Chapter Text
Velvette stretched out along the sofa, her head laying in Vox’s lap. He played with her hair absent-mindedly as he watched TV. She kept herself occupied by scrolling on her phone. “You wanna do anything tonight?” she asked.
Vox looked down at her. “Sure. You wanna do something?”
She laughed. “I meant, did you have something in particular you wanted to do tonight?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Do you want to do something in particular?”
She shrugged. “Not really.” She turned her attention back to her phone. “Val coming over tonight?”
“I think so,” Vox answered. “I know he worked closing last night, so he slept all day; should be over in a bit.”
“Think our boyfriend has plans for us this evening?”
Vox laughed. “Why are you asking? You have something you’re wanting to do?”
“No!” she quickly denied. “I just wanted to know if there was a plan for the evening!”
He laughed some more. “I get it. No, I’m sure Val will be too tired to do something. We’ll probably just hang out.”
Velvette nodded. “Cool. Think I’m gonna order pizza. Whadaya want?”
“Oh, you know me, I’ll eat whatever.”
She sighed. “We do this every time, Vee. You can ask for things you want, ya know.”
He looked away. “I know.” He just didn’t like being a bother, especially to someone as sweet and wonderful as Velvette. They’d started dating when they were in high school, back when they we at the same foster home; this was before Velvette realized she was only interested in women, but they stayed together. Queer platonic was what they’d heard others describe their relationship as. Whatever words people wanted to use, they were together; a polyamorous couple. What they had worked for them.
Velvette sighed as she sat up and turned to him. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
He smiled softly. “I know. I love you too.”
“Now, what kind of pizza do you want?”
***
Val woke up much later than he’d intended, but he and his partners didn’t have any specific plans for the day, so he let himself indulge with sleeping in. He looked at his phone and saw a text from Velvette.
[Velvette: Pizza tonight. What you want?]
[Val: Oh, you know, the gay kind]
He laughed to himself. He knew she’d know exactly what he meant.
[Velvette: Meat lovers it is you horn dog lmao]
When he’d first laid eyes on Vox, he knew he wanted him. At the time, he didn’t realize he came with a side piece, not that it bothered Val in the least. He loved watching the two of them together; they were really like brother and sister more than anything. He laughed aloud as he thought, well, brother and sister like Leia and Luke Skywalker. Val amused himself.
Velvette was strictly into women, but she and Vox loved each other and she wasn’t exactly against letting him please her when she was in the mood. She was happy when Val came along because it would mean she didn’t have to help Vox out so much anymore when he was needing and wanting some attention in that area. Val was more than happy to oblige; not that he and Vox had done much as of yet, but Val was itching to.
He finished getting ready, showered and dressed, and then headed over to their place. He walked through the front door without knocking. “Hola,” he greeted.
“Perfect timing,” Vox said. “Pizza should be here soon.”
Val smiled. “Excellent.” He looked at Velvette. “How are you, Mamacita?”
“I’m good. You?”
“As good as ever.” He stepped closer to the couch and leaned down toward Vox. “And how are you, mi rey?” he asked before he kissed him.
Vox felt like he’d melt every time Val kissed him. He knew what people said about them, Val was a good ten years his senior and Vox was barely grazing twenty-one. But he fell for Val hard and fast; no one had ever shown him such love and devotion before. The only other person in his life he’d ever felt cared was Velvette. So, Vox admitted to himself that he was probably drawn to Val because of his ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ issues, but that didn’t mean that what they had wasn’t real.
“I’m good,” he finally answered when Val pulled away from their kiss. Vox was breathless and Val had barely kissed him for all of ten seconds and it was relatively chaste compared to how Val usually devoured him.
Val smiled and stood up straight. “Good.”
“Hey, don’t I get a kiss too?” Velvette joked.
Val laughed. “If you want one, Mama, absolutely!” He climbed into Velvette’s lap and started to dramatically kiss her across her face, making loud obnoxious noises as he went.
She laughed as she tried to push him away. “Alright, that’s enough!” she shouted through her laughter.
He moved off of her lap and sat beside her, chuckling. Velvette wasn’t exactly his girlfriend too, but they were certainly more than just the two separate paramours of their shared companion.
When the pizza arrived, they didn’t even bother taking it to the dining room; they simply ate on the couch, their feast spread out on the coffee table, like they did for most of their meals.
“Melissa wants to hang out tonight,” Velvette mentioned when she got a text.
“Oh, you and Mel are gonna ‘hang out’?” Vox teased. Velvette had been not dating Melissa for weeks now. It bothered Vox that the other woman seemed to almost be stringing Velvette along instead of making what they had an official thing, but he knew Velvette was happy and that was all that mattered to him, so he kept quiet about it.
“Yes, hang out” she answered. “There’s a band playing at Chainsaw Cat she wants to go see.”
“Well, be sure to bring protection,” Val teased. “In case she wants to get it on in the bathroom.”
Velvette playfully flipped him off. “I’m gonna go get changed.” She went to her room, leaving the two men in the living room by themselves.
“So, looks like it’s just you and me tonight, Papi,” Val noted.
Vox nodded. “Yeah.” He wasn’t sure why he was still so nervous about being alone with Val; likely something to do with trauma from his father and brother. That was something he’d unpack with his therapist later. “You, uh, wanna do anything then?” he asked.
Val shrugged. “We’ll see how the night goes.”
They chatted casually until Velvette finally stepped out of her room, dressed to kill. She wore black chunky boots with large holed fishnet stockings. Her red plaid skirt left little to the imagination, especially if she bent over. Vox wouldn’t lie that he was curious what she was wearing underneath, but he wasn’t about to ask. Her top was a sleeveless black crop top, with a saying written in red that said ‘Hating me won’t make you pretty’.
“Ooo!” Val praised. “Estar Buena! Mmm! Melissa isn’t gonna know what hit her.”
Velvette smiled and gave a little twirl to show them the entire outfit. Vox wasn’t about to admit that he was a little jealous of Melissa at the moment. “You look good, doll.”
She smiled. “Thanks.” She picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder before going to Vox and giving him a kiss. “Don’t wait up for me.”
He smiled back at her. “I won’t. Have fun.”
“You too,” she said with a playful wink. “Have a good night, Val,” she offered as she kissed his cheek goodbye.
“You too, Mamacita.” Both men watched her as she left. As soon as the door closed Val looked over at Vox and said, “You know, sometimes I am so mad she’s only into women. The things I would do to her if she’d let me.”
Vox blushed at his words. “Yeah, I feel ya.”
Val turned to him. “So, what do you wanna do now that it’s just the two of us?” he asked, his tone dropping slightly as though he were reaching for seductive but didn’t want to be there quite yet.
“I… I hadn’t really thought about it,” Vox stammered out. He and Val had been together three months now; maybe it was because they were still in the ‘honeymoon phase’ of their relationship, but he didn’t understand why he got so coy and nervous with the other man.
Val moved closer. He ran his fingers through Vox’s dark hair, brushing the short fringe out of his eyes. “I love you, Vox, I hope you know that.”
Vox dropped his gaze as he whispered in reply. “I know.” Val was open with his ‘I love you’s; he was verbally affectionate since day one, but Vox hadn’t yet said the words. He wanted to, but the words felt foreign on his tongue, like they would be forced if he said it and he wanted to make sure that when he said it to Val the first time that he meant it without any reservations.
Val smiled. “So long as you know it and believe it.” He leaned forward and kissed him, wrapping his arms around him to pull the younger man closer.
Vox closed his eyes as the kiss began.
Val broke the kiss. “I know Vette is gone for the night, but maybe we should go to your room?” he suggested.
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Val smiled fondly. “Cariño, we don’t have to do anything,” he reminded him.
“I know,” he replied. He wasn’t inexperienced, far from it really, but he let Val think he was because what he was really scared of was letting Val see him. He had too much baggage that he knew he’d have to unpack with him if he let him see. He trusted Val, that wasn’t the issue, he simply didn’t want to relive any of it. Therapy was helping him be more open, but it was still a work in progress.
Val touched his cheek lightly, directing him to look at him. “Vox, mi amor, it’s okay. I’m not upset about it, not in any way.”
Vox’s gaze was still cast downward. He nodded. “Okay,” he whispered. He believed him, but he still knew, even if Val wasn’t upset, he was at least disappointed and he hated disappointing him. He was sure that was also because of trauma from his past, but again, he’d unpack that with a professional at another time.
Val sat back on the couch and pulled Vox to him. “Why don’t we just watch a movie or something, huh?”
Vox nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.” Being with Val sounded good too, but he still couldn’t bring himself to do it, no matter how much he wanted to.
***
Vox was in the kitchen having his usual cup of coffee in the morning when Velvette dragged herself out of bed. He smiled at the way her hair was a mess and her makeup was streaked across her face; she must have been really tired if she’d been too tired to take it off before going to bed. “Morning, doll,” he greeted with a grin.
“Morning,” she grumbled out. She sat on the table, resting her feet on a chair, as she took his coffee mug and took a generous sip.
“You know, the chair is for sitting on,” he teased.
“You’re just mad because it’s not your face I’m sitting on,” she joked back.
“You’re not wrong,” he chuckled. “How was your ‘hang out’?”
She handed him the mug back. “It was good. The band was so-so, but Melissa knows the drummer or something.” She grinned. “And how was your night?”
He shrugged. “It was nice. We watched a movie and fell asleep on the couch for a bit.”
“Do anything else fun and exciting? You had the whole apartment to yourselves.”
Vox sighed and shook his head. “No.”
Velvette looked at him sympathetically. “You’re still scared to show him, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am,” he whispered as though he were embarrassed just to talk about it.
Now Velvette sighed as she slid off the table and sat in the chair. She rested her hand on his knee. “You know he’s not gonna judge you, right?”
“I’m not scared of him judging me,” he countered. “I just…” he trailed off.
She nodded. “I know, but you’ve gotta let him in sometime, babe. He cares about you.”
“I know,” he whispered. “And I think that’s what scares me.”
She sighed once more. She wished her boyfriend could see how deserving of love he was.
It was another month before Vox, once again, considered opening up to Val about his past. It would be one thing if it was just the things that happened to him, but what he was most embarrassed about was the things he had done. He considered the things that had happened to him to be the catalyst for his actions, but they were his nonetheless.
Vox looked at himself in the full-length mirror and studied his image. What would Val say? What would he think but not say out loud? He touched his arm and traced his fingers over the raised skin. He always wore long-sleeved shirts; he’d started doing so around the time he’d started cutting himself like this in order to hide it, now he wore them to cover up his past and the shame that came with it.
He pulled his sleeve back down. They didn’t have to take off all of their close to fuck, right? Wasn’t it kind of hot to have a button-up shirt just hanging open at the front? He finished getting dressed for his date.
Val liked going on actual dates. He hadn’t been like that until he’d met Vox, but Vox hadn’t been like anyone else he’d ever dated before. The fact that he was so much younger wasn’t even the thing that stood out; he’d had his fair share of ‘cradle robbed’ partners. No, Vox was special; he could tell from the moment he’d met him. He wasn’t shy and yet there was a hesitance in him that Val was drawn to, like a mystery box he wanted to open up and see what was inside of. Vox was smitten with Val, but Val was enamored by the younger man in every way possible.
They had dinner at a local pub that Val was fond of; he liked going to bars with Vox since he’d recently turned twenty-one. After dinner, they walked around down-town aimlessly after dinner and talked. Val was sure he’d never had so many conversations in his life, but he liked talking with Vox. He liked hearing his thought and his opinions. He enjoyed sharing his own in return. Val had had his share of relationships, but none had been like what he had with Vox. Hesitantly, he reached for the younger man’s hand as they strolled through town together.
Vox was surprised when Val took his hand in his, but he grasped it tightly in return as though he were scared Val was gonna pull it away from him at any moment. He glanced over at him. Val smiled and continued their walk and conversation without interruption.
“It’s getting kind of late,” Vox noted. “We should probably head home.”
Val nodded. “Yeah, probably. This has been really nice though,” he told him. “I like just being with you and talking about stuff.”
Vox felt his face heat up; Val made him blush with ease. “I like talking with you too,” he replied softly, as though embarrassed to admit it. He paused, a little scared to say what he wanted to say next, but wanting to do it nonetheless. “I could always come over to your place and we can… ‘Talk’ some more. If you wanted.”
Val’s heart beat faster. Was Vox suggesting what he thought he was suggesting? “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Vox hadn’t been to Val’s place much. It wasn’t something that was discussed or anything, Val just usually came over to Vox’s apartment. Vox stepped inside, feeling almost light-headed. He was wanting to take things further with Val, he really liked the guy. And he knew Velvette was right, he needed to be more open with him about his past.
“Bedroom is this way, right?” Vox asked.
Val grinned. “Yeah, still where it was last time you were here,” he joked.
“Cool.” He paused. “Why don’t we-”
Val pulled him into a deep kiss, cutting off the last of his words. Vox wrapped his arms around him as he kissed him back. His head was swimming; his thoughts were all over the place. Maybe Val wouldn’t even see anything. Maybe they’d keep the lights off. Or maybe Val would be so impatient and pent up that he'd just pull Vox’s pants down to his knees so he could get to it faster.
Val finally pulled away. “Well, follow me,” he told him with a grin. He headed down the short hallway. Once in the bedroom, Val directed him to the bed and pressed into him to lay him down. Val hovered over him, his body covering his as he stared down into his eyes. “Oh, Voxy, tan hermoso.” He leaned down and kissed him again.
Vox didn’t understand a word of Val’s mother tongue, but whatever he said, it was beautiful and made him hot all over. He grabbed at the bottom of Val’s shirt and tugged it upward to pull it off of him. Val pulled away from their kiss to remove the article of clothing and tossed it aside. He stared down and bit his lip as he reached down and began unbuttoning Vox’s shirt.
“God! I love you,” he whispered once his shirt hung open. Val leaned down and pressed his lips against his chest and kissed his flesh. Vox closed his eyes as Val slowly peppered kissed across him. His trail moved upward and Val began kissing and biting at Vox’s neck.
Vox moaned as he tilted his head back. Everything Val did to him sent chills through his body. He wasn’t sure which position Val wanted to take, but he’d be willing to take whatever position Val asked of him. He loved him. “I love you,” he whispered.
Val thought he would come just from hearing those words from his partner’s lips, but he forced himself to hold back. “Te amo,” he whispered back. His hands went to Vox’s belt and began undoing it. Vox’s hands quickly joined his in removing the pants.
Val pulled them down his legs and off of him, removing his shoes as he went. He was about to help him get out of his socks too, but he saw that Vox wore sock garters; Val wasn’t sure why that was hot, but it was. He moved up his body once more and grabbed the elastic of his boxer briefs. He met Vox’s gaze. Was he reading hesitance in the younger man’s eyes? Was he not ready to do this? Val pulled his hands away. “We don’t have to go any further if you don’t want to, cariño,” he assured him.
Vox swallowed hard. “I…I want to,” he tried to assure him, but even Vox could hear the way his voice shook.
He settled between Vox's legs and lifted one of them before placing a kiss against his knee and then another a little farther up his inner thigh.
Vox grimaced. There was no way Val wasn’t going to see them. He held his breath and waited for a reaction.
Val continued kissing the inside of his thigh, slowly moving closer to his core. He gently lapped at his skin. His tongue grazed along the raised lines of flesh. Scars. He wondered how old they were, how long ago they’d healed over. He felt his heart sink as he thought about what those scars meant. Vox had cut his own flesh for reasons Val could only begin to guess. It saddened him to think that this beautiful man before him had ever hated himself enough to cause himself harm like this.
Val pulled away and whispered, “You’re beautiful, mi rey.” He kissed his leg again. “In every way.”
Vox felt like he couldn’t breathe. “I love you,” he whispered again. Now that he’d said the words, it was like he couldn’t stop them tumbling from his lips over and over.
Val set his leg down and moved up the length of his body. He reached down and wiped the tears from Vox’s cheeks; the man hadn’t even realized he’d started crying. “I love you too.” He leaned down and kissed him. He laid down beside him and pulled the younger man to him. He wanted to know the story behind every wound Vox carried, but he knew they had time to learn about each other and he would savor the time it took.