There’s a difference between active and passive engagement. All you would have to do is lie there, Mister Vox, and answer a few diagnostic questions if you’re up to it. We take care of the rest.” He turns to the techs. “Prepare another half-dose on standby to be safe.”

“Does he have to be here?” Vox asks, gesturing sloppily towards Val’s silhouette.

Val’s smile nearly splits his face in two. “Uh, you owe me- or did you forget?”

“For what, exactly?”

When he leans down, Valentino obscures the rest of the room to such a degree that Vox automatically adds the overhead security cameras to his visual feed. He always dwarfs Vox standing eye to eye, but something about this position makes him seem especially large, as if he could swallow Vox whole without blinking if he wanted to.

“Letting you drive me and Velvette up the fucking wall with your obsessions,” he coos sweetly, bringing a hand up to caress Vox’s screen. “The doctor said a little down time will be good for you, no?”

Baxter disappears down a connected hallway to visit the parts room for whatever new attachment he wants to calibrate. It’ll be one of the several the lab has tested on the proxy mannequin lately, if Vox had to guess- all somewhat modeled after different sinner species in Hell, none of them similar to his standard dick that came pre-connected with his first body.

“Besides, shouldn’t I get to christen all your new parts, Voxxy?”

“They’re not finished yet,” Vox argues, but he knows he won’t change Val’s mind at this point. With the drugs in his system, he can’t exactly make him leave or restrain him out of the way, either. “So be careful. And listen to Baxter.”

“Yeah, yeah-”

“And! No fucking smoking.”

Val rolls his eyes as he stands up. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m not gonna ruin your stupid lab.”

The moment Baxter reenters the room with a Voxtek branded box under his arm, the techs spring back into motion to pull Vox’s slacks off his body. It stopped registering as awkward at the same time as them removing his shirts, leaving only Val’s hum of appreciation to neg their clinical touch into a familiarity that makes Vox’s dick stir with interest.

“Mister Vox,” Baxter prompts.

“I thought you wanted me to relax,” Vox bitches, struggling to prop himself up on his elbows. “Now I’m changing out parts?”

Two of the techs grab his arms to lower him back down. “Not at all, sir. I merely meant for you to activate standby mode while I switch your attachments, for my safety and yours.”

Vox flicks through his programs for the temporary standby. Lowering his power to ten percent capacity is an annoyance, and often leaves him completely immobile until he restores power, but does lower his risk of short-circuiting himself while his attachments are changed out. In combination with the PainKiller, Vox barely feels the invasive procedure.

“Make it quick,” he advises before changing modes.

Through the security cameras, he watches Val crowd over Baxter’s shoulder to observe the process. Vox usually comes down to have his attachments switched over properly–he has no interest in damaging anything by changing out the parts on his own–which makes this new enough to draw Val’s attention as Baxter disconnects Vox’s usual dick.

“There, and there,” Baxter mutters to himself as he carefully separates each cable from its port, “nice and slow.” Slightly louder, he adds, “You’re doing perfect, sir. We’re halfway done.”

“I don’t think he can hear you like this,” Val says.

Baxter glances back at Val before opening the box. “Of course he can. If not through his physical form, then via the security system.”

That gets Val to narrow his eyes at the darker corners of the lab. His eyesight isn’t good enough to actually catch the lenses, but he knows Vox well enough to hazard guesses at where the crispest cameras will be, and Vox can’t help switching feeds to follow his search. Confusion has always been a good look on Valentino, irritating as it can be. And, honestly, Vox would rather have him caught up in the logistics of surveillance than get involved with such a delicate operation as this.

Even with his senses dulled, Vox still grimaces behind his dull screen at the spark of the new attachment connecting. They always tingle at first as they interface with his system. Coding can only go so far before Vox actually connects to a new piece of hardware, but decades of perfectionism have trained his internal software to get with the program quickly. Within a matter of seconds, he can feel Baxter’s hands ensuring everything has connected, down to the smooth seams at either side of his groin. Like always, it’s a perfect fit. But the sensations are… off. Warmer, he thinks, and more compact.

“Alright, go ahead, Mister Vox.”

Vox restores his body to full power and sits up slightly to look, his complaint about the mismatched feeling dying in his throat. “Where’s my fucking cock?” he hisses instead, tugging away from the techs to cover himself instinctively. His mind goes straight to exposed circuits, the potential for damage if Val sets his sights on fucking pure machinery not designed for such roughhousing. It would mean days of Vox being inoperable for major repairs.

But the second his hands land on his crotch, he pauses. The skin is smooth and warmed to Vox’s preferred core temperature, but not completely flat as he had assumed at first glance; instead, the silicon parts open with his spread legs, revealing a narrow pussy that glows teal on its inner lips.

“What the fuck?” he says, the phrase echoing back to him through the overhead speakers. “Hey, Baxter, what the FUCK is this?”

“It’s cute,” Valentino interrupts.

Vox’s neck cracks with how quickly he whips his head around to glare at Val. He ignores how it makes his vision darken at the corners. “Don’t care, didn’t ask. This isn’t- we didn’t agree on this shit. Get it off me, now.”

“We did discuss it though,” Baxter retorts, tablet held in front of the lower half of his face. “You asked for a more compact attachment that wouldn’t interfere in your battle with Heaven. This won’t interfere.”

Vox’s antenna crackle with static. “I never said to make me a fucking girl!”

Before Baxter can begin to come up with a lame excuse, Val grabs Vox by both shoulders and slams him back onto the table. Vox grapples with him for a moment but still weakened by PainKiller, he only succeeds in scratching Val’s arms- minor injuries that will heal by dinnertime. Worse, Val likes that sort of shit.

“Wanna try that again, babe?” spits Val. Red saliva spills down his chin from the exertion of the fight to drip from his jaw onto Vox’s bare chest. “I think I misheard you.”

He’s like a dog with a bone, but Vox still tries to diffuse the situation since he can’t squirm out of Val’s grip, entreating, “You know I didn’t mean it like that-”

“Then what did you mean? Huh?”

Val’s lower set of hands catch Vox’s thighs to hold them open at a much wider angle than is strictly comfortable. He pushes back against it, but it’s no use, and he knows as much. This is exactly why Vox tries to keep Val away from the lab.

“You still have a dick, Val, it’s different,” he tries. “Now get out of the way so Baxter can take this piece of shit off me.”

“No! You fucking owe me!” Val carries on.

Vox runs a quick cost-benefit analysis. Supposing he could muster up someone else to distract Val, it would be a temporary solution, and exacerbate Val’s frustration with him at an already delicate time in Vox’s plans. This would be efficient, at least: he gives his body the rest Baxter recommended, Val gets over himself, and if he’s lucky Vox still makes his next meeting.

He lets his head fall back against a tech’s hand and sighs. “Fine. You can help Baxter calibrate it, but I’m never wearing it again.”

And just like that, Val leans back with a smug grin. “Yay! Okay, what first? Can I eat you out?”

“Wait,” Baxter instructs. His passive permission makes him bold enough to return to Vox’s side and plug his tablet back in to read the output. “And I’d like to give you another half-dose to ensure you don’t damage yourself during calibration.”

“Might as well, right?” Vox knows Baxter will talk him into it no matter what. But, as a tech draws up a syringe, he grabs Baxter by the lure to drag their faces together. “Keep Val in check,” he warns, “got it?”

“Obviously,” the doctor wheezes.

When Vox releases him, Baxter takes a second to collect himself, straightening his coat and inhaling slowly, before he takes the needle from the tech. He doesn't bother asking Val to move for access to Vox's inner arm. Like it's second nature, Baxter works around him, using Val's restraint to find the vein high on Vox's inner thigh instead

It's not enough to knock Vox out in good health, but he does go slack in Val's hands, head lolling to the side. None of the techs correct the angle, and Vox can't be bothered, so he makes the camera in Baxter's tablet his primary visual feed- it isn't perfect, but he can at least see himself and Val close up this way.

“Is he like, good?” Val asks hesitantly.

Vox's speakers sputter when he tries to speak, leaving Baxter to cut in on his behalf. “He's fine. Lightly sedated, as a safety measure, but just as sensitive to positive stimuli.” He strokes Vox's ribs to demonstrate how his gills flare in response. “He can hear, see, and feel- but he'll stay where you put him. Right, Mister Vox?”

Immediately, Val's smug smile is back. They've fucked while Vox was knocked out a couple times--that footage is triple password protected and quadruple encrypted--but he's never let Val near him in the lab before. Vox doesn't do this for the fun of it like him. Abruptly, he wonders if he's in over his head giving Val access. While Baxter has permission to tranq him if he gets unruly, but that predicates on him doing so before Val shreds him.

“You can touch him now,” Baxter allows, “but be careful. It has to be warmed up or you'll break it.”

“I'm always careful,” Val purrs, because the bastard knows Vox can't call him a liar right now.

He releases Vox's arms to slink down his body, trailing his tongue from the base of Vox's throat to the joint of his hip. It doesn't absorb into his skin like it would for other sinners. No, it'll dry there, staining him pink until he scrubs himself raw in the shower. Val strokes his stomach with silk gloved hands, teasing as he studies Vox's new cunt like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

“Pretty,” Val muses. He drags a finger through Vox's slit to gather some kind of faintly glowing fluid. It's thinner, clearer, than Vox's cum, and when Val wraps his tongue around his finger to taste, he cocks his head to the side. “Mmm, sweeter than usual.”

Baxter jots this down.

“This is actually really good work.”

Val leans his cheek against Vox's thigh as he explores with just his hand first, mapping every inch of Vox's labia as if to bring it all to his attention. It takes nearly a full minute before he lightly brushes over Vox's clit, which is infinitely more sensitive than any of his dicks have ever been. If he weren't put down with the PainKiller, Vox would be a mess of static electricity too intense for even Val to put up with. He tries to tell Baxter that the sensitivity is too high, but still can't construct the sentence around Val's slow ministrations. Each time he thinks he might have a couple words strung together, Val makes another slow circle over his clit that resets his thought process.

He ought to expect Val to stray lower, but it still surprises him enough for his face to glitch when Val dips two fingers into his hole. “You're soaked,” Val observes in a low purr. “So wet for me, amor, and I've barely touched you.”

Vox tries and fails to tell him to shut up.

“You’re so soft inside, like silk,” he carries on without a care. He moves so much slower now than he’s ever bothered to before, whether it was while fucking Vox’s ass or ruining some no-name sinner he wanted to get on contract; he only gives Vox a couple inches at a time before withdrawing. “And tight, Vox, damn.” On each inward push, he curls his fingers upward. He's not deep enough for it to do anything. But this is still better than Val getting too carried away and fucking Vox up– his enthusiasm is a frequent cause for repairs. “This thing was made to be fucked, right?” He asks without looking away from Vox's cunt. “I'm gonna do it no matter what, but like, it’s not gonna make him extra pissy?”

Baxter places a bold hand on Val’s arm to push him deeper, making Vox’s breath stutter and screen flicker. “The receptacle was designed at a base depth of six inches, but can be stretched to nine with the right stimulation. And I modeled it to relax and self-lubricate based on pleasure, like the real thing.” He guides one of Val’s other hands to splay over Vox’s lower stomach and presses Val’s thumb into Vox’s clit once more. “He’s most sensitive here.”

“Motherfuckers,” Vox glitches.

Neither of them acknowledge it.

Val simply continues his leisurely exploration, stroking Vox’s clit in time with each lazy thrust as though they have the entire evening to waste. It’s maddeningly not enough, while simultaneously fraying his train of thought with its intensity. Perhaps this is what Love Potion, Val’s poison, feels like to those actually susceptible.

When Val sneaks a third finger alongside the other two, Vox’s whole body arches off the table by a couple inches before slamming back down, but he doesn’t produce a single defensive spark. He isn’t sure he would want to, anyhow, but it’s often automatic when his system gets overwhelmed like this. And he knows Val’s hands intimately enough to know his fingers, however long, are reedy enough to be negligible. To genuinely feel the stretch of a third doesn’t bode well for what’s coming next.

“Shh, shh, relax, baby,” Val hums, petting Vox’s thigh. “I’m being nice, hmm? It can’t hurt that bad.”

Baxter turns his tablet screen toward Val, who wouldn’t know what to make of the data on it if his life depended on it. “He’s not feeling any pain, Mister Valentino.”

“What a shame,” Val says, long and sweet, the way he speaks when he doesn’t believe a word off his own tongue. “Still so sensitive though, aren’t you? Like a virgin again.” He spreads his fingers slightly and Vox slams his head back into one of the tech’s hands, crunching bone under the back of his screen. “And I can have it tuned up between uses so it’s like this every time.”

Val’s getting confident now, speeding up to a steady rhythm that’s just fast enough to keep Vox from catching his breath. Every exhale leaves him empty before he can draw in fresh oxygen, and every inhale gets punched out of him by Val’s knuckles forcing their way through his entrance.

Even with the knowledge that this is as gentle as it gets for Valentino, Vox still struggles as much as his drugged limbs will allow when Val’s dedicated exploration has him pressing into a spot that makes Vox see stars. Some of the techs not keeping watch over his head rush to help Valentino hold him down flat against the table. Off to the side, Baxter types in more notes.

“If you intend on penetrative intercourse, you should add another finger,” Baxter advises without looking up from his tablet. “The attachment is forgiving, but you heard Mister Vox- we don’t want to damage it on first use, if we can help it.”

That’s all the warning Vox gets before Valentino manages to cram another finger into Vox, stretching him enough for a warning to flick across a screen despite it only registering as pressure-pleasure instead of pain. A low static whine bounces between Vox’s speakers and the ones overhead until Baxter leans in to dismiss the pop-up.

“Careful,” he reminds Val, returning to his side to help. “A bit more stimulation to the clitoris should help him relax.”

Val responds by lolling his long, cherry red tongue out of his mouth to take over for his hand on Vox’s clit. It’s as dexterous as his fingers, but twice as ruthless in its relentless slick glide. His tongue is magical enough for a blow job. Like this- like this, Vox can’t begin to think. It’s all sensation, warm and wet and full and held and floating somewhere just beyond his body. Watching. Feeling.

With Val occupied, Baxter fills the silence as he always does. “See, Mister Vox, a little relaxation is good for you.” His miniscule palm presses into Vox’s hip close enough to nearly touch Val’s antenna. “You’re closing down auxiliary processes- optimizing. Think of how efficiently you’ll run after this.”

A tech wipes his screen for him, clearing oily tears Vox thought his screen too hazy to produce. Vox doesn’t doubt he’ll run better after his cache clears, but not because he trusts Baxter; he doesn’t have the capacity to question anything right now. His system is trapped in a feedback loop between Val’s insistent touch and his body’s refusal to do anything besides occasionally shiver in response.

“Be good for Mister Valentino, sir. It’ll be much easier to take him if you cum on his hand first.”

Encouraged by Baxter, Val redoubles his efforts, massaging Vox’s clit with his dextrous tongue and fucking him on his fingers like he’s testing just how hard he can go before he’s called off the delicate machinery. For once, Vox doesn’t feel like he’ll physically crack into pieces from Val’s attention. Mentally is another question, though he can’t summon the wherewithal to be concerned about it.

Baxter presses down on Vox’s lower stomach and his vision frantically darts between cameras, trying to find an angle that he can make sense of when his mind is spinning, desperate for something solid to cling to, needing any-fucking-thing to anchor him as his world narrows to Val’s touch. His heart jackhammers inside his chest like a warning before three of the overhead lights burst from uncontrolled energy.

“Alright, alright,” Baxter says quickly, nudging Val’s head with a confidence that would get anyone else killed. “Give it a minute. We don’t want to cause a crash.”

Val pulls back with a low growl that Vox feels in his bones. He still can’t catch his breath. Every point of contact between them is on fire. The warmth of Val’s hands on his thighs could be a brand and Vox wouldn’t have it in him to care.

“Can you hear me, Mister Vox?”

He isn’t sure if he nods, but his face brightens back to visibility.

“How does it feel?”

Vox flicks through his auto-responses for a reasonable option, comes up with nothing, and runs through his whole wordbank in search of an answer that would make sense. Eventually he happens upon “Sensitive,” and forces it through his fritzing speakers.

“Sensitive,” Baxter repeats slowly as he types notes into his tablet. “I can reduce the input before its next use.”

“Right now?” asks Val.

For a moment, Baxter seems to consider it. Then he says, “Well, no; it wouldn’t make sense to remove the attachment mid-calibration. I’ll do it after you’ve finished.”

Val’s touch slips away as he stands up properly, letting his wings fall off his body. He’s always beautiful, but especially here: the harsh industrial lights, even spotty as Vox has accidentally made them, leave no part of him in shadow. His body is completely illuminated, regardless of which camera Vox watches him through, to the point that the fine mesh of his lingerie is little more than a color filter over his hand and cock. Vox can’t be sure when Val started touching himself. He can only guess based on the shiny precum smeared across Val’s abs and wrist.

“So, you test all his dicks like this?” Val asks. His prehensile cock writhes in his hold, the tip occasionally slipping between his fingers as he talks. “I’m hurt that I haven’t been invited.”

“It’s a clinical medical procedure,” Baxter replies matter-of-factly.

Pink drool spills across Val’s cheek when he tilts his head. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

He makes slow, casual steps around the table, studying Vox from each new angle. Without him in the way, the security cameras show the pool of juices accumulating under him. His blue mixes with Val’s pink to make a soft lavender not far from the shade of Valentino’s fur. Already, Vox is a wreck, and he knows both Baxter and Val are unstoppable forces. They’ll keep him here until they decide he’s finished.

“How are you doing now, Mister Vox?” Baxter asks, patting the side of his head to get his attention. “You’ve been handling the calibration very well; we’re making excellent progress.”

Vox turns his screen slightly into Baxter’s hand. “Wasn’t that good enough?”

“It was an excellent start,” he says with practiced calm. He allows Val to turn Vox’s head away again, but stays nearby with a point of contact between them. “However, it is my understanding that Mister Valentino also makes frequent use of your attachments, and we have to ensure he won’t break it. Right, sir?”

It’s a good point. If Val breaks Vox’s pussy, or breaks Vox, he’s already down in the lab for repairs. “Yeah. Just…”

“Are you ready to finish calibrating?”

Val returns to his position at the foot of the table and grabs Vox’s calves to drag him down until his legs hang over the edge. “This is a longer break than he usually gets,” Val croons, shimmying his panties down his hips as the techs crawl onto the table to continue supporting Vox’s head and arms, “and I’ll be gentle.”

His dick seeks out Vox’s pussy automatically, always searching for a warm hole to bury itself in. Logically, Vox has always known it’s big–Val fucks him too often not to–but it looks more imposing than usual squirming up Vox’s thigh. When it bumps against his clit his whole body shudders. Val steadies himself with a hand so it happens again, and again, like pressing on a live wire that runs through Vox’s entire body until he can’t tell up from down. Then, once Vox is little more than a jittering, whimpering mess, he finally guides his tip down.

“Deep breath, amorcito,” Val teases, like he did the first time Vox let him top. And, just like Vox did all those years ago, he listens, suffering through a long, jerky inhale until Val’s dick presses into him. Vox thinks it’s slightly wider than four fingers but can’t be sure. No matter what, it’s stuffing him too full to think. “God, how are you still so tight?” Technically, Val is moving slowly, but he doesn’t pause to let Vox adjust, instead pressing forward relentlessly while his cock undulates inside of Vox. On the overhead camera feed, Vox swears he can see it bulging his belly with every upward sweep. “I can’t wait to destroy you next time,” sighs Val between rumbling purrs under his breath. “Fucking perfect. Should’ve gotten you one of these years ago.”

“Val,” Vox moans, equal parts complaint and prayer.

Over the decades, Val has often said it feels like Vox was made for him and vice versa. Their bodies fit together perfectly. Their personalities match even better. As soon as Vox takes over heaven, he’ll be able to spoil Valentino and Velvette like they deserve. But for now, down here, he suddenly understands what it means to feel made for Val. With each slow inch Val pushes into him, he fills Vox like the perfect missing piece of a puzzle.

“That’s right, babe, say my name,” Val encourages. His wings flutter at Vox’s next full-body twitch. “You’re mine.”

Vox nods dumbly. “Val, fuck-”

He’s interrupted by Val reaching the end of his pussy, the tip rubbing up against the sensitive cluster of nerve endings concentrated there. Baxter thought of everything. A fleeting instant of gratitude flutters through Vox’s consciousness before it melts into the wave of sensations. He hasn’t taken all of Val, but the rest of him grinds against Vox’s clit and labia in a way that tears apart any hope Vox had left of coherent thought.

“Could be deeper,” Val informs Baxter casually. “You don’t have my measurements?”

Baxter shakes his head as he takes the note down. “We were guessing- I can lengthen the receptacle for you on the next model.”

A couple of the techs wrestle Vox's fists open to put protective padding between his claws and his palms. Its texture is soft like the ruff around Val's wings, as perfectly imitated as the skin on Vox's upgrades, and his screen hurriedly scrolls through his memories of Val's fluff as he compares the two. He could almost imagine he's holding Val if it weren't for the hands keeping him pinned down and exposed for calibration.

“No warnings,” Baxter muses. “You seem to have prepared the attachment well, Mister Valentino.”

Val chitters, stroking Vox's legs and abdomen while his cock squirms inside of him. “Voxxy's just easy like that.”

He pulls back just enough to push back into Vox harder, the tip of his flexible dick curling around itself so he can fit more inside, uncaring of how Vox's body surges back against the table to escape it. Between Val's four arms and the techs, he doesn't get far.

“He's sobering up,” Val says.

“I can tell.” Baxter tilts his stupid little screen toward Valentino again. “Heart rate and respiration are up, but he's still not feeling any pain. I don't see reason to be concerned. But you're the expert on Mister Vox's responses, so I suppose if you think he needs another dose…”

Val cuts Baxter off with a nasty grin. “You don't need more, do you?” he asks Vox, then immediately answers for him with, “You're man enough to take me without it.”

His next thrust is deeper, stretches Vox even wider, activating more sensitive nerves in a complicated interface Vox would have never designed on his own. When he tries to respond to Val, only strings of binary code stutter out his speakers while his face breaks into static.

“Aww, poor baby. It's too much, hmm?”

Val pulls out almost all the way before burying himself in Vox's cunt, his dick curving inside of him to make Vox take every inch of it.

“Just relax, I'll do all the work.”

He maintains a fairly slow, careful pace by Val's standards: he pulls back slow, so Vox can feel the drag of his movement and the emptiness when he's gone, and fills Vox again at the same glacial pace to keep him aware of just how intense the stretch is. And it's still too much. But all Vox can do is tug weakly at the hands holding him in place, unable to break away from them, completely pinned at Val's mercy. He can't resist when Val lifts one of his legs to get that last half-inch inside Vox alongside the rest of his monstrous cock.

He says something else, then, but Vox doesn't hear it. Just the tone, syrupy and sweet, especially in contrast to the vicious intensity of every thrust. Vox can't process anything beyond how Val feels inside him, against him, when every time he buries himself fully, he grinds against Vox's oversensitive clit.

Some half-baked connection in the back of his mind clicks into focus on true hedonism. It's this, so lost in the pleasure that's only now starting to verge into pain, where nothing--not even Vox's systems--can work past the pure sensation. He feels remarkably human.

Baxter's garbled voice cuts through the haze when Val seems to lose his patience, caring less and less about the force behind every deep thrust into Vox.

“He's fine,” Val drawls, “I've put him through way worse. And he needs to be taken down a peg! I know it, Vel knows it, even you little pricks down here know it. I mean, giving him a cunt was definitely a choice. You had to know he'd fucking hate it.”

He starts pulling Vox back into the the cradle of his hips as he fills him, dragging him along like a rag doll. Vox can tell through the security cameras that his screen has gone into standby to compensate, cutting between bright static colors to fill the idle space and flashes of code rewriting themselves around the new sensations building in his gut.

That, he would recognize anywhere.

Vox reflexively strains under Val and the techs again, wanting to cling to Val, wanting to be closer, wanting feedback from anything besides his pussy to balance him out before his system fails. A few overhead lights flicker in warning.

“Shut up, I'm almost there,” Val growls above him.

“He's going to crash-”

“Okay, and?” Val leans down to nip at Vox's leg, splitting the skin easily on his razor sharp teeth, but the pain is only a faint echo behind the zing that races up Vox's spine. “Always does when he lets me fuck him up. Plus, maybe the reboot will fix your attitude, right, babe?”

“I have to give him something for his pain, then-”

“Don't bother.” Val bites down higher on Vox's thigh, pressing his tongue into the gouges left by his teeth. Then he wedges one of his hands between them so he can stroke Vox's clit directly with a speed that speaks to years of practice. “He's a masochist beneath all that internalized homophobia.”

For all his big talk, Val comes first. But it's the way it fills up what little room Vox had left in his cunt, completely stretching him to the limit of his engineering, that makes Vox's muscles lock up and his heart stutter over its next beat. Every square inch of him, inside and out, processes through the same signal of pure orgasmic pleasure at once.

The remaining lights shatter and the power in Vee Tower fluctuates, but the reboot stays local. As quickly as Vox crashes, his system boots itself back up to sort through the overabundance of data and updates his new attachment created.

He's on his back still, both legs held up and open by the techs, while his hands are finally free to rub his screen and steady him as he sits up. Val has withdrawn exactly far enough to lean against a wall with a lit cigarette.

“I told you not to smoke in here,” Vox sighs. He tries to flick a couple cables to steal it, but they flop flaccidly back to the floor before getting close. “Where the hell did Baxter go?”

Unimpressed, Val points over Vox's opposite shoulder, where Baxter is still typing on his tablet. “Are you back with us, Mister Vox?” he asks cordially without looking up.

“Yeah.” Vox rolls his head from side to side in the techs’ hands to stretch his neck. “Maybe I did need the reboot. I can think a little clearer now.”

“Very good,” Baxter praises, “I knew it would help. Can I take my final readings now?”

“Knock yourself out.”

Baxter sets his tablet aside to climb onto the table between Vox's legs, gently nudging them further apart to better examine him. Through the cameras, Vox doesn't think it looks much different; just wet, now, with Val's rosy cum splashed all over his lower body and more of it leaking sluggishly out of Vox's pussy.

“Speculum,” Baxter prompts a tech.

He doesn't give Vox the chance to react, let alone object, before he's pressing the cold metal tip into Vox's cunt. It's frigid in comparison to Val, and even at its narrowest setting, too much for Vox after already coming twice, but the techs easily hold him in place when he flinches away from it.

“Hey, what the fuck,” Vox gasps as Baxter presses it further in. “This isn't- what-?”

“Breathe, Mister Vox,” Baxter says, a beacon of calm to Vox's racing thoughts. “I have to measure a few things for the file. I'll be as quick as I can.”

Vox shakes his head, turning it against one of the tech's arms. “You've never- what the fuck are you measuring?”

The handle of the speculum settles against Vox's pussy lips once Baxter releases it. For a moment it's near relieving, like a cold compress for his abused flesh. Then Baxter begins to crank it open and Vox's speakers rumble with a choked sob.

“How much it was able to stretch. I noticed Mister Valentino got, uh, creative, with his methods.”

Each tick of the speculum ratcheting open, forcing Vox's hole open wider without actually filling him, makes it harder for the techs to keep their grip on him. He's surprised they haven't given him more PainKiller. But then again, he hasn't managed to get away, and his system hasn't come fully back online enough to produce a defensive shock, so it would simply be unnecessary.

“I believe we'll have to lower the sensitivity,” Baxter says thoughtfully. “This isn't sustainable, even for short usage.” He locks the speculum at its widest setting, still narrower than Val's cock, with a considering expression before dipping two fingers into Vox's cunt to hook against his insides. “See, right here-” Baxter presses against Vox's inner walls, glancing up at his face when he whines, “you wouldn't be bruised like this if you hadn't tightened up around Mister Valentino.”

He withdraws his hand and the speculum, studying the juices left behind.

“Phenomenal fluid expression,” Baxter comments. When he spreads his fingers, it strings between them with a menacing glitter. “I'm surprised you could cry while producing this much lubrication, sir.”

“That's my man!” Val pipes up from the corner. “He's a good cryer.”

Baxter hums and takes a sample vial from his coat to collect some of the spend from Vox's still dripping cunt. “Yes, he is.”

As Baxter drops the dirty speculum and his used gloves into a biohazard bin, he hops away from the table.

“Go ahead and clean Mister Vox up,” he instructs the techs, “but the attachment has to cool down a bit longer before it can be removed.”

“I have a meeting,” Vox complains, though he can't recall what it's about. Or where it is. Or when. “Give me my fucking dick back.”

Baxter shakes his head, not bothering to look Vox in the eye as he disconnects his tablet from Vox's head. “It would damage you and the attachments, sir. We can exchange them after it's cooled down.”

Vox grabs his shoulder. “No, hey, I don't have the-” his screen glitches quickly with the rising frustration, “I don't have the time. I got big shit happening. Just fix it.”

Baxter raises an eyebrow but remains unmoved. “If you're in a hurry, I can remove the attachment after you've attended your meetings.”

“You definitely are,” Val laughs. “It's like, two-thirty right now, so that makes you how late for your meeting, exactly?”

Vox has to double check his schedule, realizes he's already twenty minutes late, and slumps into the table. “I'll have to reschedule it,” he mutters to himself. He can't muster the energy to send those emails now, so he pings Ethan to take care of it. “Fuck. Fine.” On second thought, Vox simply summons his assistant to the lab, since he'll probably need an extra set of hands to get anything done. “I can stay for fifteen minutes, then you take this fucking thing off me, Baxter. Got it?”

Baxter simply nods. “Of course, sir. Fifteen minutes.”

Then he ducks away, leaving Vox with the techs, who set about washing him clean, and Valentino, who watches every moment of it with a cigarette between his teeth.

As he slips the empty container back into his blazer, Val turns around with a frown twisted across his face. “Vox, the fucking toaster is broken again!”

“Did you hear me? At all?” Vox asks, already getting up to assist with the not broken toaster. He leans into Val's space as he pulls the lever back up. It was knocked off track by Val's struggling, but his breakfast is salvageable and Vox can have the toaster replaced after the fact. “You're on your own today. Don't call me unless the tower is burning down.”

Once Vox plates up the toast, Val swans back to the table to spread spiked butter over it. Generally, Vox can't remember a second of the time he's known Valentino and seen him sober, and it no longer surprises him how much Val takes in a single day. So long as the studio keeps pumping out blockbusters and Val stays too high to notice a little extra kick in his drink, Vox is content to let him bury his days in a foggy quagmire of his own making. Val's less of a bitch the higher he is, anyway.

“Yeah, yeah, your schedule’s tight, Papi's got more important things to do than me,” Val drawls. He slugs back a heavy gulp of his Four Loko and doesn't so much as twitch. “Tell me, Vox, when did you get so fucking boring?”

Vox takes one of Val's hands and rubs his knuckles, a charming grin cutting into his screen. “These meetings keep the lights on, babydoll.” His own face mirrors back at him hundreds of times in Val's compound eyes, dancing as his gaze shifts over the reflections. “If anything goes wrong, take it up with Velvette. I'm sure she'd be,” Vox stops, his fans whirring like an inhale to cool his rapidly heating processors, “happy to assist. Provided you leave her models alone.” He raises Val's hand to his screen for a kiss, and doesn't begrudge Val a flirtatious caress along the bottom of his screen as he pulls away. 

Val groans low in the back of his throat, but it's too early in the morning for him to put up much of a fight. He finishes his breakfast in relative peace, scrolling through Sinstagram, texting Angel Dust, and occasionally slurping his drink, none the wiser about how long the day ahead will be for him. Vox can barely contain himself long enough to see Val out the door of the kitchenette, still nursing his Four Loko as he lights a cigarette.

The second he can drop the pretense of his own standard morning routine, Vox zaps into the nearest security camera. The electrical currents carry him down to his office, where a set of screens on the right side of his desk follow Val through the hallways of Vee Tower exactly as planned. His day is empty. There are no meetings. All Vox has to attend to is his own libido as he watches the love potion slowly rip Val’s self control to pieces. 

Its effects first make themselves known on the elevator to the studio. A simple twitch is all it is. Val looks down at his crotch, mildly surprised by the semi, but overall nonplussed as he finishes the last of his drink. He’s probably watching porn on his phone, Vox thinks, and can blame the early tinges of arousal on it. 

Valentino bursts into the studio like a model entering a runway, his wings a cape and his smoke a dramatic cloud, and the plain irritation on his face only enhances the beauty of his harsh angles. One of Vox’s cameras, outfitted with a zoom lens, closes in on the shape of his cock trapped in his tight white bell bottoms. Shifting shadows hint that the eager thing is already squirming, probably mere minutes from plunging into Val's own hole to sate its drug induced need. Vox cups himself in sympathy, stroking his thumb along the length of his bulge. 

“Angel,” Val hisses. His gravelly voice carries across the studio, distracting Angel Dust from the makeup artist turning a black eye into a smokey shadow look. “I need to see you in your dressing room.”

With a flurry of assurances to the cosmetician, Angel follows Val to his dressing room, unable to get a single questioning word past his lips before Val bends him over his vanity, yanks down his panties, and shimmies his own pants down just enough to let his swollen, prehensile dick out. The side angle from a visible security camera is perfect for admiring it until Val hunches over Angel, guiding himself into place and humming in pleasure as the slut beneath him squeaks. At that, Vox switches to a hidden camera among Angel’s makeup brushes, which allows him to watch Val’s tongue loll out and antennae quiver as he pounds Angel so hard the vanity dents the drywall.

“Fuck, fuck, Val,” Angel whimpers, scrabbling for purchase against the smooth glass top until Val pins all four of his wrists with two hands of his own. “Val, please, I’m gonna-”

Val shoves his head down against the vanity to shut him up, evidently not in the mood to hear his begging. “Just a couple minutes,” he coos, barely audible to the microphones in the room over the wet slap of his balls against Angel’s ass. “You can take it.”

None of the cameras are positioned appropriately for Vox to see the bulge Val is undoubtedly making in Angel’s stomach, but he can forgive it when this is hardly going to be Valentino’s last orgasm of the day. It’s just his first. Watching Val’s thrusts lose rhythm, Angel’s eyes cross, convinces Vox to unbuckle his belt, unzip his fly, and shove his slacks down to his knees. He knows he has all the time in the world to take care of himself. 

Angel doesn’t finish, but does keen in at an obnoxious pitch when Val does. A rich, velvety moan accompanies the final few thrusts, each hard enough to bruise and pushing more jizz to spill down Angel’s quaking thighs. Moments later, he's still panting and shivering when Val pulls out to continue jerking his now glistening cock, either unwilling or unable to stop pleasuring himself as Angel weakly pulls against the hands still pinning him in place. 

“Clean yourself up before the shoot,” Val snaps. Coming has done nothing for him, and he must realize the sort of day he’s in for. “If we fall behind schedule because you’re a disgusting cumslut, I’ll make you regret it, Angelcakes.”

“Got it, Val,” Angel hiccups.

As soon as Val lets go of him, he stumbles out of the dressing room to get to the studio shower. Left alone, Valentino plops down on the couch and lets his head fall back. The whir of Vox’s cameras zooming in on him must get his attention, because he opens one eye and bares his teeth. 

“Thought you were too busy for me,” he bitches, legs twitching apart as he pets a vein down the side of his cock, visibly trying to keep its interest in his hand so it doesn’t go searching for something better, like Val’s dripping pussy behind it. 

In answer, Vox strokes himself faster and waits for Val to realize he can’t walk out into the studio touching himself like a desperate pervert. No one’s coming to help him out with his little problem, and nothing would help anyway except to let the love potion run its course. 

“You better not be saving this to your spank bank, Voxxy,” Val spits, his back arching as his writhing dick finally escapes his grasp and presses into his hole. “You ffffuck- fucking asshole.”

After a few indulgent minutes, he clenches his fists, wipes the sweat off his brow, and eases his pants back up his hips, though their tightness does little to obscure the lewd act happening beneath. His staff ought to know better than to acknowledge it, though, when Valentino perches in his director’s chair with his legs crossed and calls action. 

For the first half of the day, Val puts up an admirable fight against the overstimulation of being fucked by his own dick non-stop. He disguises his several orgasms behind cursed insults and bites so deep into the heel of his hand that his teeth come away dark with blood. Vox doesn’t get himself off as he watches, but occasionally manages to get a few emails sent off when Val gets himself together enough to complain about the costumes or the performances. 

Vox knows things are getting interesting when Val calls for a lunch break. The mere idea is laughable, unless one happens to know it’s an excuse to clear the set so he can handle whatever meltdown possesses him on a given day. Practically the second he’s alone, Val calls Vox.

It takes a lot of willpower, but Vox lets it ring all the way to voicemail, eyes locked on the obscene movement in Val’s visibly soaked pants. He doesn’t answer the second time either. He also doesn’t feel guilty when Val throws his phone into a wall out of pure frustration. After all, Vox did warn him he would be too busy to help today.

“You little shit,” Val whines in the general direction of a camera, wobbly, like he might cry. “You can’t leave me like this Vox, get your flat fucking ass up here and help me!”

Truly, Vox calls Velvette out of the kindness in his heart. She answers for him right away, her end of the line chaotic with the background of her workshop, though she’s pristinely put together herself. “What, Vox?”

“I gave Val some love potion this morning,” he tells her, politely maintaining a high enough camera angle so as not to flash her with his own body or Valentino’s. “Great work on that formula by the way, my dear.” She grins with the compliment, a perfect opportunity for Vox to offer, “He could use a break if you’re up for it.”

Her smile drops as quickly as it appeared. “I’m not playing ring-around-the-cock-cage,” she snarks.

“Of course not.” Vox placates her by texting over a link to his live feeds of Valentino. “But I know you like him all pathetic, so I thought I’d give you a go.”

Velvette harrumphs and considers his proposition, before relenting with a long-suffering sigh as if he’s asked some gargantuan favor of her by offering up an overstimulated, submissive Valentino on a platter. “Fine. But you owe me one.”

“Whatever you please, darling,” he says. “Your wish is my command. Now, go put on a show, I’ll be watching.”

“Nasty prick.”

She flips him off, face wrinkled in faux-disgust before hanging up the call. On looking back at his screens, Vox finds Val spread out on the studio floor, massaging the base of his dick that isn’t buried in his pussy, back arched at the overwhelming sensations. The deep v of his low-cut shirt falls open as he thrashes to occasionally show one of his heart-shaped nipples, pierced and nearly as flushed as his cheeks with excitement. It takes minutes for Velvette to appear, but they drag on forever when Vox has such a delectable sight to enjoy.

“Come on, Val,” Velvette says, her voice ringing out before the cameras catch her walking up to his prone form on the ground. “You shut down the whole studio for this?” she asks. One of her sharp heels kicks Val’s hand away from his crotch, allowing her a better view of his situation. “This is embarrassing for you. You seriously can’t control your needy dick long enough to get through the day?”

To his credit, Val manages to speak between the wet hitches of his breath. “It’s not my fault,” he spits out. Excess drool puddles around his lips and tongue, slurring his speech. “I can’t make it stop, and fucking Vox won’t pick up his phone!” He lifts his hips toward Velvette but she backs away before he can touch her.

“If you only want Vox, then…” Velvette teases.

In an instant, Val is falling over himself to take it back, practically snapping his neck with how quickly he springs up on his knees. “No, princesa, I’m happy to see you!” Vox’s cock leaks at the desperation in Val's tone, the tremor in his hands as he claws up the hem of Velvette’s skirt. “Don’t go. Daddy’ll make it worth your while, don’t you worry your pretty head-”

“Shut up,” Velvette interjects. “Just- take your pants off and try not to make a fucking mess.” 

She helps Val kick off his shoes so they can strip away his bottoms, exposing him to the cold studio air. Several of Vox's cameras whirr as they focus on the million dollar view of Val's mindless, almost tentacle-like cock cruelly fucking him past him past the oversensitivity. Oh, he's going to be crying before Velvette finishes with him. 

The morning's buildup of tension surges in Vox's stomach as Velvette straddles Valentino, perfectly positioned to grind against the base of his cock and fondle his pretty nipples. A chirping trill breaks from his mouth when she pinched one between her fingers. “If you want a break,” she huffs, “we have to work for it. You know that, babes.”

Val moans a few slurred words that sound enough like an agreement for Velvette to slice off her panties to get them out of the way. Later, she'll absolutely invoice Vox their cost. At present, his cameras perfectly capture her sopping pussy rutting against Valentino. They're set to record automatically when he runs the program tracking Val, but he has to double check that he'll be able to watch the two of them forever. Velvette's exquisite heat is enough to tempt Val's cock out of himself and into her as well, giving Vox yet another gorgeous shot to obsess over for weeks before it plunges into her.

“Goddammit, Valentino!” she yelps, digging her nails into his chest. 

At the same time, Val's hips jerk up to help him bury his dick in her cunt, the poor thing helplessly repeating “Thank you Velvette, thank you, thank you,” like he's forgotten how to say anything else. Dozens of cameras strewn about the studio give Vox every shot he could want, including a down-angled lens that lets him see both the place where Val disappears onto Velvette, and Val's swollen pussy that twitches every time he bottoms out in her. Pearls of come bead from between his lips and drip to the floor, and it's the realization of how much Val has already come that pushes Vox over the edge. 

He's alone, but still bites the inside of his cheek to quiet his moan as he spills over his hand, the suddenness of it only intensifying the sensations. On screen, Val has found the perfect angle to drive fucked out little “ah”s from Velvette's painted lips on every thrust. His legs betray him. They kick out, restless and useless, a perfect tell that he's past his limit by midday. 

“So perfect, so fucking tight,” Val praises. His lower set of hands find purchase on her hips to aid each fluid motion and the pressure makes Velvette groan. “My pretty dolly.”

“Please shut the fuck up,” she snarls. “I'll cut this thing off and hang it like a trophy in my office, don't test me.”

Contrary to her intentions, this drags another breathless orgasm from him, noticeable only from her offended gasp and the cum frothing around his cock as he continues fucking her. “Y-you can have it, amor,” he chokes out, “it'll grow back.”

“You wish. It's the only worthwhile thing about you.” Velvette's cruelty always impresses Vox, and strikes one of Val's many kinks. “Now hurry up and get me off, I have actual work to get done today.”

When it takes him too long to work up the coordination, she grabs the upper hand not somehow still clinging to his cigarette holder, spits on his slender fingers, and forces it into place so that she can still grind her clit into his palm even if he goes limp beneath her. Their hands make the swell in Velvette's lower stomach look even more obscene, visibly twitching as Val's devilish cock moves inside her. 

“Finally. For a porn overlord, you're useless with a pussy, you know.” Her words don't match the climbing urgency of her motions, but do fit Val's downright sloppy rhythm that he'll be ashamed of when Vox plays this back for him later. “Vox fucks me better.”

“You fucking bitch!” Val cries. 

Although Vox planned on waiting a while for his next round, Velvette's hard-earned praise has him shifting in his seat with pavlovian interest. In his second of distraction, the slight enrages Val enough to flip himself and Velvette over with a heavy thud. The cameras fuzz with the power radiating off him, not long enough for Vox to register it as anything more than his own malfunctioning systems as he wraps a hand around himself once more. 

Velvette moans under Valentino, who has found the energy to put his back into each harsh thrust and growl, “I'll show you who fucks better.”

The spurt of jealousy surpasses his exhaustion and frustration enough for Val to drill her into the floor, each motion rhythmic and punishing in the way only a professional cam achieve, one of his many hands busy circling her clit between them.

“I can do this all day, Mami.” Every time Val thrusts into her, Velvette slides up the marble floor, until she wraps her legs around his waist for purchase. “All-” he interrupts himself with a whine, “all night, too.”

He's fucking her too hard for Velvette to get out a response, but her wordless moans say enough. She probably meant to rile him up. It worked beautifully, and Vox files away a mental note to buy her the most extravagant gift basket in the entire Pride ring tomorrow. Beads of sweat roll down Val's back like invitations for Vox's tongue, and each whimper in symphony with Velvette beckons him to join them but he promised himself he'd wait. It'll be so much better to deal with Val tonight after an entire day of this.

“Mi princesa.” Val's voice is equal parts breathless and honey-sweet, as saccharine as his dopamine riddled drool that Vox can see soaking stains into Velvette's top. “So beautiful, you, shit, you drive me fucking crazy.”

She doesn't reply so much as arch into him, nails digging into his skin once more and drawing enticing furrows of blood down the expanse of his back, mean tips of her heels beating bruises into either side of his spine with each vicious thrust. On another day, when they have the time, Vox could easily spend hours watching the two of them fuck like they're fighting. Today he only has one goal. 

“Don't stop,” Velvette gasps. Her body has gone mostly pliant beneath Val, drowning in the sensation too much to keep giving as good as she gets. “Fucking hell-”

Val presses himself as tightly against her as he can when he comes. His muscles seize, thrown in perfect relief under the calculated, cold studio lights, then go lax as he collapses in a gaggle of uncoordinated limbs on top of her. Still, his cock keeps working on its own. Judging by her whimpers, Vox missed Velvette's orgasm under the beauty of Val's, though he doesn't mind when she's still exhaling pleased groans every couple seconds. 

“Okay, that's enough,” she sighs. 

Muffling his voice in her shoulder isn't enough to disguise Valentino's sob. 

“Cut it out,” Velvette tells him, sharper this time, and shoves at Val's shoulders until he props himself up enough for her to wiggle from beneath him. Her biggest challenge is getting away from his ruthless cock, relentlessly trying to pound into her, but the advantage of being a separate person allows her to get back to her feet as Val's two excessive loads of spend drip down her legs.

Without the reprieve she grants, it takes seconds for Val's dick to find its way back to his hole. His legs collapse almost immediately. The tears come back full force when Val falls on his ass, overcome by his own rare disinterest with sex and the prospect that, like Vox, Velvette will make him deal with his libido on his own. 

“Please don't go,” Val trills, unironically crawling across the floor to Velvette because his legs must be useless. Vox earmarks this section of the footage too. It’s not often he gets to see Val in a state so desperate, so soon. “I’ll do whatever you want! Anything for mi princesa, my beautiful Vel, always so good to me and Vox.” He reaches her inches from the doorway, clumsily petting whatever parts of her he can reach in the distraction of his nonexistent refractory period. If he notices her pushing his hands away, he doesn’t care, continuing to offer, “as much head as you want, my face was fucking made for sitting on,” with no appreciation for her waning patience.

“Piss off!” she finally shouts, kicking Val away with a heel to the chest that will surely bruise.

Now that seduction has failed, Val growls at a pitch subaudible to most sinners, and somehow draws himself up on wobbly, fawn-like legs. He hardly looks threatening, still at the mercy of his own traitorous body, but Vox still snaps screenshots off every camera. “Do you know how many bitches would kill to breathe the same air as me?” If he expects to frighten Velvette into submission, Valentino has another thing coming. “You don’t get to abandon me like this, amorcita.”

“Funny,” Velvette sniffs, “I don’t actually care.”

Before he can issue another empty threat, Velvette whips out her cell phone to take several crisp, high-definition shots that Vox knows he’ll want framed even before they upload to the crowd. Thousands of pixels catch all the glory of Val’s wrecked state: his fur matted by a mixture of his own fluids, Velvette’s, and Angel’s; his cheeks flushed so bright he looks made up; his mouth slack with a suffering that could easily be mistaken for pleasure; his cock a noticeable fiend blurred by its motion. Oh, Vox could kiss Velvette right now. Instead he rewards himself by speeding up his jerking off.

“Interrupt my work day, Val, see what I do with these,” she taunts, waving around her spoils. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Val roars, though he doesn’t make any move to take her phone or stop her from leaving. “Fucking ungrateful, irritating cocktease!” As Velvette exits the studio, his shouting follows her down the corridor, all the way to the elevator. “You’re dead, princesa! FUCKING DEAD!”

She laughs as the elevator doors close.

Vox happily returns his attention to Val, who cannot distract himself forever by fussing at someone who’s not on the same level of the building anymore. The brief reprieve for his overworked pussy seems to have made things worse, reducing Val to a weeping mess as his surge of adrenaline wanes and he fights to get to the set bed before his knees give out beneath him. Honestly, Vox couldn’t have designed this better himself. The studio is the perfect place for Val to take repose as his own cock relentlessly wrecks him. 

He drags a pillow to his face and bites it to muffle the sobbing moans that return with a vengeance now that Val is giving into the helpless state he’s found himself in. What a pretty picture he paints, a magnificent masterpiece of debauchery that makes Vox understand the appeal of the sloppy scenes Val shoots all day. They’d make millions if he wasn’t such a priss about losing control of his dick, because the Sistine Chapel itself couldn’t compare to the tableau Val presents on days like these.

Another orgasm wrenches a scream from Val’s throat, his limbs jerking and the wet spot beneath him on the bed spreading faster than his legs on any-damn-day of the week. Vox has to congratulate himself, as Val’s crying turns to borderline hyperventilating, on picking such delightful business partners. Nothing in Hell compares to this, nor could it come close. And it’s all for him. He knows Val is waiting for Vox to come fix his problem, as always, and it’s a heady power the demon would never consider allowing anyone else except for maybe Velvette- who wouldn’t have put Love Potion in Val’s Four Loko this morning, but might’ve been more sympathetic if she didn’t get off on her participation in Vox’s scheme.

“Vooox,” Val whimpers, hardly discernible through the pillow and its feathery bite wound. The allure of his name in that voice has Vox leaning forward in his chair and squeezing the base of his cock so he doesn’t come from the acknowledgement alone. “Vox…?”

He switches his main camera, a few feet away but in need of an adjustment he knows Val will catch the motion of, given the wanton way he looks at the sea of cameras around him. All it takes a small movement, a few inches to angle the lens higher, and Val lets out a defeated laugh. 

“You, mmm, motherfucker,” he giggles, or perhaps sobs. Vox can see every tear to drip down Val’s face, but there’s a humorous bend to his tone like he reaches when he’s grasping at straws for any semblance of control. It typically takes him all day to break this far, but Vox did tip extra into his drink to empty the bottle, and he can’t find it in himself to fault Val for his own mistake. Not when it turns out this well, that is. “Better be coming to help me, or I’ll- I’ll-”

Vox zaps into his desk and reemerges from the camera he fixed. All the footage runs in the background of his processors, but he won’t complain about the chance to see Val up close. His screens, no matter how high definition, can't capture the scent of sweat, smoke, and cum permeating the air, or the sound of the silk sheets rasping against the waterproof cover beneath them.

“Aw, Val,” he teases, crackling with all the faux-sugar that normally falls under his partner’s purview. “You’ll what?”

Anything coherent disappears into Val’s crying. From the edge of the mattress, Vox can run his claw-tipped hands up Val’s strong thighs, nudging them further apart for a better look at his predicament. The skin on his cock is as pink and raw as his pussy by now from his fruitless attempts at shutting down his libido, as if he truly believed that a go at anyone else would be enough to stifle his need. 

“You’re no better than the rest of your whores, poor thing,” Vox tuts. He sinks into the bed enough to nearly lose his balance when he climbs on, but quickly braces himself with one hand on Val’s ass and the other on his lower back, between his bottom set of shoulder blades. Faintly sparkling sweat sticks to him, a side effect of the potion. But the barest contact drives Val wild, bucking as if he’s not sure whether he wants the attention he’s been demanding or if even Vox’s comparatively innocent touch is beyond the pail. “I can’t wait to show you all the footage later. Don’t worry- I probably won’t release it.” He squeezes Val’s ass to make him shudder. “This is just for me, right, honey?”

Val nods, trembling like he might be close again. “One more, then…?”

He sounds so pathetic, so tired, that Vox might’ve felt bad for him if he wasn’t leaking through his slacks. “Dunno about that. Your cage’s down in my room, and, honestly,” Vox trails off, shifting to pin Val’s legs with his own to stop them from twitching shut, “you already shut down the studio, and I’m not marking today as a loss.”

He knows well enough that his fingers alone won’t be enough to coax Val’s dick out of place, but he still traces the swollen point of connection where it disappears into his cunt, constantly rolling and grinding with more mechanical precision than Vox’s best designed machines. The joke really is on whatever God stuck them down here: nothing could be more heavenly than this.

“Do you know how many times you’ve come today?” Vox asks. “I counted a round dozen, but I might’ve missed some.” He rocks his hips into Val, which is barely satisfying, but nonetheless triggers his cooling fans to top speed and wires a shock over his body. “What’s your single-day record, anyway? It’s higher than twenty, if I remember correctly.”

The implicit warning breaks through to Val. He shoves the pillow away and fights to prop himself up enough to tearfully beg, “Don’t, Papi, I can’t.”

“Sure you can!” With little more effort than swatting a fly, Vox summons his cables to encircle Val’s wrists and ankles, each pulled flat to the bed until the moth is spread out for him and unable to wiggle more than a couple inches in any direction. In the chaos, he runs a quick records search as well. “You did twenty-four, one on each hour, for a New Year’s special a couple decades back. But you’re not the record-holder.” Vox abandons him on the bed. “That would be your pet project, Angel Dust. Last Valentine’s Day, you got a round thirty out of him. We never released it, but I’ve got it all on camera in case we decide to.” He pats Val’s ankle affectionately. “You’re not letting that whore outdo you.”

“Vox.”

Pretending not to hear him, Vox finds Val’s director’s chair to drag over for a better view. Nothing changes in the moments his back is turned, but he can’t stand to miss a moment of the best show of Val’s career--especially not when he finds the seat of the chair still damp. 

“Calm the fuck down,” Vox assures once he’s perched at the foot of the bed, studying Val like he’s trying to commit every detail to memory in case his cameras fail. “Like you said, you were made for this. Cry all you want, sweetheart. I’m not here to help you.”

Either Val is worked up to the point that words are enough to send him into yet another orgasm, or Vox’s timing was perfect to the instant. It’s a victory either way. As Val babbles into the sheets, his wings begin to flutter and struggle too with the inescapable stimulation. Vox can’t strip his suit away fast enough, probably should have stripped it off before he came, but the combination of his dizzying hard-on and the pure filth of Val laid out in front of him make the layers unbearably warm.. 

“Fuck, if you could see yourself, Val.” Vox can’t decide whether it’s better to finish himself off now, and last longer when he gets around to fucking Val later, or if he should draw each climax out to its highest potential before letting himself enjoy them. “I’ve been nice. I always come to help when you can’t get ahold of yourself.” Choppy wheezing is music to his ears. “I’ve earned a front row ticket here, don’t you think? Raise those hips a little.” When Val doesn’t so much as try to move, he uses the cables to rearrange him like a doll. “Let Daddy see. Don’t tell me you’re shy now; you look gorgeous.”

Val gags on the length of his useless, slimy tongue, and slurs unintelligibly. The change in angle is enough to let the searching tip of his cock probe that much deeper, wrenching a broken scream from his throat as he seems to come again, even if his shriveled balls are too empty to pump any more jizz out: another moment Vox bookmarks. 

“There’s thirteen, baby. Just eighteen more to go.”

Something in Val breaks and he struggles with renewed vigor. For all the times Vox has encouraged his favorite little interruption, he’s never dosed out this much in one sitting, and as the air thickens with demonic power, he wonders if he may have pushed Val too far this time. Funny, considering Vox hasn’t even made him cum that many times yet; they have longer sessions than this before breakfast, some days. 

“Vox, Papi, pleeease,” Val crows, pulling hard enough for one of his shoulders to dislocate with a bright pop. He’s a real mess. A flap of his wings generates enough wind to knock over a couple of cameras but still does nothing to save him, which is no one’s fault but his own, because it’s not technically Vox’s responsibility to help him cage his naughty tentacle of a cock. “Can’t do it. Help me, Vox, please.” He gulps for breath before rubbing his face into the blankets to wipe away snot and tears, sniveling, “Please, you have to.”

The safe move would be to wrap this up and defuse the rising tension in Val’s body, like it’s waiting to explode into something far deadlier, but Vox is used to riding the line of too close to the sun. “I don’t have to do jackshit. I do whatever the fuck I want: which, right now, is to watch you,” he sends a lovetap of a shock toward Val’s thigh, “break the Vee Tower orgasm record.”

Val’s responding screech echoes back off the studio walls. In a heartbeat, the bunching muscles of his back bulk and his slobbery tongue lengthens.

“Shit,” Vox mutters. He has moments before Val snaps through the cables like paper chains, quickly rescinding them to spare the extra sparks that are certain to incense the monster before him more. “Val, baby.” Racking his servers for the right words to talk Val down, he finds himself too overloaded to move. As Valentino morphs into his full demonic body, his dick never hesitates in its quest to mold its owners cunt to its exact shape, though the second phallus--one Vox somehow always forgets he has--growing from Val’s pelvis is easily occupied by one of Val’s expert handjobs. 

Whatever biological process generates Val’s aphrodisiac fluids kicks into overdrive, causing his saliva to cascade down his chin and chest, while his slick coats his legs. An extra pair of arms stretches in tandem with the first two as Val’s form grows to dwarf the bed he previously spread out on. In his presence, all the air seems to thin, leaving nothing but the siren’s call of his pheromones, strong enough to make it through the precise filters of Vox’s systems. 

“What’s the matter, amorcito?” His purr resonates through Vox’s chest and vibrates the walls of the building, while the subtle hums and trills he makes are finally loud enough to be heard without Vox cranking his audio sensitivity far higher than is reasonable. “You have a record to break.”

A panicked laugh echoes from Vox’s speakers, filling the room as easily as Val’s voice. “I was joking. You know, how we sometimes laugh at each other’s expense.”

“I get it now.”

Val’s arms shoot out to grab Vox before he knows what’s happening. It feels as if he teleported into Valentino’s embrace, face buried in his chest and still embarrassingly hard dick pressed against his second cock. Being this close puts the size into perspective; Vox couldn’t wrap both hands around it, let alone one, and its length makes him queasy, both attributes that set him against having it this close to him, let alone pressed against him, groin to ribs, like a threat. 

“Let’s be reasonable, dear,” Vox says. Static cuts through his voice, his face, in a betrayal almost worse than his own behavior this morning. “It would rip me in half.”

That tongue, endless and curious as the dick squirming against Vox’s stomach, caresses his body and drenches him in rosy spit. Several errors pop up at once, but he still hears Val murmur, “You’ll get over it.”

“Val. Val, come on.” One of Val’s hands trails through the viscous fluid and smears it down to Vox’s ass. Slender fingers circle his hole, massaging the drool into it and relaxing the muscle with unnatural ease. Vox’s only coherent thought is that it must have a different chemical makeup than the standard stuff. “No. Val-”

Val forces two fingers in. It should hurt, but instead it shoves Vox’s protests from his mind as his body falls limp into Valentino, and he barely notices the hasty addition of a third finger. Though they both know Val is an expert at both prep and fingering for the hell of it, he’s sure the cursory glance against his prostate is an accident because the bastard won’t touch it again. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter, because Val only spends a couple minutes perfunctorily working Vox open before his impatience wins out. Three of his hands--the fucker has too many--lift Vox to position him with the tip of Val’s massive cock kissing his woefully underprepared hole. 

“Val,” Vox entreats in a final desperate attempt, flaring his brightness to its maximum as his eye begins to spin, “you’re not putting that in me.”

He doesn’t get a second of control. Val laughs at him, and begins to press Vox down. Although the tip is flared, it’s still painfully wide from the get-go, and reflex-tears spring up with the first quarter inch. He bluescreens at the half and comes to at the quarter. He’s barely on Val at all and swears he can feel it in his throat with how full he already is.

“Nnn- Not gonna fit,” he chokes.

“Does it hurt?” Val coos, not that he cares. “You’re plenty wet, Papi.”

Vox shakes his head. “No. But I’m fucking full, ‘s not fitting.” The fact that it should hurt doesn’t cross his conscious mind.

“Not with that attitude, it’s not.” A haze of smoke comes on Val’s next exhale, and another one of his endless hands tilts Vox’s screen up so it seeps into his ventilation system. Another wave of warmth, of need, rolls through him in response and he loosens up enough to drop further onto Val’s impossible cock, and feedback squeals at them both in response. “You’re goddamn lucky the other one’s too busy for you, Voxxy.” Fuck, Val’s voice seems to be coming from everywhere, darkly continuing, “or I’d stuff you so full, you’d be in Velvette’s workshop for a fucking month.”

If Vox’s speakers aren’t blown, they're at least broken, judging by the constant static whine as Val works him further onto his cock. When the ridge of the head finally pops in, Vox spasms as he blurts precum into Val’s abs “Fuck, fuck, too much.”

“Don’t be such a baby.” Clearly mocking or not, Val’s voice seems to soothe Vox’s panic as he absorbs more and more of his toxins. “You’re thinking too hard, amorcito.” One by one, Val’s supportive hands let go, leaving Vox at the far lesser mercy of gravity to impale him on his cock. Of course one finds its way back to Vox’s wrists, to prevent him from holding himself up as a defense, and the one holding his screen never moves, but Val achieves his goal of defeating any chance Vox has left of escape as his dick explores to the best of its ability inside him.

At the point Vox thinks another millimeter will cause a crash so hard it takes all of Hell out with him, Val’s body locks up again as he orgasms, no longer too empty to flood Vox with burning, intoxicating cum. There’s too much for him to hold. It presses ruthlessly against his prostate and makes his stomach cramp even as it spills out around Valentino like a fountain.

Vox’s finish pales in comparison, pathetically small when the fullness drags it out of him alongside a glitching moan, though several lights shatter overhead and a rogue shock momentarily freezes Val in place. His system panics and bluescreens once more to prevent a crash, but he boots back up quickly enough that Val is still whimpering his way through the aftershocks. 

“O-okay,” Vox gets out, “that’s enough.”

But he’s still slowly sinking down on Val’s cock with no hope of escape when Valentino sighs, “But we’re only a third of the way there.” At least Val relinquishes his screen, but it’s to press against the bulge in Vox’s tummy with a gusto that makes him simultaneously spurt out a few more drops of cum and gag so hard he tastes bile. “See? Plenty of room, Papi.”

“It’s not- you can’t-”

Val suddenly moves, thrusting up to force himself deeper. “What was that?” Maybe it would be less overwhelming, to be stuffed so full, if Val’s cock wasn’t constantly moving like it’s mapping every square inch of Vox’s insides and will be tested on its findings later. He can’t catch his bearings long enough to have a coherent thought, let alone keep up a debate with Val. When he dares to look down, he can see the outline of it through his skin, rearranging his internal organs to make more room for itself. “Just a few more inches,” Val informs, like he’s not already pressing against parts of Vox that shouldn’t be reachable without dissection. 

Vox tries to say no, but a jumble of technical sounds and error beeps come out instead and Val just keeps pushing. There has to be more of dick inside him than anything else, or so he supposes until Val seizes and comes again. At this point there’s nowhere for it to go besides down what’s left of his cock outside Vox's body.  Val is too far gone to play the slow game and he continuously rabbits up into Vox, fucking him on two or three inches at a time with no regard for the consequences. 

The deepest thrust yet cracks something in Vox’s spinal cord and he loses connection to his left leg, but a complaint is too high a demand for him to fulfill when all he can think about is Val, Val, Val, in and around him, an inescapable fact of reality now. Nothing else matters. Nothing else compares. The complicated mesh of brain matter and AI that makes Vox could be rewiring themselves to dedicate his existence to being Val’s cocksleeve and, at this moment, he couldn’t give less of a shit if his soul depended on it. He can’t understand how Valentino complains about a pleasure so all-consuming as this one. 

As he’s questioning whether Val’s cock ever ends, or if it will keep coming until he bursts like an overfilled balloon, his ass meets the cradle of Val’s hips. “Not so bad is it?” Val simpers. Vox only manages to gurgle. His heart, his lungs, his everything feels flattened and pinned to allow for Val’s monstrous cock. Not only does it continuously rub against his prostate, but the sweeping arc of its movement alights sensitive spots Vox would have never known existed, otherwise. “Feels, ah, so fucking good, Voxxy. Other bitches die of shock before I get this far.”

Somehow that sentence worms its way into Vox’s consciousness like a compliment. No one else could handle Valentino in his full form, but Vox can, and he’s forgotten why he kicked up a fuss about allowing it now that he’s managed the impossible. To reward him, Val’s roaming hands are back. They stroke down his back, trace the bulge in his abdomen, tease his nipples, and work his oversensitive dick.

Val allows the independent movement of his cock to do the work rather than thrusting, which Vox has to remind himself comes from laziness and not any sort of care for the damage he’s capable of causing. Between their moans, the wet sound of Val’s cocks fucking them both fill the silence. 

Then Valentino comes inside him a third time, and whatever happens next is lost to a system crash that knocks out the entire city for several hours. 

Eventually, Vox wakes up on Velvette’s workshop table with his chest sliced open and her nimble little fingers nudging his ribs back into place. She must have turned off his pain sensors, but hadn’t gone to the trouble of washing the copious amounts of spend from his skin. Hardly any of his lower body was spared, and a flaky trail that starts on his screen, floods around his neck joint, and spills down his throat only ends a half-inch above Velvette’s incision.

She glances up at him when she sees his face appear but quickly returns to the task at hand. “Do not tell me how the hell this happened. I cleaned jizz out of places it should never be, Vox. Never.”

“I appreciate it, my dear,” he croaks. She hasn’t gotten to his voicebox yet. But when he wiggles his fingers and toes, they move without issue, which is an improvement over his last memory. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else to put me back together; can you imagine Val trying to replace my liver?”

They share a laugh before Velvette reprimands him for moving while she’s working. “Trust me, you’ll want to leave the pain receptors off for a couple days, but don’t forget to take it easy. Val did a number on you this time.”

“Yeah, well.” Vox grumbles, “I told him it was a bad idea.”

She pushes the mechanism that replaces his diaphragm with more malice than necessary, drawing a neon blue bruise to its surface from the rough handling. “I can't fucking wait to watch the video on our next date night.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to tell you about it?”

Velvette leans down to press a kiss to his exposed sternum. “I want you to show me instead.”

“Sharing a drink?” Val covers Vox’s hand with his own on the bottle, raising it toward his screen. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

It would be the second, however, and the memory of their shared night in Vox’s studio apartment makes bile rise in the back of his throat. He’s used to Val coming to the store looking like a well-loved chew toy, but that morning had been different. He was bloody, more so than usual, with tears in his wings and a jaw so swollen with missing teeth that his speech was unintelligible. Vox had closed up the shop, claiming sudden sickness, and squirreled Val home because it was the safest place he could think of. All day, they drank together–Val mostly spilling it down his chest–and when Vox woke up splayed out on top of Val in the morning, he’d received a sleepy kiss to the side of his screen and a wandering hand caressing his waist. For a split second, it was nice. Then Vox remembered who Val was, kicked him out, and swore to himself he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Don’t you have customers? People who’ll pay to drink with you?” Vox asks, flexing his fingers beneath Val’s iron grip.

Val hums as his lower set of hands latch onto Vox’s waist. “I’d rather spend time with you.”

In another universe, one where Val doesn’t sell himself like a magazine subscription and Vox doesn’t even have dignity left to lose, perhaps Vox might have believed him. But he knows Val by now, as much as he can know someone he sees for ten minutes twice a week, and to believe he’d prefer Vox’s broke company than that of a paying client is idiocy at best. There has to be something he wants, and not knowing what is nerve wracking. For all he plays the bimbo, there’s a calculating coldness behind Val’s eyes that Vox knows better than to trust.

“Uh, why?”

“Do I need a reason?” Val coos, stepping back toward the couch. “Can’t I just, ah,” he sighs dramatically as he sits, pulling Vox into his lap in the process, “enjoy a drink with my friend?”

Vox tries to get up, but one of Val’s arms loops around his stomach like a vice, trapping him in place. “This doesn’t feel friendly, Val.”

“Are you sure?” Before Vox can answer, Val rolls his hips into Vox’s ass, letting him feel the bulge of his half-hard cock. “I’m giving you the friends and family discount: best fuck of your life, for the low price of letting me call the shots.” He pets one of Vox’s arms as he grinds against him again.

“Friends and family? What the fuck do you mean-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Something hot and wet suddenly curls around the sensitive synthetic flesh of his neck, not tightly enough to choke him, but uncomfortably intense when he hasn’t been touched there since he was a living man. It distracts him past the point of questioning it until it unwraps to trace a sloppy trail up the side of his screen. Then, once Vox can see a portion of it, he realizes it’s Val’s tongue.

“Val!” he yelps, pushing against the arm holding him in place. “Seriously?”

“Don’t be a wuss, it’s just a little spit,” Val says. He uses his free hands to nudge Vox’s legs apart, pulling them over his own thighs to hold them in place and keep Vox from shutting them again. “That’s better.” One of Val’s slender hands, the ones Vox has privately admired for months, cups him through his slacks and that’s somehow more embarrassing, more real, than being able to feel Val rutting against his ass. “Mmm, not bad,” he purrs against the side of Vox’s head, “I can work with this.”

Vox squirms trying to free himself, but the movement only draws a soft groan from Val that he feels vibrating against his back more than he hears. It should frighten him, or piss him off, or something, any reaction besides a heated thrill in his gut followed by a wave of shame so intense his screen rapidly cycles through solid RGB blocks. His heart, or whatever passes for one in his semi-mechanical body, beats faster than he knew it could, as if trying to outrun Valentino when the rest of him is still firmly trapped in his arms.

His head falls back against Val’s shoulder as he struggles to control his glitching enough to speak. “I’m n-not fucking gay.”

“No?” At that moment, Val tightens his hand around Vox’s dick. It should hurt, but the sensors for pleasure and pain have been crossed since Vox woke up in Hell, and a keening noise he doesn’t recognize escapes him as he arches into the contact. “What’s this then? Feels a little fucking gay to me, Papi.”

Vox swears again under his breath as Val sweeps his thumb along the length of Vox’s bulge, so gentle in comparison to the harsh grip of his other fingers that it’s impossible to concentrate on anything else.

“And it’s not that different, you know,” Val tells him. His mischievous tongue darts out again, this time smearing a trail of pink saliva across Vox’s screen that tastes like cherry candy when it drips into his mouth. “A hole is a hole, the logistics are the same.”

When Val lets go, all the blood rushing back to Vox’s dick makes him too dizzy to respond right away, though a small part of him mourns the loss. “You’re not letting this go,” he pants, “are you?”

“Nope, not until I get into those cheap, ugly-ass khakis.”

At the end of the day, Vox realizes, it doesn’t really matter if he’s gay or not. Hell seems ambivalent to such things, and whatever… this… is with Valentino feels like an inevitability, the next point on a path charted long before he was conceived, let alone dead and buried. Maybe when it's over he'll feel differently but right now, with Val massaging his cock and dry humping him to the faint bass line of the main stage, Vox wants him. He needs him.

“Don't worry, I won't make you bottom,” Val continues. “Tonight, at least. We have all of eternity to get to that.”

Vox finds himself nodding, and when Val nudges him back to his feet, he goes without hesitation. With Val’s body pressed up against his back, and all four of his hands working the buttons of Vox’s shirt open, there’s no room left to run if he were to change his mind. He still might. There’s just something in the warmth of his touch, the sweet note of his perfume, the pitch of his pleased hum that’s nostalgic; Val reminds Vox of proper girls like the ones who circled his pulpit as a preacher, and he can’t recall if it’s always been so or if the wires are crossing for the first time tonight.

“Do you,” Vox starts, his voice catching as Val tugs his belt from its loops, “do you have a condom?”

The rumble of Val’s laugh reverberates through Vox’s bones. “Not this again.” He backs away enough to help Vox out of his clothes, all unbuttoned and ready to fall faster than Vox has ever managed on his own. “If I wasn’t clean–which I am right now, by the way–you’d get over whatever you catch in a couple days.”

“Disgusting.”

“Thanks,” Val replies brightly. “I try.”

Vox turns to tell him it wasn’t a compliment, only to bluescreen at the sight of Val stripped bare, save for the heels and gloves. He’s seen almost all of Val at one point or another by now, but those memories couldn’t prepare Vox for the divine beauty of Valentino’s statuesque form, nor the fact that without the restraint of his clothing, his tentacle-like cock writhes against his belly until Val wraps an indulgent hand around it.

“Like it?” Val asks. When Vox doesn’t immediately respond, Val takes one of his wrists, guiding his hand. “Most of my clients do.”

An instinctive crackle of electricity sparks between Vox’s antenna and down his spine. “I’m not-”

“I know, I know.” Maybe the whiskey is clouding Vox’s judgment, but Val sounds genuine, comforting, instead of his usual bratty demeanor. “You’re not like them.”

The second Vox touches his cock, Val lets go of his wrist and sighs. His skin is warmer and smoother here, slightly damp with precum that stretches between Vox’s fingers as it explores his hand.

“Always making sure I get home safe, giving me discounts when I’m short- you’re such a gentleman, Papi.”

Vox drags his eyes from Val’s dick up to his face and finds Val studying him, as if testing to see how he reacts.

“Gonna take good care of me?”

“Maybe,” Vox says. He isn’t sure where the line is. “Is that what you want?”

Delighted, Val pinches the sides of his screen and smacks a wet kiss over his digital mouth. With a second of warning, Vox could’ve kissed him back. “Aw, you give a shit!” His cock twitches in Vox’s hand as Val tells him, “There’s nothing you could do I wouldn’t like. You seem, mmm, vanilla.”

“Anyone ever tell you the problem with assumptions?”

Vox extricates his hand from Val’s dick, a more difficult feat than anticipated, so he can grab Val’s balls in one hand and his delicate throat in the other, squeezing both hard enough to make him whimper. As Val’s mouth falls open to gasp for air, he scrabbles for purchase along Vox’s torso and upper arms, but not to fight. It seems he simply wants to touch.

“Val.”

“No,” Val wheezes, tongue lolling out of his mouth and smearing drool over Vox’s forearm. “What?”

“They make an ass out of you,” he tightens his hold on Val’s balls, “and me.”

Then he lets go, allowing Val to catch his breath for a moment before saying, “I don’t get it.” Notably, he doesn’t retaliate once recovered. If anything, Vox has lit a match under him by finally reacting to one of his taunts; now Val is going to hyperfixate on making him do it again. “Not vanilla, then,” Val hums thoughtfully. “Color me interested.”

“You’re a fucking freak,” Vox accuses. It’s pointless, when he can still see the outline of his claws in the fur of Val’s neck, but he has to cling to something if he intends to survive the flood of Valentino’s affections.

“Yeah, but you’re here, aren’t you?”

His gold tooth glitters through his grin as he reaches for Vox once more, closing his hand around Vox’s dick without boxers and pants in the way to dull the sensation. The satin of his glove is unlike any sensation Vox has ever felt, cool and slippery, but with a low enough thread count to catch against the ridge of his cockhead on each downstroke. A shudder that almost makes Vox miss the corner of Val’s smirk dropping into something softer rolls through him.

“Fuck, you’re like a virgin,” Val says, pleased, as if it's a compliment. “Doesn't take much with you, does it?”

Standing face to face like this, Vox has nowhere to hide, and his processors are too overloaded by Val's touch to come up with a convincing lie. Months ago, he would have run. But now he knows Val, trusts him to keep Vox's secrets as well as his own, and has run out of excuses to delay something he fears they've been hurtling towards since they first laid eyes on each other.

“Most girls get on their knees and get it over with,” Vox admits.

His head drops forward when Val sweeps a thumb over the head of his cock, only for another gloved hand to lift his face by the corner. With more grace than he has outside the club, Val's fingers move in perfect parallels, each sweet caress of Vox's screen matched to a gentle stroke of his dick.

“That's no fun.”

Val leans closer, peppering sloppy kisses across Vox's screen until his vision is tinted pink through the copious amounts of drool- another thing he would've run from not long ago.

“Can I ride you, Papi? Or do you still need to be the big man in charge?”

Without waiting for an answer, Val guides Vox back to the couch and perches over his lap, calves pressed to Vox's thighs and three hands pinning him in place like nails through his body. He’d let Val crucify him for a fuck right now, he thinks.

“You’re the expert,” Vox chuffs, turning away because he can’t handle watching Val do this. “And you’ve been chasing me for months, you put in the work.”

Val hums and takes hold of Vox’s dick to position it. “You’re in good hands.”

Vox wants to say something smart, but it turns into a broken sound when Val lowers himself onto the head of Vox’s cock. He’s tighter than a girl, but still wet like one, and he doesn’t squirm or complain as he sinks down until his bony ass rests in the cradle of Vox’s lap.

“How’s that?” Val croons.

His cock squirms against Vox’s lower stomach, far more excited than its owner's controlled movements imply. Desperation for an ounce of power in this situation drives Vox to curl his hand around it again and allow the curious appendage to explore his fingers, fitting itself between them with an excitement he reluctantly finds adorable.

“So?” Val asks, subtly shifting in Vox’s lap without actually fucking himself yet.

“So what?”

Val grins and nips the corner of Vox’s screen before kissing across it, using the pressure to force Vox to look at him. “So, are you still not gay?”

“Val.”

“Okay, okay, fine!” Raising his upper set of hands in mock surrender, Val finally begins to move. Like the impatient bastard he is, Val doesn’t waste time warming them up now that he’s adjusted. He sets a brutal pace, up and down like it’s as natural to him as breathing and not the best tail Vox has gotten in life or death. Truth be told, Vox has never found sex with women particularly satisfying, and doesn’t miss anything about them now.

The elegant limbs he’s admired for months cage him into place like he has room left in his mind to run away from this. At the center of Val’s attention, Vox can’t remember a single protest he had; there’s only Val’s body accepting him like they were built to fit together, Val’s hands pressing bruises into his skin, Val’s tongue writing an essay across his chest, Valentino. He has all of Val for however long this lasts. Beyond that, he is nothing and no one.

He realizes belatedly that Val has been talking to him this entire time, the words melting together in a honeyed slurry he processes the tone of, but not the content. It doesn’t matter–Val has nothing of consequence to say, and his playful lilting laugh is too lighthearted to be a threat–but his affect soothes something frayed inside of Vox he hadn’t realized was damaged.

”-than them, Voxxy?”

Vox blinks a couple times, scanning his memory for the rest of the question but coming up blank. “Huh?” he manages.

“Aww,” Val trills. One of his hands caresses Vox’s cheek, the silk-covered fingertips dipping into the seam of his lips as he continues, “Fucked stupid already?”

For a second, Vox considers shoving Val off him, but the brief satisfaction wouldn’t be worth the loss. “Bored, more like.”

Val’s smile sharpens at the edges as he narrows his eyes. It sets off alarms, reminds Vox that Val is a whore he wouldn’t trust with the shirt off his back, yet the warnings sound far away when Val’s riding him with mechanical precision.

“Wanna take that back? I’ll give you the chance.”

He hums, low in his chest.

“I’m thoughtful like that.”

“I- I-” The words stick in Vox’s speakers as he bluescreens. Between the perfect, borderline blessed rhythm Val keeps and the obscene writhing of his prehensile cock, his systems are already at capacity. Processing Val’s purr proves to be too much. “I- Vvv-”

“Pathetic,” Val chides before he can spit it out, which is apparently the final push Vox needs.

Bliss. Pleasure, in its purest, rawest form courses through Vox like he was made to be fucked by Valentino, and he’s becoming complete with every spurt of cum into Val. He’d call it a claim if he had the presence of mind. Through his scrambled visual feed he catches his screenlight reflecting back at him in Val’s eyes, flashing blue between each scramble of technicolor panic. Val has never been this beautiful before.

Vox’s head lolls onto the backrest of the couch once Val lets go of it, chasing a sloppy rhythm to bring himself off, uncaring of the overstimulation that loops Vox into reboot after reboot without a second to recover. He processes it in flashes. Val’s tongue dripping down his jaw. Val’s abs tensing with each thrust. Val’s hand blurring around his dick. Val’s back arching into a painful curve. Val’s cum splattering up to Vox’s collarbone.

“Fuck,” Val hisses, at last beginning to slow. “Fucking warn a guy if your jizz is caustic. Not that I mind.” He shivers and clenches around Vox, coaxing a final dribble of cum from him. “It’s an upcharge though. If we weren’t such good friends, you’d be in trouble.”

“Cut it out,” Vox retorts, none of the usual bite in his static voice. His eyes dance around his screen, taking in every detail of Val’s disheveled state, from the crook in his antenna, to the bruised necklace around his throat, to the cum trail ending at the broken strap of his pleasers. If Vox wanted to be mean, he has no shortage of material. “I told you,” he adds with a spark in the wires atop his head, “I’m not one of your fucking customers.” Vox suddenly turns on his heel and opens the pill cabinet, defaulting toward the slot of oxycontin. “The usual? Or something stronger?”

“You know me so well.” One of Val’s heels creaks ominously under him, prompting him to lean further into the counter before it snaps. “A double, Voxxy.” He squints at the shelves and asks, “You guys carry the good shit, right?”

Vox hesitates with two bottles balanced between his fingers. “What’re you thinking?”

“Special K.” Though Vox can’t see him, Val still bats his eyelashes. “Enough to knock out a horse. I don’t wanna move for a week.”

Another arc of electricity haloes Vox’s head, making Val’s fur stand on end and his wings twitch reflexively. The air always has a taste in Hell, and Vox’s static brings a dry, sharp flavor to the tip of his tongue, triggering more drool to fill his mouth and coat his lips– something he can’t discern as distinctly attraction or fear that Vox might hurt him. Val dismisses the latter. If Vox lays an unpaying hand on him, Val will regenerate and his boss will squeeze every last penny and pixel from the bastard for his trouble; on the other hand, if Vox ever coughs up a couple hundred bucks, he can have carte blanche.

“Yeah, you uh-” Vox clears his throat, “you look kinda rough.”

Somehow his words sting worse than a slap would. “Fuck you. You’re one to talk, you wear the same goddamn shirt everyday.” Val sucks in an inhale and gestures at Vox’s garish, ugly sweater vest to illustrate his point. “Are you a fucking cartoon character? At least I have taste-”

His scathing review of Vox’s fashion is cut short by his shoe breaking, prompting Valentino to lose his balance and crumple to the linoleum in a tangle of limbs that would hurt if he wasn’t already most of the way to stoned. No way Val would’ve made it to the store sober. As he catches his bearings, he hears Vox curse and jog around the counter, the fuzzy hum of his screen deafening when he kneels next to Val.

“You okay?”

“I’m great,” Val huffs, struggling to push himself up when his wings cover the ground around his body. “Just a broken heel.” 

He’ll have to work off the cost of it, probably through another night like last, but it's a problem for later Valentino, once his current injuries heal enough to take a fresh beating and his ego recovers enough to admit a fifth costume piece needs replacing in as many weeks. The cost is gonna come out of his drug money sooner rather than later. Val curses under his breath at the thought as he struggles with the fine buckles of his shoes. At least his only witness is Vox, too anxious and antisocial to fuel the rumor mill, and too enamored by Val’s attention to take advantage of an easy target. 

Vox is safe like that. 

“You need to clean up,” Vox says, holding out a claw-tipped hand to Val. In the months they’ve come to know each other, he’s recoiled from every touch, even incidental ones- never offered it. “There’s an emergency shower in the back, I use it sometimes when my water’s off.” He wiggles his fingers, impatient, until Val takes the support. 

“It doesn’t damage your,” Val waves one of his upper hands around Vox’s head, “whole thing?”

“You’ve seen me drink coffee. It’s not all mechanical,” Vox answers dryly. As he leads Val around the counter, he has to hold both of them up through Val’s stumbling and wincing in a display of more strength than his wiry frame suggests. Vox pulls him through the Staff Only door, down the hall, and into the bathroom lit by a single corded light bulb and inadequately perfumed by a urinal cake in the cracked toilet bowl. “Leave your clothes on the paper-towel dispenser so they don’t get wet,” Vox says, pointing toward the metal box jutting out above the sink. “You get ten seconds of water every time you pull the lever next to the shower, and it’s cold, but you can’t drip-” he stops, his face glitching with stripes of technicolor, before his voice returns in a whine of feedback, “fluids in my fucking store. It’s disgusting.”

Val rolls his eyes and tugs off his cropped hoodie. It sticks to the lashes in his back that have just started to scab over, but he tamps down a reaction as it pulls away from the welts. “Please. You’re into it, I can tell; wouldn’t be staring otherwise.” He tilts his head and hooks his thumb into the waistband of his skirt. “Hmm?”

One of Vox’s eyes flashes red for an instant before he schools his shock into a guarded expression and pointedly casts his gaze to the floor. 

“Don’t be shy. I’m not. Everyone’s seen it.”

“Val,” Vox snaps, falling short of intimidating and landing in the neighborhood of defensive. “I’ll be right outside, so I’ll hear if you fall.”

“Aww, such a gentleman,” Val coos, because he can never resist pressing Vox a step past the line. 

Rather than reacting, Vox lets himself out. For the first time in over twenty-four hours, Val is entirely alone, too close to sober for his comfort, and torn between amused by Vox’s care and annoyed at the delay in getting his fix. The former wins out. There’s something cute about Vox, clinging to a proper image like he doesn’t sell ecstasy for a living and get behind on his water bill, practically short-circuiting every time he’s tempted by the myriad sins at his doorstep. If Vox ever gets past his hangups, Val would happily introduce him to the messier pleasures of the afterlife. 

Reveling in the thought, Val peels off his skirt, fishnets, and gloves, then piles his clothes on the dispenser with his wallet atop the heap. Now to actually clean up. There’s not much he can do with only hand soap at his disposal, but he fills his bottom two hands with the pink stuff from the dispenser before positioning himself under the rusted shower head. He spares a moment to hope the water is clean. 

Thankfully it is, albeit ice cold, as it cascades over Val and cuts through the grime caked into his fur. Other than the obvious mess from a few creampies more than his body can reasonably accommodate, flakes of dried cum stick to other parts of him with errant smears of blood, sweat, and cigarette ash. All in all, Val’s had more disgusting nights. The thin soap doesn’t make him feel clean, but it washes the visible stains down the drain and rinses easily with each timed stream of water, leaving him to begrudgingly admit he feels better without a head-to-toe coat of dried jizz. The water doesn’t sting when he washes his injuries either, a miniscule comfort after all he endured to get them.

After his final rinse, he shakes off as much water as he can with a full body shiver, but finds the paper towel dispenser empty when he cranks its handle. He sighs.. Vox means well. It’s not his fault Val hates redressing without fully drying off. With effort, he negotiates his thigh-highs and miniskirt back into place. He pauses over the hoodie; it’ll stick to the cuts in his back again, and he doesn’t want to wash them a second time today, but Vox is liable to throw a fit about his indecency. Any other day it’d be a guarantee. This morning, though, his misplaced pity seems to erase their carefully defined boundaries.

Val tucks his hoodie under his arm and reemerges from the bathroom with his armor intact once more, despite his relative state of undress. True to his word, Vox leans against the opposite wall, his eyes darting from the front counter to Val when he appears, then away again with a minor glitch when he spots his bare chest. 

“Really?”

“My back’s fucked,” Val says simply, brushing past Vox. Feedback cries through his speakers, echoing in the enclosed space loud enough to make Val cringe upon seeing the state he’s been left in. Without a mirror to check the damage, Val can’t be sure how bad it is, but he could feel at least a dozen individual gashes when he washed. “I came here to get pills for it, remember? Earth to Vox?” He stops, turning to face Vox again when he doesn’t hear his footsteps following. Eight months have made Val an expert on the intricacies of digital expressions, but he can’t make heads or tails of the twitchy one on Vox’s screen now. “Are you short circuiting? Surely you’ve seen a man’s tits before today.”

The unreadable look falls off Vox’s face as he straightens up. “I have a first aid kit under the register; I’m not selling to you until I bandage those. Because they’re a biohazard.” He nods, as if to convince himself of the excuse. “No fluids in my store.” Recovered from his lapse in control, he ushers them out of the staff hallway. “And don’t show up like this again.”

He gently shoves Val onto the stool in front of the register, which Val only complies with because his muscles are too sore for it to be worth the fight. When Vox ducks to retrieve his first aid kit, the sharp corners of his screen press indents against Valentino’s calves, static from his screen and antennae teasing the lavender fur on end. One day Val’s going to see how that feels between his thighs.

“But you take such good care of me, Papi,” Val simpers.

“Here it is!”

Popping back up with the dusty kit in hand, Vox carries on like he didn’t hear the aside. He has a knack for spinning conversations, reality, to his whims with the skilled precision of a charlatan. One day, he’ll be important. Val knows it. And if he plays all his cards right, Val can climb the ladder with him as the pretty little mistress who cracked Vox’s repressed shell.

“You get off on this?” Vox asks, lifting an ancient roll of gauze. 

They’re clearly the first to make use of the kit, given how non-angelic wounds heal on their own, but with as many to attend to as Val has currently, it’ll take long enough for bandages to be sensible. Neither his flat nor the club are particularly clean, after all.

“I get paid.” That’s all that matters. Val reminds himself so every time he knocks on an ugly john’s motel room door. “Don’t get me wrong, Voxxy, I love a good pounding, a little fight-” he stutters when Vox begins pressing the first layer of gauze into the tender welts on his back, “but I’d rather bend those slimy fucks over and remind them they’re paying for the privilege to get their pathetic dicks anywhere near me.” Vox’s hands still and Val wishes he could see his face. “I like dancing, I like sex, and it keeps the drugs flowing. So if you're asking, yes, I get off on it.”

Vox considers this in silence. He winds the gauze around Val’s chest to secure it, masterfully avoiding contact with anything other than the inches of bandaging he pushes into place over the lashes, as he works his way down Val’s back. It aches, fiery and deep, every time the dull backs of his claws smooth the gauze, but the pain is far closer to the enjoyable sting of lactic acid after a vigorous fuck. By the third row down, he reaches the deep centers of the gashes, where his unwavering focus spikes from tolerable to white-hot, like a spark directly through Val's spine. 

He twitches away with a gasp. “Fuck.” It takes a conscious effort to keep his wings from draping in a protective curtain around his back. He expects Vox, his safe, predictable, loser, fucking drug clerk to freeze at the reaction, but Vox smooths the gauze again with a considering hum Val can only read as interest. “Ah, I see. Should I have come in all bloody sooner?” he teases. 

“This may come as a shock to you, but not everything is about sex,” Vox deadpans. 

When he presses the next layer down, Val groans in the back of his throat to antagonize him. He expects a snarky reprimand, perhaps a warning hum, but instead Vox suddenly digs the points of his claws into Val’s hip, far enough from the lashes to cause a distinct, fresh pain to flare at the contact.

“Yes it is,” Val counters, tilting his head back to look up at Vox’s flickering screen. “This holier-than-thou attitude’s holding you back, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Inches from the smooth, static glass, Val can’t help wondering what it would be like to kiss Vox: if his screen would be cold with death or warm with electricity, if his tongue would be wet like real flesh or ephemeral like the jolts between his antennae. With any other sinner, Val wouldn’t hesitate to find out, but he can’t risk it this time. Not with Vox. He’s spent too many months being a good boy and following Vox’s lead to screw it up with poor impulse control now.

“You’ve got something special, amor.” Val grins into the teal glow. “Sucking and fucking, it’s not for you- I get it.” Another deliberate drag of Vox’s claws makes him trill. “But you’ve got star written all over you.”

“Okay, I know you think it’s funny to call me a prude, but here’s the truth, Val.” While Vox’s voice isn’t any louder, its timbre drops deep enough to vibrate Valentino’s bones. “My unwillingness to risk Hell’s version of gonorrhea-”

“Regular gonorrhea,” Val interrupts.

“-doesn’t mean I’m celibate. You do know you’re a whore?” Vox laughs, a distorted, mean sound as he winds a second layer of gauze around Val’s torso. “I’ve got better options.”

Though Vox doesn’t tempt the injuries he’s presumably caring for again, his sharp claws repeatedly skim the spared skin of Val’s ribs and waist. “Not to insult drunk back-alley bowjobs,” Val chirps, ”but you’d be much less uptight if you got a decent fucking orgasm every once in a while.”

Finally, Vox finishes his wrapping, the brush of his hands dulled through layers of gauze as he knots the end in place. He lingers a moment too long; palm splayed between Val’s upper set of shoulder blades, standing close enough for Val to enjoy his body heat, calculating eyes darting over Val’s figure like he’s memorizing the scene. The attention is familiar, if not from him.

“As fun as this has been,” Vox says slowly, turning to pack the first aid kit away, “You’re lucky no one else has come in. So, two bottles of oxy, and how much ket?”

Val pulls his shirt on as he stands up. Frustration at the dismissal squeezes his heart, but he knows better than to expect anything else from Vox. “Five grams, powdered.” If the quantity surprises Vox, Val can't tell. “What do I owe you for it?”

“Two hundred,” Vox replies automatically, crossing behind Val to reach the tranquilizer section. He places the scale on the counter and begins to measure out Val’s ketamine with more dedication than a shithole drugstore deserves. “If your cut’s less than that after they tore you up, you’re more of an idiot than I thought.”

Val hums. “Don’t worry about me, Daddy makes plenty.”

More accurately, he makes enough to get so high, he can put up with his least favorite customers and his handsy sleazeball boss. He eats and lives free at the club, and the cash he sees from his work keeps him stocked, making it a decent gig– definitely beats retail work. He feels the edges of the bills in his wallet, guessing from the number that they’re in twenties rather than hundreds this time.

“How many twenties is that?” he inquires. 

“Ten.”

Val counts the bills, restarting a couple times to be sure, but a nagging feeling insists he tallied them up wrong. He frowns as he counts them again. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure I can do simple math,” Vox enunciates, like multiplication is simple to most sinners. “Oxy’s sixty a bottle, like always. Two bottles is one-twenty, and then eighty for the ket.”

“That’s it!” Val crumples the bills as he snaps his fingers on another hand. “Eighty for five grams sounds wrong. Mixing up prices isn’t like you, Papi, are you distracted?” It wouldn’t be shocking, after the morning they’ve had. “I don't want you to get in trouble. You’re lucky I’m an honest sinner.”

“Honest, ha!” With a couple more adjustments, Vox seals the five gram bag and returns the stock of ketamine to its shelf. “You’ve never been honest a day of your existence.” He comes back to the register to slide Val’s goodies into a logo’d paper bag and punch the details into the register. “No, it’s correct. Staff discount, for the…” Vox jerks his head toward Val’s discarded heels in the store lobby. “Inconvenience. Put the money toward a replacement pair.”

Discounts are part of life for Val, a given in the red-light district of the city where he’d be hard pressed to run into a shopkeep he hasn’t fucked yet, but this doesn’t feel like the typical quid-pro-quo. Since Val arrived, Vox has done him favor after favor. If it had just been the shower, or the bandages, or the discount, Val could write this off as a relic of Vox’s antiquated brand of masculinity, but for him to do all three without asking anything in return is a bear trap waiting to close.

“How sweet.” As Val hands his cash over, he dismisses the thought; Vox is too tame to demand anything Val wouldn’t give him cheap regardless. “You’re too good to me.”

Vox's customer service smile glitches. “It's my job, Val.”

One of his assistants, newer but remarkably brave, edges into Vox's field of vision and waits to be acknowledged. As he drums his claws against his desk, their ears twitch with anxious agitation, but whatever courage allows their interruption isn’t enough for them to do more than tremble at the sight.  

“Sir?” They try again. 

“Don't bother me when I'm thinking,” Vox snaps, fully swiveling his chair to face them. “My schedule is clear until seven.”  

The assistant flinches, but takes no steps to leave. Vox flicks his hand in a shooing gesture, giving them an opportunity to rub their two braincells together and fuck off before he makes them. Nothing. Sighing, he turns fully in his chair.  

“Alright,” he sneers, electricity crackling down his antennae and through his hands, “what’s so important?” 

Holding out their clipboard like a shield, they stammer, “Your, um, schedule isn’t actually clear, sir? You’re late for the Rising Stars banquet.” When Vox stands up, they shuffle back. “Not too late, though! Fashionably late. You can definitely pull that off. Do you need a fresh suit?” 

Forgetting about the PR event of the year is almost as embarrassing as having a staff too incompetent to remind him. Tomorrow morning, Vox is going to paint the fucking floors with the blood of everyone except the demon before him.

“Of course I need a fresh fucking suit.” As they leap toward the door, Vox clears his throat. “Something nice, or I’ll feed you to my sharks.” 

“Yes, Mr. Vox. I- I'll be right back.” 

He waves them off before slumping back into his chair. Normally, Vox looks forward to the banquet; he gets to meet with overlords and demons looking for associates, while dumping the glitz and glamor on his audience. If he’s late, he’s already missed the red carpet. No one will ask him who designed his suit, shove a camera into his face for a soundbite, or get distracted by a prettier face mid-interview. Despite how exhausting the affair can be, it’s one of his biggest nights of the year, and he’s blown his entrance. All he has left are the one-on-one pitches, where Vox only has one objective at a time. He should be pissed, if not infuriated, by his own forgetfulness and his employees’ incompetence alike, but after countless hours of fruitless desperation for his next venture, he can barely muster a grimace. 

While he waits for the assistant’s return, he pulls up the guest list on one of his monitors to get an idea of how the evening will go. Most attendees this year are minor overlords with only a few souls under their belts, who should be too starstruck by VoxTek’s invitation to complain about his tardiness. Those who do are worth keeping an eye on. 

Only a few minutes later, the assistant shuffles back into his with a garment bag in their hands and a freshly polished pair of saddle shoes draped around their neck by the laces. At his desk, they unpack Vox’s clothes with practiced efficiency. At least they have taste; the suit they’ve chosen is adorned by reflective silver thread, complimenting the polished tie clip, diamond cufflinks, and starry lapel pin zipped into the accessory pouch of the garment bag. Subtle silver accents on the saddle shoes pull the entire look together.  

“That’s good,” Vox praises, shrugging off his blazer and tossing it toward the secretary. “Classy. You like fashion?” 

They fold and set aside the coat with practiced precision. “I read a lot of magazines.” 

“That's not the question I asked you.” Vox strips away his vest, button-down, and slacks too, careless about where they land in his haste to get redressed. “Do you like it?” Cool silk slides into place like a second skin. He only wears tailored, custom-made pieces these days, and it shows in the perfect fit of the collar to his neck. “Not everyone has the vision...?” Trailing off, Vox realizes he doesn’t know their name. He raises an eyebrow and holds his hand out for the next piece of his outfit, disguising the failure behind the dismissive mask they expect. “You’ll have to remind me, my dear.”

“Stanford. And I guess I’ve always been interested; you can tell a lot about someone from their clothes.” When Stanford hands Vox his tie, they gather the strength to look him in the eyes. “I love working for you, though, Mr. Vox, I promise.” 

The pin, tie-clip, and cufflinks are easy to affix while they bend to help Vox step into his new pair of shoes. “I know.” He glances at the top of Stanford’s head and considers whether the secretary would be worth fucking, if he wasn’t already late to the banquet. Getting some action could jumpstart his circuits enough to come up with an idea. “You’re more useful than the others.” They tie his shoes like it’s the most important task of the day and don’t complain when he uses their shoulder for balance. Vox appreciates the dedication. “If you’ve got dreams, I’ll make ‘em come true, Stanford. You just have to ask, you know?” 

Finally, he affixes his cufflinks and turns away from the secretary. Until he has their soul under contract, he cannot stop another overlord from worming their way into Stanford’s weak mind, and Vox needs someone he can rely on to keep a schedule,

“I’ve got to run,” he says. “Block out time in my calendar for us to talk.” 

At least the banquet is held on the fifth floor of Vox’s tower. Here, his guests enjoy the finest he can offer, from imported booze to five-star cuisine, as they cycle between schmoozing and sizing one another up for a fight. By the time he waltzes in, the social atmosphere is buzzing enough for his arrival to inspire no fanfare.  

Vox snatches a flute of champagne from a passing tray to occupy his hands as he surveys the crowd. Usually, he gives an opening speech to set the tone for the night, and he’s whisked from one conversation to another, but without announcing himself, he’s invisible in a sea of nobodies. He’s nothing.  

His invisibility shatters as a white-furred demon with one black eye—a contracted soul—glides up to Vox and taps their glasses together. “Mr. Vox? I’m a huge fan.” Startled by the squeaking Brooklyn accent, a stark contrast to the pink sweater and heart-stamped body before him, Vox doesn’t respond in time to stop the demon from excitedly shaking his hand. “The fantasies I’ve had about that desk of yours-” 

“And you would be?” Vox interrupts, subtly wiping his palm on his coat when it’s released. He has to play nice; this is a fan, after all. 

Grinning toothily, the demon places his lower set of hands on his hips and frames his face with the upper. “Angel Dust, at your service. I'm Valentino's plus-one.” Angel blows Vox a kiss, then cozies up against his side. “But we’re not exclusive or anything. Not a lotta folks compare to Val, but I bet a stud like you can.” 

“Charming,” Vox drawls. He remembers approving Valentino’s invitation: he owns several clubs and their affiliated brothels, as well as the bodies he fills them with. There’s no doubt in Vox’s mind that Angel is one of Valentino’s whores, sent to butter him up. If he had no standards, it might’ve worked. “Where’s your boss now?” 

Angel’s eyes crinkle at the edges, indiscernible between pleased and distraught. “I’ll introduce you. C’mon, handsome.”  

One of his right hands finds Vox’s waist to guide him through the crowd. At first, Vox thinks it’s part of the flirtation, but when Angel stumbles four times in under a minute, he realizes it’s for support. Ugh. If Valentino’s employee is shitfaced less than an hour into a public event, Vox has low expectations.   

They find Valentino on the balcony, smoking a long cigarette as he flirts with one of Vox’s servers. The overlord is tall, even sprawled out over a wire chair, with four toned arms, two feathery antennae, glittering red eyes, and mile long legs. For several long, humiliating seconds, Vox can’t drag his eyes off the crease of Valentino’s hip, shamelessly displayed by the high slit of his gown, and Vox’s fans spin faster to compensate for the images flashing through his imagination. Only the red smoke streaming from Val’s smirk breaks his flawless image.

“Mr. Vox, this is Valentino.” 

“Please, just Val,” Valentino corrects, cadence slow and smooth like honey. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to tonight; Angie and I love your work. Do you have a few minutes to sit and chat?” 

Vox slides into the seat opposite Valentino and takes a deep breath to collect himself. Saccharine scarlet smoke filtered through his fans still tastes sweeter than maraschino cherries on his tongue as he crosses his legs at the ankle. “Absolutely.” 

“Good. I was afraid you’d be too busy for me.” 

Humility doesn’t fit Val, but his honeyed tone smooths the dissonance almost beyond notice. There’s a performer here, wrapped in fishnet tights and glowing under the gentle golden gleam of the city beyond; Vox understands, for the first time in his afterlife, the appeal of signing over his sou with no pitch necessary. His imagination suffices.  

“Not tonight,” Vox assures. “I’m here to get to know you, your work, your business model-” he ignores Angel’s giggle, “-and find out whether we’d make a good team.” 

Val turns to blow smoke directly into Angel’s face and pat him on the head. “I brought my Angel Dust in case you wanted to sample the merchandise.” Without waiting for Vox’s response, Angel sinks down in the narrow space between Vox and Val’s knees, and turns his sultry gaze toward his boss. Valentino’s orders are the only ones that matter. “He headlines all my clubs, one each night of the week.” None of Vox’s underlings are that dedicated. “Or, if he’s not to your liking, I can call one of my girls?” 

“I’m not interested in your, ahem, dancers, Val.” 

“Right. My mistake,” Valentino hums. He flicks the toe of his boot into Angel’s ribs, sending him scuttering away from Vox’s personal space after the second rejection. “You’re old fashioned, Voxxy, I can respect that. I’ve got something for everyone though, you know.” 

The pet name should make Vox’s skin crawl, too diminutive and familiar for their first conversation, but all he can think about is how pretty it sounds in Val’s voice. “I’m familiar with your brand. Voxtek does your security cameras, as I recall, but we don’t have an official partnership on the books; was that your decision or mine?” 

“I was a small outfit at the time,” Val says by way of explanation, “but those cameras are what helped me grow.” He leans forward and whispers, “I’ve got an idea that could make us both richer than fucking Lucifer.” 

Judging by the pearls elegantly strung around Valentino’s throat and collarbone, he’s as rich as Vox already, if not more so. His power ought to feel more threatening than intoxicating. Perhaps he’s the answer. Val’s allure, beyond the souls he commands, could make for a formidable addition to the network’s cast. It would buy Vox time, if nothing else. 

“Tell me about this idea of yours.” 

“Now, I know your brand is squeaky clean, but we are in Hell.” 

“I try to reach as broad an audience as possible,” Vox defends. The less offensive, the more palatable, his content, the greater his viewership will be- a simple truth of television. “I’m the default, babe. Every television in this city comes with my channels included.” 

Val nods slowly. “Yes, I understand, but do you want to know how I bought six new clubs in the last month?” 

When Vox approved the invite list, he only owned three in total. His first thought is that Valentino has somehow contracted the previous owners and taken their businesses as spoils, but that wouldn’t be interesting; it wouldn’t warrant a question dangled like bait in front of Vox’s face.  

“By all means,” he says.  

“Hmm.” Val considers him, eyes narrowed as he ashes his cigarette over the balcony railing. “Promise your head won’t explode?” 

“I promise,” Vox answers, trying to place why he doesn’t find Valentino near as frustrating as he should, despite a more salacious demeanor than Angel Dust and a smile like he wants to eat Vox alive.   

Leaning in, Val glances to each side as if to ensure their conversation remains private. One of his antennae bends to brush Vox’s and stiffens with the static charge, but no pain distorts his expression. “Ever since you introduced playback to your cameras, I’ve been selling the tapes to my Johns. They’ll pay as much for the video as they do for ass.” 

Vox recoils. “You’re making porn.” 

“I’m making films.” His discomfort spurs Valentino on. “Imagine how much money we’d make with a real studio, your nice cameras, a couple billboards... sex sells, amor, and we could sell a lot.” 

When he tries to think about it, Vox pictures the feedback he’d get. Killjoy would resign the second he brings Valentino in, and half the girls in hair and makeup would follow her. Audience letters would pile to the ceilings in the mail room with complaints as his televisions are smashed and discarded in the streets. Alastor would eviscerate him. To attach himself to Valentino could take apart everything he’s built in a matter of days. 

“I’m just saying,” Val sing-songs, “you might be fucking celibate, but most of us need to get our rocks off somehow. If we mass-market my films, we can sell them at a lower price to the poor souls who can’t afford to touch.” 

“It’s still porn.” 

“What’s the big deal? You’ve never picked up a filthy magazine?” On his next drag, Valentino blows the smoke directly at Vox, clouding over his visual sensors before his fans absorb it and flood his mind with the sweet vapor’s taste again. “Follow the money.” 

Angel stumbles back inside for another drink, but in the seconds the door is open, a wave of warmth and noise from the banquet brings Vox back to his senses. As Val knows, it’s about the money, but he doesn’t realize how temperamental an audience the size of Vox’s can be when he fails to meet their standards. Clean is good; clean is marketable. Furrowed brows and subtle flinches follow Angel’s path through the party like an omen of the mess Valentino would make of the company, given a chance.  

“I’ll throw some funds at your project,” Vox concedes, “as long as you keep my name out of it. You can have better cameras for a twenty percent cut. Make it thirty, and I’ll give you mics and lights, too.” 

Val’s inviting grin sharpens, claws of one hand gouging the table as he clings to the flirtatious persona he arrived with. “You must be an idiot. Or you think I am.” 

“You can take or leave my offer, Valentino.” Vox’s head spins when he stands, despite only drinking half of his champagne, and he grips the back of his chair for balance lest he fall over the balcony with Val’s smoke. “Enjoy the rest of the banquet.” 

Slowly, Vox makes his way back inside without incident, and evades Angel’s sight line until he finds a new guest to evaluate. He peruses the crowd, shaking hands and making unmemorable pleasantries with those who don’t need any more persuasion than the night of luxury he’s provided. Their offers will roll into his inbox like the morning paper tomorrow. Really, the guests filled with excitement or ennui are the ones who need his attention the most, Valentino being the former; Vox finds the latter in an overlord spread out on his couch as she mutters complaints to a black-eyed frog demon. Target acquired. 

After straightening his tie, Vox sidles up to her and perches on the arm of the couch with a deep enough lean to brush her shiny pink hair. “Hello,” he coos. “Love the dress, darling, the red brings out your eye.” When she looks up at him, unimpressed, he holds out his hand. “I’m Vox.” 

“I know who you are, alright.” Her clipped accent is more irritating than Angel’s, and she doesn’t shake his hand, but he recognizes her name when she introduces herself as “Cherri Bomb.” 

“The seductress with the best explosives in Pentagram City—other than Carmilla’s, of course—what an honor to have you here.” When a quick once-over shows her glass to be empty, Vox snaps his fingers at the nearest server. “Can I get you anything?” 

“Does your fancy bar serve tequila?” 

The server scurries off without needing to be told. “While we wait for your drink, talk to me: tell me your story. What brought you here?” 

“Free food and booze,” she answers immediately, as though the answer has been on the tip of her tongue since he approached her, and rolls her eyes at Vox’s subsequent forced laugh. “Honestly didn’t think we’d talk. You seem a little... put together, compared to my kinda fun.” 

“So I keep hearing.” He spares a second to remember how Valentino had phrased it, with more affectionate condescension than open disdain, though it should irritate him as much. She isn’t entirely dissimilar to Val; both have made their names in sex, in being so irresistible that they collect souls in exchange for their touch, in leaving their property bruised by bite marks and their enemies blown to bits. Cherri, however, rotates through her boyfriends with little fanfare, discarding them aside from the occasional booty-call once another pursuit distracts her. As for those who betray her, threaten her harem, or provide any vaguely reasonable excuse, she decimates them with her namesake. Whether they work together or not, Vox gets the sense he would prefer to remain in her good graces. 

“What you should know about VoxTek, my dear Cherri, it’s that everyone loves us, and sinners don’t know how to love something without wanting to destroy it. Our security is great, but I like to stay on the cutting edge of innovation. Your talent with improvised weaponry interests me.” 

Right on time, the server arrives with a crystal glass of tequila, top shelf, for her. As she takes the first decadent sip, Vox delivers his offer.  

“Imagine what you could do with my resources,” he tells her. Cherri looks at him over her drink, which she’s not savoring so much as sipping between sighs, with her single eyebrow asymmetrically raised. He brightens his screen and allows the slightest swirl to creep into his magnified left eye. “You could have all the tequila you want, for starters. Trust me.” 

For a split second, he has her. She lowers the glass, mouth agape and pupil slowly spinning, but it clears the moment he stops speaking, and she punches his arm. “Don’t ever fucking try that with me again, you smarmy cunt,” she snaps as he fights to maintain his balance and keep the pain off his screen. He must fail, because she smirks triumphantly before adding, “I’m not working with a bitch like you.” 

Vox might kill her for that if they weren’t at a public event. He tucks the fantasy away as a background process, immaterial to his current goal of shoring up the company until he has an idea, to focus on the benefits of a business partner courageous enough to punch him on his own turf.  

“Surely there’s something you want?” he plies, rubbing the sting from his arm.  “Name your price.” 

After shooting the rest of her drink, Cherri nods toward the balcony. “You’ve met Val?” 

Vox cannot resist turning to look. Through the narrow windows, he can see one of Valentino’s hands gesticulating wildly, the shimmery brim of his hat, and a segment of his right calf. It’s simultaneously too much and not enough. When he looks to Cherri again, the excited sparks of his antennae reflecting from her eye, she huffs.  

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The sharp tone of her voice has Vox ordering another drink for them both. She drums her fingers against the outside of her glass impatiently as he does, but allows him to finish before continuing. “Listen. The only thing I want that I can’t get myself with enough elbow grease is his contract with Angel Dust.” 

“Huh.” If Vox considers Angel from an aesthetic viewpoint, he sees the appeal; in reality, the mere thought of intimacy with such a used soul makes him want to break out in hives. “Did Val steal him from you, or…?” he asks, disguising his curiosity under a blase tone.  

This time, he sees the blow coming, and dodges Cherri’s fist. “It’s not like that, dickhead. Angie’s my friend, and Val...” she hesitates for the first time. Vox stays silent, waiting for her to continue rather than upsetting the vulnerability he’s finally coaxed from her. “Valentino has the worst fucking vibes I’ve ever seen. I may not know for sure what goes on behind closed doors, but I have a pretty good idea. So.” When she goes for another sip of tequila and remembers her glass is empty, she tosses it onto the cushion next to her and fishes a tiny baggie of white powder from her cleavage. “If you want me to work with you, or whatever, that’s my condition.” 

“I can’t interfere in another Overlord’s affairs,” Vox hedges, watching her pour a jagged line on the back of her hand and snort it, “but if you were an associate of mine, I could put in a good word on your behalf. Maybe redirect Val’s temper to spare your friend?” He has a crisp salesman’s smile in place when she finishes her line. 

She laughs dryly. “Good luck trying to tell him what to do.”  

“Well then.” He stands smoothly, reaching for the server whose arrival he hadn’t noticed until his hand bumped their tray to get his fresh champagne. “If you’d like to talk realistic terms, darling, have your people contact mine.” 

He wins a scowl from her before leaving her side, a small victory, but once he’s sure she can no longer see him, he sighs and scrubs a hand down his screen. Two pitches into the night, and Vox has nothing to show for it besides a low-level buzz. Given how long it’s been since he made progress in any aspect of the business, the fear that he’s losing his touch grumbles through his gut. Time marches on without Hell on Earth, bringing new technology and slang and ideas, and no matter how well he understands the basic principles of entertainment, he finds himself floundering to keep up with the demands of the recently dead. How Alastor maintains such a strong audience without any variety to his programming, Vox will never know.  

Still, the banquet has hours to go, and he has countless other guests to speak with. He strikes a deal with a snuff photographer to join his magazine department, hires an assorted handful of overlords for additional security, contracts a puppy-like actress newly dead and still mourning her celebrity, and nurses his way through what likely amounts to an entire bottle of champagne over the course of the evening. Other small, petty conversations fill the gaps between his victories. Little by little, his guests filter out, until Vox’s underlings begin to rouse the over-intoxicated demons scattered across the room. 

Cherri Bomb is long gone, but when Vox takes inventory of the hall, he catches sight of Angel, surreptitiously sneaking a bottle of wine under his arm as he returns to the balcony. Vox shouldn’t be surprised Val and his pet haven’t left, but the idea that Valentino is waiting to speak to him again makes his heart skip in an otherwise inexplicable way. Picking his way over the trash and general mess left behind by the banquet, he runs his hands down his clothes to smooth away as many wrinkles as possible; his job for the night isn’t over yet.  

He steps onto the balcony with a megawatt grin. “Val! Glad you’re still here. Did you have time to think about my offer?” 

Over the course of the evening, what Vox assumed to be a red cloak has unfolded into a beautiful set of wings, spread behind Valentino like a velvety curtain. His immediate desire to touch them is so strong that his hand twitches at his side before he reigns himself in and meets Val’s bright gaze.  

“I did,” Val says. He takes a leisurely drag of his cigarette, and reaches to take the wine from Angel as smoke trails from his lips. “Run home now, Angel-baby; Daddy has some business to attend to.” 

Angel casts Vox a sidelong glance. “But-” 

“Angel.” The single hissed word drips with deadly sweetness. “I’ll be there before you know it.” 

“Yeah, I uh, I’m sorry, Val.” As he speaks, Angel backs away from Valentino, reaching for the door with his upper hands, hugging himself with the lower; Cherri was right that Vox doesn’t need to see behind closed doors to know this song and dance like the back of his hand. His parents, his colleagues, his marriage, half of Hell, have lived out the cliche, and while Vox has moved beyond the need for such unsophisticated techniques, there’s an old-fashioned charm to Valentino’s brusque methodology. 

Now that Angel is gone, Vox realizes how much space Val takes up, whether he means to or not. Those lanky limbs occupy half the terrace in his sprawl, his wings cut off the area behind him, and his smoke carpets the ground in a thick layer. With one of Val’s feet propped up on the chair opposite him, Vox’s only option to sit is on the table, precariously close to the deep vee of Valentino’s neckline.  

“Sorry about him,” Val says dismissively, flicking one of his wrists toward the window, “I let his leash get too loose tonight.” 

Despite Val’s apparent hope, Vox hasn’t forgotten whose idea it was for Angel to come onto him. It was a stab in the dark. He can respect making a move, but the assumption he would sink so low still stings. “Hey, no problem. I know how contracts are.” He hops onto the table, gripping its edge when it wobbles as if it would help, should his seat tip. “Doesn’t help when he’s so fucked up, he can’t walk a straight line.” 

“His talents don’t require much walking.”  Val bites the cork off his wine bottle and spits it to the floor. Before drinking, his wily tongue cleans spillage from the neck with practiced ease, and his unbroken eye contact suggests the skill is useful in more situations than this.  

“I have an image to maintain,” Vox insists. When Val offers him the wine, he figures another drink won’t hurt. Sickly sweet remnants of Valentino’s spit coat the lip of the bottle like syrup, as rich in color as the smoke and impossible not to swallow, tingling down his throat and into his stomach. He passes the bottle back. “My days are long enough without cleaning up after your sluts.” 

“You wouldn’t have to. We can hire people for that, once my films make us filthy rich.” 

Valentino has a point there, but Vox can’t get past the idea; he kept his public persona clean in life and has done the same in death, with enough success to never want for material goods. His pursuit for more power, more fame, more money, just more, has yet to lead him astray, but this feels like the last line left uncrossed and Vox is surprisingly hesitant to traverse it.  

“Bottom line here, you’ve heard my offer. I’m not risking everything I’ve built on your word alone. Get me some real evidence a studio would succeed, and I’ll think about it,” he decides. The next time Val offers the wine, Vox barely notices the sultry taste when it burns the whole way down like a stronger liquor. “As we are,” he adds, “I think my terms are more than generous.” 

After drinking, he wipes his screen on the back of his hand and comes away sappy with Valentino’s drool. Lighter in color than blood but less reflective, it reminds him of the slick oil running through his own veins, and when he looks to Val again, more drips from the corner of his mouth in wildly alluring twin trails.  

“You’re thinking too big, baby,” Val simpers, reeling Vox in with a loose curl of two fingers. “God doesn’t care what you do in Hell. I’m sure you’ve done worse than bankroll a little filth, no?” 

Worse is subjective, but Vox doubts Val can be convinced as such. “It’s about ratings-” 

“Ratings? Your ratings will go through the roof if you-” 

“Val!” Vox snaps. As he closes the last couple inches between them, his screen flashes to full brightness and the hypnotic swirl of his eye reflects back in Valentino’s glassy gaze, shutting down the argument in its tracks. “Do not fucking interrupt me.” 

“Oh, Voxxy, I’m sorry,” he purrs, entirely unapologetic, “I just want you to see things my way.” The inch of hazy air between them is charged with Vox’s static and Val’s smoke in equal measure, already claustrophobic before Valentino raises his wings around them and takes the end of Vox’s tie in one hand, his waist in another, and his substances in the final two. “Can I make it up to you somehow?” He strokes the fine silk between two gloved fingers, angling the tie in a way that both tugs Vox's neck and turns his mirror-finished tie clip the same brilliant red as the sky.  

The moment Vox tries to stand, his legs nearly fold under him, and he has no choice but to throw an arm around Val’s shoulders for balance. “You don’t have anything I want,” he insists, despite the way his heart sings at the feel of lean muscle beneath downy purple fur. “Doesn’t matter how popular you think it'd be; I know my audience. Do you want my help or not?” 

“I want a partnership.” Their bodies are already so entangled that when Valentino draws him closer, his pearl necklaces press into Vox’s chest through his suit, on the verge of uncomfortable as they dig bruises in between his body and Val’s. “We could rule Hell, you know. The only demographic you haven’t cornered is mine, and all I need is your reach.” 

“My ex-wife already tried that pitch,” Vox grumbles, “and dying didn’t get me out of alimony.” 

 Val raises his cigarette again, nearly burning Vox’s suit on its smoldering end. “Who, Katie? If you’re worried about her, you shouldn’t be; she’s a regular already. Convincing her will be,” he takes a drag of his cigarette, “honestly, easier than you.” 

“Uh-huh.” The next wave of smoke makes Vox’s head spin. He notices too late it’s affecting him, but he needs a deal to buy him time, Val seems unrushed, and he has no reason to fear the overlord before him. Besides- he wants to know what Katie Killjoy is doing in a brothel. “And I suppose Lucifer is a customer as well?” 

“I’m not fucking with you--” Val takes the bait, “--she comes in once a week to peg the everloving shit out of my dancers. Puts ‘em out of commission for a day or two. She’s probably pent up from being married to a prude.” 

“I’m not-” Vox starts, then stops to collect himself. “Just because I’m protective of my brand doesn’t mean I never have sex, Valentino.” 

Silently, Val presses the wine into Vox’s free hand. He turns his head to find space to drink, sips from the bottle, realizes they’ve managed half of it between them already, and allows it to dangle loosely at his side. When he doesn’t look back fast enough, Val tugs his tie sharply to regain his attention.  

Vox’s entire world shrinks to Valentino, the rest of the overcrowded city left outside his soft wings and demanding hands, as Vox searches his slowed processors for a coherent thought. No one, nothing, else matters anymore. Val beats him to the punch, growling, “Do you want to prove it, gorgeous?” with the smugness of someone who’s been waiting all night to put their offer on the table, confident it will be accepted.

Well, Vox did figure an orgasm would help him think. As easy as it would be to refuse the obvious bait, he doesn’t want to jeopardize the sparks Val makes him feel, like he’s alive again for the first time since he died. This can be a one night stand; Vox can have Val without compromising his brand with an investment in porn. Maybe letting loose for one night will be enough.

“It won’t get you a studio,” Vox warns, the arm around Valentino’s shoulders retracting enough to trail his hand down Val’s exposed back. “You don’t get shit for this; I don’t fuck hookers.” 

“Whatever you say,” answers Val, and then he kisses him.  

In the decades since death, Vox has only been kissed a handful of times, and still hasn’t gotten the hang of it. His screen doesn’t allow for lips, but Val finds his mouth well enough and seems more interested in feeding Vox his sweet tasting saliva straight from the source than actually making out with him. He allows himself a fraction of a second to miss real kissing. Then Val relieves him of the wine bottle, which allows him to finally touch the tantalizing stretch of Val’s waist and pull his hips closer.  

On their feet like this, closing that distance breaks the kiss and reminds Vox he only comes up to Val’s shoulders. The disparity makes him feel queasy, alone as they are, but he shoves it down in favor of slipping his hand into the slit of Val’s dress and squeezes his bare ass. 

“The wings will cover us enough,” he murmurs, “so long as you can stay quiet.” 

“Worry about yourself.” Val nudges Vox’s coat off his shoulders, pausing to undo his cufflinks, then focuses on unbuckling his belt. His four hands mean he’s everywhere at once, touching in too many places for Vox to keep track of and slowly driving him insane. “You’re a top?” he asks, winding Vox’s tie around his hand like a slowly tightening leash.  

Although Vox manages a laugh, it comes out high and glitched. “I certainly don’t fucking bottom.” 

“I’ll fix that another time,” Val hisses, kissing Vox again to distract him from questioning the response, too overwhelming for him to process anything beyond the touch. Back to seductive, he strokes the side of Vox’s screen, thumbing red drool from its corner and reaching down the waistband of his boxers simultaneously. “How are we doing this?” 

Vox knows the tables and chairs won’t hold them both, nor are they sturdy enough not to tip over while he fucks Valentino. He considers the floor and has a moment of clarity in which he processes that he’s about to have sex on the very public balcony of his tower, on a floor low enough for passersby to see, if any sinners are still on their way out the door. 

“On your back, on the ground,” he decides, “and put out the damn cigarette.” 

“Boo,” Val whines coyly, but still opens his wings to grind it out on the railing. 

He takes two steps back, trailing his fingertips along Vox’s body until he can’t reach anymore in a display that makes Vox feel cold without him. Bastard. But as Val sinks to the floor, the performer in him shines through the slow drop to his knees, followed by a languid lean back. His wings flare out as his legs fall open enough for his obscenely short skirt to ride up his waist. Preening under Vox’s attention, Val cushions his head with one arm and begins to touch himself with his lower two hands. One strokes his cock, half-hard and pink at the tip, while the other disappears behind it and comes back glittering with slick.  

“I don’t do sloppy seconds, either,” Vox says, despite his feet staying rooted to the floor when he means to walk away. 

Val drags one leg up, bending at the knee to give him a better view. “Perk of being a sex demon: I don’t need help getting wet.” 

“Guess that makes it easier.” To buy himself a few extra seconds to gather his bearings, Vox rolls his sleeves up to his elbows and tugs his belt out of place. This, Val, is too easy for his liking, and yet here he is with any reservations relegated to his subconscious processing and an aching desire to fuck Val so hard, he takes the offer Vox made him earlier in the night. “You need anything,” he asks, lowering himself to the unforgiving concrete, “or are you good? Not gonna cry on me or some shit like that?” 

A dreamy chuckle escapes Val as he nudges Vox’s ribs with his knee. “Don’t flatter yourself, baby.” 

“Fuck you,” Vox bites back. “I’m trying to be nice,” 

Val licks his lips and says, “You really don’t have to.” 

When Vox unzips his fly and shucks down his slacks and boxers, the cold night air reminds him where they are, and he pinches the edge of Valentino’s wing between his thumb and forefinger. “Cover, Val,” he reminds dryly, I'm not an exhibitionist.” He lets go in time for Val to envelop them once more, silencing everything besides the two of them. The slightest touch to Val’s soft thighs guides them, up and out of the way for Vox to scoot into position before they wrap around his waist and stiletto heels bite into the small of Vox’s back.  

As soon as Vox gets a hand on himself, the first proper touch he’s had all evening, any remnants of his self-control dissipate with a sharp crackle between his antennae. Val makes a displeased sound and snatches his wrist away. His narrow fingers, still wrapped by gloves and damp with his own juices, give Vox a few perfunctory strokes before guiding him perfectly into place.  

Valentino is soaked for him, practically blooming for Vox’s touch, like they’re the original sinners realizing what their bodies are capable of for the first time. His pants are halfway down his legs, but he doesn’t need more to push into Val. A full body shudder rolls through Valentino’s body, culminating in a squeeze that short-circuits a couple minor connections in Vox’s processor and has him collapsing face-first into Val’s chest. 

“Fucking shit,” Vox hisses. “Do that again, Val.” 

“Give me a reason,” Val chuckles. There are at least two hands on Vox right now, possibly two hundred for how overwhelming he finds them, skimming his frame so thoroughly that he wonders whether Val is making a tactile mental map. “You can get to work anytime, amorcito, I don’t mind.” 

Vox doesn’t have the presence of mind to both retort and move. He chooses the latter. After a shaky inhale to steady himself, he braces himself with his hands on Valentino’s hips, and hopes Val won’t complain before he can bruise the imprint of his palms and discover how deep he has to dig his claws to draw blood. Truthfully, it’s been months since Vox has gotten to fuck something besides his hand, longer still since his last affair with another overlord, but this shouldn’t steal his tongue as it does. He sets a slow, steady rhythm for his own benefit rather than Val’s; his ego couldn’t take a premature finish, and if Val thinks anything of it, he’s kind enough not to criticize. 

Instead, he cups the corner of Vox’s screen in one hand to direct his gaze down at where they’re joined. “See how hard you make me? And how wet?” It's obscene, the way Vox disappears inside him over and over, each thrust spilling Valentino’s pink-tinted fluids between them. “You know, if you weren’t already so big, I’d hire you. No gag reflex, that slutty little waist-” 

“Shut up,” Vox groans, shuffling forward on his knees until he physically can’t get closer to Val, barely thrusting so much as shallowly grinding into him because it feels like anything more would fry his motherboard. “I’m already fucking you, you’re not getting- shit,” his lower stomach brushes against Val’s knuckles on the hand around his dick, and it shouldn’t make Vox stutter, “-you’re not getting anything else from me.” His ability to think, already compromised from the booze and Val’s smoke, is melting faster by the second. “Don’t have to flatter me.” 

Part of him hates how composed Valentino is in comparison, but some long-suppressed corner of Vox’s mind revels in finding someone who can hold it together when he’s unable, despite this entire situation being Val’s fault to begin with. The conflict crosses wires somewhere and turns from frustration to another reason he can’t get away from the decadent oasis that is Valentino spread out beneath him.  

“Would you rather have me degrade you? I can do that, easily,” Val says, “just let me know.” 

“I want you to be fucking quiet,” hisses Vox in return, the swirls in his eye competing with color-blocked interference on his screen. He can have his eyes and ears all over Pentagram City, but evidently, fucking another overlord while trying to hypnotize them is too much of a strain on his intoxicated system, and Valentino only laughs at his attempt. 

“Aww, poor thing,” Val teases, his voice as syrupy sweet as his kisses had been. “You know, this would be easier if you let me take care of you, Voxxy. I promise it’ll be worth it.” 

If Vox could reach Val’s throat, his face, he might have a fighting chance of shutting him up, but the longer Vox kneels between his legs, barely fucking him, the more he realizes that it doesn’t matter how they arrange themselves; Val has the upper hand. This is his specialty. Vox is out of his depth, has been since the moment he sat on the table, but it’s too late to back out now.  

“You are the expert,” he mutters to himself, not quietly enough to escape Val’s notice. 

“Exactly, amorcito, I’m the expert, and you...” Valentino pinches the side of his screen condescendingly, “are extremely repressed. Let Daddy handle it, hmm?” 

“I’m not calling you that.” 

“But you’re going to let me make you feel good?” Val presses. 

Vox knows better than to hand over what little control he still has of the situation, he really does, but something about Val makes it feel like the first time again: he’s out of his depth, virginal in comparison to a man whose job is sex. All the queasy nerves are the same. And here, trapped in Valentino’s grasp, he can practically taste how good it could be if he lets go of the reins. 

“Sure, whatever.” 

“Good.” As Valentino’s grin stretches so wide it splits his face in half, he seizes Vox with all four arms and flips them over effortlessly, tightening around him in a way that fully blues-out Vox’s screen and wrenches a distorted whine through his speakers. “You have security cameras out here, right, baby?” he purrs. Something that ought to be fear twists around Vox’s heart and makes his dick twitch inside Val. “In full color, I bet.” 

“Fucking- obviously,” Vox manages to grit out, struggling to pull words together when Val is over him, on top of him, all around him, like more of a god than he’s ever worshipped, “I have every inch of the tower covered. Why?” 

Val pins him in place with all four arms, bending until their faces are inches apart. “Because tomorrow, when you miss me, you can watch the tape back,” he sighs. Finally, he begins to move with both the leverage and the self-control to properly fuck himself on Vox’s cock. His rhythm is slow but punishing, dropping down hard enough to make a dull smack each time his ass hits Vox’s clothed thighs. “After you jerk off, you can get back to me about my proposal.” 

“So that’s your angle,” Vox accuses, barely able to form the words between the huffs of air punched out of him with every thrust.

Then, Val kisses the rest of Vox’s words from his lips, flooding his tongue with more drool that washes the thought from his mind. He’s sampling the product, as Valentino intended from the beginning, and though he loathes to admit it, Vox can’t recall sex feeling this good in the entirety of his life or death. Realizing it, processing how much better Val is than he could have imagined, makes his hips jerk uselessly under Valentino’s weight.  

He’s lost in the cherry perfume clinging to Val’s skin, utterly pinned like an insect beneath a demon who, earlier in the day, Vox would be recalcitrant to touch beyond formality’s demands. He’s weak. And he knows it, Val knows it, his employees would know it if they opened the balcony door, the world could know it if they’re not careful- it would be too easy for Vox’s pristine reputation to disintegrate. The stink of the streets is only four floors down and Val could cast him out with a snap of his fingers.  

“It’s a shame you won’t bottom, you know,” Val chatters on after breaking the kiss, indifferent to his effect on Vox. “I’d ruin every other cock for you, like how right now, I’m making sure no other pussy will ever compare.” 

His taste still lingers on Vox’s teeth when he asks, “D’you need to talk to get off? Is that it?” He tests the strength of Val’s hold, finding it absolute. “Full of yourself, huh, Val?” 

“Full of you.” The correction comes with a circle of Val’s hips, squealing feedback from his system and a humiliating urgency to the need building within him. “If you want to touch, all you have to do is ask, and-” Val licks his teeth, “I don’t care if you’re gentle.” 

“Fuck off,” Vox says, automatic like the electricity sparkling between his antenna, his heart pounding like he’s done a kilo of cocaine. “You wanted to do the work, fine. Do it.” He won’t beg.  

One of Val’s hands abandons Vox’s waist for his dick, curling around it picture-perfect, angled so Vox can imagine the beauty of a foreshortened camera shot. Between the marigold lights and their bounce off Val’s carmine wings, his cock is a work of art, and the corner of Vox’s mind that’s always thinking of business sees the marketability in an adonis like Valentino, especially when his slender, practiced fingers coax a pearly bead of precum from its rosy tip. He snaps a screenshot of the sight.  

“So, you like being held down. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” 

Val sets a rhythm that rocks him between his own hand and Vox’s dick, in turn causing him to almost pulse around Vox in a pattern better than any high-tech toy or two-buck slut, and the sticky mess between them begins to cling to his dress ruinously. He must know how stunning he looks, how intoxicating he feels, when he seems more smug than surprised by the continued stream of garbled, static sounds Vox hardly recognizes as his own.  He’d give anything for this feeling to never end—though he knows it will any minute—and for a single, sick, second, he imagines this to be how Valentino ensnares the souls under his command.  

“Are you going to come for me, baby?” Val asks, as if it’s written on Vox’s screen. “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to last.”  

“I’m-” Vox’s protest dies before he speaks it, every wire crossed and capacitor sparking with the overwhelming combination of input. His soul is Valentino’s for the minute it takes him to orgasm. Everything is Val. His hands. His thighs. His tongue. His wings. His cock. His pussy. It’s all him, and Vox cannot fathom a more infinite bliss than filling him up with useless, compulsive thrusts that make Val gasp more than once. 

“That looked fun,” drawls Val, still riding with steady rocks of his hips despite the way it tips Vox past his peak, “but I’m not finished. Be good for Daddy a little longer, ‘kay?” 

Valentino seems aware that Vox is too fucked out to argue, perhaps prefers it, and doesn’t pause for a response before guiding one of Vox’s slack hands to his dick and grinding against it. The light above them shatters with the intensity of Vox’s overstimulation. His entire system devotes itself to differentiating pain and pleasure but still cannot make sense of it.  

“Almost there, amor, you’re perfect.” Val clenches so tightly around Vox that he bluescreens again, his muscles seizing with a zap of electricity that Val must feel, judging by the hiccoughed moan that rumbles from his throat and the subtle frizz of his short fur. “Fuck, we’re going to have fun together.” 

When Val finishes, his cum is the palest shade of rosy pink, exaggeratedly plentiful as it splashes up Vox’s shirt, neck, and screen. Vox doesn’t have the wherewithal to be upset, be anything besides overwhelmed, until Val gracefully stands and smiles down at him. Ten feet feels like a hundred; Vox is an ant, about to be crushed under Val’s shiny patent heels, and he can’t find it in himself to get out of the way. 

“Enjoy the tape, Vox. Call me.” 

Just like that, he’s gone, inside on his way back to street level, leaving Vox a mess on the floor with his fly down and his mind scattered. He solves the first problem immediately, then searches the walls for the telltale glint of a camera lens. It has to be somewhere. There are at least four on this balcony, and if Vox had half a mind, he wouldn’t need to hunt for them at all. By the time he figures it out, what he’s just done is beginning to sink in like a bad high.  

Disappearing into the circuits to reform in his command center saps the rest of Vox’s energy. He falls into his chair like a doll with its strings cut. The cool air refreshes his overheated systems even as it feels frigid to the warm ghosts of Valentino’s hands all over him. A hard reboot would shake the jitters, but he can’t leave footage of himself and Val in the archives for a moment longer than strictly necessary. There’s still work to be done. 

He pages the good assistant—Stanford—and prays that they haven’t gone home for the night yet. Vox doesn’t make the schedules himself anymore, nor does he care to keep track of the shifts so long as he has someone around the clock. They arrive in a record 96 seconds, out of breath but alert, eyes wide and focused on Vox like he’s the center of their universe.  

“You needed me, Mr. Vox?” they say, slowly lowering their clipboard when they realize how haphazardly he occupies his chair. “Are you- is everything okay?” 

“Fucking dandy, my dear. Listen, I’ve got a couple errands for you to run, discreetly if you can manage it.” 

They open their mouth as if to argue, but think the better of it when Vox raises an eyebrow at them. He tries not to imagine how he must look, a disaster with a few pesky errors still affecting his screen every so often and spit-stains all over his button-down from Val’s careless tongue. 

Vox lifts his index finger and begins, “First, I want the footage from the security cameras on the fifth floor. Every fucking one. Inside, outside, every corner of every room. Got that?” He pauses for Stanford to jot this down, nodding vigorously, before raising a second finger. “Then, get me a change of clothes, a pot of coffee, and a brick of cocaine, in no particular order.” Without stimulants he won’t be able to trudge through the tapes. 

“Yes sir, right away,” Stanford agrees, finishing the to-do list with a flourish of their ballpoint pen.  

Once they disappear, Vox folds his arms atop his desk and rests his screen on them. He’s woozy, sleepy, too fucked up to worry about much beyond making sure no one ever sees the recording of him and Val. It was stupid to sleep with him and Vox will hate himself for it in the morning, he knows, but he can’t find it in himself to regret his moment of weakness yet.  

He distracts himself with a rerun on one of the many screens at his terminal: a sitcom, the first he produced himself, still airing overnight to profit off its small but dedicated fanbase. Color television was new to Hell then, though the novelty had begun to wear off on Earth, and it shows in the garish shades Vox cringes at as much as the choppy writing. Nonetheless, it sucks him in with its simplicity for an episode and a half before his doors swish open with Stanford’s return. 

“Your coffee,” they place a full, steaming pot on his desk, alongside his favorite ‘Fuck Alastor’ mug, “and your coke.” As Vox pours his coffee, they unfold a pair of sweatpants and a striped tee shirt from the crook of their arm. “I brought you something comfortable, since it’s late; I’ll come back with a suit before breakfast.” The back of their hand brushes his arm as they reach into their pocket for a VCR tape. “And here’s today’s CCTV from the fifth floor. Is that everything?” 

Vox takes the tape. Its hard plastic digs into his fingertips and he realizes how easy it would be to simply destroy it. This is the only copy, and if he never watches it, he could pretend the whole evening never happened. Nothing has to change.  

“I want your opinion on something as a loyal VoxTek customer.”  From the corner of Vox’s vision, Stanford shifts their weight and glances back at the door. “No right or wrong answer here, don’t worry.” When they step back, Vox reels his trademark smile onto his face. He doesn’t know if he has the energy to force an answer. “Do you like our current image?” 

“I- uh, definitely, it- it’s perfect, Mr. Vox, I love it-” 

He sighs. “Yeah, I get that. Is it important, do you think, that we keep our broadcasts clean?” 

While they mull his question over, Vox ducks under his desk to find the VCR slot. The faint glow of his screen barely lights the way, but he finds it quickly enough to avoid making a fool of himself- not that his assistant would dare to comment.  

“I’m thinking about expanding our portfolio,” he explains as he returns to his chair. “Maybe a new channel, so it doesn’t interrupt regular programming.” Instead of clearing his mind, the caffeine just burns Valentino's imprint deeper into his servers; Vox needs to see him again, more than he needs air, and a partnership would guarantee it. “Any thoughts? Or is that too complicated for you?” 

Stanford pushes their glasses up their nose. “Our viewers are loyal, sir, and... I think they’d give anything a chance, if you made it. I know I would.” 

They toe the line between flattery and honesty well, enough of a tremor in their voice that Vox can almost taste their fear of having the wrong opinion. Life on earth was similarly filled with sycophants, but if he surrounds himself with yes-men, he’ll never have a wall to bounce the shitty ideas off of. In the back of his mind, he wonders whether Val would be honest: if he would send Vox back to the drawing board, or if he’d prop him up through the failures. Relying on someone could be nice.

Then Vox remembers he’s thinking about Val, the moth demon dripping aphrodisiacs from his lips as he spins promises equal parts invigorating and appalling, and he has to consciously remind himself not to make this into more than it is. He can align his business with Valentino, for profit alone, but it doesn’t mean he will ever experience Val’s manipulative, magnificent touch again.  

“Well, off you go,” Vox chirps, spinning his chair to the side. “Remember to clear space for us to talk, and oh-” he waits for the click of Stanford’s pen, “Get an appointment with that club owner, Valentino, on the books next week.” 

“Yes, Mr. Vox. Have a good night!” 

He listens to Stanford’s feet patter away and waits for his door to clang shut before he pulls the CCTV footage up on his screens, scattering the dozens of feeds so that he can see each grainy black and white image. He scans through them, from the hallways to the conference rooms to the bars, until he finds the three cameras from the balcony Val spent the evening on. From there, Vox jumps into the machinery long enough to wind the tapes faster, spinning through useless hours of setup and chitchat until the image displays him, balanced on the table, his shark-toothed grin not enough to mask how thoroughly Val ensnared him. He knows that once he watches, he won’t have it in himself to refuse Valentino’s proposition. This, more so than allowing Val to touch him in the first place, is the line Vox can never uncross.