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Day 13: Activities-Spa | Theme Park | Tour
It wasn't often they got to relax. They were busy, and while being Overlords came with a lot of perks, it actually did also come with a lot of work. It could be exhausting, and there was never any shortage of people trying to kill them, to overthrow them, to take advantage of what they'd made. There was very little time to relax, to just…be…and when they could do it, they took the oppertunity gleefully.
This time, it was a park. Not for the first time, Vox was bemused by how young Val and Vel seemed when they were alowed to be; they were racing ahead of him like kids, already forgetting that they were Vees, and powerful media overlords. Well, racing was a small exaggeration. Val didn't run unless you didn't give him a choice, and Velvette prefered to ride on him instead of walking. So they were sort of…fast strutting ahead of him.
But still, their ages showed in the way they chattered happily, Val teasing Velvette about something and her puffed up like an offended cat, practically hissing at him to knock it off without even pretending to try and dismount from his shoulder where she was perched like a queen.
A park wasn't their usual fair. Typically it would be a spa, or someplace with rides, or a club, but not a single one of them had been able to resist the signs touting a small zoo and an aquarium inside the park grounds. Curiosity had made the choice for them. Zoos were for winners. Parks were for winners.
But here they were, and it was…sort of nice, actually? It was surprisingly peaceful, surprisingly green- or what passed for green in Hell- and the sky above them was huge, big enough to make you feel like you might just tip up and fall in. There were benches every few feet, and a place for hellborne kids to play, not that many ever came into Pentagram city. Most Hellborne kept their families very far away from the zoo that was the Sinner part of Pride, and, honestly, he didn't blame them. He'd stay the fuck out of Pentagram City, too, if he'd had a choice.
As such, it was damn near deserted, and, to his great surprise, he saw Valentino and Velvette making a beeline for the swings and honestly huge climbing tower just a few feet away.
"What the fuck are you both doing?"
"Oh come on, Vox, like you're gonna stand there and say you don't miss this shit." Velvette plonked her ass down with a surprising lack of concern for who might have sat where she was currently sitting; the swing was damn near too tall for her to get into without help. "No one around but us chickens."
She wasn't wrong. There was no one within eyesight, and, when he closed his eyes and then opened his eyes, in his mind, he could see only a handful of Sinners a few miles deeper along the trails, their silhoutes fuzzy and hard to make out from where he was rushing a part of himself along the powerlines above them.
When he came back fully to his own body, Val had Velvette's swing in both hands and was lauching her forward so hard that Vox was pretty sure she was going to actually flip over the top bar. Her wooping shrieks of laughter peeled out into the chilly air, and only got louder when he got his wings involved, great gusts of wind that sent wood chips scattering in mini-hurricanes around their feet.
Fitting. They were exactly that- hurricanes. They'd swept into his life and uprooted everything he thought to be factual, understandable, and true; they'd never behaved like they were supposed to, left him dizzy and out of breath and overwhelmed.
He tucked his hands in his pockets, meandered over to where the oversized climbing tower was and rested a hand gently on it.
They'd pulled him up. They held him up. Even when he'd nearly torn everything apart, they'd come back and stayed. After Alastor the first time, when he'd fallen into a deep, dark well, when he'd let himself be vulnerable, take a chance, and had his soft underbelly shredded, Val had grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out of his own head. They had refused to accept business partners. They had refused to let him.
There are no friends in Hell, Vincent.
Except Val was spinning Velvette, now, on some kind of flat swing, and she was holding on for dear life and cursing every ancestor he'd ever had, and his ruff and wings were messed up and ruffled and his glasses slipping a little from his nose, and they were both grinning ear to ear and the warmth in his chest and stomach had nothing to do with the internal heaters he had kicking on against the Sinsmassy air.
He let out a puff of breath. "Fuck it." And turned, putting another hand on the plastic 'rocks' of the climbing tower.
And he started upward.
The thing was big- not kid big, big big, and slippery; his shoes weren't meant for it, and his grip wasn't the most secure anymore, so he was careful, steady, breath making tiny white puffs from mouth and gills as he hauled himself up, up, up.
This is what he'd always done. Climbed. Pulled himself up hell or high water. Done what he needed to do. But his muscles burned on this one, his fans louder then usual with his heavy breaths, and he kept almost losing his grip- and he was aware, distantly, that he could hear Val, laughing, calling, go, papi, woo! with sheer delight from underneath him. He laughed to himself. That was new. Someone cheering him on was new. The burn and pull and stretch of muscles was new- or at least, newly remembered.
He finally breeched the top of the tower, and-
-stopped.
He could see forever. The city, all the way to the edges. The faint glimmer of the sheild that kept Sinners inside. Lights, twinkling far, far away. Above him, a sky so wide and so huge that for a minute he was back on earth- for a minute it was blue instead of red, deep and ocean-dark until he blinked and reality reasserted itself. The wind whispered past him, whistling softly, and he had never felt so fucking peaceful. Or- it had been a very long time. He opened his eyes and looked up again, and Heaven was-
-so fucking close.
It was so close, it had been so close, almost in his grasp- nearly his, nearly theirs, so so damn close, and he reached a hand up, as if he could snatch back when he'd nearly had in his grasp, as if he could simply pluck it from the sky. They wouldn't have held a thing against him if he'd made it. If he'd won. And he'd come so fucking close to winning. To having everything. To showing everyone. To giving them it all.
"-ox! Holy shit ain't you freezin' up there?"
Velvette's voice was like a chain jerking him back into reality. Not cold and harsh but warm, solid around his neck, grounding. An anchor. He lowered his hand and his eyes, and there they were, way down below him- but neither of them seemed upset by it. They were smiling up at him, and Val cocked a hip, arching an eyebrow.
"Want me to warm you up, amorcito? Get back down here!"
"You come up!" The words slipped out without his permission, and they felt weighted somehow, like he'd just said something important without really understanding why. Like he'd made a good choice, the right choice, without even knowing there'd been one in the first place. "Use those things on your back, Val."
"Hey! I use them!" Val pouted, arms folded over his chest, but Velvette didn't miss a beat or wait for him to decide he'd thrown his diva fit; he watched her dart towards the climbing wall, starting up after him with mostly swift, sure motions. She climbs much faster then he did, and Vox watches as Val spreads his huge, beautiful wings, gives them a powerful beat once, twice. He wasn't actually fantastic at flying; he could manage, but he generally prefered to glide, and couldn't get very high most of the time. The climbing tower was within his range, though, and the pair ended up beside him at roughly the same time.
"Wow." It was Velvette, soft and almost awed, staring out at the horizon beside him. Val's big wings lifted, drapped over the pair of them like warm, heavy blankets, and Vox was smothered in his scent; sweet, honeyed, a little musky. Velvette linked her arm through his, and he found, just for this one moment, he didn't care about Heaven, or how close or far away it was. He was, just for now, content, wrapped up in the warmth of the pair of them. He leaned back into Val's chest, closed his eyes, and let himself feel that for a minute. Val's heart always beat so fast, and he listened to it, to the steady inhale-exhale of his breathing, the occasional long, slow sigh.
"Okay, before you two start fuckin', I'm cold. Goin' back down." Velvette's voice broke the spell. "Besides, there's more shit to see, right? Interesting shit, not just a stupid horizon." She turned and started back down, half climbing, half jumping.
"You know you want a show, babyyyy-" Val called down after him, and tightened his grip on Vox, lowering his head to Vox's shoulder. "You good, papi?"
"Fine. I'm…fine." He was, hilariously. Better then he'd been in a while. Thoughtful, but good. Aching, but good. There was still something jagged and raw in him where Alastor's claws dug in, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to see, but it was easier with Val's warmth, pressing against him and keeping the coldness of the old wound at bay. He wondered, somewhere in the back of his mind, if it would ever heal. It had been…better, in the seven years Alastor had been gone. Like it had begun to scar over. It had gone from a ripping wound to an aching old thing, distant and ignorable, only to begin to weep and bleed again when Alastor had returned.
He wondered if he was able to get better.
"You sure, Voxxy?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm perfect." He shot Val a playful grin, and after a minute of surprise, Val returned it with something soft and surprisingly pensive. The kiss was surprisingly soft, too, surprisingly chaste and tender.
"You are not, you mess." Val teased, and before Vox could say anything back, he lightly jumped off the tower, landing softly below, wings parachuting him to the ground. He looked back up at Vox, his grin wide and inviting and warm, and with a laugh, he climbed down, too, joining them back on solid ground.
"Didn't I see aquarium?" Velvette cooed, bouncing her eyebrows at her boys. Vox felt himself light up, excitment making his fans whirr, and Val rolled his eyes. "You are such a fucking nerd." But they'd already turned towards it, Velvette chuckling to herself as she reached out, looped an arm around Val's waist and tugged the three of them closer together, snapping a group selfie.
They listened tolerantly as he towed them towards the aquarium, which boasted a shark tunnel (!!!) and when he got them in there, watching them stare in genuine wonder at the huge, ancient creatures swimming around and over them, the ripple of light on water reflected in their eyes, the way their hands pressed to the glass as if they could reach through and touch curious puffer fish and massive eels-
- for a while, anyway, solid ground was as good as Heaven.