Chapter Text
Vox woke with Angel in his arms. They'd slept until late afternoon, letting the heat chase them into a drowsy haze inside Angel’s shoebox-sized bedroom. His eyes traced Angel’s sleeping face and it soothed him. Last night Angel had looked so… tired. Right now Vox basked in the pleasure of him sleeping, wondering when the overwhelming sense of satisfaction of having Angel so close would wear off, if ever.
Unconsciously, Angel’s hands fisted against Vox’s chest, eyes screwed too tight.
A nightmare.
Angel clawed lightly at Vox's chest over his shirt, wincing and muttered words in his sleep too slurred to be comprehensible.
“Shhhh,” Vox soothed, hands smoothing the top of Angel's head.
Except Angel's eyes were opening, expression hazy as he came to.
“Morning,” Vox whispered.
Angel paused briefly, disoriented, as if he were considering running again on instinct rather than awareness. Then, he relaxed into Vox more fully. Hesitantly, Vox touched Angel’s head again, and when he didn’t flinch away, he carded fingers through Angel's hair softly.
“Bad dream?” Vox asked.
Angel swallowed.
“Yeah.”
Their last words to each other were thick in the air, unacknowledged between them. It was clear from Angel’s body language that he didn't seem to want to talk about it, though.
Vox faltered, then spoke.
“Do you want me to leave?”
Angel didn't move or react. Vox’s muscles were tight with hidden tension, waiting…
“No,” Angel finally said.
Vox relaxed a little at that. Angel was so warm against him now, the room warm with him, too. As if in response to unsaid sentiments, Vox’s vents started whirring quietly to expel the added heat. The sound contributed to the calm and drowsy atmosphere.
“I think I dreamed about ya’ last night,” Angel said, finally. Vox stiffened, and Angel picked up on why, so he corrected: “Not… not just now when I was waking up… earlier. When I left tha’ tower.”
“Oh,” Vox said.
It wasn’t fucking eloquent. Vox wasn’t sure what to say about that, even if he was curious. The way they were together now felt fragile and extremely breakable if Vox said or did anything wrong, so he swallowed his questions down. Instead, he carded a light, thin line down Angel’s lower back, tracing the curves of his spine with a claw.
Angel shivered slightly.
“Do you have nightmares a lot?” Vox asked.
Angel’s hand, which had been tracing random patterns across Vox’s shirt as if to mark him, stilled.
“I neva’ said my dream about ya’ was a nightmare,” he said slowly.
Vox was careful with his next words, trying to keep them light.
“I just…” he cleared his throat. “I just meant in general.”
Angel blinked.
“Oh,” he said, voice trailing off. Seemed they were both fuckin’ shakespeare with their words today. Angel seemed to roll it over in his mind, though, analyzing...
“Yeah,” he concluded simply. “I guess I do.”
Vox didn’t answer that. Maybe if he was someone else, maybe he would have said something comforting.
Angel closed his eyes. Then, out of nowhere:
“Had a few nightmares back in tha’ day about ya,’ though. I used to think ya’ hated me,” Angel said. “Sometimes I wonder if ya’ still do.”
The prior night flooded back into Vox's mind and the motions of his hands stilled. How could he even begin to explain to Angel a dynamic he wasn’t sure he even understood himself? So, he dimmed his screen a bit unconsciously as if to hide from his next words.
“I think…I think I might have,” he admitted, pausing “I wanted you. I want you,” he corrected.
Angel nodded absently.
“The past doesn't matter," Angel said quietly. And, once again, Vox asked him lightly:
“Angel, do you want me to leave?”
Angel tilted his head up.
“Is that a real offer?”
The afternoon heat blanketed them as Vox looked to the ceiling. There was a small stain there that resembled something, he thought, but his brain couldn't seem to figure out what. Vox opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Don’t answer that,” Angel finally agreed. He sat up and then straddled Vox.
“Ya’ want me. I think I get it now,” Angel said instead. As if he understood.
He didn’t, though. Vox thought Angel would never even begin to, but he didn’t need Angel to get it. He just needed him here.
Angel reached down and grabbed Vox’s hands in-between their laps as if to examine them further. He ran a finger along one of his palms, Vox letting him explore.
There was still fresh distance between them after last night. They had the appearance of finally communicating, but Vox knew it was short lasting as he swallowed, preparing his next words:
“Val is sending you to the clubs,” Vox said, voice steady and measured.
Angel paused.
He didn't look up, eyes stuck on their touching hands.
“Why?” he finally asked.
Then, before Vox could reply “he suspects us,” Angel finished.
Vox shifted, ready to move his hands, but Angel grabbed them instead, keeping them there.
Vox blinked down at it, but Angel's face was unchanged and unreadable.
“Not us,” Vox said. “You.”
Angel’s face expressed that he was mentally examining that statement. He scooted closer to Vox, only if minutely, then he finally met his eyes.
“Are ya’ sure it's just me?” Angel trailed off.
Vox didn't answer.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “He wants to send you either way.
Angel stared ahead, eyes distant. Then:
“Let him,” he said blankly.
Vox couldn't help but feel something had shifted in Angel since last night, even if it wasn't quantifiable. His eyes seemed fogged over and distant, body language more difficult to discern.
“I'll try to talk him out of it,” Vox countered, letting the words die between them.
“Don’t,” Angel said softly, blankly. “You’ll make it worse.”
Of all the masks Vox had seen of Angel's over the years, this one was new. Angel's face and emotions were an enigma to him right now and it made Vox twitch with the desire to pry him open just to see inside.
Vox didn’t argue. Instead, he lifted a hand to Angel’s face, just staring. He ran a thumb along his cheekbone softly.
“I’m too selfish to be good to you,” Vox said, instead of answering.
Angel looked thoughtful at Vox’s words, like he was trying to understand them, but couldn't.
“Ya’ say that like some part of you wishes you could be,” he said, sounding surprised.
Vox swallowed. The overhead fan was spinning in slow circles, creating shadows over Angel's face.
“Would you believe me if I said I did?”
The room was too warm in the mid-afternoon heat. Their conversation felt too tense for the lazy, calm atmosphere of the room, the way their words were still honey-slow and low with recent sleep.
Angel traced a claw in random patterns on Vox’s palm.
“Yeah… I think I do believe ya’,” Angel admitted.
Then, there was more silence as the admission did something to Vox’s chest. Like all of his thoughts about Angel had been choking him for decades. He didn’t know if it felt better to finally say things out loud, but it still did something to him.
“Wanting somethin’ don’t make it true, though” Angel challenged.
And there it was.
Angel stared down at him, expression hardening. It was like a flip had switched inside his head, lighting up his eyes once again.
Like he’d just remembered his own anger after misplacing it on a shelf.
A rush of desire stirred in Vox’s gut at the sight. Angel's body shifted, too, digging into Vox’s claws until they were slightly painful.
Vox felt Angel's light weight on him, and even with him this close, he was still hungry for more. Idly he wondered if he would ever be satisfied, even if he could somehow swallow him up. Not for the first time, Vox felt frustrated at the way that Angel made his fingers twitch with want, eyes roaming when they should be pinned and stable.
Angel bit his lip.
“What do you want, Angel?” Vox asked.
Angel went rigid, the question clearly unexpected. There was something behind his eyes. Fire. Hate. Understanding. Want. His expressions rolled in emotional waves like microscopic storms.
Lightly, he shoved Vox's shoulders down onto the bed as if he were testing him.
Vox let him.
Angel's eyes darkened for a moment as he zeroed in on Vox as if really fully seeing him for the first time.
Then, slowly, Angel undid Vox's shirt, deliberating over the pop of each button.
“I want your chest” he said, hands smoothing across it. Then, with stronger force, his hands clawed down the bared skin.
Vox swallowed and hissed lightly through his digital teeth, skin slightly buzzing.
“It's yours,” Vox breathed.
Angel didn’t react, and instead pushed the fabric wider on both sides to give him more purchase. He tightened his thighs around Vox as if to chain him there.
“I want ya’ hands on me,” Angel ordered.
Vox acquiesced, palms starting to trace under the back of Angel’s shirt, lifting it to feel the curves of his back.
“They're yours.” Vox whispered.
Angel’s eyes were a mix of anger and hunger, grasping at anything to calm whatever internal dispute raged inside him, and Vox felt inclined to let it take its course.
“Say my name,” Angel said.
One of Vox’s hands moved from Angel’s back to ruck under the front of his shirt, softly clawing through his tit fluff then tugging at it lightly, just on the edge of what he knew would be painful.
“Angel,” he said, voice laced with hidden devotions that made Angel blink as if surprised by the reality of it.
Then, suddenly, Angel was diving down, kissing Vox deeply. Vox was half-hard, desire churning in his gut, and when Angel pulled away, he had two fingers under Vox’s ‘chin,’ as if to prompt him to open his eyes again.
He made them stare at each other for too long, the stretch of time contorting into discomfort and anxious anticipation.
“Maybe I even do want ya’ eyes on me,” Angel admitted slowly, darkly.
Vox felt his wires itch inside his back, aching to release, to grab, to own, to take, even as he soothed them back and swallowed.
Not that long ago, Angel had called all this a game between them. It never felt more like one to Vox than now, Angel straddling him from above, his eyes issuing a challenge and a vulnerable admission simultaneously.
“They always are,” Vox said.
And then, he was rolling Angel onto his back, both of them stripping their clothes in fast succession. They were kissing each other frantically, like they couldn’t get enough. At one point Angel yanked them both off the bed, wrapping his arms and legs around Vox while he fucked him into the wall, the heat making them both sweat while the condensation sizzled in satisfying shocks in Vox’s circuits.
Vox vaguely thought about the fact that he hadn’t planned on doing this with Angel today, and yet how easily he spiraled into Angel’s touch. He noted briefly that he had somehow had even less self-respect than the johns Angel used to fuck outside his club, swooning over Angel’s flirting and winks, false promises and flattery. Vox vaguely wondered at his lack of self-control when it came to Angel. At the moment he wasn’t sure he cared.
–Because Angel was loud while they fucked in the way that satisfied Vox deep inside his psyche–craving angel’s gasps and screams and moans, ugly and pretty, punching them from him in choked intervals.
“I want you…to tell me I’m yours,” Angel said between thrusts, voice petty and demanding.
Vox actually growled back.
“You’re mine,” he said.
The heat was too much. Vox’s fans were whirring with adrenaline, and he could tell Angel was close to coming. He thrust once more, hard and fast and Angel came, painting Vox’s stomach. Angel clawed at his back and Vox hissed as it reopened Val’s previous marks, feeling blood start to drip down and eventually trace the notches in his spine.
Gently, he laid Angel back on the bed, still thrusting into him more slowly while Angel came down from his orgasm, breaths staggered, but eyes and grip still on Vox.
Vox was fixated on Angel’s face, cupping it, against his own internal warning systems, like a lover. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stop, tracing Angel’s lips with his thumb, feeling him tight and warm around him as he continued to pump in and out of him, monitor whirring in the background like a very quiet hum.
“Perfect,” he said out loud, even if he wished he hadn't.
Angel arched his back in response, and Vox came with a soft moan, hands splaying on either side of Angel’s head, eyes closed and draping over him, hands gripping into the sheets as he fisted them.
As he calmed and once he’d opened his eyes again, Angel pulled Vox’s head back down to him, kissing him into a dragged-out kiss, softer and with less urgency.
They stared into each other’s eyes, unblinking for a long moment, Vox still softening inside him. Then, Angel spoke once more, sounding far away, saying words Vox never would have anticipated. Words that sent soft shocks down the reservoir of Vox's spine:
“I want,” Angel paused, then swallowed. “I want your soul.”