Work Text:
"What are you looking at?" Vox mumbled tiredly.
The room was quiet minus the quiet whirring sounds of a fan. They sat in his bedroom, basking in their own postcoital glow as the sun was setting behind them.
Well, Vox wasn’t really basking, he was pouting.
He’d had a shit day. The Vees were being annoying as fuck, he’d gotten into another fight with Alastor on live in front of everyone and embarrassed himself, and he hadn’t seen Bonnie in about a month due to her being busy, and what was she doing now?
Typing away at her phone, acting like he was the least interesting thing that had ever existed. He felt frustration building up in his chest. She barely ever even used her phone, but now she was texting people when they could be hanging out?
“It’s work stuff,” she mumbled back dismissively, her back turned to him as she typed away. Vox couldn’t really make out the messages over her shoulder— something about a shipment of meat or something to some cannibal that lived in another district.
Vox frowned deeply.
They’d already gotten into a bit of a spat before they’d had sex about his argument with Alastor, and Bonnie was being an asshole and lecturing him over it, and now she wasn’t even paying attention to him. She’d hardly replied to anything he’d said to her at all this week, and now that she was here, all she wanted to do was be a cunt.
God, it felt like she was getting bored of him. Which was ridiculous, who the hell would ever get bored of him? He didn’t need her, hell, it wasn’t like they were even together anyways. There were plenty of other people Vox could go fuck. Totally.
There was absolutely nothing in the world that was going to prevent him from doing that. Nope. The fact that he hadn’t done it was purely coincidental.
Vox stayed silent for a minute, trying to think of something to say to get her attention back.
“…you know I saw that show you liked got a new episode the other day.”
”I watched it the other night with Rosie,” Bonnie replied absentmindedly, back still turned to him as she typed away.
Of course she had.
The fact that she wasn’t even looking at him was pissing him off more than anything. God, how hard was it to even glance at someone while they were talking?
Vox never really remembered ever getting this pissed off with her, but something about the combination of his shit day and her low effort answers was just making his blood boil and making him want to say things he normally wouldn’t say to her, even when he was pissed off.
Bonnies brow was furrowed, focused on her phone intensely as she typed away, something clearly bugging her.
Vox bit back his snide comments he wanted to make for a bit longer, attempting again to make her actually engage with him.
”I thought we could do something Tuesday. I haven’t seen you in a bit…” Vox trailed off quietly, his arm tracing up her leg. That had worked earlier, right? Using sex? It usually tended to make things better between them.
Bonnie softly squeezed his hand before gently pushing it away.
“I don’t know about Tuesday. I’d have to see, I’m busy.”
“Busy?”
“Yes, busy– glad to see you have listenin’ comprehension skills.”
The fan above them slightly buzzed louder. Neither person acknowledged it.
Vox huffed in irritation at her sarcastic joke, ignoring it. “What are you so busy with that you can’t see me for even like, five minutes?”
“Stuff to do at the emporium,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m lucky I was even able to come today. She seemed upset when I asked.”
He visibly got even more frustrated, brow scrunching at the mention of her. The mention of Rosie any time her name even spouted from his mouth seemed to make him incredibly displeased.
“You said that the other day. And last weekend. And the Thursday before that,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’re always busy, this is the first time I think I’ve seen you in person in what, two months?”
Bonnie suppressed an eye roll. She didn’t understand his frustrations– she wanted to make a snide comment, one about how she didn’t owe someone who couldn’t even make it clear how he felt about her even a moment of her time, but she kept it to herself like she always did. She didn’t know how to communicate it, her desire to feel like she was actually something of value rather than someone used to fill a void, to pass the time, but she felt like it should have been obvious. 60 years had passed by without even a single discussion about what whatever ‘this’ was, but he was acting like a child over her not having time to see him again soon.
“I hav’ a job to do, y’know, my life doesn’t revolve around when you wanna get your dick wet,” Bonnie laughed, though there was a tenseness behind it that reflected her inner frustrations. She could see his frown deepen.
“Right, no, it just revolves around whatever that bitch wants.”
Vox felt a tiny bit of regret as soon as he said it, but he didn’t let it show. He was angry and irritable and he needed to get it out. Fuck it. He was gonna be an instigator now.
“What the hell is your problem today?” She spat, turning her head around and glaring at him. “I didn’t do anythin’— stop being so pissy with me, I’m not gonna apologize to you for having a life.”
“You don’t have a life, that’s my problem. All you do is spend your time over there doing whatever she wants, and then you come over here and you’re angry and exhausted and I sit around waiting to talk to you just for you to be a fucking bitch when I do actually see you.”
“I can’t just— what, do you want me to just quit because you told me to? I can’t do that.”
“No, Bon, you can! You just won’t,” he hissed back, throwing his hands up in frustration. “You told me yourself that she doesn’t have any control over you if you decide to leave and stop living there— the whole thing is centered around that. You’re willingly choosing to stay there with her and do all that bullshit every day.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea, I’ll just go somewhere else, like where?” Bonnie replied sarcastically again. “The worst I have to worry about over there is somebody trying to eat somebody else when I walk down the road, if I leave I’ve got nothin’ better to do but to move into the city, and I don’t trust any of these fuckin’ people enough to be livin’ around them. People over there are gross, but they’ve got manners most of the time.”
“Move here.”
“What the fuck?” She said, visibly getting more irate now. The audacity had reached insane levels at this point, even for him.
“I just— I’ve got like, whole guest rooms that are going unused, and you spend half your time here anyway. I’m housing so much of your shit already,” Vox retorted. “If you’re worried about people or whatever the fuck, just come here. Nobody's going to bother you unless you go downstairs to the studios.”
Bonnie didn’t even know what about the offer made her so irrationally angry. Maybe it was just his insane assumption that in spite of his mixed signals and stringing her along for however many decades now she would happily go live in this stupid ass tower, or the fact that they even had to have this argument that he was starting for no apparent reason. This was one of the few times she thought she’d felt genuinely and indisputably outraged with him.
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, and I dunno why you even thought for a second I would agree to somethin’ stupid like that,” she said bitterly, turning her back to him. “I owe her more than you know.”
The silence between them grew thick and heavy, before it erupted into baffled laughter. Baffled, angry laughter. She turned her head back, glaring at his incredulous expression.
“Owe. Yeah- sure.. Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know how someone as smart as you can say something so stupid,” he said as his sardonic grin turned into a scowl. “Look, she may like you, and she likes to play mommy and shit, but she didn’t help you enough for you to have this weird clutch on her. If anything I think she made you worse. She saw an opportunity with you and took it. She needed more people to do shit for her, and you were basically a baby and traumatized out of your fucking mind and she thought, ‘Hey, I can use that!’ I don’t know how you can look at someone like that and think they honestly have your best interests at heart, genuinely, Bonnie. That’s fucking sad and I’m embarassed for you.”
The fan seemed to be rotating even faster now. God, Vox really needed to get it fixed.
Bonnie flinched, ear twitching from her nervousness. In truth, that wasn’t far off from the way that everything had unfolded.
But Bonnie wasn’t interested in agreeing right now. She was interested in defending herself.
“I don’t understand why you’re complainin’ about morality and the way she treats people,” she mumbled. “If you really wanna talk about being an opportunist–”
“I never once said I was better or that I give a shit about whatever she does. It’s just the fact that you’re sitting here defending her and acting like she’s a fucking angel or something,” Vox spat back. “I’m so tired of hearing lectures or complaints from you about how horrible people are and how wrong certain things are when you do bad shit and sit and spend all of your time sucking the dick of someone even worse. You’re a fucking hypocrite, Bonnie, and I’m tired of watching you act like a moron because someone did something sort of nice one time. You have all this potential to do all this shit with your life but you don’t. You’re just gonna sit and be miserable and waste all your time for the rest of your afterlife and not get yourself out of it. You’re either being an idiot or a pussy and neither one is a good look on you at all.”
She felt the need to snap in response, but an overwhelming feeling of embarrassment overtook her again.
It was all right. She could leave obviously, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.
What would she do without a routine? Without that sense of familiarity? Sure, she was growing to resent the endless amounts of mindless things she did a day, and her lack of time for anything else, she was growing to feel uncomfortable thinking about the legitimacy of her relationship with someone she idolized- but what was that at the cost of her comfort? What would she do without that purpose anymore?
She was unable to reply, anger and frustration overwhelming her and making her unable to really argue. What could she even say at that point?
“Whatever,” she spat bitterly. She stood up, thumping her foot loudly as she gathered her clothes. “Whatever, if you wanna be an asshole for no reason be an asshole. I'm not gonna take this shit. I didn’t come here just to get talked to like a child.”
Vox scoffed, her reaction pissing him off even more. He clenched his fist tightly.
"Yeah, well maybe you shouldn't have the mentality of one."
"God, would you just-" Bonnie stopped herself. She took a deep breath, throwing the last of her clothes on quietly.
"I'm not doin’ this. Bye V. Take a fuckin’ Xanax or somethin’." Her voice was quiet now, detatched and drained.
"..."
Vox hesitated. He didn't want her to go, he didn't mean for it to become this big of a deal. But he was angry, and she never wanted to listen, and he wasn't going to take the hit to his ego an apology would land on him.
The fan let out one more weirdly loud noise, before it went back down to a slow soft sounding hum.
"...yeah, whatever. I'll see you whenever," he said in response, his tone matching hers.
Bonnie stayed silent for a long time, before she silently left the room, leaving Vox by himself.
As soon as she left, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He unclenched his fist, realizing he’d broke his own skin, blood pouring down his arm.
”Fuck,” Vox mumbled to himself, standing up to go wash it off.
He mumbled curses to himself as he walked. Vulgar and hateful things about Rosie, things about Bonnie, Alastor— Fuck everyone. They didn’t fucking deserve him or his time. They didn’t deserve to even breathe the same fucking air as him.
He bit back the guilt he felt thinking about how Bonnie looked before she left. How upset and angry she had looked. He’d touched nerves he knew he probably shouldn’t have touched.
He shook his head as he made his way to the sink, washing off his hands before going to pour himself a shot from his fridge.
Whatever. She’d forget about it like she always did when he took things out on her and they’d go back to how they were the day before. They were always fine. Bonnie would get pissed for a decent amount of time and then she’d come back and she wouldn’t bring it up again.
Vox ignored the voice in the back of his head that wondered what would happen if one day Bonnie decided she had had enough as the pungent taste of the alcohol burned his throat, his freshly cut palm stinging against the shot glass.