Archive of Our Own

Valentino came home to find a radio demon on his couch.

All things considered, not the most shocking place for him to be. Not now, at least—a few years ago it would’ve been a whole thing, Val would’ve had to pull the emergency alarms, probably spend a couple weeks regenerating from a puddle of viscera after Alastor finished hacking up his trachea as a fun little horrific surprise for when Vox inevitably got there too late, yadda yadda.

Ugh. Dark days. Val hated being cannibalized. It washed out his complexion.

But ever since Vox finally kissed and made up with the radio demon, it had been less and less abjectly nightmarish to find Alastor just swanning around V Tower like he owned the place. The first time Val and Velvette had trudged into the kitchen together one morning for some coffee and found fucking Alastor in a bathrobe and slippers, politely chewing on a rotting corpse at the table… well, Vox had gotten an earful. A screenful. Whatever.

They were adjusting. Velvette acted like Alastor had never been their enemy in the first place, and Val didn’t ask Vox for sordid details—except when he was trying to piss him off—and so long as Alastor didn’t mess with his work, his plants, or his motherfucking Voxhub deliveries, they were cool.

So it wasn’t a world-ending discovery, Alastor hanging out on Val’s floor of the tower. They all used it like a common area anyway, even if Alastor usually tended to breeze straight past them and onto wherever his precious Vox was when he dropped in for a visit.

What was weird was the way he immediately swiveled his head completely around with a gruesome crunch of cartilage to glare at Val like he’d committed a heinous sin by coming home from the studio to his floor where he lived.

Valentino frowned and glared back, fur puffing up around his neck. “Sheesh, what crawled up your ass and died?”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Alastor said stiffly. Then he seemed to shake himself, grin relaxing somewhat, and rotated his neck back into place. His voice pitched up into a sly jeer. “Long day at work? You look positively disheveled!”

A squeak of offense escaped him before he could force it down. Alastor snickered. Val stalked across the room with an irritable grunt, wrenching open the walk-in closet along the far wall to peer at himself in the mirror. He was a fucking catch, thank you very much, even if his antennae were a little frazzled and his glasses smudged from putting out yet another electrical fire on set after Trina knocked over the waterboarding bucket directly onto an overloaded wall outlet.

“Incompetent bitches,” he muttered. He licked his thumb and scrubbed at a smudge of ash on his cheek, scowling. “Fucking up my set like it doesn’t cost more than they’ll make in twenty years being stupid, clumsy sluts… I swear to god, the next time that whore even breathes wrong I’m transferring her to Velvette’s department, she can see how she likes it when she’s got pins in places where there shouldn’t be pins—”

“Are you quite finished,” Alastor said, bored. Valentino took a deep breath, straightened, and did not slam the closet door shut.

“Kitty!” he called instead. The little robot zipped around the corner and skidded to a stop in front of him. “A drink, something fruity and cold. And whatever radio bitch here wants.”

Kitty turned and flickered mechanically at Alastor, expectant.

“Oh, I suppose I’ll have a whiskey.”

She bowed and zoomed away to fetch their drinks. Val strode over to where Alastor was seated on the couch and, without asking, flounced down beside him with a sigh, kicking up his legs onto the coffee table. He almost put his feet in Alastor’s lap, just for the bit, but decided at the last moment that he valued his limbs more than the few seconds of laughter that little stunt would’ve earned him.

Still, warning static prickled in the air as Alastor eyed him narrowly across the solid six inches separating them.

“Calm down, princess, I’m not touching you,” Val said, gesturing at him dismissively with one hand while two more reached up to preen his antennae, smoothing them down and primping the hearts back into shape. “You know… I’ve been thinking that you and I should get to know each other a little better. We’re practically family now, after all.”

“Ha! Absolutely not. You and I have nothing to talk about. I only tolerate you because Vox, for some reason, seems to enjoy your company.” Alastor’s grin sharpened. “But there’s no accounting for taste.”

“Aw, baby, don’t be like that. I’m plenty tasty.” Val traced a hand lasciviously down his front, smirking, as Alastor tensed, claws curling where they were braced atop his thighs. It was always funny to watch Alastor get all flustered about sex, because it was never a consistent reaction; he didn’t mind hearing the concept itself in some abstract, removed way, but he didn’t like to acknowledge that the people in his immediate vicinity liked to fuck for real, not just for business or whatever other non-sexy reasons Alastor ever partook. The line between the two was blurry, and reminding him that Vox was, despite his entanglements with Alastor, still sexually attracted to Val in the most tangible sense of all, never failed to make his nasty little smile tighten with disgust.

Although… it didn’t really seem to be disgust on Alastor’s face right now. His body was one rigid line of apprehension, like he was trying to be casual way too far in the wrong direction and couldn’t quite manage it. His shirt was undone down to the third button, revealing a forbidden vee of pallid skin and chest fluff that felt dangerous to examine too closely, not that it would stop Val. His shoulders were nearly hunched, claws digging into his skinny thighs with a ferocity that had to have been painful—plus, his cutesy deer ears kept flicking, batting away invisible flies, a far cry from their normal relaxed attentiveness.

Despite himself, Val was curious. What could’ve gotten the radio demon in such a tizzy that he was sitting here, presumably waiting for Vox, instead of going out and just killing whatever was bothering him?

That was what Val usually did, anyway. Vox was for decompressing later.

Kitty zoomed back into the room, tray in hand; Val scooped up the lurid red drink with cherries bobbing on the surface while Alastor’s hand shot out to snatch the iced whiskey. He knocked it back in one shot, swallowed hard, and then set it daintily back on the tray. His hands were shaking.

“Thank you, dear,” he said evenly. Kitty twittered at him before darting off again, returning to whatever chore Val had distracted her from. She could be so endearing that you forgot she was a robot.

Val raised an eyebrow, smiling. “Ooh, I didn’t know you knew how to drink like that. Did you like to party topside?”

Alastor sniffed. “I dabbled. A little bit of cocaine and absinthe on a Friday night made for excellent entertainment in the unscrupulous circles I ran in.” A kind of spastic shudder wracked him for a split second before he forcefully sank back into the couch cushions, crossing one leg over the other and squinting furiously at nothing. He muttered, “What I wouldn’t give for something a little harder now.”

“If it’s the hard stuff you want, I know some people,” Val purred, only half teasing the innuendo, but Alastor just shook his head, static whining irritatingly in a way that made Val’s antennae twitch with discomfort. Freaky electromagnetic bitches.

“No, that’s quite alright. I have no interest in revisiting that particular pastime.”

“Suit yourself.” Val took a sip of his drink. He didn’t screw around with coke either these days; somebody needed to be sober during shoots and it sure wasn’t going to be Angel Dust. He knew that Vox took uppers to power through long company conferences and Velvette was no stranger to heroin chic, literally, but Val had tried to leave that kind of shit behind when he joined the Vees. Wasn’t worth it. “So… uh…”

Alastor was rubbing at his cheeks with the pads of his fingers, gaze unfocused. A high, rosy flush colored the bridge of his nose, and some of his fringe clung to the sides of his face, damp with sweat.

Val peered at him, bewildered. “Are… you—”

“When the hell is Vox going to be here?” Alastor snapped suddenly, pressing both hands flat to his face and scrunching his grin into a warped snarl. “He’s hardly ever kept me waiting this long.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

Alastor’s eyes flickered in his direction, red and lidded. His voice crackled, laden with static. “Ẅ̵̞́h̸̬̋̅a̸̠̗͑t̸̳̜̊́?”

“It’s maintenance day.” Off of Alastor’s uncomprehending look, Val elaborated, “He takes one day out of the month to plug himself in and do all the mechanic bullshit he’s been ignoring. It’s total lockdown mode down in his little gamer cave—he used to leave it open to me and Velvette, but he doesn’t trust us anymore since the salad incident. Anyway, he won’t be done until tomorrow morning.”

“Fuck,” Alastor hissed, which startled Val so much that he didn’t react right away when Alastor abruptly lunged to his feet and began to pace the length of the living room in pressured strides. He yanked at his shirt as if he was overheating. “Damn him. Of all the wretched days to rifle around in his oversized skull. What does he even need to fix? There’s nothing but cobwebs and the abandoned shell of his integrity left in there anyway.”

“Hey, don’t ask me. I don’t know jack shit about what he does in there. He’s such a control freak the most he’s ever let me do is hold his cable ties for him.”

“He did that to make you feel important, like a small child,” Alastor sneered. “He’s normally quite terrible at reading people, but you’re so excruciatingly transparent that even he could conclude that you’re incompetent to the extreme!”

“You are a catty bitch,” Val said, too excited to be genuinely offended. “Have you ever thought about doing a comedy roast segment in between the screams of the damned on your talkshow?”

Alastor made a wordless sound of frustration and fisted his hands in his hair. He looked like a junkie in withdrawal. “Shut up.”

Val leisurely stretched out his arms, bending and pulling on each one to work out the kinks. He didn’t really have any room to judge someone else for getting all bent out of shape over Vox standing them up—he was pretty infamous for not handling being ignored well at all, actually. It was just kind of hilarious to see Vox’s pattern of choosing codependent psychopaths for partners holding steady right in front of him.

He chuckled, rotating his left wrists and listening to the gentle crackle. “Whatever you say, baby. Is it your time of the month or something?”

Alastor stopped in his tracks by the windows. His right ear flicked backwards once, a violent thwap. He ground out, “Something like that.”

Val blinked, pausing mid-stretch. “Really?”

“Regrettably.”

That… made a lot of sense, actually. His tension, the way he’d been snappier than usual this whole time, the look in his eyes when Val had flirted with him for scarcely a moment—not disgust, oh no. Desire, and poorly-disguised loathing for that desire.

Slowly, a shit-eating grin spread across Val’s face. “Oh hoh. This just got interesting. I should’ve guessed your cannibal ass was just as horny as anyone else down here. Well, which is it? Heat or rut?”

Alastor’s gaze darted, fingers clenching in his hair, before forcefully dropping them down to his sides. He bit out the word like it caused him physical pain: “Heat.”

“Holy shit. And you came here when it started?”

“Vox usually handles my… inconveniences when they arise,” Alastor said tersely. He fidgeted, seemingly unable to keep himself still now that his secret was out, and began pacing again, trying to work off the agitation. It wouldn’t work, but it was adorable to watch him try. “I abhor it. I have negative interest in such things any other time of the year, but my damnable body has other ideas.”

“Mm, they tend to. You know… since Voxy won’t be available for a while, I could always call up one of my girls. Or boys. Your choice, though they all charge upfront.”

Alastor barked a laugh that was halfway to manic. “Most certainly not. I would have to kill them afterward, and I’m sure you wouldn’t take too kindly to that. To clarify: I don’t actually care if your employees die! There’s simply no need to involve others when I can address this malfunction on my own!”

“If you wanted that,” Val pointed out, “you wouldn’t still be hanging around here.”

Alastor’s eye twitched violently. “What exactly are you implying?”

Val looked Alastor up and down, assessing. He wasn’t exactly what anyone with eyes would call conventionally attractive. More emaciated than skinny, all bones and yellow teeth and sharp, sharp claws, nothing slender or graceful in the lean, hungry lines of his torso, the angular jut of his hips and shoulders padded by his ratty clothes. The worst of it was his fuckass haircut. (Val was always pissed off by sinners with shitty hair, since he no longer had any.) He’d never go for someone like Alastor under normal circumstances.

But also, as Val knew intimately, there were more reasons to fuck someone than attraction.

“Nothing.” Val shrugged, lacing his hands over his chest to smile placidly at Alastor. “I just think you don’t want to spend it alone, but you also don’t want to spend it with a stranger. You’re here, I’m here… it’s convenient, no?”

“I do not,” Alastor stressed, “want to have sex with you.”

“Then we’re on the same page.”

Alastor squinted suspiciously at him. It would be kind of cute if Val could bring himself to look past that ugly mug. “Why would you offer if you didn’t want to?”

“It’s just work, baby. Nothing personal. And no offense, but I usually only sleep with tens. This would be a… personal favor, for Vox’s neglectful ass.” Val smirked. “I do love to have him owe me one.”

“Vox is a ten?” Alastor asked, puzzled.

“Vox is my exception.”

“Ah. Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Alastor hummed, coming to a stop beside the couch. “Truly, there’s no diverting Vox from his work?”

“Not unless you want him to fuck up whatever he’s doing and spend the next few days regenerating from a brain aneurysm.”

Alastor tugged absently at his lapels, brows furrowed. Cogs turned behind his eyes, weighing his options; sinners who suffered from heats and ruts could drastically reduce the amount of time spent tormented by their bodies if they took a partner or twelve, but it was risky business for overlords like them, for whom safeguarding their reputations was paramount. Val used to run an escort service for such cases while he was starting up that steep hill to power, since it was a reliable way to rake in money from desperate, lonely people who had no other choices. Trust, particularly with sex, was a valuable commodity indeed, and he did so love to capitalize.

Not that either of them would be doing this out of trust, god no, but, ah. In a pinch, familiarity worked just as well.

Also, Val was genuinely curious about what fucking the radio demon would be like. There had to be something compelling there to keep Vox’s ephemeral attention span fixated for decades on end—Val had once been in the middle of blowing him when Vox got so distracted by an email about accounting layoffs that he couldn’t come.

Alastor exhaled sharply through his nose, drawing Val out of his reverie. “Very well then.”

Surprise quickly gave way to a cool, smug calm that diffused through Val now that he knew where the evening was headed. This was, indisputably, his area of expertise, and they both knew it. He swung his legs down, sat up, and rose to his feet, looming over Alastor with all eleven feet of height that he so often leveraged against smaller sinners. Alastor just peered up at him flatly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of being either charmed or intimidated.

Val flashed him a lazy grin. “Don’t worry, baby. I can be professional.”

“Can you?” Alastor lamented.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“This is horrifying” was Alastor’s kindest opinion of Valentino’s sex dungeon, to which Val’s response was a gleeful, “This is only the first level!”

He often flippantly referred to his studio as a sex dungeon to newcomers, but that was a misnomer. The studio was a film set with all the accompanying accoutrements, tailored to the genre of film they specialized in—but it wasn’t a true sex dungeon, not in the purest sense of the term. No, that was reserved for this: a sprawling labyrinth of interconnected private rooms, all deep red mood lighting and sleek black leather, furnished for every depraved pleasure imaginable and arranged in spiraling corridors all leading to the main lounge area.

The lounge unfolded like a ruby flower, framed with various machines, hanging racks, and carelessly organized toys according to a system only Val could parse, studded in the center with a low conversation pit that was lined with velvet cushions. Restraints and rigging trailed down from the ceiling, bolted firmly in place. The air smelled faintly sweet, like burned sugar.

Val was consistent in his design choices and had been from day one; he loved things that were soft and warm and malleable to the touch, and everything about this floor of the tower reflected that.

Alastor picked up a feather duster, staring at it with the most dryly bemused look Val had ever seen. On the walk down here, he’d been mostly composed, nothing but the persistent drone of uncomfortable static trailing him betraying how out of sorts he really was, but as he lowered the feather duster, his hazy gaze skated over the interior decor like he was barely processing any of it. He kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, antsy.

“Charming,” he said distantly, leaning his hip against a low table. “I don’t suppose you have anything particular in mind.”

“Mm. I was thinking we could start slow, work our way up…” Val casually stepped into Alastor’s space, forcing him to lean backwards to accommodate Val’s presence; he took note of the way Alastor’s smile twitched up into a grimace as he bracketed the radio demon against the table, penning him in. “See where the evening takes us.”

Very aware of how sharp Alastor’s teeth were, Val carefully reached out, telegraphing his movements, and placed his palm flat against Alastor’s chest, sliding up towards his throat. Alastor tensed, but stayed where he was, hands curled tightly around the edge of the table as he seemed to brace himself.

When Val’s fingers dipped beneath his shirt, threading through the fine, downy fur of his bare chest, Alastor flinched.

Val stopped. He made a curious sound.

“I…” Alastor panted, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t meet Val’s eyes. “I don’t enjoy this. I’ve never—I don’t want—” He cut himself off with a frustrated growl and abruptly jerked away from Val, skittering a few feet away and sucking down a pained gasp of a breath. Val let him go, uninterested in actually upsetting Alastor this early into the game; he was gentle with first-timers as a general rule, since the hardcore stuff was for his seasoned whores, and more relevantly, he knew Alastor could make his life genuinely miserable if he fucked up too badly here.

Anyway, he kinda liked the bastard, even though he was a total frigid prude. Val reclined against the table Alastor had abandoned, folding both pairs of arms loosely over his chest.

“If you want my help, you’ll have to tell me what you want, amorcito,” he said, keeping his tone relaxed and encouraging. “So you don’t enjoy sex. What is it about it that you don’t enjoy?”

“Everything,” Alastor snapped. “The groping, the mess, the noises. Momentary pleasure is hardly worth the debasement, and frankly, I’ve never seen the point. I only make occasional concessions for Vox because he is a pathetic, squalling worm, and his entertainment value far outweighs my own revulsion towards such things. If not for this infernal curse every autumn, I would have no drive for it at all.”

Oh, never mind gentle. Val was understanding the shape of this now. “You enjoy having power over Vox in bed.”

Alastor’s eyes focused on him for the first time, sharpening in the dim. Gotcha.

“Does he give it to you?” Val asked, syrupy and sly. “Or do you take it? Both, I would assume—greedy, greedy.” He tsked, pushing off of the table to stalk towards Alastor again. Alastor didn’t backpedal this time, holding his ground even as Val bent down to bring them face-to-face, examining Alastor’s strained expression. Alastor’s ears lowered under his unwavering stare, pinning submissively, and saliva pooled in Val’s mouth. “And it goes both ways, yes? Is that what you want, cervato? Do you want me to make you like it?”

“I want you,” Alastor said through gritted teeth, “to get on with it, you vapid excuse for a—”

Val grabbed him by the throat.

Alastor gave a yelping wheeze, static spiking, too startled to struggle as Val forced him to bend, pressing downward on his throat until his knees buckled and he was clutching at Val’s wrist to stay upright. His eyes widened with outrage, smile locked in a snarl; Val grinned down at him and squeezed, listening to the way Alastor’s breath whistled thinly through the pressure Val was exerting on his airway.

“Ah, he has an attitude,” Val mused to himself, enjoying the way Alastor’s heels scrabbled against the floor as he tried to resist being forced to his knees. “Vox always did like the feisty ones.”

Alastor’s voice burst to life around them on its own, escaping the limits of his body the same way Vox often did through his speakers. “I believe—zzt—that description applies—xtch—to you as well!”

“Hey, I never said it didn’t. Now, are you going to be good for me, or am I going to have to break you in?” Val followed this by bringing his other hand up and grabbing the base of Alastor’s left antler, using the additional leverage to fully shove Alastor the rest of the way to the floor. Alastor’s claws dug into Val’s wrist for a moment, a threatening sear of pain as Alastor struggled with himself.

Val waited. Static whined, Alastor’s chest jerking with little convulsions as his lungs screamed for air that Val denied them; darkness writhed around him, his shadow on the wall gibbering silently and hunched over like a monstrous puppet in front of a campfire.

And then, like a candle guttering out, something finally cracked behind Alastor’s eyes. His hands fell away, lowering to clasp uneasily at the hem of his coat, and the agitated sputter of static faded into a low, tinny crackle. Val chuckled, loosening his grip on Alastor’s throat to let him suck in a harsh, coughing breath.

“There we go,” he soothed, petting his thumb over the hard ridge of Alastor’s clavicle. He didn’t let up on the tight hold he had on Alastor’s antler, though; instincts mattered more than reason in situations like this, and Alastor seemed to be responding better to more… animalistic displays of dominance than Val’s usual favorites. No trouble, really, it just meant he would need to switch things up a bit. “Feels better, hm? To let someone else take charge?”

Alastor shivered. His gaze flickered, mutinous, almost embarrassed at his own reaction, but it had also begun to glaze over the moment Val pinned him against the table, and now he was hovering on the edge of complete surrender. Val suspected that outside of his heats, it took a lot more to get Alastor to this point, but that would be a question for Vox on a different day.

Just a bit more.

Stooping down to meet Alastor’s eyes, Val said, “It’s always the snappiest dogs that want, more than anything else, to be brought to heel. And you’re just desperate for it, aren’t you?” He slid his right hand up, tapping the jutting curve of Alastor’s chin with a fingertip before gripping his jaw, angling his head back so he was staring directly up into Val’s face. “Well. Never say I never did anything for you. Open your mouth.”

Alastor blinked narrowly, one last thread of pride holding him back. But when Val just dug his fingers into Alastor’s cheeks, unrelenting, Alastor made a thin noise and reluctantly obeyed, parting his lips and letting his tongue roll out over sharp fangs.

“Oh, good boy,” Val purred. And then Alastor did something even more unexpected—he melted at the praise, ears flattening against his head as a keening sort of sound escaped him. Val cooed, releasing Alastor’s jaw so he could press two fingers onto Alastor’s tongue, sliding them in and out, lightly, slowly, delighted with how Alastor twitched and shuddered with every shallow thrust. “You really are new at this. I bet Voxy hasn’t been treating you right—so insecure, that one, never learned that sometimes less is more.”

Val added a third finger, pressing a little deeper; Alastor’s mouth was as wet and warm as any other, and Val had no particular objections, even despite how mindful he was having to be of those razor-sharp teeth. He was finding this to be less erotic and more interesting, a peek behind the curtain into a vulnerability he knew Alastor hardly shared with anyone, now shared with him, if only by necessity.

Val loved peering into the softer, intimate spaces of people’s souls, and knowing he had the power to crush it under his heel if he chose. Trust was a nuclear bomb and he could never get enough of that big red button.

He wouldn’t. He still had some self-control, whatever Vox might think. And it could be more fun sometimes, to refrain; kept them coming back for more.

The novelty of this on its own was almost doing it for him, since Alastor’s looks certainly weren’t. Val let his voice take on a darker, firm edge as he briefly stilled his fingers, pressing them down onto Alastor’s tongue to keep him from closing his mouth. Saliva dripped down Alastor’s chin, his cheeks bright red with humiliation. “Now, let’s take off some of these layers, yes? Put on a show for me. I want to see you take your time.”

What might’ve been a request for a strip tease directed at Vox was a cruelty for Alastor, who made a muffled noise of complaint at the order.

“Or I can leave, if you really don’t want to do this my way,” Val said. He smiled meanly. “Your choice.” Alastor’s eyes sparked with poorly-disguised panic. He wavered, shoulders heaving, before his jittering hands reached up and began to shrug off his coat. Val’s tone warmed with pleasure. “Very good.”

While Alastor worked on carefully peeling himself out of his clothes, Val graciously didn’t resume finger fucking Alastor’s mouth, doubtful of Alastor’s ability to multitask at the moment. Instead, he set about bringing his own body up to speed; he let his wings shift aside, fluttering to rest behind him, and then ran his lower two hands up his thighs, caressing, teasing. It wasn’t difficult to turn him on, but it took something, and the power trip alone sometimes wasn’t enough.

He reached underneath his skirt, hooking his fingers into the waistband of his panties and tugging them down. Alastor’s eyes darted briefly in his direction before disinterestedly flicking away. Val would’ve been offended if he thought Alastor could find anyone attractive, which he didn’t. Vox, of course, never counted.

Val released Alastor’s antler as he withdrew his fingers from Alastor’s mouth, spit-slick and shiny in the low light, and took himself in hand, sighing.

“Professional, hm?” Alastor muttered, subdued. The act of undressing himself on his knees seemed to have taken some of the wind out of his sails, leaving him quiet and nippy as he leaned back on his haunches, pulling his shoes off. “You seem very eager for someone who claimed he was uninterested in fucking me.”

“Sex is about so much more than just lust. I’m not into you, baby, but it does get me off to have the big, bad radio demon hot and bothered at my feet, itching for me to fuck him like he needs. Isn’t that right?” Val smiled crookedly down at Alastor, whose own smile tightened even as he began to fumblingly unbutton his pants. Val knew he wasn’t a virgin, but damn if he didn’t remind Val of one, all nervous and shy like no one had ever seen him naked before. “Also, getting to cuck Vox always makes my day. How do you feel?”

“Bothered,” Alastor said tersely. “Hot. Do you mind? This is difficult enough without—being watched.”

“Aw, but I thought you liked it, with how much you show off for Voxy’s cameras.”

“... That’s different.”

“I’m sure.”

“Between the two of us, I wouldn’t say that I’m the—oh.” Alastor’s breath hitched, hand halfway down his pants, and Val’s grin widened at the way his ears shot upright, surprised. He ground his hips helplessly into the heel of his palm, gasping. “Ah. That’s—quite—”

“Intense?”

“Very.”

Val tightened his grip on his cock, liquid heat trickling down his spine. Saliva pooled in his mouth, threatening to seep past his teeth, his body’s first and most inconvenient reaction to arousal, but he swallowed hard to keep it down. There would be a time and place for that, and that place would certainly not be Alastor’s mouth (who knew what kind of disgusting shit he’d been eating). Val liked kissing, but he didn’t stick his tongue in crazy.

His dick, on the other hand—eh.

Alastor was panting, rubbing himself in short, clumsy strokes. His head tipped back as he made a bitten-off sound of frustration, expression twisted with misery; it wasn’t good enough, wouldn’t be good enough until it was someone else touching him, and he seemed to realize this as he screwed his eyes shut and hissed, humiliated, “I—I can’t—ugh.”

He snapped his fingers with his free hand.

Val squeaked with alarm as green fire whooshed to life around Alastor, briefly swirling around him in a riot of flame before guttering out as quickly as it had come. He was now completely naked.

“That’s cheating,” Val complained. “You and Vox are the same, you’re so unromantic.”

Alastor slitted his eyes to cut him a truly withering stare. “I didn’t agree to this for romance.”

Clearly. Val had intended to show restraint, but he could hardly be blamed if Alastor wanted something rougher.

“If you say so.”

Without further fanfare, Val bent down and swiftly scooped Alastor up into his arms.

Alastor yelped, scrabbling for purchase, but Val didn’t give him a chance to figure it out; he slid his lower hands under Alastor’s skinny thighs and hoisted him up, spreading them apart and directing him to hook them around Val’s waist, while his upper two hands circled around Alastor’s midsection to hold him up. Alastor’s fluffy deer tail swished against Val’s hands, unnerved, and he instinctively clung to Val’s shoulders as he walked, claws digging in.

“Your audacity astounds m—mmf!”

Val dropped Alastor down onto a low, padded bench with a muted thud. With his legs still wound around Val, the impact ground Alastor’s cunt against Val’s pelvis in a way that must’ve felt very good, judging by the way Alastor gasped out a thin, startled moan. His eyelashes fluttered, head thrown back; he rocked his hips mindlessly, grinding into Val, and Val met him with a hard thrust against the curve of his ass.

While Alastor, adorably, struggled for better leverage against the little nothing rhythm Val was giving him, Val reached around him and grabbed his wrist, pinning it against the angled armrest beside the bench and strapping it down. He repeated the process with the other arm. Alastor didn’t seem to notice—he was almost all the way gone, panting and writhing ineffectually like he was burning up with fever.

Paltry restraints for an overlord, maybe, but Val didn’t need to have angelic bindings to keep Alastor from escaping. The psychological conceit of helplessness could be a sedative all its own.

And it wasn’t like Alastor wanted out at this point.

Alastor only seemed to remember where he was when Val forced his legs apart again, unhooking them from where they’d started to squeeze around Val’s hips. Val took his left ankle in hand.

“What—” Alastor’s head lolled, eyes zeroing in on where Val was stretching his leg up. “What are you—”

Val cinched his ankle into the leather cuff at the top of the metal frame, locking it in place. He flicked the pad of Alastor’s hoof just to see the limb flinch away, rattling the frame. “Convenient, sí? Opens everything up, holds everything in place…” He grabbed Alastor’s other ankle and brought it up as well, ignoring the way Alastor’s muscles briefly tensed in a feeble attempt to close his legs. “Mm. Lets me see exactly what I’m working with.”

Alastor shuddered. His hands clawed into the soft padding of the armrests, shredding them, but whatever got destroyed down here would just go on Vox’s credit card, so Val didn’t care. “I… I don’t…”

“Just relax, mi venadito,” Val mollified, circling around to pick up the loose straps from the side of the bench. Alastor’s gaze tracked him, wary, but it had lost the keen, sharp edge it normally held, and now reminded Val of little more than a prey animal’s instinctive caution, wide and glazed and poised to flee. He looped the strap over Alastor’s concave stomach, pulling it tight, and was distantly jealous of how far he had to pull to get it to lay flush against Alastor’s ashen skin. “There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

For a moment, the only sound was the incessant crackle of static. Alastor was quite a sight like this: on his back, wrists strapped down, legs spread wide and pressed so far up that his spine had to arch to accommodate the uncomfortable slack, nearly bending him in half.

His ribs jutted out gruesomely, the coarse fur sprouting from his chest and curly red vee of pubic hair doing nothing to mitigate how he looked like his skin was vacuum-sealed over his skeletal frame. Starved, not slim, and decorated with ropes of dark scarring; Val kept his actors drug addict-skinny, but this was a little too far even for him.

Vox, you freaky bastard, he thought admiringly.

Val reached down to comb through Alastor’s chest fluff, twining it between his fingers and tugging. Alastor groaned, a sound that rose into a genuine yip of pain when Val didn’t let up, sinking his other hands into Alastor’s hair and yanking his head back to bare his scarred throat. Alastor panted, open-mouthed.

“You’re just desperate for it, aren’t you?” Val said cruelly. He licked his hand, spiraling his tongue around it to let his viscous saliva pool in his palm, before bringing it down to fist his cock. “Poor, needy little thing, so hungry for something only I can give you. Isn’t that right?”

Alastor swallowed, hard.

“You want me to fuck you, don’t you baby?”

“I—I—”

Val tightened his grip on Alastor’s hair, shaking him. “Yes or no.”

“Yes.” Alastor’s eyes were riveted on Val’s movements, stroking his cock slowly and steadily. “Yes, yes—”

“What do we say when we want something?”

“Please,” Alastor burst out, the cuffs rattling as he strained against them, claws shearing through the leather under his hands like butter. His voice dissolved under the hiccuping static that swallowed up his words, smothering what might have been an angry sob; sadism warmed in the back of Val’s throat, a hot, vehement satisfaction that pushed him to release Alastor’s hair and instead step back around between his splayed legs, drinking up the sight of his slick cunt. “Please, please—”

Alastor broke off into a cracked moan at the slippery press of Val’s cock against his swollen pussy, sliding between his soaked folds while Val rutted against him, indulging himself even as Alastor trembled and flexed into his restraints with open anguish.

“Valentino,” Alastor said, in a tone that was probably meant to be a snarl but came out as a plea instead. Val smirked, intentionally rubbing the head of his cock over Alastor’s clit, and had to bite back a laugh as Alastor threw back his head and groaned miserably. “I—please, just put it inside, I can’t—I need more than this, and I—I hate this so much, I hate you—”

“Shh,” Val soothed, petting over Alastor’s flank. Aw, he had charming little fawn spots there. “I know. But you can’t blame me for having a little fun too, hm?”

Alastor glared at him through his sweat-dampened bangs, and—oh.

Val gripped Alastor’s hips, yanking him farther down the bench and forcing his knees to bend as his shoulders contorted oddly to accommodate the strain. “You know… I didn’t see the appeal before, but I think I understand now. Those big, helpless doe eyes, all shiny with tears, and I haven’t even fucked you yet.” He chuckled, low and hungry, as Alastor blinked murderously at him, tears streaking down his face against his will. “Aw, pobrecito. Do you want daddy to give it to you now?”

“I will hang your useless carcass in tatters from the top of this ridiculous tower,” Alastor grit out, “if you do not fuck me properly r̶ì̷g̴h̵t̶̋ t̶̀h̴̕i̶s̷͗ i̴͒n̴s̸̊t̸̚a̶̍n̸t̸̀.”

Never let it be said that Valentino couldn’t take constructive criticism.

Alastor’s threats tapered off into little more than soft, overwhelmed whines as Val slowly entered him. Even the heat wasn’t enough to compensate for a lack of preparation, and Alastor was so tight that the relentless stretch must have burned, but he just gulped down reedy gasps of air and took it all without complaint. Val moaned, wings fluttering senselessly at his back; oh, that was good, Alastor’s walls squeezing around him as the long, slick grind sent molten pleasure skittering up his spine.

Like most sinners he’d encountered, Alastor was too small for Val to fully bottom out. Val felt himself bump up against the firm knob of Alastor’s cervix, prying a raw yelp out of him, and then wrapped his own fingers around the base of his cock to make up the last few inches.

“You feel so good for me, baby,” Val purred, pulling back and then thrusting into Alastor again. Alastor jolted, whimpering. “I didn’t even have to stretch you open first. Almost makes up for all of the bitching and fussing earlier. But you’re behaving now, aren’t you?”

Alastor nodded wildly, insensate; his lips were bloodied from how hard he’d begun biting them in an attempt to silence himself, but then Val slammed into him so harshly that it wrenched a plaintive wail from his throat, radio stations skipping erratically in the air. Scraps of jazz plunged into grating static, punctuated with snatches of EDM and talkshows, seemingly completely involuntary on Alastor’s part. Val was almost as enchanted as he was mildly annoyed.

The rhythm that he worked up to was not fast, but rather hard and deep, rolling his hips forward and digging his nails into Alastor’s thighs until he felt blood pooling under his fingers, scratching long, angry lines into Alastor’s soot-stained skin. Alastor’s legs shook in the restraints; he arched into the pain and moaned like he needed that more than Val’s thick cock splitting him open, and Val gladly gave it to him.

He kept up a litany of senseless filth, endlessly amused by how Alastor’s distaste for the vulgar language clashed with the part of his animal hindbrain that absolutely loved getting praised for being a desperate, dripping whore.

“Dios mío, you’re so tight—if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were just some pent-up virgin. Might as well be, eh?”

“Oh, yes, just like that, una mascotita tan buena—”

“Don’t be shy, baby, I want to hear you scream.”

(Val idly hoped Alastor’s heat-addled brain wouldn’t retain most of this afterward. He didn’t really want to be slaughtered and hung from the top of V Tower—Vox might just leave him there too for doing this without him. Babies, all of them.)

When Alastor’s cries began to take on a certain frantic pitch, Val picked up the pace until he was fucking Alastor like a disobedient slut, shaking the entire bench with each punishing thrust while Alastor sobbed and scrabbled at his restraints. Val licked two bloody fingers and reached down to rub Alastor’s clit in firm circles, causing Alastor’s voice to splinter into white noise as he suddenly clenched around Val’s cock and came alongside a piercing shriek of feedback, nearly blowing Val’s eardrums out.

But that was also the final push Val needed. He drove his hips forward one last time, burying himself deep, and came inside Alastor with a guttural groan.

The afterglow was warm and sticky-sweet, leaving Val breathless and pleased. He withdrew with a sigh, pulling out; thin globs of come seeped out of Alastor’s abused cunt, messy and dirty in every way Val liked most, and he smoothed his hands down the underside of Alastor’s thighs lightly, satisfied.

“Back with us, princess?” he asked sweetly. Alastor had his eyes closed, limp in the bench straps, but at this he endeavored to pry one bleary eye open.

“That,” Alastor croaked, somehow still managing to sound scathing despite that mind-blowing orgasm Val had just fucked out of him, “will not be nearly enough to satisfy my… appetite.”

Val rolled his eyes. “So unappreciative. Every day I languish, my talents gone unrecognized.”

“Unsung hero of the Vees, you are.”

“Yes, I am! Thank you for noticing.” Val preened, framing his face with four hands. “Does Vox rail you like that? I don’t think so.”

Alastor gave a sigh that reached the upper stratosphere of condescension. “Vox doesn’t usually have quite so… substantial equipment. But in any case—that was adequate. I presume you have toys and such, to supplement while you, ah, recover…?”

Val grinned. “Oh, that won’t be necessary.” He leaned in, lightly tapping the head of his still-hard cock against Alastor’s inner thigh, and watched Alastor’s eyes go wide. “Ready to go again?”

They went again, and again, and again. Val fucking Alastor’s mouth, Alastor writhing in his lap, Val eating him out, Alastor on his stomach with his face buried in his arms while Val fucked him from behind—they even found a use for the feather duster. Needless to say, they plundered the depths of Val’s creativity. As well as some other things.

Alastor would have brief lulls in arousal from one orgasm to the next, longer and longer as the night dragged on, but those periods were fleeting and often spent guzzling down water, taking cat naps, or panting into Val’s ruff as Val pet over his ears, waiting for the next wave to hit. At one point, Alastor complained about being hungry (“So soon? You’re really developing a taste for daddy’s cock, hm?” “Hungry for food, you disgusting insect”) so Val tapped out a rush order to Rosie’s emporium with one hand while the other three were occupied getting Alastor off over Val’s knee, and when the care package arrived, he played Vinecraft on his phone and pretended not to be charmed by Alastor’s tail swishing back and forth with excitement while he snapped up the rancid helping of raw meat with an audible schh of teeth shredding butcher’s paper.

And by the time early morning rolled around, Alastor’s appetite—in every sense—was finally, finally sated. Val let himself go boneless into the soft, velvety cushions of the pink chaise lounge where they’d ended up, exhaling. Alastor, curled atop his chest with his chin propped on his hands, cocooned in Val’s wings, blinked sleepily.

Val was still inside him, and they were both tacky with various and sundry fluids, but neither of them were much inclined to do anything about that. Val was too worn out to care and Alastor didn’t seem to even notice, every last thought fucked out of his little fluffy head. Val smiled lazily as he toyed with Alastor’s ears, scratching around the bases and rubbing the black tips aimlessly between his fingers just to see Alastor’s nose scrunch up with bleary annoyance.

Yeah, okay. He was kind of cute. Val still didn’t understand Vox’s psychosexual everything about Alastor—the cannibalism thing had almost killed the entire mood for Val earlier—but there was a certain baby animal charm to him that one could grow to appreciate. It was those crimson doe eyes that got you, all round and watery with pleasure.

“Satisfied, baby?” Val asked, resting his hands in Alastor’s hair and cradling the back of his skull. Alastor hummed. After a moment, faint, bubbly piano notes seeped into the air, a lilting rasp of music straight off the vinyl, and Val laughed. “That good, huh? You’re not going to bite my head off when you remember your name again, right?”

“Still deciding,” Alastor murmured. He shifted, nuzzling his face into Val’s ruff and sighing. “Now shut up.”

Val didn’t argue. He just wrapped his wings a little tighter around both of them, securing them inside the warm fluff. Alastor was out almost immediately, though the piano music continued to play, sweet and low, in the background. Val yawned, ready for a nap himself.

One last thing, though.

Carefully, he freed one arm just enough to grope for his phone.

Vox came back online to a killer backache.

“Ugh,” he groaned, slowly sitting up from where he’d had his chair reclined all the way back. It was convenient, bypassing the need to procure a whole separate operating table, but it always left him sore in places no one should be sore.

He stretched, swept through his systems one last time, ensuring everything was in its proper place, before finally turning off Do Not Disturb.

Messages came flooding in in their usual deluge: operational updates from his assistant, pilot drafts from the writing team for Yeah I Fucked Your Stepdad, So What?, customer complaints (those were auto-trashed), a new criminal fraud lawsuit (read: dumb fuckers never read the terms and conditions), calendar alerts for upcoming overlord events, blah blah blah. He flicked through Velvette’s texts about her newest retro line, nostalgia on tap for the low, low price of your soul, and then went to see what Val’s latest message said—

And froze.

No. No fucking way.

What the fuck?

It was a selfie. Of Val and Alastor, cuddled up together in—was that Val’s sex dungeon?! Alastor was asleep atop Val’s broad chest, mouth slack, tucked into Val’s wings while Val stroked his ears, giving the camera a genuinely diabolical grin. The caption read:

> had some fun while you were out, voxy 🩷

The only reason Vox didn’t immediately launch himself through the electrical system at the speed of light to get to them was because he was too busy pulling up the footage from the last fourteen hours, rewinding to the beginning, and blowing it up in huge, HD resolution on every single one of his screens, from every angle imaginable.

He watched Val stalk towards Alastor, bracketing him against a table, and bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.

Oh, fuck. Fuck. He hated them so much for doing this without him, but god.

They’d still be down there when he was done, right? Right.

Bastards.

He shoved his hand down his pants and cranked the audio all the way up.