divinetree | Charlie & Vox

She giggled, a little. "Pretty good, right? One of our guests suggested we have almond milk and it's pretty darn tasty! I like mine with a little caramel drizzle in the coffee too, it's like a morning dessert!"

She's holding onto that plate - she'll help out if she can, you hear!!

It distracted him enough to not argue any further on having help. Instead he made a note to get a little almond milk in the fridge back home once he--...

...

He checked his inbox again. Nothing.

Vox sighed inwardly as he adjusted the coat rack, and started his journey back.

"...I remember milk alternatives being chalkier before, but that one was... fine. I was fucking with you, by the way: I usually take my coffee black. But caffeine is caffeine, at the end of the day."

"Oh. Well. I offered to help, so I helped," Charlie admitted with a shrug. "I go through phases with coffee and tea... sometimes I want it without anything in there, but lately I really like coffee with a bit of the caramel creamer and some honey."

She'll lead the way to the elevator again, going at a considerate pace so she didn't leave him behind. Definitely if he was worried about guests getting rough with their frustrations... hopefully she could keep everyone in agreement to use their words, not their fists...!

"Color me shocked," He muttered, and once they got into the elevator, he leaned rather heavily upon the rack to get a breather. The sweat was dotty pixels on his screen.

"You're the 'medium in a large cup for extra whipped cream'. You can be honest. I drink gas station coffee unironically."

"Ooooh, those are really good too!! Especially with sprinkles! But you can't have something like that with a croissant or other pastry... then you don't appreciate how nice the pastry is!"

She laughs, a little.

"My go-to at a gas station is always gonna be a slushie, though."

He spluttered an unexpected laugh in his amusement. "Well, I mean, yeah! The slushies are the best damned bits of a convenience store! ...If their cola flavor is ever available, that is. It's always 'out of order' when I swing in..."

He sighed wistfully. "...Fuck, I'd tear up a cheese danish right about now..."

"I LOVE the cherry flavor one! Sooometimes I get the energy drink slush, buuuut Vaggi always told me I get a little much when I drink a whole one of those," she laughed.

Still, in the privacy of the elevator again, she gave Vox a playful little nudge of her elbow.

"You knoooow... I beeeeeet that once people worked through their feelings a little and got to talk to you like this, you could really get on the right track to making more friends!"

He wanted to note that if she wanted to have a hummingbird's heart, that was her prerogative, but the nudge had him quiet.

He straightened up immediately, adjusting his grip on the rack and avoiding eye contact. Even draped with the blanket, he tried his best to assume the crisp professionalism he always fought to convey.

"You can bet all you like, princess, but the other Vees will be along in another day or so tops. Everything in the tower is probably crumbling right now as I speak and they'll have the limo loaded up by lunch! I go back to my life, and you go back to one where you... won't..."

Pardon him: He was checking his inbox again, and found it empty. Maybe a voicemail would work? But when his display noted he was calling Velvette, it didn't even ring once. Instead, he got an array of middle finger emojis and the message BLOCKED.

Vox huffed, moved up the contact list. Valentino, then! Silly him, he shouldn't have tried to call Vel when--

BLOCKED.

He cleared his throat. "Er- ...where you won't need to worry about all of this...!"

Ah hah, well... Charlie gave his arm a sympathetic pat.

"Well... just in case they need a bit more time to work through their feelings too, right?"

An eyelid twitched.

This has happened before.
This has happened before.
This isn't going to be different.
The blocking is new, though...

"They need me. They better work through their feelings quick if they don't want the fucking tower to burn down."

He gripped the rack tighter. His claws could delve into the wood, but not with this model's claws. Instead they made thin scratches.

"...I swear to god, if my sharks are starving..."

...Hmmmm... maybe she'll just... slip over there and double check on the sharks, if anything?

"How many sharks do you have? What're their diets?"

He sighed quietly.

"...Three. But my mako and hammerhead are handled by staff handpicked who have them on a set diet. It's Shok.wav I'm worried most about... my biggest eater, my biggest guy, and he's prone to getting lonely."

"Yeah... you were telling me about Shok.wav before! Do you have staff that focus on his diet, too? Or is that something you were doing yourself?"

He always seemed to soften up a bit, talking about his pets. Charlie could relate to that, at least!

"Shok.wav is different. While my other two have basic implants to allow me to track their health and provide some levels of surveillance in the building, Shoks is an entirely unique project gifted to me by Baxter. There are no others like him."

He fidgeted with the blanket hood, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. "So I chose to monitor his diet and growth personally, to ensure he developed safely and effectively. As you've seen, he's been thriving under my care, and we developed a fairly tight bond. Valentino will try to feed him all sorts of garbage and have him too heavy to swim properly- it's a talk we had a lot- and my bigger worry is he'll finally be fed something his digestive system can't handle as well as anticipated and risk impaction."

Vox frowned. "I've tried since I first woke up in that fucking basket to remotely connect to him, but they changed the pattern of his... encryption..."

He fell silent. This was need-to-know information, but his worry was bleeding in.

"...Anyway. Clearly, this is part of getting back at me, but I wish they'd keep him out of it. He's just a baby."

"Ohh! So that's the kind of thing Baxter was working on at your company! That's really cool!"

And seemed right up the guy's alley, too. Aww. And now he was making performing roaches for Niffty - Baxter's a pretty sweet mad scientist, isn't he?

"He's a huuuuuge baby, really toothy, but he seems great."

That's it - she is definitely going out today to see if she can't convince the Vees to let her bring Shok.wav to the Hotel. Maybe even flex her princess authority...?? And check on Angel, if she can... if that doesn't make it worse, augh, fuck...

Kind of an eccentric kitten, really. He had to wonder what he saw in the hotel that drove him to stay and participate in the sabotage.

If he found out it was because his quarters were arranged to his extremely anal specifications, Vox was going to be pissed.

"...You know you don't have to agree to everything someone tells you, right...? I know what I like, and I know it's not for everyone." Check out Miss People Pleaser over here. He made a note to see if he can't get her into a rant about something she can't stand that pisses her off. He liked the red eyes and horns. The flowy hair was a sight, too... just like her mother.

A beat. "...But Shokky is great. Better than anyone's dog."

He took a breath once they reached the correct floor. One more trek. If this was his normal upper body, he could handle this no problem. But the prototype had fewer layers of muscle structure and an insufficient cooling system. With the blanket, he felt almost too hot. But he needed to push through.

"I'm not lying! It reminds me of some of the pets from our family friends' house - like the jumbo eel! Here, here--"

Charlie balanced the breakfast plate on one hand, pulling out her phone to start flipping through her photo gallery. After a bit of scrolling to find all of the scans of portraits that she downloaded, stepping out of the elevator before holding it out in front of Vox for him to see. There was an old, only somewhat grainy photo of a much younger Charlie cuddling a creature with far too many teeth and eyes.

"This was the eel that the von Eldritch family had - his name was Winzig! Shokky reminds me of him a lot!"

Edited 2026-03-03 18:28 (UTC)

He peered at the photo and his eyebrows shot up. That's... a big fuckin' eel.

"The von Eldritches?? How the fuck do you know-- wait, no, stupid question."

Oof, nope, out of steam. He stopped to catch his breath.

"...God, this- fucking useless body--"

Gah... Charlie winced at him getting frustrated with his infirmity. Yeah... waiting until he had proper legs seemed like the right thing to do... please finish those soon, dad....

To lighten the mood, Charlie leaned in and whispered, "Don't tell anyone else I said this, but Hellsa von Eldricht? HYUUUUUUGE bitch! She's been a bitch even since we were kids!!"

Dad's working on it!! It's- it's two legs, right?

As Vox was rallying himself, he found himself... surprised. After coming to the defense of Angel Dust and her little 'guess what fuckerrrr', Blondie here seemed to be losing her candy coating a little bit. He thought facing off against Adam was the one-and-done thing.

Good.

But to call someone an outright bitch? O-ho.

"Pft... yeah, she gives brat energy. The articles about her bent over backwards to cover that up, huh...?" Distraction. Good. ...And okayokayFINE he also enjoys some hot tea, alright?

Yeah!!! She can tell, she picked up on that real quick-- so she leaned in conspiratorily, whisper-shouting.

"You know how there's always that one mean girl bully in school? Like, any level of school - Hellsa has always been that bitch. Like!! I know that bullies are usually overcompensating for their own feelings of inferiority or loneliness but come ooooon, do you have to like making people feel like shit that much?? And so WHAT if I'm nice to your brother, what's your PROBLEM?? Just!!! Unfuck your mean head and stop being the WORST!"

He had to bite his lip a bit to suppress SO much.

"...You... you feel better?" Did he had a bully in school? Man, who didn't? But he could scarcely remember their face or name. There were bigger fish to fry for him, and there were skinnier, weaker-looking kids to pick on over the Whittman boy.

"I dunno, it just feels like that was building for a while."

"Ugggh... I don't really think about her that much, but remembering Winzig and all the time I spent at their place, ugh... neither of my parents really took anything I said that serious, we all graduated high school and didn't really see each other past college, so..."

Vague so-so gesture!! "I don't know why she got even more bitchy when I was dating Sev, that was the worst part..."

Sev... Sev, Sev... Seviathan, right? The son.

"More fuel for the fire, I guess? Maybe--" He paused to give a short wheeze of a laugh, then nudged her with an elbow.

"--Maybe she was into you...!"

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