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Despite being a couple, Valentino and Vox had separate rooms with separate beds to sleep in. And to do…other activities in as well. It was what made sense for them, each having their own personal space, even if it wasn’t exactly private. And in a tower as big as theirs, with the amount of power they had over Hell and its residents, why not enjoy the perks that came with all of that?
And oh did they enjoy those perks.
But despite having their own rooms, they still often slept with each other, both metaphorically and literally. There was no rhyme or reason to whose bed they spent the night in, it was just wherever the day brought them. Sometimes they slept apart, but sometimes they laid each other out in Vox’s large, boxy bed that was surrounded by monitors and aquariums. And on other nights, they drifted off to sleep in Valentino’s large, lounge-like room with its circular, nest-like bed.
But things changed after Vox’s unfortunate, little accident.
You know, the one where his plans were thwarted not only by his enemies, but also by his lover and closest friend? Yes, after that occurred there was a very big difference in their daily lives and in their nights as well.
After that, Vox didn’t have a choice in where he slept anymore.
And so, of course, he’d been forced to primarily sleep in Valentino’s room. His old self never would have allowed such a thing. Not Valentino deciding where he slept and not sleeping in Val’s room night after night either. Vox was a man who liked his own things, his own space. But now, what other choice did he have? He had no choice at all. And he supposed if given the choice between sleeping with Valentino or permanently sleeping all alone…
He would choose Val.
Regardless, he wasn’t happy about those being his only choices. He could argue with Valentino about it, and he had, but that hadn’t gotten him anywhere. There was nothing he could now do to force the other to listen to him, not in the ways he could before. And without legs, Vox could barely even turn himself, much less travel up the multiple levels to his own space.
So Valentino’s room was now his room as well.
But it wasn’t all bad. Despite his lover being the reason for his new, body-less existence, Valentino had still done his best to make the room comfortable for Vox, now that they were sharing it more permanently. Valentino might still be a bit mad at him, he might be exerting his power over Vox in ways that he had never been able to before, but he hadn’t stopped loving Vox, even after what he’d done.
Even after the way Vox had treated him.
And he showed that in his words and in his actions.
Val had brought a few of Vox’s smaller fish tanks down and had some of the servants properly install them against one of the far walls, moving some of his own wardrobes into storage to make the space. The hum of aquariums was familiar and comforting, and so was the blue glow they cast over the garish colors Valentino had chosen to paint his walls. Val had also removed some of the more feathery blankets and pillows that he preferred to rest with from the bed. Vox had never minded them before, except for thinking they looked tacky, but they now tickled his screen and made him sneeze.
They gave him an itch that he now had no way to scratch.
And the last, and most bizarre thing Valentino had done to combine their spaces, was to raide Vox’s closet. Not for his clothes, Vox didn’t really need those anymore, but for the other things he was keeping stashed away there.
Vox’s stuffed shark collection.
Vox had never mentioned just how many he had, or even where he was keeping them, but somehow Valentino had known. He’d gone into Vox’s closet and brought down all of the plushies he’d been hoarding there, along with the select few that Vox had allowed himself to keep on his bed, carefully hidden, of course. Val had decided not to hide them though. Instead of stashing them away, or even teasing Vox for them, Val had carefully arranged them all over the bed, setting each one down until there were more plushies than blankets, more plushies than pillows. In fact, Vox wasn’t even certain if he had owned all of these shark plushies before. He recognized most of them, had even given some of them secret names, but there were a few that looked new, a few that he couldn’t quite place.
A few that had suspiciously apologetic bows wrapped around their dorsal fins.
Vox’s body might be gone, and his power and influence might have waned too, but despite all of that, he still had Valentino, and he still had all of the little shark plushies he’d been collecting since his arrival in hell, plus the new ones just waiting for names. It was comforting to sleep with all of them. Even if he was sleeping in Valentino's bed every night, it still felt like what he was used to.
The only issue was, Valentino wasn’t used to it yet.
“Fucking shit!”
Vox breathed in deeply as his screen flickered to life, sunlight and the glow from his aquariums hitting his eyes at the same time and forcing him to static and blink. As soon as the static stopped, he shifted himself to the side, trying to find the source of the cursing that had woken him up.
And the source was obviously Valentino, which Vox could have guessed. But what he wouldn’t have guessed was what Val was doing, what was causing him to curse up a storm so early in the morning.
“Having fun there, Val?” Vox asked, a fond, but teasing smile forming on his screen.
Valentino froze where he was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, all four of his arms, and his wings too, wrapped around a mountain of stuffed animals. It looked like all of the stuffed sharks that had been on the bed were now either in his arms or scattered on the floor beside him. And as Vox shifted around and stared at the zebra-striped blankets surrounding him, he realized that was exactly what it was. All of the plushies had started the night in the bed with them, but sometime between then and now, they’d been pushed to the floor. Probably due to all of Valentino's shifting and twitching.
And here he was, trying to pick them all up again.
They had servants for that type of thing, but it was still amusing.
Still sweet.
“I don’t understand how you fucking sleep with these fucking things,” Valentino said as he shuffled closer to the bed, plopping his armfull of various sized sharks onto the mattress. “How the fuck did you not knock them all off? Ya know, when you had limbs, I mean.”
Vox rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored the jab, “Well, for starters, I don’t do an entire 360 degree turn in bed.” Well, mostly ignored it.
“Kinky,” Valentino interrupted, needing to get his own jab in, as well as a salacious grin that Vox chose to ignore too.
“But regardless, I also never slept with that many stuffed sharks on the bed at once. And you should know that. You slept in my bed enough. Fucked in my bed enough! I only kept one or two by my pillow at a time.”
“But babe, I want you to have them all,” Valentino whined, shaking one of the plushies at Vox’s screen as he pouted adorably.
“Why?” Vox asked, wincing when Val pressed the shark a little too close to his eyes.
“I’m just worried that if they aren’t there to prop you up, you’ll be the one to fall out of bed instead,” Valentino muttered before he set the plush shark behind Vox, tilting his screen so he had a better view of Valentino’s face. A better view of the disgustingly sweet look in his eyes.
It was too early for this.
“Well you should have fucking thought of that before you pulled my head off my body,” Vox huffed, glancing away. “I was much more capable of staying in bed before you did that.”
“You’ve never been all that good at staying put in my bed, babe,” Valentino said, running a long finger down the side of Vox’s screen. “That’s why I had to do what I did.”
“I know,” Vox sighed, leaning into the touch as much as he could. “But I swear, I’m staying put now, Val.”
“Oh I know,” Val said, grinning toothily. “That’s what all these damn sharks are here for.”
And with that, Valentino pulled away, only to immediately return with another armful of stuffed sharks. Humming some ridiculous song, he continued to put them all back into the bed, placing them strategically until they formed a barrier around where Vox was laying. It was like they were guarding him. Like they were keeping him safe from harm, Or perhaps they were keeping him prisoner instead.
Truly, it was a little bit of both, but as he watched Valentino put each shark back into its spot, his long tongue peaking between his lips in concentration as he straightened them all just so, Vox wasn’t sure that he minded.
It wasn’t so bad being a prisoner. It felt nice to be guarded once in a while. It felt nice to be in his lover’s bed.
Their shared bed.