Work Text:
This place wasn't for anyone else.
Down below the tower, under ground, there was a place only a select few people even knew about, and even fewer were allowed to see or access. It was dark, and huge, and the servers and towers and monitors in there made it so hot it was damn near hard to breathe. If you were very quiet down there, if you listened very hard and knew what you were listening for, you might catch what sounded like the breathing of a great beast, a huge, slow heartbeat.
This was Vox. This was the server room. This was his core.
No one but Velvette and Val had ever been allowed down here. Through one door to the left was a diagnostics and repair room; it held a comfortable enough bed, an array of equipment, and, on shelves, various tools for opening Vox's chassis, for making repairs and upgrades. There was a workbench in one corner, blood and oil staining the metal in places, and on the wall above the bed, a huge monitor. There was also, hidden in there, an array of Voxes- other bodies, other chassis, tucked neatly out of sight. It was just a little too unsettling to have his own bodies hung up where they were obvious. He already had to deal with having existential crisis-es every time he thought about himself too hard.
And on the right, there was a curved section of wall, set back out of sight, filled with Shok.wav's tank. It was deep; Shok's tank ran the length and breadth of the tower, and he could swim to any part of it at any time without ever leaving if he wanted to. But here, it finally ended, the concrete floor mostly barren but a few toys scattered here and there for play. There were smaller sharks in there- a couple even taken from earth with great effort- but this was mostly for Shok.
The alcove was…complex. Not just a recess in the wall with a tank built in, like with the rest of the tower, but taking up most of the space down here, with an upper and lower level. The lower level had an almost beach-like quality to it; you opened the door and entered water up to your ankles, and it deepened as you walked, until the ground vanished below you like so much smoke and you were plunged into the luke warm, nearly hot crystal-clear water. On either side of the walk-up there were looming machines, each with multi-jointed limbs, the water lapping gently at their bases. Designed for it, of course, it didn't cause them any harm.
Then there was the upper level, which is where Vox was staring now. It was at ceiling height, almost so a good five or six feet up; a long steel runway with tables set to each side, covered in bits and bobs, carefully organized for what he needed. It had to be meticulous; if it wasn't, he could end up very seriously damaged.
He put a hand on one rung of the runway's ladder and hoisted himself up.
The dull clang of his claws against metal was the only real sound down here besides the whir and hum and beeps of the machines; it was sharp in the still air, and he knew it functioned like a summoning bell. Shok would be at the top well before he was. He could swim right up to the walkway, though he couldn't get to the edge of the lower area- there was a sort of u-bend preventing him from doing so so he didn't try to escape the room and end up somewhere he was really not supposed to be.
At the top, he slithered out of his shirt, coat, pants; draped them over one side of the railing, hopping up and down as he yanked out of his shoes and socks, like a little kid excited to hit the water at the beach. He could hear the huge, powerful swoosh below him; Shok.wav breaking through the water, waves lapping at the runway, spilling over slightly. He laughed, nearly falling, feeling his face split in a grin- it felt good to grin like that. It had been…a few months.
"Okay, alright, daddy's coming-"
I bet, said a voice in his head that was entirely too much like Val. He waved it off, now standing only in his boxers, and began to make his way down the walkway.
On the lower levels, the machines would do this next part for him. But he wasn't in a rush, and there was something nice about the mindless, repetitive actions he needed to prepare himself for this. With deft, practiced fingers, he pressed along the seam that opened up his chest and stomach, and absolutely totally did not spend too long looking at the way his body split open like an oreo fucking cookie with himself still fine and along for the ride. He made himself focus, instead, on what he needed to do next. He didn't think about it, couldn't think about it, really shouldn't think about it- he just reached in his own chest, and, with his other hand, gathered up the screwdriver- he then, trying to think of it as nothing more then pulling a splinter, began to remove the metal in the center of his chest that acted as his heat management system- his heat sink, if you would. It didn't hurt. It rarely ever hurt to do this; pain only happened in certain places, and generally only if you didn't know what you were doing.
Still, no one likes reaching into their own God forsaken chest. Not even Vox.
He replaced the metal with another, smaller component, this one designed to work with water- partially submerged already. He clicked it into place, tightened it down, and placed his heat sink carefully on the table before moving on.
He sped up now.
Three.
Electronic components he couldn't remove were encased, very carefully, in protective covers. Anything that would be damaged by the water, anything that could short-circuit and fry him, causing the water to turn into a Jigsaw style death trap was isolated and firmly locked down. That part hurt, a little. Or maybe was uncomfortable was a better descriptor- like getting a tight bandage put on a wound.
Two.
Next was to replace components meant to move air across his systems and replace it, much like the heat sink, with ones for moving water. It was a simple matter of removing one piece and replacing it, quickly but precisely, with another. Now discomfort was setting in; his movements felt stiff, unwieldy, he could feel himself sort of- grinding, sort of chugging. He attached an additional intake to his throat, next to the two normally there, clicking it in next to them and immediately feeling a little dizzy with the rush of extra oxygen. He forced himself to stay steady, to adjust to the new-but-familiar sensation and breathe slow, a little more shallow, and steady. Steady was the key. Don't pant. Don't gasp. Even and steady.
One.
The final step was to reach down lower then his chest, behind his ribs a little, just in front of his gills-and with hands that never quite stopped shaking just a little when he did this, to remove his lungs- are you fucking insane what the fuck do you mean- no. Not. Not lungs. They weren't lungs. He didn't have-
-fans. He was removing his fans.
He didn't have time to let himself recover from it. He was half-way undone, half-way dismantled, and he had a very real time limit now. So. Calm the fuck down, lock the fuck in. Slow exhale, long and low, work them to a stop as much as possible. Fans, not lungs. And he disconnected them. First one, then the other-
-and instantly he felt his chest seize.
Countdown start.
Sixty seconds, give or take, from the time he took them out to the time he would power down and things could only get worse from there. His gills flared, strained, and he wheezed heavily as he forced himself to keep walking, keep moving, pick up speed. Each breath was a struggle, each dragging inhale giving him too little air for too much work.
Focus focus focus.
Close the chassis. Make sure the seam is even, firmly locked down, no leaks or cracks or gaps. Grab a sealant just to be sure, and smear it on like sunscreen, it's just sunscreen, I can't breathe-
Countdown from ten, nine, eight…four, three two, one-
-he dove.
He split the water with surprising grace, the splash smaller then one might think it would be. And then he proceeded to sink like a stone.
Vox was far too heavy to swim, really, even with the changes made, but that was fine. That was okay because the relief was palpable. His screaming gills cooled instantly- he closed his eyes and forced himself to go against everything that was still second nature, still screeching at him not to do, you idiot, you'll drown, are you stupid-
-and he parted his lips, pulling the water in through his intakes. His adjusted systems didn't miss a beat. The water rushed in, rushed out, over his gills, and they struggled at first, stuttered as he remembered how to use them; then they were flexing, gently, steadily, passing water over and through and out and Vox was breathing, gasping, staring up at the lights from his server room as he floated down, down, down to the bottom of the tank. He didn't move at first, letting his body recover, letting the shaking slow and stop. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. You can breathe. You're fine.
It was peaceful, in a way; drifting downward, watching the light glint off the water, feeling the soft lap of it across his body- he could damn near sleep.
Until there was a solid bump into his side, and he went swirling across the tank like pond debris. He yelped despite himself, flailed in a way he would never admit to doing to anyone fuck you, and bonked off the tank glass with an oof of pain.
Shok.wav was, of course, completely unrepentant. He wagged joyfully, the water around his tail frothing up into a foamy haze, spinning Vox again like a Goddamn dreidl.
"Shok, stop!" He protested, helplessly, flipping ass over teakettle and bouncing off the wall once more. "Okay, yes, hi, hello, daddy is here, okay, okay!" He managed to grab hold of the big snout, hugging it to his chest as Shok scooted him around the tank gleefully. He scooted himself so that he was laying across the big thing's massive head, then let the water and momentum twist him right-way-around. He was now laying along the length of the shark, and he slid gently backwards to get a grip on a fin, where he stayed for a minute, letting Shok tow him with no real goal in mind. While they could end up going up, to the main tower, all Vox would have to do was let go and Shok.wav would follow him back downward. For now, he closed his eyes, shut off his side cameras, and let himself be hauled effortlessly through the water.
He would never tell anyone, not even Val- maybe especially not Val- how this felt. How the water flowed over his skin like wind breaking over a bird's wing, how it felt on his gills, now flapping rhythmically, effortlessly, no thought required on his part. There were no words for it, anyway. It was something in the base of his chest, in the back of his mind, something that shouldn't have been instinct but was. It was old, and cold, and huge, like the ocean, like his sharks, and 'felt good' was like saying the sky was big, or Hell sucked, or there were a few stars in the sky on Earth. It was wrong. It was so much an understatement that it wrapped around to wrong.
It didn't feel good. It felt right. It felt like sex, like a good meal, like winning. It made something in his mind quiet, and settle, and calm.
You can breathe. You can breathe. You're fine.
Here there was no Val, looking abjectly heartbroken and betrayed. No Velvette staring at him like she expected him to lose it again. There was no Might of Lilith, no humiliating loss, no reporters asking over and over if they were really changing the name, if he'd been expunged, if the Vs were now a duo. There was no Alastor, coming back again and again to play with him, refusing to let him go, refusing to let him move on, taunting him at the end of Vox's leash, just outside his reach.
Here his neck didn't throb, his head didn't pound, the constant barrage of noise and feeling and awareness of everything and everyone around him that had so much as a scrap of electric current abated. He could sense his sharks, calm, rhythmic pulses in the dark like fireworks, and almost nothing else.
When he opened his eyes, he was so lost in the feeling he half expected- really expected- to have fins, to have a tail. It was so jarring that he was disoriented for a minute, almost felt like he'd been yanked out of his skin and displaced. It only lasted a minute, a heartbeat, and then he was settled into his own body again and letting go of Shok's fin.
He sank downward once more, this time helping propel himself instead of just a slow, lazy drift. Shok came after him, as predicted, swimming circles around him. Begging.
Oh, shit, he'd forgotten the ball.
"Sorry, big guy," He said, reaching out to let Shok.wav's smooth metal brush over his fingertips as the shark circled once more. "I forgot it. Oh, don't give me that face-"
He was pretty sure the fucking thing whined.
"Oh come on, I'll play with you later, I promise. Maybe daddy will even bring you a snackummm-" He grabbed the big fin again, towed himself along to rub Shok's nose. "You like snackums, don't you, big boy? Yes you do, yes, you're daddy's big growing boy-"
Shok's affectionate head toss nearly sent him into the fucking sky.
This time, though, when he started downwards again, Shok.wav glided up under him, so he landed, softly, on the broad back.
"Okay, Shok." He said, running a hand along Shok's side, "down for daddy."
And they dove on purpose. Down to the bottom of the tank, to the floor, where the light barely reached, where shadows shimmered like gems in rock, until Shok's belly almost scrapped the concrete. And there, in the darkness, Vox finally did what he'd come in here to do.
He reached.
Normally, Vox had very specific constraints. While he was powerful, strong, and everywhere, his finger on the fucking pulse point of Pentagram City, he also had definitive limits. And by 'definitive', he meant that if he pushed himself too hard and too far, he'd burn up like a Ford Pinto, bursting from the inside out. It was not a pretty sight.
But. But.
Down here, cooling his systems and dispersing the energy into the water around him, he could push past those limits- to stretch himself, to push himself. He closed his eyes again, stretched himself out, out, out- finds Voxnet and spreads himself out along it, past his usual limits, past where he would normally stop. He was huge. He was gigantic, he was everything. He could see every person in Pentagram City, past it, though there it was fuzzy, like when he needed his glasses- hard to see. He pressed further, information at the speed of sound, words and code and pictures he could decipher faster then the time it takes for most people to take a breath. He wasn't aware of his body, anymore, of the tank, or Shok, or the water around him. There was nothing but the information and himself.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that. He didn't know how much time had passed, or if anyone was looking for him, he only knew when he opened his eyes and finally slammed back into his body damn near violently that Shok seemed to be in sleep mode under him, which meant he'd been 'out' for a while. He lay there a minute, readjusting to being a small, human (?̵̡̛̝̪̦̲̣̗͚̟͉͓̺̯͚́̑̓͗̈́͂́̉͒͑͑́̿͂͑̏͊͐ͅ) creature in a small, physical shell, wiggling his fingers, his toes, pulling slow, deep breaths.
He catalogued everything he'd pulled, tucked it neatly away to look at again in smaller, more manageable doses when he needed the reference. His mind was racing, his systems buzzing. He knew…everything. Anything. He could pull the answers to questions he didn't even know he had without trying. Everything felt clear, crisp- he felt razor sharp.
Time was up. He was ready.
He moved slowly, at first, body sluggish, arms and legs something he hadn't needed just minutes ago; something he wished he didn't need now. He had been flying, soaring, moving at the speed of sound and a body was so fucking cumbersome. Erroneous.
What he wouldn't give to just be able to ditch the whole fucking business.
He reached down and tapped on Shok twice- up- and the big robot stirred under him, rumbled, and began to lift him towards the ramp he'd leapt from at the start. He closed his eyes, exhaling through his gills as they went up and up and up, a slow, steady rise.
Three.
They breached the surface, Vox's back at ramp level, water sloshing gently as Shok held patiently still. Water still lapped over Vox's gills, but intermittently, and he could feel them burn and strain every time they were left exposed.
Two.
He gave the shark a pet on the head, a soft "Good boy, Shokkie," and then he rose to his feet. Instantly he threw up a laundry list of warnings and errors, and his gills flared, desperate to do what they were supposed to do, already too dry and irritated with it. Again he was wheezing for air, trying to force himself calm. He knew how to do this.
One.
Go.
He grabbed the edge of the ramp, hauled himself up in one powerful movement, dripping wet. The cloying, impossible to ignore feeling of not being able to breathe was back, his gills opening and closing, opening and closing, like a distressed fish- he forced himself to not gasp, to not claw at his throat, to not drop to his knees and paw at the metal, to not turn around and get back in the tank and never come out again.
Instead, he moved quickly, the clock in his head marching on. Sixty seconds. Fifty eight. Fifty five. Forty.
He didn't need to dry himself much. Most of the water sloughed off his skin easily, and what didn't began to evaporate very quickly, between the heat of the room and the heat Vox was suddenly giving off. Hot. Hot, hot, hot, and he was down to thirty seconds already.
Deft hands dried what he needed, pulled the protections off electronics and began to slot back in the fans behind his gills. The right clicked into place neatly, but his vision was blurring and his hands were shaking and he struggled with the left. Static clouded his sight- fuck he was hot. Burning. His reinstalled fan whirred loudly, trying to cool him down, and he felt himself sway slightly. Hot too hot too hot-
-snap. The second fan clicked into position, and he finally managed a deep breath. It was fucking bliss, and even though the countdown marched on he allowed himself a second to just inhale, though it quickly turned into panting like an exhausted dog. Still, mentally, he was sharper then he usually ever was, and he would be for a good few hours. He was calm. He could be calm. He just needed to finish the process.
Fans loud as hell, breath rasping in the heated air, he disconnected the extra intake and the water-cooling system from his chest, the old one clicking back into place with hands that trembled hard but knew what they were doing so well and so instinctively they practically acted on their own.
The error messages slowly cleared. The blazing heat that threatened to drive him to his knees began to dissipate. Then and only then did he allow himself to sink, to rest against the walkway's railing. Five seconds. He'd been at five seconds. It'd been too long, apparently. He let himself sprawl out, cool down, his fans slowly, slowly slowing down, his fast, desperate panting evening out into slow inhales and exhales. The sweat on his screen dried, slowly, and he closed his eyes, relaxing an inch at a time.
It was dangerous, and hard, but it was worth it. Utterly. It made him better. It made him better than better. For a short few hours it made him a fucking super computer. For a few hours, it made him able to feel, to understand what he was feeling, to stop thinking himself in circles and chasing his tail. For a few hours, it made him a fucking genius.
Everything worth having was dangerous and hard. Everything worth having was worth blood, sweat, and tears, his or someone else's. Though, generally, he preferred it to be someone else's.
When he thought he could, he pushed into a shaky stand. He leaned against a table for a minute, still dragging hard, deep breaths, though finally it felt like it took no real effort and his fans were quiet, running contentedly behind his gills as if he hadn't just gone through massive, if self-inflicted, trauma. He allowed himself a moment more of weakness, of peace, before he pulled a final deep breath and straightened up.
His phone was ringing. He answered it, Val's cheerful voice in his ear.
"Amorcito? Are you finished doing…whatever weird shit it is you do down there? They're gonna be waiting on us and I know you don't wanna be walking in there late the first time you get to be at an Overlord meeting again-"
Val sounded like he was speaking through molasses. Each word was fucking infuriatingly slow. He forced himself to be patient, not to snap- he knew that Val was speaking at a normal speed and pace, he just was running faster- faster then Val, faster then everyone.
"-stor not going to be there because I will rip him apart-" Val was still talking. Vox didn't want to think about Alastor. He didn't want to talk about Alastor. The exhaustion was almost enough to overwhelm him even now- no anger left, no fire. He just felt so damn tired. Like there wasn't anything left.
He knew, right now more then ever, that Alastor played with him, toyed with him, that he was an easy target. He was just…done playing. Like a computer that had burned itself out.
"He's not going to do shit, even if he is there, Val, and neither are you." Vox replied, distantly aware of how off his own voice sounded- not quite human anymore, not quite like himself. "and neither am I. We're still in the process of fixing this. Best behavior."
"You've got room to talk. Cabrón arrogante."
"Val, I mean me, too." Normally he'd have risen to the obvious insult, but now he felt…disconnected from everything in a way he didn't have words for. "Which is why I said 'neither am I'. Let the house of cards stack back up."
"Then we can kill him?"
Vox sighed. "Sure, Val. Then we can kill him."
"¡Hurra!" Val blew him a kiss through the phone, and he heard what sounded like Velvette in the background.
"-be late, you two, unless we're doing some power move shit-"
"I'll be up in a minute. Take the car. We're showing up together." A united front. Now that the heat and anger had died down, that's what they needed to be. That's what they needed from him.
That's what he needed for himself. He hung up, smiled slightly when he saw the heart Val had texted him, and began the process of redressing himself.
Four months. While it was no dramatic seven years, it was time for the Media Overlord to make his reappearance.