divinetree | Charlie & Vox

"They... kind of... are??..." A momentary honesty in the wake of the swirling 'what the fuck' in his head. But once free of it, any fatigue he may have had was far from his mind.

The basket had an arm, something akin to a torso, another arm... but one leg folded up right down in there. They didn't seem to suit, clearly, made for another model entirely. Other than that, there was absolutely nothing else. Who knows where his other belongings are?

Right. He'd forgotten Baxter had filed a request to work from here that he accepted. It was a makeshift backup plan, some means of if- in some wild coincidence- that redemption worked, then he could spin it. But now that they knew, now that ALL of Hell knew...

Well. Baxter would have no shortage of data, huh? ...Goody for him...

"Yeah, yeah, Princess. ...I'd ask what the wifi password is, but your security's kind of a joke and I already worked it out. Are you sure Baxter is still here? You'd think he'd beef up a firewall or something by now... unless he's slacking off on you. He always did like to hyperfixate."

"I... don't really know how the wifi stuff works," Charlie admitted a bit sheepishly. Cyber security was... well, it seemed really impressive! She uh. Just didn't really study it. "...You think I should ask him to make our wifi more, uh, safe?"

"Clearly," he added dryly. This was the one Heaven fucking believed in?? Had to be a mountain of nepotism. But... that idiot Pentious was actually up there.

"He should do it no problem. He was one of my best at VoxTek. ...Before his little stunt at my rally, anyway. He's obviously fired, so do whatever you want with him."

"He really did great," Charlie concurred, getting out her phone and typing up some bullet points she wanted to go over for their Deal later. "He's really smart, and really curious...! He and Niffty have been getting along super well - gosh, the whole roach circus thing is really coming together, too," she laughed a little. Like a flea circus, but a little more... uh... unhinged!

"I think this'll be maybe... a good chance for you to see people on the same level, for a while. Get to know them, and stuff."

Yeah, Alastor's little bug chick would be his flavor... He grumbled, but offered nothing further so far as Baxter was concerned. Good riddance, even if he did make Shok.wav.

...Shokky... even here, he couldn't establish a signal, make the connection. He'd need time to figure out what credentials were changed to refuse his connection. He was smarter than the idiots he hired for cybersecurity. They couldn't keep him from his babies forever. He'll kill them. He'll eat their fucking hearts.

What would happen to his sharks in the meantime, though? Valentino didn't know what to feed them, or even knew their tummy rub schedule. They'd get hungry. They'd get lonely. And Shok.wav, he'd...

A wire snapped in him, and he looked through Charlie as she spoke. His eyes widened and the smile grew tight.

"Oh yeah! What a great idea! Hey- line 'em up and get 'em in here! Put down some tarp while you're at it for the mess! Do you hear yourself, Blondie?? I mean, FUCK-"

He looked around the room now, his next laugh thin.

"You put me in the same building as Alastor, who I'd be shocked didn't know I'm here by now and is probably waiting for you to leave the room!!"

"He is not allowed to hurt the guests or fight with them or anything like that," Charlie rebuffed, grip tightening on the phone. The way that... Vox's expression that day was...

"You are NOT killing us over that stupid deer!!"

There was definitely some... history, something she didn't have context for. Something that probably... was going to be huge to unpack, if Vox ever bothered trying.

"So I won't let him. He won't hurt you, just like you won't hurt anyone else here. As long as you're a guest in our Hotel, I'll make sure of it."

"Then you're the idiot that so many in Hell still think you are!" He laughed, falling back against the pillows, eyes unfocused.

"You- you don't know a fucking THING about him, do you?? I mean, of course you don't! He doesn't tell anyone shit! There are things he even kept from ME! Hahahah...!!"

He fought to breathe. "Whatever held him back doesn't any more! He used me to do it! He's using you now more than ever! He's playing a game none of us poor bastards can comprehend, and nobody has the means to stop him! Not even your old man! I just--"

He wheezed in laughter. "You've got the universe's biggest fox in your henhouse!!"

Looking up from her phone, Charlie furrowed her brows - what was Vox talking about...? "What... held him back? Huh?"

The concept that Alastor was using them... that wasn't a foreign thought. It popped up, now and then. But this was the first she'd heard of something 'holding Alastor back'...? What did that mean?

"...Used you... I guess... maybe that's why he cashed his favor in that day for that. I thought he was just being a huge jerk for some weird reason? Or-- wanted you to touch my shoulders or something, I don't know," idly, she pushed her hair out of her face. "...He always said he was here to watch people stumble and fail to redeem themselves, and it was just for fun. So we kind of already knew he was being shady and weird, but..."

Over a year of him being around, actually helping with the Hotel (even if he dragged his feet more often than not), giving passing advice, fighting by their side...

"...I'll stop him. I won't let him hurt anyone here."

"Fuck if I know! He said I helped him cut something holding him back after you booked it off stage. He wouldn't admit to anything like that unless he can fuel a good ol' gloat. Please, I've known him forever. I could write a fucking book."

But he rolled his eyes at the insistence that she'd stop him. Mmkay. Whatever. We'll see if he survives the night, let alone the week, with the creepy Prince of the Forest skulking around the building.

"Either way, if you don't want a fucking riot, maybe hold off on the whole... 'getting me to see others here on their level' thing. People are famously stupid: Even the worst news gets buried under something else that grabs the public's attention in less then three weeks tops."

"I don't think you're really ready for that either, anyway... you're still pretty hurt."

Physically and mentally. Gosh... she'll make sure Alastor doesn't mess with him. Maybe Valentino will actually come back, maybe Vox will get well enough to leave on his own, but... until anything like that, Charlie was going to make sure to treat him like he actually was going to try and redeem.

"You guys seem to have... a lot of history. He even made Vaggi make a Deal with him so he never had to do anything with television stuff again, once the commercial was made..."

"Of course he did," he hissed under his breath. "Don't know why, since the asshole purposefully scrambles up film anyway."

He huffed, and looked away. "A 'lot of history' is putting it lightly. But what does it matter...?"

Vox gave a little hop, managed to catch one of the pillows with his teeth, and wrench a little. It plopped over his face. But that's what he wanted anyway.

"What do you care?"

"Well... it... seems like something that you care a lot about," Charlie ventured, setting her phone down to pick up a couple other lighter pillows, building up a little pillow fort over him. Since... that's what he seemed like he was trying to do.

"You were really, really hurt, right...? It didn't really look like... hurt pride over losing, when you were pointing the cannon at him. At us."

"I don't," he replied quickly. But at the pillow fort grew, lit inside by what parts of his screen wasn't covered by a pillow, offering a soft blue against the drab and red, he made no effort to fight the gesture.

He'd turned his lights off, and was asleep in his office under his desk when Valentino had grabbed him, dumped him in the basket. He'd found comfort just being by the glow of his shark tank, watching them swim.

It'd been hours, but he already missed them. If Val was serious or just... forgot, the brat... he'd probably never see them again.

"I wasn't hurt." That's weak.

"...I was angry."

"But... why were you that angry? Even now, you're not even close to that angry about me, or getting kicked out by Valentino, or... anyone else. So it's different," she looked at the disparate parts, how they looked... just as discarded as the rest of Vox. Valentino had put him at her doorstep and not a dumpster, at least, but... wouldn't this have been embarrassing?

"Alastor is... not a very nice person. And he doesn't make a lot of sense. But it sounds like you were closer to him than most people."

Leave it to Valentino to be an expert on humiliation.

For a while, Vox said nothing. He was frustrated and angry with Charlie for her stupid plan working, and he was furious with Valentino for kicking him out and probably being serious about it this time. He'd never ACTED on it before.

But... this was different. This was bitterness. Hurt, wounded bitterness.

"Yeah. Well. I thought I was, too." He'd said it so quietly, it could almost be missed.

Then he sighed. Felt uncomfortable.

"...Look, thanks for being a bleeding heart and not putting me in a fuckin' dumpster or something, but... ...that's enough. Leave me alone."

...Thanks?

That surprised her almost as much as the muffled, nearly-inaudible comment about being close that she nearly missed. He thanked her?

...

"Well... sorry, but I need to make sure you promise. And make that Deal. You... hurt a lot of people, really badly. So I need to make sure."

So for now, she's going to make a writeup. That ought to work well enough... he can verbally consent, and that ought to be just fine.

"Then I'll go talk to Alastor and make sure he knows that I won't stand for him hurting you while you're a guest."

The sigh was long and loud.

"...What do you want me to even do? You either fondle me or, what, make me super duper promise not to nuke the place or something? Lady-- LOOK AT ME. What the fuck can I even DO right now??"

Edited 2026-02-01 22:02 (UTC)

"Hold your hellhorses...!" Charlie chided, giving the top pillow a THWAP.

But it was still a pillow, so it didn't do anything to him.

"I'm coming up with a written agreement you can verbally consent to and... I dunno, I'll have you hold a pen in your mouth or something. And I didn't fondle you, eww, don't say it like that! I thought I was shaking a bunny ear or something..."

The thwap earned a sputter as he got a mouthful of pillow. When your face was 80% mouth, there wasn't much else of a place for it to go, you know...?

He spat. ...Well, damn it, he COULD hold a pen in his mouth. Really, he'd prefer just having hands again, you stingy ASS--

"A bunny ear. I've got my whole shark thing going, and your first thought is 'rabbit'? That's defamation! And you DID fondle!"

He wiggled out from under the pillow and made his smarmiest little grin. Fine. He can just be a weaponized annoyance. She doesn't do well under pressure, but what of teasing?? "You... man-handled me, Princess. Dear god- Was it the black suit...?"

"Wha-- hey! No, no-- you are not gonna paint me as some kind of creep, okay?? I didn't bring up any of your weird things you did!" Charlie insisted, picking up one of the tiny pillows and playfully swatting at the screen, no force whatsoever behind it. "I don't appreciate that, mister!! And they aren't really that sharky, in my defense, they're all... bouncy and springy and they have the cute little baubles on the ends, so something cute like a bunny or a ladybug was what I thought!!"

The swat netted a brief tone of the Emergency Broadcast System, but he was back to laughing. Now THAT was interesting, like her flare-up on the roof when her little Danny Do-Bad (seriously, the fuck??) skit went awry.

"My cute little baubles help me navigate the airwaves with a fierce and powerful efficiency! ...And my body is sharkier: I have- well, had- gills and I was working on a tail with fins!"

A sigh, and his eyes closed. "...It would have been amazing."

...You know, despite herself, she gives him a little laugh as she returned to typing up bullet points.

"Sharks are your favorite animal, huh... were they your favorite on Earth, too?" she asked, kind of amused. "I think they can be pretty neat, I gotta admit! I got to pet a nurse shark when I visited Heaven. She was really cute."

"Hah! Bullshit! Those fuddy-duddies up top would sooner shit themselves than go anywhere NEAR a shark. ...But I guess if they were to pick a particular type, nurse sharks aren't the worst ones to pick. Cat sharks, definitely."

He stuck out his tongue in focus, moved an antennae, and created a small hologram before flicking it out to grow into a sizable screen. Upon it was some sort of television montage of swimming beasties.

"And uh, yeah?? I'm the reason Shark Week exists! Sure, I died about eighty years ago, but they finally realized the idea just works and throw it on TV every summer for almost 40 years now! Some treat it like a religious event, and to that I say you're welcome."

"They did!! She was in the tank with the horseshoe crabs, a few rays, one of the octopuses... octopi... octo... uh. Yeah!" Charlie laughed. "That zoo was incredible!! I got to see all the fuzzy and cool earth animals - even the ones that were predators on earth were cozy and happy and safe. The courtroom sucked, but the petting zoo? Ah. mazing."

Charlie laughed in delight at the memory. Heaven was a lot, but who could really be angry at animals?

"Oh! I bet you were excited to run the special on Greed and Envy's sharks too. And the shark hellborn!"

"'Octopuses'. The linguists bitched and we lost 'pi'," he noted before he could stop himself, but rolled his eyes nevertheless. Heaven has petting zoos, because of course they did. He remembered seeing a fucking ball pit in one of the video feeds. They really do just treat them like children up there, huh...?

But she seemed to be thrilled about it. Guess it was nice to get out of Hell for a while for her. Must be nice.

"Three specials originally. Three hours in length each. Got some complaints, so I had to whittle it down for runtime... fucking killjoys."

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