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Vox had never considered himself a fan of any form of pity.
For starters, he found those who tended to dwell on their own self pity quite annoying. He honestly couldn’t understand how anyone could bear to be around someone so pathetic.
On the other hand, pitying others he, again, found rather infuriating. He never was someone to pity anyone. If you’re dumb enough to get yourself into some deep shit, you better find a way to either claw your way back out yourself, or live with the consequences. That’s life.
Though, he was almost certain he despised others pitying him the most. He was a fucking overlord for one and rich and powerful for another. An independent, intuitive, and slick businessman. He didn’t need, nor did he ever come close to wanting pity.
And Vox could never help but internally roll his electrical eyes when Valentino stomped around like a child, practically writhing in all three.
It always started the same, he’d run around, screaming as he ranted to no one listening about all of the problems his poor self had gone through that day. He’d practically demand Vox’s pity and sympathy for whatever situation it was, which Vox would reluctantly give through fake words and false expressions. Then he would always say he “pitied” whoever’s life he was going to apparently ruin for them ruining his day first.
It was the same thing every time. And almost always the same reason he was even throwing a tantrum to boot.
Honestly, Vox didn’t know how he lived with it at this point.
So, when Vox was in the middle of answering a work email, and had a text from Velvette come through on his screen saying “something something take care of the asshole now”, Vox had almost been certain he knew exactly what was in store for him for the next few hours.
He let out an exasperated sigh.
“Just- one week. One. Fucking. Week. Without a tantrum I have to quell, that’s all I want from Val at this point.”
He mumbled under his breath in annoyance as he sent the current email he was working on and stood from where he was seated behind his desk. He grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair, slipping his right arm in, then his left. He took a moment adjusting the lapels before flawlessly slipping his way into the systems as he’d done many times before, and slipping out just as easily into the hallway outside of Valentino’s room.
He didn’t acknowledge the door being held open for him, or the demons that did so, only taking a minuscule glance at the empty hallway behind him as he entered out of habit. The two, large, twin doors shut near silently behind him, though the silence was quickly broken by the sound of glass shattering echoing through the room, followed by a string of “Fuck!”s with a few other words thrown in between.
“Fucking took you long enough! Can’t you just fucking show up when I need you for once!”
He let out an annoyed groan followed by a few drowned out squeaks, before grabbing something off the table, another glass Vox was pretty sure, and throwing it in Vox’s direction. He barely had to move to avoid it, and didn’t flinch when it came close to making contact.
“Was one of your whores late again?”
Vox questioned mindlessly, his arms resting behind his back as he pretended to look interested.
“God fucking dammit Vox! Just shut up for one second! I’m not in the mood! You won’t fucking believe what that slut did! And after that shit he pulled in the bar?! He’s fucking dead!”
Val picked up a wine glass, making a motion as if he was going to throw it but breaking it in his grip before he could, which only set him off more. In retaliation to this event, he grabbed the edge of the table he was standing next to, and flipped it with an angry yell, the loud clattering of heels as he started pacing following soon after.
Vox couldn’t help but internally groan. While he’d certainly prefer Val take his anger out on the furniture, the weekly, near daily, temper tantrums were getting expensive.
“He thinks he’s just so fucking great, doesn’t he?! ‘Oh I live with the Princess of Hell~!’ No one gives a fuck!”
He dug through a drawer for a moment before he pulled out one of his pistols. Not one of his prized ones. This one was far more simple and, thankfully, far less expensive to replace for when Val almost inevitably broke it. He started shooting at a vase on a side table, which he missed multiple times before simply kicking down the entire piece of furniture.
“So Angel’s on a high horse, huh? That’s new…”
Vox said, bitterly muttering the last few words under his breath.
“If he didn’t make us so much fucking money he would’ve been dead his first week!”
Val spat before throwing the pistol in his hand towards a large Tv stationed by the sofa, which it happened to practically shatter upon impact. Vox couldn’t help but fidget slightly behind his back, his claws hitting together with a light clicking noise, barely audible over the tantrum happening in front of him. Unfortunately, that was probably the universe’s cue for him to start his attempt to diffuse the taller overlord’s anger.
“So you knock him down a few pegs then. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
He commented, taking a few short steps closer to the seething sinner.
“Oh, yeah, everything is just so fucking easy for you, huh?! You have no fucking clue!”
Attempted and failed. Vox clenched his teeth together as he held back a sigh, turning around a bit to look at the damage behind him as Val continued his seemingly endless ranting. God dammit, this was truly getting to be annoyingly expensive. It’s not like he didn’t have the money for it, of course not. He had plenty of money. Even so, constantly having to fix not only Val’s room, but Velvette’s studio, Val’s own studio, and not to mention all the furniture and tech replacements was really starting to piss him off. Maybe he’d invest in making Val a rage room. Then again, with his luck, that’ll be the only room that goes untouched-
“ARE YOU EVEN FUCKING LISTENING?!”
Vox sighed quietly before starting to turn back so he was fully facing the other.
“Yes Val I’m-“
His sentence was cut off by a sharp pain shooting through his entire body, along with the loud sounds of glass shattering, the sizzling of electricity, and a ringing in his nonexistent ears. He let out a loud noise of pain, though it came out with a glitched filter and just sounded like he was screaming in static. He almost immediately fell back against the wall, harshly landing on the floor as he tried to regain himself, though the pain was overwhelming and the way his vision cut in and out wasn’t helping. Valentino was still screaming in the background, but Vox couldn’t make out any words over the deafening pounding he felt in his monitor, along with the glitching sounds of his system attempting to comprehend the damage and function through it.
He moved a shaking hand to the side of his screen the spider web-like cracks originated from, and looked around the room wearily. The blurry figure that he came to the conclusion was Val seemed to be walking near him, or maybe he had already stopped walking and was just standing a bit closer, he couldn’t tell. Though, he did notice some kind of broken item on the ground near him, one Val had clearly thrown. He’d just been too lost in his thoughts to notice the object before it was seemingly too late.
“VOX!”
The all too familiar sound cut through his thoughts and the overbearing feeling of pain like a steak knife, in the sense that it wasn’t clean or smooth, but more ragged and violent. Not to mention that his hearing was cutting in and out slightly. Val grabbed Vox by his lapels, seemingly attempting to pull him up to his feet, though he didn’t stay standing long before Val, rather carelessly, shoved him down into a nearby chair.
The moth began talking again, though Vox took the moment to try and assess the damage. Running his claws carefully against his screen only rewarded him with the knowledge that his screen was cracked. No fucking shit. Though, as he scanned through his systems, nothing internal seemed to have been damaged, which was just a fucking mirical at this point.
Vox wasn’t entirely sure how long he’d been sitting there, but it was long enough for him to be able to process the words Val was scolding him with.
“-I mean honestly- the one time you don’t move out of the fucking way! You are such a fucking moron! Now we have to waste our hard earned fucking money on you, Vox! Just great! Y’know what, just fucking tear yourself apart while you’re at it! That money could’ve gone to something actually useful! Like better shit for my films! But no! You just have to be so fucking selfish that you don’t even pay attention to the world around you! It’s so fucking pitiful sometimes! How you can’t focus on the simplest conversation! And-“
Val slowly started to die out into background noise once again. Vox sat still, clenching his fists in a manner so his claws dug into his palms rather harshly. Pitiful? Pathetic? Val had no clue what he was talking about.
“UGHH! I’m gonna go fucking kill something! You better be gone when I get back!”
Vox didn’t have the energy or the chance to respond before Val marched out the doors, slamming them loudly behind himself. Vox took the moment of silence to finally breathe. It was shaky, and a bit labored, but a breath nonetheless. Or, at the very least an attempt at one.
Though, he didn’t waste too much time with Valentino’s warning. He forced himself to his feet, holding onto the chair for support before messily lurching into the electrical currents of the building. He eventually fell back out into his room, losing his balance and landing on the floor with a weak thumping sound. Not exactly where he was going for, but it would certainly work. Besides, he didn’t need to run the risk of company in this state.
He knew what he should do. He should get up, brush this whole thing that had happened many times before, usually with a worse outcome, off, and call in an order for his screen to be replaced. Simple.
So he didn’t understand why he couldn’t move from where he sat on the floor.
His vision had cleared, for the most part at least, and he could tell how badly he was shaking. This was stupid. He was being stupid. Val’s words were just that: words. They didn’t mean shit.
But they also meant fucking everything.
Words were everything, and he knew that. He knew that words spoke the horrid truth no one wanted to hear. Of course he knew that. He practically owned the internet. He looked through comments every single day. Some mattered, some didn’t.
He didn’t want to admit to himself which category he knew Val’s words fell under for him.
The worst part was, he didn’t even have the energy to think of ways Val was wrong about his allegations.
Vox should’ve been paying attention. It was his fault he got hit. He knows what Valentino is like. He was pathetic. Deep down he knew that. He hated it. That didn’t stop it from being true.
The room was beginning to become much too hot for his liking. He swiftly stood, leaning against the wall for support as he shed his coat onto the floor and clumsily rolled up the sleeves of his undershirt. He put his hands against the wall behind him to hold himself up, but claw marks just followed him down to the floor as he sank downwards again.
He took a few rapid and labored breaths, his breathing almost going at the same high speeds his heart had begun beating, before reaching up and ripping off his bow tie before unbuttoning his collar. It was too hot. Too stuffy. There was too much pain, too many thoughts, it was all just too much. He grabbed his head tightly, pressing harshly against his already pounding screen, but he didn’t care. He had to stop this. It was all too much, the silence was too loud, and the noises he could hear were near deafening.
He wanted to cry. To violently sob all of his emotions out into a pile of tears that would get lost in his carpet and never seen again.
One of the perks and weaknesses of having a Tv for a head was the lack of an ability to do so.
He just needed something, anything to hold onto. A feeling, a sensation, just something that wasn’t completely and entirely overwhelming, a new sound, fucking anything.
But it never came. It never came and he sat there, panicking on the floor. He couldn’t handle this- he should be able to handle this! Val really was right: he was fucking useless. Pathetic. Pitiful. And those thoughts weren’t exactly helping his current state.
He pressed into his screen hard, apparently too hard, because a sudden snapping sound and a jolt of pain shooting through his already tender screen made him freeze where he sat. A shard of glass about the size of one of his claws broke off and into his shaking palm. As much as it fucking hurt like hell, it was something to hold onto. Something to grasp at. He clenched the glass tightly, clinging to the feeling of it slicing into his hand like a life line. Rather ironic.
It didn’t take him long after he had the ability to think again to come to the realization that even this. Right here. Wallowing in his thoughts and Val’s words was pathetic. He was pathetic. And Val had been spot on with the comment about them being able to use the money for something better. Something valuable.
He knew he didn’t exactly in fit with those two words
“Y’know what, just fucking tear yourself apart while you’re at it!”
The words echoed through him like a mantra. His eyes shot down to his already heavily bleeding palms from when he was sitting back in the chair and now the added slashes from the sharp glass. It’s what Val wanted. Val wanted him to hurt. So if he hurt, he had a sense of purpose, a sense of worth. He couldn’t pitiy him if he had worth. No one could. He had to have worth.
He clenched his fists again, digging into the skin. But that wasn’t enough. He knew that wasn’t enough. His right hand made its way to his opposite arm, and he dug his claws deep into the flesh, scraping at it violently. Blood coated his claws and dripped onto the floor. Occasionally he hit a wire that would spark in retaliation. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. And at this point he didn’t even think he wanted to stop.
He was on autopilot. He’d done this so many times before it was just natural at this point. Dig his claws in, pull at the skin. Dig his claws in, pull at that skin. Dig then pull, then dig, then pull, over and over and over and over until he couldn’t even feel his arm and he barely had the mental energy to think or move.
But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t just break one part of him. No…no he really had to break himself. He grabbed the jagged piece of glass off the floor, clumsily but forcefully shoving the sharpest piece into his other arm, letting out a glitched noise of pain but not stopping.
It’s not like there was that much meat on his mechanical bones, and it wasn’t hard to stab through the skin and yank on it to make a new gash. A new cut, one for everything that was wrong with him. Everything he’d done wrong. Every mistake he’d made.
Though, he knew if he really did that, he’d end up killing himself from the blood loss.
While it wasn’t an idea he was exactly opposed to, nor was it a thought he had never acted on, if he killed himself right now, all of his progress, all of his work, would be gone once he came back. The cuts and gashes would vanish. But he couldn’t have that. He needed them. He needed them to prove to himself that he had a sense of worth.
He used the glass to practically carve into his skin like a rock. Like an artist making a mark on the page. And like an artist, once he got going, it was hard to stop.
It was so simple. If he just broke himself, it was impossible for anyone else to do it for him. He was in control. And he was choosing to do what he was told.
He. Had. Worth.
Purpose.
Even if it was barely any.
And as he somehow managed to weakly pull his hands away from his arms, both now coated in blood and littered with deep, violent gashes, he felt a sickening feeling in his chest that he couldn’t quite place. But he knew he’d done what Val asked. He knew that he had at least a small bit of relevance in his life. He knew Val couldn’t pity him anymore. And this was proof. It would forever be proof that, at some point, he’d done what Val told him on his own accord. And if he’d done something that Val wanted once, he could do it again, therefore, Val had some means to keep him.
And that was all he needed right now.