Chapter Text
It took some time to get Vox back on his feet. Despite Husk’s reassurances that Bright wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t have the chance to hurt him ever again, Vox wasn’t so sure. Honestly? Husk couldn’t blame him.
He had his own doubts, especially with Alastor’s insistence that he couldn’t share his plans. Yes, he had them. Yes, he was making progress. No, he wouldn’t give them any more information. It could compromise what he had been working so hard on, could put them all in even greater danger if the wrong thing slipped out before it was time.
Alastor didn’t relent when Vox silently stood and left the room. He didn’t relent later that night when Vox’s nightmares singed the bedsheets nor did he say another word when Vox avoided him for most of the next day, hiding away in one of the temporary guest rooms. He didn’t cave even when Vox curled into his arms the next night, only held him close and whispered gentle nothings until Vox finally fell asleep.
Gradually, over the course of the next week, Vox’s nightmares dwindled and he started showing interest in things again. He was deep in Alastor’s library after a few days, and Husk found him puttering in his workshop with his tools and his electronics the day after. He even stayed up one evening with Niffty and watched an entire movie, start to finish, without falling asleep once. He was starting to look more like himself again.
But his smile didn’t reach his eyes and there was little laughter, risqué jokes, or smartass commentary. There was an unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t discuss their last attempt at intimacy and Vox didn’t initiate anything more than the occasional touch, even if he couldn’t seem to sleep unless he was wrapped tight in Alastor’s or Husk’s arms.
That would heal in time, Husk hoped. Vox was stubborn and resilient. He might be still in shock now, but he would heal. Still. That didn’t mean Husk didn’t worry, especially when Vox took to disappearing.
Husk was mildly alarmed when he woke up in the middle of the night to find Vox gone. After pushing down the realization that he was sharing a bed with Alastor without a buffer (that could rot at the bottom of his psyche for eternity), Husk stumbled out into the hall and wandered until the house led him to Vox.
The younger demon was tinkering with what looked like a massive computer that took over most of the room Husk found him in. Vox straightened, hands on his hips.
“I’m just screwing around with some things,” he said, gesturing to one towering black machine. “Getting the servers running on magic is some fucked-up shit, but I think I’ve got it working.”
“It’s two in the morning, baby.”
“And I’ve slept enough for the rest of eternity.” Vox shrugged. “I’m not tired and I’m not going back to bed to have more nightmares. I gotta get busy here, Husk. If you don’t move, you atrophy, right? You can stay if you want. I’m sure a cot or something will appear eventually.”
Ugh, the casual way he talked about Alastor’s creepy house.
“I’m awake.” Husk sank down onto the one couch in the room and rubbed his face. “I can stay up with you.”
Vox eyed him carefully before turning back to the machine. “You don’t have to.”
“Let me rephrase – I want to stay with you.”
“Okay.” Vox shrugged. “If you want to.”
Husk watched him work, not at all sure what he was watching. There were small tools that Husk didn’t recognize and weird whirring machines that he really didn’t understand, but Vox seemed quietly content to keep working through the night, so who was he to say anything?
“Remember when I told you I hurt people when I was alive?” Vox asked suddenly, not looking at Husk.
Yeah, he remembered that.
“The stealing?”
“No, more literal hurting.” Vox paused for a moment then twisted his wrist, loosening a screw and removing a panel from the giant machine. A soft blue glow greeted them amongst the circuits and wires beneath. Husk frowned.
“What did you do?”
“One of the guys at the church figured out what I was doing with the money and threatened to turn us in.” Vox set the panel carefully down on the table beside him. “Jamie tried to bribe him and, when that didn’t work, he had me shoot him. Twice. In the head and in the heart. Double tap. Made sure he was dead. How do you think I learned to be extra special careful about how I move money around?”
Husk imagined the slight young man staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. The soft honey brown hair, the big, mismatched eyes. Then he imagined the young man holding a smoking gun over the dead body of a man Bright told him to kill. He wondered if Vox (Henry) had cried while doing it or if his face had set into the forced neutrality that he tended to fix on his face when he wanted to hide his emotions.
“Why are you telling me this, honey?” Husk tried to figure out what Vox’s stiff body language meant, exactly. “Why now?”
Vox didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he turned around and stared at Husk expressionlessly.
“Because I don’t want you to think that I’m some innocent you need to save, Husk.” He shifted the tool in his hand to the other one, restless despite his carefully schooled expression. “I didn’t kill just him, either. I killed other people, too – some who deserved it and some who really didn’t, but I did it anyways. I killed people, Husk, and even liked doing it sometimes. Do you understand? I’m not a good person, Husk. I don’t want you and Al to put yourselves in danger because you think I need to be rescued or some shit. I’m not some wilting flower. I did awful things up there – I deserve to be down here.”
Husk nodded slowly, zeroing on that first kill. The one Vox specified. The one that seemed important to him – the person who probably, by Vox’s estimation, didn’t deserve it.
“Did Bright make you kill that guy?” He asked, careful not to put too much weight into his words.
“No. Jamie didn’t make me.” Vox’s mouth tightened and his hand clenched into a fist. “He told me what was going on and because it was my fuck-up, I needed to fix it. He didn’t need to make me – I clean up my own messes.”
Yeah. Vox did like to fix things, didn’t he?
“Was this before or after his grandfather died?” Husk asked gently. Before or after he started hurting you. Vox’s eyebrows shot upwards, telling as anything. “After, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. I held the gun to that man’s head and I pulled the trigger, Husk.” Vox frowned. “Me. I did it. And I still kill people – even if we’re all dead and it doesn’t matter anymore. I still do it and I like doing it. I’m not good, Husk.”
He was, though. Vox had good inside him, Husk was convinced – even if much of it had been trampled out by trauma and Vox’s own personal brand of crazy.
Husk leaned forward. “I once drove a man into the desert, shot him in the leg, and left him to die because he harassed one of my girls. I could’ve shot him in the head and been done with it, but he had her running scared.” Just like you are now, he didn’t say. “I didn’t think he deserved the mercy of a quick death. So, I let him crawl through the desert until he bled out or died of dehydration or whatever.”
“Yeah, Husk,” Vox said quietly. “I know you did fucked-up shit, too.”
“Honey, that’s not even the worst of it.” Husk hoped Vox wouldn’t ask about the worst of it. He’d been a very bad man upstairs, after all. Still was, in fact, but Vox had changed something in him – he wasn’t quite the same cold-hearted bastard he’d been a year and a half ago. Not enough that he didn’t currently have a prisoner still rotting away in the deepest part of the casino, but nobody changed completely and never overnight. “Nobody down here is a saint, Vox. If you think I’m going to abandon you just because you killed someone that your shitty ex made you kill, then you really don’t know me very well.”
“He didn’t make me,” Vox protested once more with even less conviction. His gaze dropped to the floor, and he clasped his hands together in front of him. “Husk… Al is making deals out there. Ones that I don’t know anything about, and he said that they could put him and you in danger.”
“I know.”
“I just… you need to know who I am, what I am, before you put yourselves in anymore danger.” He shrugged. “It’s just… is it worth it?”
Husk held out his hand. “Come here.”
“Why?”
“Honey.” Husk huffed in exasperation. Vox rolled his eyes but crossed the room anyways, letting Husk take him by the hand. “Sit with me for a minute?”
“Should I ask for a pony or a pair of rollerblades?” Vox countered and took a seat in Husk’s lap without prompting. He really hadn’t meant to suggest that Vox sit in his lap, especially after everything that had happened, but the younger demon sank down anyways. After a moment, he leaned against Husk’s shoulder with a sigh. “Is it worth it, Husk? Is all this bullshit worth it to you? Seriously.”
“You are worth it.” He took Vox’s hand in his own, feeling the warmth of the small hand in his palm before closing his fingers around it. “I don’t know what that bastard told you to make you think half the things you do about yourself, but you are worth every single drop of blood that’s spilled. Ours or anyone else’s. You are worth everything, sweetheart.”
“Okay.” Vox studied Husk’s face closely then twisted his fingers around to intertwine them with the other man’s. “If you say so.”
“I do.” He hesitated a moment then leaned in to press a quick, chaste kiss to Vox’s lips. The smaller demon’s face lit up in surprise. “I love you, you stupid bastard.”
Vox laughed a little and drew Husk’s hand up to his chest. “I love you, too. Even if you are an awful, very bad man.”
Husk held him for a while, taking the time to enjoy the feeling of Vox’s weight firmly in his lap, the softness of skin beneath his fingertips whenever he stroked his arm. Vox sighed comfortably and Husk wondered if he finally felt safe again.
Safer, at least.
“What exactly are you working on?” Husk murmured. Besides the low hum of the machinery, the room was otherwise quiet and peaceful. Maybe he’d be able to convince Vox to come back to bed, after all – or maybe just snuggle up on the couch.
Vox hummed softly. “Two things. One’s a little more practical than the other, but… I wanna know how he died, Husk. I need to know. But I have to get the magic working first and I think I need Al to help me.”
“I’ve got a bit of magic.” Husk flicked his wrist and let a curl of red magic flicker around his fingertips. Vox stared at it for a moment then glanced at Husk’s face. “In case you need help.”
“It’s… maybe more than the kind of magic you have,” Vox admitted. “Sorry.”
“That bastard’s always got to show me up, huh?” Husk gave Vox’s hand a squeeze. “But, just in case. If I can help, let me know.”
“I will.”
Husk waited for another minute while Vox stared quietly at the magic still dancing at his fingertips.
“What else are you working on?”
“Husk… I…” Vox swallowed. “He’s gonna know it’s me when I do it.”
“Of course, he’s gonna know it’s you. He’d be an idiot to think you’d sit by and wait for him to make the next move,” Husk replied gently. Vox squeezed his hand a little harder, drawing in a slow, steadying breath. “But that’s okay. Because whatever you’re going to do, you won’t be doing it alone this time.”
“Promise?” Vox asked, sounding much smaller, much younger than he usually did. Husk nuzzled him and nodded.
“I promise. I promise that you’re not going into this alone and you’re not walking away from this alone.”
“Okay.” Vox sat up and looked Husk straight in the eye this time. “I’m going to drain him dry. He’s the kind of arrogant dumbass who uses his real name, the same fucking name, for all his contracts and transactions… and bank accounts.”
Husk scoffed. “I use my real name, too. So does Alastor.”
“Dumbasses,” Vox confirmed. “Not that it really matters with you two – you’re scary and established and only other dumbasses are going to try to rob you two blind. But Jamie? I’ve found every fucking account he has down here because he’s too fucking full of himself to try hide his tracks. Like at all. It was practically point and click finding all his accounts, dumb motherfucker.”
Husk blinked. “Wait a minute. That means you could’ve done that to me ages ago.”
Vox cocked his head innocently. “Yes. I could have. Your stuff is easy to find, too.”
“God.” Husk swirled that fact in his head for a few seconds. “Well, I guess I’m glad you like me.”
“It’s a really good thing I like you, Husk.” Vox tilted his head towards the massive computer. “Anyways, it’s… it’s just a keystroke now and everything he has is gone.”
There was a beat of silence. It went unspoken that not everything he had would be gone. Vox would still be his, after all.
Vox cleared his throat. “Just… gone. Vanished into thin air. It won’t stop him, obviously, but it’ll slow him down a little. Maybe he’ll even get his ass kicked out of the shithole he’s been hiding in, if the rent were to just, you know, stop. Whoops.”
“You know where he lives?”
“Uh-huh.” Vox’s gaze went distant. “I want him to know what it feels like. Even if I can’t get my soul back, I want him to know what it feels like to never have anywhere safe to hide.”
Husk pictured Henry always on the move, always trying to find some safe place to rest, and never finding it. Always looking over his shoulder, too thin, too alert, too fucking vigilant. And then for Bright to wait until Vox finally found his safe place, with people who genuinely loved and cared for him, to make his presence known again? To threaten the little bit of peace Vox had managed to scrape together, in Hell of all places?
He decided against a big display of rage and rubbed Vox’s arm soothingly.
“He deserves it,” Husk murmured, knowing that Vox was years away from him.
Vox continued to stare into whatever horrors the past held before blinking slowly, attention focusing back on Husk. “Anyways. The little dump he’s staying in now ain’t nearly as nice as your place, baby.”
“Well, my place is… what do the kids call it? Gucci?” Vox made a face. “No?”
“Please don’t, Husk,” Vox begged, still wincing. “Just say old people shit, okay?”
Husk chuckled, closing his eyes when Vox leaned in this time to kiss him. He dropped Husk’s hand and cupped his face, deepening the kiss. It only lasted for a few seconds before Vox pulled away, blinking at him with a contemplative expression.
“What is it?” Husk asked, almost afraid to ask.
“I don’t want him to take this away from me.” Vox’s hand crept up to scratch behind Husk’s ear. “He’s taken so much away from me already – he doesn’t get to have this, too.”
“He won’t.” Husk resolved to do whatever he needed to do to figure out how to deal with his own feelings, so they didn’t get in the way. Fuck. At some point, he was going to need some fucking therapy, wasn’t he? “He won’t take this away from you, honey.”
“Promise,” Vox insisted.
“I promise.” Husk hesitated just a moment before reaching down to cup Vox’s ass, earning himself a funny crackle of feedback. And his favorite little crooked smile. “I’ll shoot him in the face myself if he thinks he’s going to take the hottest piece of ass in Pride away from me.”
“Good.” Vox grabbed his wrist and removed his hand. “Not now, though. I’ve got shit to work on. There’s no time to let you get your dick wet, babe.”
Husk slumped back against the couch with an exaggerated sigh as Vox zapped himself away from Husk. He walked back to the giant computer situation and approached the open, glowing panel. After a few seconds, he scooped a tiny silver tool that Husk couldn’t identify off the table.
“Uh… if the power goes out, don’t panic.” Vox glanced over his shoulder. Husk’s ears swiveled back. “Really. I’ve got this under control – a few outages are an entirely normal part of the process.”
“Power outages are never a normal part of the process, Vox.” Husk summoned a bit of magic, just in case one of the creepies residing in Alastor’s house decided to make a move. “Just try not to electrocute me, okay?”
Vox nodded, paused, and scooped up a welding helmet from the table. With a hum, he fastened it over his head.
“Want to know the great thing about being made of electricity or electricity magic or whatever the fuck it is I am?” Husk shook his head, knowing full well Vox couldn’t see him. “I don’t even need gloves for this kind of shit.”
He reached into the panel. It sparked twice. The machine let out a weird grinding groan and, after the lights in the room flickered appropriately, the power went out. Leaving only Vox’s face for light.
“Normal part of the process,” he muttered to himself behind the helmet.
Husk sighed.