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The bottle was three-quarters empty when Vox started talking—really talking, not the usual sharp-edged banter or calculated corporate speak. His words came out slurred
and heavy, tumbling over each other like they'd been dammed up too long and finally broke free.
"—and the thing is, right, the thing is that nobody ever—" He gestured wildly with his glass, liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "Nobody ever stops to think about
what it's like, you know? Being the face. Being the brand. Being the one who has to smile and perform and be on every goddamn second of every goddamn day."
Velvette was scrolling through her phone on the opposite couch, occasionally humming noncommittal responses. "Mhmm."
Valentino lounged in his chair, smoke curling lazily from his cigarette, eyes half-lidded. He'd heard Vox drunk before. This was just another Tuesday.
"And it's not like I can just—just stop, right? Because if I stop, if I slip for even a second, then everything falls apart. The whole empire. Everything we've built. It all rests on me
keeping my shit together and being perfect and never showing weakness and—"
Vox's screen flickered, static crackling across his face. "And I'm so fucking tired."
"Mmm," Val murmured, taking a long drag.
"I mean, what's the point, really?" Vox continued, his voice dropping lower, something raw and broken creeping into it. "What's the fucking point of any of it? I work and I
scheme and I build and for what? So, I can work more? So, I can have more responsibility? More pressure? More people depending on me to be something I'm not sure I ever was in the first place?"
He laughed, but it was a hollow, bitter sound that didn't reach his eyes—couldn't reach his eyes, not when they were just screens displaying static and fractured images.
"You know what the really funny part is?" He took another long drink, nearly draining the glass. "The really hilarious part? I don't even remember why I wanted this. Power,
influence, control—I don't remember what I thought it would give me. And now I'm stuck with it, stuck being this thing that everyone needs and nobody actually—"
He stopped, swaying slightly. The room felt too big and too small all at once.
Velvette tapped something on her screen. "Uh-huh."
Val exhaled smoke rings toward the ceiling.
"Sometimes I think..." Vox's voice went very quiet, almost a whisper. "Sometimes I think it would've been better if I'd never—if I just—"
He stared into his glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light.
"I kinda wish I was never born."
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
The sharp crack of Velvette's phone hitting the marble floor shattered the moment. She was staring at him, her eyes wide, all pretense of disinterest evaporated.
Valentino had gone completely still. The cigarette burned forgotten between his fingers, ash growing long and precarious. His expression—usually so carefully controlled, so
deliberately sensual and dangerous—had cracked open to show something raw underneath. Hurt. Deep, visceral hurt, like Vox had reached into his chest and squeeze.
"I mean, think about it," Vox continued, oblivious or too drunk to notice the sudden shift in atmosphere. "I'm a mistake. A glitch. I shouldn't have been born at all. Wrong time,
wrong place, wrong everything. Just one big cosmic fuck-up that somehow ended up here, pretending to be something worth—"
"Don't."
Valentino's voice cut through the air like a blade. He was moving before Vox could process it, crossing the space between them in three long strides. His hands—all four of
them—grabbed Vox, pulling him up and against his chest with a force that would've been painful if Vox weren't too drunk and too numb to feel it properly.
"Don't you fucking say that" Val hissed against his screen, his voice low and dangerous and trembling with something that might have been rage or might have been terror."Don't you dare say that shit to me."
His arms tightened, holding Vox so hard it felt like he was trying to physically prevent him from disappearing. "You think you're a mistake? You think you shouldn't exist? You
have no idea—" His voice cracked. "You have no fucking idea what you are to me. To us."
Vox blinked slowly, his processors struggling to catch up. "What—"
"If you weren't here—" Val's breath was hot against his screen, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper, something threatening and desperate all at once. "If
you weren't here; there would be nothing. Nothing. You understand me? This whole thing, everything we have, everything we are—it doesn't exist without you."
"Val, I don't—"
"I will lock you in this fucking tower," Valentino continued, his voice taking on that dangerous edge that usually preceded violence. "I will chain you to me. I will burn down
every bridge and every exit. You don't get to leave. You don't get to wish yourself away. You're mine, Vox. Ours. And the idea of a world without you in it—"
He stopped, and Vox could feel him shaking. "It's not a world I want to exist in."
Vox's screen flickered with confusion, static crawling across his face. He tried to turn his head, to look at Velvette, and found her staring at him with an expression he'd never
seen before. Her eyes were hard, sharp as knives, but underneath—
Fear.
Real, genuine fear.
"Vel?" His voice came out smaller than he intended.
"You're a fucking idiot," she said, but her voice was tight. "A complete and utter moron. Do you have any idea—" She stood up, leaving her shattered phone on the floor, and
crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "You're not allowed to say shit like that. You're not allowed."
"I was just—"
"No." She cut him off, her voice sharp. "No, you don't get to 'just' anything. You don't getto sit there and talk about not existing like it's some casual fucking observation. Like it
wouldn't—"
She stopped, jaw clenched tight.
"Like it wouldn't destroy everything," she finished quietly.
Vox stared at them both, his drunk mind struggling to process what was happening. They were upset. Actually upset. Not annoyed or irritated or playing some game—they
were scared.
Because of him.
Because of what he'd said.
The room spun a little, and he reached for his glass again, finding it somehow back in his hand. "Damn," he muttered, taking another drink. "You two don't need to do all this.
If you want me to kill myself, just say so."
The words were barely out of his mouth before the glass was ripped from his hand.
"WHAT?"
Velvette's shriek could've shattered windows. She was suddenly right there, in his face,
her small frame vibrating with fury. "Are you fucking kidding me right now? Are you
actually—"
"Vox." Valentino's voice was deadly quiet, which was somehow worse than if he'd been yelling. His hands tightened on Vox's shoulders, claws digging in just enough to hurt. "Listen to me very carefully. If you ever—and I mean ever—try to kill yourself, I will find a way to bring you back just so I can kill you myself. Slowly. Painfully. And then I'll bring you back again and lock you somewhere you can never, ever leave me." "I will make your afterlife a living hell," Velvette added, her voice shaking. "I will hunt
down your soul and drag it back and make you regret ever thinking those words, let alone saying them." "I will burn down all of Hell looking for you," Val continued, his voice dropping to that dangerous purr that usually meant someone was about to die. "I will tear apart the fabric of reality itself. You don't get to leave. You don't get to die. You're stuck with us, forever, and if you try to change that—"
"We'll make you wish you'd never thought about it," Velvette finished.
Vox's screen displayed nothing but static for a long moment, his mind overloaded trying to understand what was happening. They were threatening him. Actually, threatening him. Because he'd suggested—
"You... don't want me to die?" The words came out confused, almost childlike.
"No!" they both shouted in unison.
"We want you to live, you absolute fucking moron," Velvette snapped, and were those tears in her eyes? "We want you here, with us, existing, because without you—" She stopped, turning away sharply.
"Because without you, there's no point to any of this," Val finished softly. His hands gentled on Vox's shoulders, though he didn't let go. Couldn't let go. "You're not a
mistake, cariño. You're not a glitch. You're not something that shouldn't exist. You're—" He pressed his forehead against Vox's screen, careful of the glass. "You're everything."
The word hung in the air, heavy and true and terrifying in its sincerity. Vox's screen flickered through a dozen different expressions—confusion, disbelief, something that might have been hope. "But I'm—I'm not—"
"You're ours," Velvette said firmly, turning back to face him. Her eyes were still hard, still sharp, but the fear was naked on her face now. "You're ours, and we're yours, and that's how it works. You don't get to opt out. You don't get to decide you're better off not existing. We decide that you exist, and you're important, and you're necessary, and
that's final."
"The Vees aren't the Vees without you," Val added. "Hell isn't Hell without you. I'm not me without you. So, you're going to stay right here, where I can see you, where I can touch you, where I can make absolutely fucking sure you're not going anywhere." His arms tightened again, almost crushing. "Forever," he whispered against Vox's screen. "You're stuck with us forever. No escape. No way out. No wishing yourself into nonexistence. You're mine."
"Ours," Velvette corrected.
"Ours," Val agreed. "And we take care of what's ours."
Vox felt something crack in his chest—not breaking but opening. Like a door he'd kept locked for so long he'd forgotten it was there. The alcohol made everything fuzzy and
warm and too much, but underneath it all, he could feel it: They meant it.
They actually meant it.
"I don't understand," he mumbled, his voice small and lost. "I don't understand why you—"
"Because you're you," Velvette said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Because you're brilliant and ambitious and powerful and ours. Because the world is better with you in it. Because we're better with you in it." "Because I love you, you stupid fucking television," Val said bluntly. "And I'm not losing you. Not to death, not to self-destruction, not to your own goddamn brain telling you lies about not deserving to exist. You're staying right here, with me, where you belong."
The words should have felt like a cage. Should have felt like chains.
Instead, they felt like safety.
Vox's screen glitched, static and tears he couldn't actually cry mixing together in a display of pure emotion. "I'm drunk," he said weakly.
"I know," Val said.
"I don't know what I'm saying."
"Yes, you do," Velvette said quietly. "That's the problem. You know exactly what you're saying, and you mean it, and that's what scares us."
"We're not letting you go," Val said firmly. "Not now. Not ever. So, you can either accept that and let us take care of you, or you can fight it and we'll take care of you anyway.
Your choice."
It wasn't really a choice at all.
Vox let himself sag against Valentino's chest, exhaustion and alcohol and emotion finally catching up with him. "You're both insane," he mumbled.
"Says the TV who just told us he wished he was never born," Velvette shot back, but her voice was softer now. She moved closer, her hand coming up to rest on his screen,
gentle and grounding. "We're your kind of insane, Vox. The kind that won't let you destroy yourself. The kind that will drag you back from the edge every single time."
"The kind that loves you," Val added quietly. "Even when you're too drunk and too broken to love yourself."
Vox's screen displayed a weak smile, fractured and glitching. "I think I need to sleep."
"You're sleeping here," Val said immediately. "Where I can see you."
"We're all sleeping here," Velvette corrected. "Nobody's going anywhere tonight."
"Or ever," Val muttered.
"Or ever," she agreed.
And as Vox felt himself being carefully maneuvered toward the couch, surrounded by the two people who apparently loved him enough to threaten him into staying alive, he
thought maybe—just maybe—existing wasn't quite as unbearable as he'd thought.
Maybe being a mistake didn't matter if someone wanted you anyway.
Maybe being born wrong didn't matter if someone loved you right.
"You're both ridiculous," he mumbled as Val arranged him on the couch, refusing to let go.
"And you're stuck with us," Velvette said, settling on his other side. "Forever."
"Forever," Val echoed, pressing a kiss to his screen.
Vox's last coherent thought before sleep took him was that forever didn't sound quite so terrible anymore.
Not if it meant this.
Not if it meant them.
Not if it meant being wanted, being needed, being loved—even when he was too broken to understand why.
Especially then.